Soup to Dutts

I love butternut squash. I think it might be my favorite vegetable. So, when someone left a big butternut squash in the break room at work a few weeks ago, I was all over it. I was craving pasta last week and decided to attempt making a lasagna, since I'd bought most of the non-perishable ingredients before Christmas and had never gotten around to making it. But instead of making the traditional red-sauce version, I made a sauce out of this wonderful squash and Italian sausage. It was delicious! I didn't use a ton of cheese since the squash was slightly creamy, so that made the dish a lot lighter, and it still made 12 hefty portions. I'm definitely adding this to the regular rotation of dinners at our house! I hope someone out there will give it a try and let me know what they think! Don't be overwhelmed by the ingredients list...most of the ingredients are pretty inexpensive and easy to find, and you may even have a lot of them already on hand! Butte...

I'll be honest: I'm not a huge fan of combining chocolate and fruit. I don't know what it is, but something about it just doesn't taste right to me. Unless that fruit is a banana. Bananas are creamier than most other fruits, so I guess it meshes better in my mind, I dunno. So, this week we happened to have some very ripe bananas, which pretty much automatically means banana bread is on the way. And we also happened to have some leftover chocolate chips (from a fantastic chocolate mousse that Tom made on Valentine's Day). So I found a recipe that looked like it could be easily tweaked to add chocolate chips, and the result was an oat-y banana bread that had just a touch of sweetness. It's also relatively low-fat, thanks to the use of applesauce instead of oil or butter. And I should mention, it comes with a lot less drama than that disaster of a banana chocolate chip pound cake I attempted last year... So, it didn't rise as much as other banana bread...

Spring is here! I've always preferred colder weather, but the warm seasons are really starting to grow on me. One of the reasons is that I feel like we eat "lighter" meals in spring and summer, like this Greek pasta salad I threw together last week! I had an almost-full box of whole-wheat rotini and an almost-empty box of whole-wheat penne, so I just combined them, but any short pasta will do. Tri-color pasta would be fun! While the pasta was cooling, I made the dressing: olive oil, red wine vinegar, basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. (Don't you love my cute little whisk? It's perfect for things like this. Thanks, Mom!) Speaking of my mom, chopping the veggies for this reminded me of a conversation she and I had a few weeks ago. I was talking about how much I hate chopping vegetables, and she said that was her favorite part of cooking! Well, the solution seems obvious: she and I should just always cook together; I'll do everything else if s...

I'm not a vegan by any stretch of the imagination, but Tom and I have been trying to eat a lot more veggies and a lot less "bad" stuff lately. So tonight I made up a butternut squash soup based on some familiar flavors, and it's--you guessed it--totally vegan. And also totally delicious. Ugh, I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of the whole cooking process. I'm also kicking myself for taking a picture of the finished product with my phone instead of my camera. Just by looking at this, would you believe that this soup is actually a pretty shade of orange...? *sigh* You're just going to have to make it and see for yourself. Butternut Squash Soup Yield: 4-6 servings 1 tablespoon canola oil 1-1/3 cup chopped onion 2 medium-sized apples - cored and cut into chunks 2 pounds butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed 2 teaspoons ground sage 1 carton (32 oz.) vegetable broth Kosher salt Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add apple,...

I have a complicated relationship with bell peppers. When I was a kid, they were pretty much the one thing I refused to eat. Actually, I wasn't crazy about vegetables in general, but bell peppers were the worst. They were bitter and always seemed to set my mouth on fire. What's to like about that? So I had to laugh when I realized that I'd made three different things with bell peppers just in one week. Here's the first one. Tom had been craving cornbread and chili, so I decided to make that. Usually my chili is pretty simple: ground turkey or beef, kidney beans, diced tomatoes, maybe a little onion, and some seasonings. I figured some bell peppers could only improve it. This was by far the best chili I've ever made, and the best part was that it was also the most convenient. In the past, I had always stressed over the seasonings. That was before I discovered chili beans and chili-ready tomatoes. What amazing inventions! These were already packed with chili powd...