cook-eat-write

So once again dinner time was rolling around and the parental units tell me it’s a “forage whatever you want from the ‘fridge” night. Of course I interpret this as “look around at what we have in the ‘fridge and pantry and then make something yummy.” Of course that’s what I then did.

I’d come across this recipe in my internet travels probably a few months ago but never really thought to try it until I found a giant wedge of Parmesan cheese in in the kitchen this evening. I don’t know if I would say it’s the best ever, maybe a little strong on the cheese flavor so next time I’ll use a little less, or a fresher parm.

Recipeeeeee: http://www.cookingbytheseatofmypants.com/recipes/fettuccine-alfredo-recipe/

Ease of preparation: 2
Taste: 1
Feeds: 4-5 or so.

As you can see I made some garlicky steamed veggies to go along with it. This was a good recipe, very very simple and easy to follow. The end results were good and all who had it seemed to like it well enough. The only thing about this that I wasn’t crazy about was that it was juuust a little too buttery for my taste, but then alfredo is supposed to be heavy. 

Suggestions / Changes

As I previously mentioned, next time I’ll use a bit less butter than the recipe indicates. Also I will make sure to use fresher cheese to avoid SUCH a strong flavor. I also think this could be great with a little garlic added in or some fresh broccoli cooked into it. Just some ideas!

An aerial view! Yum.

Recipe property of: Jerry Russell (http://www.cookingbytheseatofmypants.com/)

Now that I am all graduated and (temporarily) moved back home with the parental units, I am hoping that I have time to cook more. Possibly to do my own recipe inventing more. At least until I get a job that takes up all of my time and energy!

But anyway, I had some free time this afternoon, so I made some dinner for the fam. We had some good fresh vegetables in the fridge from my dad’s new garden and some chicken in the freezer so I decided to whip up a variation on a stir fry. It turned out pretty well! Plus, even though the veggies weren’t raw it’s still quite good for you! Yum.

Lookit!

Ease of preparation: 3
Taste: 0.5
Feeds: About 4

For a spur of the moment, only using things we already had in the house meal I think it turned out pretty well. My dad seemed to really like it. You could basically add any veggies you want to this, I just used what was on hand. I made a quick little Teriyaki sauce for the veggies as well, because that’s how I roll. Also, you could leave out the chicken for a vegetarian dinner! Next time I will use brown rice to make it even more nutritious. 

Chicken and Veggie Stir Fry

Ingredients:
4 servings of cooked rice
1 big boneless skinless chicken breast (about .65 lbs) all chopped up
2 cups broccoli florets
1 cup diced onion
1/2 large cucumber, sliced and halved
3 medium carrots, sliced
3/4 cup peas in pod
3 cloves of garlic
4-5 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsb flour
1 tbsp water
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground ginger

Recipe:
1. Cook rice according to directions, set aside.
2. Put olive oil in bottom of a large nonstick skillet. Top with all of your veggies and garlic and heat stove to medium heat, cover. Stir occasionally for about 5 mins.
3. Mix flour and water in large measuring cup or bowl. Whisk in vinegar and soy sauce, then mix in sugar, pepper, garlic powder and ginger.
4.  Pour sauce over veggies.
5. Add chicken to veggies and sauce.
6. Stirring occasionally, cook over medium heat about 5-7 more minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Cook longer for softer vegetables.
7. Eat chicken and veggies over rice! Yay!

My veggies right as they went into the pan! Pretty colorssssss!

Veggies and chicken after it cooked!

It’s been a while!

I’ve been very busy for the last few weeks. I’m about to have my very last finals week of university and then I will be graduating! Off into the real world for me. Job hunting, bills, being a Real Person. It’s quite scary, don’t you think?

But anyway, I’ve finally had some time to try a new recipe. I stumbled this one a while back and it looked super tasty. Plus it was two recipes on one page!

It was very tasty, though it didn’t turn out EXACTLY like the pictures on the website. I think this is because the recipe was VERY inexact and was missing a reasonable amount of helpful info. But no matter!

Yum yum yum: http://www.thefoodinmybeard.com/2008/11/carbonara.html

Ease of preparation: 3
Taste: 4
Feeds: About 4-6? 

Look! I took my own pictures! Helllllz yes. This was definitely a good dinner. The cheesy bread was amazing, and the red pepper flakes gave it a great little unexpected kick. The sauce on the noodles was a liiiittle clumpy but it still tasted fine. Perhaps it’s because I used half & half instead of cream, but I had it on hand and the recipe said that was fine. 

Suggestions / Changes

There are a lot of things missing from this recipe. For example, none of the amounts or cooking information was there for the cheesy bread. I used a whole french bread from publix, a stick of butter, 1/2 cup chopped parsley,  a metric ton of garlic, a whole big ball of mozzarella and red pepper flakes. I baked it at 350 for about 10 minutes. Just keep a good watch on it and take it out when the cheese is all melty and the bread gets crispy.

Also, when making the pasta, I used 1 cup chopped parsley. I cut most of the fat from the bacon in an attempt to make it a little healthier, but then added in 1.5 tablespoons of butter because some fat was necessary.  

Everyone I fed with this said they thought it was delicious!

Recipe property of: The Food in My Beard
(http://www.thefoodinmybeard.com)

This past weekend I hosted an Easter Egg Dying Party. True, I know that Easter is still several weeks away, but that was my last opportunity to have people over until Easter itself. So, I had folks over and we decorated eggs and I made Brinner! I really, really love brinner. It is just… so good. I could eat it 5x a week. I made scrambled eggs (from the insides of the eggs we were dying), bacon (how could I not?), hash browns, and biscuits and gravy.

I loooove sausage gravy! Sometimes I just get cravings for it. So, I decided that I wanted to learn how to make it myself. The biscuits were Pillsbury because I was short on time, but the gravy turned out great!

El Recipeo:
http://www.mamas-southern-cooking.com/biscuits-and-gravy-recipe.html

Ease of preparation: 2
Taste: 1.5
Feeds: About 6-8? Covers like 14 biscuits. 

This was quite good! Definitely hit my biscuits and gravy spot. It was surprisingly easy to throw together and was very tasty. I definitely recommend this when you’re in the mood for brinner or breakfast or just some good comfort food.

Suggestions / Changes

I used sausage with a lot of seasonings already in it, and I think that helped make it very flavorful. Other than that, I basically followed this recipe exactly. I was considering using some cream in place of some of the milk to make a creamier gravy, so I might try that next time, but really it’s not necessary.

Recipe and photo property of: Mama’s Southern Cooking
(http://www.mamas-southern-cooking.com) 

Everyone loves a good cookie. Especially a good chocolate chip cookie. This recipe is an amalgam of several other recipes that I’ve found over the last two years plus a few twists of my own. If you don’t like peanut butter or (god forbid!) are allergic, it’s quite easy to leave out the peanut butter chips (replacing them with extra chocolate chips, of course) and just make chocolate chip cookies! I, however, love peanut butter and always throw those chips in. 

Mmmmmm so very good.

Not my picture (oh google images how I love theee) but this is what they look like:

Ease of preparation: 3
Taste: 4
Feeds: makes about… 24? It depends on how big you make them…

I have gotten MANY great reviews about these cookies. I took them to work once and the ladies I work with were hiding them in their desks to have extras for lunch. I could eat 6 in a sitting, probably, which is saying something since I have a very low tolerance for sugar. Ohhh, yes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup margarine/butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Mix both sugars, butter, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl
3. In separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg
4. Stir dry mixture into wet mixture
5. Stir in chocolate and peanut butter chips (if you have been using a mixer so far, do this part by hand)
6. On a lightly greased cooking sheet, place about 1.5 tablespoon sized balls about 2 inches apart
7. Bake about 8-10 minutes (keep an eye on them and take them out when the edges start to golden!)

Hooray! 

This past summer I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to intern with a major company/law firm in London, UK. Of course, working in the corporate world, I got an hour long lunch break every day. Being the food/eating nut that I am, I took that opportunity to try as many of the little food shops in London’s financial district as I could… and believe me there are a lot of them. There was one, however, that I just kept going back to. It was called Tempi Med and it was just a block or two from both my work and St. Paul’s Cathedral. I would go pick up food there and then sit in the St. Paul’s courtyard in the sun and eat.

There was this one thing that they made and, oh man, it was so good that I had to get it once a week. So simple, too! Anyway, once I got back stateside I started to miss my delicious lunch dish. Then I realized that it was so simple I could just make it myself! And so I do. Frequently. With vigor.

Picture to come, there isn’t one on the Tempi Med website and I haven’t taken one myself yet. (http://www.tempimed.co.uk BUT the menu doesn’t have my item anymore… they changed the lettuce to avocado, it looks like.)

Ease of preparation: 1
Taste: 3.5
Feeds: 1

This is absolutely glorious. It’s good for you, its delicious, and it’s relatively inexpensive! It’s hard to get much better than that. AND it’s a vegetarian dish! This is great when you eat it with some hummus on crackers or fruit. A change that I will probably try is adding some avocado instead of about half the lettuce. Yum!

Mozzarella Lettuce and Tomato Wrap

Ingredients:
1 medium sized wrap (plain or flavor of your choice, it doesn’t matter!)
2 medium sized slices of tomato (or however much tomato you like)
1 handful of lettuce, shredded/torn up by hand to make things easier
1 serving of mozzarella (or if you’re cheap/lazy like me, I use part skim mozzarella string cheese, all pulled apart into about 8-10 strings)
1 serving (about 1.5-2 tbsp) of pesto 

Directions:
1. Lay out your wrap
2. Spread pesto in a wide line down the middle of your wrap
3. Lay tomato slices on top of pesto
4. Put mozzarella on top of tomato
5. Put lettuce on top of (string) cheese
6. Roll up your wrap! Eat that thing like it is yo’ job!
7. You may thank me later. 

I have a problem. That problem is that I am really a picky eater. There is a lot of foodstuff that I really don’t like. Mayonnaise, melon, cooked fish, yogurt, cream cheese, jam, etc. It sucks. I wish I liked these things. I have tried over and over to like a lot of these things. My life would be so much easier if I liked yogurt. But anyway. My point is that, because I like to cook, sometimes I come across recipes that I really want to try, but I don’t because I know I won’t like the finished product, and that seems like a big waste to me. Example: cheesecake. I SO want to make a cheesecake, but I hate cheesecake. I know, I’m not a real human being, etc. etc.

But sometimes the desire to try a recipe overcomes the distaste for the actual finished product. One of these occasions involved marshmallows. I can’t stand the things. They’re gross. Ew. But when I came across this recipe for S’more Brownies, I had to give it a try. I figured, even if I didn’t want them, someone would eat them, right?

Recipe for you!:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/smore-brownies-recipe/index.html

Ease of preparation: 3.5
Taste: 2.5
Feeds: 9 or so if I remember correctly

As it was, I did actually sample this in the end. I just pulled off the marshmallows and tossed them and ate the brownie part. They weren’t the best brownies I have ever made or had, but they weren’t bad and the graham cracker crust was different and tasty. Those others who tried them gave me good reviews!

Suggestions / Changes

Make sure you follow the instructions about the foil exactly. it’s important to being able to remove these from the pan and making the end result pretty as well as tasty. Be sure not to over bake the graham cracker crust. I would maybe even bake it 5 mins less than indicated. Mine was very close to having a lightly burned taste.

Also, the large marshmallows seemed to overtake the entire dish. In the future I would suggest trying small marshmallows instead. Make sure you have a sharp clean knife to cut these babys up!

Recipe and photo property of: The Food Network (http://www.foodnetwork.com)