Thanks for visiting Squashed!
I started this site to share my favorite recipes with anyone who might stumble upon them.
I'm not a chef. I never went to culinary school, worked as a cook in a restaurant or even took a cooking class. However, I was raised in a household where every meal was made from scratch. I grew up thinking store-bought pastries, even the expensive kind from bakeries that have their own reality TV shows, were borderline insulting. My father was the grill master in our household and my mother did pretty much everything else. I would occasionally help out or bake cookies and I could always whip up a pretty good omelette. When I moved off campus for my sophomore year of college I just naturally began cooking all of my meals from scratch. I started simple- put fish in a hot pan until its not raw- and gradually got more creative- dip tofu in egg wash, encrust with cinnamon and chopped almonds (nobody try that, its terrible; also soy is so genetically modified its barely a plant anymore and is terrible for your thyroid).
I currently cook most meals for myself and my parents. Every night is different (leftovers are for lunch and lunch only in my opinion) and most nights I'm cooking three slightly different meals. One without vegetables for my stubborn-five-year-old father, one without seafood or anything that might look like seafood or have touched seafood or been on the same table as seafood for my mom, and one without mammal meat for the animal lover- me.
So now, at the ripe old age of 21, and with the free time of a college student with only 16 credits left toward her BFA and taking a year off anyway, I've decided I'm ready to share my talents.
I currently work at a fish market where I monger seafood and teach 15 minute cooking classes to customers and fellow employees who only come for the free samples at the end. Seafood is something I am very passionate about. While I couldn't imagine pulling the trigger on a furry little (or big) land animal, I smash the brains out of rainbow trout and striped bass from the tanks of live fish at work every day without so much as a wince. For this reason you'll find that a good amount of my recipes can be found under the Fish or Shellfish tabs and that some of the recipes under the veggies tab would do well with a few shrimp on top.
None of the recipes on this site call for grains and are therefore ideal for gluten free individuals. Additionally, many but not all of the recipes I've written are paleo friendly (unlike the totally paleolithic people out there I eat beans and cheese and love them both). Grains, however, don't taste like much of anything. They don't offer much of anything in the way of nutrients that I don't already get from other plant-based sources. Grains are plate and belly fillers and not much more than that. Refraining from grains has forced me to be more creative in the kitchen and I think my recipes have benefited rather than suffered from their omission.
I'm not a nutritionist. I never even took a science class in college. But, I've always been interested in healthy eating and what micro and macro nutrients the body needs and doesn't need to function properly. I generally try to find a relatively even balance between high fiber complex carbs, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats (omega 3's and 9's) and proteins. Either way, this isn't a diet blog or a nutrition counseling site.
A lot of the recipes are for either 1 or 2 servings because that's the way I usually cook (see earlier paragraph about my family members' dissimilar food preferences). For that reason, I've included a page of measurement conversions so you can easily turn two tablespoons for you into three cups for you and your 23 dinner guests.
If you're unconvinced that my original recipes will be worth your time, check out the My Favorites page. You'll find a collection of some of my favorite food projects and recipes that I've found on the internet and replicated. You can see how my versions turned out and read about the changes I made to the original.
If you're searching for a recipe for some obscure seafood or if you're trying to convert an existing recipe into something equally as tasty but grain free and would like advice, please send me a message from the Contact Me page. I'd also love to hear any feedback if you like my recipes, or even if you hate them, so don't hesitate to comment.
Ok. That's it. Go make dinner.
Zoe Ruth.
I started this site to share my favorite recipes with anyone who might stumble upon them.
I'm not a chef. I never went to culinary school, worked as a cook in a restaurant or even took a cooking class. However, I was raised in a household where every meal was made from scratch. I grew up thinking store-bought pastries, even the expensive kind from bakeries that have their own reality TV shows, were borderline insulting. My father was the grill master in our household and my mother did pretty much everything else. I would occasionally help out or bake cookies and I could always whip up a pretty good omelette. When I moved off campus for my sophomore year of college I just naturally began cooking all of my meals from scratch. I started simple- put fish in a hot pan until its not raw- and gradually got more creative- dip tofu in egg wash, encrust with cinnamon and chopped almonds (nobody try that, its terrible; also soy is so genetically modified its barely a plant anymore and is terrible for your thyroid).
I currently cook most meals for myself and my parents. Every night is different (leftovers are for lunch and lunch only in my opinion) and most nights I'm cooking three slightly different meals. One without vegetables for my stubborn-five-year-old father, one without seafood or anything that might look like seafood or have touched seafood or been on the same table as seafood for my mom, and one without mammal meat for the animal lover- me.
So now, at the ripe old age of 21, and with the free time of a college student with only 16 credits left toward her BFA and taking a year off anyway, I've decided I'm ready to share my talents.
I currently work at a fish market where I monger seafood and teach 15 minute cooking classes to customers and fellow employees who only come for the free samples at the end. Seafood is something I am very passionate about. While I couldn't imagine pulling the trigger on a furry little (or big) land animal, I smash the brains out of rainbow trout and striped bass from the tanks of live fish at work every day without so much as a wince. For this reason you'll find that a good amount of my recipes can be found under the Fish or Shellfish tabs and that some of the recipes under the veggies tab would do well with a few shrimp on top.
None of the recipes on this site call for grains and are therefore ideal for gluten free individuals. Additionally, many but not all of the recipes I've written are paleo friendly (unlike the totally paleolithic people out there I eat beans and cheese and love them both). Grains, however, don't taste like much of anything. They don't offer much of anything in the way of nutrients that I don't already get from other plant-based sources. Grains are plate and belly fillers and not much more than that. Refraining from grains has forced me to be more creative in the kitchen and I think my recipes have benefited rather than suffered from their omission.
I'm not a nutritionist. I never even took a science class in college. But, I've always been interested in healthy eating and what micro and macro nutrients the body needs and doesn't need to function properly. I generally try to find a relatively even balance between high fiber complex carbs, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats (omega 3's and 9's) and proteins. Either way, this isn't a diet blog or a nutrition counseling site.
A lot of the recipes are for either 1 or 2 servings because that's the way I usually cook (see earlier paragraph about my family members' dissimilar food preferences). For that reason, I've included a page of measurement conversions so you can easily turn two tablespoons for you into three cups for you and your 23 dinner guests.
If you're unconvinced that my original recipes will be worth your time, check out the My Favorites page. You'll find a collection of some of my favorite food projects and recipes that I've found on the internet and replicated. You can see how my versions turned out and read about the changes I made to the original.
If you're searching for a recipe for some obscure seafood or if you're trying to convert an existing recipe into something equally as tasty but grain free and would like advice, please send me a message from the Contact Me page. I'd also love to hear any feedback if you like my recipes, or even if you hate them, so don't hesitate to comment.
Ok. That's it. Go make dinner.
Zoe Ruth.