Welcome to the first weekend of September! The humidity finally backed off in time for the long weekend, thank goodness. Early fall is my favorite time to get perennials in the ground because it’s a bit cooler and there aren’t a million other things to look after in the garden. So, I’ll be on the hunt for some new plant friends this weekend! We have a family get together and a few other things on the go as well.
We had a nice time away on the lake last week (came back Tuesday afternoon). My favorite thing about visiting cottage country in Ontario is the quiet mornings and the fresh air. Our dog Cleo really loves it up there because she’s extremely outdoors oriented–she truly acts like a puppy (at 12 years old)!
So glad to be back in our regular routine and to be back posting here though. I was incredibly snack-y/lazy on vacation and was starting to feel it on day three haha. I love periods of rest and need them! But being a busy body is just who I am at the core. I’m going back to 4 days a week at the gym next week and training is going great. Feeling stronger than ever with no sign of slowing down. Haven’t been this locked in in a minute!
Hope you have a restful weekend. Our usual stuff below! if you have a question for a future edition, don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments or send it to me via email :)
5 Things I’m Reading:
- The Real Reason Your Kitchen Is a Mess via Hot Dish with Sohla on Substack
- Dolly Parton Had the Voice, and Concerns, of an Earth Angel via The NYT (gift link)
- ‘A crisis of authenticity’: the truth about food influencers via The Guardian
- How to deal with burnout on a burning planet via Grist
- How I replaced my phone with a notebook via Escape to the Bookshop on Substack
5 Things I’m Enjoying:
- Fall cookbook season is here! Learning so much about Ghanaian cuisine through a strictly plant-based lens with the release of Eat with Afia! And with perfect timing: a West African grocery store opened near us very recently.
- THRILLED for Happy Hour with Ina
- Using this Pinterest hack lately to filter out AI slop and ads. Most of the time it works! I find it works better from my personal account and on the iPad.
- I always wind up with a few green tomatoes at the end of the season, and I feel like folks ask me what to do with them every September! I’m 100% making Quin’s pickled green tomatoes.
- Mapquest is back, baby!!! I’m trying to de-google my life as much as humanly possible and this was just the next logical step :)
5 Questions:
- Best recipes for the summer-to-fall season? I have everything in the garden right now!
Check out my most recent Red Lentil Tomato Soup with Roasted Red Peppers and Basil, Roasted Butternut Squash with Lentils, Cherry Tomatoes & Herbed Yogurt, Saucy Harissa Butter Beans with Cool Cucumber Salad, Pesto Orzo with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Fennel & White Beans, Smoky Corn Chowder with Potatoes, One-Pan Harissa Eggplant, Pearl Couscous & Chickpeas, and my fave Pasta with Creamy Eggplant-Walnut Sauce - Is there a recipe on your blog that you feel like never got its moment?
This chocolate sweet potato smoothie is ridiculously decadent for a breakfast smoothie, and I don’t think it’s been appreciated enough! Of course, I understand that steaming/boiling sweet potato chunks and freezing them ahead of time is a bit of work. But once it’s done, it’s done! It’s like drinking a chocolate shake to me. - Do you cook differently when you’re away from your own kitchen, at an airbnb cottage etc.
Sure do! While we were up north, we ate a version of these Thai basil noodles, spaghetti and garlic bread, pizza and salad, veggie chili (swapped sweet potatoes for squash) with salad and bread, and veggie nachos. The chili was prepped ahead of time and everything else was so easy that I/my partner could make it with eyes closed. I don’t really cook anything new or do anything on the fly when we’re away. I stick with tried and true stuff that’s super easy and I make a plan with packing/prep lists! It might be surprising, but I enjoy a vacation from thinking about food and cooking also. - Any cool new sauce, spice, condiments you’re into right now?
A drizzle of Stoke’s Hot Maple makes everything taste better these days. And my obsession with Burlap & Barrel’s Kebab blend continues. I use it on grilled/roasted veggies and tofu, stirred into coconut yogurt with lemon juice for a sauce, as a finishing sprinkle on a salad, whisked into vinaigrette for a Mediterranean-style bean salad etc! - Is there a piece of kitchen equipment you resisted buying for a long time and then immediately wondered how you lived without it?
The air fryer. 100% WORTH IT for the tofu gains! If you’re on the fence, just get one and let it change your life!!!
Pinned Recipes This Week:
- Roasted Butternut Squash with Lentils, Cherry Tomatoes & Herbed Yogurt
- Stuffed Eggplant with Sunflower Romesco Sauce
- Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup
- Mustard Braised Chickpeas with Roasted Broccoli Rabe
- Salted Caramel Apple Smoothie
Laura, I’m going to be hosting a gathering of folks to celebrate the completion of our home renovation. The house is an original 1960’s bungalow so I’m wanting to prepare some apps in that theme / era! It’s on my mind to create a vegan fondue – any tips or a First Mess rendition of this iconic dish? Any other appetizer suggestions?
Saturday Suns continue to brighten my week! Cheers to a long weekend here in the States!
I cannot imagine you being lazy, but glad you got to relax a bit and enjoy nature. I’d love to hear more about your gym journey / routine if you are open to share. It sounds like it’s mainly strength? Do you do anything for cardio? How did you get started? Anything you wish you had known at the start or takeaways you have along the way?
Hello Laura, I love your posts. They are my go to Saturday read and I get inspired. I have a question about peaches. I see many recipes with peaches in them and they look sooo good. I love this fruit and rarely if ever buy it because it is picked so great then sprayed to ripen and the ripening makes the peach turn thick, mealy, and mushy. No possibility to eat or to cook with. I especially would love to try the many peach salads that are shown all over the place in summer. How do you choose your peaches? I try to always do organic, but even these turn mealy and mushy. Is this a problem for Canadian shoppers as well? What advice might you have? And thank you.
Hi Virginia, I’m not Laura so hopefully she’ll chime in also. But I love peaches and, like you, have had a terrible time finding good ones in stores. The best I’ve found near me are from the farmer’s market or farm stands. I don’t know if you have any of these accessible to you, but I find the ones from there are rarely mealy and often perfect. Also, when choosing which peaches to purchase, go for ones that smell like a peach rather than trying to find soft ones. I find the mealy ones can be soft but don’t have that good peach smell that ripe, juicy ones have.
Thank you Elizabeth, I hope Laura can chime in too, but I do appreciate your thoughtful response. Unfortunately, all the peach farms that I know of around me are not organic. The pesticides that are used on peach crops are really bad and I would rather not have them in my body. This is why I don’t shop them locally. I do like to eat local, but I still endeavor to buy mostly organic when I do. That is the conundrum of buying locally and of buying peaches – at least for me. Thank you for your response.
Questions for a future edition: I tried to make some quick pickled apple cider vinegar red onions and the vinegar flavor is very overpowering. I used about 2/3 vinegar, 1/3 water, a pinch of salt and small spoon of sugar. I did not heat the liquid, i just put it room temp and stored in the fridge. The vinegar was from the bottom of the bottle with the cloudy “mother”. Any way to fix them at this point? Or, any ideas to use them without going to waste?
Secondly, any meal ideas that still have flavor for someone who needs to eat low acid/low spice due to a sensitive stomach?
Loved the article about switching your phone for notebooks and tell tips, including tracking packages. Ugh so much we go to our phones for these days and then it sucks you in. Also I finally got an air fryer after years of putting it off and agreed it is all I use now. Everything heats so quickly. Sweet potatoes take like minutes compared to the oven. Tofu is perfect. My only regret is I didn’t get one with two compartments because I had wanted it and then thought I wouldn’t need it, it’s not that big of a regret though and I still love it and use it everyday for almost every meal. Lastly, I was wondering if you had cozy music YouTube channels that aren’t ai that you would share as we enter the fall/winter cozy season. Enjoy the weekend!!