Blueberry Sweet Potato breakfast casserole - Paleo, Whole30

When I am doing Whole30, I get tired of eating eggs! Who doesn't? Believe it or not, this is what I eat when I am tried of eggs. Even though it has eggs in it, it doesn't taste like an egg dish to me.

Cooking Equipment

12-inch cast iron skillet, seasoned

Ingredients

up to 1/4 cup ghee (if you're not on whole30 you can use butter)

2-3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and dices in half inch cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1 apple, diced

5 large eggs

1 cup canned coconut milk 

1/4 cup chopped walnuts or almonds

1/2 cup blueberries fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. On your stove top, heat half the ghee in the skillet add your sweet potatoes and sprinkle with salt. Cook sweet potatoes until they are almost soft, 7-8 minutes and then add the apple. Cook for 3-4 minutes minutes until the sweet potatoes and the apples are soft. While cooking your apples, warm the coconut milk in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to partially melt it. Beat your eggs slightly with coconut milk. There will be some clumps of coconut milk in the eggs, this is fine as it will melt more when you pour it in the skillet.

Sprinkle nuts and blueberries over the sweet potatoes and then pour the egg mixture. Stir to incorporate with the sweet potatoes. Any clumps of coconut milk should melt, take care to mix it in with the eggs.

Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the eggs are done, 15-20 minutes.

Pad See Ewe - the best EVER Thai dish

If you have ever eaten take out with me, you know that I have a strong preference for Asian food, both Thai and Chinese. Normally, I don't see the appeal in getting take out that I could make myself at home and my common refrain is "yeah, but that is just as sandwich."

I used to get Thai almost weekly with one of my friends. When I lived in DC, I also had the "Pad See Ewe Summer" where myself and a few other Pad See Ewe (PSE) enthusiasts went to many, many Thai restaurants in the District to see which one made the best PSE.

This delectable dish, goes by many different spellings - Pad Si Ew & Pad See Ewe being the most common. If you haven't tried it yet, RUN do not WALK to your nearest Thai restaurant. When you are totally hooked, come back here and we will try to make it at home together.

A word of warning, PSE noodles are the great white whale of ingredients. At least they have been for me, I have literally gone to 3-4 Asian groceries and had an unsuccessful Amazon search before I finally found them at a massive Asian Market called Li Ming's in Durham, NC, that I had been meaning to visit for the last year, for the express purpose of finding PSE noodles. Now that I know they have have them I will definitely be back.

Li Ming's also carries what is definitely the largest selection of soy sauce I have ever seen. I am not even nearly culturally equipped enough to shop at this store; I can only identify uses for about a 1/2 of the items they carry.

But the point is, if you cannot find the fresh flat rice noodles, you can substitute dried rice noodles. Sometimes, you gotta make it work.

My weekly Thai food eating friend, sent me a PSE recipe she made a few weeks ago which spurred on my desire to go to Li Ming's. I like to have "saucy" and "eggy" PSE, so I made a few alterations, I have put the recipe I used below with my alterations.

PSE

• 1 head broccoli, chopped
• 3 tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
• 2 eggs
• 1 lb Fresh Flat Rice Noodles
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 6 tablespoons regular Soy Sauce
• 2 tablespoon sugar  
• 1/2 lb, your protein of choice, sliced thin or extra veggies
• 2 tablespoon olive or other cooking oil

If your fresh flat rice noodles are not pre-cut, cut them into strips of 1 inch wide. Chop your broccoli (Chinese or regular) into pieces. Heat a wok or large skillet to high heat and then add 2 tablespoons of oil. Drop in the chopped garlic and stir. Add your protein and saute to cook. While your protein cooks, mix your soy sauces and sugar together in a bowl on the side. When your protein is almost fully cooked, add your sliced rice noodles and pour you sauce over it, stir it together.

Push your noodles to the side, clearing a space to drop in your eggs. Put the eggs into the open space and scramble them until fully cooked, then mix them in with the noodles. Add broccoli and stir together. Let it heat in the pan for a few minutes to cook the broccoli and give yourself a little char on the noodles. PSE is not normally spicy, but if you want a little kick, add some cayenne pepper now.

The verdict:
Even with increasing the amount of sauce, I still felt it could have been saucier, so I'll need to work on that. I think this sauce isn't quite right also, it's good and it's close but it's not perfect. I might need a little fish sauce or oyster sauce, or something. I'm not quite sure yet, I'll keep trying! I also, did not include this in my recipe but I made mine vegetarian, so I added some cabbage and bean sprouts I had. Normally, I like my PSE with chicken but the veggies were good too! They soaked up the sauce nicely.

It was also surprisingly quick to make! I will definitely be making this again and keep fine tuning the sauce as I go.

Almond milk quiche

My boyfriend introduced me to almond milk last year and I have to say, this stuff is amazing (see my post on making pudding with almond milk here). Almond milk is great for anyone who doesn't use enough milk to use it before it spoils. Almond milk will last unrefrigerated for months as long as you haven't opened it, so it's great to keep on hand for cooking. It will keep in the fridge for a few weeks after it's opened (I think the box says 10 days but we've kept it much longer without a problem).

For the most part, you can substitute almond milk for cow's milk in recipes but sometimes, it will change the taste of what you are making or the chemistry of using milk is important, so you have to be careful and maybe give it a trial run before you serve it at a dinner party or something. There are also lots of different types of almond milk - sweetened, unsweetened, vanilla - which you'll want to take into consideration when buying some to keep on hand. There are problems with this at my house because I will use a small amount for cooking and would prefer the unsweetened, unflavored but the person who ends up finishing it has different preferences when it comes to using it in coffee or on cereal...these are the issues of small household management.

Keeping this in mind, I wanted to make a quiche. Normally, I would use light cream (or maybe heavy mixed with a little milk, depending what was in the fridge) but this requires the purchase of dairy products, ergo advance planning. After a little online research, it seemed like making quiche with almond milk was possible so a I gave it a whirl, doing what I normally do but using almond milk instead (see my post about my first time making quiche (the standard cream way), a bacon-cheddar quiche here) .

This quiche turned out fluffy and delicious! If I hadn't told you I made it with almond milk, you never know the difference. Not only do I not have to make a trip to the store for cream, using almond milk instead of cream is much healthier. Enjoy!

To make a quiche with almond milk:
1 cup almond milk to every 4 eggs, ideally you want an unsweetened and plain (not vanilla) almond milk but I actually used a vanilla flavored one and we could not taste the difference.

The quiche shown above used:
9in pie plate
1 pre-made crust
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups almond milk
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 cup lightly sauteed mixed pepper strips (originally frozen)
6 strips chopped bacon
1 Tb Trader Joe's 21 seasoning salute (or other seasoning you like on eggs)
1/2 Tb of garlic salt (I was trying to counteract the vanilla flavor)

Baked 28 minutes at 350 degrees.
Update: Many people have commented that theirs takes much longer to cook. I have never had to bake one more than 35 minutes but there might be variation depending on your oven. I originally made this recipe with my electric oven at my previous house and it may have run hot, my current gas oven takes 33-35 minutes to bake at 350 degrees.

Different quiche recipes will call for different numbers of eggs, amounts of milk but honestly you will probably have to adjust depending on the depth of your pie plate and how much cheese/toppings you put in. It's pretty hard to screw up, don't be afraid because it has a fancy French name!


Update: after this worked the first time, I've made a bunch of quiches with almond milk. It's a great week night dinner for us. However, I tried coconut milk recently, because it was all we had and I expected it would work the same and it did not. The quiche was very rubbery and I won't be trying it again.

If you are looking for a Paleo option, try this frittata recipe.

This post contains some affiliate links to demonstrate the products used. If you purchase from this link I will receive a small commission.

Bacon quiche

Why have I never made a quiche before? Don't let it's French nature make you think it's complicated.

I made a fritata a while back and I thought that quiche would be more or less the same just with a crust. No, no, no. This quiche was amazing, much better than a fritata. It was one of those times I was glad to live alone, so no one was around to see how much I ate.

I adapted a bacon quiche recipe because frankly, I wasn't willing to purchase two different milk products. What am I going to with all the leftover half and half and cream? Also, I'm just saying half and half is part cream and part milk, am I wrong here? So the simpler much Lacey version is below, so this might not be super authentic but I assure you, it was delicious.

Lacey's easy bacon quiche

1 frozen pie crust, 9" deep dish, thawed
5 eggs
1/2 pint light cream (aka 1 cup but the package at the store says a 1/2 pint)
2 Tb flour
8 strips of bacon, cooked, crumbled
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 cup shredded swiss
1 Tb of Tradder Joe's 21 seasoning salute *this is great in eggs but if you don't have a TJs around, you can substitute another seasoning blend
dash salt
dash pepper


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs and cream thoroughly. Mix in flour, cheeses, bacon and seasonings. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until center of quiche is firm.
EDIT: I have recently moved and thus have a new oven. It bakes this same quiche in 25-30 minutes,  you definitely want to check the time the first time you make a quiche in your oven.

I cannon stress enough how good this quiche was. It does take quite a while to bake all the way through, mine was in the oven at least 45 minutes, so be prepared for that. Also, the pie crust will be really full, I spilled it all down the cabinet, my dog had a great morning licking it up while I was putting the quiche in the oven. The (very limited) leftovers are going to work for lunch tomorrow. Now, go be fancy and make yourself a quiche!

One strange thing that happened, possibly because it was so full, the crust popped right out of the plate! I've never seen that happen!

Bierocks - the food of my people!

In Kansas, everyone eats bierocks. Bierocks are a bread pocket filled with meat & cabbage. Yes, I said cabbage! They are a delicious Volga-German food (most people in Kansas are part of this ethnic group somewhere along the line) and so far as I'm aware, they don't eat them anywhere else. Though they are clearly (to me at least) a cross between German and Russian food.

Everyone's grandma makes them better than anyone else's but few people under the age of 40 know how to make them, which is both sad and adds to their allure - if you only eat them a few times a year they taste darn good!  Most people make a whole bunch in one day and put them in the freezer, this can be a whole day project and aside from making the house smell vaguely of cabbage, a fun way to spend a long afternoon.

Shortly before Christmas, I went out to my Grandma's house for a visit, dinner and board games (I lost sequence a lot and won rummikub a lot). What was for dinner? Bierocks. I was in heaven. The problem with living so far away from everyone who knows how to make bierocks, is I never get to eat them.

So I needed to learn to make them. I had a consultation with Mom, with Grandma and I dove in. Now, keep in mind this is not a recipe but more like "orally communicated guidelines." Mom and Grandma (paternal) don't make them exactly the same way, so I pieced it together from what they said to figure out what would work for me.

Bierock guidelines

Ingredients

bread dough
ground beef
green cabbage, shredded
salt
pepper
garlic, onion are optional 
butter

-Make a non-sweet bread dough (Mom recommended using Pillsbury hot roll mix, Grandma uses some frozen dough for making dinner rolls, or you can go make some dough from scratch. I used the roll mix.)

-While your dough rises, brown ground beef in a large pan with  shredded cabbage, seasoning as desired. Allow meat mixture to cool somewhat.

- When dough is almost ready, grease a larger cookie sheet and preheat oven to 370.

- After dough has risen, take a small ball (bit smaller than a tennis ball) and roll the dough out into a circle. Place about 1/2 cup of meat mixture in the center and pull the corners of the dough up and join them together in the center. Pull the new corners up and join them together, until the dough is sealed and circular (so much as you can, it takes practice to get them a nice shape).

- Flip prepared bierock over onto a greased cookie sheet. Repeat until cookie sheet is full and bake for 20 minutes at 370 or until nicely brown.

- After removing from the oven, baste tops lightly with butter. Repeat until ingredients are depleted.

- Allow to cool and enjoy!

Notes:
- If you use 1 box of Pillsbury hot roll mix, 1 lb of ground beef and 2-3 cups of cabbage you will get about 7 bierocks.
- Mom shreds the cabbage in a food processor to make it smaller, very few people make their bierocks this way but Mom always receives accolades for "less cabbagey" nature of hers and this is the secret.
- I said the directions to roll the bierocks out, my mom makes them in her hand, but how she does it is completely beyond me, feel free to try that if you're an over achiever!
- Most people like these with ketchup (including me) and some also with mustard, though this isn't strictly speaking traditional. 
- They also freeze very well but I don't think they are as good after being in the freezer.

Does anyone else's family eat these? If so, I want to know about it!

Late photo - Thanksgiving feast

I have been a supreme slacker on blogging. To be honest, I haven't been cooking very much either! However, my friend Kim (who just moved to DC!) and I did prepare a feast on Thanksgiving! See below two (very tardy) photos.

The ham was made by slicing a smoked ham partially apart and putting brown sugar in each slot. The toothpicks are holding small bits of apple and pineapple each. My grandma advised that using apple and pineapple adds a slightly different flavor. It was a tasty ham (made in the crock pot) but I'm not sure it's the best it could be. If anyone makes this for Christmas, be sure to let me know how you like the addition of apple!

The other photos shows part of the feast - green beans with blanched almonds, mashed potatoes, gravy (instant, sadly) and stuffing. We also had apple and pumpkin pie (both made from scratch by Kim!), turkey breast (small group), garlic biscuits, cheeses and any number of other yummy things.

Ham in the crock pot!

Just some of the Thanksgiving feast!

Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.

Homemade mac & cheese

Cheese. Pasta. Yum.

My friend Abby was having a dinner party for her birthday, she is a serious gourmet. She has made her own ricotta cheese and despite my reservations about eating a homemade dairy product, it was pretty good (I'm told it's actually pretty easy to make ricotta). So what do I take to the party of a fellow experimental chef? For some reason, in the middle of DC summer heat, mac and cheese was the first idea I had. I had never made mac and cheese from scratch, it was a 97 degrees outside with 90% humidity but for whatever reason a casserole dish full of comfort food seemed entirely logical. As I write this, it's starting to sound delicious all over again.

So, how does one make mac and cheese with out a box from Kraft? Good question! Actually, I was surprised how easy it was! The recipe below is something I concocted after spending 30 minutes or so browsing different mac and cheese recipes. It's a little bit Martha, a little bit allrecipes.com and a little bit Lacey.

I read one recipe that called for 'pasteurized cheese product food' - not cheese but cheese product food. Ew. You might as well just buy a box if you aren't going to use actual cheese. There is nothing from that recipe in my version.

Homemade Mac & Cheese
8-10 oz whole grain macaroni - cooked according to package directions and drained
4 oz shredded extra sharp white cheedar
4 oz shredded Gruyere
1 oz grated Romano cheese
1/4 butter
2 cups 1% milk
3 Tb flour

*Note measurements are approximate, I did not measure when I made this but it seems pretty hard to mess it up, so you can play by ear a little bit. Also if you don't want to shred the cheese, or don't own a cheese grater (but really why wouldn't you?), you can cut it up into small pieces.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in small sauce pan, when it's completely melted mixed in flour. Add milk and stirring frequently, allow to simmer until it begins to thicken. Add cheese one handful at a time, reserving about 1/2 cup total of the cheeses. Mix pasta into cheese mixture and pour into a casserole dish. Top with remaining cheeses and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes.

Aside from possibly needing some paprika and garlic (you know me and my garlic), this was tasty and in spite of inhospitable summer weather, a huge hit at the dinner party, considering all the tasty items Abby served up, I consider that a major accomplishment.

The complete opposite of Italian pizza

I recently went on a business trip to Chicago and I must say I was thoroughly impressed not just with the city's breath-taking architecture but high quality eateries. Okay, it's a little heavy on the pizzerias, but they are good pizzerias. I found myself thinking, "too bad it's SO cold in the winter!"

As luck would have it, the hotel I was staying at was in the Magnificent Mile area and just a few blocks from the original Pizzeria Uno, the birthplace of Chicago's deep dish. Which, was of course super busy, and just around the corner from their second location Pizzeria Due, a significantly less crowded incarnation.

I had never had real Chicago deep dish and was of course keen to partake! I went with a colleague of mine, who is from the UK and was unfamiliar with this Chicago treat. In the UK and Europe, pizza is more often the flatter, more authentic, Italian style. We Americans monkey around with everything. I briefed my colleague on deep dish on the walk to the restaurant, "imagine the complete opposite of Italian pizza - that is deep dish." I also included some historical information on the immigration waves to the US from Italy and how this led to rise of different regional pizza styles, very thorough.

We chose an amazing spinach and broccoli topped (stuffed?) pizza, and it was delicious. The bread was crispy the toppings pouring out all over the plate and lots and lots of cheese! I mean, look at that big slab of deliciousness! I'm not sure I'd want to eat a meat topped deep dish pizza though...too dense. The veggies were a nice counterbalance.

I highly recommend the deep dish! But you need to be willing to accept is as a different entity than Italian or even New York style pizza.

Chicken fried rice with cumin

I enjoy a tasty bowl of rice but am something of a rice failure in the cooking department. My friend Diana, in Grad school, made the best rice dishes you can imagine, out of I-have-no-idea-what. Just whatever, happened to be in her refrigerator at the time, or so it seemed.

I am a fan of Uncle Ben's ready rice, it's quick and usually tastes pretty good. However, I'm also committed to advancing my rice repertoire! With that in mind, over the last few days I've whipped up a few rice dishes, most were pretty basic, white rice with some kind of stir-fry-esk vegetables on top. Last night I got fancy and made chicken fried rice.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast
2 cups rice - prepared (instructions below)
1-2 cups frozen pepper strips
2 carrots, chopped (or maybe 1/2 cup of baby carrots)
2 eggs
cumin ~1/4 Tb
turmeric ~1/4 Tb
pepper
salt
olive oil

To prepare rice:

Cook rice according to package directions, making approximately 2 cups. Instead of boiling rice in water, boil in chicken broth. (I highly recommend making a big pot of rice to use for a few days, if you are on a rice eating fest. I made about 6 cups in chicken broth and used it for 2-3 recipes.)

To prepare chicken fried rice:

Chop chicken into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with cumin, pepper and salt and cook in large skillet with a small amount of olive oil. All the other ingredients will be added to this same pan, so make sure you have enough space. When chicken is about 1/2 cooked, add pepper strips and all additional spices. When chicken is finished cooking add rice, egg and carrots. I pushed all the rice-chicken mixture to one side of the pan to let the eggs cook on the other side and then scrambled them in when they were done.

This was a pretty tasty rice dish, though, next time around I will probably add more turmeric and cumin to give it a little more zest.

Cost: B+
Waste: A+
Taste: B (more spices needed)

Schnitzel

One of the most delicious and simultaneously artery clogging meals I've ever eaten was schnitzel with hollandaise sauce at a restaurant in Berlin. Tasty. Schnitzel is traditionally a veal cutlet rolled and pounded flat, breaded and pan-fried. It is not normally coated with butter and cream sauces, that was a slightly overkill. While schnitzel was originally veal, it is often now made with pork.

I love schnitzel. A friend of mine, who shares my love of schnitzel was recently visiting and were were talking schnitzel, it got me in the mood. I had never made it, nor had my friend so we dove in! Alright, I did not really let my friend do anything, which slightly irritated him I think. I get my kitchen control-freak tendencies from my mother.

I don't eat veal for ethical reasons, so we made pork schnitzel. I decided to buy some thin cut pork chops, since they were already thin we did not have to work much to roll them out. If you need to do so, you'll want them to be about a 1/4 inch thick before frying. I followed this recipe, the note saying it was written by a German sold me!

The schnitzel were delicious! I served them with salad and sweet potato fries. My friend and I ate all of them, no leftovers. However, we both agreed that paprika would make them better. Paprika is a staple spice in lots of German recipes. Yum.

Slow cooker ribs - dinner success! Diet fail!

I've been staring at ribs at the grocery store all summer. More than once I put them in my cart, wheeled them around while I did my shopping and then decided to return them to the meat section. They can be a bit pricey and I felt they were impractical for one person because the packages are so large! But earlier this week at my local Safeway (or un-safeway as it's known around DC), they had country style pork ribs for .99/lb. I couldn't pass it up, so I bought some (5lbs!) and took them home.

I had no idea what to do with them.

I don't remember ever eating ribs until my mom married my step-dad. He makes a mean rack of ribs - bar-be-cued, beer marinated, slow-cooked or smoked, they're always delicious.

They seemed a good match for the crock pot, they could slowly cook and become tender and juicy while I was at work. After my numerous crock pot disasters, I did not want to risk messing up my ribs so I called mom to get rib advice. She told me to broil them before I put them in the crock pot but otherwise there wasn't anything special I needed to do except cover them with bbq sauce.

So one night I set out on my rib adventure. I rubbed them with garlic, sea salt and paprika. I would have also used pepper but I was out! I set the oven to broil and cooked them 8-10 minutes on each side. Alright, one side was a little longer because I got distracted and forgot to take them out. Oops.

I let them cool a bit and placed them in my crock pot. I poured BBQ on top and a little bit of water, maybe 1/2 cup. I put the crock pot in the refrigerator for the night and then in the cooker the next morning before work. I turned it on low to cook while I was gone, it was about 9 hours before I got home.

Results? They were fantastic. I had made 2.5lbs and put the rest in the freezer. For dinner that night I think I ate a pound of pork. Did I mention I'm on a diet? Yea a pound of pork for dinner is a huge diet failure but it was good I could not help myself. I think I could have eaten all 2.5lbs in one sitting.

I should have probably put a little more liquid in the crock pot because the exposed parts of the ribs got a little charred looking but even the charred bits tasted amazing. I can't wait to make the other half but I should probably wait a few weeks, since I'm supposed to be dieting...

Dusted off the crock pot - squash casserole

Friday morning I awoke bleary-eyed and late. I had neglected to set my alarm the night before. I also had a 9am meeting. Not a good day to get up late.

Furthermore, I had slow cooking aspirations for that day (well the day before I did not so much at 7:30). I had been browsing around the archives of A Year of Slow Cooking to see what gem I could pluck from Stephanie's blog. Since any recipe I've tried from somewhere else have all failed, ok there were only a few attempts but still.

I dusted off my crock pot - literally, it sits out on my counter and it's been so long since I used it, I had to wash it off first. And I began chopping squash to make a kind of crock pot casserole. Did I have time for this? No. I looked at the clock when almost done and had to toss in the rest of the ingredients and run out the door, puffy eyed and makeup-less for work (this was after I got bits of frozen spinach all over my kitchen). So beware, if you're doing this in the morning, it will take 20 minutes of prep-time!

Cheesy Squash Casserole (inspired by no-noodle lasagna)
2-3 yellow squash
15 oz (small container) of ricotta cheese
??? oz jar of pasta sauce
1.5 cups Shredded Italian blend cheese
4 slices provolone cheese
2 cups froze spinach, thawed
Italian seasoning
Garlic

I had intended to mix an egg and the seasoning in with the ricotta, which I do when I make lasagna but when I took the eggs, I've been meaning to use (for a while...) out of the fridge the sell by date was July 31st (and I did not have time).

Layer the ingredients in your crock pot (mine is 5 quarts), starting with sauce on the bottom, squash, ricotta (I smeared this on the squash before I put it in), sprinkle of spinach, seasoning, cheese slice and shredded cheese, until you reach the top or run out of ingredients. Rinse the pasta sauce jar with a small amount of water and pour it in before the final topping of shredded cheese.

See why this took 20 minutes? Well, really I should have thawed my spinach and chopped the squash the night before.

So was my mad dash out of the apartment worth it when dinner time rolled around? It's lovely to walk into the house to dinner. However, do NOT make this if you will not be home in eight hours. By the time my commute time was factored in it was cooking for close to ten hours...not good. I ate it for dinner and it was ok, I think it would be better if it hadn't cooked so long. Also, next time I need to check my eggs. Mixing it with the ricotta help it to have a less chunky texture, it just cooks much nicer. I ended up eating it for dinner that night but when I went to reheat some of it, it was not good and I threw the rest away. The added cooking from reheating was just too much. Finally, I think fresh spinach would be the way to go, might have been worth a trip to the store.

Won ton ravioli!

I finally got to make my ravioli this weekend. I had complications this week because of a 3-day power outage. Yes, three days without electricity during a DC summer heat advisory no less. Sigh. So after throwing out just about everything that was in my refrigerator, I went to the store and bought new ingredients to make my ravioli. Frankly, I'm surprised I was that motivated to make anything.

But my perseverance paid off, using won tons to make your own ravioli might just be genius. I concocted my own basic recipe for the stuffing and read numerous posts online about people's experiences with the technique. Some complained that the won tons don't taste exactly like pasta leading to a slightly "off" flavor, but I personally found them to be an excellent substitute. I know the picture I took makes them look less than fantastic, but I was pretty impressed with them.

Many people also said they freeze very well, I don't have any to freeze to test this because I had a very hungry dinner guest but maybe next time I can give it a whirl and let you know how it turns out.

Spinach & Artichoke Ravioli

12oz ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 egg yoke
2 cups chopped frozen spinach (thawed)
1 jar marinated artichokes
1Tb Italian seasoning
1 package of won ton wrappers

Chop marinated artichokes into small pieces. Mix ricotta cheese, whole egg, spinach, chopped artichokes and Italian seasoning in medium sized bowl to make stuffing. Boil a large pot of water. Prepare a work surface (I used a large cutting board) and lay out 6 won ton wraps. Place a small mound of stuffing (circa 1.5Tb) in the center of each wrapper, spreading it out slightly but leaving about a quarter inch border around the edge. Using a pastry brush, smear a small amount of the egg yoke around each side of each won ton. Lay another won ton on top of each one on your work surface taking care to line up the edges and not to let the stuffing leak out. Press around the edges with your finger and then again with a fork to ensure that it is sealed. Boil for approximately 3 minutes. Repeat until all the ingredients are used.

I had two that kind of "blew up" in the water when I was trying to remove them, I think they were filled a little too full and boiled a little too long. Try to keep the water at a soft boil to prevent the ravioli from being pushed around too much while cooking. Some people online suggest steaming them to get them to stay together better, but it wasn't really a big challenge, easier than I was expecting based on my past experience with won ton wraps at least, boiling worked pretty well over all.

The recipe above makes about 24 ravioli, perfect for two hungry people or to put some in the freezer for later.

Get your hands off my couscous!

Sorry for the long silence! My computer got a virus and it took nearly two weeks to sort it out. However, I'm pretty pleased to say I fixed it myself! Who needs tech-support?

Last weekend while preparing for my pilgrimage to my local Safeway (or Un-safeway as it's know in DC) I was thinking about what new thing I could make and I decided on...drum roll please...Couscous! I enjoy couscous when other people make it but it's just one of those non-American foods that never occur to me to make. I'm not even sure what made me think of it then!

I trekked off to Safeway to discover that they don't sell plain couscous! Apparently, they don't think Americans have the capacity to make this because they only sell pre-flavored couscous in boxes with little spice packets. sigh. I bought two boxes.

At home, while I boiled some water and my spice packet to make my couscous my mom called. The conversation went something like:

Me: Hi mom.
Mom: Hi. What are you doing?
Me: Making couscous.
Mom: What on Earth is that?!?
Me: Uh...it's couscous...something kind of in between rice and pasta.
Mom: Oh....(while thinking, whose kid is this?)

Making couscous is actually really easy. Easier than pasta! Just boil some water (or broth), olive oil and salt, remove it from the heat, stir in couscous, cover it up and wait about 5 minutes (check the package directions for the liquid to couscous ratio and exact wait time).

To add to my Parmesan flavored couscous, I sauteed some red pepper, garlic and broccoli to mix with my couscous. It was tasty. However, I wasn't satisfied. Am I ever? I wanted plain couscous that I was responsible for spicing and darn it, I was gonna find it. So the next day I went to another grocery store and eureka!

You can also put additional spices in the water while it's boiling and the couscous will suck it up with the water. Couscous has quickly joined pasta as my go to mid-night dinner option.

Couscous is tasty both hot or cold. You can:
-mix in chicken, or pork to make it a meal
-add it to lettuce salads
-add raw veggies and cheese (I'd recommend feta) to make couscous salads
-add cooked veggies and eat it hot (as I described above)

The possibilities are endlessly delicious!

Pesto and...Presto!

Pesto is the best sauce-invention ever. You can make simple, gourmet (seeming) meals in a flash - provided you buy the pesto. I lived on pesto during grad school. All of my friends in grad school came over and had the "pesto pasta with veggies dish." Which, I still eat, though not as often, and is the subject of this SGG post.

Unfortunately, I've never successfully made my own pesto. I only tired once, I don't have a chopper/food processor and I'm also not an Italian grandmother, so I don't need one. One of my SGG goals for the year included potentially trying this again but thus far my herb garden has ceased to provide any basil. I suppose that means I'm off the hook.

In grad school, I lived in the Netherlands and there was an abundance of tasty pesto available, however, I now find my choices to be limited - or nonexistent. I'm sure there are places with delicious pesto in DC, it's probably just $15 a jar. At the grocery store, there is one kind, that's right one. I actually asked a stock person once where I could find the pesto and he did not know what it was. Bad sign. So making your own might not be a bad idea.

In any case, when I do have good pesto available or settle for the so-so stuff, I make my grad school staple. It's simple, can use just about anything in the fridge and can be vegetarian or not.


Pesto pasta with Veggies

1-2 servings of hot pasta, cooked according to package directions (any kind of pasta you like, rotini works well)
2 cups chopped mixed veggies (can use almost anything you like, suggestions: summer squash, tomatoes, corn, broccoli, peppers)
2-3 TB of pesto
garlic to taste
salt and pepper to taste
bacon or chicken, 1 inch pieces (optional)
cheese (optional, mozzarella suggested)

Meat directions:
While cooking the pasta, in a small skillet cook bacon cubes or chicken pieces with garlic, salt and pepper for 5-6 minutes on medium heat until almost cooked. If using chicken, you might need a little bit of oil, the bacon will produce enough grease. Add veggies and cook 3-4 more minutes until veggies are soft and meat is thoroughly cooked. Toss with hot pasta and pesto sauce. Add veggie/meat mixture, top with cheese and serve.

Vegetarian directions:
While cooking the pasta, in a small skillet saute garlic in olive oil for 30 seconds and add veggies. Season with salt and pepper. Add veggies, top with cheese and serve.

Taste: B+
Cost: A-
Waste: A+

Tequila lime mussels

For my first attempt at making mussels I went for the classic Mussels a la Marinere, mussels in a nice wine sauce. So recently, I was walking around Eastern Market and I saw that they had fresh mussels for sale ($3.25/lb!) and I just had to buy them. What am I gonna do with them? No idea.

I took my mussels home, deciding that I wanted to try something different, so I browse around and I find a recipe for "Mike's Drunk Mussels." Tequila, lime and mussels, sounds fabulous, right?

1 teaspoon cooking oil
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 small onion, diced
1/2 cup tequila
1/4 cup water
1 lime, juiced
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons diced jalapeno peppers (optional)
2 pounds fresh mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Directions

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. Cook red pepper and onion in oil, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes.
Stir in tequila, water, lime juice, fresh pepper and jalapenos. Bring to a boil, and dump in the mussels. Sprinkle the cilantro over the mussels, and cover with a tight fitting lid. Allow to steam for 3 to 4 minutes, or until all mussels have opened (discard any that don't).

I went to the grocery store and liquor store and made me some drunk mussels. Were they good??? They were alright. The mussels were normal, tasted like mussels. I like cilantro, so having boatloads of cilantro in there was nice...all the green in the photo is cilantro.


The negative was that the sauce so was so alcoholic. The tequila only cooks for a few minutes with the mussels so it still has a lot of alcohol in it. After I dipped a few pieces of bread in the sauce I was practically drunk, each one was like taking a shot. Which is ok if that's what you're going for, but I wasn't. My favorite part of mussels is dipping bread in the sauce, so not being able to do that (without a hangover the next day) is a big negative for me.

In short, this is a good alternative to the classic French style of mussels but I don't think it's something I'd make regularly, maybe with less tequila or with reducing the sauce a bit.

Carne Português

Carne Português means "Portuguese Meat" and that's not what this dish is actually called. A Portuguese friend of mine taught me how to make this and told me the name in Portuguese, something Carne...yea no idea. If anyone knows, let me know!

In any case it's delicious and the leftovers attracted several comments around the kitchen at work. It's somewhat similar to meatloaf. Without further ado...

3/4-1lb ground beef (half beef and half turkey works too)
1-2 slices of bread
1 cup of milk
1-2 cups of wine
1-2 large potatoes
1/2 cup chopped each of 2-3 "stuffings" (suggestions: cheese, bacon pieces, bell peppers, spicy peppers, olives, onions)
salt, pepper and garlic to taste

Place bread in bowl and pour in milk, use your hands to mix the bread and milk together until the bread is saturated. Mix the bread, meat, salt, pepper and garlic together. Flaten meat out on a cutting board, you will eventually roll it up into a loaf.

Mix in the your chosen stuffings, this time I used turkey bacon, bell peppers and cheese. You can either mix them up in the meat so the small pieces are distributed or roll the meat around them to form a core. I mixed in the cheese and peppers but put the bacon in the middle. Roll the meat up and form into a loaf and place in baking pan.


Pour the wine over the roll and sprinkle additional salt and pepper on the top. Chop up potatoes and put in the wine around the meat roll. Bake at 400 degrees for 40-60 minutes until both the meat and potatoes are fully cooked. If it's not finished after 40 minutes, you can turn the oven up to 425 degrees.


The flavors in this dish are spectacular. The meat soaks up a nice flavor from the wine and the potatoes soak up both the wine and meat flavors. If you use red wine, they will turn pink. Delicioso!

*Note: This will be the last post from my current place, new year and cooking from a new kitchen!

Fish Fiesta!

Have I mentioned I like cheesy alliteration? Well, really I like just about anything with cheese. Alright, I'll stop.


I make this recipe for Mexican Baked Fish almost every other week, especially in the summer when avocado is fresh and cheap.

It's also really healthy - low fat fish, fiber from the avocado - plus after the back to back cookie recipes, I need it!

I do make one major change, I use Tilapia instead of cod. First, because the majority of cod stocks are severely overfished to the point they may never recover. The exception is Pacific Cod off the Alaskan coast, but it can be hard to know where/how fish is caught. Tilapia is also a cheap, basic, white fish that is easy to keep on hand.

This recipe is great because it uses minimal ingredients and things I usually have on hand, with the exception of avocado. The work-taste ratio is through the roof, it takes almost no prep time or cook time. Add some rice and it's a meal! It's easy to adjust the amount you want to make, just lay the desired number of fish in a pan and top with salsa and cheese. Simple. It's also good the next day to take to lunch or dinner night two.

I've also made an "Italian" version of this, substitute diced tomatoes or marinara sauce for salsa; mozzarella for cheddar; and bread crumbs for chips. It's not quite as good but will work in a pinch.

Taste: A
Cost: A-
Waste: A+

A potato as a meal

The credit for this one goes entirely to my friend Jess. She is actually in culinary school now, honing her skills. Anyway, she came to visit me once and I had nothing to feed her, or I couldn't figure out what to make with it anyway and she whipped this up and it was tasty! Now I make it all the time.

I had a random assortment of veggies, potatoes and some bacon pieces. My old grocery store sold bacon chopped up into little cubes, it was amazing and I used it all the time but alas, where I live now they don't sell it that way, just in the customary strips. Sigh.

This recipe is great for a number of reasons, you can use just about whatever is in the fridge, it's great for lunch the next day, uses very little or no meat (ie it's cheap and healthy), only one pan needed! So, without further ado...

Baked potato with roasted veggie topping

2 large baking potatoes (1 for dinner, 1 for lunch the next day)
3-4 cups of chopped veggies (can use anything - broccoli, summer squash, fresh green beans, tomatoes, bell pepper...)
splash red wine vinegar
Italian seasoning
splash olive oil
shredded cheese (anything - mozz, feta, cheddar)
chicken or bacon, cut up (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Bake the potatoes. I usually microwave them for about 5-8 minutes and then cook them the rest of the way in the oven, while I prep the veggies. Splash some olive oil into a small pan. If you are using meat chop up the bacon or chicken into small pieces and put it in the pan first, sprinkle with Italian seasoning and cook it for 3-5 minutes on medium heat (little longer for chicken) until it's almost cooked. Then add the veggies (if using tomatoes add them a few minutes later) and pour a splash of red wine vinegar and a bit more Italian seasoning and some salt and pepper. Split cooked potatoes, top with veggies and finish with cheese. et Volia!


Cost: A+
Waste: A+
Taste: B