Happy Anniversary Parental Units!

My parents journeyed to Baltimore in July to celebrate their anniversary. First of all, celebrations always equal food, so of course I wanted to bake a lot! I had a vision of one central cake surrounded by little cookies and smaller cakes.

So, I'll start with my first Fondant Yellow Cake

B

Black and White Cookies

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

 Pumpkin Muffins

Even more cooking going on!

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Roasted Pear and Arugula Salad

S

Sweet Honey Sesame Dressing

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One-Pot Spaghetti Supper

This is a recipe from the Sunday paper's Parade magazine. It was very easy to make and a great way to incorporate a serving of fish---there is tuna in there!

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Thai-Style Chicken Wraps with Mango Salsa

This YUMMY recipe comes from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While the wraps had trouble staying together, the flavorful chicken mixture with peanuts and peanut sauce tasted very good next to the fresh mango and cilantro salsa.

Mango and Cilantro Salsa

 Chicken, Carrots and Peanut Filling

A whole lotta cookin' goin' on!

Now is when I begin to list the reasons why I have not been blogging so frequently. Okay, not really.

Thank you for being patient as I made my blog private, and muchas gracias to my faithful readers (right?).

I have tons to catch up on, and you know what they say about procrastination? Well, what do they say?

I'm going to upload the pictures of what I have cooked in the past, oh, month or so, and then write descriptions as I go. Sounds good? Okay, I am glad :-)

My goal for dinner this night was a fresh, healthy breakfast for dinner. In my elementary school, breakfast for dinner was bittersweet. I loved having French Toast, pancakes or French Toast sticks, but always disliked the inevitable sticky plastic utensils. Sticky utensils still continue to be one of my issues.

 Fresh Sweet Fruit Salad


Baby arugula
Peeled and chopped into chunks pink lady apple
Watermelon chopped into slightly larger chunks

Zucchini and Tomato Scones

This recipe comes from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. They were a bit dry, but then again, if I used real butter like the recipe called for, I might have had flaky scones. It was interesting to have a scone that wasn't extremely sweet---blueberry scones,  plain scones...  I think that if I get the guts to use real butter (and believe me, this would take A LOT), I'd try it again.

Eggs in a Frame/Gas-house Eggs

Growing up, I'd usually spend a week of my summer at my grandparents' (Dad's parental units) home. This is the first place I remember having the buttery, gooey taste of Gas-house Eggs. Really simple to make, and if you use Egg Beaters like me, they are relatively healthy.

Step one, cut a hole in the bread.
Step two...okay, really...step one is to spread a thin, even layer of margarine on both sides of the bread, then cut the hole in the bread. But if you got where I was going with the Step one thing, thank you!

Then place in frying pan, add either 1 egg or about 1/4 c Egg Beaters to hole, then fry 'er up!

Indian (Chicken) With Curried Cauliflower

 

Summer Corn Saute With Tons of Herbs

Disclaimer: I can't help that you will want to make this 7 nights a week!

 

Roasted Pear and Arugula Salad with Honey Sesame Dressing

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One-Pot Spaghetti Supper

This recipe comes from the Parade magazine that comes with Sunday newspapers. Since Dan and I elect not to receive a Sunday paper, my Mom sends me these magazines to catch up on reading them---they are really interesting!

Anyways, this was a healthy way to incorporate a serving of fish into dinner time---tuna fish!

 

Thai-Style Chicken Wraps with Mango Salsa

To Dan and I, any ethnic food is yummy! I was really excited when my Mom sent me this recipe from The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. This was easy to make and tasty. The peanut flavoring was very good---I ground unsalted peanuts in a Slap-Chop to make the peanut topping.

From Italy to Galilee...to too toasty risotto

Since its summer, I've been experimenting with salads other than the typical garden salad with dressing. Either I've been making vegetable salads or fruit salads or making homemade dressings for field greens. The homemade dressings are so easy to make! And, when you think about the list of ingredients on the back of a store-bought dressing compared to the 4 or 6 ingredients in homemade dressing...it makes you smile...or cringe.

This night, we started with Green Bean and Mushroom Salad that was in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. This was very easy to make and tasted so fresh! I mean, it wasn't filling, but it was tasty! The ingredients were all fresh (except my green beans since I can't have fresh legumes, ridiculous, I know) and mostly something you'd find in your kitchen!

Each week, the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle includes recipes called "The Chronicle Cooks." I usually cut them out because a) They are (mostly) Kosher and b) Usually tasty!

Galilee Spinach Soup was Cheesecake Factory on a scale of McDonald's to La Tour d'Argent. It was edible and spiceful, but just okay. When I make soup, I like it to include a protein so it is not just extra calories. The recipe intrigued me because it included chicken. Dan had two helpings, go figure!

Since I didn't want us to be hungry after dinner and to avoid snacking, I made one side dish for the soup. Toasted Orzo Pasta is a recipe that I found in Parade Magazine (you know, the one that comes with your Sunday paper). Either my orzo toasted too fast or...well, really, that is it. So the ten little burned orzo added a very cajun taste to the rest of the orzo. Although the onion, chicken broth and barley did add to the taste, the burnt orzo really took over. I'd try it again and just toast very very slowly on low heat!

Bon appetit!

Whole Wheat Muffins

To accompany our chicken soup, I made Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Muffins! These were very easy to make, healthy, and sweet!

We ended up eating them as dessert, which was fine by us! I ate one for breakfast the next morning, a good breakfast food!

There are two versions of the recipe on the package...one with applesauce and one without. I used the one with applesauce because I figure its another way to get fruit nutrients.

These are very healthy, and tasty!

Bon appetit!

Gram's Chicken Soup

When I was younger, I ate over my Grandparents' home a lot. I always liked what we had for dinner, but always looked forward to when my Gram made chicken soup. This was probably the only time I asked for seconds---not because I didn't like the other dishes, but I was the most finicky eater around. (Who takes 30 minutes to chew a steak? Mom, remember this?)

To make Gram's Chicken Noodle Soup, I first boiled about 1 c uncooked yolk-free egg noodles. I set these aside, rinsed the pot (with warm water to keep it hot) and refilled and then boiled two breasts of chicken. While boiling chicken is not the most pleasant thing, I like how the chicken turns out, especially for soup. If you haven't boiled chicken before, please, please please, for the love of anything lovable, skim the frothy stuff that appears up top. After the chicken was boiled, I then washed and switched the water again.

I put the chicken aside on a dish, brought 8 cups of water to a boil. I seasoned by water to make broth with: garlic powder, onion powder, and a PINCH of salt. I then added:

1 c peas
1 c corn
1/2 c barley
1/4 c quinoa
1/4 c lentils

I let everything simmer together for about ten minutes before adding the season de resistance: ketchup!

When I asked for the recipe, which I admittedly tweaked with the addition of quinoa and lentils, Gram told me her not-so-secret seasoning is ketchup! So, I squirted in about 1/4 c of the red stuff (This is a time I wish I had green ketchup!) and stirred. Taste, and if you want, add more...I did!

Bon appetit!

Happy Fourth of July...cookies are on the grill!

When I was younger (teenage years), I was part of the Teen Advisory Board (TAB) at the local library. Along with planning really fun events for local teens, we had some pretty fun hang-outs and projects that we did ourselves! And with every fun event you need awesome food. (I remember we overhauled the space for the teen reading/hang-out/computer room and made it awesome---bean bags, a jean couch, a bench, lights!) My Mom used to make Hamburger Cookie Sandwiches a lot for TAB...in fact, when I started this blog, my friend Kara (who directed the teen advisory board) asked about the cookie sandwiches.


In honor of the celebrated birth of our country, I figured it was appropriate to bring out the big guns, er, hamburgers, and make these cuties once again.

Simple:

1 box Nilla wafers (I use reduced fat)
1 box Keebler Grasshopper cookies
1 tube red icing (thick kind)
1 tube green icing (thick kind)
1 tube yellow icing (thick kind)
Honey
Sesame seeds



To make 12:

1) Take 12 nicely rounded (not chipped) Nilla wafers and line the edges with the green icing so that the icing sort of "sloppily" hangs off the side.
2) Take 6 other nicely rounded (not chipped) Nilla wafers and do the same with the yellow icing.
3) Take 6 totally other nicely rounded (not chipped) Nilla wafers and do the same with the red icing.
4) Now, take 12 Grasshopper cookies and place them (right side up) on the Nilla wafers with the green icing.
6) Flip the yellow and green cookies on top---now you have 12 cookies.
7) With your finger, place a small smear of honey on the top of each cookie...about the size of a pencil eraser.
8) Now, drop a few sesame seeds onto the honey and.... dum dum dum...Hamburger Cookies!

Bon appetit!

Red, red...food

When I ask Dan what he wants for dinner, he either does not know, or wants the mini-meatloaves.

Most often, I take the "I don't know" as my cue to pick a main and go ahead. However, sometimes I decide "the guy likes the 'loaves, let 'em eat loaves." So, I went ahead and made mini-meatloaves again and included a new side dish.

Shells with Corn and Tomato is loosely inspired by the what we dubbed 'adult mac 'n' cheese' in France. No, full frontal nudity or male rear nudity (can you believe 'male rear nudity' is now used when describing the ratings of a movie?!), it was large shells (the stuffing kind)smothered with about four kinds of French cheese. My dinner was a winner. And in France, anything smothered in cheese has to be good. Except lima beans.

I followed the package directions for the shells, then added cooked green beans and cooked corn. I mixed in tomato sauce which I seasoned and voila---veggies and pasta.

The stats:

1 c cooked shells
1/2 c corn
1/2 c green beans
1 c tomato sauce mixed with (1/2 tbsp garlic powder, 1/4 tbsp onion powder, 1 tbsp parsley, 1/2 tbsp basil)




For starters we had a Balsamic Tomato and Raspberry Salad. With salads, I enjoy combining vegetables and fruit. I think the sweet and tart/salty tastes together really are nice to have on the same plate. This is really easy, and if you feel creative, you can sculpt your tomato however you like. I used about 1/2 tomato per person, sliced it up, poured 1.5 tbsp balsamic vinegar over the tomato, topped with basil and added a few fresh raspberries!



Bon appetit!

Pineapple Chili

I am seriously behind on my blogging. However, I want to give each recipe its "time in the spotlight" after being posted. Not that I have a ton of readers, or anything, but yeah, that is my rational. Although, sometimes I think it would be better to just catch-up and post what I have so I can stop being behind!

Oh well, this past weekend my parents came into town for their anniversary Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!. We had a really nice celebration which included hilariousness at the Baltimore Comedy Factory as well as two nice and yummy dinners! On Sunday, Daniel and I went to his camp Mega-Reunion! Boy, it was fun! We made arts and crafts, took a tour of the camp, and ate too much red meat :::sigh:::

When we went to Greetings and Readings to purchase a few cards, we were lucky to try a sample of a delicious cookie recipe from a local cookbook author and owner of a dessert company! How fun must her job be! When asked if I bake, I smiled and mentioned my blog. She said she would check it out, how exciting! Please check out her website!

So, one of our favorite recipes is my Old Fashioned Chili and while Daniel requests it quite often, I remind him that for the sake of my blog, we can only have it when I am making a new recipe for a side-dish. But then, I thought...I should change the recipe up a bit!

And voila, Pineapple Turkey Chili was born! I did change the recipe a bit. I basically started the same: I cooked 1 lb of lean ground turkey meat in a skillet. In a stock pot, I combined one can of diced tomatoes and 1 can dark (low sodium) kidney beans. The place where I changed the taste was in the sauce! I added about 1/2 tbsp cinnamon and 1 tsp ginger. I then added about 1/2 can (8 oz) of drained pineapple.

We like this change in taste! It wasn't too sweet at all, but the sweetness of the pineapple when bitten into gave a nice, refreshing burst of flavor.


Bon appetit!

Crock Pot: Attempt Une

As one of our wedding presents, we received a very creative (and very useful!) gift from neighbors that I've known since I was little--Di, Jeff, and Dylan. In fact, we've known each other since my cartoon watching days, as in our guest book, Dylan referenced when we used to watch Rugrats. I loved that show! Is it still on?

Our gift was a crock pot and a slow cooker cookbook with, get this...more than400 recipes!. I could finish my blog challenge just with this cookbook!

My first recipe with the crock pot was Lemon-Lime Chili Chicken as always, email me for the recipe---my name @gmail.com.

I chose to cook on the "high" setting rather than slow cooking the chicken all day. This was truly delicious! The chicken did not dry out, and the "sauce" was delicious, healthy and definitely you could taste hints of lemon, lime and the chili powder. Daniel loved the zucchini because it came out soft in the middle, crisp along the peel and it really soaked up the "sauce"---er, broth.

I am really excited to continue to experiment with the crock pot. There are so many recipes to try, even desserts.

Bon appetit!

Watermelon salad

We all like to eat out, admit it. The food sometimes tastes better, you don't have a mess to clean up, BUT you don't know exactly what the ingredients are.

Sometimes, I like to try to re-create a dish that I've eaten at a restaurant. This way, I am able to control the portion size and the ingredients.

For Dan's Dad's birthday, we enjoyed dinner at a Linwood's. Rather than go with a traditional salad, I ordered the watermelon and feta salad. I didn't know what to expect---I picture field greens with a little bit of watermelon and feta being presented to me...well, I was wrong.

I did my best to create a Watermelon Salad for Dan and me. (Since this was a meat meal, I forwent the feta.)

I simply cut triangular chunks of watermelon about 2.5inches by 1 inch and arranged in some artistic fashion---really you could place one large chunk of watermelon on a plate and it would taste the same, its all about how you want it to look.

Next, I sprinkled some mint on top and arranged slices of sweet vidalia onion around the watermelon. I drizzle the watermelon formation with balsamic vinegar. For a garnish, and to add a very sweet element, I cut red grapes in half and arranged around the plate.

And honestly, doesn't it feel good to make something yourself that you've had at a restaurant? Yep, yep it does!

Shabbat Shalom......HEY!

For our first Shabbos together, I decided that this was diningroom material and bought flowers, champagne and made a homemade dinner!

First we had matzoh ball soup, and yes, I know I could have easily ripped open a box of soup and ball mix (OR! Opened a jar!) and made the soup, but I took the blog-road and made homemade matzoh balls from the recipe on the matzoh meal container and made my own broth.

Matzoh Balls. From this recipe, I was able to make about seven medium-sized matzoh balls. Remember! They balls expand when you cook them! Disclaimer: I almost fell out of my chair when reading this recipe online---fat=oil ;-)


My Dad tells the story of his first Shabbos as a married couple with my Mom. They didn't take into account the expanding nature of matzoh balls and ended up with about 1 lb-each matzoh balls!

For my broth, I started with a Telma chicken bouillon cube.

The package calls for 1 cube to 2 cups of boiling water---however, I added 4 c water to 1 cube and then added my own spices. Of course, experiment for your tastes, but I used:

1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1/4 tbsp onion powder
1/4 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chopped onion
2 guilty pinches of salt

I then added about four carrots cut into about three pieces. I let the carrots soften a bit, then remove. I added the matzoh balls and allowed to cook in the soup for about 30 minutes before removing and placing in the 'fridge in a dish. (If you allow the matzoh balls to just hang out in the pot, they soak up all of the broth and become soggy.

Just before serving, I added everything back to the soup and let warm!

You can also add sliced onion to the soup.

For our main course, we enjoyed My Gram's Roasted Chicken.

Remember that time that I made a chicken and the neck flopped out at me? Well, this cooking adventure created similar circumstances, albeit much different.

In the freezer, I had a small chicken and decided that a roast WHOLE chicken might be nice for Shabbos---although, this was a lot of poultry for two people. So there I go...I cut off the wrapper and then take over to the sink to rinse off. This might be too much, but for those medical professionals out there, the visual I had upon turning the chicken into the sink was much the same as a birth. Without going into too much detail, you get my drink.

Anyhow! I nicely rinsed off the chicken, inside and out. I cut the skin off from the top and rinse again.

I then decided to place the chicken in the roaster (I just used a large Pyrex). As I place the chicken in, it acts like a guy during Sunday football---it spread its wings and laid back and relaxed! Since I didnt have string to tie the thighs together, I just let it go. I seasoned the entire chicken, inside and out, with garlic powder and onion powder, rosemary and paprika.

I filled the bottom of the pan with water---just enough to fill the bottom and go about 1/2-1 inch up the side of the pan. I covered the chicken and baked at 350F for 30 minutes.

I then uncovered and added: sliced carrots and potatoes to the water in the bottom. While uncovered, I baked for another 1 hour. When the 1 hour is up, squirt ketchup (I did a kind of zig-zag pattern) on top of the chicken and bake for another 15 minutes or so. Of course, check the chicken to make sure it is done since every oven is different!

So good...and the ketchup, everyone thinks its weird to hear about, then they change their minds when they taste it!



Bon appetit!

Ketchup

No, I didn't make homemade ketchup (that would be an interesting venture!) it is what I need to do!

Daniel and I returned from our dream-like European honeymoon! We visited London and Paris! We had a magical time in both cities. We enjoyed visiting so many places and eating such delicious food! We even were thinking about taking a course at Le Cordon Bleu (ahh, so wonderful), but decided to leave the culinary adventures up to the professionals!


Before we left, I made another dairy Shavuos dinner. I used a recipe for Homemade Noodle to make the shell for a Spinach and Cottage Cheese Blintz. Originally, I had hope to make ravioli, but the "pockets" didn't close well enough to allow me to boil them without a pot of exploded ravioli, so I baked the pockets and had blintzes!

The noodle recipe was easy to follow---I just opted out of adding the sea salt. Since I don't have a pasta machine to make actually ravioli pockets, I enlisted my hands and a knife, but I think I stuffed too much filling into each. It didn't matter, the filling was seeping out of the edges, so I decided to bake instead.

Voila---we had blintzes! Daniel ate all of his, as did I with mine. They were good!

For the filling, for the two of us:

1 c chopped spinach
1 c fat-free cottage cheese
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
Mix together, add to(or in) pasta

That night we also had Toasted Bread and Butter Pudding. This was delicious, unhealthy yes, but delicious! I absolutely adore bread pudding, so the occasion of making homemade called for the purchase of my first loaf pan---in yellow, of course, to match my ceramic pie baking thing (you can't really call it a tin, can you?)


Although I didn't get the aesthetics of the pointed bread like in the picture from epicurious, the rounded braids of the challah slices gave my bread pudding a nice look! But who cares what it looks like when you have sweet, mushy and delicious bread pudding!

I say...make this!!!



The next night was rather fishy! We had Chilantro-Chipotle Tilapia. Warning: When a recipe calls for "chopped canned chipotles in adobo" and your multi-cultural Wegman's does not sell the stuff, do not substitute with Chipotle salsa paste. Daniel said it was fine, but I think he has an iron tongue, or something.

The cilantro gave the fish a wonderful taste, and I am sure the correct chipotle would have been wonderful, too, but MILD! This fish dish that I served must have had a Scoville rating of at least 9 million!

Like I said, I'd be willing to give this a second try provided that I find the right chipotle sauce! I was first excited that the chipotle salsa that I purchased came from Mexico complete with Mexican Kosher certification! We're expanding our horizons!

Our side-dish that night was eggcellente! With our fire-tilapia, we enjoyed Apple Shallot Stuffing. Another recipe from epicurious.com was a great success. This was sweet, yet had just enough tang from the shallots and lemon zest.

Remember, back in the day, I talked about organizing my recipes so I do not waste ingredients? I mean, until we have our octuplets, its just the two of us having dinner. So, I used the rest of the challah from the night before and made this stuffing. Well, truthfully, I made the stuffing the night before and saved it until this night.



The Four Questions:
1)Remember when I was a vegetarian and upon jumping off of the veggie bandwagon, the last thing I held onto not eating (does that make sense?) was red meat?
2) Remember my qualm with not serving salty food?
3) Remember how I don't cook red meat at home?
4) Remember how Daniel wants me to cook red meat at home?

It was Bison Burgers for dinner! These were good, but a) were salty and b) fatty (although the package said lean).

I seasoned the meat with garlic powder, onion powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Since bison is a typically tough, lean meat, it was so hard to stir in the spices and sauce!!!

I made large burgers and served with a slice of fresh tomato on top!

Bon appetit!

Cheesecake to TexMex Longboys to Married Life, oh my!

Guess who's back?! And MARRIED! Does this mean that I need to start cooking with a frilly apron?

Daniel and I were married at a beautiful venue that we continue to fall in love with each time we see the photos. Here is a picture of us:



And another to be annoying:


I really have been cooking lately! Pictures have been taken, but the blog has not been updated! This has the potential to be a mammoth post, but please read!

I have two new recipes on deck for tonight, and they are both summery foods!

The Past Two Weeks in Food

In a previous post, I introduced you to Ali---we grew up as next door neighbors and still are very good friends! In fact, Ali caught the bouquet at my wedding! Ali has an older sister, Val, who is now a nurse and also has awesome recipes! Val's recipe for Tex-Mex Long Boys. These had a serious deliciousness factor to them!

As Val suggested, I used turkey meat (nothing new there...) and combined the ingredients to form about 1 inch thick, 6 inch long, 2 inch wide patties. I put the formed patties in the fridge while I made the accompanying Guacamole and Pico de Gallo. While I chilled the pico and guac, I broiled the patties and then served each patty with a little guac and pico on top! DELICIOUS! They were so good, I actually forgot to make extra side dishes...oops! I think these would be fun for an outdoor picnic or barbeque, or really, anytime. I think corn on the cob is the perfect side dish that I was missing!







Aunt Fran (Dan's Mom's sistah) described her recipe for Challah as "better than crack." After making this, let's just say, I now understand why there are addicts...

This challah was very easy to make, it baked for just about 10-12 minutes!!! And unlike my rainbow challah, it wasn't raw! It had a very soft, sweet taste to it! So, I made this challah and used it for our homemade grilled cheese sammiches.

I margarine-d one side of a slice put on two slices of cheese and fried on the skillet.





Along with the grilled cheese, we had homemade tomato soup (you could have guessed that, right?)

Well, I cut up four large, beefsteak tomatoes and stewed them in a small pot for about 15 minutes along with oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, chopped onion, and basil. I then added about 1/4 c of cream (this bothered me...they don't make non-fat heavy cream! I only used it because I had it leftover from something else..okay, enough rationalization...) and mixed for awhile. While this didn't have the thick consistency of say, Campbell's it was good, you could tell it was fresh.



The next dish I made was Spinach, Tomato, and Lentil Ravioli. First, I make about 1/2 c lentils according to the package direction. Did you know that it is suggested that you rinse lentils to get rid of particles such as small rocks? I tried, its a challenge!
I then defrosted frozen cheese ravioli and then combined with olive oil, chopped up tomatoes, about 1 c spinach and the lentils.



Then for Shavuos (celebrating when the Jewish people were given the Torah) I made Ricotta Cheesecake. It is traditional to eat dairy, and Chabad.org gives the following reasons as to why dairy is customary:
# On the holiday of Shavuot, a two-loaf bread offering was brought in the Temple. To commemorate this, we eat two meals on Shavuot -- first a dairy meal, and then, after a short break, we eat the traditional holiday meat-meal.
# With the giving of the Torah the Jews now became obligated to observe the laws of Kosher. As the Torah was given on Shabbat, no cattle could be slaughtered nor could utensils be koshered, and thus on that day they ate dairy.
# The Torah is likened to nourishing milk. Also, the Hebrew word for milk is "chalav," and when the numerical value of each of the letters in the word chalav are added together - 8, 30, 2 - the total is forty. Forty is the number of days Moses spent on Mount Sinai when receiving the Torah.

Anyhow, Daniel's favorite cheesecake is a ricotta cheesecake (the only real kind) from Veniero's in NYC. Although he was reluctant to try mine---apparently nothing can top Veniero's---he thought it made pretty fine competition. Here is the recipe---I tackled making meringue for the first time!





Bon appetit!