Yum!

Black Bean Soup

2012-01-20T10:31:00.003-05:00

My lunch from Panera. Probably the closest I'll get to Kidney Beans this month!

Pasta and White Beans with Broccoli Pesto

2012-01-19T14:15:00.002-05:00

I may have cheated as I'm not sure what I used was actually white kidney beans but I thought I would post this anyway. I actually have something in the slow cooker right now that will qualify with red kidney beans but I'll put that up another time. This pasta was a little bland but I was missing the lemon zest so maybe that would have helped. Three out of four of us liked it though...the other one spit it out...

Pasta with Tomatoes and White Kidney Beans

2012-01-08T20:06:00.003-05:00

Easy receipe to make. We think it tasted better than we expected. Pasta, spinach, white kidney beans, canned diced tomatoes, feta cheese.

Kidney Beans!

2012-01-04T13:22:00.001-05:00

Mom and Dad chose kidney beans for January and asked me to post for them!

Pumpkin Cider Bread

2011-12-08T14:16:00.001-05:00

I'm posting late, has this ever happened before?! I was looking for a recipe to use up apple cider from Halloween and found this on epicurious. It wasn't anything new or crazy but everyone liked it! I jazzed up the picture using instagram to make it more exciting :)

My Day Off

2011-12-03T10:14:00.006-05:00

Pumpkin spice cake and latte

Also known as Thanksgiving for the rest of you. Basically I had a day off work and that was wonderful! I spent a good portion of the day on the phone with friends and family and the rest of the time eating and reading and watching TV.

Smoked mozzarella and artichoke ravioli. Apple pie crumb cake something-or-other.

Ingredient for Nov.: Free for All!

2011-11-16T11:59:00.005-05:00

Kim has informed me that it is my turn to post on bloggy-blog. She had to set me straight since I was under the impression (and so proud of myself, btw) that I had participated in the pear challenge for the month of Nov. which was actually for Oct. I am obviously a month behind! (good luck Lisa thinking you are going to get a xmas list out of me before Jan. haha!) So Kim suggested that this month be a free for all. Which might seem lazy on my part, but really, this is a good idea because it is Thanksgiving and isn't it fitting that the posts represent a CORNUCOPIA of food ideas anyway?! Seriously, bravo!

The Essence of Pear

2011-11-09T22:39:00.004-05:00

This tea is really good. Usually I add something to my tea but this one is great all on its own. Impressive!

I specifically bought this because it had pear in it! Pretty simple, as you can see, but very good. Added a few more things and brought it to the mall for my lunch the next day. I was taking my lunch break in the food court and an older lady actually stopped at my table and said 'Ohhh that looks goood!' then she offered to trade for a brownie she got at the cookie place! It was a tempting offer...

Pear Pancakes!

2011-10-18T13:46:00.000-04:00

I saw this idea using apples and decided to try it with pears instead. You slice some pears, make some pancake batter (we added random yummy spices), dip and cook it like you would a regular pancake. They were a big hit and I'm definitely going to try it with apples sometime too!

Pears!

2011-10-03T14:00:00.002-04:00

I'm choosing pears for October, hopefully it will help me get better at finding ripe ones because I always try to eat them too early!

Pea Pesto Crostini

2011-09-25T13:16:00.000-04:00

This is a pea pesto that is eaten on grilled or toasted slices of baguette. It sounds strange but we (Pat and I) enjoyed it very much. I forgot to take a picture of it once we had spread it on the bread so here are pictures of just the pesto! Recipe here!

Regular pesto picture

Artsy pesto picture

Pea Pasta Salad

2011-09-16T13:47:00.000-04:00

Pea, broccoli and feta pasta salad – This was really good. We enjoyed it. Let us know if you want the recipe

(Mom and Dad made this and asked me to post it because they were having trouble signing in! I have no idea why the bottom of the picture didn't show up!)

Peas

2011-09-03T12:39:00.001-04:00

Mom and Dad picked peas!

Corn and Zucchini Orzo Salad

2011-08-27T12:52:00.000-04:00

I have yet to find anyone besides me that likes this but I'm still marking it as a successful recipe! I found it in my Everyday Food magazine and then I found a zucchini growing in my garden and bought myself a bag of corn (I couldn't bear to cut it off the cob, I would have eaten it that way and it never would have made it in!). I omitted the jalapeno in the hopes that Owen would like this but he didn't and it probably would have been super tasty with it in there. I also just used some shredded colby-jack cheese instead of feta (gross!) but next time would use small chunks of cheese to get more taste in there. Also, added beans to make it a full meal instead of a side dish!

Corn salad

2011-08-14T01:44:00.003-04:00

What we have here for you is a wonderful mix of corn, vegenaise, queso fresco, queso cotija, green onion and minced poblano pepper. Excellent warm or cold.

August ingredient - CORN!

2011-08-05T19:02:00.001-04:00

Blueberry Smoothie

2011-08-05T18:44:00.002-04:00

Don't think that the blueberry challenge was lost on us! While we did have a few other ideas we didn't have time to make, Alex and I have both had lots of smoothies that had blueberries in 'em.

Honey Oat and Blueberry Pancakes

2011-07-20T12:36:00.001-04:00

I gave blueberry pancakes another try because this recipe looked so good! This one is the winner! Soooo tasty! Check out the video below, I did not coach them, they just kept making "mmm" and "yum" noises so I took a video of it. (It's not lost on me that I was feeding them pancakes for dinner so that is probably what heightened the yumminess factor)

Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes

2011-07-18T06:49:00.000-04:00

So the ingredient hasn't been officially announced but I got the inside scoop a week or two ago and made these because I had an ingredient I needed to get rid of. I'll leave the announcement to Jamie or you can guess! These pancakes were a Giada recipe and they were pretty good although the texture was more like a crepe instead of a pancake!

Chocolate-covered Pineapple

2011-06-28T22:16:00.003-04:00

We tend to keep a lot of frozen fruit in our freezer during the summer months for making smoothies. Since we had pineapple frozen already, we decided to melt some chocolate in a double-boiler and dip chunks of the frozen pineapple in it. It turned out great, and it tastes mighty good too!

Kebabs

2011-06-27T06:35:00.000-04:00

I thought this recipe was meant to be but it was clearly just messing with my head. I bought a $1 bag of bananas a the grocery store and it had two plantains in it! I was excited because I hadn't tried them before. When I was trying to figure out what to do with them I came across this recipe that also used pineapple so I decided to try it. It was pretty bleh. I should have just fried the plantains in butter. To be fair...they probably would have been better if I had made them on an outdoor grill instead of inside on the George Foreman grill...

Pineapple!

2011-06-13T14:48:00.003-04:00

On the grill,

and with ice cream!

Pineapple Muffins

2011-06-13T13:06:00.000-04:00

I made Pineapple Muffins over the weekend and thought they were great! I made a mini version instead of the normal size so they were a little overdone (but not burnt!) because I wasn't sure how long they should stay in.

June!

2011-06-06T06:20:00.000-04:00

The ingredient for this month is...Pineapple!

2011-05-21T15:23:00.005-04:00

Oatmeal raisin bars everybody!

Oh yeah, with melted chocolate chips! ; )

I forget what these are called and I'm too lazy to get the book

2011-05-16T12:16:00.000-04:00

I've been having difficulty with my baking lately and these are no exception! I followed the directions exactly (no really!) and they just didn't seem to be finished when I checked them but they were turning very brown on top so then I took them out and of course they sank and looked all crazy and then stuck to the dish when I took them out...they tasted good though. Very yummy.

Chocolate Chips!

2011-05-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

Mom wanted me to post this for her because she "forgot" to do it ("forgot" = Mom knew I would bug her about it eventually and do it myself).

The Absent Blogger

2011-05-03T15:49:00.006-04:00

Hello everyone! I am so sorry for not being able to contribute lately! As you can see the best contribution I can make at this time is toast. On white bread no less, I don’t even care for white bread! It’s too bad I don’t have a full kitchen since I have plenty of time on my hands right now. Here is my visual rationalization for my lame contribution this month. The current kitchen and the future kitchen, with oven. Sorry the picture is blurry, I think Nigel was really excited about the house and forgot to focus. (Ha-ha.)

French (er, Italian?) Bread Pizza

2011-05-01T17:55:00.003-04:00

We made more of the Macaroni Grill bread and cut a loaf in half, then we topped that with homemade pizza sauce, thinly sliced fresh mozzarella, and diced roasted red pepper after toasting the bread slightly. After broiling it all, we took it out and topped everything with a fresh basil chiffonade. Yum indeed.

Chili Dogs

2011-04-28T15:38:00.000-04:00

Using the leftover chili from the baked potatoes, we made chili dogs for Alex's birthday. Oh yeah—we actually made the buns from scratch. Take that bread month!

Cornbread

2011-04-27T20:36:00.003-04:00

Somehow we never realized how good a baked potato could be with chili, cheese, and taco fixins on top. So we baked potatoes and tried it out with Alex's famous lentil chili. On the side? Cornbread. Oh yeah.

Rosemary Bread (Macaroni Grill Clone)

2011-04-27T20:30:00.003-04:00

This Macaroni Grill clone recipe for the bread they give you before your food comes is great! Here's the recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/romanos-macaroni-grill-rosemary-bread-64446. This was enjoyed at Kim's place for the birthday celebration.

Avocado-Guacamole Bread

2011-04-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

This bread was from the same cookbook as the carrot bread but was not nearly as successful. I had such high hopes! It's alright and made a really good grilled cheese (with tomato and green pepper!) but it just wasn't that exciting. It made enough dough for two loaves so I did one in a loaf pan (here) and a free-form loaf. The free form loaf baked up much better, not surprising since that's how the recipe said to make it...

Kalamata Pita

2011-04-14T14:26:00.004-04:00

Another recipe we tried from Collister's book was the pita bread recipe. We baked in kalamata olives, which was tasty, but did make the bread a bit salty. Not all of the pitas puffed up right in the oven, but we ate them with a spread of fresh veggies and home made hummus (top), so it wasn't a big deal. All in all a success. More to come!

Iraqi Kahk

2011-04-14T13:58:00.003-04:00

Linda Collister's Bread: From Sourdough to Rye has become our best friend this month. We began with the Iraqi Kahk recipe, but we substituted coriander and cumin seeds for the ground variety. The finished product was tasty, and the texture was nice. Definitely not a usual flavor for us though.

Carrot Bread

2011-04-10T21:30:00.000-04:00

I love bread month! This bread was fantastic! The recipe is from the book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day (one of the best bread books ever along with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day) and it was pretty easy to make. It's chock-full of carrots, coconut, walnuts and raisins. Everyone in the house was in agreement about its tastiness.

Tuna Fish Patties

2011-04-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

This is a recipe I meant to make for fish month but didn't get around to until this past Friday. They came from the book Kitchen for Kids and I thought they were really good. Owen said he didn't like them but I can tell he didn't mind them by how few times I had to remind him to eat his dinner. You just mix a can of tuna with some stuff, coat the patties with cornflakes and bake. Yum!

Bread!

2011-04-06T21:17:00.002-04:00

Let's make some bread this April!

Blackened Tilapia Sandwiches w/ Jambalaya

2011-04-01T20:24:00.004-04:00

Blackened tilapia sandwiches and jambalaya rice with Tofurky sausage. Definitely a little heat, but we both liked it! Lenten and Mardi Gras-en.

Fish Tacos and Cheezy Grits

2011-04-01T19:31:00.006-04:00

Here are some fish tacos we made. The fish was breaded and pan-fried, then garnished with tomato and lettuce, as well as a dressing that was just Miracle Whip, Chipotle Tabasco sauce, and a little water. On the side were cheesy grits.

Where's the Fish?!

2011-03-31T11:53:00.001-04:00

Come on people!

Tuna Melts!

2011-03-19T07:27:00.003-04:00

This recipe from Everyday Food was called Emeril's Kicked-Up Tuna Melt but I think we eliminated the "kicked-up" part by not putting in the capers. We aren't big fans of capers and I didn't want to buy them. Anyway, it didn't matter because I thought this tuna melt was great and the broiler is my new best friend. Thank you to Lisa and Alex because I forgot about tuna as a fish option until our conversation last weekend:) The only other thing I would say about the recipe is that it said it served 4 and called for 4 cans of tuna! I knew I did not want a whole can of tuna on my slice of bread so I used 2 cans between the 3 of us and still had a little tuna left over.

The Ingredient for March is FISH!

2011-03-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

Finally catching up!

2011-03-02T18:03:00.003-05:00

Here's the raisin contribution. We made most of our traditional Thanksgiving feast - you know, Tofurkey with roasted veggies, rolls, green beans and stuffing. The stuffing had celery, onion and raisins which got all juicy and great! I don't think we'll ever make plain 'ol stuffing again.

And for the potato entry - Alex made potato corn chowder and we also had rolls (despite our best efforts we can't find the name of them.) It was definitely comfort food and even better with a little shredded cheese on top.

Just because

2011-03-02T17:23:00.002-05:00

Usually we make heart-shaped pizza on Valentine's Day, but we had been planning on making calzones so we tried this. This is homemade pizza dough filled with homemade sauce, tomato, black olive, red onion and cheese. We even made bread sticks from the left-over dough. Good stuff!

Potato Rosti

2011-02-27T22:10:00.002-05:00

I have no idea what happened with this but the potatoes looked grey! Gross! Otherwise it tasted like hashbrowns only not as good.

Tots!

2011-02-23T20:46:00.003-05:00

It totally counts. I wanted to make a tater tot casserole but it takes an hour and I'm pretty sure I don't own a casserole dish. What you can't see is the special dipping sauce: ketchup with pepper and salt!

Not Potatoes

2011-02-15T09:39:00.005-05:00

I know it's not raisin month, but I seem to be making things with raisins so, better late than never!

Here is Banana Bread I made with golden raisins and this sandwich idea I saw in Real Simple magazine. White bread, raisins, celery, peanut butter. It is today's lunch so I'm not sure how it will go. Stay tuned.

Potato Gratins

2011-02-07T10:27:00.002-05:00

I probably underseasoned Potato Gratins these a bit and definitely didn't buy the heavy cream that was supposed to go over them ( I used milk instead...) but they were still pretty good. You just slice up potatoes, put them in a buttered muffin pan with some seasoning between the layers and bake.

2011-02-06T20:22:00.001-05:00

These are redskin herb potatoes. I cooked them using butter and herbs. This is about as simple a recipe as you can get, but they were delicious!. Hard to go wrong with redskin potatoes as long as they're thoroughly cooked.

Potatoes!

2011-02-01T20:37:00.002-05:00

It's Potato month! I actually made these a couple days ago but they were the inspiration for potato month! Very yummy! And that's veggie bacon on there!

Apple Raisin Strata

2011-01-28T14:35:00.002-05:00

I don't know why this is called strata. It should really be called Overnight French Toast or Breakfast Sandwich or...lots of stuff. The original recipe didn't have raisins in it but they worked perfectly with the other ingredients. I cut this recipe down to make 1/4 of it and didn't make the glaze. You assemble it the night before and then stick it in the oven in the morning. If you let it cool off a bit you can eat it like a sandwich and it really does taste like french toast so I suppose you could put some syrup on it too if you wanted but I thought it was good just as it was. Other than that I just used some plain old wheat bread and didn't put in as much brown sugar as it called for. I'm definitely making this again!

Raisin Nut Bars

2011-01-25T20:36:00.003-05:00

These were easy to make and they were very tasty. Recipe was from Sun Maid website. Were going to make another recipe from there.

2011-01-16T12:24:00.002-05:00

Can't really do raisin month without oatmeal with raisins. Add a little sugar or brown sugar, some milk, and breakfast is ready. Good and good for you. The name of this blog sight describes my reaction every time. Signed: (guest participant) Jim Richey

Sous-Chef to D. Richey

Banana Smile

2011-01-14T13:44:00.003-05:00

This "recipe" was from the book Mom and Dad got me for Christmas, Silly Snacks! It was pretty tasty and an easy way to use up a banana! I didn't manage to get any pictures of it that didn't look disgusting...sorry! Here's what you do...

Put a banana on it's side, slice through without going through the peel on the other side, fill with a tablespoon of raisins and a tablespoon of chocolate chips. Microwave for 50 seconds or so. Eat.

Raisins

2011-01-14T13:43:00.001-05:00

I'm posting this for Mom. And for me because I wanted to put something up while my internet was actually working!

Lentil Soup

2010-12-21T12:20:00.001-05:00

I didn't want to end Lentil Month on a low note so I bought some soup to prove to myself that lentils are actually tasty when made the right way. Success!

Lentils, Shmentils or Burgers, Shmurgers

2010-12-14T22:28:00.003-05:00

Lentils don't like me. I was trying to make veggie burgers and then everything got all chaotic and I had to hold Paige so Pat had to take over making the burgers and when he went to form them they weren't sticking together and I just threw my hands up in the air (not really, Paige would have fallen) and said, "Forget it! Throw it out!" and Pat said "Thank you!" and we had something else instead. And now my bag of lentils is all gone.

Lentil Soup with Smoked Sausage

2010-12-10T08:04:00.002-05:00

Thumbs down. Pat liked this because he said it reminded him of beanie weenies. Gross. Owen liked it until he got a bite that burned his mouth and then refused to eat any more. I did not like it. I think it's a texture issue, so I might try using it as a breading like Lisa and Alex. Also, this was supposed to be a soup but there was hardly any liquid left when it was done!

Recipe here

Lentil Chili!

2010-12-08T22:45:00.002-05:00

Holy crap this stuff was good. Alex's signature recipe, but with lentils instead of canned beans. Served over cornbread from scratch. We'll be eating this for a week—and cleaning it off the stove. And totally worth it.

Lentil-Crusted Tilapia

2010-12-08T22:37:00.003-05:00

Yeah, lentils are good for soup. It's true. But you know what else? You can grind them up and crust stuff with them. This tilapia with lentil crust was really good! The fish was liberally salted and peppered, then crusted only on the top with the lentils, which we used our kitchen spice grinder to pulverize. We served it with NearEast brand tomato-basil rice, potato rolls, and (big surprise!) insalata caprese. Give lentil-crusting a shot—it's good!

Sorry for the Delay — Lentils!

2010-12-04T15:40:00.002-05:00

Lentils are an important part of the diet in many parts of the world, especially in the Indian subcontinent, which has large vegetarian populations. Side note - also good in soup...just saying. Good luck :)

Simple things to make

2010-11-24T23:57:00.005-05:00

You guys are so fancy with the stuff you make! I'm impressed!
The first picture is the one I should have posted last time. I really like this recipe, it's great since it's cold I don't need to worry about heating it. Good for the days when I work both jobs.
The second is the chocolate covered dried apricots rolled in pistachios, I have posted this before. Healthy and chocolate, win-win. (is too healthy)

Grilled Chicken with Fresh Grape Glaze

2010-11-20T20:34:00.002-05:00

I randomly came across this recipe today that I had ripped from an issue of Cooking Light in June 2005! I was looking for some dinner inspiration and there it was! Again, sorry for the picture of meat for those of you that don't eat it...I forgot to take a picture of just the glaze. This was really good! Even Pat thought so!

Grape-Marinated Tofu Steaks

2010-11-18T12:32:00.003-05:00

Tofu is a dinner staple in our household. Most people don't like tofu because they think it is tasteless, but it's all about the marinade and squeezing the water out of it first. If you squeeze effectively, the tofu takes on the flavor of whatever liquid you put it in afterward. I'll grant that the texture can be boring, but if you pan-sear it or fry it, it's quite good. Just ask the folks at your local Thai restaurant. Anyway, we marinated a block of tofu (cut in half) for two days in an all natural grape jelly based marinade that also had Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper. We were going to use grape juice, but we couldn't find a small enough bottle at the grocery, so we found a jelly that didn't have a bunch of chemicals and high fructose corn syrup in it and rolled with that instead. It worked out. Once we finished searing the tofu off, we reduced the leftover marinade in the same pan for a kind of home made steak sauce (more like a glaze, really). We served it with NearEast brand rice with lentils, green beans, and King's Hawaiian rolls. Yum!

Homage to Kim

2010-11-17T18:27:00.003-05:00

Kim made a version of this chicken salad for the sandwich challenge. We made a vegetarian (vegan, actually) version with Quorn cutlets and and Vegenaise. The grapes were enormous seedless black grapes, so we cut them down a bit—they're the purple-looking bits in the salad. We had only minced red onion, Vegenaise, the Quorn cutlets (diced), the grapes, and celery. No marjoram. It was awfully good, and we were surprised we'd never tried it before.

White Chocolate Grapes

2010-11-17T08:08:00.003-05:00

So...these were supposed to be grapes, dipped in milk chocolate and then dipped in crushed nuts...Instead I used up a small amount of white chocolate I had and then nixed the nuts since I figured my family would object. So really this ended up being not exciting at all. It didn't taste all that interesting becuase it's grapes dipped in white chocolate. Maybe I'll try it the right way another day!

Turkeys Eat Grapes!

2010-11-12T17:43:00.003-05:00

So we adopt a turkey every year through Farm Sanctuary, and today we got the card in the mail about the Turkey we adopted, Velma, and look what she likes to eat! Grapes!

Something Real Simple...Like GRAPES

2010-11-06T23:32:00.003-04:00

It's kind of an idea and a suggestion for this month. I figure you guys might all be making impressive Thanksgiving dishes that you'll want to share. So the rest of the month should be easy.

I'm all for making food simple, that's really the only way I can succeed in cooking! and that is why i like the cooking section in Real Simple magazine, because it often is very simple. I made this a few weeks ago and i liked it so much i bought all the stuff to make it again. I just forgot to take a picture. Try it. You'll like it! (i even made the pita chips too!) Couscous Salad with Grapes and Feta

Baked Apple

2010-10-26T22:22:00.003-04:00

I got this recipe from Glamour magazine and it was super easy and very yummy! The 'stuffing' is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon. The recipe suggested walnuts too but I didn't have any. Next time I will add more of the mixture, I never made this before so I was conservative. It was very good with yogurt, but i bet ice cream would be even better!

An Apple-tastic Dinner

2010-10-24T12:35:00.007-04:00

We seem to have found ourselves reaching to complete the apple challenge. Not sure why. Anyway, here is the result. In Alex's family, they used to often have salads with chunks of sharp cheddar cheese and apple pieces in them. We made these salads with red leaf lettuce, craisins, tomatoes, chunks of Vermont white cheddar that was on sale at Giant Eagle, the red apple on the right in the picture above, and a Morningstar Farms product called Chik'n Strips. For dressing, we used a balsamic vinaigrette on one and a shiitake vinaigrette on the other. The salads were awesome, except that we had intended to put almonds on them—Lisa found out that you can toast almonds in the microwave, so put them in there and forgot about them until after dinner.

For dessert, we had the idea to just get some puff pastry and make a sort of apple tart. We thawed the pastry and spread a thin layer of butter on it, then we sprinkled a bit of brown sugar. Next, we laid down the sliced apple (the green one in the picture above), and sprinkled more brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon. Finally, we put a couple pads of butter on top and folded the edges of the pastry around the filling, using an egg wash on the exposed bits. We served it topped with pecan pieces and a side of ice cream. It was, well, yum!

Apple Cake

2010-10-24T12:03:00.002-04:00

Apple Cake I made with the apples from Patterson Fruit farm. Three different kinds of apples. Notice the seasonal display. Very tastefull, don't you think?

Bread and Mash

2010-10-18T21:57:00.003-04:00

People! Where are your apple recipes?! Ok, I've gone a bit overboard this month but I got a lot of apples at Patterson's and need to use them! They aren't the best eating apples so they need to be put in stuff to really enjoy them.

I found this recipe for Apple, Maple, Pecan Bread and used it to sort of make up my own bread. I didn't put in the butter or yogurt and put in two bananas instead and it came out really great. It needed to bake a good deal longer though.

Martha Stewart steered me wrong on this one. Apple-Parsnip Mash. Not so great.

One Apple Pie

2010-10-08T21:28:00.003-04:00

I have a small pie plate from my days working at Williams-Sonoma so Owen and I made a mini apple pie the other day. It wasn't anything new but it was pretty easy and tasty and it only used one apple! I adapted the recipe from some website so I'm copying down the recipe here so I remember what I did!

Crust:

1/2 C flour

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp cold water (or more if needed)

Cut butter into flour, add cold water until it forms a dough. Roll dough in ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Filling:

1 apple, peeled, sliced, then halve the slices

1/6 C sugar

1 Tbsp flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Roll dough, put in pie pan. score dough with fork. Add filling. Cover with more dough.

Bake 35 minutes. Let sit 15-20 minutes.

Turkey Apple Wontons

2010-10-03T20:36:00.003-04:00

This recipe was called Chicken and Apple Dumplings (like the Apple Dumpling Gang! What?! Awesome.) but I used turkey and really, they are wontons. Those chopsticks are all for show, we didn't use them. I've always wanted to make something with wonton wrappers so I was pretty excited to come across this recipe which is why I waited three whole days into the month of October to make them. I boiled them instead of pan-frying. They were grrrrrrreat! I dipped mine in a little bit of soy sauce. And I do mean a little bit. That stuff is salty and I have the low-sodium stuff! If you would like to read about other people's reactions I'm going to put these up on my other blog too.

October!

2010-10-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

Apple!

*noteworthy

2010-09-30T20:55:00.002-04:00

I would like to add here, that Alex did a fine job of making Vegetarian Paella!

Bean Soup with Chick Peas and Tiny Raviollis

2010-09-26T10:18:00.002-04:00

This is my famous Bean soup. I added tiny raviollis. Dad really liked it.He had soup for the week.

Chickpea Burger

2010-09-25T22:51:00.002-04:00

I've been wanting to attempt a homemade veggie burger for awhile and then I got my Parents magazine and this recipe was in it and it called for chickpeas! What a coincidence! Unfortunately, they were not tasty. That's why I had to mask the flavor with ketchup and mustard. Still didn't work. I think this is another one of those things that is best to just buy.

Garlic, Chickpea, and Spinach Soup

2010-09-14T09:46:00.002-04:00

This recipe comes from Linda Fraser's The Cook's Encyclopedia of Vegetarian Cooking. The broth of the soup is mostly just storebought vegetable stock, but it has had a corn starch, sesame tahini, and heavy cream mixture (seasoned with salt and pepper) added to it, giving the soup a kind of potato soup consistency that makes sense when you consider the fact that there is, in fact, potatoes in the soup. Additionally, there are six ounces of fresh shredded spinach, a can of chickpeas, garlic, onion, cumin, and coriander. Overall, a successful dish. Tasty with the recommended sprinkle of cayenne pepper upon serving. We had ours with leftover pita from the falafel and, of course, insalata caprese—you know, just to cleanse the palate.

Chickpea Dinner, Dessert!

2010-09-12T21:46:00.007-04:00

I have a lot to say. Sorry for the novel.
Here's the story of why I made these recipes. I always make brownies to celebrate the first Brown's game (it makes them losing not hurt so bad, right?) and I had planned on revamping those chocolate chip cookies with chickpeas but didn't want to make two desserts so I did a search for chickpea brownies and found this recipe. It turned out so good that I wanted to see what other chickpea recipes were on the same blog and found chicken with apricots, tomatoes and chickpeas. Sometimes I choose recipes solely based on whether or not I already have the ingredients and I did so I ended up making the chicken too! The Brownies were excellent and the chicken dinner was good. But first the brownies!

I made a half recipe since I wasn't sure how these would be and they were fantastic. I loved the texture and flavor. I had put some peanut butter chips on top of a little bit of it in case it needed more flavor but I'm glad I didn't cover the whole thing because it was unnecessary. The picture doesn't make them look as good as they taste because they are a bit crumbly (but only a bit!) so they were hard to cut. Go check out the recipe, there's no flour! It's just chickpeas, chocolate chips, honey, eggs and baking powder. Crazy.

The chicken recipe had some very strange flavors but they all worked together when you throw them in the same pot. The only part of the recipe I altered was that I used a half can of chickpeas. I'm really glad I did because you can tell by looking at the picture that a whole can would have been way too much. Plus I found mini-cans of chickpeas at Marc's so now I don't have a half can of chickpeas sitting in the fridge waiting to be used.

Falafel!

2010-09-10T18:17:00.005-04:00

So Lisa wanted to be the one to start the "chickpea party," as she called it, but we were beaten to the chase by Kim. No big surprise there, but we did make these Wednesday, I just haven't gotten around to posting until now. Anyway, we've made many a falafel dinner from out of a box, but we've never tried to make them from scratch. That's what we did this time, using a recipe from Joanna Farrow's 30 Minute Vegetarian. It is definitely worth the trouble to make falafel yourself, as it turns out, but the pan frying made the first batch fall apart a bit. Still, it was extremely good whether in pita as a sandwich (cukes, tomatoes, and ranch dressing), or on pita as a "falafel pizza" (guess who had hers that way...). Oh yeah, there was also Mediterranean curry couscous on the side. Yum!

Roasted Chickpeas

2010-09-10T08:16:00.002-04:00

I really thought these had some promise since the recipe involved honey, sugar and cinnamon but they did not turn out well. Eating them is like when you accidentally put a popcorn kernel in your mouth and try to chew it. Ouch. Maybe if I had taken them out of the oven sooner...
Recipe here

Basmati rice medley

2010-08-29T17:20:00.002-04:00

Dad and I went to Trader Joe's on our anniversary celebration day. We found this rice to make. Sorry I didnt incorporate rice into a recipe I guess I ran out oI time. But next month I will make sure to get some recipes together. Its going to be chick peas, or ceci. But try this it was very good.

Rice Pudding

2010-08-25T13:37:00.002-04:00

I felt a little silly since I made a batch of rice specifically for this recipe and I'm pretty sure the point of rice pudding is to use up leftover rice...but that's ok because it was really tasty. We almost had a disaster when I started sprinkling chili powder on instead of cinnamon but I noticed before I had stirred it in:) Very yummy! I used crushed pineapple instead of chunks like the recipe suggested and cut the size down significantly since I didn't want 10-12 servings. The recipe combined rice, vanilla pudding, raisins, pineapple, cinnamon and vanilla.

Recipe Here

Another Variation on Insalata Caprese

2010-08-24T23:21:00.003-04:00

On the weekend of the 13th, we were in Cincinnati, so, of course, we had to go to Jungle Jim's and get the best fresh mozzarella in the (known) world (of cheese). We had the idea to make a Caprese salad, since, well, we always do. But how to incorporate rice? The answer: risotto (of course). This risotto is made with olive oil, red onion, garlic, vegetable stock, salt, pepper, white wine, and a heavy dose of fresh basil. We used the risotto in lettuce cups (that were difficult to eat as such) that had the mozzarella and a tomato slice each. The basil in the risotto served as the basil for the salad, and a touch of balsamic glaze brought it all to the next level. Lisa still says she would like the basil fresh, but we thought this was a clever way to work Caprese salad into the rice challenge.

Italian Rice and Beans

2010-08-23T13:12:00.002-04:00

I didn't bother taking a better picture of this since it wasn't all that great. Not bad. Not great though (Lisa and Alex's look much tastier!). The number of beans was much too high. I had prepared some tomatoes from our plants to make tomato sauce but ended up using them in this recipe instead of canned tomatoes. It was a combination of rice, beans, tomatoes, oregano, basil and italian seasoning. I have one more recipe I hope to try before the end of the month!

Recipe Here

Mexican-Italian Fusion Risotto

2010-08-17T21:55:00.002-04:00

This is a risotto made with the usual Italian Arborio rice—and this is where the Italian part ends. The herbs and spices are along the lines of what you might find in taco seasoning—chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne. The rice was sauteed in olive oil with onion and garlic, then vegetable stock was added along with the herbs and spices. Instead of finishing with wine and Parmesan, we added lime juice and queso chihuahua. We ended up with a sort of Mexican-style risotto. It could have been better, but it was still tasty, and the leftovers will disappear in short order.

Jambalaya!

2010-08-13T21:13:00.002-04:00

I apologize since this picture will not look very appetizing to some of you but this jambalaya was super fantastic. I'm sure someone out there would yell at me for calling this jambalaya since I didn't put in the shrimp or ham but I thought that was just too much stuff. I would even make this dish without the sausage and just use it as a side dish, that's how good it was. So, you vegetarians should make this with the shrimp instead of the sausage and you will love it. The recipe is from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook but I found it online here too.

Rice Cereal!

2010-08-10T13:27:00.002-04:00

I put this on my other blog and then realized that this could count towards Rice month! This was the first time Paige got to participate!

Recipe: 1 Tbsp rice cereal + 4 Tbsp formula
Verdict: Paige was interested but let a lot of it dribble out of her mouth.

Brown rice, mexican style!

2010-08-07T12:38:00.003-04:00

I rely on this dish a lot because it's easy to make and I'm very hungry and impatient when I get home from work. Brown rice, veggies and cheese on the inside. Cheese, salsa and olives on top. Yum!

Shrimp and Broccoli Packets

2010-08-04T22:27:00.004-04:00

Here's a before and after shot of the shrimp and broccoli packets that Lisa thought of as a rice dish. They were all sealed up in foil and baked, and a little water and a few ice cubes provided the moisture to cook the (instant) rice. The recipe called for two teaspoons of seafood seasoning (we used Old Bay), but Lisa missed that and only put a little, so the end product was a little bland. We added more, but it didn't really add enough flavor. The shrimp was properly cooked, though, and the rice was really good, so, mission accomplished! More to come.

August Ingredient - Rice!

2010-08-01T18:34:00.003-04:00

Sorry if the image is grainy! Get it?! Go!!

2010-07-31T10:24:00.003-04:00

We went safe. This is regular french toast, scrambled eggs, blueberry muffin and grapes for color. This is appropriate for any meal! We made it, the last day.

Success!

2010-07-28T14:10:00.004-04:00

This was the other recipe I wanted to try before breakfast month was over. Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Deceptively Delicious. They are sooooooo good!!!! (That's four exclamation points people! ) They are healthy-ish with a good dose of peanut butter. I cut down on the amount of sugar they said to add from 1 cup to 2/3 cup, next time I would probably do 1/2 cup just to see if it mattered. A good tip was that the recipe adds half of the brown sugar at the very end, just stirring once or twice so you have these little pockets of crispiness. I'm going to try that with other muffin recipes too. There was a bit of an accident when I thought they weren't done cooking and I tried to put them back in the oven. They all fell out of the pan and some of them broke apart but I rescued a good portion of them.
(I have the book but I found the recipe online here if you want to see it)

Pancakes

2010-07-27T13:56:00.002-04:00

If you've looked at my other blog you know that I'm still trying to find good recipes from my Deceptively Delicious book. So far I've found one and this is not it. These had sweet potato puree "hidden" in them. Without syrup these would have been all tossed in the trash but luckily the recipe didn't make too many so we powered through and managed not to waste any. I have one more breakfast food I want to make. Lisa and Alex get to pick next!

French Toast

2010-07-20T21:35:00.004-04:00

Using Schwebel’s ’taliano and Orlando Italian with sesame seeds, we made french toast. For dinner. See, we would never have breakfasts like these if we didn't have them for dinner. Anyway. My batter was just egg, unsweetened soymilk, and a touch of vanilla. I had one stack with pure maple syrup, and another with a concoction my Aunt Gwen told me about long ago—a dusting of powdered sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. It's awesome. Lisa's batter was just egg and unsweetened soymilk. She opted out of the vanilla so she could use the leftover egg to make a tiny egg and cheese sandwich (see picture above, left). Both of us had veggie bacon on the side and good 'ol orange juice. Another lovely breakfast.

Typical Breakfast

2010-07-16T09:04:00.005-04:00

This is a typical weekday breakfast for me. Some sort of latte and some sort of pastry-type thing. Since I have not been Krogering in some time, this breakfast is provided by Starbucks. Vanilla soy latte and petite vanilla bean scones. The Aflac duck is a special guest appearance, I won him during the Aflac benefits orientation meeting at work. And yes, he speaks :)

Pineapple-Carrot Bars

2010-07-14T13:10:00.002-04:00

Not the prettiest thing to look at but they are sooooo good! I made them after I had my breakfast this morning thinking I would eat them tomorrow but they are already half gone... I'm not even really sure they are specifically a breakfast food but that's how I found them when I was searching so I think it counts. They're pretty healthy too, no added sugar!
Recipe Here

Biscuits and (Veggie) Sausage Gravy

2010-07-12T18:18:00.003-04:00

This was one of those "stick to your ribs" kinds of dishes, but really, really good. We made the biscuits from scratch using a random recipe we found online that didn't require shortening. They were good, but the recipe was halved leaving us with only a few small biscuits. It was about right though. For the gravy, we made a quick roux in a small saute pan, mixed in unsweetened soy milk, salt, pepper, and Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patties that had been crumbled. The sausage was actually the kind with the maple flavoring cooked in, so it was extra good. To enjoy, we just dipped and ate. Yum!