Cheddar & thyme scones

This week, I continued my exploration of bread-products by making scones. I had never made scones before and I was surprised how easy they were. I made them on a weeknight! I'm not even sure they count as bread now that I've made them, since it was so easy!

I looked for a basic "savory" scone recipe that I could play around with, I think the basic recipe could be made with just about any flavorings, though if I was making a sweet scone, I might skip some or all of the sugar.

This recipe for Fresh Herb Scones was the starting point. My recipe for Cheddar & Thyme Scones is below.

Basic recipe

2 cups flour
1 Tb sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Cheddar & Thyme additions

3/4 cup shredded, sharp cheddar cheese
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic

Cooking Equipment

Pastry blender

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, thyme and garlic in a large bowl. Blend butter in using either a pastry blender (or fork) until well blended and a mixture of course crumbs forms. Stir in milk, lightly beaten egg and cheese. A slightly moist, crumbly dough will form. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface and form in a round, flat mound. Place on a greased cookie sheet and cute into 8 wedges. Separate the wedges and bake for 15-20 minute or until lightly browned.

My whole apartment smelled like thyme, in a nice way. If I make this again I might scale back the amount of thyme I use because it was a little strong but otherwise they were tasty.

Lentil Tacos

I heart lentils. But I have a hard time knowing what to do with them. I can put them in soup but that's about it. Until now - I have discovered lentil tacos. Do they sound disgusting to you? Well, you aren't alone. Just about everyone I mentioned lentil tacos to, replied with a sickened expression and an audible ew. There were a few people who said, "what is a lentil?" but the let's face it - if you aren't eating lentils already, you're not sitting at the cool lunch table. That's just a fact.

The lentil-taco-ewwers just needed a little bit of perspective. After I said, "ever eaten a bean taco or burrito? Lentils are basically a bean." They came around. I don't like beans much, but we're going to ignore that today (I'm trying to let beans grow on me). I'm also likely discussing my cooking projects too much with friends and associates, though to be fair, I was eating leftover lentil tacos at work for at least one of these conversations.

Moving on, lentil tacos are simply yum-tastic. Yes, I did just write that and with a hyphen. I made them twice in one week. That's right twice. In a week. I'm an addict. On the plus side, these are über healthy and consistent with the diet that I started a few weeks ago (unlike the ribs I made recently...).

Et Voilà!

Lentil Tacos (adapted and scaled down from here)

1 tsp olive oil
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 cup lentils (dry)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp oregano
1 1/4 cups of chicken broth (I imagine veggie broth is fine too)
1/2 cup salsa
taco shells and your preferred toppings

Makes 8-10 tacos.

Sauté garlic in olive oil in a large nonstick skillet until tender. Add lentils and spices; cook and stir for 1 minute. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25-30 minutes or lentils are tender. Uncover and cook for an additional 6-8 minutes. Stir in salsa, spoon mixture into taco shells and top with desired toppings.

I recommend you use a fruity salsa. I chose a peach & pineapple salsa and found the sweet salsa to be a nice juxtaposition to the spice I put on the lentils. I didn't have any avocado or guacamole to top my tacos with, but I suspect this would be an excellent choice.

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...

Spinach & Broccoli Lasagna

I learned how to make lasagna by watching my mom in the kitchen and it's one of my favorite things to make. It's easy, tastes good leftover (better even sometimes) and you can freeze it. Don't be intimidated by all the layers, it comes together in a snap, most of the time required is to bake the dish. I tend to be impatient when baking lasagna, especially if it's a week night and I'm hungry. The longer you can hold out, the better it tastes, so try to be patient.

Note that the ingredient quantities can be adjusted to make a smaller or larger lasagna. The amounts I list below will make a small lasagna about 6 servings (ie not too much for one person to eat over a few days), I use this IKEA pan when I make lasagna for myself. If you want to make a larger version appropriate for a standard 9X13 pan, you should roughly double what I have listed below.

Ingredients

1 small container of ricotta (I think the small ones are around 10oz but I can't remember)
2 cups shredded Italian cheese (you can use Mozzarella, but a blend of several Italian cheeses is best)
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach
1 1/2 cups chopped broccoli
4-6 pre-cooked lasagna noodles
26oz jar of spaghetti sauce
Garlic (to taste)
Italian Seasoning (to taste)
Black pepper (to taste)

Mix the egg and all the seasonings in with the ricotta in a medium size bowl. Grease a small (approx 11X7) baking pan. Put a small amount of pasta sauce (approx 1/3 cup) in the bottom of the pan, this helps prevent the noodles from burning on. On top of the sauce, layer ingredients in the following order noodles, ricotta, veggies, shredded cheese, sauce and starting over with noodles again, repeating until you run out of ingredients or reach the top of the pan. You should end with noodles topped with shredded cheese on the top. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes, removing the foil for the last 10-15 minutes.

As I said above, I'm impatient when waiting for lasagna. It must bake long enough for the cheese to melt but it will taste much better if baked for a full hour. Sometimes I make the double size and put single lunch portions in the freezer and pull them out to take to work when I'm in a rush or don't have anything else handy.

Taste: A
Cost: B+ (no meat!)
Waste: A+

Lemon pepper tilapia in the crock pot

My slow cooker experiences have been mixed at best, so I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided to try and make fish in the crock pot. Seemed like a good idea when I saw the recipe at A Year of Slow Cooking. I did not use the Orange Honey Tilapia recipe but rather only copied the fish packet technique.

I had to make this on a weekend because waiting for two hours on a weeknight for something I could bake in less than 10 minutes in the oven would be horribly impractical. This technique could be really practical, however, if you will be busy prepping other dishes right before the meal and would like the fish to already be taken care of.

Simply sprinkle your desired white fish (tilapia for me) with seasoning (used lemon pepper) and fold it in a packet of foil. Place each packet it the crock pot for two hours on low or until it flakes with a fork. Simple!

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.

Fried tomatoes

I recently discovered For the Love of Cooking, a cooking blog that is worth a visit if only to see the fantastic photos. I made the recipe for "Tiffany's Tomatoes" (breaded and fried tomatoes) and they were pretty tasty.

This recipe is an ideal appetizer. It's quick to make and requires very few ingredients. You can also make as much or as little as you like. I made about a tomato and a half for myself as a mid-day snack.

I made a few alterations, see the notations below, mostly because I had various things on hand.

Tiffany's Tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil (more if needed)
Olive oil cooking spray * I did not do this...I just forgot but they still cooked fine.
4 large, FIRM, red tomatoes, cut into thick slices * I made about two for myself.
Italian flavored panko crumbs * Used seasoned bread crumbs and added some Italian seasoning, worked well.
Milk
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Dip the thick slices of tomato in the milk then into the panko crumbs. Season with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper then place into the hot skillet, spray the tops of the tomatoes with the olive oil cooking spray before flipping them. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Place the cooked tomatoes onto a paper towel before placing on the serving plate. Serve with the creamy basil dressing or your favorite creamy dip. Enjoy.

Be sure to let the tomatoes sit a minute or two on several paper towels, otherwise the will be kind of oily, mine could have rested longer. I also skipped the dressing, they were pretty tasty without a dip.