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Jan 1

Warm French lentil salad, a lesson in boosting flavor

(It took me over a week to get this post written and posted. Since then, the year has changed! Happy 2016 and here’s to a delicious new year!)

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how I thought life would change with a little one in the house. I figured we wouldn’t get much sleep (and we’re actually doing much better on that front than I would have expected), that we wouldn’t be able to get out of the house that easily (and in the winter, that’s mostly fine with us anyway), and that we wouldn’t be in control of our daily schedules nearly as much (true more than I predicted). But I hadn’t really thought about how much more difficult it would be to cook, especially healthy meals, and how difficult it might be to get moving on a daily basis. Pre-baby we had a pretty solid exercise routine – gym, run, or yoga 7+ times/week – and while our diets were sometimes a bit indulgent, we primarily cooked meals from scratch and prepared a lot of vegetables.

But with baby, all of that has changed. We rely on takeout and quick meals much more than expected, especially considering evenings are the main time the three of us have together. We’re making an effort to turn that around, but some days it’s easier than others. Aldo is happiest rolling around on the floor with a pile of toys and an attentive parent or two, and he usually only lasts in a seat in the kitchen for 15 minutes or less – generally not enough time to get a healthy meal together.

But a few days ago, with Brett working from home during the day as sort of an ersatz Winter Break, I took advantage of a bit of energy and quiet time to pull together a healthy lunch of items we had in the fridge and pantry – French lentils tossed with mire poix and a mustard vinaigrette, topped with fresh parsley and some crumbled feta.

Lentil-salad2 Read more

Oct 9

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Spicy black bean burgers (All Whisked Up swap)

We’re six weeks into this crazy adventure with little Aldo and have yet to do much in the way of real cooking (or, to be honest, it’s me who has yet to be cooking much – Brett’s doing a great job of keeping me fed!). So I’m glad I decided to participate in Whisk‘s first recipe swap, which encouraged me to pick out and make something new from one of our other member sites. It’s particularly good I picked the recipe I did, since a bit of a rough patch for baby means I’m on a partial elimination diet while we figure out what’s causing his problems, and this one worked for my current dietary restrictions (no dairy, avoiding soy).

Spicy-black-bean-burger
I was matched to Whisk member Tattooed Foodie, a site out of Eau Claire by “moderately tattooed food enthusiast” Kyle Lato. She has a great selection of straightforward comfort food – like spicy turkey beer chili, one pan chicken and couscous, skillet breakfast pizza (such a great idea), and caramel apple cheesecake bars (which is initially what I picked but it’s good I switched to these excellent black bean burgers, since I unexpectedly had to cut out dairy). I chose to make Kylie’s spicy black bean burgers, which made two great weeknight dinners for us. I’ve been looking for a good vegetarian burger patty for a long time, as well as something else to do with the big pots of beans we regularly make (this is actually a huge benefit – we often make large quantities of beans, but pairing them with rice or simply eating them with bread and salad can get a little boring). It’s a particularly good recipe to tweak with whatever spices, herbs, and other flavoring elements you might have around the house, especially if you cook the beans from dried (more on that in the recipe below). Read more

Sep 17

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Squid linguine with chili and lemon

Squid_linguine

Hello from the other side! You may have seen on the Bowen Appétit Facebook page that there is in fact a baby here (a pretty cute one, in fact). He made his arrival three weeks ago today, and life has been pretty surreal since then. Let’s be clear that it took four capable adults to put together the dinner in this post – it shouldn’t have, but it did. There’s plenty else to do around here, even if it’s just sit around and watch the baby sleep, wiggle, eat, or anything else he does. (Really that’s about it.)

I’m pretty proud of myself for getting this post together, during what’s been a pretty trying few weeks. A trying few months, really, when you count how difficult the end of my pregnancy was. I generally don’t get too personal in this space, but I’ll just say that we’ve had and are still in the midst of one of the harder periods of our lives, and we’re hoping that soon we’ll be moving beyond what has been an unfortunately somewhat complicated start to our family of three. Keeping a small business going while dealing with a complicated personal life is an insanely difficult thing to balance, but I’m still planning to come back to teaching in early November and hoping to be in this space a bit more as time goes on.

Okay now, that’s been said. Let’s keep going to this dish, a simple but flavorful way to showcase seafood and to get a unique one-dish dinner on the table. I get a lot of questions about how to cook seafood and what to do with it, and this is an easy one to start with. Squid is quickly marinated in lemon, chili flakes, parsley, and garlic, then tossed with white wine and mint to make a beautiful sauce for fresh linguine (dried works perfectly well here too, and of course other pasta shapes would be just fine). Whole shrimp could be substituted easily, just make sure not to overcook it (take it off the heat when it’s just about to turn totally pink and opaque).  Read more

Aug 13

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Fresh corn caprese with nectarines

Hello there, all the way from over here in Maternity Leave Land! I left my job at REAP just over a week ago now, leaving myself a few weeks (maybe – turns out babies come on their own schedule) to rest, to avoid much of our August heat and humidity, and to make final baby preparations. I’ve been joking about how I might not get dressed on a daily basis, but that isn’t actually much of a joke – you try finding suitable clean clothes to wear day after day when you’re 8.5+ months pregnant. It’s exhausting enough to require a nap.

In any case – the really exciting part of this whole maternity leave business is that when it’s all done, Bowen Appétit will be my main gig. I’m not going back to REAP after babe arrives, and I’m very excited that in the fall I’ll be able to focus more on offering more and a bigger variety of classes in new locations. I’ll be scheduling quite a few private parties and classes over the holiday season (for those folks who like planning ahead, feel free to get in touch now!), and as with last year I’ll be offering gift certificates for private classes and class registrations. If you have any thoughts or ideas, definitely get in touch. And make sure you’re signed up for our monthly email newsletter (also on leave until the fall) to be the first to hear about classes and other fun announcements.

That said, I have a pretty great summery recipe for you today, one that was part of my celebration dinner last week on the night of my last day of work. I make a lot of fresh corn salads in the summer, though usually I throw in whatever haphazard mix of vegetables, herbs, and other things I can find roaming around the fridge. In this case I had a pretty specific vision, the result of which is the beauty below:

Corn-caprese-nectarines2

Read more

Aug 5

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Cucumber-mint agua fresca PLUS: Whisk is here!

Remember way back in February when I announced my official collaboration with Things I Made Today and Wisconsin From Scratch? We’re back with more developments. Developments that might even include you! We’ve been gradually working on this behind the scenes for over half a year now, and today we’re excited to make some major new announcements! Together the three of us have formed Whisk, a collaborative project for Wisconsin-based food bloggers and other media folks. We have a lot of long-term plans to grow this community, helping us support each other and build new skills and offering opportunities to partner with local producers and businesses.

For now? The most exciting part of this announcement is that we are accepting member blogs as of TODAY! If you’re interested, head over to our website, see what we’re offering, submit your info, and we’ll be in touch soon. Whether you send us your info or not, we’re also hosting our first meet-up on Thursday, September 3 from 5-7 p.m. (location tbd). Join us to chat with other local food bloggers and hear what Whisk is all about! (The sad news it that it’s fairly unlikely that I’ll actually be there, since that’s nearly two weeks after my due date … but Vicky and Sarah will host you excellently.) We’ll post more details on our website and on our respective social media sites as more details come together.

Whisk-picnic

In celebration of this launch, we recently hosted a little picnic for ourselves featuring a collaborative summer menu perfect for all your remaining summer picnic plans (even our amazing intern Alice got in on the action – that’s her delicious kale salad with crispy chickpeas you see in some of the photos).

Want to picnic with Whisk? Here’s what you’re in for:

TIMT-falafelFava bean falafel w. mint-yogurt sauce

Lebanese-style falafel, packed with chickpeas and fava beans, and paired with a cooling mint-yogurt sauce. 

Full recipe at Things I Made Today

 

Cucumber-mint-agua-fresca2Cucumber mint agua fresca

A pitcher-worthy cooler packed with garden-fresh cucumber and mint.

See recipe below

 

 

WFS-peachalmondcakesMini peach almond cakes

Handheld sweets packed with fresh peaches make sharing easy!

Full recipe at Wisconsin From Scratch

 

 

I chose to contribute a beverage for the event as somewhat of a challenge to myself, struggling to get excited about fun summery beverages that are non-alcoholic. As cucumbers flood into gardens and farmers’ markets this time of year, this is a perfect one to bring to your next picnic or party or to have stashed in a big jug in the fridge. (And if you wanted to add a splash of gin or vodka, heavens knows I wouldn’t stop you … I have it on good authority that it’s delicious.) Read more

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