My New Favorite Breakfast

Traditionally I have always favored sweets when it comes to breakfast food (that darn sweet tooth of mine!) but I have been experimenting with savory starts to my day this Summer and have come up with a combination I am absolutely in love with! It's fast, easy, healthy and oh so yummy! It's like a little Caprese Salad but the breakfast version.

I start with half a cup of cottage cheese (give or take, I don't really measure), top with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, a drizzle of olive oil and some fresh ground black pepper. If I'm feeling really decadent then I might add some walnuts. I love having this meal before yoga because it's light enough to have before working out but gives me a little protein boost which keeps me full but gives me lots of energy. This breakfast is definitely going to be added to my long term repertoire, yum!

Sunday Dinner

I absolutely love Sundays in my house. Eric usually gives me the morning off to do whatever I like while he watches the kids. I come back refreshed and ready to snuggle up and read books, do art projects or whatever else the the day brings. I also have the leisure to make a more ambitious dinner than I would attempt on a weeknight. Eric is around to help watch the kids and Echo is usually excited to help me cook anyway. A few Sundays ago Echo helped me make fresh, homemade pasta (my first time ever to make it!). We topped it with our favorite sauce, puttanesca, and even had time to make a home made dessert! Then we got to enjoy a leisurely family meal (I even broke out a bottle of wine), catching up and and talking as a group (it's so much fun now that Echo is getting more chatty). Sundays are the most relaxing and luxurious days in our house, they are a such a great time to connect as a family.

The homemade pasta was fun to make but probably more work than I would normally want to do. It is a fun activity to do with an older toddler though, provided you can keep your cool and not stress out! Echo really enjoyed seeing how the pasta was made though since we eat pasta all the time. For dessert we made a truly decadent chocolate cherry crisp, soooo amazing with vanilla ice cream!
  

Now, so that this isn't just a post with pretty food pictures, I am going to share the recipe for our puttanesca sauce which has quickly replaced jarred sauce in our house, the whole family just loves it!

Ingredients
Three large ripe tomatoes, chopped
one large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs cappers, chopped (my family doesn't like the intensity of whole capers so I chop them up a bit)
20 calamata olives, roughly chopped
crushed red pepper to taste
4 tbs chopped fresh parsley

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until they soften and some of the juices start to come out. Next add the capers, olives and crushed red pepper. Cook a few minutes more, until everything is heated through. If the sauce seems a little dry I like to add a bit of the starchy pasta water to it. Add the chopped parsley last and toss with warm cooked pasta.

This is an especially great recipe to make in the summer because of the gorgeous fresh tomatoes that are available. If you want to make it in the winter you can used caned diced tomatoes too, I've made it that way it it's still yummy :-)

Hope you all are getting to enjoy your own lovely Sunday dinners with family!

Best Vegetarian Chili Ever!

As I have mentioned on the blog before I have been slowly gravitating to a more vegetarian lifestyle. It's something I have been interested in for a long time and while I don't know that I will ever go 100% veg I am making an effort to eat less meat for ethical reasons. I recently discovered a wonderful meat substitute from Trader Joe's in the form of Soy Chorizo. Now I am not normally a fan of non meat items pretending to be meat but I love chorizo and when I heard about this soy version I knew I had to try it. Most of what I love about chorizo is the seasoning anyway so how bad could a soy version be?

Since I had a tiny bit of trepidation about using the soy chorizo for the first time I decided to use it in chili, you can't go wrong with chili. Well I have to say that the soy chorizo wildly surpassed my expectations and even though I totally invented this chili recipes Eric and I both agreed that it surpassed the meat chili we used to make. I quickly jotted down the ingredients as we ate so i wouldn't forget how to replicate this recipe. The soy crumbles in the chorizo replicate a finely ground beef which is how I like my chili meat and the spices were delicious. Plus the package of veggie chorizo from Trader Joe's is only $2! If you are looking for the perfect vegetarian chili recipe look no further!

Ingredients
1 package soy Chorizo
I onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, diced
2 ears of corn cut off the cob or equivalent amount of frozen corn
3 cups of cooked beans, I did a mixture of black, kidney and pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
2 cups water, you can fiddle with this depending on how thick you like your chili
2 vegetable bullion cubes
2 tbs chili powder
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tbs cayenne pepper

Remove the soy chorizo from it's casing and in a large Dutch Oven sauté with onions and garlic until the onions are tender. Add the corn and bell pepper and cook another few minutes to soften them up.
 Add the water and tomato paste and stir over medium heat. Add the bullion and other seasonings and stir in the cooked beans. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Served with tortilla chips, cheese and sour cream.