This one’s a lesson in data preservation… I’ve been saving my favorite recipes to a Pinterest board over the years, many of which came from the various meal subscription boxes I tried. Well, at some point Plated took down the spaghetti recipe that I’d been using. Poof. 404. Spaghetti Not Found. 

Luckily I found screenshots I’d taken for a trip where we wouldn’t have internet. Phew! But that’s a really tedious way to store and use a recipe, so I’m finally writing it down and sharing it with you lovely people! And learn from my fail… make a backup of anything you can’t live without, even if it’s just great spaghetti

P.S. Sometimes I’ll buy spaghetti by the pound and still cook up the whole thing. I just set some aside and toss it with butter for the kids since they’re not into red sauce right now.

P.P.S. I recently made this with Banza chickpea spaghetti and, while the texture is a little different, I think it’s good enough it to keep pasta on the menu while on a diet!

Ingredients

• 8oz spaghetti noodles
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 clove garlic (or more to taste)
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 pint of cherry/grape tomatoes, halved OR 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 sprigs of basil (divided use)
• 2 Tbsp white wine
• ½ tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• pepper to taste
• 4 oz fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 cup grated or shredded parmesan

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Peel, halve, and thinly slice onion. Mince garlic.
2. Boil the spaghetti according to the package instructions, about 8 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking water and drain.
3. In the same pot, heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil over medium heat and saute onions for 5 minutes, until translucent. Add crushed red pepper and garlic and cook a minute more.
4. Add wine, tomatoes, tomato puree, sugar, salt, pepper, and whole basil sprig to the pan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for 5-7 minutes, until sauce is reduced by half.
5. Remove basil sprig from tomato sauce and fold spaghetti noodles into the sauce, adding reserved cooking water. Stir in parmesan.
6. Plate the spaghetti and garnish with hand-torn mozzarella and basil.

Since I’m not obsessed with PSL and nobody in my house is going back to school, autumn is more about crisp air, the smell of leaves, and fall veggies from the farm. That means savory, buttery squash, and crispy, crunchy pumpkin seeds!

Every year I have the best intentions of saving up all our squash/pumpkin seeds and roasting them all up at once, but they sit in a container in the fridge and getting sad and moldy. Very disappointing. I mean, there will be free protein (12g per cup of seeds!) showing up in my CSA box almost every week now, if I just do something about it!

So tonight I combined these two easy recipes and made it happen. This is more about building a sustainable habit than creating a new dish.

The thing about roasting squash is that it takes forever. (45 minutes is a lot when you’re hungry… Don’t judge me ) But that gives you the perfect time to clean up the seeds you’ve scooped out, give them a boil on the stove, and then stick them in with the squash for the last half hour (leaving you just enough time to throw together this chili )

Lately I’m having some variation on this salad for lunch and roasted squash seeds are going to be the perfect seasonal substitute for chopped walnuts!

The butternut squash I made tonight made a nice little handful of seeds that cooked quickly and is a single serving. No more moldy raw seeds and no giant tub of roasted seeds that I binge on and get all salty and bloated.

So what’s your favorite fall feeling?

Ingredients

• 1 squash
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• butter (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Slice the squash in half and scoop the guts into a bowl.
3. Spray or drizzle both halves of squash with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. (This technique is best for hard to peel squash like butternut and acorn, but feel free to peel and dice your squash instead! Just be aware it will probably cook faster.)
4. Place cut-side down on a baking sheet and pour about 1/2 cup of water in.
5. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until tender.
6. While the squash bakes, pick the seeds out of the squash goo and into a small sauce pan. Make sure to get them really good and clean.
7. Cover with water, add a teaspoon of salt, and bring to a boil.
8. Simmer for 10 minutes.
9. Drain seeds, toss with a teaspoon of olive oil and some salt, and spread them out on another baking sheet.
10. When your squash is done, reduce the oven to 325 degrees
11. Bake seeds for 20-30 minutes, tossing every 10 or so to prevent them from getting to dark.
12. While the seeds bake, scoop the squash out of its skin, mash, and serve (with optional butter on top)!

Oh hey! Another chickpea recipe! I seriously buy cans of chickpeas, black beans, and tomatoes by the dozen at Costco. They’re organic and the cans are BPA-free, if you’re into that kind of thing. I’m more into the non-perishable staples in my pantry at any given moment thing and I got real tired of watching fresh tomatoes turn bad on my counter because I didn’t plan accordingly. But anyway, on to the enchiladas!

This is my own little twist on Vegan Protein Monster Enchiladas. Specifically, we love cheese and the thought of fighting with rolling tortillas full of goo infuriates me, so I never bothered and layered it like a casserole instead. BOOM. Also in the interest of ease and sanity, I’ve been leaning heavily on bottled sauces like Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce (or simmering a bunch of autumn veggies in their Thai Red Curry Sauce, but that’s a recipe for a different day.)

This usually feeds us for two days, but my bigger casserole dish went missing, so last time I made it in a 9×9 pan instead and served the extra filling with chilaquiles in the morning! I’m not even mad

This originally started as a recipe from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook with lots of substitutions for simplicity — like canned chicken instead of ground turkey and pre-mixed seasoning. Well, I went to send it to my dad the other day and realized it’s basically unrecognizable from the book, and I love it! It’s won workplace chili contests and survived the move to (mostly) vegetarian and I’m pretty darn proud of it.

 

Seriously, this is the cheapest, laziest home cooked meal. It’s like $4 and totally portable. I doubled the recipe and cooked it while camping with my cousins in the North Woods. Great success!

Using the potato masher is the magic step that elevates this from being just a bowl of beans. It gives the whole thing this thick, creamy texture in a super short cook time.

You may not know this about me, but I hate wasting food. Or anything… I want to be a minimalist, but my little green heart struggles to throw things away. So when I open a carton of broth, I replace the original best-by date with my own date, two weeks from opening! No more questionable broth in the fridge getting chucked to be on the safe side!

 

This makes 3 servings at 270 calories each, but the kids aren’t interested in it these days, so lately I’ve been saving one serving for lunch and pairing it with a slice of this AMAZING bread from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Enjoy! <3