cook-eat-write: December 2014

Recent Recipes

Girls' Night In 12/29

Comments (0) | Monday, December 29, 2014

Good friend of many moons asked me to teach her a few kitchen tricks this evening so we had a bit of a ladies night in cooking session! We made Julia Child's Eggplant Pizzas and Chicken Parm Meatballs. Both came out quite DELISH and hopefully my friend feels like she learned something in the process!

Chicken Parm Meatballs - ground chicken, some breadcrumbs, garlic and onion, Parmesan, Italian spices, etc. Baked at 350 for 18 mins, topped with marinara and mozzarella and broiled for a few mins more.

For the Eggplant Pizzas we followed the classic Julia Child's recipe so that would be easy to google. I'd never made eggplant myself before so this was pretty fun! Came out pretty well though if I were to repeat I might try to find a way to keep the eggplant a little less mooshy for better textural diversity.

Overall: great success!

Lunch 12/29-12/31

Comments (0) | Sunday, December 28, 2014

Grilled salmon with avocado salsa (salsa not pictured) and roasted balsamic green beans and mushrooms.

The avocado salsa isn't pictured because technically I haven't made it yet. Waiting until I'm about to eat this for lunch tomorrow before I make the salsa (which is basically just guacamole so fresher is better).

I was gifted a Le Cruset cast iron grill skillet for Christmas last week and took it for a spin today. It cooked my salmon beautifully! Look at those grill lines - I'm in love. Just rubbed some spices (paprika, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, salt & pepper) on the salmon and put it on the grill until cooked through.

For the veggies I simply mixed them in a large bowl with some EVOO and balsamic vinegar, dumped them on a baking sheet and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and a few tbsp of grated parm. Roasted at 400(? I think) for about 20 mins. I sampled these fresh out of the oven and YUM!

Pre-roasting action shot!

Lunch 12/22-12/24

Comments (0) | Sunday, December 21, 2014

Popped a few items together for lunch this Christmas week!

Pulled BBQ Chicken, Carrots, Brussel Sprouts

Tossed 2 organic chicken breasts (1.4 lb total), a few smashed garlic cloves and a big squirt of BBQ sauce into my mini crock pot while cleaning house today. 4 hours on high and I was in business!

For the carrots I just gave them a quick spray of EVOO then squirted on some lemon juice and drizzled on some honey. For the sprouts they got EVOO spray, lemon, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Baked the carrots and sprouts together at 350 for about 25 minutes.