Quesadillas

Mexican food is so easy to do vegetarian, I have a feeling that we'll be having it a lot in the next couple of weeks. My husband has a quesadilla maker that he inherited at some point in college, so quesadillas are a go to easy dinner for us.

Black Bean Quesadillas
1/2 white onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 jalapeño, diced
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 lb frozen corn
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1 t ground cumin
Hot sauce
2 green onions, chopped
2 T cilantro, chopped
Shredded cheese
Flour tortillas
Sour cream
Avocado

Sauté the onion, garlic, and jalapeño in a little bit of vegetable oil over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes. Add the black beans, corn, tomato, cumin, and hot sauce to taste. Cook over medium heat until warmed through, about 10 minutes. Stir in green onions and cilantro.

Fill tortillas with 1/2 c of the black bean filling and 1/4 c shredded cheese. Cook in quesadilla maker or skillet until browned and crispy. Top with sour cream and avocado.

Pesto Gnocchi

I love Italian food, especially pasta. Usually I just buy dried pasta when making it at home, but I had a Sunday free and thought I'd try something different. I used Mario Battali's gnocchi recipe as a base. The pesto sauce is actually one we made at the end of the summer with our remaining basil. This is the last of it from the freezer. Pesto freezes wonderfully!

Gnocchi
3 pounds russet potatoes (I used Yukon Gold, because it's what I had)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg, extra large
1 pinch salt

Boil the whole potatoes until they are soft (about 45 minutes). While still warm, peel and pass through vegetable mill onto clean pasta board - I don't have a vegetable mill, so I just mashed them with a fork to get rid of lumps.

Set 6 quarts of water to boil in a large spaghetti pot. Set up ice bath with 6 cups ice and 6 cups water near boiling water.

Make well in center of potatoes and sprinkle all over with flour, using all the flour. Place egg and salt in center of well and using a fork, stir into flour and potatoes, just like making normal pasta. Once egg is mixed in, bring dough together, kneading gently until a ball is formed. Knead gently another 4 minutes until ball is dry to touch. I attempted to do this on a cutting board, but my cutting board was not big enough, so next time I'll just do it directly on a clean counter top.

Roll a baseball-size ball of dough into 3/4-inch diameter dowels and cut dowels into 1-inch long pieces. Flick pieces off of fork until dowel is finished. Drop these pieces into boiling water and cook until they float (about 1 minute). Meanwhile, continue with remaining dough, forming dowels, cutting into 1-inch pieces and flicking off of fork. As gnocchi float to top of boiling water, remove them to ice bath. Continue until all have been cooled off. Let sit several minutes in bath and drain from ice and water. Toss with pasta sauce of choice.

Pesto
I don't remember which pesto recipe we used, since this has been the freezer for a bit.  Next time I make fresh pesto, I'll be sure to post the recipe.

This was delicious!  I think I made the gnocchi a little too big, so next time I will make smaller gnocchi. I also think that it would be better to let the gnocchi stay in the boiling water for a few extra seconds once they start to float, I think they were just a tad under cooked.

This made a ton, so I took the extras that we didn't eat and froze them on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes and then stuck them in a Ziploc bag for a future, easy meal.

Veggie Casserole

I didn't plan ahead very well this week for our vegetarian dining, so this afternoon I was kind of stuck for what to eat for lunch. Time to get creative! I had a big bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer that I was never quite sure what to do with. I decided to experiment with a vegetable casserole.

Vegetable Casserole
1 lb frozen mixed vegetables
1/2 c quinoa
1/2 c brown rice
1 white onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 jalapeño, diced
1 c plain nonfat yogurt
2 t Fox Point seasoning
1 t Buttermilk Ranch seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Cook brown rice and quinoa according to package directions. Sauté onions, celery, and jalapeño in a little olive oil for 5-7 minutes over medium heat, season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook frozen vegetables according to package directions, drain. Mix together yogurt and seasoning, set aside. Once quinoa and rice are cooked, mix with vegetables and yogurt sauce and spread in a large baking pan. Top with breadcrumbs and about a tablespoon of butter. Bake for 30 minutes.

Not bad for an impromptu lunch. The Fox Point and Buttermilk Ranch seasonings are from our Penzeys Spices collection that my sister and brother-in-law gave to us. Highly recommended! I think this casserole would be better with some sharp cheddar cheese mixed in.

Pad Thai

Day one of vegetarian living is here.  My coworkers tempted me greatly this afternoon by going to N9NE Steakhouse here in Chicago.  I stayed strong though and ordered a pretty good veggie burger.  For dinner tonight we're attempting Pad Thai for the first time.

I've had a long love of Thai food.  My dad traveled to Thailand when I was in elementary school and when he got back all he could talk about was how great the food was. We promptly found an awesome Thai restaurant in Orlando (Siam Orchid - Sadly, I believe it's now closed), and that was it. They had an amazing watermelon slushy which I will attempt to recreate this summer and you could sit on the floor - it was the coolest place ever!

My husband subscribes to the Gospel according to Alton Brown with regard to all things culinary, so this is an adaptation of Alton's recipe which you can find here.

Pad Thai

• 6 oz Tamarind juice + lemon and lime juice to taste
• 2 T fish sauce (I used 1.5 T fish sauce and .5 T soy sauce)
• 2 T brown sugar
• 1 T rice vinegar
• 4 oz rice stick noodles
• 6 oz Marinated Tofu, recipe follows
• 1 to 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 c chopped scallions, divided*
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 whole eggs, beaten
• 2 t pickled tamarind leaves (stems removed) + salt to taste
• 1 T dried shrimp
• 3 oz bean sprouts, divided
• 1/2 c roasted salted peanuts, chopped, divided
• Freshly ground dried red chile peppers, to taste
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

Combine the fish sauce, soy sauce, palm sugar, and rice vinegar in a small bowl and set aside.

Place the rice stick noodles in a mixing bowl and cover with hot water. Set aside while you prepare the remaining ingredients. Once the other ingredients are measured out into separate bowls, drain the water from the noodles and set them aside. Cut the tofu into 1/2-inch wide strips, similar to French fries.

Boil the tamarind, lemon, and lime juice together to reduce to a syrup-like consistency.

Place a wok over high heat. Once hot, add 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil. Heat until it shimmers, then add the tofu. Cook the tofu until golden brown, moving constantly, for no longer than 1 minute. Remove the tofu from the pan to a small bowl and set aside.

If necessary, add some more vegetable oil to the pan and heat until shimmering. Add 2/3 of the scallions and then the garlic, cook for 10 to 15 seconds. Add the eggs to the pan; once the eggs begin to set up, about 15 to 20 seconds, stir to scramble. Add the remaining ingredients in the following order and toss after each addition: noodles, sauce, tamarind leaves, shrimp, and 2/3 each of the bean sprouts and peanuts. Toss everything until heated through, but no longer than 1 to 2 minutes total. Garnish with the remaining scallions, bean sprouts, and peanuts. Serve immediately with the ground chile peppers and lime wedges.

Marinated Tofu

6 ounces extra-firm tofu, not silken

1 1/2 cups soy sauce

1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

Wrap the tofu firmly in a tea towel. Place the wrapped tofu into an 8-inch cake pan. Top with another cake pan and weigh down with a 5-pound weight. (Bags of dried beans or grains work well.) Place in refrigerator and press for 12 to 15 hours. - We completely forgot about this step and only pressed the tofu for about an hour, I think the tofu would get crispier if we pressed it for the entire time.

Place pressed tofu in a 2-cup container. Combine soy sauce and five-spice powder and pour over tofu. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes, turning once. Remove the tofu from the marinade and use immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to 2 to 3 days.

This Pad Thai was very good. However, I will eliminate the dried shrimp when I make it in the future.  I'm a pretty adventurous eater, but that was a little too much for me. We couldn't find the tamarind paste that Alton prescribes but I think the substitution of tamarind juice plus lemon and lime juice worked pretty well. I also think that pressing the tofu overnight would really help to make it crispy. Marinating the tofu yourself is the way to go though, we had used a Chinese Five Spice flavored tofu for another recipe and it did not hold a candle to this!

P.S. I love Hipstamtic for the iPhone! It makes my pictures look so much better!

*Have you seen the trick for regrowing green onions? All you have to do is cut about a half inch above the white part of your used green onions, place it in water, put it in the windowsill and within a week or so you have new green onions. It's truly miraculous! I learned about it on Pinterest, to  which I'm addicted.

Salad Night

Oftentimes when we don't feel like cooking, we just throw together a salad with whatever veggies we happen to have on hand.  This was the case again on Wednesday night.  I think it turned out to be a pretty awesome salad.

In the mix:
Boston Bibb Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce
Grape Tomatoes
Carrots
Sliced Button Mushrooms
Green Pepper
Marinated Artichokes
Kalamata Olives
Crumbled Blue Cheese

Lately I've been making my own salad dressings, but we didn't have any on hand and were in a bit of a rush, so we topped the salad with a bottled Creamy Caesar dressing.  Quick and delicious!

Happy Fat Tuesday/Anniversary!

Today is our third wedding anniversary. It also happens to be Mardi Gras, so my husband and I intend to take full advantage of both with our dinner tonight. We've decided to go vegetarian for Lent this year, so the next 40 days should be interesting. As a send off and to celebrate three years of wedded bliss, we're having blue cheese topped steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted broccoli for dinner. Yum! We also enjoyed a nice Cabernet Sauvignon.

Roasted Broccoli

1 head of broccoli

1-2 T olive oil

1 t salt

1 t freshly ground pepper

Cut broccoli into bite size florets. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

4 cloves of garlic chopped or crushed

1/3 c cream

1 T butter

2 lbs yellow potatoes, diced

Salt

Ground white pepper

Parmesan cheese

Cover diced potatoes with water, bring to a boil. Continue cooking until potatoes are fork tender, 10-15 minutes. Warm garlic and cream in a small sauce pan, about 5 minutes. Drain the potatoes. Add the butter and cream to the potatoes and mash. Season with salt, pepper, and Parmesan to taste.

We seasoned our boneless New York strips with a healthy dose of salt, pepper, and minced garlic before grilling. We then topped them with crumbled blue cheese for the last minute and a half of grilling.

Hello!

I've thought about starting a blog for a while now and decided there's no time like the present! This blog will be mostly food focused (because that's how my mind works), but I may include some other interesting (hopefully!) tidbits from time to time.

I actually made this dinner last week, but just got around to blogging about it today. I'm hoping this is not an indication of how the blog will go, but we shall see. I found this recipe on one of my favorite blogs (How Sweet It Is) and it just looked too good to pass up.

Brown Butter Parmesan Chicken Linguine (www.howsweeteats.com)

serves 4

1.5-2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium sweet onion, sliced

1 cup sliced mushrooms

4 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup dry white wine

1/2 pound whole wheat pasta (I used spaghetti)

2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese + more for topping

fresh chopped parsley for topping

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add vegetable oil. Pat chicken dry with a paper towel then toss with salt, pepper, and paprika. Add to the skillet and brown on all sides, cooking for about 8-10 minutes total. Remove and set aside in a bowl. Turn heat down to low and add 1/2 tablespoon butter. Add sliced onions with a pinch of salt and stirring occasionally, cook until caramelized – about 15 minutes.

While the onions are caramelizing, heat a small saucepan over low heat and add 5 tablespoons of butter. Whisk constantly until butter has brown bits on the bottom, then immediately remove from heat. Set aside. At this time also prepare the water for your pasta and cook according to the directions.

After the onions have caramelized, set them aside in a bowl. Add the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of butter and add mushrooms. Cook for 5-6 minutes. Place onions back in the skillet, add garlic, and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Increase the heat to medium and add wine. Let the wine bubble and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add chicken and pasta to the skillet, tossing multiple times to coat. Turn off heat and stir in grated cheese. Drizzle the brown butter over top, tossing to coat a few more times. Serve with additional cheese and chopped parsley.

I don't think there is much better than caramelized onions and brown butter, so this was definitely a win in my book. I do think I went a little light on the salt and pepper, so I would suggest tasting the sauce and adjusting the seasoning before adding the pasta back to the skillet.