Bean and Pasta Soup

I'm usually just not a soup kind of gal. But the first recipe I made during my "week as a vegetarian" was soup... and it was absolutely perfect.

I made this soup on a cold, rainy Sunday. It's not like I had anything else to do anyway in that unfortunate weather.

Disclaimer: Don't let the ingredients intimidate you,

this recipe is super easy and hard to mess up.

Ingredients:

1 onion

5 carrots

4 celery sticks, leafy greens reserved

1 bunch of mustard greens

4-5 tbsp olive oil

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 can great northern or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup white wine

6 cups vegetable stock

1 sprig fresh rosemary

2 sprigs fresh thyme

3 bay leaves

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 lb orecchiette pasta

salt and pepper

What to do:

Chop up onion, carrots and celery into similar sized, small pieces. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and add in chopped veggies. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Cook until beginning to soften, about 4 or 5 minutes, then add white wine.

Allow white wine to reduce slightly, about 2 minutes, then add beans, stock, rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes.

Add tomatoes, pasta and mustard greens to the pot and stir. Cook over medium heat. When pasta is ready, mix in chopped celery greens.

When ready to serve, remove bay leaves, thyme and rosemary sprigs from pot. Top with grated parmesan cheese (this is the most important part!)

It's funny because the week after Thanksgiving I cooked a very similar recipe using all of the leftover turkey, but this one turned out so much better. I promise, you won't miss the meat at all!

Sarah

Vegetarian Week

Ross and I decided we are going to attempt to eat like vegetarians for a week...possibly 10 days.

{I'll tell you the story of how this idea came about.} It all began the day after Thanksgiving. I felt as if I weighed 1,000 lbs. And as the weekend continued, I continued to eat "Thanksgiving dinner" again, and again, and agaaain.

Somehow, by the time the weekend was over, there was still an obscene amount of food left at Ross' parents house. And of course his mom decided to send it all home with us. This is not to say that we weren't grateful for all of the leftovers, they were delicious. But my body seemed as if it literally hated me. So over the past week we polished off the remnants of Thanksgiving dinner, every last bit of it.

In order to "redeem" ourselves (if that's even possible), we decided to spend the next 10 days eating vegetables, beans and other meatless proteins. Plus, I've been wanting to have a "veggie week" for months, so this was the perfect excuse :)

I'm anxious to see what the week has in store for us. I'm also excited to have lots of new recipes to post, providing all of them turn out.

I'll start this adventure with a peek at my go to veggie-friendly snack:

Red and orange bell peppers dipped in hummus. Yum.

P.S. Once you switch to bell peppers, you'll never go back to crackers.

Here we go...

Sarah

Homemade Salad Dressing

I am quite partial to Hidden Valley and Newman's Own...

In high school I had a friend who always "craved salads", this baffled me. How could anyone possibly crave a salad? A hamburger maybe, but a salad.. no.

It only took me 8 years to realize why she constantly craved salads. She was making her own salad dressing! I tried this one time, out of boredom as usual, to find that it turned out much better than your average iceberg lettuce-ranch dressing-bacon bit-tomato salad.

If you're fresh out of gluten, fat, and carbohydrate loaded pre-bottled dressings, why not make your own?

Salad Dressing:

3 parts extra virgin olive oil

1 part white wine vinegar

juice of 1/2 lime

1 tbsp habanero spicy mustard

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp cumin

Lots of s&p

And here we go:

Mix it all together in a glass jar or old salad dressing bottle. This will last in the refrigerator for a few days. Be sure to let the salad dressing return to room temperature before dressing your salad or else the consistency will be off.

Incase you want to make the salad too...

3 handfuls spinach

1/2 avocado

2 tbsp goat cheese

1 vine ripe tomato

I'd like to dedicate this post to Sarah B., who was that weirdo in high school who always craved salads. Little did I know, she was on to something.

Thanks love!

Sarah

It's easy to get wrapped up in all life has to offer.

For instance, the finer things in life.

Being employed at a luxury Hotel is incredibly stimulating. In my particular line of work, I spend a lot of time interacting with the Restaurant and Pastry Shop.

Let's just say I need photos of the new breakfast menu or Holiday desserts. I simply run down to the kitchen, where the food is perfectly plated and expedited, then snap a few photos.

Here's the downside: when the photos are done, I'm handed a fork.

As if I'm supposed to sample an entire menu on my own?

indulgent: "a gluttonous appetite for food

and praise and pleasure"

I really cannot complain. My job is amazing, I'm so blessed. But I can't help but want eggs benedict every morning, or chocolate soufflé after each meal.

After months of "sampling" excessively and enjoying a few free meals here and there, I had to come to terms with the fantasy world I had been living in. It was time to realize that all good things must come to an end. And if I wanted my waistline to stop expanding, I should not be quite so indulgent.

I decided the best way to come to terms with growing palate would be to come up with a list of my favorite foods. Not my favorite meals to order fancy restaurants, but my favorite day-to-day foods that I just cannot get enough of. A list of foods in which reveling in their excellence does not elicit strong feelings of remorse or glutton.

Here is the abridged version:

black beans

a ripe banana with peanut butter

raw, crunchy red bell pepper

hot oatmeal with raisins, sliced almonds and honey

queso fresco, crumbled over... anything.

fat free half & half heated in the microwave before pouring into hot coffee

balsamic vinegar & olive oil with cracked black pepper

warm, fresh baked bread

I am aware that not many people share my same list, but it is good to have a list to refer to when self control suspends itself at the worst possible time.

This is not to say that I don't indulge in items that are not on my list (i.e. Thanksgiving Day). But I know that if I skip a bite or two I won't miss them, because I can always find a few items from "my list" in my personal kitchen.

Sarah

A Word from Julia

“This is my invariable advice to people:

Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

― Julia Child, My Life in France