fall – Married to the Weatherman

It’s finally beginning to feel like fall season here in Nashville. The skies have romantically darkened in the evenings just enough to see the red orange sunset. Autumn is that season where I always ruminate over the happenings of the past year and home cooking, feel-good comfort foods are what I always seem to crave the most. Lucky for me, Jared pretty much likes anything I cook so I found a recipe at joyfulhealtheats.com to get us started with our fall cooking spree. Of course, I tweaked the original recipe just tiny bit by not including bacon and changing the pasta type so what we created was: Creamy Butternut Squash Lentil Pasta.

To kick up the healthy, we laid a big scoop of the pasta over a bed of baby kale and added a few slices of lean seared steak to the side. Let the fall cooking commence!

Ingredients:

2 Tb butter

1 cup red onion, diced

1 clove garlic

3 cups butternut squash, cubed

1 1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

1 1/2 Tb diced fresh sage, minced

1 1/2 Tb diced fresh thyme, minced

1 cup 2% milk

1/2 tbs salt

Lentil pasta or any type you prefer

1 lb lean New York Strip steaks

Step 1: To get started cooking just like we did, your husband or significant other will need to forget to pick up the chicken stock even after they had promised you it was “for sure” in the cupboard. So while they are frantically headed back to the grocery store in the pouring rain (the rain is a real part of this story and sadly for Jared, there is not a whole lot more that he enjoys than watching a big rain storm roll through the Nashville city skyline) — don’t worry he got to enjoy the storm and the cooking when he returned! But for the sake of the recipe, begin to cut the squash in to small 1″ cubes and set aside.

Step 2: Add diced red onion and butter to your dutch oven or skillet and sauté for about a minute over med-high heat until the red onions have softened

Step 3: Add in the garlic and sauté for another 30 sections before adding in the following ingredients: butternut squash, chicken stock, sage, thyme, and salt. Stir and cover until you can easily pierce through the butternut squash with a fork (about 10 minutes)

(if you are cooking steak to go on the side of your dish, preheat the oven to 450 and season both sides of your steaks with salt and pepper and place on a cookie sheet until the oven reaches temperature)

Step 4: Add all ingredients from dutch oven to a food processor and puree while slowly adding the milk until the mixture is smooth

Step 5: Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the lentil pasta, cook according to the directions to make the pasta al dente

(While the pasta is cooking, place steaks in the oven and cook for 8 minutes and then flip steaks and continue to cook for another 8 minutes).

Step 6: Drain pasta and return to the same pot it cooked in, add the butternut squash mixture and stir together

Step 7: Take the steaks out of the oven and pour excess “juice” into the pasta/butternut squash (optional)

Step 8: Slice the steak and if you would like prepare a small bed of baby kale, spinach or other greenery in a dish or deep pasta bowl, make sure to do that. To finish, add a scoop of the butternut pasta and the sliced steak.

Enjoy!

Fall — Jared and I celebrating fall at Cheekwood

Emily

I typically give Jared a hard time about the weather especially during long bouts of never-ending rainy or overcast days. This weekend, I decided to give him a break mainly because we were celebrating our anniversary, but mostly because everywhere we went he got a hard time from someone else. To give you an idea… Nashville experienced record-breaking heat Friday through Sunday with the temperatures hitting the mid-90’s. It’s the first full week of October and most everyone is ready for it to feel like fall.

Jared loves when people come up to him to either give him a hard time or to thank him for the weather above. I swear he likes the idea of people thinking he has some sort of decision-making when it comes to forecasting. So for 3 years of marriage we had 3 days of 90-degree heat, but I swear it’s all on Jared and I have nothing to do with it.

We both took Friday off from work and spent the entire weekend here in Nashville. I had been asking Jared to join me at Barry’s Bootcamp for over a year and he finally came through and signed up for a class with me. We started our weekend celebration with an invigorating workout. I loved it (as usual) and Jared survived.

The Gulch was already humming with tourists when our class finished so we decided to grab a smoothie at the Juice Bar and stroll around the area while watching people love on our city.

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For lunch we went over to True Foods to have a light bite. We didn’t want to eat anything too heavy because Jared had made special dinner reservations for us that evening at Bourbon Steak, located at the top of the new JW Marriott in downtown Nashville. We both had been wanting to try the much anticipated Michael Mina steakhouse since we heard of the plans for its opening.

At True Foods, we sat on the outdoor patio under an umbrella that shielded us from the abnormally hot October sun. I ordered the Korean Noodle Salad, Jared got the Mediterranean Chicken Pita and we shared the cold brew coffee topped with shaved coconut. It was delicious and the patio seating made for a fun experience watching people trying to snag a parking spot across the street at Trader Joe’s — that place is popular on the weekends!

Korean Noodle Salad and Mediterranean Chicken Pita

As I mentioned in my initial post, we love to eat and explore new restaurants, however we rarely eat out twice in one day. We try to save money and maintain a healthy lifestyle by cooking at home as often as possible. However, this weekend was truly the exception to the rule and we enjoyed every bit and bite of it!

Now to Jared’s favorite part: Bourbon Steak. He had made these reservations about a month ago and could hardly wait to tell me about his plans to bring me there for our Anniversary. Something you may not know about Jared is when he get’s excited about something he can barely keep it to himself. So I had known about these reservations for a good three weeks and was equally excited. When we arrived at the JW, we were shown to the “express” elevator that took guests from the lobby directly up to the restaurant’s 34th floor. As soon as you walk off the elevator and to the hostess stand you get a peek of the expansive views of downtown Nashville that you are about to experience in the dining area. It was so much fun to see the city lit up in all different areas of downtown. Jared and I agreed that the vibe felt very mid-town Manhattan with a noticeable nod to Music City. The food was equally phenomenal and many of their dishes came with a table-side show of their own — check out the Lobster Pot Pie video.

Burbon Steak — Jared and I at the top of Bourbon Steak – JW Nashville

We finished up our weekend with a lot of needed rest and relaxation — as well as some good news… Jared has informed me that there is going to be a cool down towards the end of the week. YAY!

This Week’s Forecast: happy wife, happy life and fall temperatures. Don’t forget to catch Jared on WKRN-News 2 tomorrow morning.

Cheers!

Emily

Tag: fall

Creamy Butternut Squash Lentil Pasta

Fall, where are you?