Asharae – Page 7

Weekend Links

April 15, 2016 by Asharae Leave a Comment

Happy Friday! Hope you have a fun and relaxing weekend ahead of you! Today I wanted to share a few things I’ve been inspired by lately, along with several recipes I’d love to try one day soon. And of course I had to share a few film shots from Chicago for you – we’re looking forward to our next trip there in a few weeks. (Be sure to check out the link at the bottom if you wish to purchase any of our fine art prints for yourself or a friend!)

This article from Allison Fallon: How A Creative Project Can Heal Your Body, Your Mind, And The World. I’ve taken to writing a lot more lately and it’s been hugely freeing for me. It has felt good to write for no one but myself, and to free myself from the need to share everything I produce.

This article from The New York Times: How to Raise a Creative Child. Step One: Back Off. One of the biggest things I hope for is to raise children that are creative. Creativity can look like many things – I don’t mean I hope my children become photographers or painters or candlestick makers. I simply hope that they feel the freedom to explore what they’re interested in, and eventually to hone in on the gifts and talents they are given and use them to the best of their abilities.

And this one titled You Don’t Want Marie Forleo’s Website, from RKA Ink. I adore Marie Forleo, so this one cracked me up. We’re also in the process of redoing our Grain & Compass website, so lots of her thoughts resonated with me and reassured me that we’re doing the right thing with our new site!

Recipes I want to try:

Goat Cheese Guac Burgers with Cheddar and Caramelized Onions from How Sweet It Is. Because whoa. What more could you want on a burger?

Caprese Stuffed Garlic Butter Portobellos from Cafe Delites. Goodness these look delicious!

Popsicles! These are all over the interwebs these days. Take your pick. Chai Tea Ombre Popsicles from Paper & Stitch, Roasted Strawberries and Cream Popsicles from Fork Knife Swoon, or these Yogurt Parfait Popsicles from Le Zoe Musings. I don’t even care that it’s not summer! These look good enough to eat year-round. I think it’s time to get some popsicle molds.

Raspberry Mojitos from Heather Christo. I won’t be able to have one of these for a while, but seriously – mint, lime, raspberries, and rum? Yes please. After baby of course.

Blackberry-Thyme Jam and Whipped Goat Cheese Filled Donuts from For the Love of Lasagna. These look like a labor of love, but seriously? That ingredient list? Yum.

Photographs above were taken with Portra 160 film and processed by Richard Photo Lab. These and more are available for purchase at our Grain & Compass Print Shop! Hop on over there if you need some art for your walls, a gift for a friend, or simply want to see some of the places we’ve traveled!

Salted Brown Butter Heath Chip Cookies

March 10, 2016 by Asharae 5 Comments

Over the past couple years I have decided that cooking and baking for other people is one of my love languages. There’s something so rewarding about seeing the people you love enjoy something you created for them. It’s worth it just knowing that I can bring a little dose of joy to someone else’s day through what I make in the kitchen.

Our small group friends are some of my favorites to cook and bake for. We’re a random assortment of seven very different couples that have somehow found ourselves gathering once a week to share life, open up about our struggles, and walk with one another through the good and the hard parts of our stories. Some of us have been together as a group for nearly three years, and a few of us go all the way back to our freshman year of college. It’s been pretty extraordinary to see one another through so many seasons of life, and I feel like we’re really just getting started.

One of my favorite recipes to make for our small group is one for chocolate chip cookies that I shared a couple years ago. Everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie. Tim and I were recently at the grocery store though when he came across these Hershey’s Heath Baking Bits in the baking aisle. One thing was certain – something needed to be done with them. That’s where this recipe comes into play. This is a slight (and debatably more delicious) variation on my go-to recipe for salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Both recipes are worth a try! You won’t regret it.

Salted Brown Butter Heath Chip Cookies

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Ingredients

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 ¾ sticks
½ cup granulated sugar
¾ cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup Heath chips
Kosher salt for garnish

Instructions

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Continue to heat as butter starts to bubble - the bubbling sounds will get louder as the butter heats up. Stir constantly, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan with a spatula as you go. Keep a close eye on it as it will change color quickly. Once the butter turns a nice dark golden brown and has a nutty aroma, remove it from the heat. Transfer butter to a heat-proof bowl and let cool. You may place it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to speed up the process.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside.
Once butter is cooled, but not hardened, place in the bowl of a stand mixer, along with both sugars, salt, and vanilla. Using the paddle attachment, mix until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
Add egg and egg yolk and mix until combined.
Mix in flour mixture until just combined.
Stir in chocolate chips and Heath chips with a spoon or spatula.
Scoop 2 Tbs of dough at a time onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You'll need to do at least two separate batches in the oven. Should make about 24 cookies.
Bake for 9-12 minutes, till the edges just start to brown. Remove from oven, sprinkle with additional salt, and let cool a few minutes before removing from the pan.

This post is not sponsored in any way, but does include affiliate links. That means I make a small commission off any purchase you make through that link, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support of This Wild Season!

Rejecting Fear in Favor of Trust

March 2, 2016 by Asharae 4 Comments

Since becoming pregnant, I’ve found that most mommy forums and blogs, pregnancy books, and even advice and stories from well-meaning friends all tend toward fear mongering. Every informational source seems determined to enlighten you on all the things that could possibly go wrong for you and your baby.

Forums tend to be full of strong opinions and terrible advice (if you know of any good pregnancy forums, send them my way!) Books like What to Expect contain every possible scenario of what could go wrong (I’ve only been reading the month-by-month updates while skipping over any headlines that sound like a scary diagnosis.) And well-meaning (usually kid-free) friends are quick to share their anecdotes, “Oh I know this girl who was in labor for 36 HOURS! Can you imagine??”

While most of this advice and storytelling truly doesn’t bother me personally, it just illustrates how much fear and worry surrounds pregnancy. There are so many things that can and maybe will go wrong. So much to worry about and stress over. Any twinge or tweak you feel could be your body growing as it should OR it could be something disastrous! I can’t imagine how much more stressful hearing these stories could be for women who are more prone to anxiety and worry than I am.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting those stories where something truly does go wrong. Or even the pregnancies that do require close monitoring for various reasons. Those stories deserve their own conversation entirely. Here I’m talking about unfounded pregnancy fears – the ones that simply exist because we feel anxious or in need of more control over our own situation.)

I don’t think of myself as someone who worries a lot, but being pregnant definitely makes me feel like I should be worrying more. Maybe I don’t care enough if I’m not strictly avoiding all deli meats, soft cheeses, and caffeine. Am I hurting my baby by exercising? Or is it worse to sit on the couch all day? What medicine am I allowed to take for this headache or that queasy stomach? Should I call the doctor for that twinge? And heaven forbid I start Googling any of my pregnancy symptoms to make sure they’re normal.

I can’t even begin to express how much I want to reject the fear. Women have been having babies for thousands and thousands of years. Somehow it seems that maybe, just maybe, our bodies were meant to do this.

It’s incredible really.

And I have to choose to trust that my body knows what it’s doing, rather than fear that it doesn’t. It’s been an extraordinary experience to notice the changes in my body from the beginning. The soreness, the complete exhaustion, the tightness across my belly and the stretching sensations that indicate that my body is making space to grow a human being. All these little signals show that my body is doing something wild and beautiful that I have absolutely no control over. And I kind of love that. There’s something extraordinary to be learned in the letting go process of knowing I can’t control what my body is doing and rejoicing in that rather than fearing it.

Even now I’m imagining how much this thought process could bleed out into other areas of my life. What other things am I choosing to hold with fear rather than release with trust? What needs open hands rather than tight fists, grasping for some measure of control and understanding? What needs letting go?

If you’re pregnant or have children, I would love to hear your thoughts and experience with this. And even if you don’t, you’re welcome to the table! Are there things in your own life that need a similar measure of trust instead of fear?

This post contains affiliate links. That means I make a small commission off any purchase you make through that link, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support of This Wild Season!

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers with Lime Crema

February 25, 2016 by Asharae Leave a Comment

I’m not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes I feel it wouldn’t be too difficult for me. (Until I remember bacon is a thing.) I don’t typically think to include meat in every meal, and I naturally get a lot more joy from chopping up a bunch of colorful vegetables than cutting up raw meat.

I realized my vegetarian tendencies one night a few years ago when chatting dinner options with my husband and he began lamenting how long it had been since we’d included meat in our dinner rotation. I hadn’t even realized it. Oops.

Now, there’s really nothing that can replace a juicy burger made with real ground beef, although I do remember a brief and terrible phase of my childhood where my parents took to buying Boca Burgers in an attempt to reign in their diet. They were surprisingly not-that-bad at first, but after a few too many of these dry flavorless veggie burgers, the fourth or fifth box sifted its way to the bottom of our freezer never to be seen again.

I’ve decided that veggie burgers deserve their own category entirely. If you think a veggie burger is supposed to taste like and have the texture of a real beef burger, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Veggie burgers are another beast entirely, and they can be absolutely delicious when done right. We have been trying lots of different recipes using black beans, garbanzo beans, quinoa, and corn, but this is our favorite recipe we’ve made so far!

I ended up with some leftover quinoa one night and stored it away thinking we’d just stir fry some veggies with it the next day. Upon suggesting this option to Tim for lunch he crinkled his nose a little and asked if there was anything else we could do with the quinoa. (I’d been making veggies-over-rice, veggies-over-couscous, and veggies-over-quinoa a little too often lately.) Thus these quinoa black bean burgers were born. I knew I wanted to include Panko bread crumbs and egg, along with cumin, chili powder, and garlic for flavor, so we researched a bit and combined a few different recipes to create what we ended up with here. I really have to give Tim credit for this recipe – without his input we would have ended up with veggies over quinoa. Again.

Toasted ciabatta buns work wonderfully for this recipe – it’s pretty difficult to get the texture right for veggie burgers, so the crunch of the ciabatta buns helps add a different layer of texture. The lime crema is a must for these burgers as well – you could swap out the other toppings for whatever you like, but the crema offsets the spices in the burger really well, adding a fresh zippy flavor to it.

Quinoa Black Bean Burgers with Lime Crema

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Ingredients

For the Burgers

2 c cooked red/mixed quinoa cooled (day-old quinoa works great!)
1 c drained rinsed black beans, mashed
1/2 c Panko bread crumbs
1 large egg slightly beaten
1 clove garlic minced
1 tsp chile powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
Optional 1 Tbs ground flax seed

For the Lime Crema

3 Tbs plain Greek yogurt
3 Tbs sour cream
Juice of one lime
1/4 tsp Kosher salt

Extras

Ciabatta buns toasted
Cheese we like colby or pepper jack
Avocado sliced
Red onions

Instructions

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the burgers and mix well.
Form five or six 1/3 inch thick patties, place on wax paper on a plate and let rest in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.
While the burgers are resting, combine all ingredients for the lime crema in a small bowl. Place in fridge till ready to serve.
Heat a large pan between Medium and Medium-High (you may have to experiment to find the right temperature that works with your stovetop.)
Oil your pan with Pam or olive oil spray. Cook the burger patties, 2 or 3 at a time, for 5 minutes on each side. Once you place a burger patty on the pan, try not to move it around much till you're ready to flip it. This will help your burger get a crispier texture on the outside - something that's difficult to achieve with veggie burgers.
During the last 3 minutes of cooking the second side of your burger patties, add cheese to each patty, cover pan with a lid, and finish your 5 minutes or wait to remove the patties once the cheese has melted to your liking.
Toast ciabatta buns, serve burgers topped with avocado, red onions, and lime crema.

Notes

You can freeze extra patties if you're not cooking them to eat all at once. After forming the patties (and before cooking them), place on wax paper on a plate in the fridge. Once frozen, remove from plate and place in a freezer-safe ziplock bag. Thaw burger patties part of the way before cooking. You'll need to adjust your cooking time a bit (longer or shorter) depending on how much you thaw them.

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