leftovers

The husband left for St. Louis today. We just ate leftover pizza reheated in the oven (which is sooo much better than microwaving it, both health-wise and texture-wise) and I had some of that chickpea/spinach orzo from a couple nights ago. Satisfying.

Our friends came over and she brought a gluten-free brownie and a southern pecan cake. That cake was so moist and buttery and delicious. I'm so thankful.

pizza

On the left we have sauteed mushrooms and onions and feta cheese. (And it was sooo good.) The middle slice is sausage and pineapple and the far right is a slightly overdone plain cheese.

I tried a new technique this time. I put the toppings directly on the sauce and then covered the whole thing with cheese. While it made identification a little harder, it did solve my problem of cheese not melting because of the pineapple releasing its juices. Also I think it made the pieces slice better. The toppings weren't getting pulled into the cuts like they usually do. I think this is the wave of the future. (Well, at least my future.)

red beans and rice

I have a recipe for red beans and rice that I found on some long-lost New Orleans site years ago. We eat it quite regularly, although funnily enough I don't think I've made it since I've started this blog. When we were in Oklahoma a few weeks ago and watching way too much Food Network, Good Eats did an episode on red beans and rice. We were intrigued and I made it tonight.

My version calls for Andouille sausage whereas Alton Brown suggested pickled pork. And of course, in true Alton-fashion, you pickle your own pork. He also doesn't mandate bean soaking. I forgot this and soaked. Because the beans were already plumped, my finished dish was much more soupy than was expected. I'm going to try this again following his instructions exactly to see if that was my problem.

Soupy or not, the beans were really, really good. Totally different taste than my recipe, but in no way inferior. The real question is: Which is the authentic Lousiana red beans and rice taste? I live in SE Texas now, I think I'm going to go find me some Cajuns and ask them.

The complete winner here, though, was the rice recipe. You've got to try his method of preparing rice. It is delicious enough to be a meal on its own. And by using an electric kettle to pre-boil the water, it's lightning fast. You must try it!

salmon + chickpeas and spinach

This is our second week of heart-healthy salmon consumption. Last week's attempt was so successful that I decided to follow the same recipe again. I overcooked it just a touch but it was still mightily delicious.

The accompanying side was amazing - Middle Eastern Chickpeas with Spinach courtesy of Low-Fat Moosewood. Essentially it has three parts: Orzo topped with a chickpea and spinach mixture topped with a yogurt sauce. This is definitely a "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" dish. The chickpeas and spinach were seasoned with cumin, coriander (ideally saffron, too but I was out) and fresh lemon juice. The yogurt sauce with garlic and mint just made the whole thing sing. I had more helpings of this little side than I'm willing to admit.

chicken nuggets + veggie sticks

We experimented tonight. We = my hubby and I. He took two whole chickens and cut them up. Later on he'll make sausage with the dark meat. And we roasted the carcass with olive oil for some good broth tomorrow. But tonight, we sent the breasts through the meat grinder and the sausage stuffer. As it emerged from the stuffer, we sliced off inch-long sections.

These little ground chicken chunks were then dipped in egg followed by bread crumbs. We tried deep-frying them until they were cooked through but they lost too much water in the process and became dry. So I fried them for twenty seconds and finished them in a 350 degree oven for ten minutes. This was perfect. One of the responses was, "These are better than Chick-fil-A!" I have to agree.

Paired with carrot, celery and red pepper strips, I didn't feel too guilty feeding this to my lot. And with the honey-mustard dressing my hubby mixed up, it was some pretty good stuff. I wouldn't say it was "healthy" but in the land of chicken nuggets, it was definitely sitting in the "healthier" section.

sick husband = no cooking

We had leftovers again. Well, I had leftovers. The kids made cheese sandwiches. Quite the exciting menu, no?

mom's time

Tonight was a mom's fellowship where they had pizza-making lessons. I ate a lot. My own pizza was pesto with kalamata, sauteed mushrooms, feta and basil. It was a nice change having homemade pizza without having to do all the dirty work.

leftovers

It's Sunday. A day of rest...and cleaning out the fridge.

sushi rice salad + sesame spinach

You know how bad yesterday's meal was? That is how good today's tasted. Absolutely delicious.

First off, I made Low-Fat Moosewood's Sushi Rice Salad. Oh my goodness. You take brown rice, carrots, red peppers and cuke (I was out of cukes, though) and add a sushi-like vinegar/sugar mixture to it. In various bowls put chopped avocado, toasted and shredded nori strips, toasted sesame seeds, wasabi, pickled ginger, chopped krab and whatever else things you usually eat on your sushi. A person takes the rice salad and then adds the toppings to it. Much less cumbersome than rolling sushi and just as delicious! Serious eyes-must-be-closed-to-savor-the-yumminess deliciousness.

The side was Japanese Sesame Spinach. I got to use my mortar and pestle. Fun, fun, fun. Take toasted sesame seeds and grind them up with some sugar. Add soy sauce to the resulting paste and stir into the spinach. Very, very good. And added arm-workout bonus!

sickie sickie woo woo

I'm sick. I ate a piece of toast.

cabbage rolls + beets

This was a very disappointing meal. Well, for me at least. Both recipes came from my Low-Fat Moosewood.

The cabbage roll filling was tofu and various veggies. By itself it was pretty good. But it wasn't strong enough to hold its flavor and carry the cabbage as well. Blandy bland bland.

I've tried beets about half a dozen times. These ones were roasted in a foil packet with olive oil, salt pepper and onion. I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like fresh beets. Pickled beets, yes. Fresh beets, blech. But I won't give up. I'm not going to stop preparing them for three reasons.

1. My husband loves beets. LOVES beets.
   
2. They are so completely beautiful.
3. I am a very hopeful person.
   

It breaks my heart to say I don't like such a gorgeous veggie, but there it is. But I still believe I can find a preparation for fresh beets that will enable me to write the words "beets" and "delicious" in the same sentence. We'll see.

penne + zucchini + broccoli

Cottage cheese + spinach + toasted walnuts + basil + parmesan = yummy-yumminess

Dinner came out of Moosewood Low-Fat again. The above ingredients were blended in my food processor and served over whole wheat penne pasta. Think creamy sort-of pesto. I served it with blanched broccoli and broiled herbed zucchini and tomatoes.

It tasted so good. I ate entirely too much. Are we surprised? I thought not.

callaloo + cornbread

Callaloo is apparently one of those dishes that is named for its ingredient. Both names though, the dish and the ingredient, completely escaped my knowledge during the entirety of my 33-year existence thus far. Enter my Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites and the void is now filled. Some consider this stew the national dish of Trinidad and Tobago, I consider it delicious!

From what I could gather it commonly contains crab, but this was from Moosewood so...veg only. Typically, callaloo leaves are used (also called dasheen). Unfortunately my local HEB doesn't carry them. I'm sure I could have found them somewhere in Houston, we are on the Gulf of Mexico which is next-door neighbors to the Caribbean, but I decided to use the kale substitute. (spinach is commonly used)

I'm not sure how authentic it is, but I'll tell you it's freakin' awesome! Kale, sweet potato, tomato, coconut milk, and lime juice combine into heavenly glory. It's supposed to have okra as well, but I forgot to get it. Maybe next time. We ate it with cornbread (best recipe here) and tummies were smiling.

Well, until they were stuffed so full they hurt...

salmon + sweet potatoes + brown rice

Between my parents' house and OKC we watched a lot of Food Network. A LOT. One of my most favorite shows is Good Eats with Alton Brown. It is my perfect show: goofy, informative, inspirational, I love it. I mean, any show that makes me pull out my notebook and take notes gets super-extra bonus points.

One of the shows we watched featured salmon and my husband, who hates salmon, was persuaded by Alton's informative, yet tasty instruction. I jumped full on this and bought a $12 side of sockeye today. This is a big deal for me. I'm a miserable newbie when it comes to fish. Nevertheless I followed Alton's instructions and the broiled brown-sugar and lemon glazed little fishy was amazing!

I added brown rice (love this stuff!) and roasted sweet potatoes. It was so yummy and I was not too unhappy when the kids turned up their noses. (More for me!) But I can't blame them, they haven't had much exposure to the ocean's bounty. (Except for shrimp. They can't get enough of those little critters.)

Dinner was a delight and I can tell you it's good to be back in my kitchen. Real good.

hummus to the rescue

After eating out for a week I can not eat out one more night. But with no food in the house, what to do?

I pulled together a few things from the pantry (olives, tortillas), a few from the fridge (feta, carrots, tahini) and a few from the freezer (chicken, garbanzo beans) and mish-mash-hocus-pocus...Dinner! Pitas would have been nice, but I'm not complaining. Having a fresh, simple non-restaurant meal was wonderful.

Tomorrow's mission: shopping!

back from vacation

My husband had to work in Oklahoma City this last week. We tagged along. I had one 5-minute meeting with a computer during that entire time, thus the reason for my lack of updating.

The dinners of my week can be summed up in one word: restaurants.

Of note:

1. Pops - A roadside stop on the Old Route 66. Their claim to fame is a rolling inventory of over 500 types of soda pops at any given time. With our burgers we tried Dang! That's Good Butterscotch Root Beer (amazing!), Taylor's Tonics Chai Cola (not so amazing), Empire Bottling Works Spruce Beer (just imagine drinking a sweetened Christmas tree), Welch's Grape Soda (meh), Frostie Blue Cream (it was blue and creamy), Stewart's Cherries and Cream (had it before) and Cool Mountain Blue Raspberry (it was blue and berry-y). We tried to get the kids to try things that we couldn't get at home, but some just couldn't be persuaded. We also took home a bunch to try later. (a couple different brands of cream soda, a mint julep, a honey-blood orange, molasses root beer, sarsparilla and some others I'm too lazy to go look in the fridge to find out) Fun place!
2. The Wedge - Excellent, expensive (we didn't know this before we went) pizza place in Bricktown in Oklahoma City. I had a marinated mozzarella salad with pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes and arugula. Delicious. My pizza had artichoke hearts, pine nuts (had a thing with pine nuts that night, apparently), cremini mushrooms, red peppers. It was so good. I highly recommend this place. They gave the kids each a plate with a hunk of dough to play with while we waited for the food. This was a great idea and they had a ton of fun. If you go, I'd got without the kiddos if you can. It would be a great date night, sort of place if you're ever in OKC.
3. All the other places didn't hit me like these two so I'll spare you... OH! except Rusty's Frozen Custard in Moore (suburb in southern OKC). Oh my goodness! So we asked. And the difference between frozen custard and ice cream is the addition of eggs. Believe me when I tell you it makes a huge difference! Rusty's was amazing. Go if you can. I got the vanilla (there's only the three neopolitan choices) with pecans and coconut mixed in. Mmmmm. So fattening and soooo delicious.

Tonight we got home to a pretty empty kitchen. Breakfast burritos was all I could muster. I'll save you the boring pictures. Tomorrow is a new culinary adventure waiting...

dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow

We're heading to Oklahoma City tomorrow. Husband has to work there for the week and wanted us to join him. Road trip!

In order to have zero dishes to do in the morning I made a double batch of kolaches. To be honest, I didn't know they were called kolaches until I moved here to Texas. (pronounced koh-LA-cheese) The closest thing to them in Oregon is a bagel dog.

My kolaches are just my pizza dough wrapped around a hot dog. Usually that would be a Hebrew National dog, but I decided to try Nathan's this time around. It was a good dog, but I'm sticking with Hebrew Nationals from here on out.

A batch of pumpkin muffins tonight will be breakfast tomorrow and we're set. See ya later...

cheater pizzas

My plan was to make full-on pizza tonight but we got home a little later than I was expecting. We happen to have a gazillion tortillas right now and I thought, "Hmmm...I bet you could use tortillas for a pizza crust." We tried it. It was good. Simple and tasty enough that I'm putting it on my list of lunch options. Put your sauce, cheese and toppings on a tortilla and broil until the cheese is bubbling. The sauce I made took longer than everything else put together. That's how fast it was.

For a dessert-ish type thing I made our favorite hot non-caffeinated drink. We call it simply Holiday Tea. To make enough for four mugs take four cups of boiling water and steep four bags of Gingerbread Spice Holiday Tea (Celestial Seasonings) for four minutes. Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 c milk. It is sweet, rich and mmmmmm. Think gingerbread latte without the coffee. Sorta.

a friend in need...

We were saved from my creative dinner solutions by our sweet friends tonight. We were invited to partake in pork loin, roasted sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli and dirty rice. I was so happy/relieved and those sweet potatoes were perfect.

I did provide dessert though. I created the Cinnamon Roll Cupcake. I'm very proud. I took vanilla cake batter and swirled a ribbon of cinnamon-sugar through it. I then topped it with a cinnamon-swirled cream cheese frosting. It was a delight. (If I do say so myself.)

fried egg + yogurt dip + cinnamon-sugar chips

We returned home from San Antonio to an empty kitchen. The food had been cleaned out prior to our leaving so there were no scary surprises waiting for us in the fridge. Unfortunately that meant very few choices for dinner. We had already had to eat fast food so I came up with whatever I could. That turned out to be a fried egg as the main course. This was followed up with cinnamon-sugar sweetened tortilla chips (sliced tortillas baked in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes) that you could dip in strawberry-yogurt dip. (plain yogurt with strawberry jam stirred in)

Sure it wasn't the best, but hey! it wasn't the worst either. Not by a long shot.

stir-fry + pan-fried radishes

I finally stopped by the store and picked up some veggies. It's amazing how much better I feel after eating well.

Mom and I sauteed up some chicken and stir-fried bok choy, carrots, and broccoli. I seasoned it with ground ginger, garlic powder, salt and pepper and soy sauce. ('Cause that's all she had.) We would have served it over brown rice but as the rice was cooking, little black bugs kept floating to the surface. Um...how about some white rice instead? Garnished with sliced green onion, chopped cashews and sambal (Indonesian chili paste) it was delicious.

My oldest daughter loves to cook and while we were at the store she told me that she wanted to make a side dish for dinner. She chose radishes (and insisted on paying for them herself) and told me that she would like to (and I quote) "fry them in a pan with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar." She did and they were awesome! I highly recommend you trying it. She cooked them so they were just tender-crisp. And did I mention she is only eight?

For dessert, mom and dad bought four little cheesecakes from Sam's Club. Two were orange-chocolate and two were raspberry-white chocolate. He served each person 1/2 a cheesecake and I was almost sick when we were through. Tasty, but rich little suckers.

All in all, a delightful meal and apart from the overdose of cheesecake, rather healthy to boot.

old-time family favorite

Okay. One thing this blog is good for is that it reveals to me how well we're eating. As you can see this past week: not well. To my credit, it doesn't show our breakfast and lunch but sometimes I'm thankful for that. :-)

Tonight we had Juanitos. They are a family recipe that I had when I was little. I don't make them too often for my kids (I think I've made them twice before this.) because they're not the best for you, but tonight it was what we could do with my continued reluctance to go to the grocery store.

Into a tortilla put a hotdog that you've sliced lengthwise not quite all the way through. Into the slice put some refried beans and then sprinkle with shredded cheese. You can also add diced onion if you want. (I never want, blech.) Roll the tortilla and fry in a small amount of oil. Juanito!

My mom showing my daughter how it's done.

this is ridiculous

OK. Confession time.

My kids ate tortillas for dinner.

Well, one kid and I actually had PB&J wraps, but the other two just ate tortillas.

Then we ate dessert.

Rocky Road ice cream for the kids and the second-to-last piece of Blackout Cake and Blue Bell Coffee ice cream for me. It was horribly negligent. I'm sorry.

beany tortillas + chips + queso

I'm still at my parents' house and we need to go to the grocery store for a few things. We haven't because I hate the HEB near my mom's house. It's a little small and always busy. Super busy. It fills me with stress.

So we raided the pantry and came up with homemade (from a mix, sheesh.) tortillas with refried beans and cheddar cheese and corn chips with homemade queso dip. The dip was pretty good, but I am loathe to admit that I used American "cheese." (That stuff should not be able to have the word cheese anywhere on its label. Cheese food product is still being too liberal.)

Simple meal severely lacking in freshness, vegetable-wise. I don't know what it is but the combination of being at my parents' house and my hubby being gone makes me one lazy cook.

ham sandwich + cutie

Mom and I made ham sandwiches from the leftover ham she had in the fridge and the leftover bolillos (Mexican sub-sandwich rolls) from the fondue the other night. We added a couple cuties to the side and dinner appeared before our very eyes.