Butternut Squash Pasta with Walnuts & Sage

I make this butternut squash pasta recipe when I'm craving fall comfort food. It's so easy, and the sage & squash fill it with cozy autumn flavor.

Butternut squash soup may be my favorite fall comfort food, but this butternut squash pasta is now a close second. It’s a pretty easy throw-together pasta made from a classic fall flavor combo: butternut squash, sage, and walnuts. The sweet, caramelized squash plays perfectly off the earthy sage and nutty walnuts, and a little butter and pecorino add the perfect amount of richness. This is one we’ll have on repeat all season long. To make it, simply roast the squash until it’s tender and caramelized. Then, sauté the shallot, sage, walnuts, chickpeas, cooked butternut squash, and garlic until the chickpeas and squash…

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Cinnamon Apple Tart Cherry Crumble

This easy apple crumble takes half the effort of pie, but it's just as good, full of warming cinnamon & cardamom as well as brown sugar, oats & nuts.

Pie is something I enjoy most when other people make it. I usually don’t have the patience to make crust, but that’s probably because I’m more of a filling person anyway. (When I was a kid, I’d always eat the pumpkin pie filling and leave the shell of the crust behind.) So, naturally, crisps and crumbles are my fall desserts of choice. This apple crumble recipe is much easier than pie, but it still has all of apple pie’s fruity-crunchy-fall-spiced goodness. How to Make Apple Crumble I made this nutty, oat-y crumble topping with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom. Cardamom has…

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Apple Zinger Tea-Tails

Fall spiced apple cider tea infused cocktail - alcohol & mocktail options!

Last week I had the opportunity to go on a super fun trip to Boulder Colorado to visit the headquarters of Celestial Seasonings. I’ve been drinking their tea for years so it was fun to learn more about the process of making tea and meet the wonderful people behind the brand. The trip started with the warmest welcome (the employees greeted us outside, cheering and holding signs with each of our blog names on them!). I drank about a million cups of tea (Sweet Harvest Pumpkin is totally my new favorite). After that, my highlights of the visit were: listening to Kay…

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Ginger-Apple Pumpkin Soup

This Ginger-Apple Pumpkin Soup recipe makes a delicious creamy soup with coconut milk, ginger, and cardamom. It's perfect for fall.

It’s only October 1st and yet I feel like I’m already the last to post a pumpkin recipe. This time of year, pinterest is crazy for pumpkin. But don’t worry – if you’re too cool for pumpkin, you can just as easily make this soup with butternut squash. This recipe comes together pretty easily and it doesn’t even require a pot. I roasted the pumpkin, an apple, an onion and a few garlic cloves all in the oven. I put it all in a blender and pureéd it into a creamy soup with coconut milk, ginger, and the special ingredient – cardamom. If…

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Butternut Squash & Tart Cherry Quinoa

My #1 favorite healthy & hearty fall salad with butternut squash, tart cherries and a savory apple cider sage dressing. Gluten free.

My mom loves to clip articles. Newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, stories, recipes – sometimes they come in the mail, sometimes she saves them up for a visit. A couple of years ago she brought me a recipe for a couscous salad clipped from Edible Michiana that was similar to this one. We made it, loved it… then later I lost it. But I could never get this sweet & savory flavor combo out of my mind so I’ve been making versions of it ever since. The original recipe used couscous but I used quinoa here because it’s the grain I usually have on hand. I…

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Maple Cornbread Muffins

Rosemary & maple make these easy cornbread muffins lightly sweet & cozy-tasting. I love to serve them at Thanksgiving or with a big bowl of chili.

Move over, dinner rolls, and make way for… cornbread muffins! Maybe it’s my Midwestern background, but I love corn, especially in this sweet & savory corn muffin recipe. My Cornbread Muffin Recipe Ingredients In my opinion, good cornbread should be golden & crumbly and walk the line between sweet and savory. These corn muffins do just that. Here’s what I use to make them healthy & delicious: Maple syrup sweetens them naturally and adds depth of flavor to this corn muffin recipe. Rosemary flecks them with green and brings its cozy, fresh wintry taste. Canola oil or olive oil is…

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Stuffed Acorn Squash w/ Kale & Creminis

The best side/vegetarian main at Thanksgiving! Acorn squash is stuffed with millet, mushrooms, kale, sage, pecans & cranberries in this healthy fall dish.

Over the years we’ve had more than a few untraditional Thanksgivings… the ones where we didn’t make it to the family feast because flying during the holiday weekend is the biggest. hassle. ever. We’ve had a slew of friendsgivings, well before they were the cool hipster thing to do… One year, Jack and I spent a nice evening alone over a romantic dinner of butternut squash risotto… And I’ll never forget the year I didn’t fly home from college and I ate a can of tuna and frozen green beans. I know, so sad. But I had schoolwork to catch…

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Coconut Creamed Spinach

Learn how to make the best creamed spinach with this easy 10-ingredient recipe! It's a healthy, delicious side dish you'll make again & again.

What are your favorite Thanksgiving foods? When Jack was growing up, his mom would always make her famous creamed spinach, so this year, I wanted to make a riff on her traditional recipe. My new creamed spinach recipe is totally dairy-free – I use coconut milk instead of cream – and it’s filled with savory umami flavor and tons of fresh greens. It requires just 10 ingredients and less than 30 minutes to make…are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yup, creamed spinach is a new Thanksgiving tradition around here. Best Creamed Spinach Recipe Ingredients To make my spin on creamed…

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Skillet Apple Crisp

This would be a pretty dessert on the table of any dinner party… or a no-fuss, no-crust Thanksgiving apple “not-pie.” But it’s equally perfect for a cozy Sunday when you’re too lazy to leave the sofa in between marathon-ed episodes of Mr. Selfridge. Don’t tell me what happens, we’re 3 episodes from the end, and we’re pretty obsessed. But we had to eat, and this was fast enough to quickly to whip up. (It just tastes like it should have taken longer). Feel free to scale it for a crowd, but I love a dessert that’s easy to to make…

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Rosemary Roasted Veggies

Who says thanksgiving has to be all about brown food? Not me, obviously… it’s an understatement to say that I love colorful foods. This is one of the easiest side dishes you will ever make. Cubes of butternut squash, cipollini onions, and green cauliflower are roasted simply with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary, then tossed with nuts and herbs. Of course, you could use regular cauliflower, broccoli, or even sub in brussels sprouts. This green cauliflower (or I guess they call it broccoflower, but how ugly is that word?), just happened to catch my eye. Best of all, you can…

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Kale & Apple Butternut Squash Salad

Kale & apple butternut salad is a perfect healthy fall dinner or Thanksgiving side. Butternut ribbons add fun color and texture to this delicious dish.

We’re on a butternut squash kick this week. It wasn’t intentional, it’s just that one butternut squash times two people equals about four meals. It’s a squash that keeps on giving. Today’s special shape: ribbons! No special gadgets required – just get out your regular veggie peeler, and peel away. Toss with a tangy dressing (it’ll help tame down the raw bite), and toss with kale, apples, herbs and nuts. If this is all too green and healthy for your traditional Thanksgiving meal, just think of it as your pre-turkey-day (delicious) detox!

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A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.