Quick and Easy
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 MoreLeek and Cabbage Soup
Take a look at this soup. It’s not photogenic. It’s not sexy. But it’s first and foremost delicious. Of course, it’s also healthy and incredibly easy to make. And on cold autumn or winter days, it really hits the spot. How could it not? The other fabulous feature of this soup is that it features veggies from the CSA (Highcross Farms), and home made chicken stock (chicken was from Grassway Organics). If you think that this combination is a little odd, I wouldn’t blame you. But then again, I think anything with peanut butter is strange. Just think about it, there is a leak and potato soup, and cabbage and potato soup. I just...
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 MoreChickpea and Tomato Salad
I was completely struck by the simplicity and deliciousness of this salad when I saw it at an event about a month or so ago. Of course, it was also one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments. I mean, it’s tomatoes and chickpeas, both of which I love. But perhaps my experimenting with food stopped the moment it started when I decided to put salt in my tea when I in kindergarten. Quite traumatized by that still. LOL. Anyway, this salad is incredibly easy, especially if you use cherry tomatoes, which is how this salad was made when I first saw it. But I didn’t have cherry tomatoes and I didn’t see anything wrong with...
Read MoreTomatoes: Freezing Sauce
As you have probably gathered from reading this blog and statements like “tomatoes are my favorite food” that tomatoes are my favorite food. It seems like everything I cook in winter has some sort of a tomato presence, be it stew, chilli, soup, or something roasted. So I decided to make my own tomato bases this year, something I can pull out and use in multiple ways. Having ten tons of tomatoes on hand and absolutely no time to do anything “exciting”, I was looking for something very easy, very quick, and requiring little cleanup. And as luck would have it, Sofya had a great way of processing these tomatoes. Seeing her beautiful...
Read MoreTomatoes: Pickled
Ahh… Pickled tomatoes… There’s nothing else like them. When I think about them, I always remember winter-time family dinners, snow outside, grandpa grabbing a ladder and going into the cellar to get a bowl of pickled tomatoes. You see, when I was little, my grandparents had a cellar, a place little girls were not allowed to go to, which of course, worked to capture the imagination nurtured on rich Russian fairy tales even more. But the treasure in that cellar was a barrel of pickled tomatoes. Of course, there was also a barrel of pickles. At the rate I ate them, there were probably several dozen barrels of each. Of course, you can’t...
Read MorePickled Patty Pan Squash
As I mentioned in my other post, I have only ever had these beauties pickled. Oh sure, I tried to roast them last year, and it was a complete disaster, they were disgusting. So, I’m not repeating that. Instead, I decided to pickle them, since I seem to be pickling everything in sight. Yes, pickled food is my favorite, and pickled tomatoes are God’s gift to me. There’s just nothing better. Except maybe shashlik. But I digress… So the other day, I saw that one of my local farms (Witte’s Vegetable Farm) had a whole bunch of these little sunshines at their stand. And I couldn’t resist their cheerful happiness...
Read MoreRoasted Bell Pepper and Green Bean Salad
I got a few too many peppers at the store the other day and needed a way to use them up. They looked too good to pass up! Ingredients: 2 red bell peppers 1 yellow bell pepper 1 orange bell pepper 1/2 red onion sliced into half moons a couple handfuls of green beans, blanched Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, equal parts Salt, pepper to taste Steps: 1. Roast the peppers and clean the skin off once they’re cool enough to handle. Slice into 1/4 inch long slices. 2. Slice the onion into half moons. 3. Blanche green beans (dunk them into boiling salted water for about a minute and then dunk them into ice-cold water to stop the cooking). 4. Combine all ingredients in a...
Read MorePotato and Green Bean Salad
This is a really delicious and healthy side dish. It’s also really easy and really quick to make. The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for it! LOL. I actually made it twice today. This recipe calls for a really good olive oil because you’ll add the dressing to the potatoes while they’re hot and the flavor of the oil will really stand out. One person who ate this tasted a hint of garlic though there’s no garlic in this recipe; it was the flavor of the olive oil. Ingredients: 1.5 – 2 LBs new potatoes (I used red and Yukon Gold) 3-4 handfuls of green beans 1/2 red onion, sliced in half moons 3/4 cup of olive oil 1/4 cup...
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 MorePepper Soup
I haven’t made any soups recently and since one of my New Year’s resolutions is to make more soups (and eat them), I figured today would be a good day for that. As I was reviewing the produce I had, I noticed that some of the bell peppers were starting to look like a Shar Pei and a few random roasted peppers in a jar could be used up too. So, Pepper Soup to the rescue! I remembered seeing a fairly easy recipe by Bal Arneson on the Cooking Channel, but there were a few ingredients I didn’t have (I’m not driving across town for 1 tsp of asafotida, especially when I don’t even know what it is). Thus, I decided to use the recipe as...
Read MoreMediterranean Vegetable, Bean, and Feta Penne
I saw this recipe in my Clean Eating magazine (page 41 of the February 2011 issue) and it looked pretty good. But the fact that it didn’t have meat had me worried, for I am an unabashed carnivore. The recipe seemed easy, quick, healthy, and potentially great-tasting so I thought it was worth a try, especially since I’ve been craving summer flavors. [You might have seen it on the news, but WI is buried under a few feet of snow and I for one, absolutely hate it. For a sunnier view of our weather, check out Sofia's take on it.] So, off to the kitchen I went, though, as always, I did deviate slightly from the original recipe. Ingredients: 6 oz. of whole...
Read MoreChicken Stew with Chickpeas
We’re in the grizly clutches of winter here, though, technically Winter hasn’t started yet. But since it is so cold, it’s perfect weather for a stew. And since I’ve been eating a lot of lamb lately (made Lagman, (an Uzbek soup) a few times), I thought it’s time to make something with chicken. I also wanted to use up some of my pantry items. So, I had chicken on hand, and I wanted to use Montreal Steak Seasoning (I read a great recipe by Sofya on her blog) but that was the end of my idea, until I started cooking. Initially, I considered making this with potatoes, something like the chahohbili-style stew I made last year. But then, I...
Read MoreEgg “Salad”
I call this egg “salad” because I don’t know what else to call it, and calling it egg “spread” just doesn’t sound appetizing, even though it’s great spread on bread as a snack or an appetizer. But this recipe is just so simple and the results are disproportionately delicious. The most time-consuming part of this recipe is boiling eggs. Really. Just try it and you’ll see what I mean. Use your favorite sharper cheese, but any cheese would probably work. Ingredients: 6 eggs 1-1.5 TB of mayo 3 cloves of garlic (finely minced, less if you’re not a garlic enthusiast) 1/3 cup of grated cheese (any sharper cheese...
Read MoreTabouleh
One of my currently favorite places has great Tabouleh. I like how fresh and flavorful it is, not to mention how healthy it is. So, I decided to try making it myself. I looked online and all recipes were a little different; some had onions and some didn’t, some had more bulghur (cracked wheat) some less, some some had mint, some didn’t. But overall, a few things are consistent: bulgur, tomatoes, and cucumbers. And my goal was to try to replicate the tabouleh of the restaurant where I usually get it. That version doesn’t have mint or onions, so I omitted those ingredients. Most versions have the cracked wheat soaking for a while (1-2...
Read MorePasta Pesto and Grilled Shrimp
Today was one of those busy days when I really didn’t have the energy or the time to cook after work. On top of that, it’s been really, really hot here lately and I didn’t want to stand in my tiny kitchen in front of the stove. And since my grill died, the stove is really the only cooking device I have. So in an effort to avoid heating up the kitchen and wanting a really quick and tasty dinner, I made pasta pesto with grilled shrimp. Yup, the same shrimp I made for Independence Day, and I took a shortcut with the pesto – I bought it a while ago and it’s been in my pantry so I figured I should use it. Ingredients: 1/2 lb of pasta (any...
Read MoreShrimp and Pasta
I bought this great shrimp (from Fabian Seafood Company) a while back and have been wanting to make something with it. But being perpetually busy, all I could do the first day was just clean it and freeze it. So the other day I finally had some time to think about what I wanted to do with it. Because this shrimp is so good I didn’t want to drown it in sauce, I wanted the shrimp to shine in the dish. It’s also great that this recipe comes together in about 15 minutes or so; perfect for a busy day. Here’s what I did. Ingredients: 10 or so pieces of shrimp 8-10 pieces of scallops 3 cloves of garlic Olive oil, smoked paprika, chipotle powder, chili...
Read MoreOrzo with Veggies and Feta
I’ve been thinking about making something with orzo for a while, and saw a good recipe on Tasty Kitchen and thought I’d give it a try. But you know me, I can’t follow directions when it comes to food, so, as always, I added my own touch on the recipe. The asparagus I had was already roasted (LOVE! roasted asparagus) so that was one variation from the original recipe. Another was the tomatoes. I love tomatoes, and Sendik’s had cute little cherry tomatoes on sale. These aren’t good enough to eat on their own yet, but are good enough to cook with (the added spiced and other things in the dish help out the paper-like taste of winter...
Read MoreBeef Stroganoff
After making the Mushroom Stroganoff I wanted to make the real thing. Especially considering that I haven’t had beef stroganoff in at least ten years. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either when I started thinking about it. I actually don’t remember the last time I had it. And after I made the mushroom stroganoff, I started searching for recipes. But as you know, I have a hard time following a recipe. So, I decided to combine a few and the ones I liked were the Paula Dean version and a Cooking Light version. Here is what I came up with: Ingredients: 1 lb of beef (I used the already-cut-up beef that you can find at your local grocery store) 3 TB of...
