Asharae – Page 13

Oven-Roasted Parmesan Garlic Broccoli

April 8, 2015 by Asharae 2 Comments

You guys. This recipe is a little treasure. Recently a friend of mine shared that she had tried roasting broccoli in the oven one day and never looked back. I took her advice and tried it myself and even though I loved broccoli before, this takes it to a whole other level.

The little broccoli stalks get nice and tender, and the “leaves” get crispy and delicious. With a little salt and pepper, a couple cloves of garlic, and some olive oil, this simple side dish couldn’t get much easier. Squeeze some lemon and grate a little fresh parmesan over the top and you’re ready to enjoy!

I adapted this recipe from one called “Magic Broccoli” over on Recipe Tin Eats – I just discovered her blog and imagine I’ll be spending lots of time combing through her delicious looking recipes soon! Hop over there to she what she’s cooking up!

Oven-Roasted Parmesan Garlic Broccoli

Adapted from Recipe Tin Eats

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Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 30 mins

Ingredients

1 bunch broccoli washed and cut into florets
2 cloves garlic sliced
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbs olive oil
Fresh squeezed lemon juice
Freshly grated parmesan

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
Toss broccoli and garlic together on a rimmed baking sheet with 2 Tbs olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for about 10 minutes, remove from oven and flip broccoli. Roast for 10 more minutes, or until stalks are tender and tops start to get crispy.
Remove from oven, sprinkle with fresh lemon juice and parmesan. Serve immediately.

Favorite Apps for Finding New Recipes

March 31, 2015 by Asharae Leave a Comment

If you’re anything like me, you may find it difficult to keep track of your favorite recipes, get overwhelmed when browsing new recipes, or maybe you’re not even sure where to begin when it comes to meal planning.

First of all, if you don’t plan your meals at all, now is a great time to start! Planning out your meals (or at the very least your dinners) will save you money as well as immense amounts of time and stress wondering what you should cook for your next meal.

I’m not a stickler about planning my weekly meals every Sunday or anything like that, but before we go to the grocery store I do choose 3 or 4 dinner meals to cook, and a few lunch and breakfast items to fill in the gaps. We shop about once a week, sometimes more if I forget an item. But we always stick to the list. That’s what works for us – you’ll have to find your own rhythm to figure out what works for you and your family!

I have a few favorite tools that I use when searching for new recipes and making my shopping list. I’m a very visual person, so I almost always want to see a photograph of the dish I’m going to make before I make it. If a certain recipe doesn’t look appetizing, I’m much less inclined to want to try making it. The tools below are very visual-oriented, and I hope you’ll find them as helpful as I do!

Pinterest – This is my catch-all for finding recipes. I have my This Wild Season account for general food and kitchen inspiration, as well as a few boards on my personal account dedicated to food, drinks, and inspiration for that coffeeshop/bakery I dream of owning one day.

The beauty of Pinterest is that you can create as many boards as you like for as many topics as you choose. Want to split your food board into sides, main dishes, and desserts? You can do that!

I’ve even created a secret board to keep track of the recipes I’ve tried and loved. I use my public boards to collect ideas, inspiration, and recipes I might one day try. And then I’ll repin the best recipes to my secret board – making notes on what I want to try or change the next time I make the recipe. This is super helpful when I’m working on perfecting a recipe to share here with all of you!

Yummly – This is another great tool for collecting recipes you want to try. It’s Pinterest-y in its layout and each photograph includes notes on cooking time, how many ingredients are involved, and it always links back to the original blog post.

I personally love that you can install what they call the “Yum” button. When you’re browsing through food blogs and come across a recipe you want to save, you simply hit the Yum button on your browser. It automatically saves that recipe to your Recipe Box on their site.

Once you’ve “yummed” a recipe, you can place it in a “collection” such as breakfasts, dinners, or desserts. I imagine this would be a great way to keep track of large amounts of recipes and not run the risk of overwhelming your followers over on Pinterest with 872 “super simple slow cooker recipes.”

FoodGawker – This is a great site for recipes with beautiful food photography. FoodGawker has a submission process and they only accept blog posts that have high quality photographs.

Since I’m a visual person, this site is awesome for searching out delicious looking recipes! I just trust that if someone took the time to make their recipe look beautiful, they also care enough to make it taste delicious. That’s probably flawed logic, but it hasn’t gotten me into too much trouble so far!

FoodGawker also has a great search feature that’s super helpful to find what you’re looking for! You search by category or keyword, save favorites, and even look at the current popular recipes to see what others are enjoying.

Sticky Notes – Nope. That’s not the name of some new app. I’m talking about old school sticky notes. The ones you used to collect in wild colors and stick all over your walls and school notebooks in an attempt to keep yourself organized. What? You still do that? Oh good, me too.

Lately I’ve gotten in a habit of reading cookbooks from start to finish. I’ve made it through The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, The Yellow Table Cookbook, Fruitful, and I’m currently working my way through Off the Menu. Next on my list is The Chelsea Market Cookbook – Tim got it as a Christmas gift for me!

While I read, I try to keep a stack of sticky notes next to me, and I mark each recipe I want to make. My cookbooks all have little sticky-note-fringe poking out the top of their pages now. It’s perfect for meal planning because I can quickly flip back through a book to find a recipe I wanted to make.

What about you? How do you keep track of your favorite recipes? Do you have a recipe box – real or online – where you gather your favorites? Share it with me in the comments below! I’d love to follow you on Pinterest or Yummly or wherever you keep your recipe inspiration!

If you’re looking to find This Wild Season on the sites I’ve recommended, you can find me here on Pinterest, Yummly, and FoodGawker. See you over there!

This post contains affiliate links (to some of my favorite cookbooks!) but all opinions are my own.

Grapefruit Margarita and Mid-Week Inspiration

March 25, 2015 by Asharae 4 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve written a Mid-Week Inspiration post, so I thought it was about time I share a few of the things that have been inspiring me lately!

The Nester – Oh my goodness ya’ll. I had the incredible honor and sweetest surprise this weekend to be featured on Myquillyn’s site! Whoa. I’ve been following her blog for a year or so now, and read her fabulous book last summer. If you haven’t heard of The Nesting Place, go pick up a copy today! I read it at just the right time last year and it’s really helped me to embrace this season that Tim and I are in.

We’ve felt like our living situation has been so temporary for the past few years, so I had been avoiding putting things up on the walls, unpacking boxes, and the like. After reading her book, I created a gallery wall in our dining room and one in our living room, I began unpacking more of our things, and I started to fully embrace our current space – in all its ugly-wood-paneled-1970s glory. Even just this past week I unpacked all our books (they’d been in boxes since we lived in Seattle over three years ago!) and began decorating our front hall with a couple antique store finds and a hand-lettered piece I created. All that to be said, if you need a little (or a lot) of encouragement to step past your fear, embrace the space you’re in, and learn how to make it beautiful with what you have, go read Myquillyn’s blog and buy her book. You can thank me later.

This Ted Talk – Finding my Analog Self in a Digital World. Brian Faherty, owner and founder of Schoolhouse Electric, speaks about the increasing difficulty of getting away from technology, and its impact on our connectedness with others. He argues that technology and our increasing connectedness to the entire world is decreasing our connectedness with those around us. Yes and yes. He’s really on to something.

He speaks about a desire to create digital-free zones – places and times to disconnect from technology and reconnect with others. I resonate deeply with his sentiments. I find it’s all too easy to be on my phone or on the computer and realize at the end of the day that I haven’t even really looked up or stepped away to have a meaningful connection with Tim or my friends or family. I crave time away from all the screens – time to have a real conversation with a friend, share a meal, or enjoy a new experience.

Our Garden – After writing about Brian Faherty’s Ted Talk above, I realize that our garden is sort of my “digital-free zone.” It’s a place I can get away from the computer, dig around in the dirt, reconnect with the changing of the seasons and the patterns of the weather. It’s a place where I get to practice mindfulness – a discipline that I’m so naturally drawn to, but I so often neglect.

Taking care of this little rectangle of dirt is extraordinarily rewarding. With just a little time and attention, some sun and some water, we’ll have spinach and peas and carrots and beets and tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and basil and the list goes on. We get to rejoice in seeing this little plot of empty dirt transform over the next several months, from death to life, from empty and barren to overflowing with color and sustenance. What a joy.

Marie Forleo – If you’re an entrepreneur, a business owner, a blogger, or curious about being and doing any of those things, you should check out Marie’s blog. I’ve been watching her videos non-stop the past couple weeks. She’s hilarious and engaging, unabashedly herself, and incredibly encouraging – particularly to women entrepreneurs. Fair warning – the “unabashedly herself” can sometimes include some language. The advice and encouragement she has to offer is well worth your time though.

One of the videos I watched recently was so affirming to me. She calls herself a “multi-passionate entrepreneur” and goes on to explain all the things she loves to do. I resonated so much with that – I love photography and videography, food and sharing recipes with others, hand-lettering and calligraphy, sitting and listening to other people’s stories, and on and on. Simply hearing an extraordinarily successful woman share that she too has a ton of passions was so encouraging!

Now, onto the margarita-making! This recipe is my go-to for margaritas – it’s simple, fresh, and delicious! You can use any type of grapefruit – we just happened to buy these blush-colored ones the day I photographed this recipe. If you use a darker colored grapefruit, your margarita will be even more pink! Some people don’t like the tart flavor the lime can give to a margarita, so I suggest using Rose’s lime juice instead of fresh lime if you like your margarita to be a little sweeter! And if you don’t like grapefruit at all – try this recipe anyway! I’ve gotten rave reviews on it, even from friends who claimed they hate grapefruit!

Grapefruit Margarita

Adapted from Apartment 34

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Servings 1

Ingredients

2 oz 1/4 c Tequila
2 oz 1/4 c fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
1 oz 2 Tbs fresh squeezed lime juice (or Rose's lime juice, if you like a sweeter margarita)
1/2 oz 1 Tbs Triple Sec
1/2 oz 1 Tbs agave
kosher salt for salted rims

Instructions

(Optional step) Place kosher salt in a small dish. Rub a lime wedge around the lip of your empty glass. Flip your glass over and place the top of it into the salt. Rub it around a few times to ensure the salt sticks to your glass.
Place the rest of the ingredients in a shaker with ice, cover and shake vigorously. Pour over ice and serve.

Notes

You can easily double this recipe to make two margaritas in one shaker.

This post contains affiliate links but all opinions are my own. If you click through and make a purchase through any of the affiliate links, I make a little change to keep This Wild Season up and running.

Guest Post by Lauren Lee: Fresh Spring Pea Soup With Crème Fraiche & Garlic Croutons

March 19, 2015 by Asharae Leave a Comment

I’m so excited to have one of my dear friends share a fantastic springtime recipe here today! I have looked up to Lauren for a long time for her confidence in the kitchen, her love of cooking and sharing meals with others, and her fabulous restaurant recommendations. Our stories overlap back and forth, starting before she was even in college when we worked at the same camp together, extending to shooting her wedding a couple years ago, with a whole lot in between!

You might remember that I mentioned her family in a post last summer on stovetop popcorn – they get complete credit for inspiring me to learn how to make it!

I absolutely love that Lauren and her husband have ended up in North Carolina, not too far from us. If you’re ever in the Chapel Hill area and need a good restaurant suggestion, Lauren is the person to talk to!

I can attest that this soup is totally fresh and delicious. It’s perfect for these days lately that have been hinting at spring, but still get chilly in the evenings.

Without further ado, I’ll hand it over to Lauren!

Spring has arrived in North Carolina! It’s hard to believe that just three short weeks ago there were several inches of snow on the ground.

In honor of spring, I would like to share a recipe for Fresh Spring Pea Soup. I know that peas can get a bad rap, but this soup is amazingly flavorful, healthy, and shockingly green! It’s also a bit impressive when serving it to friends, but super simple (and quick) to make.

The origin of this soup comes from my favorite chef- Ina Garten, also known as The Barefoot Contessa. I love Ina for her classic and “Foolproof” recipes, and of course for her love of Paris. Paris and recipes aside, I believe my (more than minor) infatuation* with The Barefoot Contessa comes from the way that her food unites my family as we live states apart.

Every week my sister (Chelsy), my mom, and I share food stories over the phone. For me, the joy of making a great meal is only multiplied when I am able to share the details with them. Although we can’t physically sit down to eat dinner together, we love poring over recipes and meal ideas, laughing & learning from each other’s cooking fails, and celebrating successful dinners together.

I can’t quite remember if it was my sister or my mom who sent me this recipe the first time, but we’ve all made it at some point, and have decided to put it in our arsenal of good soup recipes. I hope you enjoy making & eating it, and that you find yourself sharing it with your favorite foodie friend.

*Chelsy and I have (somewhat jokingly) dreamed of going to the Hamptons to stalk Ina at her gorgeous home 🙂

Fresh Spring Pea Soup With Crème Fraiche & Garlic Croutons

Adapted from Ina Garten

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 35 mins

Servings 4 -6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups chopped leeks white and light green parts (about 2-3 leeks) (Asharae's note - if you're unfamiliar with leeks, fear not! They're easy to use - be sure to check out this video on how to clean your leeks before you get started!)
1 cup chopped yellow onion
4 cups chicken stock homemade or store-bought
2 10-ounce packages frozen peas (the freezing process locks in freshness)
2/3 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ cup crème fraiche
½ cup chopped fresh chives
Garlic croutons for topping (see recipe below)

Instructions

Melt the butter in a large saucepan.
Add the leeks and onion. Cook on medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes until the onion is tender.
Add the chicken stock, and turn the heat to high to bring it to a boil.
Add the peas and cook for about 3 minutes, or until the peas are tender.
Turn off the heat, and add the mint, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.
Next is the fun part- Pureeing the soup until smooth. As Asharae has mentioned in her previous posts, the immersion blender is a great tool for soups like this. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use your regular blender or food processor to puree the soup until smooth. Just be careful when transferring the extremely hot liquid.
Whisk in the crème fraiche and chives and add more salt and pepper to your preference.
Serve hot with garlic croutons, a tiny dollop of crème fraiche, a sprinkle of snipped chives, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Asharae’s Note: If you’re looking for the immersion blender I recommend, check out this one. I seriously use it all the time.

Garlic Croutons

Adapted from Martha Stewart

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Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 20 mins

Ingredients

½ loaf of crunchy bakery bread my favorite is a rustic Italian or French loaf, and day or two old works great
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2-4 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Heat your oven to 400 degrees.
(You can make croutons in a skillet on the stove or in the oven. If making on the stove, read more about that method here.)
Cut the bread into cubes. I never make mine look perfect- always going for that easy, rustic feel.
Toss the bread cubes in a large bowl with a generous amount of olive oil (I tend to use a lot). Then add the garlic, a heavy pinch of salt, and several cracks of pepper to the bowl and mix it all together.
Spread your croutons on a foil lined rimmed baking sheet (rimmed sheets are great for keeping these little guys from slipping off the pan, and foil makes the clean-up process way easier). You want them spread out and not too crowded.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown and crunchy. You will want to give them a good stir or shake about half way through to get all of the sides browned.
Set aside to cool while you make your soup.

Notes

These babies are also awesome on salads (often with a bit of parm melted on them)

This post contains affiliate links, but all opinions are my own.