Onion Cheese Omelet and Watermelon Smoothie

Michael made dinner tonight and it smelled too good to consider leaving the table to get my camera with all the delicious aromas wafting up at me. So, no picture. But it was very tasty.

Heat 1 tbsp oil and saute 1 onion, chopped, until it's golden brown. Salt vigorously. In a separate bowl, whisk up 4 eggs. Salt and pepper them vigorously again. Pour them in the pan with the cooked onion and do the omelet thing. When you're done, top with 3/4 cup grated cheese (we had some fun rosemary-crusted something in our cheese drawer) and then fold in half.

Michael and I split the omelet and each half came to slightly under 400 calories. I will say, though, that it was heavy. Also really, really good from all the cheese and salt, but man. I am not used to such high-fat dinners. Anyway, it was way good but just for the sake of my gall bladder, I'd probably make it with half as much cheese and some steamed veggies instead next time.

We had an old watermelon that had been sitting on our counter for weeks, and it wasn't rotten or anything, but it had gotten pretty mealy--way too mealy to eat and enjoy. So I whirred up a quarter of it with some other stuff and made a really delicious smoothie! Hooray!

Watermelon smoothie

3-4 cups watermelon
1 banana (we used a frozen one for maximum coldness)
1 cup ice cubes
1 cup milk (or, since we had no milk, cow or otherwise, I improvised with 1/2 cup half-and-half and 1/2 cup watermelon. Half and two quarters?)

Blend it all up and drink it. I think we calculated that even with the half-and-half, 1 serving (out of 4 servings) of this comes out to around 120 calories or something. Very reasonable! I just got some coconut milk and I'm going to make more of it with that. Yum.

Baked Falafel

Falafel! Very good, but not always very healthy. I found a recipe for baking them, and it worked great! They were really delicious. 

Baked Falafel

1 can chickpeas
3 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup fresh parsley (we just left this out and it was fine)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1 garlic scape (what we used) or 3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper

Form into 12 slightly flattened golf-ball-sized patties and bake at 375 for 13 min, then flip and bake for another 13 min.

Before blending everything, it looked like a little terrarium in the food processor.

    

The little blobs waiting for the oven.

And the finished falafels!

Michael just ate a plateful plain (very tasty) and I wrapped mine up in a lettuce leaf with a little of the light chive-mayo spread I sometimes make. It would also be really good in a pita pocket with fresh, crisp veggies, or slathered in hummus (you know, for the true chickpea fan), or topping a fresh chopped salad.

Next time I will definitely make a double or triple batch and freeze a bunch of these little guys before baking. If you're cleaning the food processor anyway, you might as well. The only thing that stopped me from doing so this time is that our can opener was broken and even opening one can was pretty laborious.

Lemon Parmesan Pasta with Sauteed Green Beans and Garlic Scapes

The combination of cooked vegetables, pasta, and some seasonings/sauce is a really classic standby for me. It only takes the creativity of looking in your fridge but there's pretty much endless variations.

Step 1: Boil a package of pasta (I've been getting more into whole wheat pasta lately, but whatever floats your boat).
Step 2: Heat up a teaspoon of oil in a big skillet and toss in whatever veggies you have on hand. We had garlic scapes and green beans. Saute until everything's soft and browned.
Step 3: Drain the pasta. Put a little in each bowl and toss with a capful of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of Parmesan.
Step 4: Top with the sauteed veggies and a little more Parmesan.

I thought this was a pretty good, filling dinner. The garlic scapes that were SUPER potent raw mellowed out a lot with the cooking—they almost even tasted like asparagus once they were done.

Chilled Avocado Basil Soup

We made this chilled avocado basil soup with a languishing avocado that was lying around getting squishy and all the overgrowth from our huge basil plant.

Um, just for future reference, it was yucko. Admittedly, I've never been a real big avocado fan (although I don't hate them or anything), and also, I used green beans instead of radishes. But still, I could barely choke down a few bites before I was done. Michael finished his bowl, but he agreed that it was not very good. It probably would have been a lot yummier to make a quick basil dressing to go over cubed avocado or something. Alas.

Oregano Butter Zucchini

!!!!!!! New favorite zucchini dish! I've done a lot of nice things to zucchini--roasting, grilling, sauteeing, steaming, and with the right seasonings, it always turns out great. These, however, are AMAZING. There is something so wonderful about using butter instead of olive oil, and the way the zucchini and onion get soft and sweet, and the tender freshness of fresh oregano instead of dried. Soo good.

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp FRESH oregano, chopped
• 3-4 zucchini, chopped into half-moon slices
• salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion in butter until it is starting to soften, then add the garlic and oregano and saute for a minute or two, until it's all fragrant and yummy. Then add the zucchini, about a third of a cup of water, and the salt and pepper, and cover. Cook until everything's tender.

The butter and the fresh oregano work so well with this semi-stewed way of cooking it. New favorite side dish!

 We enjoyed it with our Olive Garden leftovers (btw, best strategy there: fill up on salad and breadsticks (make sure you ask for a breadsticks refill), eat about a fourth or a third of your entree, and get enough leftovers for at least two more meals; boom).

Black Bean Tacos with Cilantro Lime Rice

Pretty quick dinner. For the taco filling, I microwaved two cans of black beans with a packet of taco seasoning. It actually made a really tasty and easy taco filling! I will have to remember that little trick. Then we topped with salsa, cheese, green onion, and avocado.

For the rice side dish, I followed this recipe for cilantro lime rice, except that I used lemon juice instead of lime juice (use what you got) and I chopped up the cilantro and stuff and stirred it in instead of trying to make a pureed dressing in the blender, which is what the recipe actually calls for. Anyway, it was a pretty good way to use up the cilantro from our herb garden.

Garlic Scape Pesto and Skillet Tortilla Pesto Pizza

These, friends, are garlic scapes. They are weird, alien vegetables that happen when you chop off the tops of garlic bulbs. They are very potently garlicky, but they come in this bright green, curly/stalky form. I always read about how much people love them in the spring, so I picked some up at the farmer's market last week.

And, this, friends, is what I made with them. Well, first I made a garlic scape pesto. Recipe from A Farmer in the Dell.

1 bunch of garlic scapes (about 7 scapes)
1 bunch of fresh basil (about 1/3 cup)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup walnuts or almonds
3 tbsp lemon juice1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Blend it all up in the food processor and put it on stuff.

This makes an intensely garlicky pesto. It will give you very strong breath if you eat it raw. It is also very delicious and it calms down a lot if it gets cooked (like on top of these little pizzas, or in the microwave). We made little pizzas in a skillet with a tortilla, a spoonful of the garlic scape pesto, a sprinkle of mozzarella, and a handful of chopped snow peas. Just put them in the skillet (covered) long enough for the bottom to get a little crispy and the cheese to melt. These are a really, really good and easy dinner, and depending on the size of your tortilla and how much cheese you use (we used 6-inchers and about two tbsp cheese), about 150-200 calories each. I loved them and I plan on making a lot more variations on skillet tortilla pizzas.

Black Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo

I can't include one of my own pictures with this because I was too lazy to make it look that pretty. And the buns we had were too small and squished, and we didn't put any beautiful lettuce or tomato or avocado on the burgers, and they were "charmingly" misshapen, and overall, they didn't look that great. BUT! They were really good and supa healthy. We got the recipe from Skinnytaste.  I won't bother re-writing the recipe; the only change we made was leaving the hot sauce out of the burgers.

I thought they were really tasty black bean burgers, and they held up well during cooking (I've made some egg-free versions that just fell apart before). They're also pretty easy to make if you have a food processor. The chipotle mayo was awesome and really, really easy. Just get a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce from the Hispanic section of the grocery store, scoop some of the sauce out, and mix it with mayo. That stuff is incredibly flavorful, and if you make the chipotle mayo with lite/fat-free mayo, it's a really low-cal topping/dip. Yay! I give this my thumbs up.

Michael was a little disappointed by the texture—it was undeniably mushy, even though it held together. I wasn't bothered by it being squishy, but (a) I've had a lot more black bean burgers than he has so I'm used to it, and (b) I wasn't comparing it to a meat burger like he was. Anyway, we both agreed that the flavors were good and that the chipotle mayo was a really fun substitute for ketchup and mustard, but I guess the texture of the burgers isn't for everyone (especially not die-hard meat lovers).

Creamy Vanilla Rhubarb Bars

Creamy Vanilla Rhubarb Bars
Inspired by this recipe

Mmmm. These were delicious. Prior to this, my one experience with rhubarb was an unpleasantly stalky strawberry rhubarb pie. And so, for many years, I had a pretty strong bias against it, despite all the food bloggers I follow raving about what a wonderful beacon of spring rhubarb is. But a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this recipe and I saw that the rhubarb in it was actually pureed. Perhaps this would allow me to enjoy the flavor of rhubarb without having to endure its stalkiness?

I changed a few things from the recipe, but this ended up being very tasty indeed. I would definitely be delighted to make this again. The filling gets whipped and fluffy, and the crust is just a great shortbread, made a little more flavor-rich with brown sugar and ginger in it. I'm thinking if I make it again, I might sub out some of the flour in the crust for some finely ground nuts, just for a little extra crunch and flavor. Mmm.

3 cups chopped rhubarb
1/2 + 1/3 c sugar (divided)
1 tsp vanilla extract (if you have any of the fancy Mexican stuff, this is the time to use it)

1/2 c butter, softened
1/3 c brown sugar
1 c flour (or half-and-half with finely ground nuts)
1/2 tsp ginger

2 tbsp lemon juice
3 eggs
1 tbsp corn starch

1. The filling needs to be started before the crust. Mix the chopped rhubarb and 1/2 c sugar together in a medium saucepan. It will look too dry but the rhubarb will release lots of juice quickly. Cook about 10-15 minutes, or until everything is fully softened and falling apart. Take off the heat and add the vanilla.

2. Let the filling cool to room temperature (or in the fridge overnight) or you'll curdle the eggs in the next step. Meanwhile, make the crust: preheat the oven to 350. Cream together the butter and brown sugar, then mix in the flour and ginger until it's fully incorporated. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a square pan. Take a little bite; it's basically eggless cookie dough at this point. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350, or until it's set and golden-brown around the edges.

3. If the rhubarb mixture is cool enough at this point, then proceed. Otherwise chill out for a little while until it is.

4. Add the lemon juice, eggs, 1/3 c sugar, and cornstarch to the rhubarb. Stir it around just enough to loosen up the rhubarb; it's not critical that it be mixed evenly at all.

5. Pour all the stuff from the previous step into a blender and whir it up until there's no more stalks left and it just looks like a creamy pink milkshake. Using the blender for the entire filling instead of just the rhubarb is what makes it all so creamy, light, and delicious. Pour the "milkshake" over the baked crust and bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until top is set.

Let it continue to set before diving in. When I made the first cut into it, I was worried it hadn't set, because the knife came out so wet. However, the slices held together beautifully even while it was a little warm. I enjoyed this most when it were chilled in the fridge.

Another thought: this would actually be really, really good as a pie. Genius!

Grilled Strawberry Cream Cheese Chocolate Sandwiches

We went strawberry picking today.

And in addition to eating tons of them straight (farm-fresh strawberries kick the sad, sour, hard butts of the grocery store strawberries from California), we had some fun grilling them up for dessert. For dinner, we made caprese grilled cheese sandwiches (sorry, no pics) with mozzarella cheese, sliced tomatoes, and fresh basil from our herb garden. And then for dessert, I made some little grilled cheeses with cream cheese, strawberries, and chocolate chips. They were dang good. The only thing that I might think about doing in the future would be adding a little sugar to the cream cheese--that part wasn't really sweet enough to be dessert. It also might be really yummy to just do the strawberries and chocolate chips inside and make a little sweetened cream cheese spread/dip/frosting on the side.

Grilled Pizza And Stroobaroo Sundaes

I just wanted to say that grilled pizza is a lot harder than it looks. It took a long time and got a lot of stuff burned, and despite what all the blogs say about how the bottom cooks too fast to stick to the grill grates or drip down through them--lies! It totally sticks and drips. Granted, everything ended up tasting pretty good (that delicious charcoal flavor that gets into grilled foods is just so tasty), but it just took a long time and was a little frustrating. Next time I think we'll stick to grilled veggie kebabs (they are seriously delicious and much, much easier).

Dessert was much yummier (and simpler). We had some vanilla ice cream topped with homemade strawberry sauce (takes about ten minutes to cook up and is extremely forgiving) and homemade whipped cream (takes about one minute). I really need to remember that simpler is almost always better.

Colorful Pasta Salad

We were asked to bring a salad to a church activity recently. Voila! Recipe inspired by Taste of Home and modified to fit our tastes/pantry.

• 1 package (16 ounces) spiral pasta
• 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 sweet pepper, diced
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2/3 cup lemon juice
• mozzarella cheese (can be cubed and mixed in with the salad or grated as a topping)

Cook the pasta. In one bowl, whisk up the garlic, spices, salt, olive oil, and lemon juice. When the pasta's done, rinse it under cold water and toss it with the dressing, the chickpeas, and the chopped pepper. Let it marinate in the fridge for at least a few hours, or overnight. Top with grated mozzarella and serve!


I really, really liked this a lot. The oregano is just great in it, and the flavors get better on the second day after making it. Overall, it's really healthy and tasty and great for summer when a hot dinner is the last thing you want.

Cucumber Sandwiches

So...we didn't have a whole lot of ingredients on hand for dinner, so I got a little creative. We made sandwiches with wheat bread, cream cheese, sliced cucumber, onion, romaine, cottage cheese, and some little sprinkles of dried basil, oregano, and some fancy-pants pink salt Sam got Michael for Christmas. Super simple. They also would have been good with chickpeas, salad dressing, green onions, or any other fresh, crispy vegetables. We assembled the sammies at the table and chowed down. I also made a spread of wheat thins topped with cream cheese, a cucumber slice, and salt, and those were tasty, too. I'll have to remember fresh veggie sandwiches the next time I'm feeling lazy!

Zebra Cake

Zebra Cake.

 Mmmm. You barely even need a recipe for this. You start with a box of white cake mix. I made the mix substituting applesauce for the oil and one of the eggs (this keeps it moister and denser and makes the texture more "homemade" instead of having that unmistakable boxed mix flavor and texture, and it also makes it lower fat). This is a story for another day, but you can really play with cake mixes as much as you want--substituting water, pop (not diet though, it turns bitter in the oven), applesauce, yogurt, pudding, anything you want for any of the liquids in the cake mix, and it will still turn out. It's actually kind of amazing how flexible those mixes are.

Once your batter is made, divide it into two bowls and add a square of melted unsweetened chocolate (and a few scoops of cocoa powder if it's still not dark enough) to one of the bowls. Then pour into a bundt pan, alternating batters, and bake as directed on the box.

Voila! Unfortunately, we didn't get a shot of the inside since we served this at dinner with some friends and it would have been weird to make them wait while we took a picture. Oh, and I also made a caramel glaze to top it off with. Note to self: next time let the glaze cool more so it won't just slide down the sides of the cake and make a big puddle (the picture above is after the cleanup of that mess). Also, I'm thinking next time it might be good to poke a few holes in the cake to let the glaze run inside--the bottom of the cake that was sitting in the glaze puddle was totally the yummiest part.

Definitely an easy cake with enough of a wow factor to serve to guests. I will make this again for sure!

Cauliflower Pizza

This is, without a doubt, the BEST pizza I've ever made. The crust was perfectly crisp on the outside and light and soft on the inside. It was slightly chewy without being bready or dense (and without taking a zillion chews per bite). The toppings, though, were FANTASTIC. It's a light bechamel, roasted cauliflower, garlic, and some parmesan and mozzarella with breadcrumbs. Such simple things, but this is among the best things I've made this year.

I used Bobby Flay's pizza dough recipe. It was pretty sticky and hard to work with (maybe it just needed more flour, though?), but the final result was fantastic. The recipe I usually use doesn't require much in the way of kneading and rising, and that recipe may be a lot easier, but this one definitely delivered the results.

And this is my inspiration for the toppings. I did things a little differently, though, just to simplify the recipe.

1 medium head of cauliflower
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/8 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg
sprinkle of garlic powder, or 1/2 garlic clove, minced
3 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan
1-2 ounces shredded mozzarella
dash of chili flakes
1-2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 450. Chop and crumble the head of cauliflower into very small bites--this is going to be a pizza topping, not a side dish. Put the cauliflower into a square baking pan and roast until it's lightly charred and translucent. Make sure the biggest pieces have softened. This took me about 20 minutes, but start checking after 10 (due to differences in ovens, baking pans, and size of cauliflower pieces).

2. Make the bechamel sauce. It's such a small amount that there's no need to be fussy with all the traditional steps. Warm the milk and butter over medium-low heat until the butter melts. Don't let the milk boil. When the butter melts, sprinkle the flour on top and whisk it in, making sure there are no lumps. Add the salt as well. Keep whisking as the mixture thickens. It's done around 180 F, or when it's the consistency of a runny sauce or heavy cream. Add the nutmeg and garlic and take off the heat.

3. Wrestle the pizza dough onto some baking sheets and top with the bechamel, then the roasted cauliflower, then the cheeses. Add some red pepper flakes if you like that, and top with a sprinkle of breadcrumbs. Bake for about ten minutes, or until the crust is browned and no longer doughy. As you can see, our toppings browned up quite a bit and it all just contributed to the awesomeness of this pizza. Fantastic.

So, there are kind of a lot of steps, but the nice part is that most of this could be made ahead of time--the crust, the sauce, the cauliflower, shredding the cheese...and once those parts are done, all you have to do is assemble and bake. I highly recommend this recipe. Yum!

Greek Frittata

inspiration here

Michael is such a good photographer. I wasn't very optimistic about the picture of this, since in general, a lot of casseroles and mixtures tend not to photograph very well (despite being delicious!). But look how tasty that looks! Just looking at it now makes me want to dive in with a fork. Mmm.

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 small potato, cubed
1/2 bell pepper, cubed
4 eggs
4-5 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed (a little less than half a standard package)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper

1. Heat up the oil, then start cooking the onion. After about two minutes, add the potato and bell pepper. Cook for another 5-7 minutes, or until everything's softened. Stir occasionally.

2. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and add the spinach, feta, oregano, and salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetables in the skillet and cook on low heat, covered, for about ten minutes, until the edges of the eggs are set.

3. Put the skillet in the oven under the broiler (on low) for a few minutes, until the top is puffed and browned. Let it cool for about 5 minutes, then serve!

Some notes: even a whole quarter of the pan here has under 200 calories. Needless to say, we polished off the entire pan between the two of us. If we make this again, we probably would increase the amount of vegetables and the amount of eggs. It was also hard to avoid over-cooking it. I suggest adding a little milk with the eggs to keep things fluffy, and it might also be good to be brave in stopping cooking before the eggs are completely dry, since they will continue to set up in the hot pan, even off the heat. But this was a tasty meal, and I really liked it. I'd say that if you made a big frittata and served it with a green salad and some crusty, buttered bread, this ought to be enough of a meal for anyone.

black bean soup

Can you tell this is when Michael got a new camera? All the other pictures on the blog before now were either snapshots I took with my point-and-shoot or just borrowed from the website where I found the original recipe. But now, hopefully, things will start looking a little more beautiful.

This was made using this recipe. Michael made this, so I can't really speak to the difficulty of the recipe or anything. I do know that he left out the jalapeno and just used two chipotle peppers instead. I have to say that this tasted really, really good. For (what was at least supposed to be) a thirty-minute soup...wow. The chipotle chilis and the adobo sauce made it so smoky and deep. Really, really good recipe. The only sad part was that this was way too spicy for me. I could only make it through about half a bowl before the spiciness made it hard for me to enjoy. It was sad, because the flavor was great, but I just couldn't handle the heat (so I got out of the kitchen). Granted, I am a super baby about spicy things, but still...with two chipotles, this was quite hot. I'd make it again, but only if we used one chipotle...or maybe half of one.

5-Layer Mexican Polenta

See the original recipe here.

Basically, it was a layered Mexican casserole, with sliced polenta at the bottom, plus beans, corn, sauteed bell peppers and onions, spices, salsa, cheese, and olives. It was pretty tasty. The only annoying thing was that the original recipe listing said it could be used as a dip, so we were expecting something...casserole-y. Instead, there wasn't really anything to bind all the separate layers together (I guess the salsa and cheese weren't enough...), so it was just...a bunch of stuff all in the same pan. Anyway, the taste was pretty good—I'll give the spices a thumbs-up. I wonder how much better the recipe would be if the beans were lightly mashed, and all the supra-polenta layers got mixed together instead of just layered, so the mashed beans, salsa and cheese could actually hold everything together. Also, we didn't like the bell pepper in there, which was sad because fresh bell peppers are the best.

So here's how I would make this again: lightly mash the black beans, and mix them with the sauteed onions (no peppers), spices, corn, salsa, cheese, and olives. Maybe even add a small can of tomato sauce if more liquid is needed. Then, cube the polenta (instead of slicing it into slabs), and put it on top of the other ingredients, instead of under them, so it'll get golden and crispy. Ooh, now I am feeling all inspired to make this again. It's a fine idea for a recipe, it just needed a little trouble-shooting to make it good.

Southwestern Egg Rolls and Mashed Sweet Perderders

I take a lot of recipes from this site (link to this recipe), but they have some seriously good Meatless Monday ideas. Love it.
Basically, the egg rolls are just thawed frozen spinach, thawed frozen corn, black beans, and some spices. The recipe called for cheese in them too, but Michael was nice and left it out so mine could be low-cal (and his could be topped with as much cheese as he likes). Pretty simple to make, and pretty tasty. Could be a great party appetizer (although I'd probably actually put cheese in them if I was serving them to guests).

No recipe for the mashed sweet potatoes—we just had about 4 baked sweet potatoes hanging out in our fridge, so we microwaved them, mashed them up with a fork (skins and all), added a splash of milk to help bind them, and seasoned with salt and pepper. It also would have been easy to go more of a sweet route, with maple syrup and cinnamon instead of the pepper. Either, way, super easy and really, really good. I love sweet potatoes—definitely one of my favorite vegetables.

Steamed Asparagus and a Poached Egg

Steamed asparagus, on a bed of white rice. Topped with a microwave-poached egg, a capful or two of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and grated parmesan. Super simple, super seasonal. Don't even need a recipe.

Spicy Lentil Salad and Fennel Potatoes

So I made this lentil salad—supposedly the "best lentil salad." It was actually probably the best way I've ever eaten lentils, but I don't know how amazing it was. The first night that I made it, it was just really spicy. That's actually where most of the work of this recipe was—in measuring out all the spices! I think the only changes I made were using regular green lentils (which held up just fine, since I left them al dente instead of cooking them to mush like most people do to lentils), and I also reduced the oil to 1/4 cup.

I will, say, though, that the leftovers just kept getting better and better as the flavors melded and chilled out a little. The first night that I made this, there was just too much going on (and way too much heat) for me to really enjoy it, but in the next few days, it actually got pretty good. I'm not sure when I'd make this again—it was a bit of work for something that wasn't even that good until a few days later, but it's still a fine recipe, and I do give it a lot of credit for being the first time that I've actually thought lentils were good. Another thing we discovered was that this particular recipe made way too much—we were eating it for days, and we still had enough leftovers to take to a dinner party. And we still had leftovers after that. It doesn't look like that much, but it makes a frig ton.



We also made these fennel potatoes, which were pretty interesting. I haven't cooked much with fennel seeds, so these were some pretty new flavors. Is this going to become a regular in my cooking lineup? Unlikely. But it was really fun to take a pretty standard dish and try it with a bold, unfamiliar spice. I definitely enjoyed it, but I think my biggest hangup is that I just don't know what to serve something so boldly spiced with. Normally I pair bold dishes with rice or potatoes or pasta, but this is already straight carbs, so I'm unsure.
Anyway, the only recipe mod I made was using 1 tablespoon of oil instead of 3. The other thing that I wish I had done was dicing or slicing the garlic instead of just tossing whole, smashed cloves in. After they cooked, a smashed garlic clove looked a lot like a bite of smashed potato, which meant you had to pay attention to what your fork was spearing lest you wind up with a big bite of nothing but garlic.

Bubble-Up Pizza and Baked Onion Rings

Recipe inspired by this post, but (of course) modified slightly.
We made homemade baking powder biscuits, which made this recipe slightly less lazy, but still pretty dang easy. Roll out the biscuit dough and cut into little squares. Each square should be about the size of a normal ball of cookie dough. You don't want them too big—they'll puff up a lot, and it's good for each one to be about one or two bites.

Then we mixed the little squares of biscuit dough with a big can of spaghetti sauce, 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella, and a teaspoon of dried basil. Pour it into a pie dish (ours is a 9-inch deep dish, and it still almost overflowed, so it has to be a big pie dish, or else use a square pan), top with another 1/4 cup mozzarella, and bake, covered, for however long the biscuit recipe calls for baking them. You can uncover in the last few minutes to help brown the cheese on top.

I really loved this. I was nibbling at the leftovers in the fridge for the whole next day. I also really loved what a no-brainer meal this was. Apart from making the biscuits (and you can always buy the canned store kind), this required basically no measuring or chopping or thought. That's pretty awesome. I will say, though, that the two of us ate probably about 3/4 of this just for dinner. If we were making this for guests, we'd have to at least double or triple the recipe. I guess it's just that good!



We also made my sister's recipe for baked onion rings: chop up a big onion, and dredge the rings in flour, then a beaten, watered-down egg (like maybe 2 parts egg:1 part water), and a mixture of half panko breadcrumbs and half seasoned breadcrumbs. I forgot that part and only used panko, which made it very crispy, but not nearly seasoned enough. I think using all panko would be fine if I had remembered to add a lot of salt in with the breadcrumbs.

And then you just bake them at 400 until one side is golden brown (maybe 10-15 minutes?) and then flip and let the other side brown. Pro tip: you can spray them with vegetable oil before baking to make them, like, legit brown. The more oil you use, the browner they'll get. It's a fine line between trying to keep it healthy and light and trying to make it look (and taste) a little nicer. I actually forgot to add any spray, and they still turned out really tasty, but I wonder if they might have been even better with a little spray.

Michael's birthday

Happy birthday!!!! Michael wanted a home-cooked meal for his birthday, and I was happy to comply. He decided on stuffed shells, a vegetable side dish (I made Martha's lemon roasted broccoli and cauliflower), and, of course, his family classic, Wacky Cake.
I made the recipe based on this stuffed shells recipe, but modified it slightly. It ended up being something more like this:

1 package of pasta shells (cook for the time recommended for stuffing and baking, so they'll still be pretty firm as you stuff them)

Mix in a bowl:
1 package of low-fat ricotta (it's either 12 or 16 oz, can't remember)
~2 cups of fat-free cottage cheese
6-8 oz grated mozzarella
1/4 cup parmesan
2 eggs
1 tsp each: garlic powder, oregano, dried parsley, basil

Using a big ziploc bag with one corner snipped off (size of a dime), fill the shells and pack them into a 9x13 pan. Mine didn't all fit, so I put about 15 into a separate pie pan and froze them for later.

Top with 1 big jar spaghetti sauce (don't skimp--I needed 1.5 cans to cover the big pan and the pie pan), and another 1/4 cup parmesan. Bake, covered, for 25-35 minutes, at 350. You can remove the foil during the last few minutes to brown the cheese, but be careful, or the pasta will get dry, crunchy spots in it. Let it sit for a few minutes before serving.



I also made Martha Stewart's lemon roasted broccoli and cauliflower. I first made this for Michael over a year ago, on our second date. Awwww....

It's a really yummy recipe. Roasting is seriously the best thing you can do to cauliflower or broccoli, period. It takes away all the bitterness and brings out all the sweetness and savoriness. Mmm. The lemon is a really nice touch, too. Having whole slices of it gives smoky, intense, bright spots to the dish—you don't actually eat the lemon, but having it roasted right on top of the broccoli and cauliflower is a totally different experience from just using lemon juice to dress the veggies.
One thing I always forget with this recipe is that 475 is WAY too hot. It should be at 400 or 425, and still watched carefully. If you do it at 475, you will for sure lose some delicious bites of vegetables to burning, and that's no good.



And finally, I made Michael's childhood favorite, the Wacky Cake. His mom made this for him and his siblings during all of their birthdays growing up. I kept asking Michael if there was any way I could make it a little more exciting or fancy—if it's his special birthday treat, it should be more special than the same thing he and all his siblings got for years, right? So I asked, do you want a different frosting this year? Maybe cream cheese or something? Do you want a raspberry (or other fruit) filling in between the layers, and then chocolate frosting on the outside? Do you want a pastry cream filling? Cut the cake layers in half to fit in even more frosting/filling? How about a "crumb coat" layer of peanut butter frosting, and then the chocolate frosting on top of that? A ganache? Chocolate chips? Sprinkles? He said no to all of them! I was surprised he let me put birthday candles on top, for goodness' sake. :) I guess there's no messing with childhood memories!

Happy birthday, Michael! This was a fun meal to make!

Kraft Macaroni, done fancy-style

Look at me, trying to make boxed macaroni into something fancy and grown-up. I'll be honest, I'm writing this up a month late and I'm trying to remember what I even put into this, but I'll do my best. Clearly I added a box of frozen spinach. I also recall adding liberal amounts of garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and chili powder. I also seem to recall adding in maybe half a brick of cream cheese—that went a long way toward making this taste of something besides the orange powder (which I did actually add, and it turned out to be much yummier when it was balanced by lots of other flavors).

I pretty much winged this, but it was pretty good. Would I serve this to company? Of course not. But it's nice knowing that those trashy boxes in my pantry can become slightly more interesting, and slightly more nutritious with those greens in there.

Lemon Cake-Pie

Recipe here.
Yes, CLEARLY I am no food stylist, but this dessert was really flipping awesome. And the picture actually does kind of show you what the layers are like. The recipe fits perfectly in a square pan, with NO crust (the original recipe called for one, but I really think a crust would have been bad for this). It turns into a light, angel-food cake layer on top with a layer of luscious lemon curd on the bottom. It's delicious hot but AWESOME cold. I think Michael had like one serving when I made it and then I finished off the rest of it over the next two days. SO good. A+.

Crock Pot Butter Beans

So clearly I am not cut out to be a food stylist. But this was really tasty, and crock pot meals are just a blast to come home to. I got big ol' dried butter beans from the store—love the way they plump and get HUGE!—and tossed them in the crock pot with vegetable broth, a bay leaf, some garlic powder, an onion (halved, but removed before serving), and a can of stewed tomatoes. And lots of salt. Then we ate it over toast and it was pretty dang good. Seriously, giant butter beans are just the best. You can really appreciate how creamy and smooth they get in the crock pot!

I'd probably serve this over rice, and with a green salad to make it a more official-seeming dinner.

BUTTER!!!

Wondering what I did with all that leftover whipped cream from last night? Well, I knew it wouldn't last much longer. In fact, it would probably mostly deflate just from being in the fridge overnight. So I decided to leave the leftover whipped cream in the Kitchenaid, rev it up, and let it whip that cream into butter.



BUTTER, Y'ALL!!!

Yup. So I kept it going on high speed for...maybe 5-10 minutes? After a while, it started looking curdly and I was worried that something had gone wrong, but a few minutes after that, it just...turned into butter! Seriously, it was churning away, and I left the kitchen to go tell Michael something, and suddenly I heard a loud thwack-thwack-thwack from the kitchen. I of course assumed that my dear darling Kitchenaid had exploded (have I mentioned it's from 1965? yeah...), but it turned out that the butter had just...suddenly coalesced into a big lump. Which I retrieved from the mixer, and which I now display proudly. (It also left a bunch of buttermilk sitting at the bottom of the mixer, which I also retrieved, but never ended up using in anything. This kind of buttermilk is not the same as buttermilk from the store, which is fermented and slightly sour.)

Anyway, unfortunately, this butter was not as good as store-bought butter. I wasn't surprised that it was so pale, but the flavor was pretty weak, too. Bummer. It was still a fun experiment, and not a bad way to use up whipped cream that you know you won't eat.

Cauliflower Puttanesca and Spicy Carrot Potato Salad

Valentine's Day Dinner: Cauliflower Puttanesca (We liked it easy on the olives and no capers) and a spicy carrot-potato warm salad, from The Book of Jewish Food. Both were very tasty. Cauliflower just goes really well with pasta, I think. But the carrot-potato salad was to die for. So cheap and easy, and yet SO flavorful! Awesome.

For dessert:

That used to be a heart-shaped brownie, but it got all mushed up coming out of the heart molds. Oh well! Also, that's legit whipped cream, whipped by yours truly (and yours truly's Kitchenaid).

Barley and Spinach Salad (with feta, white beans, and cranberries)

I love me a warm grain salad. Especially in the depths of winter, when you're getting over Thai food-induced indigestion, and your apartment is chilly, and you just want something that will warm you up without making you feel terrible about your diet.


(Sorry for the quality--took it on my ipod instead of my camera, and also apparently blogger rotated the picture when it uploaded. Oh well.)

I was inspired by a similar recipe I saw for a quinoa salad with sauteed kale. But I didn't have enough quinoa on hand, and I didn't feel like chopping or sauteeing, so I improvised a little. I ended up making it with barley instead (but any other whole grain like bulgur wheat or brown rice would also be great), and I just defrosted a 10-oz package of frozen spinach. I also added a can of white beans to add to the healthy heartiness. It turned out great!

Here are the amounts I used, for reference:

1 cup dried barley
1 10-oz package frozen spinach
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 can white/great Northern/cannellini beans, rinsed (chickpeas would also be good)
pinch red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon olive oil
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4-1/2 cup crumbled feta
salt to taste

Cook the barley according to package directions. Add the cranberries in with the barley for the last few minutes of cooking so they'll soften up. Defrost the spinach in the microwave and stir it in, along with all the other ingredients. Salt to taste.

I just love all the ingredients in this salad, and I love the way they play together so nicely. I've made things similar to this before, but I've never thought to add cranberries. Getting a cranberry in with the other ingredients just adds a really nice, sweet zip to the bite! Love it.

I'm also thinking about possible variations: use a different grain (quinoa, barley, bulgur wheat, brown rice, farro, etc), a different green (some freshly-sauteed kale might have a nice flavor, although that's one extra pan to get dirty...), use tomatoes in the summer instead of the cranberries (and toss in a handful of basil to go with them, yum), parmesan instead of feta, chickpeas instead of white beans...this is a really great base recipe, and I look forward to thinking up riffs on it.

Would I make this again? Oh, definitely! I'm actually already considering just keeping a dish of this (or some variation of this) always made in the fridge so I can have a healthy lunch whenever I want. This is my favorite recipe that I've documented on here so far!

Light baked rigatoni and roasted root vegetables

I wasn't feeling particularly ambitious, so I wanted to make something that didn't need to be "inspired" by something, for which I could make a recipe off the top of my head, and, perhaps most importantly, would use up all the slowly-softening root vegetables we had laying around.

Voila! Roasted things and casseroles are not usually very photogenic, but they were both very good.

We had roasted root vegetables. Michael was kind enough to chop up very large quantities of sweet potatoes, redskin potatoes, carrots, and red onions (and I mean very large quantities--we have two quarts of the chopped vegetables that we didn't have space for in the oven sitting in the freezer still).
And then all we did was drizzle on a little bit of oil, generously salt and pepper, and bake at around 425 until they were soft and fork-tender. One of my secret tricks for roasting vegetables is to add some vegetable broth halfway through the cooking--it keeps them moist and adds a whole new dimension of flavor. Halfway through roasting (so maybe after twenty minutes or so), I stirred the veggies around and poured about a cup of vegetable broth over the two pans. It also deglazed the pans, getting all the yummy browned bits, and that's another bonus of doing it that way.

The light baked rigatoni was even easier--a pound of pasta, a pound of fat-free cottage cheese, a pound of defrosted frozen spinach, a big can of tomato sauce, and enough grated mozzarella and parmesan to top. Bake it up until it's hot and bubbly.

Would I make these again? Oh, definitely. Both of these recipes are sort of standards for me when I'm feeling uncreative, but they're both very delicious, very easy to make healthy (yeah, you could take out the spinach and triple the cheese for the rigatoni, but then you only get to eat half as much!), and dead easy to toss together when you're tired. Especially if your darling husband will do all the chopping for you!

"Chickpea of the sea" sandwiches and yam chips

I ran across an idea to make a chickpea salad sandwich instead of a tuna salad sandwich. The blog author called it "chickpea of the sea," heh.

On top of making the classic sandwich vegetarian-friendly, I also really like the idea of getting extra fiber and losing extra fat while still being rock-solid on the protein front. Hooray chickpeas! I adapted the recipe slightly, based on making it extra healthy and also making it with what we had in the fridge:

Pulse a can of chickpeas in the food processor for a few seconds, until it's very roughly chopped.

Add the following:
1/4 cup fat-free mayo
1.5 tbsp white vinegar
1.5 tbsp mustard
1 tsp celery seed
1-2 sliced green onions
a few cranks of freshly ground pepper
salt to taste

Then pulse for a few more seconds, or until everything's mixed and the texture is where you want it. I actually ended up adding a little water to loosen it up, but I'm not sure exactly how much.

Then we ate it on sandwiches with some spinach leaves. Michael liked it more than I did--I made a double recipe (since the original said it only made two sandwiches!), and he finished off all the leftovers. The double recipe ended up being enough for 8-10 sandwiches (sheesh), and it was still gone within three days. But the flavors were very [chicken/tuna/chickpea/egg]-salad-sandwich-y, with the mayo and celery seed and mustard, and I really liked that.

Overall rating: not mind-blowing, but still tasty and extra points for being so dang good for you. I'll give it a B.

We also made yam chips. Michael sliced up a whole, washed-but-unpeeled sweet potato on the mandoline, and we laid them out on baking sheets, sprayed them with vegetable oil spray, coated with salt, and baked them at ~400 until they were crispy. Future note to self: watch these carefully. We burned the tray on the bottom of the oven, and that was a bummer. But I thought they were really good, in spite of the minor hassle of laying out each individual yam slice on the baking sheets, and I'd make them again. We also made two variations--one with salt plus Cajun spice mix, and one with just salt. The Cajun was interesting but I preferred the plain salt ones; it let the yam flavor come through better.

Overall rating: Yum! I liked these more than Michael did. I'll give them...an A-? I don't know; this grading scale is super arbitrary, but I thought they were yummy and I'd make them again. So...there ya go.

Taste of OSU

Today we went to the "Taste of OSU" as a combined dinner/date. It's a huge multicultural event, where the 35+ ethnic student groups on campus set up informational booths, put on dance and music performances, and best of all, have delicious ethnic food booths. They had a system set up where you buy food tickets for a dollar each and then exchange the tickets at any booth for a taste (about 3-4 bites' worth) of whatever foods you were interested in.

We loved the variety! There were well over a hundred dishes there to try, so even though it was pretty crowded, we had a great time walking around the different countries' booths and whenever we saw something that looked good, we handed over a ticket and got a few scoops on our plate. It was also a great deal--for $10, we got to try ten foods we had never eaten before, and we were completely stuffed afterwards. Awesome date!

I brought my camera but I completely forgot to take pictures. Also, I didn't do a very good job of remembering the names of dishes, or even what country's booth we got most things from...this is going to make it challenging to recreate these dishes. Oh well. Our favorites were:

White asparagus soup (Germany)
fruit and nut and chocolate bar thing (Poland)
Vegetarian Muka Duka...or something...it was yellow, with wontons, rice, veggies, spices (some...Asian country :/ )
Malaysian brownie--European-style biscuits layered with a fudgey mixture of chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, butter, and nuts. I at least got the ingredients of this one (Malaysia)
Japanese vinegar rice wrapped in tofu and fried
Greek cream-filled cheese with pistachio and sweetened rose water
Indian....savory filled pastry with sweetish sauce

So tasty! And so wonderfully cheap! We're definitely going again next year.

Toasted Polenta with Quick Chili

Tonight's dinner was inspired by an "Instant Tamale Pie." The original recipe called for you to bake a little casserole with a layer of sliced polenta at the bottom and a mixture of beans, salsa, corn, and cheese on top. That sounded yummy, but I was hoping for a little more texture—I didn't want it to just be mushy all the way through.

So I deconstructed things a little. I cubed the polenta (instead of slicing it) and just toasted in a big skillet for about ten minutes, until the sides of the cubes were crispy and lightly browned. For a lot of foods, toasting or dry-frying (basically, frying without any oil at all) works about as well as frying does, but it keeps your foods light-tasting and healthy. Much better. Anyway, the little cubes crisped up nicely in a dry pan.

The quick chili aspect was really easy to make. I just took a can of chili beans (they already come with a little bit of sauce in the can), mashed it up lightly with a fork, and added half a cup of salsa, half a cup of frozen corn, and a teaspoon of cumin. Then just heat up the mixture in a saucepan on the stove (or in the microwave) while the polenta's toasting.

We assembled it with a layer of the crispy polenta at the bottom, then a few spoonfuls of the quick chili, then a sprinkling of grated cheese on top. It was actually very delicious. The polenta was brightly corn-flavored and nice and toasty, and the chili was surprisingly warm and flavorful, considering how few ingredients were in it. And a little bit of cheese took things over the top!

On top of being easy and tasty, it only cost around two dollars ($1 for the tube of polenta, which was cheap because someone who's bad at marketing labeled it as the much less appetizing "corn meal mush," $0.65 for the can of beans, and a few extra pennies for the corn, salsa, and cheese that we had in our pantry). High fives for making frugality awesome!

Red Grape Pizza

I have a weakness. I see recipes that look crazy and think, "Wow, why haven't I ever thought of that?" But guys: recipes and flavor combinations that look crazy...well, let's just say they usually taste crazy too.






















From Ezra Pound Cake.

I was intrigued when I saw this recipe for a grape pizza: you use a batch of pizza dough, divide it into 4 mini-pizzas, then brush each one with rosemary and olive oil, add some halved red grapes, drizzle with honey, and sprinkle with grated pecorino.

There are just...a lot of flavors going on! The grapes get really sweet and juicy as they cook, and the honey gets all caramely and bubbly with the cheese. The first couple bites of this, I was like, "Wow! What are all these...wow!" The combination of fruit and honey with the herby rosemary and the strong cheese was really good and new for the first few bites. But by the end, we were less "wow" and more "what...what is this bizarre mix of flavors? Whose idea was this?"

So, I wouldn't call it a swing and a miss. It wasn't horrible. It might be good as a two-bite appetizer, but the flavors were way too strong and crazy for a full meal. We also said that all the sweetness from the grapes and honey was probably just too much with the rosemary and the powerful cheese, and if we were to make something like this again, we'd probably swap out the grapes and honey for some nice browned onions.

Verdict: B+, then D (but with the possibility of a higher grade with some substitutions)

Our Dinners

We make so many fun dinners together--Michael and I both read a lot of cooking blogs, and we love to be adventurous. We were thinking about it, and the whole time we've been together, I think we've only had 3 repeat dinners: pasta with butternut and sage sauce, burritos, and shakshouka. Go figure. I like making things up as I go and tweaking recipes, and Michael likes finding esoteric recipes with unusual ingredients, and with our powers combined, we get a lot of variety in meals.

So to remember our triumphs and failures, we are (or...maybe I am :) ) going to start archiving the dinners we've made, so we can have a sort of online recipe book, and so we can remember what recipes worked and what didn't.