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Night (and plate) of stars

7 Apr

Long, long ago, in a living room far, far away, I lost miserably on my Oscar ballot.  But I like to think I still won the night with my Oscar-themed menu, with one item from each Best Picture nominated film.  Check below the photos for the specifics on each recipe.

  • Hershey kisses for Amour 
  • 70s-tastic and undercover-disguise ready peanut butter chocolate mustaches for Argo, with some “escape to Canada” Canadian Dry on the side
  • Life of (Pumpkin) Pi(e) dip
  • Southern corn muffins and red pepper jam from Beasts of the Southern Wild (our store didn’t have the ingredients to make hushpuppies!)
  • Southern Comfort in honor of Lincoln (with cranberry and a splash of gingerale = best drink ever)
  • Pigs in a blanket, perfect for eating in front of a football game a la Silver Linings Playbook (note: I never even got to eat one of these despite delivering them in two waves = major party pleaser!)
  • … served with smokey BBQ sauce for Django Unchained
  • A loaf of French bread and baked brie, courtesy of Valjean in Les Mis
  • (Coke) Zero Dark Thirty

Overall, it was a great bash and it taught me that you can never put out the red carpet too early, there’s no such thing as too many little hot dogs… and we need a bigger living room.

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Argo mustaches – made with simple chocolate molds from Michael’s – super fun and a good team activity to try to get everything perfect before it sets!

Pumpkin Pie Dip - based off of this recipe, and I made the pumpkin pie seasoning from scratch!

Corn Muffins - made from store mix, with NH-made red pepper jam (I loooove this stuff)

Pigs in a blanket in the classic style – just get some mini hot dogs, subdivide some Pillsbury crescent roll dough, and cook until the dough is lightly browned.  One thing of dough and one of hot dogs is enough to make two batches to feed a hungry bunch (minus me, since they were all gone by the time I sat down!)

Baked Brie inspired by Les Mis based on my crowd-pleasing recipe from last year.

Special thanks to my sous chef Sara, my partner in crime, Katie, my coworkers who helped me come up with menu items, and everyone else who came to celebrate and talk over Seth Macfarlane’s offensive commentary with us!

The hosts of the evening, on our red carpet

The hosts of the evening, on our red carpet (which we MIGHT have left out for an extra week or so…)

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Kitchen Adventures: Quinoa and Brussels Sprouts

2 Apr

This simple recipe is great for the end of a busy week and can accommodate almost any ingredients you have around.  Sub couscous for quinoa, add in other veggies, or include other proteins if you have them handy.

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Quinoa and Brussels Sprouts

  • 1 cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 lb shredded Brussels sprouts (I got them precut from Trader Joe’s – one bag will do it!)
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped into thin strips
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice – about one lemon worth
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • goat cheese (optional, for topping)
  1. Cook the quinoa – one cup of quinoa to 2-3 cups of water.  Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for 15-20 minutes for liquid is absorbed.  Let rest for 3-5 minutes before serving.
  2. Add the oil, onion, Brussels sprouts, salt/pepper, and half the lemon juice to a frying pan over medium heat.  Stir frequently – when the sprouts get bright green, add more lemon juice and bell pepper.  Stir for about 7-10 minutes total, until sprouts are cooked but still crunchy.
  3. Add quinoa to the pan of veggies and mix well.  Serve hot or cold.  (I topped mine with goat cheese crumbles – SO GOOD!)

This made about four salad-sized servings – can’t wait to eat it for lunch later this week.

Enjoy!

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Kitchen Adventures: Quiche Tartlets

20 Mar

I am the definition of a breakfast person.

I could eat it three times a day – eggs for breakfast, cereal for lunch, crepes for dinner.  Bring me to a diner at any hour and I am 99.9% likely to order hash and poached eggs.  I simply can’t live without a good meal to start off my day.  But when I combine my love for breakfast with my tendency to hit snooze a million times (right family?), it gets to be an expensive habit that ends up with me stopped in at Dunks on my way to work.

Luckily, I saw this pin the other day and decided to whip up some planned-ahead breakfasts so I could save some money and time in the morning.  These tartlets came out great, and in 45 minutes, I was able to pack up 6 healthy breakfasts to eat and freeze for the week ahead.

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Quiche Breakfast Tartlets

  • 5-8 oz of baby spinach
  • 1 cup baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 links chicken sausage (optional)
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated (low-fat preferred, or another kind of shredded cheese works too!)
  • 3 eggs and 6 egg whites (I use them from the carton) (alternatively, you can use 5 eggs)
  • Dash skim milk
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  In a frying pan, heat up 1 tsp olive oil and cook the mushrooms.  Cut the chicken sausage into small pieces (1/2 dime sized or so) and add to mushrooms, browning lightly.  Remove from pan.  Wilt spinach in frying pan. add to mushrooms and sausage.
  2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.  Pour into lightly greased muffin tins, making sure that each section has all types of filling as well as some liquid.
  3. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes, until edges are browned and tops are solid.  Remove from tins and let sit before freezing/storing.

By the end, you should have 12 muffin-sized crustless quiches (mine actually made 5 mini muffins as well – use it all up!) which are each worth 2 PointsPlus each (I recommend two as one serving).  In one travel-sized bite, you have cheese, eggs, meat, and veggies, or as I like to call it “perfection.”

These quiches are super versatile to whatever you have in your kitchen – asparagus and red pepper, cheese and more cheese, garlic and onion, you name it.  My recommendation: go light on the fat, especially in the cheese.  I only had full fat cheddar around, and these were a little more oily than I would usually eat, but they’re still quite healthy and definitely delicious.

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What’s your go-to breakfast food?

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Kitchen Adventures: Stuffed artichokes

20 Feb

There is basically never a time when I don’t want a stuffed artichoke since my college roommate first introduced me to this delicacy. (Hi Jill!)  It’s not the fastest thing in the world to make, but it’s completely worth it, especially when you can start eating it before going out with your friends and finish the rest when you come home starving after a night of dancing… if you can stand to not eat it all in one sitting.

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Stuffed Artichokes

  • 1 cup Italian bread crumbs (or plain bread crumbs with Italian seasoning added)
  • 2 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 teaspoon hot sauce
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic (I use jarred but this is about 1 1/2 cloves)
  • 2 small to medium artichokes
Stuffing in progress

Stuffing in progress

  1. Lightly toast bread crumbs in a frying pan – no oil needed.  Put water on to boil with a steaming basket big enough to hold your artichokes upright.
  2. Cut off the top 1/4 (or so) of the artichoke with a knife, and trim the stem except for the last 1/2 inch or so.  Fan out the remaining segments of the artichokes and cut off the spiky tips with scissors.  You should only need to cut off about the top 1/3 per section but you should make sure you get all the sharp bits even if it means losing a little more of the ‘choke.
  3. Mix everything else together and start stuffing!  Start at the outer pieces and put the bread crumbs as far down in each segment as you can.  If you separate the pieces as you go, you should be able to get a good amount in each section.  When you get near the middle, keep stuffing – that’s the best part!
  4. Stand up the artichokes in your steamer basket over boiling water, cover, and cook for 45-60 minutes depending on the size of your artichokes.  Add more water to the pot as needed.

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C’est tout!  Just peel off the segments and eat them from the base, and then attack the middle with the fork once you get past the rougher outer layers.

Did your college roomies ever share tasty treats from home?  What do you put inside your stuffed artichokes?

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Kitchen Adventures: Crockpot style

15 Jan

Things I love: coming home to the smell of something cooking.
Things I hate: anything that could feasibly burn my house down.

I have a bit of a complicated relationship with the idea of crockpots.  I just don’t trust them.  I know that they work for tons of people, but I just can’t wrap my head around intentionally leaving something cooking in my kitchen when I’m so far away.  So in my quest to get over this, I decided to take on a classic crockpot recipe today – with a twist – while I was out and about in the neighborhood.

The results were confidence inspiring and actually amazingly delicious – more so than anything I’ve made this way before.  The recipe is modified from a “Crockpot: the original slow cooker” cookbook I nabbed for $5 outside of Borders once upon a time.

Other than the delicious taste, this recipe wins because it just involves chopping some things up (no braising the meat, etc.), cooks at one temp the whole time, and doesn’t require you to buy tons of things you’ll never use in another recipe.  It’s also adaptable to almost any veggie – you can just use this as a starting point.  Definitely recommend for anyone who’s looking to spice up the old classic this winter!

Beef stew

Asian Beef Stew – Crockpot Style

  • 1 onion, cut into 1/4 inch slices
  • 1 1/2 pounds round steak, cut up – I got mine pre-cut into stew meat sized chunks at the deli
  • 1 head of celery, sliced
  • 3 carrots, peeled and sliced – make your slices pretty thin, my carrots still had some crunch to them!
  • 2 cups mushrooms, sliced (really, can use as little as 1 cup or as much as you want)
  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 1 cup beef broth (look for low sodium and low fat versions)
  • 1/3 cup hoisin sauce - the one weird ingredient!
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  1. Combine onion, beef, celery, carrots, and mushrooms in a large crockpot (the book recommends the 5-quart version, as though you have multiple sizes just filling your cupboards).
  2. Combine orange juice, beef broth, hoisin sauce, cornstarch, and curry powder in a small bowl – whisk together until cornstarch is dissolved.
  3. Pour into crockpot and give it a good stir – cover and cook on high for 5 hours or until the beef is tender.  When the beef is almost done (go ahead, peek!), stir in a cup of frozen peas and cook for a final 20 minutes or so.

Serve over rice, share, freeze, and enjoy!

This is definitely going in my list of easy favorites.  It has a great warmth to it, between the spiciness of the sauce and the curry.  The beef was so tender and tasty – I’m really looking forward to eating this all week.  Seriously!

What’s your favorite crockpot creation?  Had any major flops you learned along the way?

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Kitchen Adventures: Potato pancakes!

7 Dec

Making potato pancakes in the food processor my mother got me at the Republican yardsale (see dated visual below) while listening to Christmas music = multicultural win.

These pancakes made for a delicious and pretty healthy dinner because they were baked instead of pan fried – few opportunities for them to soak in grease!  Make these for a week of lunches, for a party, to freeze, or in advance of a family brunch – I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce = dinner of champions

Potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce = dinner of champions

Recipe modified slightly from this WW recipe.

Thyme and Scallion Potato Pancakes

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium potatoes (about 2 1/2 pounds), peeled and grated/shredded in a food processor
  • 2 small onions, chopped into thin slices
  • 8 scallions, chopped (just the white and some of the green)
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 glove garlic, chopped or sliced (just to add some kick!)
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • cooking spray
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Chop/ process the potatoes and onions – press together either between paper towels or within paper towels in a strainer to remove some of the water.
  3. Combine all ingredients (other than spray) in a large bowl and toss – don’t do what I did and mix things first, just do it all together!  And feel free to use your hands – it’s the best way to make sure every piece of potato is coated.
  4. Scoop out 1/4 cup (or so) chunks of mixture and place on a cooking sheet lined with parchment paper.   Don’t worry too much about size but make sure all your pancakes are the same thickness so they cook at the same rate.  Spray the exposed sides with a mini-spritz of cooking spray and place in the oven.
  5. Cook for 7-10 minutes (until the potatoes become translucent for the most part) and then remove from the oven to flip over and spray the other side lightly before returning to the oven for another 7-10 minutes.  (The original recipe said these would take 30 minutes to cook but mine were definitely less than 20 each).  Bake until well browned – remove and serve immediately or heated up later.
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Potato pancakes right before being popped in the oven

These are so good, I had to pack them up just so I would stop eating them.  Assuming that you make about 30 total, a serving is about 3 or 4, and they have about 1 PointPlus each.  In other words, they’re part of – or all of! – a tasty dinner… and lunch… and breakfast… and life!  These are definitely going to become a staple in our apartment, even after the holidays.

Other tips:

  • The Silpat mat did not come through for me this time – skip the mat and go straight for parchment paper to get a nice crisp and better texture overall.
  • Weigh your potatoes at the store – I was shocked at how big each potato actually weighed, since I never really cook with them.
  • Not into potatoes?  Got something else around?  I bet these would be similarly delicious with zucchini, some sweet potatoes, curry, etc. – just start from the basic recipe and you can’t really go wrong.
  • Don’t grate by hand, if possible – but if you’re short on time/equipment, you can supposedly buy pre-shredded frozen potatoes at most grocery stores.
My almond-colored, TWO-speed, "made in America (buy American!)" food processor, circa 1987 and courtesy of the local Republican yard sale.

My almond-colored, TWO-speed, “made in America (buy American!)” food processor, circa 1987 and courtesy of the local Republican yard sale.

The other secret win of this recipe is in the machine itself – I have a really bad habit of planning whole dishes without knowing for sure if my appliance is going to work at all/fit the quantity of food I’m making.  Case in point: my Republican blender is NOT as successful an appliance as this one and my beaters are not equipped to handle double batches of tahini bread.  But the fact that this food processor even was able to power up, and then worked exactly as I wanted it to, is a major victory.  Thanks, Mom!

What’s your favorite kind of holiday food?

 

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Kitchen Adventures: Easy Bake Tofu

25 Nov

No lightbulb required!

With Christmas approaching, I pulled out one of my great gifts from last year – a Silpat baking mat.  I wanted to see if this mat could amplify my love for tofu (and if starting cooking before I was starving would give me time to bake tofu for once) and I was not disappointed.  Here are a few steps to perfection:

Easy Baked Tofu

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz of firm tofu (I used TJ’s small block, but you could just double this if you were working with a bigger block of tofu)
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 3/4 tbsp soy sauce (or so – I intended to use more but mine ran out!)
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
  • Dash of hot sauce
  • salt, pepper, and garlic powder as desired
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Cut the tofu into thin slabs, about 1/4 or so thick and as wide as you can get them and still have them stay intact when you mix them with the sauce.
  2. Mix together the remaining ingredients in a bowl with a fork.  Add the tofu and let sit for 5 minutes (or longer if possible).
  3. Place slabs of tofu on a baking sheet (I used mine lined with a Silpat mat) and bake for 10-14 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Enjoy!  I ate mine with spaghetti squash and poured the remaining marinade over the whole dish (bonuses of cooking with tofu: you can stop to eat the ingredients at any time AND you can reuse any leftover marinade safely.)

PS: I do actually cook more than just tofu – proof is here!  For Thanksgiving, I made a new Brussels sprout dish and lots of different egg concoctions.  What have you made or eaten lately?

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Kitchen Adventures: Autumn in a nutshell

5 Oct

An acorn squash shell, to be exact.

My obsession with simply-cooked acorn squash has me buying them in multiples every time I go to the store.  Settling down to one for dinner (or as part of dinner) is the perfect way to end a blustery fall day.

All it takes is a small acorn squash, goat cheese, and brown sugar.  Start by cutting the squash in half, and scooping out the seeds and the pulp with a spoon.  Then put both halves of the squash cut-side down in a small microwave-safe casserole dish (mine is about 10″ across) with 1/2 inch or so of water in the bottom.  The goal is to give the squash enough water to steam, but not so much that it will take a long time to get hot.

Cook on high for 5 minutes, then poke the outside of the squash to see if it’s soft.  My small squash tonight took 15 minutes to cook fully, but it’s a good idea to check every 5 minutes and then just add more time to the clock if it needs more.  The inside should be bright orange-yellow and the outside should be tender when poked for it to be done to my standards.

Remove from the dish, top with goat cheese, salt, pepper, and a tablespoon of brown sugar.  And voila – you’ve got dinner!  This is also really good reheated the next day, but I’ve only made it that far once and have succumbed to eating the whole thing every other time.  If it’s all you eat for dinner, you might be hungry later – this dish is only worth 3 PointsPlus (aka super healthy).

What’s your favorite fall food?

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Kitchen Adventures: Mini muffin, mega delicious

23 Sep

In my flurry of cooking last weekend, I made some awesome mini muffins to snack on all week.  I know that I’m never really going to get over my sugar cravings in this lifetime, so I figured it was time to find a way to indulge in a healthier manner.  This was the perfect balance.

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The recipe I used is here, with the following changes:

  • I didn’t have quick oats, so I chopped up whole oats in a food processor before starting
  • I forgot to buy vanilla yogurt so I used the plain Greek yogurt I had around, along with an extra tsp of vanilla and a tbsp of brown sugar to balance it out, overall
  • Mini chocolate chips are amazing and I ate many of them.  That’s all.
  • I think this could have stood to have another banana added.  It didn’t have a lot of banana influence, if you ask me.

This made 45 mini muffins, though it was supposed to make only 36 – maybe I let it sit too long as I used my one muffin pan or maybe I wasn’t filling them enough, but I don’t really mind either way.  More to share!  They are not super sweet, but they’re tasty, healthy (>1 pointplus each!) and easy to make – win!

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Kitchen Adventures: Crustless Quiche

17 Sep

Yes, you read that right.

Pie crust is the latest casualty in my quest to get healthy and still enjoy delicious food.  Especially since I don’t have the patience to make my crust from scratch, it’s hardly ever worth the extra calories and I would rather have my pie/quiche/pudding naked than have half the slice I could if it included crust.  This week, I decided to reinvent my go-to food of quiche in this mindset, and the result was AMAZING.  The roomie and I will be enjoying it all week with more to freeze!  Here’s how this magical dish came together:

Crustless Cauliflower Quiche

Base – can be adapted for any crustless quiche!

  • 6 eggs
  • 6 egg whites (separated or from a carton)
  • 1/2 cup skim milk
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • 8 oz Gruyère cheese, grated
  • 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded

Filling

  • 1 head of cauliflower, cut and steamed (about 2-3 cups)
  • 2 large onions, diced
  • 1 1/2 – 2 cups sliced white mushrooms
  • 1 cup cubed butternut squash, cooked (I used frozen pieces, so easy!)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Get the cauliflower steaming and oven preheating to 375 degrees (F), then prep the rest of the vegetables.  Sauté the onion and mushrooms in a pan with olive oil – when cooked/brown, add the cauliflower, garlic, and butternut squash.  Stir in some salt and pepper as you go, to taste.
  2. In a bowl, beat eggs and egg whites.  Add milk, nutmeg, and then grated cheese, stirring well.
  3. Remove the vegetables from the heat and add them to the egg/milk mixture, stirring gently.  Pour into lightly greased pans (for me, this took one casserole dish and one medium-sized pie plate), top with extra cheese as desired, and cook for 35-40 minutes, until set.
  4. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly – then eat or freeze!

For me, this made 16 servings, each with a PointsPlus value of 4.  See what I mean about amazing?  This is going to be a delicious breakfast/lunch/snack for this week, a new standard meal in our little apartment, and a good option when I want to cook for my gluten-free friends.  Furthermore, it’s proof that you CAN enjoy good food without all the carbs – just kick them off the plate!

What do you like to put in your quiche?

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