Realistic Eats

A Pintrest Review

2012-01-02T13:06:00.005-05:00

Recently, the hubs and I tried a tip from pintrest, to soak your stove grates in ammonia to remove the built on grease and gook. It certainly worked well on the pieces of our stove. So well, the hubs decided to try it on caked on cookie sheets.

I'll let the pictures do the talking here.

Before - yes those were my cookie sheets! Clean, just baked on caked on gook!

After soaking in ammonia overnight and this is the scraping of the cookie sheets.

And Voila!

Here's my take on it - it did remove all of that gook and crap, but I also think it removed the non-stick coating - which I OK I don't really care too much about that. Just wash them really well with soap and water, maybe even running through the dishwasher when you're done!

Spaghetti & Meatball Soup

2012-01-02T12:57:00.002-05:00

I found this incredible recipe on Gina's Skinny Recipes and wow it did not disappoint! And if you haven't visited this blog yet, you must - it's a great source for low fat/cal and healthy recipes. Truly, one of my favorite blogs!

This soup was so easy to throw together and for this spaghetti and meatball loving girl, it certainly hit the spot on a lighter note for me! I did alter a bit, just using pre-made turkey meatballs that I had made and put in the chest freezer - so I just had to have them heat in the soup. And the hubs is a huge fan of wagon wheel pasta, so I replaced the spaghetti noodles for the mini wagon wheels and it was so fun! Instead of using the boxed broth too, I used some of my frozen turkey stock from the freezer and water.

Great, quick, easy meal - great for a cold night this winter. Do make it!

See the recipe from Gina's site - I made it as is with those tweaks so I'll refer you there!

Uh-Oh - this is a Costly Dislike

2012-01-02T12:53:00.003-05:00

So the hubs and I were on the waiting list for a while for Beekman Blaak Goat Cheese - and our number finally came up and a wonderful box of cheese arrived on our doorstep!

We were so excited to cut in to it and tried it on Thanksgiving day - and uh, oh - WE DO NOT LIKE IT!!! We just paid $45 for a wheel of cheese and it's way too strong for us.

HELP!

I'm contemplating shredding it up and making fondue with it, thinking once I add in the wine, herbs and such it may have a more subdued flavor and be good for dipping with bread and veggies?

If you love strong cheeses, this is for you. I do like a strong cheese, but not this strong!

2012 Cooking Goals

2011-12-29T09:50:00.003-05:00

Last year I made a bucket list for 2011 of things I wanted to complete. Out of the 15 items, 13 were cooking related. I'm going to try it again this year, since I really made NO progress on the 2011 list, so I'm going to tweak and revisit this for 2012. And since the hubs has all sorts of cooking hobbies now (sausages, bread, cheese), I figured it's good if I get a move on my goals as well!

1. Finish my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie - I only have 2 more recipes I think I'm going to try, but I already found one I really like. I could have finished this this year, but with the holidays, it just didn't happen!

2. Make Goetta from scratch

3. Better Organize my kitchen - OK while NOT necessarily a cooking goal, still something I need to do!

4. Make pie crust from scratch - I need to stop my love of the boxed crust!

5. Try those knock off recipes for the Lofthouse sugar cookies and see if it really compares

6. Make one item from my Google Reader or Pintrest each week

7. Better organize my cookbook collection

8. Scan and enter in my computer all of the recipes I have printed out and torn out to get the clutter out of the kitchen

9. Only buy meats or frozen items when absolutely necessary so we can work our way through the chest freezer.

10. Make an inventory check list for the pantry and the freezer and keep updating them!!

11. Really research raising chickens with the hubs to determine if this is something we want to do in this house or wait until we move to another house with more land. Time to stop talking about it and start taking some action!

12. Buy a new food scale - one where the tare function works again. - DONE! And before 2012 even arrived - $10 at Aldi!

13. Buy a jelly roll pan!

14. Try to make my own condiments - mustard, ketchup, etc. I made my own vinegar reduction this past weekend, and my own tomato relish this year, so I can't wait to keep this trend going.

15. Find tried and true recipes for making low fat and creamy salad dressings at home to get off the bottle laden with artificial crap!

I could list more and more, but based on my track record for this past year at 15 items that didn't get done, I'm thinking I should stop!

I'll keep you posted!

Chappli Kabab

2011-12-05T21:12:00.004-05:00

We recently came back from visiting friends in upstate New York. While there, we spent time visiting a bunch of local ethnic markets - which the hubs and I just adore doing. And since we don't have a large selection of ethnic markets where we live, it's fun to explore new markets and discover new tastes and foods while we're away.

Our friends recommended we try a boxed mix for Chappli Kabab and we are so glad they did.

We made these the other night for dinner, as directed, but using ground turkey. We did use the whole packet of spice with it, which was probably a bit spicier than we would have liked, but they were still yummy! And it wasn't really spicy as much as it was cumin-y. The kabab patties came out so crunchy and delicious and it was a fabulous meal with some mixed greens, tomato and naan.

I did hang on to the box though, so that next time I can go based off of the ingredient list and make the seasoning for the patties myself. This way it will cut back on the sodium in the meal - because it was a salty dish!

If you can find the boxed mix, I recommend trying it - just make sure you like cumin! Once I make them again from scratch, I'll post that here so you can try it as well.

Aloha!

2011-12-05T20:56:00.003-05:00

I had found a recipe for Hawaiian Haystacks on Chef in Training a while back that sounded yummy! I mean what's not to love about chicken, pineapple, and crunchy noodles?

I wanted to take some time to tweak the recipe though so I wouldn't use the canned soup. Additionally, I wanted to make the dish not in the crock pot, but on the stove top when I got home from work.

So with some help from my Facebook friends, I got the idea to just use a basic white sauce in place of the canned soups on this. This meal was so easy, came together so quickly, and really made a great leftover as well.

Hawaiian Haystacks

adapted from Chef in Training

3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts diced

1 can drained pineapple it its own juices

ginger

garlic

salt

pepper

2 T butter

2 T flour

1 cup milk

1 cup broth

green onion

rice- cooked

chow mein noodles

1. Cook rice and set aside

2. dice your chicken and place in a glass baking dish sprayed with Pam. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder and toss. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes until cooked through.

3. While the chicken is cooking, make a roux with the flour and butter. Once the butter and flour have come together, add your milk and broth and simmer while stirring and let thicken. Then, add in seasoning - salt, pepper, garlic, ginger, and a pinch of crushed red pepper.

4. when the sauce is thick, and the chicken is done, pour some of the sauce over the chicken, toss and then let bake in the oven for 5 minutes.

5. Serve 5 oz. of the chicken/sauce mixture over 3 oz. of rice. Top with green onion, pineapple and chow mein noodles and enjoy.

Note - because we're still watching our portion sizes, to bulk this meal up, we but a bunch of fresh shredded cabbage in the bottom of the bowl first, then our rice, and then the chicken and everything else. It was INCREDIBLE with the cabbage - added some crunch, fiber, filling extra food, and the cabbage warmed up a bit to get a little soft with the chicken and rice on it. We will so add the cabbage again!!

Protein Bars, Take 2!

2011-11-27T20:59:00.004-05:00

So now that my first batch of homemade protein bars are gone, I decided it was time to play around and make a 2nd batch. My primary reasoning behind making these though was to help keep me on track and honest during these next weeks of stressful holiday eating.

My goal with my nutritionist was to maintain these next 6 weeks, and as much as I'd like to actually drop sound pounds and not maintain, I know I need to be realistic. The holidays are always a challenge for me with my eating; primarily because I love to cook and bake and make wonderfully delicious foods this time of year.

So I'm hoping these will help keep me on track for a light and filling and healthy breakfast.

Here's the recipe I used this time, just mix everything in the bowl together and add in 1/4-1/2 cup water basked on the texture, it should be a bit gluey but thick:

Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Coconut Power Bars

2 Egg whites – 34 calories

3 scoops protein powder (GNC Chocolate Whey Powder) – 390 calories

Peanut butter, creamy – ½ cup - 760 calories

1 medium banana – 105 calories

4 cups puffed wheat – 240 calories *note I put this in instead of all of the oats from last time*

1/2 cup oats – 74 calories * note this is down from 3.5 cups of oats in my first recipe *

1 packet dry milk – 320 calories - make sure you're using dry non fat milk

Vanilla 1 tsp– 12 calories

Peanuts – ¼ cup – 211 calories

Coconut powder 1 oz.- 180 calories * I got this at an ethnic market. It's not sweet, it's just fine granulated coconut.*

1966 / 8 = 291 calories each

Verdict:

AWESOME! better than the first batch! I love the puffed wheat in this recipe more than the oats. They break down a bit and just make a nice chewy brownie/cookie like texture for the bar. They have a very mild taste, not too sweet, not bitter, and even the hubs agreed you can't really taste much chocolate. Love these so much more than the first batch! I need to invest in some other whey powder so I can start making other flavored bars. Again, as the first batch, heat them up before you eat them, about 15-30 seconds in the microwave -it makes a huge difference!

Eat Your Greens!

2011-11-27T20:51:00.003-05:00

I love leafy greens, and there's nothing better than greens from the farmer's market. This recipe used up the very last of the fresh spinach from the farmer's market for the season - le sigh - I guess we'll have to wait until next spring for some more deliciousness!

I found this recipe in my Penzey's Spice Catalog - and if you don't use their spices, you should. They are by far and away some of the best spices out there! I've yet to have anything bad from there.

This is such a delicious pesto sauce, and so incredibly easy. In the amount of time it took the pasta to cook I had the pesto done, and was on to my salad, and the shrimp was in the oven. Do make this, you won't be sorry!

I did not make this recipe vegan, but instead used Parmesan cheese.

Served this Spinach Pesto with Caesar Salad and some baked shrimp. Delicious!

Spinach Pesto

10 oz. baby spinach * My bag from the farm was probably greater than this*

2 TB. pine nuts or walnuts * I omitted *

1⁄4 Cup nutritional yeast (Parmesan cheese

or a Parmesan/Romano cheese blend

may be used instead of the yeast)

1⁄4 Cup extra virgin olive oil

4 Cloves of Garlic * the recipe called for Garlic Powder, I used fresh.

water or olive oil as needed

Place the spinach, pine nuts, yeast and olive oil in a food processor or blender and pulse until

well-blended, scraping the sides as needed. Add the water or more olive oil and pulse to reach

your desired consistency. * I added water to cut down on the fat. I also tossed the pasta with some of the pesto and reserved pasta water. I ended up having enough pesto left to freeze another cup + for another use*

Showing off for the Hubs

2011-11-27T20:13:00.003-05:00

No real recipes, just showing off the awesome talents of my breadsmith hubby. We've gone from the basic free form sourdough, to sourdough baked in a covered dome baker, to loaf bread, now to pretzel bread and cinnamon bread.

He rocks!

POKE POKE POKE

2011-11-27T18:51:00.003-05:00

I had never heard of this dish before reading about it on The Domestic Mama & The Village Cook, but it sounded very similar to our sushi bowls that we make on a somewhat regular basis at our home. Plus it had ingredients we adore, so what's not to love about this dish?

I did tweak it slightly, and since I took these photos, well, we've even made it again and I tweaked it even more!

My tweaks are very minor though.

Hawaiian Poke, Realistic Eats Style

Tuna Steaks

Sushi Rice - cooked and prepped with rice wine

Cucumber sliced

Avocado sliced

Seaweed Salad (I cheat and buy it at the grocery store)

Pickled Ginger

wasabi and seaweed salad sprinkle

green onions, thinly sliced

For the dressing/sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon sweet rice wine OR 1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons rice vinegar OR 1 tablespoon white vinegar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 teaspoon Siracha

Instructions

season your tuna steaks as you'd like - we use a great mix of ginger, crushed red pepper, salt and garlic powder. Lightly sear your tuna steaks until the appropriate doneness for you. Now, according do the original recipe, you can just marinate the tuna steaks and let the acid cook the tuna enough. But since we are working with frozen tuna steaks here and not sushi quality, I opt to sear the tuna lightly just to be safe.

While the tuna is searing, or even done. Fill your bowls with 3 oz. (if you're watching your carbs like us) of sushi rice, seaweed salad, cucumber, avocado, pickled ginger, and top with the sliced tuna. Top with the sauce, just a drizzle or two will do ya!

ENJOY!

Why Didn't I Think of This Before?

2011-11-27T18:06:00.003-05:00

I was reading through the Food section in our local paper at work a few weeks ago and as always, got sucked in to the piece where they post a recipe from a local restaurant. They posted a recipe from Z-Bar for Eggplant Francese. It sounded so delicious and made me realize that I never do anything new with eggplant, so this had to be tried.

I used the plethora of eggplants from our garden at the end of the season and we noshed on this for dinner with some pasta and veggies. And let me tell you, this was so incredibly good, worth the effort, and just simply tasty!

Eggplant Francese

1 medium to large eggplant * I used probably 4-5 eggplants of various sizes

1/2 cup flour

4 eggs

1/4 C. canola oil for frying

1 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. cold butter * I omitted this

1 tsp. chopped garlic * I probably used closer to a T

1 tsp. chopped shallots

1/ cup white wine

1/ cup chicken broth

1 T fresh lemon juice

2 T capers, drained * I probably used 1/4 cup - we adore capers

2 T fresh parsley chopped

6 T cold butter, cubed

Parmesan

Peel the eggplant and slice it * I did ours in rounds but the recipe calls for lengthwise.

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly salt and pepper the slices so they don't soak up too much oil.

Put flour on a plate. Beat the eggs in a small bowl. Dredge the eggplant slices into the flour and then in to the egg.

Place a large nonstick pan on the burner and add in the canola oil and bring to a medium heat. Fry the eggplant on both sides until lightly golden brown. Place them on parchment paper when they are done and fry the remaining pieces. When the eggplant slices have all been browned, place in the oven for about 5 minutes until they are soft to the touch. Remove from the oven.

For the sauce: Drain oil from the pan and add a teaspoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of butter * I omitted the extra fat here because there was just a touch of oil left after cleaning out the pan. Add the garlic and shallots and saute until slightly browned.

Add the white wine and reduce by 2/3. Add the chicken broth and reduce by half. Add the lemon juice, capers and parsley.

When the sauce starts to thicken, remove from heat and whisk in the cold butter. Make sure you remove the pan from the heat because it will just break down the sauce. *I didn't use the full 6T of butter, maybe 4.5

Serve the eggplant slices with the sauce drizzled over the top and top with Parmesan.

What can you get from a 23 lb. turkey?

2011-11-22T20:38:00.002-05:00

Besides 23 lbs. of turkey?

The other week, the hubs and I got a turkey on sale and instead of roasting it up, we used it to make ground turkey. Since we can fly through ground turkey in our house like it's going out of style, we opted to see how this fared price wise.

Well, a 23 lb. turkey will get you the following:

11 lbs. of ground turkey

the equivalent of 22 cans of turkey stock - now nicely frozen in 1 cup servings in my freezer, wrapped in parchment and ready for use!

1 large batch of turkey noodle soup with probably another 1/2 lb. to 1 lb. of turkey in it from stewing the remaining pieces of the bird.

Oh yea, despite the effort, it was SO worth it.

For what we paid and what we got, it turns out to about a buck a pound for ground turkey and then not to mention the stock! we fly through boxes of stock in our house, so it's going to be so nice to have a supply at the ready in the deep freeze!!

If you have a meat grinder, a vacuum sealer, some time to kill and ample freezer space, I recommend you try making a turkey go the extra mile for you this season!

Turkey For Me, Turkey For You....

2011-11-22T20:26:00.003-05:00

What's on your Thanksgiving Day menu?

This year, Thanksgiving will be quiet at the Realistic Eats household. It's just the hubs and I this year, no friends, no family... nice and quiet. The day will start with a spin class for me and then some relaxing with the parade, Bond Marathon, and quite possibly some cinnamon rolls! (What, I said I was going to spin first - the bike is already reserved!!) And since we're both still watching what we eat very carefully, I've considered everything for the meal with the utmost care.

Tonight on the way home, the hubs picked up our turkey from our local farmer. While it was quite a bit pricier than I would have liked, I'm hoping it's worthy of the price - the legs alone are HUGE and I can't wait to delve in on Thursday. And it does make me happy to know that: 1. my turkey is antibiotic and hormone free 2. is free range 3. supports a local farmer and business 4. that I got to take a trip to the farm about about a month ago and see the turkeys, and all of the other animals. Seriously the piggies and horses were my favorite things there! The ducks were pretty awesome too - especially the fancy ducks with toupes - sort of like these that I saw at the IN State Fair this summer.

This year's menu:

Roast Turkey - still deciding how I want to prepare it

Green Bean Casserole with my homemade cream of mushroom soup which I'll also add a bit of flour too so it thickens in the oven a bit. Contemplating the crock pot again this year for the casserole.

Sourdough, apple & mushroom stuffing using the hub's homemade sourdough bread. Although I am going to omit the egg and baking of the stuffing and just serve it from the stovetop.

MAYBE some rosemary and sage roasted butternut squash.

Crustless Pumpkin Pie, maybe following Hungry Girl's recipe for at least the topping.

An Ode to Poutine

2011-10-24T20:22:00.003-04:00

Ahhhh Poutine....

How I love your salty, savory goodness

How genius were those wonderful Canadians to invent such a tasty treat

I mean, how have we Americans, a society known for gluttony,

yet to figure out the deliciousness that is french fries, cheese curds and gravy.

Poutine, I long for you when I'm back in the states.

I long to plan another vacation to Canada as soon as I get home.

Could there possibly be anything more delicious or perfect than poutine?

(Well , maybe Lay's Poutine Chips - again how do we not have those here?!)

Ahhh Poutine, you are perfect in my eyes, on my tastebuds and in my tummy.

I will think of you fondly until I get to enjoy you again.

Easy Vegetarian Eats

2011-10-24T19:54:00.004-04:00

Back at the end of September this recipe went on to the menu one week. That week ended up being chaotic and we missed that meal. We tried again the following week - and yet again, we passed this meal up on the menu plan again. Finally, at the start of October we got to make this and boy are we upset we waited to long to make them! They were so good!

These are so quick and easy to make and absolutely delicious. Don't wait 3 weeks to make these like we did - you'll be missing out!

Sesame Scallion Tofu
From Serious Eats

2 tablespoons arame or other dark sea green, such as kombu or wakame
1/2 bunch scallions, trimmed
12 ounces firm tofu, patted dry
2 tablespoons panko or fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
Salt and pepper

Pour boiling water over the arame and soak for a minute or two. Drain well.

Put the scallions in a food processor and pulse a few times, until minced. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Put about half the tofu and all the arame in the processor (no need to wash it out) and pulse a couple of times, until crumbled. Add to the mixing bowl.

Put the remaining tofu in the processor and let it run until the tofu is smooth. Add it to the mixing bowl, along with the panko, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Sprinkle with a little salt and lots of pepper and stir well to combine. Form into 4 patties.

*Here's where I strayed from the recipe. Instead of frying in oil, I just placed them on the dry non-stick griddle pan and cooked them until they were done/heated through.

I served them with some sushi rice and some miso roasted vegetables. So incredibly good!

ENJOY!

Happy Halloween Cookies

2011-10-24T19:34:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite snacks is candy corn and peanuts mixed together. It's the perfect combo of sweet and salty and tastes like a pay day candy bar.

Oh goodness, these cookies are divine. The combo of candy corn and peanut butter and peanuts is HEAVENLY!

I ate three alone when they came out of the oven and have now eaten one more. Insane. And I still have more candy corn and peanuts in the house and want to make another batch.

Realistically you could use your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe as a base, but this is the recipe I used.

Peanut Butter Candy Corn Cookies

1/2 cup shortening (you can also do 1/4 shortening and 1/4 butter)

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

Combine all of these ingredients together in a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy

Add in the following ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

Once the dough is formed, fold in about 1/2-3/4 cups chopped salted peanuts. Then fold in about 1/2 cup chopped up candy corns. You'll want some whole candy corns for the tops of the cookies - about 3 dozen of them.

Roll the dough in to balls and make sure the candy corns are tucked inside the dough and not sticking out - this will help the cookies stay moist and chewy and ensure the sugar doesn't just melt all over the pan. Do not flatten out the cookies!

Bake for 10 minutes at 375. After 10 minutes, pop a candy corn on top of each cookie and bake for another 2 minutes. Let them sit for about 2 minutes on the cookie sheet once out of the oven before moving to a cooling rack.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Homemade Protein Bars

2011-10-02T15:07:00.002-04:00

So I love Powerbars Protein Plus bars. They run about 300 calories each or so, and they come in lots of yummy flavors (I'm partial to PB chocolate!). However, they are INCREDIBLY sweet, and when I have one with a glass of milk for breakfast it really makes me crave sweets the rest of the day. So they kind of set me up for a struggle of a day.

Additionally, protein bars are filled with so much junk that while they may fill me up with protein, they just aren't filling me with anything else worthy of a good diet.

I have been doing some searching around online for some homemade protein bar recipes that would fill me with more natural ingredients. I found a few I thought I'd like to try and today I made my first one, but I certainly tweaked it a bit.

The recipe I went off of is here. How I made them is posted below.

They just came out of the oven and I took a little taste and they are VERY good and don't have that fake sweet aftertaste. The texture is right up my alley, firm and chewy, not mushy. I started doing some calorie information for what I made. And I was panicking at first with the numbers I was seeing for what I put in, but then once divided by the serving size, they weren't

that bad. They come in at 341.2 calories a piece. So 40 some odd more than the brand name bars, but they taste SO much better. And I do think I can make some tweaks in the next batch to take the calories down a bit.

Stephany's Homemade Energy Bars

Preheat oven to 325

Line 2 cookie sheets

In a big bowl, mix the following:

2 egg whites

3.5 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup water

1 packet (1.5 cups) non-fat powdered milk

1 banana mashed

1/3 cup chopped dried cherries (totally optional)

1 tsp. vanilla

3 scoops of GNC Protein Plus Protein Powder (whey) - any flavor, but I used chocolate

Use a 1/2 scoop measure to begin the forming process. Form each 1/2 cup measure in to a bar form and flatten it out a bit. Mine made 9 bars. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes.

Again, they are dense and firm and come out to be 341 calories a piece. The recipe I was basing my inspiration off of used corn syrup and juice and a full cup of dried fruit. That seemed like a lot of excess calories and things I didn't want to use, so I used the PB instead. The PB came to mind because it's sticky like corn syrup, adds more protein, great flavor and was used in another recipe I read online.

I do like the combo of the chocolate powder and peanut butter and banana, it's very dessert like without being sweet. The recipe linked above used 2 scoops of the powder, I went for 3 to add in some more chocolate flavor and protein. The powder I used is 130 calories a scoop so you have an idea of what I based mine off of.

And not all of my bars came out the same size, so some are prob. a little more in calories, some a little less.

Lessons for next time: I think I'll probably do less PB and maybe some agave with it and cut down on a coop of protein powder. I wonder how that will change the caloric information.

Overall, this coupled with a glass of skim milk is going to be a great and filling, protein filled breakfast without all of the added processed crap!

A Delicious Use of Green Tomatoes

2011-09-18T15:49:00.003-04:00

Our garden didn't fare so well this year. We tried it out in a new spot in the yard and it just never seemed to get enough sunlight. That combined with a very wet growing season early on, followed by scorching 100 degree plus days and then more heavy rains and gloomy days just made it a less than fruitful year.

Don't get me wrong, we did fare well. We had lots of tomatoes, some zucchini, eggplants, potatoes and cukes, but each plant only yielded a few rounds of crops. The other week we had a tomato plant on the way out, so the hubs rescued what was on it - all green tomatoes.

My dear friend had just given me a recipe for green tomato pickles that I wanted to try, but I was more interested in doing a relish to put on sandwiches. So I found a recipe online that looked

easy enough to try. Thank you Mommy's Kitchen for this great recipe.

This was so easy to pop together, and yielded a great relish in the end. I've been enjoying it on

sandwiches, and even a BLT today!

I didn't have a ton of tomatoes to make this recipe with but what I got yielded a mid size Ball jar of relish. And since I don't can (primarily because it freak me out that I'm going to die of botulism or some other horrid disease when I f-it-up) I just popped the jar in my fridge and have been using it up!

Below is the recipe as I made it.

Green Tomato Relish

about 12 green tomatoes - I used romas and 1 regular tomato so I had to tweak the original recipe.

1 cubanelle pepper chopped

1 large onion chopped

2 teaspoons plus a pinch more of mustard seeds

1 teaspoon plus a pinch more caraway seeds

2/3 cup white vinegar

2/3 cup apple cider

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. salt

Cut up the onion, tomatoes and pepper in to small pieces and then pop in a heavy pot and add everything else and stir and let simmer until everything is tender and comes together in to a relish texture. Let cool and enjoy!

That's A Spicy Shrimp

2011-09-18T15:16:00.002-04:00

Found this delicious recipe off of a Pintrest post and it just looked so delicious I had to make it! After following the picture to the source, I quickly became a fan of the blog Cheeky Kitchen - what great recipes she has on there! Check her out!

The recipe was so simple to put together, flavorful, and would be great with shrimp or chicken.

I did tweak the recipe quite a bit. Cheeky Kitchen made it using a boxed Simply Salads mix, but really it's so easily made with just some small shaped pasta.

I'm posting the recipe as I made it here - no matter how you choose to make it, just make it! How I made it serves 2.

Ingredients

3 oz. dry Barilla Piccolini pasta

20 shrimp

1 avocado

1 cucumber

lettuce - I used about 2 cups of lettuce per plate

1/2 cup light mayo with olive oil

1-2 T of Siracha hot chile sauce

Boil the pasta and drain, set aside after running under cool water.

Peel and cook the shrimp in a skillet with a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Shred some lettuce, dice your cucumber and avocado.

Combine the mayo and the Siracha to make the dressing. I did add a bit of water here to thin it out so it was more dressing-like.

Plate the lettuce, cucumber and avocado. Top with 10 shrimp and 3 oz. of cooked pasta. Drizzle the dressing on top and enjoy.

YUM!

Labor Day Lobster Rolls

2011-09-11T18:28:00.002-04:00

For Labor Day this year, we cooked up some chicken lobsters the night before and removed all of the meat and popped it in the fridge.

For lunch the next day, we ended the summer in RI style by enjoying lobster rolls at home on the hubs homemade sourdough bread.

Lobster and light mayo and voila!

DELICIOUS!

Mussels at home, take 2

2011-09-11T18:17:00.004-04:00

Holy Delicious!! We served these with some rice noodles and sauteed spinach.

This meal was the perfect use of the fresh red chilies from the farmer's market!

I based how I made the mussels - this time, 3 lbs. - off of a recipe at Epicurious.

I certainly tweaked it though and this is how I tweaked it to lighten it up a bit.

Spicy Thai Mussels

3 pounds mussels cleaned

1 T lime juice

1/2 cup dry white wine

2 fresh red chilies spit, most of the seeds removed, just keep a few in.

1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 1/2 T fresh minced ginger

1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce

1 cup mixed fresh cilantro sprigs, thai basil and mint

In a large skillet with high sides, add in some olive oil, maybe 1 T, and the chilies and saute until the chilies start to soften. Then add in the garlic and ginger and saute until just fragrant - you don't want anything to brown. Next, add in the fish sauce and the lime juice. Add in the mussels, the white wine, toss and cover.

Cook for 4 minutes, toss the mussels around, then return the lid and cook for another 4-7 minutes.

Once done, toss again and then add in the cilantro, basil and mint.

transfer to a bowl and serve. Again, would be great with some rice and was great with some rice noodles and spinach!

ENJOY!

Summer Garden Biscuit Pie

2011-09-11T17:55:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Joelen for pointing me to this delicious recipe.

Instead of staying with just making this a tomato pie though, I tweaked it and added a LOT of veggies.

I did double the biscuit recipe to make it fit to a 9x13 pan. I added a container of mushrooms, eggplants, tomatoes, and then topped it with a smaller combo of the mayo and some mozzarella cheese.

Do make this - it's great for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

James Beard's Tomato Pie

* again remember I doubled the dough recipe and made it in a larger dish

2 cups flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup unsalted butter

2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced

3/4 cups buttermilk

4-6 ripe tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs), sliced 1/4-1/2 inch thick

2-3 small/medium eggplants peeled and cut thin

1 8 oz. container sliced mushrooms

10-12 basil leaves, thinly shredded (chiffonade)

2 cups low fat mozzarella cheese

1 cup low fat mayonnaise made with olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Begin by making the biscuit crust. Combine flour, baking powder, baking powder and salt.

Cut in the butter and add parsley and some basil. I also added in some salt and pepper and garlic powder.

Stir in buttermilk until the dough holds together, turn out onto a floured surface and knead a few minutes. Pat it into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie pan.

Cover the biscuits with tomato slices then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the basil over the tomatoes.

Combine the cheese and mayonnaise in a small bowl and spread the mixture on top of the tomatoes.

Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes, or until it is golden brown. Remove and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving. *because I made mine larger, I actually cooked mine for about 40 minutes.

I served this as a side with some scallops.

Quick and Easy Shrimp Packets

2011-09-11T17:36:00.003-04:00

Once again, another great low carb recipe from Cara's Cravings!

This meal came together so quickly, was completely delicious and really, truly was a no pot dinner.

Everything in this meals gets placed in the foil pouches, minus the avocado, and baked in the oven or placed on the grill. It was so nice to have a meal where I didn't even have to dirty a pot or pan! The only thing I really had to dirty was a cutting board and knife!

The recipe as is is up on the link. I made it below this way.

20 raw shrimp, peeled - 10 for each pouch

6 oz. black beans - 3 oz. in each pouch

1/2 cup finely diced pineapple - 1/4 cup in each pouch

sweet onion, diced and separated between the two pouches

2 tomatillos diced - 1 in each pouch

1 cubanelle pepper diced thin - divided between the two pouches

1 T of lime juice in each pouch

1/4 teaspoon coriander and cumin tossed in each pouch along with a sprinkle of chili powder and some salt and pepper.

When it comes out of the oven, top with diced tomato, fresh cilantro and avocado.

Lay two pieces of foil out in a cross on the counter and place the beans, shrimp, pineapple, tomatillo, onions and pepper together in the foil center and then toss with the seasonings and sprinkle with lime juice. Pinch up both sides to wrap it up with a little air space. Then place the pouches on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes - 20 minutes.

Enjoy! Because this had beans and pineapple, I didn't feel the need to add in any extra carb. at dinner - but it would have been good with some warmed corn tortillas.

Potatoes!!

2011-09-11T17:33:00.002-04:00

No recipe - just had to post the picture of the hubs first potatoes from his garden of the season. This was his first year at growing potatoes and he did a great job - they were delicious!

Perfect Saag Paneer

2011-09-11T17:16:00.002-04:00

So, I made saag paneer once at home, and it was good but just not the texture I was seeking. I finally came up with the idea of using, gasp, canned spinach to make the saag paneer again... and you know what, it was the exact texture I was seeking!!

The recipe was creamy, flavorful and delicious. Instead of paneer, I used haloumi cheese this time that I diced up and browned up.

The rest of the recipe for the paneer I followed from Serious Eats.

1 large can canned spinach.

1 onion diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

about 1 T fresh grated ginger

6 oz. haloumi cheese diced and browned

1 teaspoon cumin

2 teaspoons curry powder

1 container plain yogurt

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic with the cumin and curry and then add in the canned spinach, undrained. Stir in the yogurt, salt and pepper to taste at the end. Add in the cheese and toss to combine. I also did add in some crushed red pepper flakes for a little spice.

Almost too cute to eat! Almost...

2011-09-11T17:02:00.003-04:00

I made treats again this summer for my co-workers summer camp that she volunteers at each year. I've made many cute things for the little campers, including these, chocolate pretzel rods decorated like magic wands, haystacks, you name it.

This year, the camp had a themed week of Movies and Hollywood. So I wanted to do something to go along with that theme. I came up with the idea, after countless Google image searches, of making cupcakes look like buckets of popcorn!

I just used boxed cake mix and frosting. But then I crinkled and sprayed mini marshmallows with yellow spray frosting. I also was fortunate to find some cute little admit one tickets that I taped to toothpicks to stick in the top of each cupcake. They looked like adorable little buckets of popcorn with the movie ticket.

I heard the cupcakes were delicious and a huge hit with the campers! YAY!

I mean, come on, what's not to love?!?

Opa! Nachos

2011-09-11T16:48:00.004-04:00

Wow, I'm so behind in blogging, I just realized I made this recipe back in July! Holy Cow!

But I still have to blog them because they were out of this world delicious!

I found this idea - note, it's NOT a recipe- for Greek Nachos on Not Without Salt.

After I made these though based on just the picture, I started seeing these pop up on lots of blogs and saw that the recipe is from Mark Bittman in this NYT piece back in 2009 - WOW how did it take me this long to find this?

I've linked to the recipe from the NYT above, but am posting what I did down below here.

1 lb. ground turkey - you could easily use beef, lamb, you name it - I just used the turkey because it's lighter and what I had on hand.

6 oz. pita, cut in to triangles and toasted in the oven on a cookie sheet until crispy

Greek seasoning - this is something we brought back from our last trip to Greece and it includes oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, marjoram, mint, garlic powder, onion powder.

I cooked my meat with the seasoning and topped 30z of pita with 5 oz. of ground turkey each. Then I topped with diced tomato, shredded lettuce, diced cucumber and feta cheese. Then I topped each with cucumber sauce - plain yogurt, cucumber, lemon juice, mint, oregano, salt and pepper.

This was such a fun and delicious meal!

Mussels at home, take 1

2011-09-11T16:30:00.002-04:00

I have always enjoyed mussels - the hubs, not so much. The first time he really ate mussels was when were up in Canada a few summers ago at a lobster supper, and he fell in love with them.

Yet, we haven't made mussels at home. This summer we went down to get lobsters and also decided we'd get some fresh mussels from this little fish stand we love. And for $2 a pound, how can you really pass that up?

I came home with two pounds of mussels and no clue what to do with them. I knew though I wanted to do some garlic, onions, and wine with them so I just kind of winged it.

After researching how to clean the mussels and removing their beards, the hubs and I got to work tapping 2 lbs. of mussels to see if they were still alive, cleaning them and then prepping them.

I started with my largest high sided skillet and a little olive oil and sauteed a large onion I had diced. Then I added in about 12 cloves of crushed garlic, a little salt and some pepper. Once everything was nice and hot, I tossed in the mussels in two layers and then added in 1/2-3/4 cup white wine, a little lemon juice tossed them around a bit and put the lid on. I steamed them for 4 minutes, tossed them again, and steamed them for another 4-5 minutes. Once done, I tossed again, then poured in to a bowl and let the juices run all over them.

We enjoyed the lobsters, mussels and some delicious fresh bread that the hubs made.

If you are a mussel eater, I highly recommend trying these at home! They'd even be great tossed with some pasta.

I shu, You shu, we all Moo Shu

2011-09-11T16:09:00.004-04:00

Moo Shu is one of my absolute favorite things to order when I go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant - aside from Egg Fu Yung. I've made it at home a few times, but have always just used tortillas and, well, those just quite aren't the same as a moo shu pancake.

I found a recipe for moo shu and the pancakes on Branny Boils Over - a food blog I love love love!!

The pancakes were so easy to make and the moo shu was really one of the best I've ever had.

Moo Shu pancakes - I have to tell you I did double the recipe and that made 8 wrappers.

2 cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup boiling water

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Instructions

Place the flour in a large mixing bowl and add boiling water; Mix with a fork until combined.

When the dough is cool to the touch, knead the dough in the bowl by hand for 1 to 2 minutes until soft and smooth. Form the dough into a rope and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a uniform ball and then flatten with the palm of your hand. Take one flattened piece of dough and coat thoroughly in sesame oil, using a pastry brush. Place, oiled side up, on your rolling surface. Top with another flattened disk of dough. Use a rolling pin, roll each circle into a thin, larger circle approximately 8 inches in diameter. Repeat, making three more pairs of two pancakes each.

Heat a 10 inch, non-stick frying pan over low heat until the pan is hot. Place one of the four (paired) pancakes in the pan. Cook for 1 minute on each side. You will see the middle of the pancake pair puff a bit, and the sesame oil will be fragrant. Place in a covered casserole dish and set aside on the counter. Repeat above steps with the three remaining pairs of pancakes.

Allow to cool approximately 5 minutes at which point they should be soft, moist and easy to peel apart. Keep them covered (to retain moisture) in warm oven until ready to serve.

For the Moo Shu

You can keep this vegetarian, or add meat. We added some thinly sliced pork to our moo shu. I cooked the pork first in a skillet and then removed it once done and set aside, using the same skillet to cook everything else.

For the sauce - I doubled the sauce recipe because I added a TON more veggies and the meat.

1/2 cup water

2 T soy sauce

1 T sesame oil

1 T rice wine vinegar

2 t cornstarch

pinch sugar

For the Filling

3 large eggs

1 tsp soy sauce

cooking spray

1 small red onion, sliced

2 T grated fresh ginger

1 cup shitake mushrooms, cut into strips

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups shredded cabbage

1 zucchini, grated

1 carrot, grated

2 green onions, sliced

hoisin sauce for serving

Combine all ingredients for the sauce in a container with a lid.

For the filling, whisk together eggs and soy sauce.

Heat a wok over medium heat and spray with cooking spray.

Add scrambled eggs and cook 1 minute. Flip with spatula and cook one minute longer.

Remove from pan, reserve.

Wipe out wok and add more cooking spray; heat over medium heat.

Add onion and ginger. Stir fry 2-3 minutes.

Add mushrooms and garlic and cook 3-5 more minutes.

Add cabbage, zucchini, and carrots. Stir fry 4 minutes more.

Shake sauce (previously prepared) to combine and add to wok.

Simmer 2-3 minutes or until vegetable mixture thickens.

Slice reserved omelet into strips and fold into vegetable mixture.

Transfer to a serving platter with moo shu pancakes and hoisin sauce for serving.

A little bite of heaven

2011-08-21T16:24:00.003-04:00

I was looking for a quick dessert to whip together, using what I had on hand, to take to a friend's house for dinner the other night. I decided to put my strawberries to use and make the wonderful cheesecake stuffed strawberries that have popped up all over the blogging world the past couple of years. I opted, however, to make it a little more adult and fun!

Amaretto Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 T Amaretto

1 pint of strawberries

Remove greens from strawberries and cut the tops so the strawberry lies flat. Then cut an X in the pointed end of the berry - not all the way to the bottom/top, but just enough that you can fill it with the cream cheese.

Whip together the cream cheese, sugar and Amaretto until smooth. Place in a piping bag or zip top bag, cutting the tip. Fill the strawberries with the wonderful mixture and sprinkle with some mini chocolate chips.

The leftover filling is wonderful with graham crackers!

Farmer's Market Fresh

2011-07-31T18:44:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again! Farmer's markets are in season and our garden is blooming and growing well. We're eating more fresh produce and local foods than ever and it's so delicious and wonderful.

The other week I made open faced eggplant parm sandwiches - which were tasty.

The how to:

Slice eggplant in to long slices and dip in egg white and bread crumbs. Place on a baking rack on a cookie sheet and spray with some Pam. Bake at 350 until until the eggplant is tender and the pieces are crispy.

Lay strips of the cooked eggplant on some fresh bread - we used our fresh sourdough. First we put some garlic scape pesto on the bread, then the eggplant pieces, then some fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and some basil and cracked black pepper. DELICIOUS!

We dipped in some sauce on the side and enjoyed with some fresh garden zucchini. It was a wonderfully filling and delicious garden fresh meal!

I'm about to become your very best friend

2011-07-17T18:32:00.003-04:00

After you make this and enjoy every scrumptious last bite of it.

You're going to be all "Man that Realistic Eats Chick is AWESOME!!" (ok I'm done living in my fantasy world now.)

Again, found this recipe on Pintrest and made it that same weekend.

Was a HIT for the 4th of July - sweet, salty, spicy - it was a flavor explosion.

I did alter the process of how I made this delicious treat and will post that here.

Thanks to Not Without Salt for this killer recipe!

Maple Bacon Party Mix

(I doubled mine when I made it)

2 cups corn chex

2 cups rice chex

2 cups wheat chex

1 cup peanuts, lightly salted

6 strips bacon, cooked extra crispy and chopped

4 T. butter, melted

4 T. maple syrup

1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1-1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I only used about 1/2 teaspoon total)

In a large roasting pan with your oven on 250, melt the butter, syrup, cayenne and salt. Once it's melted, add in your chex and nuts. Stir every 15 minutes and cook for an hour to an hour and a half until it's crispy and the flavors are combined. Once it's out of the oven, let it cool and then toss in the crumbled bacon pieces.

Then enjoy, thank the food Gods for such a delicious flavor combo, and praise all things that are bacon-y goodness!

That was Easy

2011-07-17T18:21:00.002-04:00

Are you on Pintrest? If not, you should be! It's a great forum for posting photos in categories of things you want to make/do/buy/read/share, you name it. And you can connect with your friends or anyone else in the world. It's a great place to find some great ideas. And the best part is it's all images/pictures - what's more fun to look at that pictures of cool things?! Once you click on the picture, you're taken to the link of where it was initially posted - and from this you are able to open yourself to a whole world of new bloggers, websites, you name it!

I found a picture post on Pintrest for these killer Nutella cookies... I mean, it's Nutella, how could I not make these??

These came to me from a blog that is new to me now, again thanks to Pintrest! ShowFood Chef is a great little blog, you just must check it out! And she has some very creative recipes - including these awesome Nutella cookies.

Now, brace yourself for how "difficult" this recipe is.

Take 1 cup Nutella

1 Egg

Stir until it's all incorporated and smooth and creamy.

Place on a silpat or parchment covered pan. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

VOILA!!

It takes like a brownie - the crispiness edge and the chewy center!

I made these with my tiny scooper, next time I"m making with a larger scoop so they are a little softer.

YOU MUST MAKE THESE!!!

That's A Giant Ball

2011-07-17T18:12:00.003-04:00

Of Cheese!

I made this delicious cheese ball for the 4th of July and between 4 adults and 2 children, there was still enough cheese ball left to feed an army!

It was so flavorful, so delicious, so good! The combo of the spinach and artichoke, with the blend of the cheeses really created such a depth of flavor. It was great with bread, crackers, and even fresh veggies!

I did make the decision to lighten the recipe up a bit by using Neuchaftel Cheese, reduced fat parm and mozzarella, and it still came together very nicely and held well - even with the reduced fat changes.

Thanks again to Joelen for another great recipe suggestion!!

Spinach & Artichoke Cheeseball

recipe adapted from AllRecipes

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese

1 (10 ounce) box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided

1 (4 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (I used a whole 8 oz. can)

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon dry ranch salad dressing mix (I omitted this and just added in some sprinkles of a salt free herb seasoning instead)

In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, spinach, mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese, artichokes, garlic and Ranch dressing mix. Mix together with clean hands until well blended. Form into a ball or log and coat in the remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese. Chill for at least 1 hour. Place on a serving plate and serve with crackers and/or vegetable crudités.

Did I Find It?!

2011-07-17T17:50:00.003-04:00

The most perfect chocolate chip cookie that is.

I had a thought of what cookie I was going to try next, but then found a recipe in a magazine in a McCormic's ad. The cookies sounded wonderful, so I decided they would be my next adventure in baking. And well, I just may have to stop.

Well, I thought I'd stop until the other week everyone on blogs started posting the recipe from the NYT and Jacque Torres... damn' you people - more recipes I feel the need to try now.

But as of now, these are my first place cookie in the contest.

McCormic Vanilla Rich Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 ts. salt

1 1/3 cups butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

4 tsp. vanilla

1 pkg semi-sweet chocolate chip cookies

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Mix flour baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop by T full on to cookie sheet - ungreased.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 5 dozen.

The Verdict?

Chocolate Chip Used: Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet

Ease of Recipe: comes together very easily and quickly and with no chill time.

Out of Oven Texture: Crispy edges soft chewy center, metly goodness - quite possibly perfect - I used the smaller cookie scoop so it's a greater ratio of crispy to softness/chewiness.

Out of Oven Taste: Very smooth, mild, not overly sweet - not so brown sugary sweet like other cookies, the ratio of vanilla to sugar to butter is actually supreme in this recipe, making a very mild, vanilla and sweet sugar flavor - these chips may be the very best I've used so far, it's not too bitter, not overly sweet, keeps its shape well and has a great melty center on the chips.

Milk Dunk Test: Absorbs a good amount of milk without getting mushy and goopy - still stays firm and has a nice hint of milk throughout the cookie once dunked.

1 Day Texture: still some crispyness on the edges and nice and soft inside - a very soft cookie - very soft.

1 Day Taste: Still buttery and mild, the chips have still a nice creamyness as well.

Appearance: made these mini - they are so adorable - and the perfect 2-3 bite size cookie. They look so light and golden buttery without being over done or too wonky.

Husband Rating: Out of the oven, without chips - that's really good - that's a good cookie.

General Notes: Great flavor - the amount of butter makes it have a nice spread in the oven. The cookie is buttery, vanilla-y and mild, not too overwhelming with a brown sugar flavor. These are certainly the best chips I've used in a cookie so far and hold up the best to baking far better than any other brand. I think my quest may be over.

Huh, so this is what a real portion is?

2011-07-10T21:24:00.004-04:00

So for about 10 weeks now the hubs and I have been following the rules of my nutritionist strictly. But I've been craving pasta this whole time. Like MAD CRAVINGS FOR PASTA - that's really the only thing I've been craving. Not cookies, chocolate, ice cream, or anything - just pasta!

But eating pasta seemed like an impossibility since dinner time can only have 3 oz. of a carb. Yup, you read that right, 3 oz. of a carb. How could I integrate pasta in to dinner with only 3 oz. on my plate?

Well, I figured it out - only took me 31 years to realize pasta is not an entree but a side dish! When I talked about this with the nutritionist, she said I just learned the lesson of naturally slim and healthy people. Pasta, grains, you name it, are side dishes. They are not to make up the bulk of your entree at any meal of the day. This was my ah ha moment in life. Could 31 years of carb loading be the reason I've never been successful at keeping weight off? Must be because the weight is dropping off now!

So back to dinner.

I was dying to make this pasta and once I figured out how to do it without carb-loading, I was on track.

I coupled this meal with an awesome chicken Cesar salad and was completely satisfied.

And let me tell you, when you're only cooking 4 oz. of pasta at a time for 2 people for dinner, a box of pasta lasts you FOREVER!!!

Creamy Caprese Pasta for 2

4 oz. pasta

1 small can tomato sauce, reduced sodium

2-3 T fresh grated parmesan cheese

3-4 oz. reduced fat mozzarella cheese cut in to cubes.

12-16 grape tomatoes cut in half

Fresh basil chiffonade

Preheat your oven to 350. Cook your pasta according to the directions on the box. Heat the tomato sauce and add in some garlic and crushed black pepper and a little crushed red pepper.

Once the pasta is done, add it to the sauce. Toss in the tomatoes, some basil and the mozzarella cheese cubes. Place in small dishes you can place in the oven and top with parmesan cheese. Bake until golden bubbly - mine only took about 10 minutes to bake in two small dishes.

DELISH.

Now my new addiction is this Caesar salad dressing. I have a Caesar I've been making for years - it's a recipe my father made and I just learned it at a young age and kept it with me. But now this one, it may be taking the place. It's so delicious, creamy and yummy!!

Thank you to Gimmie Some Oven for this killer recipe
I've posted it here as I've been making it.

1/4 cup reduced fat mayonnaise made with olive oil

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 Tbsp. minced garlic

1-2 Tbsp. fres

hly-squeezed lemon juice (adjust to taste)

1/4 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

generous pinch of salt and freshly-ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

Shake in a jar and toss with your greens. DELICIOUS!!!

Show Me Chicken Salad!

2011-07-10T21:03:00.003-04:00

We made a very tasty Asian Chicken Salad a few weeks ago for supper, once again brought to you by Joelen and Cooks Illustrated!

I did make some adaptations to this recipe, so I'll post it as I made it below - we'll call it a revised recipe for non bell pepper eaters.

The dressing on this salad was so delicious and the crisp freshness of all of the veggies was just wonderful.

This is a great meal to make when you've got veggies to use up and some leftover chicken in the house. And it's a great quick meal to make on a weeknight when you're really busy.

Shanghai Chicken Salad
from Joelen's Blog adapted from Cooks Illustrated
Posted as made my me - made for 2

For the dressing

1/2 cup rice vinegar

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1/3 cup hoisin sauce

1/4 cup toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

Mix all of these ingredients in a bowl and let sit to blend.

For the salad:

10 oz. rotisserie chicken white meat, skin discarded & meat shredded into bite sized pieces

1/2 large head cabbage, shredded

1 cup fresh sugar snap peas

1-2 medium carrots shredded

3 scallions, sliced thin on bias

1/2 cup chow mein noodles

Add the chicken, cabbage, carrots, sugar snap peas, and scallions in the bowl with the dressing. Toss to combine. Add in the chow mein noodles and toss. Makes 2 servings.

A Lighter Chinese Fare

2011-06-25T14:26:00.004-04:00

The hubs and I have been doing really well watching what we're eating lately and reducing our portions. So I've been on the prowl for lighter versions of recipes. And since we adore all Asian foods, this simply caught my eye.

I recently re-introduced chicken in to my diet. I had given up chicken about 2 years ago and gone to a largely vegetarian diet. However, I've decided to reintroduce chicken as a protein option because I was eating way too many beans for protein, really upping my carb intake.

So this was the first recipe I made that I decided to eat chicken with again in a LONG time. And oh my goodness it was so tasty and good and I can't wait to make it again. The chicken was so tender and moist and the flavors were wonderfully blended - the perfect Asian cuisine that wasn't a fried chicken recipe!

I served this with some rice and sauteed asparagus - truly wonderful dinner!

Thanks to BlogChef for another truly outstanding recipe!

Chicken in Garlic Sauce

Ingredients:

1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1” chunks)

2 garlic cloves (minced)

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup water

¼ cup honey

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (divided)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes - I use Siracha

1 head fresh broccoli (cut into florets)

In a bowl combine garlic, soy sauce, water, honey, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, cornstarch, black pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. Mix well. Stir chicken into the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. - Um, I didn't read this part of the recipe - I let it marinate for about 30 minutes and it was still delicious!

In a large wok or skillet, heat remaining tablespoon of oil over medium high heat. With a slotted spoon remove the chicken from the marinade and add to the wok or fry pan (reserve the marinade). Stir fry chicken for 3 minutes. Add broccoli and stir fry for an addition 2 minutes or until the chicken is fully cooked.

Add the reserved marinade to the wok or fry pan and cook until thickened.

The First of the Season

2011-06-25T14:13:00.005-04:00

We did our first grilled clams of the season the other week and boy were they delicious!

I served our grilled clams with grilled corn on the cob and the most delicious salad using farmers market mixed greens - arugula, baby chard, and other assorted greens.

The salad is what I really want to write about here because it was so delectable.

Mixed green, potato and berries salad

This is all based on how much salad mix you use.

Mixed greens, if you can find some baby chard to put in, do it!

1/4-1/2 cup blueberries

1/4-1/2 cup raspberries

baby potatoes - purple preferably for the color, steamed in the microwave until just soft and cut in half.

Toss the greens, fruit and potatoes with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh black pepper and a drizzle of agave. You want the potatoes to still be warm so the greens start to get a little soft.

DELICIOUS!!

THIS! Is my type of meal, I could eat this way every night.

Isn't that so pretty and colorful? the potatoes, the berries and then the red of the chard - GORGEOUS!!

well hello little clams! I bet you're going to be delicious!

I didn't know I married a breadsmith

2011-06-25T13:47:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, I received the best gift a girl could get! One of the AmeriCorps at my office brought in a jar of sourdough starter for me that came from her roommate's girlfriend. The starter originated in San Francisco, has been over seas, and back and is now in RI - so it's got some great cultures going!

After some research and practice, we've finally found the best recipe and method for the sourdough bread. It produces a crispy crust, a fluffy airy interior and a mild sour taste.

The hubs has been doing so much bread baking it's insane. Every Saturday he begins the proofing process and then bakes rolls and a loaf for us on Sundays. And we truly enjoy the results all week long. In addition, anything that goes stale we turn in to croutons or breadcrumbs - so we've really been making the most out of the bread.

In order to watch our carb. intake with the bread in the house though, the hubs has even determined the bake-off ratio of the moisture and is now able to make us 3 oz. rolls to enjoy with dinner at night. He's so awesome!!

So this is the link to the process we've been using that uses a starter as the base. I hope you find it as great as we do! Watch the video, it's very helpful!

The basic recipe is as follows though, although we use 16 oz of just bread flour - and USE BREAD FLOUR! That is what will give you the nice air pockets in the loaf.

1 cup (5 oz.) whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups (11 oz.) white bread flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups purified water

1/4 cup starter

The baking times and all that are the same as the basic no-knead method. So you can easily just watch that video but follow this recipe. I usually bake the bread at 500° for 30 minutes with the lid on and then remove the lid and continue baking for 15 more minutes at 450°.

It's like a flavor explosion

2011-06-10T21:47:00.003-04:00

I love with quick and easy meals surprise you in a million ways. This meal was pretty much added to my reader because I liked the idea of having a great, new, flavorful meals to "clean out the pantry" a bit.

The main course was quick, easy, flavorful and delicious. The salad, I totally winged it and made it up on my own - but I'll share it here so you can give it a whirl.

Thanks to Branny Boils Over for this delicious, hearty, filling meal.

Pineapple Pinto Beans

2 cups pinto beans, rinsed

1 small jalapeno pepper, minced

4 oz crushed pineapple in juice

1/4 tsp cumin

1 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

In a small sauce pan, heat olive oil until shimmering. Add minced jalapeno and cook about 3 minutes over medium heat, until softened. Combine remaining ingredients in sauce pan and cook until heated through, mashing a portion of the beans, if desired.

Mexislaw

In a bowl, combine 2 -3 tsp. canola oil, 1-2 tsp. white vinegar, a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of cayenne and taco seasoning (remember I make and use my own). Whisk that up and give a little taste to make sure your seasoning and spices are ok. Then toss this with a half of a bag of coleslaw mix and let sit for 30 minutes to get the flavors to meld. I topped the coleslaw with a low carb tortilla that I cut in thin strips and sprayed with Pam and seasoned with taco seasoning and warmed until crisp in a non stick skillet. SO GOOD!!

Picture Perfect

2011-06-10T21:37:00.003-04:00

Yup - the hubs made that just using what was leftover and around the house for a quick Sunday lunch/brunch.... gosh I love that man!

An Eggcelent Meal

2011-06-10T21:03:00.004-04:00

First off, can I just say - WOW it's been a month since I've posted? So sorry blog world - been so swamped with work and other things it's been crazy. Additionally, I've made some changes to how I'm eating and am still trying to get the hang of things and haven't been making real recipes, doing my cookie challenge, baking, you name it. It's really just been a protein, lots of veggie and a bit of carb eating at our house.

I made this recipe back on May 16th and we still talk about making it again and again. Thanks again to Joelen for this awesome recipe.

I have to say I was petrified to make this meal because I didn't think I'd be able to get the egg to roll, thus ruining the whole meal. A

las, you can see, that didn't happen!

The flavors blended so well with this meal, the egg, the carrot, the seaweed, it's just decadent and satisfying and wonderful! I served this with some buckwheat noodles with Asian flavors and some pan sauteed baby bok choy from the farmer's market.

Gaeran Mari

Rolled Korean Omelette

via Joelen

3 eggs

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

1/2 small carrot, finely chopped

1 sheet Korean roasted seaweed (Gim)

1 tsp salt, dash of pepper

Mix eggs with whisk or fork and add onions and carrots until well combined.

In a lightly greased saute pan, pour egg mixture and heat slowly over low heat.

Heat slowly for a few minutes until almost cooked through, then place seaweed sheet on top of omelette.

Roll omelette into a tight roll by lifting side with spoon or baking spatula.

Let omelette rest for a few minutes to cool.

Not Yo Mama's Tuna Noodle Casserole

2011-05-07T22:37:00.002-04:00

I love a good tuna noodle casserole. The creaminess, the crunchy potato chip topping - I'm salivating thinking of it. But I've yet to master a good t.n.c. There are just so many elements one can play with and manipulate! Do you add peas or not? Potato chips or panko? Egg noodles or spaghetti? What is your ratio of tuna to noodles? Condensed soup or cream sauce? Ok well that last one is easy - condensed soup only makes an appearance in this house for green bean casserole.

So after much debating about how to make my t.n.c for dinner, I opted for using a recipe. I know, what descent home cook uses a recipe for t.n.c.?

Well, I did and I will from now on - holy deliciousness. The only thing I feel this was missing though was some green peas, although the hubs didn't feel it needed them. I don't know to me it's just not a good t.n.c without peas.

The hubs and I both agreed this was the best t.n.c we have ever had - the flavor, the creaminess, the texture - So good, so comforting, and so wonderful!!

Tuna Noodle Casserole

courtesy of Epicurious

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

10 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced 1/4 inch thick (4 cups)

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1/4 cup Sherry

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 cup whole milk

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice - I omitted this in fear of curdling my milk (frequent blog followers will know I have issues with milk curdling in my cooking)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 (6-oz) can tuna in olive oil, drained (we used 2 cans)

6 oz dried curly egg noodles

1 1/2 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (I used a mixture of panko and bread crumbs)

4 oz coarsely grated Cheddar (1 cup)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

print a shopping list for this recipe

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Butter a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Cook onion in 1 1/2 tablespoons butter (I used Pam) with a pinch of salt in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately low heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Increase heat to moderately high and add mushrooms, then sauté, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms begin to give off liquid, about 2 minutes. Add soy sauce and continue to sauté mushrooms, stirring, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated. Add Sherry and boil, stirring occasionally, until evaporated. Remove from heat.

Melt remaining 3 tablespoons butter in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat and whisk in flour, then cook roux, whisking, 3 minutes. Add broth in a stream, whisking, and bring to a boil, whisking. Whisk in milk and simmer sauce, whisking occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in mushroom mixture, lemon juice, and salt. Flake tuna into sauce and stir gently. Season sauce with salt and pepper.

Cook noodles in a 5- to 6-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain noodles in a colander and return to pot. Add sauce and stir gently to combine. Transfer mixture to baking dish, spreading evenly.

Toss together bread crumbs and cheese in a bowl. Drizzle with oil and toss again, then sprinkle evenly over casserole. Bake until topping is crisp and sauce is bubbling, 20 to 30 minutes.

Siete de Mayo

2011-05-07T22:22:00.004-04:00

So a few days, late - but better late than never.

And to tell the truth, I made these back in April. And as much as I loved these, this meal confirmed the reality that the hubs does not like any sweet type flavored enchilada and only likes meat in his enchiladas.

But if you're a true vegetarian lover, you will love these - just like I did.

I love plantains, and black beans, and Mexican food - so I decided to make some plantain and black bean enchiladas. They were a bit sweet, savory, filling and so yummy!

I followed the similar method for the plantains that I use to make my Fufu, boiling them in broth, peeling, mashing with green onion, lemon juice but I also included some taco seasoning in them this time. Then I laid those out in the tortilla with some black beans, some cheese, roll, top with sauce/cheese and bake and devour!

I baked these in the oven for about 30 minutes on 350 to heat through and met the cheese.

See it really couldn't be any easier!

The filling of the tortillas

YUMMY!!

Easy Beefy!

2011-05-07T22:09:00.004-04:00

I grew up outside of Chicago and grew up eating Italian Beef Sandwiches. Ever since moving to RI I've yet to find a suitable replacement for Italian Beef Sandwiches; there's cheese steak galore, steak grinders, you name it - but nothing that would be a suitable replacement for my beloved Italian Beef Sandwiches.

A few weeks ago I was browsing around on All Recipes and found a recipe for Pepperoncini Beef and what drew me in was that it was so easy, done in the crock pot, and followed a similar technique to my Kalua Pork recipe that I make.

This came out so delicious and made some killer sandwiches - so great actually we ate them 3 times in the week!

Still not the replacement of my Italian Beef Sandwiches from Chicago, but still pretty damn' good!

Ingredients

1 (3 pound) beef chuck roast

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 (16 ounce) jar pepperoncini - I used the whole peppers, not the rings

Directions

Make small cuts in roast, and insert garlic slices in cuts. Place roast in the slow cooker, and pour the entire contents of the jar of pepperoncini, including liquid, over meat.

Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.

Shred the meat and the pepperoncini and return to the crock pot on warm to sit in the juices and get tender. Serve on buns with cheese.

Breakfast for Dinner Really Is the Best!

2011-04-17T21:58:00.003-04:00

I love breakfast and all of the foods associated with it - hash, eggs, omelettes, waffles, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, grits, hash browns, home fries, toast, bagels, and let us not forget the beloved bacon and sausages - I'm drooling writing this!

Anytime I can make breakfast for dinner, it's a good night for me in our house. The hubs and I both rush out of the house in the morning, and while I do make a nice breakfast of egg whites or tofu to take with me to work, the hubs noshes on yogurt and fruit most mornings of the week. So having eggs and other breakfast deliciousness is not something we reserve just for weekend breakfast but weeknight dinners regularly.

There's a lot of recipes on the web for sweet potato and chorizo hash, and I just sort of winged the whole thing. In the end I ended up with a wonderful array of smoky goodness with the most wonderful creamy eggs on top and a sprinkling of our failed paneer cheese.

Sweet Potato & Chorizo Hash

From me.

2 medium sweet potatoes peeled and diced small

1 medium white potato peeled and diced small

ground chorizo sausage, as much as you'd like - I used two snack size storage bags full that were in our freezer.

1 onion peeled and diced finely

eggs

paprika, salt and pepper to taste.

Once your potatoes and onions are diced, heat a large nonstick skillet with a little oil and start to pan fry the potatoes and onions until brown and starting to get crispy but the potatoes are done. Then add in your chorizo near the end to heat. Sprinkle with salt, if needed - ours didn't need it - pepper and some smoky paprika. Top with poached or over easy eggs and a sprinkling of cheese.

Easy, delicious, hearty and filling!

My First Adventure with Paneer

2011-04-17T21:49:00.002-04:00

The first time I had paneer, my good friend Rupa brought me some to work to try - she's so good about brining me in tastes of the delicious food she and her husband make so I can try new Indian flavors and spices.

Since then I've been determined to make saag paneer. But I don't do anything half assed (ok that's a lie), so I decided to make my own paneer. Yeah that was a BIG FAT SUPER DUPER FAIL!!! Instead of forming in to a brick/cube, it came out all crumbly and well, it was great the next night on our has and eggs! So I had to make a pre-dinner run to Whole Foods to pick up paneer. Let me just say at 8.99 a box, and needing 2 boxes for the recipe, I need to work at finding a really fantastic recipe for making paneer at home.

The recipe for the spinach was pretty good, the flavor was great but it wasn't creamy enough for me, I wanted something more pureed and smooth. So this is a recipe I will continue to play with and figure out how to perfect.

Since I don't eat much meat, having the paneer as a protein option is really a nice choice and I just have to keep working at this!

Next time, I'm going to use this paneer recipe. And I relied on my old stand by of Serious Eats for the Saag Paneer recipe. Again, I just have to play around with the creaminess of it, but that's just my taste. I served this with naan and it was just a wonderful vegetarian meal full of great flavor.

Mark Bittman, My Type of Recipe Guru!

2011-04-15T18:43:00.003-04:00

Can I tell you how much I love Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express? I got the book from the library and have been trying some of the recipes out. Well, now I need to buy this book. These are my types of recipes and really how I cook - a little of this, a little of that, do this until it looks right/tastes right. No heavy list of ingredients and measurements. LOVE IT!

I made his recipe for Linguine with Pea Sauce and Prosciutto a few weeks ago and WOW what a delicious and easy meal to make! I served this as a side to some steaks that I grilled up and it was just the most perfect meal.

Linguine with Pea Sauce and Prosciutto
From Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express

Boil salted water for the pasta and cook it reserving some of the cooking water. While this is cooking, cook a bag of frozen peas and some chopped scallions in salted water until the peas are just tender. Set a few of the peas aside and then drain the peas and puree with some of the pasta water, leaving some whole for tossing in later. Cut Prosciutto in to matchstick pieces and pan fry until crispy in a non stick skillet. Add the whole peas to the prosciutto. Drain your pasta and toss it with the pea puree and toss in the prosciutto and peas. Top with some parmesan and voila.

This would be fantastic with seafood as well!

A Little Reuben love...

2011-04-03T16:32:00.004-04:00

Each year for St. Patty's day I make the hubs and I corned beef and cabbage for supper. And I always like to do something with the leftover corned beef - this year it was Reuben casserole, primarily because I had a HUGE jar of sauerkraut in the pantry that I wanted to start using.

This year though, I made a little change on the casserole than usual - primarily because of my lack of grocery list planning. I usually top my Reuben casserole with cubes of rye bread, however, I neglected to read the box of Tastefully Simple Rye Bread mix I had at home earlier in the week and therefore didn't buy the yogurt necessary for it. Instead, I had some leftover Irish Soda Bread from our St. Patty's Day feast and used that to top the dish - and it was simply delicious.

If you love a Reuben, like we do - I recommend this as a use for your leftover Corned Beef.

Reuben Casserole

1/2 cup reduced fat Thousand Island Dressing

1 can drained sauerkraut

chopped corned beef - you can use leftover or use some from the deli.

cubed rye or Irish Soda Bread

Caraway Seeds to sprinkle

Swiss Cheese

Spray a small casserole dish with cooking spray. add some thousand island on the bottom. then the beef, then sauerkraut, more thousand island, add the diced bead, sprinkle with caraway seeds to taste - about a teaspoon. Top with cheese and bake at 350 for 30 minutes until bubbly and the bread is toasty brown.

ENJOY!

Who needs Buffalo Wings...

2011-04-03T16:20:00.003-04:00

When you can have these awesome Buffalo Chickpea Patties?

OK, granted the meat lover will miss the chicken wings, but the non-meat lover will adore the kick of these!

And I can even say they are delicious leftover - even frozen and re-heated they are great. I've had them for breakfast on a biscuit (think Chick-Fil-A esque chickn' biscuit), I've had them on an English muffin, on a bun, and alone. And every way they are AWESOME!

I splurged and topped mine with some blue cheese and they were just great with the cheese - really gave it a hot wings dipped in blue cheese dressing feel.

Easy to make, great to eat! Hope these find a spot in your recipe rotation!

Thank You Veggie Belly for another great recipe!

Please note this is the recipe as on Veggie Belly - but I doubled the recipe to make extras for leftovers. The Hubs didn't think they were big enough (read: thick/meaty like enough) so he ate 2 patties on a bun. Next time I'll still double but make them thicker.

1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 c. rolled oats

1/4 c. buffalo sauce (note: if you like spice, and I don't always like spice, but I'll admit this could have used more buffalo sauce)

1 egg white

1 small yellow onion

1 tsp. garlic powder

Salt and pepper

Add chickpeas to a bowl, use a potato masher and mash until about 2/3 of the chickpeas are pasty and 1/3 are in pieces or whole.

Add the buffalo sauce to the chickpeas.

Add half of the oats to a food processor, pulse to create a crumb, add to the chickpeas. (Note: I blended all of the oats)

Beat the egg white in a small dish to a froth, add to the chickpeas.

Grate onion into the chickpeas, finally add the garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Use a spatula and fold mixture, combining ingredients well.

***At this point, from making other veggie patties, I knew to let this sit a bit to let the oats do their thing so you get a firm/solid patty. I highly recommend letting this sit for about 10 minutes or so before forming in to patties.***

Heat a griddle over medium, spray with nonstick spray or add 1 T oil.

Use a 1/3 measuring cup to portion out chickpea mixture onto griddle, this yields about 5 patties.

Cook patties for 5-7 minutes, until crispy and brown, flip gently and cook for another 5-7 minutes.

Cookie Challenge, Take 3

2011-04-03T15:57:00.003-04:00

So take 3 - still no perfect cookie.

I had really high hopes for this recipe, but to be honest, as much as I have a girl-crush on Nigella Lawson, her chocolate chip cookie recipe just didn't do much for me.

Don't get me wrong, it was good - and quite frankly the taste was the best in my opinion (think more buttery and shortbread-esque) - but the texture lacked for me. I think that's because I know I want a thinner and crispier cookie now and not something big and poofy.

Overall, I did enjoy these but the next day they were really hard. I think because they cook low and long, it makes them really dry out and that causes a harder cookie the next day. Even the reviews at my office were that these were not as good as the Alton Brown recipe texture wise,

but taste wise it was an even split between these and the AB cookie recipe.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Cookies

10 T butter softened, unsalted

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 t. vanilla

1 egg - COLD

1 egg yolk - COLD

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 t baking soda

1 bag chocolate chip cookies

Preheat oven to 325. Line cookie sheets with Silpats or parchment

melt the butter and let it cool. Put the brown and white sugar in a bowl, pour the slightly cooled butter over them and beat together.

Beat in the vanilla, cold egg and egg yolk and mix until light and creamy.

Slowly mix in the flour and baking soda until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the cookies in to quarter cup measures and bake 3 inches apart. Chill dough in between batches.

Bake 15-17 minutes or until the edges are lightly toasted.

ENJOY!!

My review

Chocolate Chip Used: Hershey's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip. After playing around with milk, dark and now semi-sweet, I've determined s-s is the best chip to use - a little sweet creaminess, a little bite of bitter - the perfect mix. Perhaps that's why it is called semi-sweet

Ease of Recipe:Comes together really quickly, no chill time excpet for when cookies are baking, which I love! And she uses all ingredients from cold except the butter so it's even easier

OOO (Out of Oven) Texture: I think the 2nd yolk here adds a fluffiness and cake-like texture to this cookie. The are not browned on top and are a more "rustic" looking cookie, they do have a nice lightly crispy bottom though and are so soft
OOO Taste:The taste is spot on - really hardly much sweet, prob. The least sweet of any cookie we've made so far. This is a wonderful baking chip and I've determined now that all cookies need a semi sweet, for the creaminess, the sweetness and the bitterness combo. They taste buttery, rich and have more of a sugar/shortbread cookie taste to me than a traditional choco. chip cookie batter taste

Milk Dunk Test: doesn't soften the cookie or anything, just a milky harder cookie.

DA (Day After) Texture: Certainly a harder cookie than any other cookie we've made. It doesn't retain any thing soft about it. It's dense and firm and dried like a store bought cookie.

DA Taste: Taste is still really good though.

Appearance: love the rustic feel of them, there's no shame here in an inperfect cookie. They bake poofy and rounded and don't really flatten out but more poof up as they bake creating a really fluffy light cookie.

Husband Rating: Finally made him one with no chips and he said it's good but he prefers Alton's recipe that it's a bit sweeter and had a better texture for him.

Overall Notes: The cookie has a great flavor and is pretty close to the flavor I'd like for a cookie, buttery and mild, but the texture just isn't doing anything for me on the second day, they are great out of the oven and warn, nice and fluffy, cakey and soft, but once they sit, they become like little rock nuggets and the only thing that saves them is re-nuking in the microwave. How can i combine the softness of Alton's recipe with the taste of this recipe??

More Sausage Making

2011-03-19T19:36:00.005-04:00

The hubs made a Greek sausage a few weeks ago - we're going to enjoy it this week. We'll let you know the verdict.

We also enjoyed the Bangers he made and they were just delicious - It was so fun to have homemade bangers and mash without having to make the drive to our favorite Irish Pub (it is only 10 minutes away but still!)

The Best Thing We ate in Turkey

2011-03-19T19:19:00.003-04:00

We can now make at home!

We had the most delicious eggplant salad in Turkey at this great little family owned restaurant and it left such an impression on us as one of the best things we ate during our trip. I searched for Turkish Eggplant Salad recipes when I came home, coming up with a lot of babaganoush of course! But that was NOT what we had.

Finally, I struck gold with a recipe that had a picture and it looked pretty close to what we ate.

We did a Mediterranean food night the other week and made the eggplant salad, enjoyed some yummy pita (ok store bought) and some grape leaves (also, purchased from a great little restaurant near my office for 3 bucks for a dozen!).

The salad was WONDERFULLY yummy - maybe I added more tomato than what was in it when we had it in Turkey but it was pretty close. I am thinking we may have had it with white eggplants though, as the texture of the eggplant seemed a bit different than what we had. Either way it was still fantastic.

I took a container of it in to work as well and it received rave reviews. This is surely something I think would be great to make this summer when the gardens and farmer's markets are plentiful - it would be great at a cookout with some pitas.

We did like it with the pita, but we had it with this wonderful fluffy light bread in Turkey. Thankfully I had a bit of Italian bread left in the house and we both agreed it was MUCH better with bread than pita, it really gets the juices soaked in and the flavors are stand out much more on bread than pita. But really both are equally yummy!

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Roasted Eggplant Salad

Adapted from Hayriye's Turkish Food and Recipes

2 medium eggplants

1-2 cubanelle peppers (one was PLENTY for us, we're not pepper eaters)

1 tomato, diced - or use some halved/quartered grape tomatoes

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ cup olive oil

½ lemon’s juice

2-3 sprigs parsley, chopped

1 tsp salt to taste

To prepare the sauce, place lemon juice, olive oil and minced garlic in a wide bowl and whisk to emulsify.

Now, you can roast the eggplants and peppers whole until they are tender, then remove them from the oven, remove the skins, etc. However, I was lazy and just peeled and diced the eggplant and roasted it with some oil and salt in the oven on 425 for about 40 minutes - tossing throughout. For the pepper, I roasted over my gas flame on the stove, then removed the skin, seeds/stem and chopped.

Now about 10 minutes near the end, I added the peppers in to the oven with the eggplant, and 5 minutes to go, I added in the tomato to soften that a bit too - but next time, I would not do that with the tomato - it was certainly more fresh how we had it in Turkey and not cooked.

Once your veggies are roasted (either pre-diced or dicing after they are roasted), toss everything in to the sauce and toss to coat.

Did You Celebrate It??

2011-03-19T19:15:00.003-04:00

National Pancake Day that is!

We sure did!

I made our puff-up pancake with berries and some breakfast links. DELICIOUS!!

If you haven't made the puff-up pancake yet -either sweet or savory - make it soon! You'll feel like you've missed out on the most awesome pancake-y goodness once you try it!!

Pea-Lafel

2011-03-19T19:00:00.004-04:00

So, if you are a frequent reader you know my affinity for Aarti on Foodnetwork. Well did you know she has a blog?? Um, I didn't and I can't believe I haven't found it before. It's a great mix of recipes, music, culture, fun and more - check it out.

So back in Feb. we made these WONDERFUL pealafel sandwiches for dinner from her Belly Dance show. Oh my goodness they were so good and really more flavorful that traditional falafel. They were rich, crispy, smooth, creamy and had the most beautiful vibrant green color.

I do have to say though they did not re-heat in the microwave well the next day for lunch and became a bit greasy, but I think re-heating in the oven would be a much better route - that is if you have any left, because they are so good you'll want to eat them all!

We served with a simple tabouli salad and in pitas with the sauce - delicious!!!

This is certainly a great summer meal as tomatoes, cukes, and herbs start sprouting!!

Pea-Lafel/Fried Pea & Mint Sandwiches

Adapted from Aarti Parti, Food Network

For the Sauce

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 cup plain non-fat yogurt

1/2 cup lightly packed fresh mint leaves, finely chopped, plus 3/4 cup whole leaves

Kosher salt

For the patties

1 cup frozen peas, thawed and drained

1 cup frozen edamame, thawed and drained

1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup flour

Canola oil, for frying

pitas, halved

2 large vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into large dice

1 large English cucumber, sliced into 1/8-inch rounds

In a small skillet, toast the fennel and coriander seeds for a couple of minutes until they're fragrant and slightly darker, about 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and throw into a coffee/spice grinder. Grind to a fine powder.

For the yogurt sauce: Mix the yogurt with the 1/2 cup finely chopped mint leaves and a generous pinch of salt. Chill in the fridge.

Throw the peas, edamame, ground spices, shallot, garlic, remaining whole mint leaves, olive oil, and salt into a food processor and puree until smooth. It won't get completely smooth because of the edamame, but process until it is as smooth as possible.

Scrape into a big bowl and stir in the flour. The mixture will still be pretty soft. Not to worry!

Pour enough oil into a large skillet - about 1/4-inch deep. Heat over medium heat until shimmering. Then shape the pea mixture into 12 small patties the size of a golf ball, and then gently drop into the oil. I did this by using my cookie scoop to get the rounded size I wanted. I then flattened them a bit between my hands before popping in the oil. Fry until the bottoms are browned and then carefully flip over. Brown the other side, and then remove from the pan and drain on a paper towel-lined plate - do drain them!! they retain a bit of oil and you'll want that to soak out before you put these in your pitas.

Serve warm in a pita bread pocket stuffed with the fresh veggies and a spoonful of the yogurt sauce.

Cookie Challenge, Take 2

2011-03-15T21:05:00.003-04:00

So I made the 2nd cookie in my quest for the most perfect chocolate chip cookie... and it was pretty darn good.

I went with Alton Brown's The Chewy for round 2. It certainly was a good cookie, good enough in fact that I used the same batter recipe to make the hubs butterscotch cookies the following week.

I think I've run in to an issue with this cookie challenge though - I think the problem is I can't figure out what type of cookie I like!! This week, to try and figure things out, since I have been too sick to bake lately, I bought a break and bake package of the Pilsbury Simple chocolate chip cookies - you know the ones that are all natural ingredients? Well, aside from them being overly greasy - I think I really like that thin crispy type of chocolate chip cookie. And while I do enjoy the thick and chewy ones too - I think I really dig the thin ones - crispy edges, squishy center.

So now I'm on a mission to find that type of chocolate chip cookie recipe as well - you know I want to be fair and equitable to all of the recipes I can :)

But now on to the Chewy

Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Hardware:

Ice cream scooper / cookie scoop

Silpat

Baking sheets

Mixer

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

I took a pile of cookies to my office - these seemed to get a better review from most people than the brown sugar ones the weeks before.

My review:

Chocolate Chip Used: Toll House Milk Chocolate Chip

Ease of Recipe: Pretty easy to put together, not too many ingredients, did get tedious though with 2 T of this, 1 of this and the bonus egg yolk but overall still easy.

OOO (Out of Oven) Texture: only crispy thing about the cookie is the bottom. Nice shape, full and poofy, light cookie, spongy-cake like when you get a piece without chocolate chips in it.

OOO Taste: Not too sweet, the chips are extremely creamy - seems like this is a good baking chip.

Milk Dunk Test: doesn't absorb much milk or get mushy or anything. Better not dipped in milk.

DA (Day After) Texture:Denser than the day before, not so spongy, but still has a cake-like quality. A little crunch on the outside but interior is still really soft.

DA Taste: flavors blended more but still a choc. Chip cookie.

Appearance: Very even dimension, very poofy/tall cookie, gets a little crinkly top crust on it. A nice looking cookie.

Husband Rating: Better if no chocolate. Very soft, just spongey, not so chewy. Good, but too much chocolate (all 6 chips he had!). I did make these with butterscotch chips too and he said it was a great cookie without the chocolate chips!

Overall Notes: I like the cakey texture of this cookie but do wish it was a bit crispier. It's really a great cookie warm and fresh out of the oven or re-heated in the microwave. Overall a good cookie, I think I like it better than the brown sugar cookies the other week.

Like our sushi bowls - but vegetarian!!

2011-03-15T20:44:00.003-04:00

We made these, so long ago now, but it was a really good meal and certainly blog-worthy - it just took me time to get to it!

I secretly borrowed (ahem, stole) this recipe out of the magazine at my chiropractor's office and let me tell you I am so glad I did and it was so good I have no remorse.

This meal was really easy to make, really filling and satisfying and a great vegetarian, actually vegan dish. I will say though that between the sesame oil and sesame seeds it was a bit sesame-y, and if you don't do well with that much sesame (like me) you may want to cut back on some of the sesame goodness.

This recipe comes from Health.com magazine from Sept. 2010 and I've written it with my adaptations below. Thanks Dr. D for not noticing I took this page of your magazine (oh and 3 others!!, it's OK the magazine was there for 4 months!)

Rice with Edamame and Sea Greens

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (brown or white)

1 container shitake mushrooms cleaned and chopped up (you can use reconstituted dried mushrooms here)

1/2 cup dried seaweed

1/2 small onion finely chopped - we just used green onion

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

1 T sesame oil

2 T low sodium soy sauce

1 cup shelled edamame cooked

Cook your rice, soak your mushrooms if using dried - or chop the fresh if you're going that route. Add the mushrooms, seaweed, sesame seeds, onion, soy sauce and edamame to the rice and stir to combine. Toss with soy sauce and garnish with more toasted sesame seeds.

ENJOY! it was super tasty and would really be a powerhouse of a lunch at work too!

The Most Perfect Pad Thai

2011-03-14T18:10:00.003-04:00

I have made this recipe twice now and the hubs and I agree, it is by far the best Pad Thai at home recipe out there - and we've tried quite a few.

I guess we really shouldn't have expected anything but a perfect Pad Thai recipe from a site called Thai Table! And actually this recipe is so good that even writing this post is making me have a great desire to make it right now!!

For us, I can plan to make Pad Thai but it never works because bean sprouts are not something that our market always has on hand. So this dish usually turns out to be a spur of the moment dinner on a Saturday night when we found good bean sprouts at the market.

I always make shrimp Pad Thai - and I like to add the tofu in but the hubs doesn't love it with the tofu. And if you can find tamarind paste, get some and use it to make this dish - it really does make the dish so perfect!

The Most Perfect Pad Thai

adapted from Thai Table

1/2 lime

1 egg

4 teaspoons fish sauce

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon siracha

1 shallot, minced

2 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoon tamarind

1/2 package Thai rice noodles

2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2-1/4 lb shrimp

1/3 cup tofu - extra firm diced or strips

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion

2 tablespoons peanuts

1-1/3 cup bean sprouts

Soak the dry noodles in lukewarm water until tender. Julienne tofu green onion in to pieces Rinse the bean sprouts and save half for serving fresh. Mince shallot and garlic together.

I make my Pad Thai in ingredient rotation so that things stay prettier and more solid - not falling apart. First, heat the wok and toast the peanuts. Then remove those. Then add your oil to your work and add in your shrimp. When those are cooked, remove and set aside. Add a touch more oil and then scramble your egg and remove and set in with the shrimp. Add a touch more of the oil and then add the shallot, garlic and tofu. Then add in your tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and siracha. Then toss in your noodles and toss - then toss in your shrimp and egg and half of your bean sprouts and green onion.

Once on serving places, sprinkle with peanuts, bean sprouts and a wedge of lime and some more of the green onions and enjoy!

Now That's Down Home Cooking

2011-03-14T18:01:00.003-04:00

I'm not a big chicken eater, but I do still love me some chicken n' dumplings and so does the hubs. However, the hubs grew up with cut dumplings, I grew up with fluffy Bisquick dumplings. So it's always a toss up as to what to make in our house.

This time, I opted to do the dumplings that the hubs likes and used the same recipe I used last time from All Recipes.

It's a good recipe, but I just wish the dumplings were a bit lighter and fluffier. So if anyone can recommend a different strip dumpling recipe that doesn't make the dumplings so tough and more light and fluffy, that would be greatly appreciated.

For my chicken stew, I actually stew a chicken all day with carrots, onion, garlic, salt, pepper and bay leaves. Once the chicken is tender, I take it out piece by piece and de-bone, de-fat and shred it up. I then strain the broth and get all of the flavor-adders out. I then return the chicken to the pot, add the carrots back in, some peas, mushrooms, you name it - and then come the dumplings - either strip or Bisquick. It's delish!

Strip Dumplings

adapted from All Recipes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/4 cup shortening

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

In a bowl, combine flour,s alt and poultry seasoning; cut in shortening until crumbly. Combine egg and milk; stir into flour mixture just until combined. On a heavily floured surface, roll dough to 1/4-in. thickness. Cut into 1-in. strips; cut strips into 2-in. lengths. Place gently in your stew and cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes

I shall never whack a can again...

2011-02-13T16:36:00.003-05:00

Of store bought cinnamon rolls that is.

I love cinnamon rolls - it's kind of an unhealthy obsession.

But thankfully I'm married to a man who doesn't love cinnamon rolls - he can take them or leave them.

So this saves my waistline quite a bit of cinnamon roll bulge!

So, I've never made homemade sticky, ooey gooey cinnamon rolls, because why go to all the work of proofing dough, waiting, rolling, if it's really just for me.

Until I came across this recipe on Baking Bites for Lighter Every Day Cinnamon Rolls from America's Test Kitchen.

Well I'll be damed! Talk about fantastic! Talk about easy! Talk about fast! I will make these again, and again - watch out waistline!!

Lighter Everyday Cinnamon Rolls

Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen via Baking Bites

Filling

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp salt

Next time I may add 1/8 tsp-1/4 tsp. nutmeg as well

Dough

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 oz) all purpose flour

3/4 cup (4 1/8 oz) whole wheat flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

5 tbsp butter, melted and cooled, divided

**Next time, I will use all white flour, the wheat flour I feel made the dough a little gummier than I'd like for a cinnamon roll**

Glaze

3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 oz light cream cheese

1 tbsp buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425F. Line an 8-inch square baking dish with aluminum foil and lightly grease.

Prepare the filling. Whisk together all filling ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

Prepare the dough: In a large bowl, or the bowl of an electric mixer, combine all purpose flour, whole what flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine. Add in buttermilk and 4 tablespoons of the melted butter and mix until dough starts to come together into a shaggy ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 1-2 minutes, until dough begins to look smooth and can be handled easily. This can also be done by kneading for about 1 minute with a paddle attachment or dough hook, and adding a tablespoon or two of flour to a mixer bowl.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and press or roll out into a 9×12-inch rectangle with the long side facing you. Take remaining tablespoon of melted butter and brush over dough rectangle. Sprinkle evenly with filling mixture, leaving a 1/2-inch border around each edge.

Using a bench scraper to help you (or a large, flat spatula if you don’t have one), roll the dough up into a tight spiral. Pinch seam to seal.

Use a serrated knife to cut dough into 9 even pieces. Gently flatten each of the rolls before placing them in the prepared pan, to even them out if they were misshaped when sliced.

Cover pan with aluminum foil.

Bake for 12 minutes covered, then uncover the rolls and bake for 14-18 minutes, until golden brown.

Use the foil to life the rolls out of the baking pan and place them on a wire rack. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Prepare the glaze: In a medium bowl, whisk all glaze ingredients together with a hand mixer until very smooth. Drizzle over slightly cooled rolls and serve.

Store leftovers in an airtight container after they have completely cooled.

Makes 9 cinnamon rolls.

NOTE: Probably eating 2 cinnamon rolls with a bunch of bacon, negates the "lighter" side of this breakfast!!

Look, another Chinese dish...

2011-02-13T16:18:00.003-05:00

Go figure, right?

The hubs and I went up to Boston in November and went to our favorite Asian market C-Mart. We picked up these great noodles but had NO CLUE what to do with them. And I couldn't find anything about them online. Fuzhou Noodles. Apparently it's a type of cuisine but I couldn't find any recipes for sauces or ingredients to toss with the noodles.

After a sample cook batch, we decided they'd be good with something saucy, since they cook up and have a lot of starch in them, it would help thicken any dish.

That's when I remembered I had a recipe in my Google Reader for Udon in a Spicy Gravy and I thought that would fit the bill. I was right - it sure did! And I'd make this sauce again with any starchy type noodle. Thank you Eating Pleasure for this great sauce recipe.

Fuzhou Noodles in Spicy Brown Gravy

Adapted from Eating Pleasure

1 package Fuzhou Noodles, cooked and trained

1/2 head of cabbage cooked to tender with sesame oil

1/2 lb. shrimp cooked

1/2 lb. diced pork, cooked

1 package dried shitake mushrooms soaked to tender and chopped

1 can water chestnuts, drained

3 cloves of garlic, minced

In a large skillet with sesame oil, brown your shrimp and pork and set aside. Then sautee the cabbage with some sesame oil until it's tender and browned. Toss in the mushrooms and let them heat. Add in the water chestnuts and your meats. Add in the garlic and sautee.

In a measuring cup mix 2T corn starch with 3 T water and set aside.

When all ingredients are back in the skillet, add in the following items:

250ml water

2 tbsp of light soy sauce

1 & 1/2 tbsp of dark soy sauce

1 tbsp of oyster sauce

1 tsp of sesame oil

1 tbsp of chili paste

dash of white pepper

Stir in the corn starch slurry and stir until sauce thickens. Toss in your noodles and stir to combine.

For how many noodles were in this package, we had to triple the sauce - so judge accordingly for your own amount of noodles and veggies/meats. This made so much food, we got 8 servings out of this - 2 dinners (1 with seconds) and two leftover lunches.

I'm on a mission

2011-02-13T15:05:00.003-05:00

I made myself a bucket list for 2011. Things I want to try, accomplish, do. One of the cooking related things on my 2011 bucket list is to find the PERFECT chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Now, I know, it's a chocolate chip cookie Steph, who cares? I care! I don't have a go to chocolate chip cookie recipe. And I love a good chocolate chip cookie, so I'm really ready to find the PERFECT recipe.

So I'm taking my time and making cookies this year, hoping to find the ultimate recipe for a basic chocolate chip cookie - nothing fancy, nothing with add ins, just a basic chocolate chip cookie.

In order to keep track of my baking, I've made myself a spread sheet. DORK? YES! But this way I'll be able to recall the cookies and really find the best recipe for me. I've also started freezing one dough ball of each cookie - and at the end of the year, I'll bake all of them and figure out really, once and for all, which one is superior for my tastes.

So what am I judging on? Appearance, out of oven taste/texture, milk dunk test, day after taste/texture, and the hubs take on the cookie. I mean, he HATES chocolate chip cookies, and really cookies in general. But if I can find a cookie he even remotely enjoys, than that has a lot to do in the ratings scheme as well.

So I started the other weekend with this recipe from Baking Bites for Brown Sugar Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

My review:

Chocolate Chip Used: Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Pieces

Ease of Recipe: Super easy recipe, very few ingredients, no chill time. Quick to prep and bake. Done in 3 cookie sheets and 1 hour total, start to finish.

OOO (Out of Oven) Texture: Crispy bottom, fluffy - taller cookie, soft center that is still moist, crispy edges.

OOO Taste: Not too sweet, mild chocolate flavor (dark chocolate)

Milk Dunk Test: Doesn't absorb a ton of milk but it does help make it a little moister. When dunked when the cookie is hot it's DELICIOUS!!

DA (Day After) Texture:Firm, center is still soft as is cookie, lost its crispy edge, a very dense and solid cookie

DA Taste: a little sweeter, still the same. Just cold

Appearance: Not all pieces have chocolate chunks at the surface but just brown flat tops, but very symmetrical in size, not too much spreading

Husband Rating: Not bad, better if no chocolate. Soft interior but the bottom is too crunchy, top is fine

Overall Notes: Overall a really nice cookie, good taste, texture and not too sweet. I think the chocolate pieces tended to sink during the cooking process a bit compared to how the recipe was pictured. Should have floured my chips perhaps? The cookie is great the 2nd day if you warm it in the microwave for 7 seconds. Determined this is really a cookie that is best served warm because it is so dense.

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chunk Cookies

from Baking Bites

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt (pref. kosher salt)

14 tbsp butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups dark or semisweet chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until smooth and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, gradually blend in the flour mixture until no streaks of dry ingredients remain visible. Stir in chocolate chunks.

Shape dough into balls just over 1-inch in diameter. Place on prepared baking sheet, allowing for room to spread.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, until cookies are very lightly browned around the edges. Cookies may look slightly “wet” – but not raw – at the center (bake until golden all over for crispier cookies).

Cool for 3-4 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 2 1/2 – 3 dozen cookies

Before I forget...

2011-02-13T14:53:00.002-05:00

Since I really keep this blog as a way to eliminate paper in my house - you know all of those ripped out recipes, print outs, photo copies, etc. - I try to put everything on here I make that I'd ever want to make again. And since I know I have a little following as well, I figure it's great for you to see what I stand by as well. Because, I promise, I will tell you if something is bad, not worth your time, energy or effort.

For a while now, I've been making this pasta sauce recipe, and I've never blogged it. Now, while it's so easy I don't really need it written down, it would be a problem if, say, I had to rely on having the hubs make dinner and said "Make the sauce babe" and he had no clue where to turn as a reference. now THAT would be tragic!! Because this sauce is that good - and if you aren't making it or even using it as your staple sauce - that is a BIG problem!!

This sauce is rich, flavorful, coats pasta so well, and really doesn't need any of the fancy bells and whistles or extras added in. In fact, the ONLY thing I add in is a few cracks of black pepper. I've tried it with adding garlic, basil, blah blah blah and NOTHING compares to how it tastes just plain, as is.

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions

Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking via Smitten Kitchen

28 ounces whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them) *NOTE* In a pinch, to make it a faster meal - I start out just using 28 oz. of pureed tomatoes - same taste, half the time.

5 tablespoons unsalted butter (or a stick - it's good with both!)

1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved * DO NOT DICE, CHOP, NOTHING - just peel and cut in half and toss in the sauce*

Salt and black pepper to taste * I have NEVER added salt, it doesn't need it!

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste (you might find, as I did, that your tomatoes came salted and that you didn’t need to add more) and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

I like to toss the sauce with the pasta here instead of topping the pasta with the sauce. It's great all mixed together. You can add parmesan, but it really does not need it.

Well, it's sorta vegetarian!

2011-02-13T14:43:00.003-05:00

Here I was thinking, wow what a great vegetarian meal we just had. Then the hubs had to rain on my parade and remind me that I started the recipe by rendering the fat out of pancetta and then continued to eat the pancetta in with the recipe. D'oh! Well, my intentions were good.... le sigh.

This was a wonderful recipe - and when the hubs enjoys a recipe sans meat and asks for it again, well it MUST be AWESOME!!!

This recipe was really easy to make, had a great range of flavors and textures, and was really feeling. Made a great leftover too - so great, that we fought over who would get to eat them. Yeah, seriously, it was that good! It's not a really saucy pasta, it just coats the noodles - so if you like more sauce, double the sauce recipe.

Spaghetti with Chickpeas [Spaghetti con Ceci]

From Michael White, via New York Magazine, via Smitten Kitchen

15 ounces canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup chicken stock

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 cup pancetta, diced (a little shy of 2 ounces)

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

Pinch chile flakes

1 14-ounce can petite diced tomatoes

2-3 tsp. dried basil

1 pound spaghetti

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese to taste

Set 1/3 cup of chickpeas aside. In a blender or food processor, combine remaining chickpeas with chicken stock and pulse a few times until chickpeas are chopped.

Place a large pot over medium heat and add olive oil and diced pancetta. Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes until lightly browned. Add onions, garlic, and chile flakes. Continue cooking until onions and garlic are translucent, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add chickpea mixture, tomatoes, and basil, and let simmer for 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper - mine didn't need any added salt, but I did add some cracked black pepper. While sauce is cooking, cook your spaghetti, until al dente - don't over cook your pasta you don't want is mushy for this recipe. Reserve one cup of pasta water and drain the rest. Toss pasta with chickpea sauce, reserved chickpeas and half of the reserved pasta water until evenly coated and heated through, about one minute. If sauce still feels too thick add reserved pasta water as needed. I ended up adding about half of the water. Season again, as needed, and serve with grated Parmesan.

A Quick & Easy Weeknight Dinner

2011-02-13T14:33:00.003-05:00

This meal could not be any easier. I mean 3o minutes start to finish is just perfect for a weeknight meal.

And this meal makes a TON of food, so be prepared to freeze some leftovers - they freeze wonderfully and reheat so well for lunches during the week at work.

I had some mini ravioli in my freezer that I was going to make my traditional tortellini and vegetable soup with - but then came across this recipe and figured I'd try something new. I did make some alterations to the recipe so I'll post it as I made it here.

Mini Ravioli and Meatball Soup

Adapted from Tasty Planner

1 T Olive Oil

1 lb. frozen meatballs - I used Ikea meatballs, you could use turkey, beef, whatever you have on had.

1 onion, chipped

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

3 cans beef broth + 1 cup water (I added the extra water to add some extra broth since I added veggies and used more than 1 large package of ravioli)

2 cans Italian herb-flavored diced tomatoes with juice

1 pkg. fresh or frozen mini cheese ravioli

2 zucchini chopped in to half circles

In a large stock pot heat your oil and add your meatballs and brown them on all sides. Remove the meatballs and then add in some more oil and your onion, garlic and pepper. Then add in your zucchini to start to brown. Once things get tender and lightly browned, add in your broth, water and tomatoes and bring all of that to a boil. Add your meatballs back in and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add in your mini ravioli and simmer another 8-10 minutes, until the ravioli are cooked through and tender.

Serve with some bread and sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese!

Oh Indian Food - I LOVE YOU!!!

2011-02-13T14:12:00.002-05:00

Seriously, I think I love Indian food as much as I love Thai and Japanese and Chinese food. It's a vicious 4 way love affair when it comes to meal planning at my house.

My friend recently asked me if I had a recipe for Keema, which I did not. But I found one online and my good friend Rupa assured me it seemed pretty authentic. So I figured I'd give it a shot and see how it was.

Along with the Keema Matar, I decided I'd try yet another Aarti Party recipe (surprise, surprise, right??) for her Chapatis. The whole meal was absolutely fantastic and I will make it again.

The Keema Matar was flavorful, aromatic and filling. The chapatis were fun to make, quite easy, tasty and were a great pair with the keema.

Keema Matar

adapted from Simply Spicy

1 lb. ground meat - beef, turkey or chicken

2 cup - frozen green peas, lightly defrosted

1 Onion, chopped

1'' piece of ginger peeled and minced

2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 can petite diced tomatoes, undrained

2 cinnamon sticks

2 cardamom pods crushed

3 cloves

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp each Coriander, Turmeric, Cunim, Red chili powder

pinch of salt

Cilantro to sprinkle on top

Mix coriander, turmeric, red chili and cumin powder with little water, salt and set aside.

Heat oil in a pan and fry onions until golden brown. Add garlic, ginger, tomatoes, cardamom, cinnamom, cloves, bay leaf and fry for 3 - 4 minutes. Add the powder paste and continue frying for a minute.

Add ground meat, peas and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until meat turns brown. Add 1 and 1/4th cup boiling water to the meat. Cover and cook on low heat until meat is cooked and the gravy is thick. Now you can further cook without the lid, till all the water is used up. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Chapatis from Aarti Party on Foodnetwork. I made these as she did, but used white flour (I didn't have wheat). So refer to her recipe here for the technique and ingredients - but I promise you it couldn't be easier. Just be sure to leave 30 minutes of rise time for the dough.

The Hubs Makes Sausages

2011-02-13T13:53:00.003-05:00

The hubs has been interested in making his own sausages at home for quite some time now. So for his Chribirthday (yes, that's Christmas Birthday), I got him all of the fun things he'd need to take on this challenge.

He has been grinding his own meat for a while now with the Kitchen Aid grinder attachment, so I outfitted him with the sausage making attachments and a sausage cook book.

His first adventures was in making Bangers. He used the recipe from the Home Sausage Making Cookbook by Susan Mahnke Perry & Charles Reavis. He really seems to be enjoying this book as it talks about techniques, has a ton of recipes and easily works its way from making fresh sausage to smoking and curing sausages.

He also tried the recipe for Chicken Bratwurst from the cookbook and while he admits that the casing he used was probably what made it a challenge, he does think making chicken sausages is harder than beef sausages.

And I can honestly say I'm enjoying his new adventure in making sausages. They are so tasty, cook up nicely and once summer grill season hits I know we'll be enjoying the sausages he's frozen even more.

Hard at work making bangers

So Proud!

YUMMY!!!

It's a Golden Ripple of Goodness

2011-02-06T15:50:00.002-05:00

There's a great ice cream place where the hubs and I go each summer and they have a delicious Golden Ripple Ice Cream - vanilla with caramel and Kit-Kat bars. TO DIE FOR DELICIOUS!!

And now that it's February and we have a mountain of now on the ground, I'm craving Golden Ripple - makes sense, right?

So I decided to try my hand at making it myself. And it didn't turn out half bad if I might say so!

I started off by taking a stab at making homemade caramel sauce for the first time. It worked pretty well actually! I used a recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe for Divine Carmel Sauce. Her recipe was delicious and easy and surprisingly, I didn't mess it up!

Divine Caramel SauceFrom The Joy of Cooking via Mel's Kitchen Cafe

1/4 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into 8 pieces

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

In a small, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Set the pan over low heat and stir the mixture gently until the sugar is dissolved. I don’t ever get a completely clear syrup but I let it warm over medium-low heat (a 3 on my stovetop) for at least 6-10 minutes before moving to the next step. To be sure the sugar is dissolved, I’ll dip a spoon in the sugar mixture and then gently slide my finger over the mixture on the spoon and take a taste. If the sugar is dissolved, the syrup will be smooth and not at all grainy. If you still feel grains of sugar, keep stirring over low heat until it is completely dissolved. Make sure the sugar is completely dissolved before letting the mixture come to a boil. Once the sugar is completely dissolved, increase the heat to

medium or medium-high and bring the syrup to a boil. Cover the saucepan and let the syrup boil for 2 minutes. Uncover, reduce the heat to medium, and continue to boil the syrup until the edges start to turn golden brown. Carefully and gently stir the syrup until it turns a deep amber, caramel color. On my stove, this takes about 5-7 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the butter. Gently stir until the butter is incorporated. Stir in the cream. If the sauce becomes lumpy and isn’t whisking together, set the pan over low heat and stir until smooth. Stir in the vanilla and salt.

Serve the sauce warm or at room temperature. Store the sauce in a jar or

airtight container, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. Reheat on low power in the microwave or in a saucepan, adding a tablespoon of two or water, if needed, if the sauce is too thick.

Now if you're going to just use the caramel and not make this ice cream, serve it warm, enjoy! But I learned that if the sauce is too warm when you go to layer it in with the cold ice cream, you end up with a high ratio of ice crystals in your ice cream and not the smooth creamy vanilla ice cream texture you're going to be seeking. So let this cool if you're going to put it in as a mix in for ice cream. I would almost make this the day before and let it cool and sit in the fridge before making the ice cream.

Stephany's Take on Golden Ripple Ice Cream

1 cup whole milk, well chilled

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 cups heavy cream, well chilled

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 bag fun sized Kit-Kats, open each piece and cut them in to thirds - You'll use all but 3 pieces of the candy -because those are the three pieces you'll want to indulge in as you are making this - trust me!

Special Equipment: Mix It In Soft-Serve Ice Cream Maker

Place milk and sugar in a medium bowl. Use a hand mixer on low speed for about 1 to 2 minutes or a whisk to mix until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla extract. If not freezing immediately, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Turn on ice cream maker and pour in ingredients. Allow to mix and freeze until desired serving consistency is reached. Begin checking consistency after 12 to 15 minutes of freezing. If ice cream is not thick enough, pour back into the freezer bowl and continue mixing/freezing until desired consistency is reached, checking every few minutes.

In a freezable container, place a thin layer of candy pieces. Then scoop in a layer of ice cream from the maker. Place another layer of candies, drizzle in some caramel, ice cream, candies, caramel, ice cream, etc. until you end with ice cream. Sprinkle some of the remaining candy pieces and crumbs on the top of the container and drizzle with some more caramel, pop the lid on and freeze for at least 24 hours before indulging!

I guarantee this will taste like summer, in the middle of a miserable winter! Just add flip flops and sun glasses!

A Baking Challenge - FAIL!

2011-02-06T15:22:00.004-05:00

A group of my girlfriends and I are taking part in a Woman of the Year Challenge. We're doing a monthly challenge together, keeping score, and at the end of the year, we will name a Woman of the Year. We're trying to find out who is the best all around woman. Now, no mean comments or anything, this is all in good fun. We're making new friends, laughing A LOT!, getting out more often with the girls, and trying things that put some of us out of our comfort zone.

Our first challenge was a Dave & Buster's Ticket Challenge. With $2o bucks, how many tickets could you win. And no secretly re-loading your card!

Our second challenge was a cookie baking challenge. Some of the girls were doing test runs, really putting a ton of effort in to this challenge. I chose what I was going to make the night before the big event. And I chose a cookie I've never made before. Risky, yes. Did it pay off? HELL NO! I came in second to last.

I have to say, I don't think it was the cookie's fault for placing poorly, it was a GOOD cookie. But the competition was tough - Andes mint cookies, peanut butter balls, meringue, maple white chocolate chip. No wonder I placed near the bottom.

But, my cookie loss turned in to triumph at the office the next day when everyone raved about them at work!

Silly husband judges, not understanding the flavor combination of sweet and salty.

I got this recipe from Simply Recipes for Butterscotch Cookies. They were really quite easy to make (a prerequisite for all of my cookie making endeavors!), tasty, and had that wonderful combo of sweet and salty.

I do think mine cooked a little too long - could be I was the last cookie in the oven at the night and it was too hot or that I went too long on the time. I will certainly adjust that next time I made these - and there will be a next time - they were really good!!

(Please note, apparently my pink heart doilies made no
difference to the judges....)

Butterscotch Cookies
From Simply Recipes via guest cook Garrett McCord

NGREDIENTS

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized slices (I diced my butter, I found it easier to work with)

1 3/4 cups dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Sugar Dredging Mixture

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons sugar

Fleur de sel, Maldon, sea salt, or Kosher salt for sprinkling * I used Kosher salt and that worked out just fine!

METHOD

1 Preheat oven to 375°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder and set aside. Mix together the sugar dredging mixture in another bowl and set aside.

2 Place 10 tablespoons of butter into a thick-bottomed skillet over medium heat. The butter will foam a bit before subsiding. Once the butter takes on a tan color and begins to smell nutty take it off of the heat. Add the other two tablespoons of butter and mix it in until it melts.

3 Pour the brown butter into a mixing bowl fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the brown sugar and salt and mix. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and mix together, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl at least once. Add the flour mixture in three increments being sure to scrape down the sides and bottom once or twice. Mix just until the flour is incorporated. The dough will be very thick.

4 Take 1/2 to full tablespoon-sized pieces of dough (you can make them a bit bigger or smaller to your liking, just make sure the pieces of dough are all the same size) and gently roll them into ball shapes. Dredge them in the sugar dredging mixture until well-coated. Place on the baking sheet and sprinkle with a little bit of the sprinkling salt (be reserved with the salt as very little goes a long way).

5 Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges have browned a bit. Be careful not to over-bake. Allow to cool on the sheet for one minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Tastes best with a glass of milk for dipping (THAT IT DOES!!!)

Makes 4 dozen

We're doin' it up Aarti Party Style!

2011-02-06T15:14:00.004-05:00

So after the delicious meal we had on my birthday from Aarti Party, I decided I'd try her Chickpea and Artichoke Masala recipe.

Oh my goodness, so easy, so good, so flavorful, and incredibly filling! Serve with some naan or rice and it's a meal fit for a king on a pauper's budget and vegetarian's palate! And even the non-vegetarian loving husband enjoyed this meal quite a bit! There are very few veggie recipes that he asks for a repeat of - this was one he said he'd be happy to see on the menu again and again. YAY!

Chickpea and Artichoke Masala

Recipe courtesy Aarti Sequeira and Aarti Party

Ingredients

1 large red onion, chopped (about 2 cups)

2 tablespoons Ginger-Garlic Paste, recipe follows, or 1 clove garlic and 1/2-inch piece ginger, peeled and chopped

3 large Roma tomatoes, chopped - since it's out of season, I simply used 1 can petite diced tomatoes and drained it.

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 cup yogurt, whisked until smooth

1 tablespoon lime juice (about 1/2 a lime)

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained, rinsed, and halved - I chopped these up even more so the pieces were smaller to handle.

Kosher salt

1/2 cup water

Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish

Directions

Process the onion, Garlic-Ginger Paste, and tomatoes in a food processor or blender until smooth. * I Just used 1 garlic clove and a nob of fresh ginger here.

Meanwhile, warm the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once the oil is shimmering, add the cumin seeds. Once they're done popping, add the onion-tomato paste you just made, and saute until it thickens and deepens in color, about 10 minutes.

Add the ground coriander, garam masala, paprika, and turmeric and saute about 30 seconds. Then add the yogurt, a little at a time so it doesn't curdle. Stir in the lime juice, chickpeas, artichokes, salt, to taste, and water. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Taste for seasonings and serve garnished with cilantro

Let's have Ice Cream in December!

2011-02-06T15:04:00.003-05:00

Because it's already cold and snowy, so why not eat something cold?

I picked up a package of the Oreo Mint Cookies at the holidays, and I ripped the package open and sat down with my big glass of milk to do some dunking. After 1 cookie, I couldn't continue - the mint flavor with the milk was just way too much to handle. So I tried a cookie plain - again just too minty to handle, and I adore Mint and Chocolate together. CRUD! Now what?

In my effort to not throw away and waste so much food, I wanted to figure out what to do with this whole package of cookies, instead of tossing it.

I figured, well cookies and cream ice cream is good, and mint ice cream is good, so what if it were mint cookies and cream ice cream, that had to be good, right??

Answer: HELL YES!

I have determined mint Oreo Cookies are meant to be used for making homemade ice cream!

This ice cream turned out just heavenly. It was like eating cookies and cream ice cream but with a slight kick of mint mixed in. It was rich and creamy and the cookies got plenty soft and delicious in the ice cream.

This is a make again - even with the green mint Oreo Cookies they sell year round.

Mint Oreo Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

1 cup whole milk, well chilled

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 cups heavy cream, well chilled

1 teaspoon mint extract (or peppermint extract or spearmint extract)

2 rows of mint Oreo Cookies chopped in quarters.

Special Equipment: Mix It In Soft-Serve Ice Cream Maker

Place milk and sugar in a medium bowl. Use a hand mixer on low speed for about 1 to 2 minutes or a whisk to mix until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream and mint extract. If not freezing immediately, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

In a freezable container, place a thin layer of cookie pieces. Then scoop in a layer of ice cream from the maker. Place another layer of cookies, ice cream, cookies, ice cream, etc. until you end with ice cream. Sprinkle some of the remaining cookie pieces on the top of the container, pop the lid on and freeze for at least 24 hours before indulging!

Shortcut Lasagna

2011-02-06T14:50:00.003-05:00

If you're a frequent reader you may recall I finally made my first lasagna back in 2009, and to be honest, I haven't made one since. The reason - it's so time consuming!! Now sure, I've made many other time consuming recipes on this blog in the meantime, but I mean lasagna is so time consuming for it to be just some noodles, cheese and sauce.

But when I came back from our vacation and went through my reader (all 2K+ posts!!) I stumbled upon a recipe for Lighhouse Lasagna. Now I decided to read it, because I do like lasagna and am for trying new things. Now this was right up my alley - quick, easy, simple ingredients. I had to make this!

So finally, in January, I made the Lighthouse Lasagna recipe from Lauren's Kitchen food blog. I made it just as she did and let me tell you it was absolutely fantastic! Easy, flavorful, and the leftovers were just as wonderful! I will 100% be making this again, and more frequently - I vow to not let two years go by again before I make this one!

Now this recipe is floating all over the web in a variety of places, and it popped up in my Google Reader many times throughout the month of December. Some called for cheddar cheese on top (um, NO!). Others used more of this, less of that. But this recipe was the perfect balance of cheesy goodness and saucy flavor!

Thanks Lauren - this was a hit!

Lighthouse Lasagna

adapted from Potluck at Midnight Farm and from Lauren's Kitchen

1 pound ground meat - I used ground Turkey

1 small can tomato paste

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Coarse salt

12 ounces egg noodles

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 1/2 cup sour cream - I used light sour cream

5 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature - I used low fat cream cheese

1 bunch scallions, finely chopped

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese - I used low fat cheese

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sauté the meat until lightly browned in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking it up as it cooks. Add the tomato paste, tomato sauce, and sugar. * Note I also added in here, aside from Lauren's recipe, some black pepper, garlic powder and a little dried basil - it was a very nice addition to the flavor!* Fill the tomato paste can with water and stir it in. Simmer, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes.

Boil your egg noodles and drain when done. Then return them to the pot and toss with butter. *Now I don't usually like to toss things with added fat, but I did here, and recommend you do too - it added another layer of richness to the meal that I think you'd miss without it.*

In a small bowl, combined the sour cream, cream cheese, and scallions. Layer the ingredients in the casserole dish- sauce, pasta, cheese mix, sauce, pasta, cheese mix, sauce, mozzarella cheese.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, the casserole will be set up and the cheese bubbly browned.

A fresh and light soup

2011-01-23T17:09:00.002-05:00

Great in the winter, will be wonderful in the spring and delicious in the summer and fall with that fresh cabbage from the garden.

I found this recipe for Chickpea Rice Soup with Cabbage on Post Punk Kitchen and really what prompted me to make this was how beautiful the soup looked in her bowls in the photos. It looked rich and creamy without the addition of dairy product. It looked filling and delicious and so colorful.

The soup was so hearty and satisfying. I enjoyed the addition of the rice to the soup, but the hubs felt he would have liked it without the rice. So next time, I'll make the rice on the side and we can just spoon it in to our bowls as we'd like.

Instead of boiling the rice in the soup, I made rice in the rice cooker and then scooped some cooked rice in to the finished soup. It did take a way from the creaminess a bit of the rice breaking down in the broth, but it made it hold up really well for leftovers without the rice getting pasty and mushy.

I also used a short cut and instead of shredding the cabbage I used a bag of coleslaw mix to make life easier.

Do add the fresh dill as well at the end, it really brings a wonderful flavor that brightens the dish up!

Made the recipe pretty much as is aside from what I just mentioned so just follow the link above for the recipe.

I didn't think we'd like it....

2011-01-23T16:41:00.003-05:00

But boy were we wrong. This by far exceeded our expectations for a delicious and hearty winter meal - and we know it will be a wonderful spring/summer meal when we can get fresh tomatoes and eggs from the farmer's market again.

I was inspired to make this Moroccan Ragout with Poached Eggs from Serious Eats - but obviously finding ingredients such as merguez sausage and ras el hanout proved to be a challenge so I had to make some substitutions with what I had on hand.

So with my alterations with what I had at home, this really turned out to be an incredible dinner and we'll surely be making this again. I served with some fresh crusty bread that I toasted in the oven.

But first, let me give you a little tip I've learned. I buy the bulk container of ground chorizo from Sam's Club regularly. We take the ground sausage and separate it out in to the snack size baggies and freeze the baggies. This way, when I have a recipe that needs a little something extra, or even calls for the chroizo - I just have to pop a bag or two out of the freezer and voila! Easy does it!

Steph's take on Moroccan Ragout with Poached Eggs

1 1/2 T olive oil

1 large onion diced finely

4 cloves of garlic minced

1/4-1/2 pound ground chorizo

1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika

salt and pepper to taste

2 14 oz. cans of diced tomato

4 eggs

1/4 cup cilantro chopped

In a large skillet (that also has a lid), heat the oil and saute the onions until tender and starting to brown. Then add your ground chorizo and continue cooking this mixture until the chorizo is warmed and starts to brown. Add in your garlic, paprika and tomatoes and let simmer until the diced tomatoes start to break down. Once you have a nice, thick, meaty sauce, add in your eggs, one at a time by making a little well in the tomato mixture. Once the eggs are in, place the lid on top and let steam until the whites are done and the yolks are still runny. Top with salt, pepper and chopped cilantro.

I can't wait to make this again and make it in the summer using all of those great farm fresh ingredients! This was a great dinner but I know would make a stellar addition to a brunch as well!

An absolutely incredible vegan meal....

2011-01-23T16:10:00.002-05:00

So incredible you won't even miss the meat!

I love the website Eating Well and often find so many delicious recipes on this site.

I knew I had some gnocchi in the pantry and some butternut squash that needed to be used up - so this recipe fit the bill.

I can honestly say the only change I made was to use onion instead of shallot and I did skip the currants because it's just not something we enjoy.

This Chickpea, Spinach and Squash Gnocchi was hearty, filling, satisfying and made SO MUCH FOOD!! It really came together quite quickly as well - even with having to cook the squash - I think it took about 30 minutes.

Do make this, I promise even your non-vegan/vegetarian loving spouses or families will enjoy it and be satisfied.

(on a side note, I find it funny that Chrome thinks Gnocchi is a mis-spelled word!)

Well, that was a BIG FAT FAIL!

2011-01-23T16:04:00.002-05:00

the hubs asked me what I wanted for my birthday for dessert since we were not going out - he was happy to go to the bakery and get me something - but in all honesty all I was in the mood for was a piece of chocolate cream pie with a baked crust.

So I opted to make it myself.

And well, the taste was great but it just never solidified the way I had wanted it to - you know so when you cut it you get a nice solid piece of chocolate cream? Instead I kind of got a pudding in a pie crust mess.

The flavor, again, was great - it was just that it never got thick enough. I followed the Hershey's recipe to a T (as you can gather, mine looked NOTHING like this picture!!) but I just don't know what to do to make it again and make it set right. Any suggestions? This isn't a dessert I'm ready to accept as a failure just quite yet.

It's an Arti Party Birthday Party

2011-01-23T15:39:00.003-05:00

I really enjoy the Food Network show Aarti Party - I think Aarti is bubbly, funny, enjoyable to watch and I'm thrilled with the foods she makes with an Indian flair. Secretly in my head Aarti and I are best friends who love to eat good food, go to check out little markets and spend weekends cooking and baking together - can you tell I love her? I record her show on the DVR and if she's made things I enjoy, I'll watch the show and then choose what to make.

My favorite Aarti moment by far was the time she made a Boston Butt Pork Roast and said she had never heard of Boston Butt but the only Boston Butt she knows is her husband - Oh my gosh I died of laughter!

Well she had a show that was on the DVR when we came back from vacation and I decided there and then, I wanted to make that whole episode for my upcoming birthday. Everything looked so incredibly comforting and delicious.

Yes, you read right - I passed up the chance to have my very willing husband take me out for a lovely dinner for my 31st birthday in exchange for a day and night of me in the kitchen just so I could make this whole meal and take my first stab at making a chocolate cream pie for dessert.

It really was the best birthday and so relaxing and nice.

I made Aarti's Beer, Ginger and Garlic Braised Brisket, her Broccoli and Dill Raita Slaw (although I opted for cabbage instead of broccoli slaw), and her Thai Red Curry Mac n Cheese (note on this, I used less of the curry paste - starting with 1 T but then I easily added 3 or so T by the end of the cooking process because I wanted the warmth and flavor).

The brisket was so tender and had this incredible abundance of flavors - savory, sweet, sharp - it was so delicious. The slaw was incredibly flavorful with the dill and the nuts and cranberries added some sweetness and crunch. And I don't even know where to begin with the Mac and Cheese - who ever would have thought to add curry paste to mac and cheese is heaven sent. It was cheesy, creamy, VERY FILLING, and had such a nice spicy warmth to it that just made your mouth sing.

I'm not posting the recipes because I made everything just as Aarti did - and so I'll just let you follow the links above.

Make the whole meal, at one time, you won't be disappointed.

MUST EAT TURKISH FOOD!!!

2011-01-18T20:47:00.003-05:00

The Hubs and I got back from our great vacation and all I've been dying for is Egyptian, Moroccan, Turkish and Greek foods.

While in Turkey, the hubs and I had this incredible grilled eggplant salad and I immediately sought a replica recipe. I came across two great Turkish blogs, the first of which I'll highlight tonight - and I love both of them equally, and yes they both had the eggplant salad recipe I was seeking.

The first Turkish Food Blog called Hayriye's Turkish Food Blog is filled with some incredible recipes. If you like ethnic foods, you have to check this blog out!

I bookmarked a pile of the recipes on this blog and made the first one a few weeks ago - I loved it, the hubs, not so much. I think it was more the flavor he didn't like than the actually style of the dish.

I will certainly make this one again when he travels for work.

Meatballs in Sour Sauce
As posted on Hayriye's blog above - as I made it below.

Isn't that paprika on top so pretty!!

Meatballs - now instead of making the recipe for meatballs here, I used frozen meatballs. GASP I know. But it made it a great fast, meal on a weeknight and really it still tasted so good because all of the joy of this recipe is in that delicious broth of the soup with the sour lemon and the mint and egg.... YUM!

For the soup

1 cup yogurt - non fat plain
1 Tbsp flour, heaping
1 egg
5-6 cups cold water
½ lemon’s juice
1 Tbsp salt to taste
½ tsp dried mint
2+2 Tbsp canola oil
½ tsp paprika

Hot cooked rice

Place 2 Tbsp canola oil and flour in a pot. Then, sauté over medium heat till flour turns pinkish. Stir in cold water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Add meatballs and salt. Cover the lid halfway and cook for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix yogurt, lemon juice and egg. Pour two ladles of hot soup into this mixture stirring constantly. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes.
In a small frying pan sizzle the remaining canola oil and stir in dried mint and paprika (I did this in a dry non stick pan and it worked fine - less oil!). Once you smell the nice combination of mint and paprika turn the heat off.
Drizzle the mixture over the soup and serve hot.

Now I served the soup with hot cooked rice in the bowls and it really made a hearty and lovely addition to the meal and I would recommend that to anyone.

Cincinnati Chili - Not from a Packet

2011-01-18T20:33:00.002-05:00

So, my mom grew up in Cincinnati and passed her fondness of Cincinnati chili on to all of her children - which we all passed it on to our spouses. And now that we live out East it's quite impossible to find Cincinnati chili packets in our markets.

Since we were out of packets and needed to have our beloved chili on New Years Day (you know it is essential to indulge in Cincinnati chili on New Years Day while watching as many college bowl games as you can!), I had to opt for making a recipe on my own (GASP!).

I had bookmarked a recipe on Coconut & Lime for a slow cooker Cincinnati chili. So I made it, but on the stove top.

The spices weren't that far off, what we are used to is a bit more tomato-y and has a different chili seasoning. I did make some modifications to this recipe to make it as I would our normal Cincinnati chili so I'm linking to her recipe above but putting it how I made it below. It was still good and we enjoyed it, but I know I can find a closer replica.

But in the meantime, my wonderful sister in law sent me multiple packets of the good stuff for my birthday - now that's what I call a great birthday present!! Chili packets, via US Mail - how great is that?!

Steph's Modified Cincinnati Chili Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1 can tomato paste

2-3 clove of garlic, minced

1 onion chopped (I did the onion and garlic in the mini chopper together, since in true Cincinnati Chili there are not pieces of onion, more just flavor)

2 T cocoa powder

1 1/2 T Worcestershire Sauce

2-3 T chili powder (we started with 2 but upped to 3 after tasting)

1 t allspice

1 t cinnamon

1 T crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 t cloves ground

1/2 tsp salt

8 cups of water

I tossed the seasonings first with the onion and garlic and let that heat in the pot a bit to get the flavors going. Then I added in the beef and browned that while breaking it up in to very fine pieces. Then I added the tomato paste and water and stirred. I let this simmer on low for the day and then we enjoyed over elbow mac with some green onion and shredded cheese. TASTY... but still needs some work to make it more authentic.

Is it Sizzling in here or is it just me?

2011-01-18T20:20:00.003-05:00

Back in November the Hubs and I went up to Boston to our favorite Asian Market and picked up what I thought was the type of rice used in sizzling rice soup. Turns out - I was wrong. They are actually rice cake snacks and boy were they DELICIOUS as a snack. However I already had a sizzling rice soup planned for dinner, so we opted to test these out in soup and it worked so great! They didn't make quite the sizzle, snap, pop sounded I had wanted but the texture in the soup was so good. I did find a few recipes online in the meantime on how to make sizzling rice and will try that for next time.

I had some fresh locally caught sea bass (thanks to the hubs!) defrosted and opted to do an Asian fish sizzling rice soup.

It was SO good and we will most certainly make this again. I served with a cucumber salad with rice wine vinegar and sugar.

No recipe - made it up as I went along but will happily share with you!

Asian Fish (sorta) Sizzling Rice Soup

1 recipe for sizzling rice or any type of crispy Asian rice snack

3/4-1 lb. thick cut sea bass cut in cubes

1 T canola oil

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1-2 T reduced sodium soy sauce

2-3 green onions chopped finely

2 tsp. siracha chili sauce

1-2 tsp. fish sauce

1-t tsp. rice wine vinegar

dried seaweed to taste

In a small skillet add the canola oil and lightly fry the cubes of fish for about 30-60 seconds per piece - just until there's a light fry coat on them but they aren't cooked through. Remove and let drain on a paper towel.

In a pot, mix the stock, onion, chili sauce, fish sauce and rice wine vinegar, adding soy sauce to taste for your sodium preference. Once it starts to simmer, add in the fish and then let that simmer for another couple of minutes, just to finish cooking the fish pieces and let them release some of their flavor. Add in some seaweed pieces, if you'd like, and then place in bowls. Top with your sizzling rice.

New Years Eve Goodies!

2011-01-07T14:24:00.002-05:00

On New Years Eve friends and I went to cook munchies at the Ronald McDonald House. I have a group that we get together monthly and cook dinners there, but we wanted to do something a little more special and fun for New Years Eve. We did heavy appetizers and sparkling apple cider for the families that night, and boy did everything look delicious!

I picked a couple of appetizer recipes to make for the house and both (yes, I admit, we tasted) were DELICIOUS!!!

The first one, I have no idea where I got this recipe from and I tweaked the serving portions, so this is for 12 servings. It made plenty for a big gathering of people.

Crockpot Spinach Artichoke Dip
12 servings
32 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups half and half
2 T onion chopped finely
2 minced garlic cloves
20 oz. bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
26 oz. can quartered artichoke hearts -rinse, drain and chop
1 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
1 1/3 cups monterey jack cheese, shredded

Combine cream cheese and half and half in a bowl and mix until well blended. Then add all ingredients except the monterey jack and stir to combine. Pour everything in to a crock pot and heat on high for 1 1/2 - 2 hours or until warmed through. Top with the monterey jack cheese. Serve with veggies, crackers or pita.

The second recipe I made was another Joelen origonal recipe - because, you know, I adore her cooking and her recipes are KILLER!!! I chose her Loaded Potato Poppers and dear GOD they were delicious - creamy, rich, bacon-y - what more could a person want to eat on New Years Eve before the diet starts the next day???

I made her recipe exactly as it is on her website so just use the linky-love above to get to the recipe. I would most certainly try these as a larger potato skin as well, they would be killer!!!

After we cooked at Ronald McDonald House we headed over to our friend's house to enjoy a New Years Eve munchie, dinner, Uno and Rock Band night to ring in the New Year.

I made this bread from another one of my favorite blogs, Leigh Anne over at Your Home Based Mom. Seriously, her Bloomin' Onion Bread was wonderful - and I even forgot the butter and it was still incredible. Next time I will need to work on finding a firmer bread though - just like she did. Again, linky-love - head to the link above for the recipe!

These are great munchies for entertaining - all 3 - so don't forget to add them to your list for your next social gathering.

Egyptian Cooking 101

2010-12-27T19:24:00.004-05:00

My husband and I just got back from a 24 day vacation, a Mediterranean Cruise. We visited 3 continents- Europe, Africa, Asia. We enjoyed our days exploring Spain, Morocco, Grand Canaria, Madeira, Italy, Greece, Turkey (the Asiatic part), Egypt and Malta.

Between the delicious food on the boat, of course we dined on delicious local cuisine as well in most cities. However, there were certainly areas we couldn't eat for GI safety reasons - like Morocco and Egypt- so instead we've opted for cook books to bring a taste of the cuisine home with us.

Tonight was my first foray in to our Egyptian cook book. This book has so many delicious recipes that we really just need to make every single one.

Since we splurged on so many sweets and meats while we were away, we're trying to eat as light and vegetarian right now.

Tonight's dish was a super vegan dish. We both agree this is a make again, and often. And it makes so much that I'm certainly getting plenty of leftovers for lunches!

It seemed like an odd, carb-heavy, mix to me for a meal. But the flavors were fabulous and it was incredibly filling and hearty. I did make a few alterations, which of course I'll list here.

Do make this - it's such a great intro to Egyptian food- which really seems very similar to Turkish and other African type foods.

Kushari be'adds abu gibba

aka Brown lentils with rice and macaroni

For Daqqa (Sauce)

6 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup white vinegar

salt to taste

1 teaspoon chili pepper (or 1 teaspoon Siracha, which is what we used)

2 cups tomato juice (I used 1 8oz can tomato sauce and one can of water because it's what I had on hand)

2 T oil (I used barely 1 T)

1. Crush Garlic, salt and chili pepper together (I just crushed garlic and tossed with siracha). Fry in oil until light and golden brown.

2. Add tomato juice and cook until sauce thickens and oil rises to the top. Add vinegar and bring to a boil. Then let simmer until you're ready to use it.

For the main dish

1 cup brown lentils, rinsed and picked through

1 cup rice, uncooked

1/2 cup vermicelli (Please note I used 1 cup of Barilla broken pasta in exchange for opting out of using the 1 cup of small pasta in addition, it just seemed like too much starch)

1 cup small pasta like elbow or ditalini (again I omitted this and added the extra 1/2 cup of broken pasta)

1 can chickpeas drained and rinsed and warmed

2 large onions chopped

1/4 cup oil.

1. Slice onions and fry in oil until golden brown, then remove and set aside. Fry the pasta in the remaining hot oil until golden brown. Add 1 1/2 cups water and a little salt and bring to a boil. Add rice and continue cooking until water is absorbed and rice is fully cooked. **NOTE - This part used WAY more than 1 1/2 cups water, probably closer to 2.5 cups water and I had to keep a really close eye on it to make sure it didn't stick. I did cook it covered but kept stirring and adding water as needed. Still took about 30 minutes**

2. In another pot boil the lentils in 2 cups of water for about 40 minutes until tender then drain and rinse with water. Keep them warm.

3. In another pot, boil water and cook the small pasta until done, drain and rinse and keep warm.

4. To serve, layer in the following order: rice with vermicelli, macaroni, lentils, chickpeas, onions then the sauce.

Oh my gosh, heavenly good!! Enjoy!!!

It's El Torito, ChiChis & Every Other Mexican Restaurant At Once!

2010-11-28T18:52:00.003-05:00

I grew up in northern CA and going to El Torito was probably a weekly occasion in our household. From a very young age, I was infatuated with the sweet little scoop of corn cake they used to give you on your plate - so much so I'd hurry and eat them off every plate I could on the table. When we moved from CA to the Midwest, finding a place that served these was quite a challenge. I didn't come across these little golden nuggets of deliciousness until college when we used to go to ChiChis.

Since then, I've tried the prepackaged kit in the supermarket from ChiChis and it just wasn't quite the same.

Today, let's be real, I was bored out of my mind at home. So I played around online to see if I could find a recipe for my beloved golden corn-y goodness. I found a couple, one was a little more baking work than I cared to deal with, so the other recipe won out.

And oh my gosh it's like being a child all over again! I ate 4 small cookie scoops full of the deliciousness alone tonight (and it's not even 7 pm and don't judge, I just may go back for more later on!).

I was so infatuated as a matter of fact, I didn't even bother to photograph this- but let's face it, we all know what these little scoops of sweet golden corn goodness look like.

Found this recipe on Food.Com and am quite pleased with the results - do try it if you're like me and love these little sweet corn cakes!

Recipe as is here. Recipe as I made it below.

Mexican Sweet Corn Cake

1/4 cup + 2 T butter
1/2 cup masa harina
5 tablespoons cold water
1 Can of Creamed Style Corn
3 tablespoons cornmeal
2 T sugar
3 tablespoons whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a square pan (you can also use an 8x10 for a thinner cake) with cooking spray.

In a bowl, whip the butter with an electric mixer. Then add in the masa and the water. Blend this mixture with your electric mixer and you'll get a crumbly dough - like cookie dough. Instead of getting another bowl all dirty - just add the rest of the ingredients in to this bowl and then stir to combine with a wooden spoon. Place mixture in your baking dish, cover with aluminum foil (or bake it in a Corningware Pan and use the lid). Bake for 40-50 minutes until set. Serve warm.

For real authenticity - serve with an ice cream or cookie scooper!

Mmmmm Curry!

2010-11-17T22:00:00.002-05:00

So I found this wonderful beef curry recipe on All Recipes, because, well, that's what I was in the mood for. However, when it came time to actually making the meal, I guess I neglected to pre-read the recipe and realize how long it's supposed to take. So not going to fly at 8 pm at night. So I made a LOT of shortcuts here and in the end came out with a dish that was just wonderful and is something we'll make again and again. I'm posting how I made the dish, since it was quite different. But here's what I should have made!

Easy Weeknight Beef Curry

Pam

1 onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon hot chili sauce

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger root

1/2 tsp. cardamom

1/2 tsp. ground clove

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

1/2 cup water

1 pound boneless thin sliced beef cut thin

Heat Pam and add the onion, cook and stir until soft and translucent. Reduce heat to medium low and cook stirring until onion is very tender and dark brown.

Stir in garlic, and seasonings and cook until fragrant for about 30-60 seconds. Add your water and simmer until most of it has been evaporated. Then add your beef and cook until the beef is browned but still tender and is fragrant of the curry.

Serve over rice and enjoy!

Now doesn't this look indulgent??

2010-10-17T21:41:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah, you know you want to try this. Cheese, Prosciutto, Figs, Pesto - I mean how can this be bad??? It can't - simple answer - make it - it's that good.

Sweet

Salty
Savory
Herby

It's got everything

And it's crazy filling!

Bulky roll or crusty bread

1 ball fresh mozzarella cheese cut in to slices

1 container reduced fat pesto

4 figs cut in to thin slices

8 slices Prosciutto - 4 for each sandwich

Spread pesto on each side of the bread, layer with cheese, figs and Prosciutto. Place in a sandwich press or press down with a heavy pan while the sandwich is in a skillet with some Pam. warm until cheese gets melty and gooey and delicious!

Oh Tyler Florence....

2010-10-17T21:26:00.004-04:00

I must admit, while I enjoy watching you on tv, and your food always look great - I have never made one of your recipes until now. Please don't take it personally. It's not anything against you - I mean you're easy on the eyes and quite passionate and charismatic about cooking and how good food can be. It's just that you cook with a LOT of steps most of the time and, well, I just don't have the time or patience for that most nights.

However, when I went searching for a recipe for clams and pasta, this pulled in Google and well, let's just say you won the Google Search lotto that night!

Oh Tyler, why have I been denying your recipes and doubting bringing your recipes in to my kitchen? This could quite possibly be the best clam and pasta recipe we've ever eaten in our lives and, well, it's now October and we made this in August and we're still discussing how indulgent and light and delicious this meal was. Thank God we live someplace we can get good clams year round! This will be made again. And yes, maybe, just maybe Tyler Florence, I'll venture out to try something else of yours and be surprised with the same mouthwatering and indulgent results!

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Clams and Sweet Italian Sausage

I'm not even going to post the recipe here but just link it - the only change I made was to use fresh broccoli instead of Rabe, since we don't like the taste of it. And I used shells, because it's the shape I had on hand - everything else - to the T and delicious!!

Madeline's for my favorite Madeline

2010-10-17T21:08:00.003-04:00

Our good friends have two little ones who are near and dear to us. They are our East Coast nieces. We recently had the oldest of the two for her first sleep-over. We all had a wonderful time, playing, watching cartoons, painting, coloring, swinging on the swings at the park, you name it.

A while back I had told Madeline how she had a very special cookie named after her. So I had promised her when she was ready to spend the night at our house we would make them together. Little did I know that sleep-over would be scheduled for 4 weeks later and I had to scramble to find a Madeline pan - Thank you Amazon!

I researched for a while about what recipe I should make for the Madeline's and consensus around the web was that there was no better recipe than Dave Lebovitz's lemon glazed Madeline recipe.

So when Madeline came over, we made her namesake cookie. And boy were they delicious. We had a great time baking together - she zested her first lemon and tried the zest, she measured out her ingredients and dumped them in the mixer and did it all with poise and perfection! Such a great baker helper!

However, Auntie didn't read the recipe all the way through and neglected to notice how the batter had to chill for an hour. So it was a mad dash after our spaghetti dinner to get the batter in the pan and baking so she could at least try one of her namesake cookies before bedtime with a glass of milk.

These are probably the most perfect Madeline I've ever had! Light, fluffy, moist, soft and a great lemon flavor. I admit I did not bother with the glaze because, well, I had an anxious 4 year old at my heels asking for cookies - but next time I will make the glaze for them. I have a couple of tangerines hanging around the house currently and may have to do a tangerine Madeline next!

Everyone on the web, thank you - the recipe was foolproof and garnered great results!

I did read a tip - and I wish I could remember where now on what blog, that said to butter the pan instead of spray it - it will give you better results - and that it did - I did it both ways as well and the buttered ones were far superior to the PAM ones. And the buttering of a Madeline pan is the most perfect job for the fingers of a little 4 year old!!

Enjoy!

David Lebovitz's Lemon Glazed Madelines

3 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup (130g) granulated sugar
rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup (175g) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (optional)
zest of one small lemon
9 tablespoons (120g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature, plus additional melted butter for preparing the molds

This is the recipe for the glaze, again I omitted this part this first time - a nice dusting of powdered sugar would have been nice too though!

3/4 cup (150g) powdered sugar
1 tablespoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons water

1. Brush the indentations of a madeleine mold with melted butter. Dust with flour, tap off any excess, and place in the fridge or freezer.

2. In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, whip the eggs, granulated sugar, and salt for 5 minutes until frothy and thickened.

3. Spoon the flour and baking powder, if using, into a sifter or mesh strainer and use a spatula to fold in the flour as you sift it over the batter. (Rest the bowl on a damp towel to help steady it for you.)

4. Add the lemon zest to the cooled butter, then dribble the butter into the batter, a few spoonfuls at a time, while simultaneously folding to incorporate the butter. Fold just until all the butter is incorporated.

5. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (Batter can be chilled for up to 12 hours.)

6. To bake the madeleines, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

8. Plop enough batter in the center of each indentation with enough batter which you think will fill it by 3/4′s (you’ll have to eyeball it, but it’s not brain-surgery so don’t worry if you’re not exact.) Do not spread it.

10. Bake for 8-9 minutes or until the cakes just feel set. While the cakes are baking, make a glaze in a small mixing bowl by stirring together the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and water until smooth.

11. Remove from the oven and tilt the madeleines out onto a cooling rack. The moment they’re cool enough to handle, dip each cake in the glaze, turning them over to make sure both sides are coated and scrape off any excess with a dull knife. After dipping, rest each one back on the cooking rack, scalloped side up, until the cakes are cool and the glaze has firmed up.

A Savory Vegan Lunch

2010-10-17T20:52:00.003-04:00

I have been doing pretty well lately with eating primarily vegetarian/vegan for breakfasts and lunches, and actually have been doing even better at making vegetarian dinners for me and meat meals for the hubs. While I do still enjoy milk, cheese, eggs and well, gosh I can't seem to commit to giving up pork, red meat or seafood yet - I'm making small strides. And I do really enjoy and feel better when I decrease my meat consumption.

Last week I enjoyed a great, hearty vegetable and bean soup for lunches at work. This week we're going to be cool all week so I wanted something really filling and warm - since I do much better during the day/night with snacking when I eat a warm and savory lunch at work.

I made a delicious lentil and butternut squash salad for lunches this week - but it would be fantastic for dinners too, or even to take to a fall party.

Easy to make, satisfying, warm, and really makes you feel like you're capturing every essence and taste of fall in one simple and clean meal!

Lentil and Butternut Squash Salad

Serve warm

1/2-3/4 cup French Lentils -rinsed, drained and placed in a pot of water to boil with 1/2 tsp. salt

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 small butternut squash, peeled and diced

1 small onion

fresh sage - about 10 leaves

pepper, salt, olive oil.

1/2 cup dried cranberries

While your lentils are boiling, peel and diced your root veggies placing them in a pan to roast in the oven. Slice your onion in to half circle slices and separate the pieces. Shred your sage - leaving about 4 leaves for lagter, toss with the root veggies and onion. Drizzle with 1 T olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt and about 15 turns of fresh ground pepper. Place this mixture in a 375 degree oven and cook - stirring once or twice until everything is just tender - about 30 minutes.

When the lentils are tender, drain, rinse and place in a bowl to let cool. Your lentils should be firm and not mushy. French lentils are firmer than regular brown lentils and hold their shape tremendously well. They are more rounded than regular lentils and are black in color. You can find them in the bulk section at Whole Foods. If you can't find these, regular lentils would be fine just do not over cook them!

Once your roasted roots are done, remove from the oven and let cool for about 15 minutes. Once cool, toss these in with the lentils and stir to combine. Add about 10 more crank of black pepper, the rest of your sage and the dried cranberries. You can add another T or so of olive oil here but if you're not serving it right away, omit the extra olive oil here, you can add it when you eat it.

So tasty and delicious!! Enjoy!

It's time for...

2010-10-17T20:35:00.005-04:00

Our sometimes annual stuffed pumpkin!

I say sometimes annual because there are years that go by where we

just never end up having the time to make the stuffed pumpkin.

But this year, we did! We started this tradition our first year in Rhode Island after finding a white pumpkin at the pumpkin patch and figuring we'd do something fun with it. Now it's become a hunt for us to find the perfect sized white pumpkin each year for our annual dinner.

We try to either make this meal for Halloween if we aren't entertaining and it's on a weekend, or for our wedding anniversary - tonight, we opted for the pre-anniversary dinner stuffed pumpkin.

Each year I vary

it a bit on how I stuff the pumpkin - hell one year a picture of my stuffed pumpkin even made it to the now defunct Ugly Food Blog! But don't let that deter you - because come on, when have you ever made a stuffed anything that looked REALLY beautiful after you cut it open? I rest my case.

Tonight's stuffing was just kind of done on a whim, and we can honestly say one of the best to date in the past 7 years. This, we agreed, will be the new regular stuffing for the pumpkin.

This is the perfect fall dinner, and I hope I'm sharing it with you in enough time to make before Halloween or even to serve for Thanksgiving. It really would be a great side dish addition to your holiday feast!

Savory Stuffed Pumpkin

1 white pumpkin - about 5-7 pounds. Visually try and cut it in your mind's eye in to four slices, and if you think it's the right size, go with it!

2 boxes Wild Rice mix, made according to directions but omitting butter

2 apples diced

1 pound ground Italian sausage removed from the casings, cooked and browned

Salt/Pepper

Onion/Garlic powder - or fresh

Fresh Sage - about 3-4 T fresh cut ribbons

To begin, cut the top off your pumpkin, remove the seeds and innards. Save the seeds for roasting if you'd like! Once the pumpkin is cleaned out, drizzle the inside with some olive oil and sprinkle with about a 1/4-1/2 tsp. kosher salt.

Place in a square metal baking dish and cook at 375 - you will hear it sizzling a bit and that's fine - make sure the top is off though!

While your rice is cooking, brown your sausage and drain to remove the fat. In a large bowl, mix the cooked rice, the browned sausage, sprinkles of garlic/onion powder - maybe a half teaspoon of each. Then add in two apples, diced with the skins on. Add about 20 good fine cracks of black pepper, no more salt though - the rice is sufficiently salted already. Now if you have a spouse that actually likes dried cranberries, add them here. Otherwise leave them out. Toss in your fresh sage and stir to combine.

Remove the pumpkin shell from the oven, keeping the oven set to 375. By now the pumpkin should be tender but not all the way done yet - the rice takes about 30 minutes so it will have already had 30+ minutes in your oven. Stuff the pumpkin with the filling loosely - do not pack it down! It will expand even more during the baking process. Place the stuffed pumpkin back in the oven and cook for another 20-30 minutes, or until you can easily insert a sharp knife in the pumpkin and pull it out.

Carefully transfer your pumpkin with a flat spatula and a spoon to a large cutting board, preferably one with a well around the edge. let sit for about 3-5 minutes and then cut in to quarters and serve.

You'll find the sage combined with the rice and sausage adds a nice fresh flavor and the apple a bit of sweetness. Our pumpkin had a very spaghetti squash like texture and it just came together so well.

Delicious!!

*NOTE* realizing as I'm typing this I completely forgot I bought mushrooms to slice and sauté up to add to the stuffing mixture and forgot to do this step - so if you're a mushroom eater - go for it!

*NOTE 2* I have made stuffed pumpkins before with bread stuffing instead of rice - and I don't recommend it - it becomes way too dense and overpowering from everything else in the stuffing you make. Barley and rice both work very well!

Oh yeah... I already made this!

2010-10-07T12:14:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here making my menu for next week and going through my reader. Again, another Joelen recipe piqued my interest and I opened it up and realized, I already made this! AND IT WAS GOOD!!!

I made this when we had our first little spurt of cool nights, you know before we hit 90 again! And now that we're in the 50s at night, I'm thinking this should be made again next week.

This is a great take on hearty and warm chicken noodle soup. And yes, of course, I made changes so that's what's here - Joelen's recipe as is is at the link above.

Really the only change I made is, well, I'm still not eating chicken unless it's ground, so I made mine with Tofu. I know you're all rolling your eyes or scratching your heads. "Chicken is healthy and easy and good." Maybe for you but not to me. I don't like chicken, I realize I never have! So why bother eating something I don't like? I keep trying again and again, but it's now been about 7 months since I've eaten chicken and I have to tell you, I don't miss it!

So when I get recipes that call for chicken, I break it up and make mine with Tofu or beans and the hubs with meat. It's working fine and great and no problems.

So I divided this recipe in two in two separate small pots and put tofu in mine and chicken in the hubs. We both loved ours, it made TONS of food and was a great, warm and satisfying meal.

Spicy Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchens
Via Joelen's Culinary Adventures

6 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons Asian chili sauce
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-sized pieces (if you're making 2 pots, do 1 chicken breast and a half of brick of lite firm tofu)
2 packages of dried ramen noodles
3 scallions, sliced thin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced
4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
pinch of red pepper flakes for garnish (optional)

Bring broth, soy sauce, mirin, ginger, and chili sauce to a boil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the cut up chicken breasts to the pot and simmer, covered, over medium-low heat until chicken is cooked through.

Open the packages of ramen noodles and discard the seasoning packet included. Place the dried ramen noodles into the broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until they're just about cooked. Stir in the scallions and cilantro and serve in bowls.

Garnish each bowl additional fresh cilantro leaves and a drizzle of 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil. If you like things on the spicy side, sprinkle a few red pepper flakes for garnish too!

The Miracle of the Kitchen Table

2010-10-07T11:59:00.005-04:00

Recently my hubs and I got on a kick of NOT eating in front of the TV at night for dinner and have moved to the kitchen table.

I know, I'm sure most of you eat at your tables, but it's new to us.

When we lived in our apartment, we ate at the kitchen table, because it was easy and convenient. When we moved to our house 6 years ago, that table went to the dining room and that room became a catch all for coats, bags, mail and shoes. Not a place to enjoy dinner. And since we had no kitchen table for a very long time, we took up dinner residence in front of the television in the family room. And there we stayed for 5 years - even once we got a kitchen table.

So when we did a big house cleaning before Labor Day when my mom was coming to town, I suggested we try eating at the kitchen table for a week and then the week she was here, just to keep mess out of the family room. Well wouldn't you know, a month later, we're STILL eating dinner at the kitchen table! And when I suggest eating in front of the TV on a Friday night or something, it gets an emphatic 'NO' from the hubs.

Eating at the table has been really good for us. We're both extremely busy. Our schedules don't mesh in the morning so it's a quick goodbye as he's walking out the door and I'm heading to get ready for work. We both work long, busy days and send a mere 'Good Morning, I love you' email and that's about it. In the evenings, I hit the gym or work late or run errands. And well, he works until 7 or later every night and has a 45 minute commute - so you do the math. It's usually 7:30 - 9:00 before we sit down for dinner at night - and that's our first real time together all day.

When we'd eat at the TV, we wouldn't even talk. Now that meal time happens at the table, we're sharing more, talking more, laughing a lot. And instead of just sitting and eating quickly and heading to the TV, we're taking our time and chatting and some nights an hour or more goes by before we get up to do the dishes.

So while this is great for us and we're eating better and more mindfully and enjoying our time together, what does this mean for you, my blog readers?

It means I am rarely taking pictures of food anymore. I don't keep the camera at the kitchen table, or usually in the kitchen, so most nights, pictures are forgotten. But it doesn't mean we're not cooking, eating and enjoying great food.

So even though not all of my recipes now have pictures, try them. I don't post things we don't like or stand by or don't want to make again. So stay loyal, pictures or not. The food is still good!

Well oh my gosh, look, another Thai dish!

2010-10-07T11:38:00.004-04:00

Go figure, right?
Cause who loves Thai???? WE LOVE THAI!!!

Again, another fantastic recipe from my favorite little Chicago Cook - Joelen. And I'm glad she made this because it's been something I've been nervous to try on the menu at a few of our favorite Thai restaurants. I was never quite sure what it would be like. And while I think the restaurant uses whole chicken pieces and not ground, and I know they put peppers in, I know flavor wise this is something of what I should expect.

But after making this, really, why bother going out?!

Quick, Easy, delicious! Serve with some rice or rice noodles and voila! Dinner in minutes!

Thai Basil Chicken - this is how Joelen made it, my changes are below - adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

2 cups basil leaves, packed and chopped or run through the food processor - I had leftover minced basil ice cubes in my freezer from last summer's garden, so I used those cubes up.
3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon chili sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar - usually I try to omit sugar in recipes, but this one needed it and it helped bolster the flavors - so add it!
1 tsp white vinegar - I used rice wine vinegar
1 lbs ground chicken/turkey
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped

In a small bowl mix the 1 tablespoon fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and vinegar. Stir and set aside.

In a skillet add the oil , the ground turkey and onion to start browning. Once it's close to done, add in the garlic and most of the basil. Then add in the sauce bowl. Cook about 1 min. Meanwhile, chiffonade the remaining basil leaves and add to the pan to cook 1 additional minute or so. Serve with rice or noodles!
YUMMY!

Oh Slimming Eats....

2010-10-07T11:19:00.003-04:00

How do I love your blog! You cook with great flavors and ease and it's always a good meal when I venture to your site!

Thank you for this recipe, to my readers and friends, you MUST make this. Again, following our craze of all things Thai, Chinese or Indian at our house - we added another to the must keep in the rotation pile!

The Chili Beef Noodles from Slimming Eats was killer! Flavorful, fresh, lite, quick and a hint of spicy warmth from the chilis. Now I did alter a bit, and I really wish I had a thinner rice noodle I used but, eh, either way it was still delicious. And can I tell you how FAST this meal came together? I mean, I got home from the gym and started dinner and 20 minutes later in walked the hubs and dinner was merely a few minutes from being done. No word of a lie!

ENJOY! I hope you like it as much as we did!

Chili Beef Noodles - with my changes - recipe as is posted at link above.
Ingredients
1 lb. lean ground beef - you could also use turkey
1 packet of extra thin rice noodles
3 T soy sauce, reduced soidum
1 teaspoon of chilli pepper paste
1 head napa cabbage, roughly chopped
1 T fresh ginger grated
1-2 spring onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup of chicken stock
Pam

Place the noodles in a pan of boiling hot water and soak for approx 15 mins. Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside
Spray a Wok or frying pan with Pam (If you're using beef you don't need to spray)
Add the beef, chilli paste and soy sauce and cook until browned.
Add the napa cabbage and ginger and cook for a further couple of mins
Add the stock, noodles and spring onion and simmer until all stock has been absorbed.
Add the noodles to the pan and toss to combine.
Serve and eat, eat, eat!

So that's what that was a picture of...

2010-10-07T11:11:00.003-04:00

I had a picture saved on the computer of a meal we obviously ate, but the hubs and I kept looking at it and we could not remember what on earth it was - since it had been about two months since we ate it to when I downloaded photos. *UPDATE - I guess I didn't delete this photo - I just found it! See, now doesn't that look so good you want to add it to your menu this week!?*

Then today, going through my reader I came across a recipe and went, WAIT, that was it! Too bad I already deleted those photos though.

Now, my lack of remembering what the photo was a dish of is hardly a case for how this meal tasted because we both remembered it was a REALLY killer dinner and so easy and good - hearty, filling, warm, comforting.

So I'm sorry I don't have a picture, but make this - it's got great warmth of flavor and is good on these cool fall nights now.

Thank you to Simply Recipes for yet another great meal on my table.

Curried Ground Turkey with Potatoes (recipe as is at the link- how I made it below)
A few sprays of Pam
1 pound ground turkey
1 chopped onion
2 chopped garlic cloves
1-2 teaspoons chili sauce/paste
1 T grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste
1 Tbsp garam masala
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 can petite diced tomatoes (you can use fresh, but they didn't look great at the market so canned it was)
1 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Spray pan with Pam and then add the ground turkey and cook to brown. .
Add the chopped onion. Stir and sauté for 4-5 minutes, or until the onion begins to color a bit. Sprinkle salt over everything.
Add the grated ginger and garlic, mix well and sauté for another 1-2 minutes.
Mix in the spices, chili paste, water, and the potatoes. Stir to combine and cover. Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.
When the potatoes are tender, add the diced tomatoes and peas. Mix well and cover the pot. Cook 2-3 minutes.
Right before you serve, mix in the chopped cilantro.

Now you could serve this with rice or naan, but with the potato in it, it really did not need any other starch or grain with it we thought. We loved this dish - it's going to be a make again. It even froze and reheated well for leftover lunches!