Leeks

I have gone for almost 30 years assuming that I don't like leeks. I believe it started 10 or 15 years ago when my mom made some gross leek soup and I just assumed it was the veg I didn't enjoy, not her recipe. One day, I ended up getting a bee in my bonnet that I needed to try them again. I found a simple recipe where you braise them in butter then chicken broth (or not chicken broth, as I always say), put a little salt, pepper, and lemon zest, and that's it. Turns out leeks are really good. I have already gotten them at the grocery store again so that I can make this same recipe this week!

I had them as a side dish to the fantastic Asian chicken meatballs.

Breakfast of champions

On weekdays, my regular old breakfast is oatmeal. It's warm and filling. And boring. On the weekend, I put slightly more effort and this has been my new go-to. Earl gray (cannot live without said tea), scrambled eggs with scallions, and 2 uncured, maple smoked, apple and cinnamon breakfast sausages. I have been incorporating more pig products back into my diet, and these are fantastic. I could eat them every day. They have just the right amount of smokiness and sweetness. I highly recommend them!

Spaghetti squash spaghetti

January is the time of new diets and health kicks. As part of mine, I decided to make the plunge from using noodles to squash when having spaghetti. I thought I would just try it and see if it was good enough to have every once in awhile. Turns out it is super great. I think it would be going to far to say I don't care if I never have another noodle again, but I honestly am not missing them in this application. And since it makes for a completely vegetarian dish (vegan if you don't put parm on top) I have started to have this at least twice a week.
To cook the squash, you just need to halve and clean them, put them face down in a casserole dish with a little water, and cook for 45 min or so at 450. In the time it takes to make the sauce (see here or here for examples), the squash will be done. Take them out of the oven and scrape with a fork, and voila! This is a smash hit in my house, even with the kiddo. He can't get enough.

Salmon ceaser

What is better than a ceaser salad? Almost nothing, right? For dinner last night, I was trying to think up a way to use some salmon that we don't normally do, and I decided on the salmon ceaser. Nothing original, I know, but its not anything I ever make. I would say this turned out pretty professional looking!

Lima Beans

I get more flack for this standpoint, but here I go. Lima beans are good. I would have never believed it myself if I were not forced to taste them, but it's true. Get frozen, not canned, put some in a little bowl with a little water, nuke it for a minute on high, pour the water down the sink and hit with salt. Tastes just like edemame! I like to use a salt seasoning mix my girlfriend got me years ago because it makes them a little garlic-y and a little spicy on top of the salt. Now go ahead and never, ever believe me.

Scallops and risotto

There was a good sale on scallops (pretty much the only time we are lucky enough to get them for dinner) so I made an old copycat favorite of bang bang scallops. You can see how I make them in this old blog. A wonderful treat! I was feeling ambitious so I also decided to make some risotto. Now I know everybody thinks it is sooooo scary to try and cook it, but srsly it couldn't be simpler. Can you stir? Then you can make risotto. All you do is add the cooking liquid a little at a time (not-chicken broth in my case) and keep stirring. When it's done, you add a pat of butter and a boatload of parmesean. This is not an every day food, but man is it good.

Pesto

Back a couple of months ago, as summer was winding down, I cleared my garden of basil. We had a pretty large crop this year, and the best way I have found to store it is to make pesto, and freeze it. I make big batches, and freeze portions in ice cube trays. That way, when it is the middle of winter (although today is technically the first day of winter) and you are being lazy, you can just boil up some noodles, pop in a few of the pesto cubes and you have dinner. Go me for thinking ahead! For this particular dinner, I added a little extra by sauteing some onions and mushrooms to add to the mix. It was good stuff, and the baby LOVED it.

Copycat

I enjoy trying to copy yummy food I have had other places, like a restaurant, out of a box, at somebody's house, etc. This copy is a tortilla version of my favorite Which Wich. I cooked up some chicken breast, cut into bites, put hot wing sauce on it, and served it in a tortilla with crispy bacon and cheddar cheese. Heart attack in a tortilla? Pretty much. But mighty tasty.

Thanksgiving! part two

Since I had done a bunch of preparation the day before, on the actual feast day, the main thing on the agenda was the turkey! And before I get into it let me tell you that I deserve a kick in the shins for FORGETTING to take a picture of it when it was whole and roasted and golden brown and delicious. Blergh.
Anyways, I don't like putting bread stuffing inside my bird, so I stuff the cavity with aromatics and veggies. I used carrots, onions, celery, lemons and some herbs. For the outside, I melted some butter, added a little olive oil, and just sage and thyme. I poured that all over the bird and stuck it in the oven. Oh, I also put most of a box of broth in the roasting pan, along with the rest of the veggies I cut up that didn't fit in the cavity. I basted it towards the end of cooking, but then came my ultimate Thanksgiving worry... was this thing cooked? I was getting wildly different temperature readings on either side of the bird. I decided to cook a little more but then decided that the average of all my measurements was a little more on the cooked side of where I wanted to be, so I took it out of the oven. When carving time came (luckily I was doing this by myself in the kitchen away from everybody!) it wasn't cooked through!! Eek! But I had a brilliant idea to carve the entire thing, shove it on a roasting sheet in a crazy hot oven, and it cooked it the rest of the way quicker than anybody even noticed! Phew.

Meanwhile, I needed to finish the rest of the dinner. Luckily for me the stuffing and mushroom and lentil pot pies cooked at the same oven temp, so that made it a lot easier. The morning of the feast, I had gotten the stuffing prepared. I used a mushroom and toasted walnut recipe I got from a Martha magazine, and it was fantastic! I will never use another recipe again. I have been trying for years to replace my family's recipe because I don't think it is very good, and this is the winner! To finish the pot pies, all I needed to do was to make the dough for the crust and put some cheese over the top. Simple.
The last things I took care of were the veggies. I had to make mashed potatoes, duh, and I decided to make green beans with a lemon cream sauce (mentioned here).

That is it! Dinner was done. Oh wait, also gravy. I made gravy using the drippings and broth from the turkey, along with wine and potato starch. It turned out really well.
Everybody ate 2 or 3 helpings, so I feel like my feast was a success! I am glad that amount of work is only once a year though. And I am glad that I have enough leftovers to last for a while :)

Thanksgiving! part one

MMMMMMMM. Thanksgiving is my favorite. This year, I attended 2 Thanksgivings, but only one of them required me to cook for two days. I decided that I didn't want to freak out and rush on the day of the feast, so I made what I could ahead of time. I got preparations for the stuffing done, all this included was toasting some walnuts and cutting up a loaf of bread so that it could dry overnight.

Next, I made the cranberry sauce. I never really liked cranberry sauce too much, until I tried this recipe a few years back. You simmer the cranberries for a half hour in sugar, water and oj, with some orange and lemon zest. Since I made it a day ahead, it set up really nicely by the time dinner rolled around.

Third, I made the dough for the crust of an apple pie. I ended up finding out that one of my guests was planning on bringing 2 desserts already, so I wound up making this pie later in the week. Still have half of it in my fridge, but it is killer. There are 3 lbs of apples in this sucker! And the top "crust" is actually an oat streusal. Yum!

Last, I made the filling for the vegetarian part of the feast, mushroom and lentil pot pies. There is a vegetarian in my midst and I feel bad when he always just gets stuck eating side dishes everywhere he goes. All that is in it is lentils, mushrooms (fresh and dried), carrot, potato, broth, and spices.

I spent a long time cooking, and this was just the preparation for the official day! Continue on to part two for the rest...

Its that time of year again....

Salad time! Well, I eat salad almost every day, but now its time for the unhealthy, wonderfully delicious kind. The kind that I only let myself make a few times a year, preferably when I have a number of people fighting me for some, because otherwise I will eat the entire thing on my own. My family-famous 7 layer salad. I have turned on a few of my friends to it as well, but its a holiday staple for my family. I've fully explained the makeup here before.
For Thanksgiving #1 this year, the one I didn't have to cook for, my only assignment was to bring the salad. As my aunt put it, "nobody makes it as well as you". And by you, she meant me. Duh. I have tried to make it slightly better for everybody, by using organic lettuce mix, uncured bacon, and mayo that is made with olive oil, but there is not really any getting around the fact that this is a total treat. I was only able to escape with about 2 bowls worth of leftovers. They may be gone already at the time of me writing this. Exactly 24 hours after the actual meal. I won't be making the salad for Thanksgiving #2, the one I do cook for, but I think it will make another appearance at Christmas time, before going away again until the next holiday season.

beer

The people who know me know that I hate beer. Its is gross and makes me want to gag if I drink more than the tiniest sip. And I hate that I hate it because I feel like I am totally the sort of girl who would fit in well in a pub with a pint of something dark. But now I have found the (sort of) middle ground. Its called Lambic. And its delicious. It is real, actual beer. With hops and yeast and everything. But it is fermented with fruit so its girly. If it is made with something dark, like cherries or currants, it winds up a lovely red color, like the result of wine and beer's late night out. Now, like pokemon, I have to collect them all. The only one I am missing in this picture is apple, and that is because I drank it last weekend. Tonight, I am testing out the raspberry. I still have peach and cherry to go. Of the flavors I've had so far, black currant is my fave.

Asian Chicken Meatballs

This recipe really surprised me. I thought it sounded good, but decided to cook it one night just because I already had the stuff in the house and it was quick. Holy crap though, it is super freaking delicious. The recipe (thanks Martha!) calls for turkey, but I had chicken, so that's what I used. All that is in it is breadcrumbs, cilantro, scallions, garlic, fish sauce and sriracha. You mash it all together, easiest with your hands of course, and roll the balls. It makes 12 regular sized meatballs for 1 lb of meat. Then you brown them on all sides in a pan, for about 10 minutes, then toss them in the oven for 10 more minutes to bake through. Including cooking time, it only took maybe 30 minutes. Great for during the week. Serve the meatballs over rice with steamed, shredded carrots- cook the rice in the microwave, and when it's done, before you fluff, toss in the shredded carrots on top and cover with plastic. The heat from the rice will steam the carrots and then you just mix it all together. Do this while you are making the meatballs, and it will be done all at the same time. This one gets an A+ for sure. I ate all of the meatballs by the time lunch the next day was over, and was ready to make it again! This one is totally a new staple for me.

Homemade hot pockets

I got this recipe for hot pockets (the magazine called them handpies, but I don't like the sound of that for some reason) out of my favorite Martha magazine. Since I was going to the trouble, I made a double batch, one vegetarian and the other not.

First, you have to make the dough and let it sit for at least an hour in the fridge. It has cheese built right in! While that is sitting, you make the filling. My vegetarian version had sauteed mushrooms and spinach, and the carnivorous ones were chicken and spinach. I made one big batch of the spinach, and did both the chicken and mushrooms separately. You put broth in with the spinach and it turns into a gravyish substance.
Next, you have to cut the dough into discs, I just used a bowl that seemed to be about the right size, put your filling on the bottom disc, and attach the top with egg around the edges for glue. All that is left is to bake! These took me about 40 minutes, although the recipe said they would be done in 30. They held together pretty well, but the dough was a little bit crumbly. The pies were a hit in the house though.

Noodles n' cheese

You want easy dinners? Here is one that is about as easy as it gets. I mostly use this meal as a vessel for loads of feta. All you do is cook up some noodles, whatever kind you have in the pantry. Then I saute some onions and garlic in olive oil till soft, put the cooked noodles in with it, add garlic powder, tons of Italian seasoning, some butter and more olive oil, and that's it! Then I load my bowl with the noodles and tons of parmesean and feta. MMMMMMM cheese! Fast, simple and yummy.

Lentils

I remembered I do have something today! Its lentils. This is something I made for the baby. All I did was saute some onions, apples and celery in olive oil for a few minutes, then added a can of (organic- la dee da) lentils, and maybe half or 3/4 of a box of not-chicken broth. After that was boiling, I added some dry rice, garlic and Italian seasoning. I simmered it for quite a while in the dutch oven, and that was it. Easy! And yummy for fall

I'm baaaacckk

Due to popular demand by exactly one person (Steph!)I am back on the blogging bandwagon. Lately, I've just been eating meals like salad and potatoes, so right this second, I have nothing for you. But I will start making a better effort. Also, usually I skip the real easy stuff on here for my more impressive endeavors, but I will start putting the everyday kind of meals too. That is the stuff that you guys might actually want to copy. And Thanksgiving is coming soon! My favorite meal of the year. That old chefs question about what would you pick for your last meal? My answer- thanksgiving. Bon Appetit has a recipe for a beer-brined turkey. Hmmm......

Speechless

Nothing really to say here, except this pizza was exceptionally good. That is all.

Wheatberries are a real thing

I got this recipe off of a blog I enjoy called www.bodiesinmotivation.com . I decided to try it because I love me some whole grains, and I had everything else at my house already. The star of the show are wheatberries. I am guessing it is the part of the wheat that goes to seed, but really I have no idea. Dried, they look like Israeli couscous or big buckwheat. Cooked, they soften up, but still have the texture of slightly undercooked rice. But they taste like cheerios!
This recipe calls for you to cook the wheatberries, then once they are done, you toss them in a dressing of olive oil, honey, ginger, coriander and lemon juice. Then you toss in a bunch of chives and toasted almonds. You are supposed to also put in cilantro, but I didn't have any. Also I am not a big fan, even though I do like coriander. Odd, I know. The addition I did make was to put feta on top. And man, was this delicious. I ate it again for breakfast the next day. Kind of strange to eat a savory breakfast, but the honey added enough sweetness that I didn't care. I almost would say this meal is better the next day because the flavors have had a better chance to mix.
This one is a total winner and already has a spot in a dinner for the week ahead.

Magic Beans

At the farm last weekend, I picked up some beans. I will call them magic beans. They probably have some sort of lame boring name that I don't feel like googling, so magic beans it is. They start off this lovely shade of purple, but after you cook them, they go green. Secretly I wish they stayed purple, but whatevs. They have a mild taste. They don't taste as green as a regular green bean, if that makes sense. I have thrown them in a few different side dishes, but this one was the winner. And it wins for simplicity too.

All I did was cut a bunch of red potatoes into chunks, throw in a bunch of the beans, also cut into chunks, and boil it in not-chicken broth till soft. The liquid cooked down, and the starchiness from the potatoes turned it into a gravy like consistency. For flavoring, all I used was salt and pepper and Italian seasoning. The end. Seriously, for as plain as this sounds, it was super good.