Quesadillas

Just a simple dinner tonight - fill a tortilla with shredded cheddar and fry it in olive oil. A couple of those. Instant quesadillas!

Start of Spring

Haven't spent much time updating this blog. I get intimidated when I think about taking photos of what I'm cooking, because I'm not really great at taking luscious, sexy food pictures.

However, I love to cook. Maybe I could learn how to photograph food such that it looks alluring.

In any case, spring returns. I live on a lake with towering pines all around me. I look forward to starting to cook again. I don't feel much like cooking during the winter.

Been converting to drinking a lot more tea. At the bookstore the other day I got the London Fog latte and it was incredible. I don't usually like Earl Grey with extra bergamot, but when it has lots of steamed milk and vanilla in it, it's good.

My Harney & Sons order came today. Their Paris tea and the Chopra Invigorating Tea (Kapha-balancing).

the decorated cookie: plaid cookies for St. Patrick's Day

the decorated cookie: plaid cookies for St. Patrick's Day

Veggie Burger Attempt

Okay, so after Dad left I started getting a craving for a hamburger. Forgot my thyroid medication. Must take that.

Rather than go out, decided to make a veggie burger. The taste came out okay (totally edible, not wonderful) but it was more of a glop rather than an actual burger. (Totally a brand new cuisine for me.)


Veggie Burger


Into the Magic Bullet, I put:
- black beans, rinsed (about half a can)
- tbsp olive oil
- tbsp chives
- tbsp chopped yellow onion
- tbsp Dijon Nayonnaise
- tbsp Balsamic Vingar
- 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
- tsp of minced garlic
- tsp of ground cumin
- pinch each of S&P

I "fried" the glop-mixture in olive oil in the cast iron pan. Took a hamburger roll and loaded it up with microgreens from yesterday's trip. Scooped the crispy mixture onto the burger, sprinkled shredded cheese over it and voila!

Not bad, not bad at all. I should have stopped before I added the Nayonnaise, which soupified it. Then I didn't like that flavor, so I added the balsamic vinegar to cover it. And I didn't like the flavor of the breadcrumbs so I didn't want to add *more* of those. I didn't particularly want to add oats, but I guess I could have. In retrospect I could have added chia seeds and they would have been an excellent binder. Next time.

And, no more craving to go to McDonald's. *nods* Good. Not exactly raw, but a whole hell of a lot better than MickeyD's.


Two observations:

a) the minced garlic in the fridge is intensely bitter. Uck. That jar is almost empty, so I think I will empty it, wash it and fill it with fresh minced garlic + some olive oil.

b) I don't like the flavor of store-bought bread crumbs anymore. (exception: the kind you can buy in the bakery at Whole Foods) Now that I've made my own a few times, my taste buds are completely rejecting the store-bought version.

Veggie Mixes Mean Fast Food

I find it hard to cook for myself. I'd rather go and get takeout. Funny, because I love cooking for other people.

So, I've been stocking up on storebought frozen pre-chopped vegetables. I thought perhaps that would make it easier for me to cook on days when I have less energy.

Burritos: Rainy Day Comfort Food

Potato & pepper & onion burritos are my idea of a rainy-day comfort food. A tropical storm is wending its way into Southern New England and I stared at the rain whilst clicking my little City of Wonder buildings, I thought of tortillas and cheese.

Perfect for lunch or dinner.

This is precisely how I made it because I used what I had on-hand, but you can modify it however you need: just eyeball the food you have and do what you can!

Ingredients:
- 1 16oz bag of sliced green, yellow and red peppers (still frozen)
- 1 12oz bag of diced onions (still frozen)
- 10 fingerling potatoes
- tortillas
- cheddar cheese, shredded
- olive oil
- 2 tbsp chipotle spice powder from Tupperware
- sour cream

1) I turned the burner to somewhat high heat (7 of 10) and put some olive oil in the pan, just enough to coat.
2) I poured the frozen veggies in, broke them up a bit with a spoon and left them to cook.
3) I washed and poked the potatoes and put them into the microwave to cook.
4) I stirred the peppers & onions, added the chipotle spice powder and played City of Wonder, because I'm completely addicted to this latest Disney Facebook game.
5) After about ten minutes the peppers & onions were starting to caramelize and were hitting the edge of what I'd call burnt-on-the-bottom. Love it, because that reminds me of what it's like when you get fajitas at a restaurant.
6) I cut up the cooked potatoes into bite-size pieces and stirred them into the pepper mixture.
7) I put a cast iron pan onto another burner, turned the heat to 5 (of 10) and when it was warm, I laid a tortilla in it.
8) When the tortilla was warm, I turned it over and liberally spread the cheese over it.
9) I waited until the cheese was mostly melted and took the tortilla out of the pan and put it into a plate.
10) I then spooned the pepper & potato mixture into the center of the tortilla and spooned sour cream over the top. I folded the tortilla simply (both sides up over each other into a roll) and it was done.

And it was SOOO good.

Moroccan Inspired Chickpeas - Pham Fatale

Moroccan Inspired Chickpeas - Pham Fatale

Budget Bytes: naan $1.27 recipe / $0.16 serving

Budget Bytes: naan $1.27 recipe / $0.16 serving

Roasted potatoes, garlic and shallots.

I recently purchased a new preseasoned cast iron pan -- I need to get more iron into my system and I want to try to move away from teflon.

Yesterday I was having my friends Mark & Heather and their daughters over for dinner. The meal was designed to be entirely vegan and I was really looking forward to it -- and we all had a fantastic time.

One of the dishes I made was a combination of chopped potatoes & shallots and garlic cloves roasted for a while in the oven. After it was done, I stirred in some chopped scallions. Lovely. The house smelled heavenly -- with the scent of roasted garlic pouring out of the windows.

Ingredients:
- olive oil
- a bunch of scallions
- six medium potatoes, washed and chopped into bite-size pieces
- two heads of garlic, garlic cloves removed and left whole
- two large shallots, chopped into bite-size pieces
- 1 tsp each herbs: dried rosemary, dried sage, dried thyme

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Put all of the garlic cloves, chopped potatoes and chopped shallots into a bowl and toss lightly.
3. Pour olive oil over the potato mixture, enough to coat lightly.
4. Put the herbs on top and toss the potato mixture.
5. Pour the potato mixture into your roasting pan (I used a 10.25" cast iron skillet). You could use a casserole dish.
6. Put into the oven. Stir periodically, every 15 minutes. Make sure the top doesn't dry out.
7. Cook for an hour to hour and a half, until potatoes are done and garlic is all buttery-soft.
8. Remove from oven, let cool slightly. Fold scallions into potato mixture & serve.

Chocolate Cake... a variation

Just made my first chocolate soufflé. It's a little thicker than a soufflé, actually. More like a light and fluffy ganache, if that's possible. A thick mousse? A fudgey cake. All I have is the French name for it, which is "fondant au chocolate" so that doesn't help. I will post a picture when my camera battery is finished recharging.

Ingredients:
2 chocolate bars of deep, intense dark chocolate
5 eggs
1 cup of sugar
2 sticks of sweet cream butter, softened
1 tbsp dark rich coffee
1 heaping tbsp flour

Directions:
1) Melt chocolate bars in a double-boiler over barely-simmering water. Add the coffee.
2) Melt and stir in the butter
3) Stir in the sugar
4) Stir in the eggs, one at a time
5) Stir in the flour.
6) Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes (I baked it about 22). The middle will be wiggly.

Gorgeous.

The instructions say to chill it overnight, but I couldn't wait. Based on the flavor tonight, I would say that chilling it will make it out of this world chocolatety.

Cool!!

So. In January of 2009 I won an ice cream maker at Dad's hunting club game dinner. I've never used it and it's spent quite a bit of time riding around in my car. It actually made it into this kitchen. I just pulled it out, washed the mixer tub and put it into the freezer. I intend to make coffee ice cream tomorrow.

Amish Friendship Bread

Believe it or not, you can make your own starter for Amish Friendship Bread. You don't need to wait until a baking chain comes through your friends or family to get a cup of starter.

This is the Amish Friendship Bread that gets passed around from friend to friend. It
includes the recipe for the Amish Friendship Bread starter, and gives complete directions for how to make it once your starter is ready. When you pass the starter on to a friend, make sure they understand that they will need to follow the instructions beginning at day one then will use the Amish Friendship Bread Recipe (with the oil, eggs, vanilla, etc.) on Day 10.

Amish Friendship Bread Recipe

Day 1 - receive the starter (the recipe for the starter is below)

Day 2 - stir

Day 3 - stir

Day 4 - stir

Day 5 - Add 1 cup each flour, sugar and milk.

Day 6 - stir

Day 7 - stir

Day 8 - stir

Day 9 - stir

Day 10 - Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Divide into 4 containers, with 1 cup each for three of your friends and 1 cup for your own loaves. Give friends the instructions for Day 1 through Day 10 and the following recipe for baking the bread.

After removing the 3 cups of batter, combine the remaining cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter with the following ingredients in a large bowl:

2/3 cup oil
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Using a fork beat by hand until well blended. You can add 1 cup raisins and 1 cup nuts (optional).

Grease two loaf pans with butter, sprinkle with sugar instead of flour.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 45 minutes to 1 hour (individual oven temperatures vary). Cool 10 minutes, remove from pans. Makes two loaves of Amish Friendship Bread.
Amish Friendship Bread Starter

This is the Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe that you’ll need to make the Amish Friendship Bread (above). It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this. Do not use metal at all!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110°F)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup warm milk (110°F)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.

2. In a 2 quart glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.

3. Slowly stir in warm milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Loosely cover the mixture with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle, or the day you receive the starter.

For the next 10 days handle starter according to the instructions above for Amish Friendship Bread.

From: http://www.momswhothink.com/bread-recipes/amish-friendship-bread.html

Special Mint Brownies...

I made mint brownies --

- made up a box of brownie mix plus a teaspoon of peppermint extract
- baked it per normal
- while it was baking, I destroyed two York Peppermint Patties in my mini food processor
- when the brownies came out, I sprinkled the patty crumbles over the brownies
- then I dusted powdered sugar over the top

Dinner: Glazed Carrots, Braised Lentils & Olive Oil Dumplings

For tonight's dinner I selected:

Balsamic-Garlic Glazed Carrots
Braised Lentils with Parsnips
Griddled Olive Oil Salt Rolls (which I turned into dumplings)

Ingredients

Balsamic-Garlic Carrots - balsamic vinegar, carrots, minced garlic

Braised Lentils - my dish included red lentils, olive oil, chopped sweet onion, chopped fresh mushrooms, diced celery, diced parsnips, sherry, water, bay leaf, salt & pepper

Griddled Olive Oil Salt Rolls - flour, olive oil, baking powder, salt + water


Good stuff. I didn't see the "cup of water" in the olive oil rolls recipe and I thought it was dry so I added more olive oil. Turns out I was missing the water part of the recipe, which was not in the ingredient list but instead in the instructions. I totally missed it. I shaped the dough as best I could into patties and put them to grill in a pan of hot olive oil, but I could quickly see that wasn't ever going to happen. So, I gingerly picked them up and put them into the lentil mixture as dumplings. Quite good - the olive oil flavor. Love it.

Beginning Bittman

Decided that 2010 is the Year o' Bittman. I am going to cook as many recipes as I can in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Yes, I just saw the movie Julie/Julia for the first time.

Why vegetarian? Well, it's cheaper. And generally, healthier. And I need both...

Angelhair...and breadcrumbs!

Once I saw Giada de Laurentiis made a dish with spaghetti, roasted peppers and breadcrumbs. I had made it myself with penne and really liked it.

I was starving tonight, so I decided to make a variation. I put some angelhair pasta on to boil and then took out a frying pan. I chopped a sweet onion and set that to sauté in some olive oil. Then I opened up an 8oz can of Hunts tomato sauce (a backup!) and poured that in. I then covered the lot with what was probably a 1/2 cup of seasoned bread crumbs and two handfuls of grated parmagiano reggiano.

When the angelhair was finished, I scooped that into the frying pan mixture and gently stirred it all together.

At some point, I will take this same recipe, mix it together with my homemade sauce, put it into a pie dish, top it with mozzarella and bake it in the oven. This is fantastic...

It was a porcupine meatloaf

I had two pounds of hamburger and wanted a way to stretch it. Decided to make porcupine meatballs and realized that my meatball-cooking-dish was in the car! I wasn't wanting to brave the 22F weather, so I improvised: Porcupine Meatloaf!

(this meatloaf makes a very loose mixture that you can stir with a fork even when it's cooked, but you can bind it with an egg or something if you want)

This tastes like stuffed cabbaged without the cabbage.

- 2lbs hamburger
- 2 cups jasmine rice (or, what have you)
- 2 tbsp dried marjoram
- 1 tbsp dried italian-mix seasonings
- 1 pinch dried crumbled thyme
- 1 28oz can of Muir Glen crushed fire-roasted tomatoes
- 1 lb extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Take a big bowl and add all of the ingredients. Put into a casserole dish. Cook at 350F for 1.5 hours, longer if need be. Cover.

About every 30 minutes, stir the hamburger mixture to make sure all of the rice gets moist.

When there's about 15 minutes left, dice up a block of extra-sharp cheddar cheese. (You can also use shredded cheese.)

Take the "meatloaf" and stir in the cheese. Add as much cheese as you want. Put back into the oven until it melts, about 15 minutes.

I scooped this meatloaf into a bowl and ate it that way --

Kinda cool

Kinda cool, this new Daring to Drive site.

Mini-Meatball Soup

Years ago I lifted the basic recipe for Italian Wedding Soup and made it my own. The soup becomes a luscious, silky concoction of vegetables, meatballs and pasta. Absolutely delicious on a cold spring day, light enough for hot summer days.

I put a soup pot on the burner at sauté heat and drizzled in a round of extra virgin olive oil.

Got out the chopping board and my knife. I diced up:
- one large red onion
- two stalks of celery

Earthbound Farm Organic sells snack packs of really small carrots, so I threw in three packs of those.

I then put in two bay leaves and stirred the pot.

I went to the fridge and pulled out the jar of pureed fresh ginger. I put a scant spoonful of that in there. (A regular spoon, not a soup spoon.)

I stirred.

I turned the heat up to high and put three 16 oz cans of chicken broth into the pot. I then added two cups of water.

Pulled 1 lb of hamburger and the jar of minced garlic out of the fridge and put it into a bowl.

I then put two handfuls of parmesan cheese into the bowl.

I poured two cups of breadcrumbs in there.

I put an egg in there and a 1/2 cup of water.

I put a heaping spoonful of minced garlic in there too.

I waited for the pot to bowl and walked over to the stove with my meat bowl.

I made miniature meatballs with my hands and dropped them into the boiling soup.

When I was done, I put a cup of alphabet pasta into the soup.

Then I put a cup of tubettini pasta into the soup.

I then let it boil away until the pasta was done...

In the meantime, I grabbed the bag of fresh spinach that we had in the fridge and chopped it up. All I did was run my knife through the spinach about 10 times.

Then, when the pasta was nearly done, I started dropping handfuls of the spinach into the soup pot. I let the spinach wilt in and I would drop the next handful. I'd stir it periodically with the soup still boiling away.

When the spinach was all in, the soup was done!

I don't serve it with anything because we find it's a full meat, but crusty bread or grilled cheese sandwiches are a fantastic accompaniment.

Beware: the soup is really hot! You may want to wait for it to cool a bit.

Delicious Low Point Weight Watchers Recipes – Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes: Asparagus and Swiss Cheese Frittata - 4pts

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