Oven-baked
Stuffed Shells
I have always wanted to make a stuffed pasta dish but was always intimidated by it. Not quite sure why, because it’s so easy. Easier than lasagna, and I consider lasagna to be easy. And when I found a recipe in a magazine (Whole Living, March 2011 edition) and realized I had all the ingredients, I knew I had to try it. I was also surprised at how quick this came together. It is also healthy and very satisfying. The spinach, the low-fat farmer’s cheese (I noticed it’s lower fat than the ricotta the original recipe called for), the mushrooms in the sauce (another one of my tweaks) all contributed to the guilt-free satisfaction of this cheesy...
Read MoreRoasted Acorn Squash
It’s true, I’ve never had acorn squash before. “How can that happen?”, you ask. Simple. I thought I didn’t like it. It looked foreign (which it really is, to me), and hard to figure out, and since I’ve never had it before, I never knew what I’d ever do with it. But as I mentioned in some of my earlier posts, one of the benefits of joining a CSA is that you get veggies you might not have picked out on your own. Just check out the pumpkins/squash in the picture for an example of what I got in the last few CSA boxes. The folks at Highcross Farm do a great job with getting fantastic food to us and I take these...
Read MorePuff Pastry with Honey and Nuts – Pseudo Baklava
I love this dessert. It’s easy, quick, and most importantly, delicious. This dessert has enjoyed a successful introduction to my family, co-workers, and a CSA pot luck. There are several things that make this recipe extra easy. One, is that I use store-bought puff pastry. As you know, I have no room for working with dough (see my kitchen), so these shortcuts become more of a necessity. But I don’t mind, it makes my life easier, and that’s a much welcomed thing. (However, if you’d like to try your hand at home-made puff pastry, check out Sofya’s version.) I wish everything was as easily simplified as puff pastry dough. But...
Read MoreRoasted Veggies and Fish – Easiest Dinner
I’m always on the look out for an easy, quick, and nutritious meal. After work and after grocery shopping, I’m usually too tired to actually make something with the groceries I bought. So, this particular day, I thought I should just roast some veggies for the next day. Then, I thought “why not just add the fish and make a meal of it today?” And that’s exactly what I did. Ingredients: 1 lb package of asparagus 1 lb fish (I used cod) 1 large carrot, sliced into bite sized pieces Olive oil, salt, pepper Dill/parsley/cilantro (optional, to taste) Steps: 1. Drizzle olive oil on asparagus, carrots, and fish. 2. Sprinkle salt and...
Read MoreWhole Wheat Bread
There is nothing more satisfying than making bread. Taking such simple ingredients, like flour, yeast, and water, and turning them into something nourishing and fabulous is just so rewarding and self-affirming. It’s immensely satisfying knowing I can whip up a loaf of bread with practically no effort, make it dense, chewy, and nourishing, and save a bundle in the process. I think I’ll have a bread-related goal for 2011. I used the same recipe and process here as I did in my first attempt (Bread based on My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method), but I made changes to the flour mixture. Instead of 3 cups of white bread flour, I used 1.5...
Read MoreChocolate Cobbler
I crave chocolate on a regular basis and I figured I should make something myself instead of buying a gazillion-calorie chocolate cake at the store. So I started to scour the internet for an easy recipe that is quick to make and doesn’t require too many ingredients. This search yielded a recipe by Susan Hawkins at Tasty Kitchen. But you know me, I couldn’t leave it well enough alone and had to modify something. Because I’ve been in an experimental mood lately as it comes to my dessert, I thought about making this a little healthier. I have lots of room to play here, but this time I thought of switching out All-Purpose flour for Whole Wheat...
Read MoreBlueberry Muffins (breads)
I found a recipe for Blueberry Muffins on Lola’s website and they looked really good. So good and easy (read: I had all the ingredients) that I decided to give these a try. But I wanted to make these a little bit healthier and so I made a few substitutions. The main one is that I took out all the butter, not that there was too much to begin with. I used applesauce instead and used a little more buttermilk. The other substitution I made was the flour. Instead of all-purpose white flour I used whole wheat pastry flour. This is what gives these muffins a bread-like feel. They really do feel like individual little breads. A perfect healthy breakfast...
Read MoreBread (no-knead)
Bread! I finally had time to give baking bread another shot. I tried it a few months ago and it turned out OK, but something just wasn’t right. I think I got the yeast a little wrong. So I had to try it again. And since I have no room to actually work with dough, it had to be the no-knead kind of bread. And after searching on all sorts of blogs for a recipe, I found a great explanation on Steamy Kitchen. This is the recipe I managed to ruin. I hang my head in shame, since even her 4-year-old had no problems. And with that, I decided to go to the source and ordered Jim Lehay’s book “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method“. I...
Read MoreThanksgiving 2009
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I consider myself to be richly blessed and thank God for my blessings regularly. Having a nationally recognized holiday to do so is wonderful. In my family, I have taken over Thanksgiving responsibilities in the last few years and relish the opportunity to cook up a feast. And a feast it truly is. This year our menu was as follows: Appetizers: Baked Salmon Roasted Shrimp Cocktail Pickled tomatoes (store-bought) Hummus (store-bought) Smoked fish (store-bought) Goat cheese bruschetta Seafood Salad Roasted Red Pepper Salad Roasted Asparagus Main course: Vegetable Soup Mashed potatoes Turkey Dessert: Spice cake Puff Pastry...
Read MoreRoasted Salad
I am so thrilled that it’s finally summer, but it seems I can’t give up my oven. Though I do have a grill, it’s an electric one. My local fire department does not allow grilling on balconies. But I still love summer veggies and have a tendency to buy too much. So, today, I decided to put some of those veggies to good use and make a salad. Since roasting is so easy and brings out the flavor so much, I decided to sacrifice personal comfort in my caricature-worthy tiny kitchen for the benefit of the salad. Ingredients: 3 bell peppers (I used red, orange, and yellow) 1 bunch of asparagus 1/2 red onion diced 1 tb basil Salt, pepper, olive oil,...
Read MoreTomato and Spinach Soup
This was a completely unexpected and impromptu soup. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not much into soup since I have so few soup recipes. But this just came together suddenly, since I didn’t even get into to the kitchen until about 8 in the evening. What can I say, I was bored so I started cooking. I had some things I wanted to use up before they go bad and wanted something easy, light, healthy, and packed with nutrients. And since I’m fond of throwing a bunch of stuff in one pot and seeing what develops, I got a really yummy soup that is perfect for this cold and rainy weather. I hope, one of these days we’ll have...
Read MoreSteak and Potatoes
I love steak. And potatoes. But I’m trying to take a healthier approach to these foods and I know that cooking this at home would not only be healthier, but also much more cost effective. Even in these economic times a steak and potatoes dinner is affordable, if you make it yourself. And honestly, why pay $30 per meal and spend hours in a restaurant where you don’t know what you’ll get if this costs about $7 or $8, takes no time at all to prepare, is really easy to prepare, and you know exactly what you’re eating. So, without further ado, here is what I did. Ingredients: Steak Sweet potatoes (I used 2) Worcestershire sauce Tamari or...
Read MoreRoasted Chicken – Updated version
[I originally started this post in January. Just saw that it was still sitting unpublished and decided to publish it, just how I wrote it in January.] It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. That’s not to say that I haven’t cooked. Just nothing “new”. But being stuck in a rut of sorts can be helpful in getting me out of that same rut. I’ve been craving a roasted chicken lately. It’s been a long time since I’ve made it, and I’ve been making it the same way for a while. So, I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to try something different. I finally decided to make my own spice rub. ...
Read MoreBirthday Celebration
I know that it looks like I haven’t cooked anything in months. And it’s almost true. I have cooked things I already wrote about and have a few more recipes I haven’t posted. But let me start with the birthday celebration which was in early March. I made two roasted chickens, just to be sure I had enough. But one was enough. Everyone seemed to love it. I hope they weren’t just polite but actually liked it. I also made: Seafood salad Salmon “pizza” that was inspired by Emeril’s Smoked Salmon and Goat Cheese Pizza Bites. Mine had regular cream cheese instead of goat cheese and using store-bought dough made it extra...
Read MoreMeat filled flat-bread (lepeshka) – ???????
We made this flat bread (???????) the same day as when we made manti. See, we had some leftover dough as well as a little bit of the meat mixture. We can’t let anything so good go to waste, so we combined them together into a most delicious bread (with meat). For the ingredients and steps to create the dough and meat mixture, see the Manti recipe. The dough was rolled out and slightly stabbed with a fork. This is done so it doesn’t puff up (we’re not making puff pastry after-all). So, after stabbing the dough with the fork to make some holes, place the meat evenly throughout (see the first image). Then, roll the dough into a rope shape. Once you...
Read MoreTurkey – Thanksgiving and any other day
I was completely new to baking a turkey a few years ago. In fact, the first time I tried to make a turkey (for Thanksgiving) I almost burned down my kitchen. You see, I was following 2 different turkey recipes at once and made a pie earlier. When the pie filling oozed out ever so bubble-ishesly right between the heating coils, I didn’t give it much thought. Until I needed to crank the oven to 500 degrees. That was the day I found out that burned sugar and high temperatures don’t mix, for when I went to put the turkey in the oven, I saw flames! shooting up inside the oven. You have to image this: me standing in front of the oven, barely holding pan...
Read MoreThanksgiving Part 2
The day is finally here and I’m giddy with excitement. I started cooking late last night and continued today. One of my big realizations was that everything except that was cooked, except the boiled potatoes, was baked. My oven fulfilled its baking duties fully. I love my stove/oven but as my mental list of my dream kitchen grows longer, I’m adding double ovens to that list. Or maybe it should be triple ovens. Today, we got together around 2:30 and people left after 8. We laughed and toasted and chatted and reminisced and remembered. And ate. And ate. And ate. That’s the “Russian” way. This year, as we toasted to the things we were...
Read MoreOven “Fries” / Steak Fries / Baked Potatoes
In the last few years I have developed a real appreciation for the potato. I never liked it when I was growing up, but I think it’s because it was mainly found in soups, all mushy and in various states of disintegration; or it was pan fried. Turns out I don’t really like the greasy texture of the fried potato, all crunchy on the outside and mealy on the inside. But I started experimenting with a few varieties and a few recipes. Here is an easy, quick, and healthy alternative to fries. Ingredients: 1 lb of Yukon Gold potatoes 1 bottle of your favorite steak seasoning (I use McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning) 1 TB of olive oil 1 Gallon plastic...
Read MoreBaked Salmon
I found this recipe on FoodNetwork.com, but it had a few too many extra things, so I paired it down. Here is my version. Ingredients: 1 LB of Salmon Tamari (or low-sodium soy sauce if you can’t find Tamari) freshly ground black pepper (to taste) Steps: Rinse the fish and pat it dry. Put fish into oven-safe dish. Pour as much Tamri as you like. I like it quite liberally on the fish. It keeps it moist during cooking, as well as makes a nice sauce for spooning over your side dish (like rice). Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover the dish with aluminum foil. Cook for about 15-18 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. Take it out of the oven. If the fish is...
Read MoreRoasted Chicken
This is how my family likes my roasted chicken. It’s quite simple, really. All you need is a chicken (or any part of a chicken that you like, such as chicken legs, or chicken thighs, or wings, or chicken breasts). Because I cut away much of the fat in the chicken, this turns out to be a lower-fat dish than you’d normally expect. Here is my method: Ingredients: 1 whole chicken of about 3-4 pounds (or 3-4 pounds package of chicken legs/thighs) 1 bottle of McCormic Rotisserie Chicken seasoning. I use this liberally, and I suggest you do too, but use as much as you want. (If you don’t want to use the seasoning, using just salt and pepper works...
