Cinco De Mayo is a big deal in my house. It is the commemoration of the night the guy upstairs asked me to go see an Irish band play at a bar in downtown Madison. Two years later, the guy upstairs is my husband and we celebrate our first date anniversary with slow-cooked pork tacos and a jicama-pineapple-avocado salad. The pitcher is full of mojito - not entirely in with the Cinco de Mayo theme, but delicious and refreshing nonetheless.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Cinco De Mayo
Cinco De Mayo is a big deal in my house. It is the commemoration of the night the guy upstairs asked me to go see an Irish band play at a bar in downtown Madison. Two years later, the guy upstairs is my husband and we celebrate our first date anniversary with slow-cooked pork tacos and a jicama-pineapple-avocado salad. The pitcher is full of mojito - not entirely in with the Cinco de Mayo theme, but delicious and refreshing nonetheless.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Turkey-Burger "Sliders" - April 27th
I've been remiss.
I apologize.
Now that's over - we have been trying to have salads with all meals. This burger recipe is fantastic - it has feta cheese and sun-dried tomato and is delicious. We used small sourdough rolls to make sliders instead of large-sized burgers.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Dinner 4-13-08: Vegetarians, be warned.
Dinner tonight was steak, seasoned with a Toronto rub. The Husband picked up a pack of steak at Costco, as my birthday is this week and my dinner of choice is a steak, grilled mostly rare. Being Costco, you must get your meat multiply. We did our menu planning and provisioning late in the day and decided finishing the spinach-strawberry salad and grilling steaks would be a nice way to put the weekend to bed.
Dinner 4-12-08: The Wonder of Salad
If you happen to live in the greater Seattle area, you know that yesterday was the kind of day that makes gray skies all worthwhile. Sunny and seventy degrees, the streets and parks were full of Seattleites soaking in their vitamin D. As a result, we decided that we must grill out.
After some strategizing, I started a bread dough in the machine and we went out for provisions. We decided upon burgers, with blue cheese crumbles and sun dried tomatoes, and a spinach-strawberry salad.
The salad was fantastic. Spinach, strawberries and toasted almond slivers were tossed together and drizzled with a poppyseed-sesame vinaigrette. The only problem was the amount of sugar in the dressing recipe. The recipe calls for 2 cups of white sugar and Husband dutifully followed. I'm wondering if we can make it with about a third as much honey, or maybe splenda? I know that super-refined sugar substitute doesn't jive with the desire to be eating less processed food, but I cannot handle a 400+ calorie salad dressing. We will keep attempting and will share any good, healthier substitutes we find.
The burgers were ridiculously delicious. The rolls didn't rise as well as I had hoped but they were a good, dense, crusty roll for the burgers.
After some strategizing, I started a bread dough in the machine and we went out for provisions. We decided upon burgers, with blue cheese crumbles and sun dried tomatoes, and a spinach-strawberry salad.
The salad was fantastic. Spinach, strawberries and toasted almond slivers were tossed together and drizzled with a poppyseed-sesame vinaigrette. The only problem was the amount of sugar in the dressing recipe. The recipe calls for 2 cups of white sugar and Husband dutifully followed. I'm wondering if we can make it with about a third as much honey, or maybe splenda? I know that super-refined sugar substitute doesn't jive with the desire to be eating less processed food, but I cannot handle a 400+ calorie salad dressing. We will keep attempting and will share any good, healthier substitutes we find.
The burgers were ridiculously delicious. The rolls didn't rise as well as I had hoped but they were a good, dense, crusty roll for the burgers.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Dinner, 4-9-08: Symphony of leftovers.
This week's dinners have been a sonnet to what we have stuck in our fridge.
Sandwiches, leftovers, a dinner out last night and a crock pot full of various items take us into tonight's dinner.
I took the Husband's meatless chili from last week and threw it in the trusty slow cooker. I diced the rest of the poached chicken and added to the mix. I opened a bottle of beer over the top of it, added the last of the buffalo mozzarella, some stewed tomatoes and let it all bubble for about two hours. When the husband arrived home from baseball and plowed through a bowl, he proclaimed it good, and not just for leftovers. Hooray!
Sandwiches, leftovers, a dinner out last night and a crock pot full of various items take us into tonight's dinner.
I took the Husband's meatless chili from last week and threw it in the trusty slow cooker. I diced the rest of the poached chicken and added to the mix. I opened a bottle of beer over the top of it, added the last of the buffalo mozzarella, some stewed tomatoes and let it all bubble for about two hours. When the husband arrived home from baseball and plowed through a bowl, he proclaimed it good, and not just for leftovers. Hooray!
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Madness, I tell you! Dinners 4-2-08 through 4-6-08
Whatever kind of insanity possessed me to think I could successfully blog dinner every night? Sheer madness, it must have been.
This week, my best-laid plans were waylaid by internet issues and the various and sundry things that life throws at one. Maybe these updates will not be every day. Maybe they'll only be several times a week. One way or another, I want to continue recording the successes I find in my kitchen.
Wednesday night was one such success. I wanted to make lasagna and pack it full of veggies, but also have it taste like real lasagna while following my various food allergy challenges. I based the structure off of an allrecipes.com find for spinach lasagna.
First step: to throw about 4 cups of grape tomatoes in a glass baking dish with some basil, salt and pepper and roast the daylights out of the tomatoes. It worked so well for last week's pizza, I have decided to maybe never go back to tomato sauce from a can. While the tomatoes bubbled and roasted, I browned about 1 lb of ground turkey in a large sauce pot with some olive oil and diced onion. Once the tomatoes were roasted to my satisfaction, I pressed them through the strainer on my Kitchenaid and added the sauce to the bubbling meat, shifting it to low heat.
Second step: how to make the ricotta and egg layer without dairy or eggs? I picked up some sheep feta cheese and mixed about 1 and 1/2 cups plain goat yogurt with the feta until the mixture had the consistency of ricotta. I was given some egg replacer that I used to put the equivalent of 2 eggs into the mix. The mix was very runny at this point. I sauteed some diced onions, olive oil and mushrooms in a pan, then cooled and added to the mixture. I boiled about 3 cups of spinach, patted out all the liquid, chopped the spinach and added to the bowl. At this point, we had a slightly gooey but not too wet "ricotta" layer. The feta was soaked in brine, which made a nice bite without being overwhelmingly salty.
I layered lasagna noodles with each mixture, and dropped chunks of buffalo mozzarella over the top. The dish was baked for about 50 minutes at 400* and the Husband proclaimed it the best thing I've made yet. I thought that it was lightly but well seasoned. I was afraid that I hadn't added enough seasoning. I liberally sprinkled dried basil, oregano, thyme and a little tarragon into the turkey-tomato sauce, but forgot to add the herbs to the "ricotta" layer. Luckily, the feta flavor really took the place of any seasoning and made it far from bland. Delicious! It served us both lunch and dinner for two days, and there was an extra serving to pass along to a friend.
Thursday night was leftovers - I can't really remember what I ate but I know I ate something. Friday night, the Husband made a slow-cooker meatless chili with lots of legumes. Meatless chili no longer cuts it for me. I found myself thinking about grilling chicken, dicing it and tossing it in my bowl.
Saturday dinner was spectacular and I really wish there had been an opportunity for photos. The Husband made a Myrtle Grove salad - capers, boiled potatoes, green beans, smoked salmon, sliced peppers and mixed greens all topped with a homemade tarragon dijon vinaigrette. The flavors were fantastic. It was one of the most interesting, filling salads I've had. Along with the salad was a turkey-avocado-buffalo mozz sandwich on sourdough. This salad will be revisited.
Tonight will be a catch-as-I-can dinner. Earlier today, I poached the chicken we had in the fridge to cook it off before it goes south. We can use it in the chicken-apple-curry that we enjoy for lunch. The husband made a dressing for an asparagus-sesame salad and I will be blanching the asparagus to add. This week, we are going to try making lunch the larger, more emphatic meal and having salads and sandwiches for dinner. We have an unfortunate habit of eating dinner much later than planned and less elaborate dinners may make it easier to eat earlier.
I have had the most awful urge to bake all week long. I've been daydreaming about making fluffy biscuits and mouthwatering pie with flaky, buttery crusts. I've made mental shopping lists for red velvet cupcakes and blueberry muffins. I thought about the cookies I want to make for the holiday season this year, and flourless chocolate cake, and pineapple upside down cake and chocolate-chip peanut-butter cookies and lemon-lavender pound cake. I almost made banana bread this morning. Poaching chicken made me feel good about my culinary progress but it doesn't give me the same deep satisfaction I get from setting chocolate-cinnamon-chili powder cupcakes with kahlua buttercream frosting down on a table and watching eyes light up at the decadent goodness. I'm assuming I will have at least one small baking binge this week, and I will be taking the resulting deliciousness to work as quickly as possible for disposal. I wish it was as satisfying to prepare healthy food as it is to create treats.
This week, my best-laid plans were waylaid by internet issues and the various and sundry things that life throws at one. Maybe these updates will not be every day. Maybe they'll only be several times a week. One way or another, I want to continue recording the successes I find in my kitchen.
Wednesday night was one such success. I wanted to make lasagna and pack it full of veggies, but also have it taste like real lasagna while following my various food allergy challenges. I based the structure off of an allrecipes.com find for spinach lasagna.
First step: to throw about 4 cups of grape tomatoes in a glass baking dish with some basil, salt and pepper and roast the daylights out of the tomatoes. It worked so well for last week's pizza, I have decided to maybe never go back to tomato sauce from a can. While the tomatoes bubbled and roasted, I browned about 1 lb of ground turkey in a large sauce pot with some olive oil and diced onion. Once the tomatoes were roasted to my satisfaction, I pressed them through the strainer on my Kitchenaid and added the sauce to the bubbling meat, shifting it to low heat.
Second step: how to make the ricotta and egg layer without dairy or eggs? I picked up some sheep feta cheese and mixed about 1 and 1/2 cups plain goat yogurt with the feta until the mixture had the consistency of ricotta. I was given some egg replacer that I used to put the equivalent of 2 eggs into the mix. The mix was very runny at this point. I sauteed some diced onions, olive oil and mushrooms in a pan, then cooled and added to the mixture. I boiled about 3 cups of spinach, patted out all the liquid, chopped the spinach and added to the bowl. At this point, we had a slightly gooey but not too wet "ricotta" layer. The feta was soaked in brine, which made a nice bite without being overwhelmingly salty.
I layered lasagna noodles with each mixture, and dropped chunks of buffalo mozzarella over the top. The dish was baked for about 50 minutes at 400* and the Husband proclaimed it the best thing I've made yet. I thought that it was lightly but well seasoned. I was afraid that I hadn't added enough seasoning. I liberally sprinkled dried basil, oregano, thyme and a little tarragon into the turkey-tomato sauce, but forgot to add the herbs to the "ricotta" layer. Luckily, the feta flavor really took the place of any seasoning and made it far from bland. Delicious! It served us both lunch and dinner for two days, and there was an extra serving to pass along to a friend.
Thursday night was leftovers - I can't really remember what I ate but I know I ate something. Friday night, the Husband made a slow-cooker meatless chili with lots of legumes. Meatless chili no longer cuts it for me. I found myself thinking about grilling chicken, dicing it and tossing it in my bowl.
Saturday dinner was spectacular and I really wish there had been an opportunity for photos. The Husband made a Myrtle Grove salad - capers, boiled potatoes, green beans, smoked salmon, sliced peppers and mixed greens all topped with a homemade tarragon dijon vinaigrette. The flavors were fantastic. It was one of the most interesting, filling salads I've had. Along with the salad was a turkey-avocado-buffalo mozz sandwich on sourdough. This salad will be revisited.
Tonight will be a catch-as-I-can dinner. Earlier today, I poached the chicken we had in the fridge to cook it off before it goes south. We can use it in the chicken-apple-curry that we enjoy for lunch. The husband made a dressing for an asparagus-sesame salad and I will be blanching the asparagus to add. This week, we are going to try making lunch the larger, more emphatic meal and having salads and sandwiches for dinner. We have an unfortunate habit of eating dinner much later than planned and less elaborate dinners may make it easier to eat earlier.
I have had the most awful urge to bake all week long. I've been daydreaming about making fluffy biscuits and mouthwatering pie with flaky, buttery crusts. I've made mental shopping lists for red velvet cupcakes and blueberry muffins. I thought about the cookies I want to make for the holiday season this year, and flourless chocolate cake, and pineapple upside down cake and chocolate-chip peanut-butter cookies and lemon-lavender pound cake. I almost made banana bread this morning. Poaching chicken made me feel good about my culinary progress but it doesn't give me the same deep satisfaction I get from setting chocolate-cinnamon-chili powder cupcakes with kahlua buttercream frosting down on a table and watching eyes light up at the decadent goodness. I'm assuming I will have at least one small baking binge this week, and I will be taking the resulting deliciousness to work as quickly as possible for disposal. I wish it was as satisfying to prepare healthy food as it is to create treats.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Dinner, 4-1-08: Rockfish
Tonight: success!
Actually, not my success. I was otherwise occupied with one of my side jobs; I was cleaning like a dervish. The Husband finished umpiring his junior varsity baseball game and arrived home about half an hour before me, starting the rockfish.
Here's a link to the recipe we used: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/One-Dish-Rockfish/Detail.aspx?prop31=1
The fish was quite tasty, but I'll put a bit more salt and pepper next time. On the side, we had a broccoli salad with a touch of olive oil and vinegar dressing for me - the salad came from a pre-pack and the dressing has egg yolk, a must-miss for me. An extra score for us - the dish was only about 330 calories and 6 grams of fat per serving - the whole recipe gave us two servings of fish. The triple threat of healthy lean protein, delicious taste and filling, low-fat serving makes me feel like this is something that will be on the plate again.
A special note - we did not have any spare veg broth and instead used chardonnay for the cooking broth. The lovely side note is that you can pour yourself a nice glass from the already open bottle to go with dinner. Our chardonnay was a Trader Joe's find and tastes especially like crisp pears. It's a bit of a weeknight treat with dinner.
Cheers!
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