Zucchini – Mushroom – Sausage Lasagna

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

Tags

Lasagna; Mushrooms; Squash; Zucchini; Italian; Dinner

We have two versions of homemade spaghetti sauce – mine, which was lovingly passed down from my mom and includes veggies and sausage and Mr. E’s, which was lovingly passed down from his mom and is a marinara style sauce with ginormous meatballs. Both are delicious and when we make either we make a TON and freeze the leftovers.

While scrounging through our freezer looking for something to make for dinner, I found not 1 but 2 bags of my mom’s veggie spaghetti sauce. As I shouted to Mr. E, “we have SAUCE – 2 BAGS”, he shouted back “SWEET” and we both looked at each other and started fist pumping to our lasagna song! Okay, we didn’t really fist pump and there is no lasagna song, but we did smile when we said “lasagna” and there should be a lasagna song – it’s good enough to have its own song. LOL 🙂

While in the freezer I also found 2 chicken Italian sausages – 1 hot and 1 mild. A search of the fridge yielded a pint of mushrooms and squash in danger of going bad.

Using my mandolin slicer (which is so much fun), I thinly sliced the yellow squash and zucchini. I used an egg slicer to slice the mushrooms.

I crumbled the sausage in a skillet and sautéed until cooked through and removed from pan. In the same pan I cooked the squash in a little bit of olive oil, removed and then sautéed the mushrooms in the same pan with a bit of butter added, until lightly browned.

I began layering sauce, cooked lasagna noodles, sausage, mushrooms, squash, ricotta and a bit of mozzarella cheese in a baking dish.

The last layer consisted of noodles, sauce and cheese. Cover and bake and then….. YUMMY! I’m sorry this picture didn’t come out very well – I was trying to show the layers :(. We were having it for dinner the next night and then I forgot to take a picture of it on the plate.

Zucchini, Mushroom, Sausage Lasagna

12 lasagna noodles, cooked

2 squashes – sliced, I used a yellow and a zucchini

2 links of Italian sausage

1 pint of mushrooms, sliced

4-5 cups spaghetti sauce, we like it saucy

1 cup of ricotta

2 – 2 ½ cups shredded mozzarella

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 375° In a big pan, over medium heat, crumble the sausage and sauté until cooked through; remove from pan. In the same pan add the sliced squash and add a pinch of salt and pepper (depending on how big your pan is you may need to do this part in batches so that the slices can get browned). Since I used chicken sausages, there was not a lot of grease and I needed to add a bit of olive oil to the pan. Remove from pan. Then sauté the mushrooms in the same pan with a bit of butter until lightly browned.

In a 9×13 pan, ladle a bit of sauce in the bottom just to coat and then begin layering everything, starting with noodles, sausage, mushrooms, squash, dollops of ricotta, a sprinkle of cheese, a little sauce and then another layer of noodles. The last layer will be noodles, a good amount of sauce (as mentioned earlier, we like it saucy :)) and mozzarella cheese.

Cover and bake for 35 – 45 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling around the edges of the dish. Remove foil and turn on the broiler and cook for about 5 minutes or so until the cheese on top gets bubbly and a little browned. It’ll go fast so keep your eye on it so it doesn’t burn. Let cool for a few minutes and enjoy with garlic bread and a nice salad.

Browned Butter Nutella Chip Cookies

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Recipes

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Tags

Cookies; Nutella

The other night I made the cookie recipe that I mentioned on my last post –Nutella Chip Cookies with Homemade Nutella Chips via The Ivory Hut because my cookie jar was empty and sad.

First and foremost the cookie dough is absolutely delicious and the short and sweet version of this post – cookies were made and eagerly devoured.

The author made it seem so easy to make homemade Nutella chips that I thought I could do it and that everything would be easy peasy. The author ‘updated’ her post sharing how if you want even more hazelnut flavor, just add the butter to the Nutella and leave out the chocolate chips. Cool I thought – I want extra Nutella–y flavor goodness in my cookie! Well, somewhere along the directions I must have misunderstood because making the Nutella ‘chips’ was a nightmare. That’s not quite accurate; the ‘making’ of the chips was not that big of a deal, the mixing of the chips into the cookie dough was a nightmare.

I don’t have an official double broiler, so I go the ghetto, or as Mr. E. would say cost conscientious, way and use a glass dish over a pot of water to melt the Nutella and butter together.

I choose to spread the mixture onto a foil lined baking sheet, instead of piping into chips, since both ways were demonstrated in the recipe. This was mistake number one. At the time I thought it was a great idea. I have used this foil lined technique for fudge, cakes, brownies, granola bars, pretty much everything, so I figured it would work well. Well, when I went to break the slab of frozen Nutella into pieces, it started to melt before I could really get anything accomplished – so back in the freezer it went. After about 10 minutes I pulled it out and cut it into pieces. Then I started to lift the pieces from the foil – but it started to melt and so back in the freezer. Once it was again hard, I pulled it out and realized that the foil stuck to quite a few pieces and was time consuming to pick off…. Let me fast forward a bit… just keep saying in the freezer – out of the freezer and you’ll get the picture. 🙂 Once cut and separated from the foil I left the chips in the freezer until I was ready to add to the dough.

I think browned butter is my new favorite flavor enhancer! Rather than following the directions and pouring the butter into the sugar, I removed from heat – added the remaining butter, sugar and vanilla to the skillet with the browned butter and whisked well. I then let the mixture cool and added the egg and the egg yolk, whisking well after each addition. Then I poured the mixture into the flour and stirred.

This is where I think I made mistake number two. I put the dough in the fridge to chill because it was somewhat runny. When I pulled it out and let it soften a bit I attempted to mix in the frozen Nutella pieces – NIGHMARE! HA HA HA It’s only funny now because the cookies were delicious. At the time I’m pretty sure Erik removed the dogs from the room to protect their ears from my shouts of frustration. The pieces very quickly started to soften so much so that it was difficult to mix them in. I ended up forming clumps of dough in my hand and, by hand, adding a few Nutella pieces.

Fortunately once they baked it didn’t matter and they were scrumptious! It was just an exhausting process LOL. I’ll definitely be making these again, but with modifications – probably less butter, they are quite greasy. I’ll also need to learn a bit more about how to make the Nutella chips a little sturdier.

I haven’t re-typed the recipe since I didn’t make any ingredient modifications. Please do visit the site using the links above and give this recipe a try. It made a ton of Nutella chips, which is really nice, so the next time I make this recipe I’ll have at least half of it already done!

My new love…Nutella

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Uncategorized

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Nutella, where have you been all my life?!!! If you know that Rihanna song, I am signing it in my head right now, the “Where have you been all my li-ii-ii-ife.”

Mr. E and I have been talking about Nutella for about 5 to 6 months. I have been seeing recipes for it and asking if I should try them and he has been ‘poo pooing’ the idea. I quote…”it’s alright, not as good as peanut butter but it’s not bad.” While at Target this weekend I had a coupon that was about to expire and finally bought some Nutella. As soon as dessert time came around that evening I decide to give it a taste. Oh my gosh!!!! It is literally heaven on a spoon! As soon as the deliciousness touched my tongue I looked at Mr. E and stated with more convection than I’ve had in a while that he is certifiably the craziest person I know for not thinking Nutella is amazing.

Since Mr. E is not one to be left out when it comes to eating something amazing, he snatched the spoon from my hand with a…”gimmie.” To say he liked it is an understatement! He quickly agreed that he was crazy before and that Nutella is awesome. We dipped pretzels and cherries in it while we searched though all the delicious sounding recipes out there and tried to decide what to make.

Do we make Nutella Chip Cookies with Homemade Nutella Chips courtesy of The Ivory Hut

Nutella Chip Cookies via The Ivory Hut

or do I try and make Nutella cinnamon rolls topped with bananas foster or Nutella and Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Fudge by Doughmesstic which looks like a Nutella snickers bar with marshmallow cream in the center instead of nougat? There are so many recipes that sound good I’m not sure where to start.

For now we will just continue to eat it right out of the jar. 🙂 I mean we don’t want it to go bad right??? I believe Mr. E summed it up perfectly at the end of the night by saying, “Welcome back 15 lbs i lost.” ha ha.

On other thing I’ve learned while doing all this ‘research’ is that February 5^th was World Nutella Day – it even has its own Facebook page! http://www.facebook.com/WorldNutellaDay Did anyone else know this? I really can’t believe I’ve been missing out!

Mashed Potato Stuffing Soup

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Recipes

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Tags

acorn squash soup, potato, soup

I have a confession to make… I made this soup a few weeks ago and got sucked into a book that I just finished last night, and that is why I haven’t posted this sooner. For those of you that know me, I’m sure this doesn’t surprise you in the least. I am notorious for picking up a new book and forgetting about everything else around me! I am that person that takes my book, or in this case my Nook, everywhere I go to sneak in a page or two whenever I can.

I had the best intentions to post right away-really I did! I was online when all of a sudden I found myself on the Barnes and Noble page. Really all I did was click on a link from my email saying something about “daily deal”… 🙂 lol. AANnnnnddd that was the end of my good intentions. Lol fellow book loves I can almost feel you nodding your head thinking “yep, I’ve done that”. 🙂

So here I am about two weeks later, my nerdy book side completely satisfied with my recent read, and back on track. This was supposed to be a roasted acorn squash bisque type soup.

I’ve never tasted acorn or butternut squash soup but I love soups and love both acorn and butternut squash. Now in my mind, and to my taste buds, these squashes are somewhat similar in taste. So I scoured through my cookbooks and recipes online to get some ideas about how to make this soup. I knew I didn’t want something sweet and many recipes called for curry, which could be good but I didn’t feel like it. There wasn’t really any one recipe that sounded like what I was looking for, however I noticed many similarities across pages and pages of recipe research. So while no one recipe inspired this creation, simply type butternut squash soup in the search bar and a plethora of inspiration will appear.

By the way this soup got its name because when Mr. E got home and tasted it he said “Mmmm that’s delicious what’s it called?” I replied, hesitantly “Roasted Acorn Squash Soup…” (Hesitant because while it was good, it tasted nothing like what I thought acorn squash soup should taste like. Mr. E replied with “Hunh, tastes like Thanksgiving… You know more like a Mashed Potato Stuffing Soup.” Ha Ha Ha so I made a quick tweak and took it over the top by adding sausage.

Back to the kitchen I go to try again for an acorn squash soup, but in the meantime this really is thanksgiving in a bowl (minus the turkey) and does make you feel all warm and cozy…though that could just be the 100° weather were having!

Both Stewie and I kept snacking on the roasted squash – it was so good right out of the oven…here is the little guy waiting for his next piece – yes he is sticking his tongue out at me!!

Mashed Potato Stuffing Soup

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped

¼ cup celery, chopped

¼ cup onion, chopped

3 oz. breakfast sausage

1 tablespoon flour

4 ½ cups chicken broth

¾ cup apple cider

½ cup light cream

2 ½ cups roasted acorn squash, peeled and chopped

2 cups potatoes, peeled and chopped

½ teaspoon thyme

¼ teaspoon sage

1/8 teaspoon rosemary and turmeric

Pinch of nutmeg

Salt and pepper, to taste

Roasted Acorn Squash: cut and peel the squash. These don’t need to be cut into small pieces because they will be puréed in the soup. Preheat oven to 450, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss the acorn in some olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper and line the pieces on the baking sheet. Roast for about 7 minutes and then turn over and roast for another 7 minutes. You’ll know the acorn is done, when it is tender.

In a big pot over medium heat, add the breakfast sausage and while it’s cooking use the back of a spoon to break into small pieces. Once cooked all the way, remove the sausage from the pot. Add butter, the chopped onion and celery and sauté for about 5 minutes. Then add the apple and sauté for another 10 minutes. Add the flour and stir continually for a few minutes while the flour lightly browns, add the broth and scrape up any yummy flavor stuck to the bottom of the pot. Add squash, potatoes, thyme, sage, rosemary, turmeric, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Simmer 20 minutes until potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally. Blend ingredients until puréed. I used a hand blender so that I wouldn’t need to remove everything from the pot, but a food processor or blender would also work. Add cider, cream and cooked sausage to the puréed soup. Simmer until heated through.

I served with warm sourdough bread and it was really good. Mr. E. pointed to his belly and said he was in a happy place. Ha ha. Enjoy!

Egg Rolls & Pak Choy Salad with Asian Vinaigrette

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Recipes

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Tags

egg rolls, food

Egg rolls are one of the things that aren’t hard to make but do require a bit of time, even with some of the time saving tricks I’ve learned. If you can find a willing participant to help with some of the chopping and egg roll rolling (wrapping? folding?…uhhh LOL) it speeds things up and makes it more fun. Add to that some good wine, if you so choose, (I typically cook with some kind of libation in my hand) and it can actually be a fun night in! And now you know what Mr. E and I do on Friday nights LOL. Also, I think once you have the basic recipe you can modify this so many different ways. One ingredient that I don’t include in my egg rolls, but is commonly found in other recipes and at restaurants is Chinese Five Spice. I find it to have a very distinct flavor, and do not care for in most dishes but especially egg rolls. However, I did want to mention it because many people do like it.

To go along with our egg rolls we had a Pak Choy salad with Asian Vinaigrette and Barely Asian, Asian Soup. Remember all of that Pak Choy that I needed to find a use for? Well, making a salad was one of the quickest and easiest ways I could think of. I am still amazed at the taste difference of certain fresh vegetables when compared to store bought. Pak Choy is one of them! I really think anyone could grow this, even if it’s just in a pot or window box. I am by no means a gardener and I was able to grow these fairly easily – my only really battle was with the caterpillars. Sorry, I got carried away with my “you can garden too” talk. 🙂 lol

For the salad I added thinly sliced red pepper and bean sprouts to the Pak Choy, but I think any salad ingredients would go really well with the Asian Vinaigrette. It has just a hint of sweetness, but really good sesame and ginger flavor.

My first suggestion if you’re good at planning meals in advance is too make the egg roll filling one night and then roll and fry the egg rolls the second night. I’ve done it all in one evening and it’s not a big deal, but when I break it up into 2 nights I usually enjoy myself a bit more.

Suggestion number 2: buy the packed cole slaw mix (the already shredded cabbage and carrots). It’s just so much easier than finely chopping the cabbage and carrots.

So, I’m a bit neurotic and pinched all the “yucky” ends of the bean sprouts off…

And cut some of the longer ones.

A personal pet peeve is when I bite into an egg roll and a lot of the good stuff comes out in that one bite. Does anyone know what I mean? Maybe I just don’t really commit to each bit I take and fully crunch down on stuff…LOL. But I just hate that, so you’ll find that I often cut food into “shorter” sizes. Ha ha.

After I cooked the onions, mushrooms, ginger, garlic and bean sprouts in the sesame oil, l added the Cole Slaw mix and remaining seasonings/sauces. I don’t use a lot of flavoring for my egg rolls because I know I want to serve them with a dipping sauce (usually that bright red sweet and sour for Mr. E and then soy sauce for me). However, definitely make the recipe yours by increasing the flavoring amounts. Some chili sauce or Sriracha would give it a nice kick.

I’ve never tried to make my own egg roll wrappers, the store bought ones are perfect for me, though finding the location of them in your local Frys or Safeway can be challenging. Sometimes they are in the produce department and sometimes they are in one of those randomly placed refrigerator units with the tofu. The nice thing is that on the back of the packaging there are great pictures and instructions on how to roll the egg rolls.

Egg Roll Recipe

1 tsp. minced ginger

1 clove garlic, minced

3 mushrooms, chopped

½ cup of bean sprouts

¼ cup sliced onion

¼ cup water chestnuts, chopped

1 ½ tsp. sesame oil

1 16 oz. bag of Cole Slaw mix with carrots

2 tablespoons water

2 to 3 tsp. soy sauce

1 tablespoon bottled teriyaki sauce

Egg Roll wrappers (store bought)

Dash of seasoned rice vinegar

Add sesame oil to a big sauté pan or a wok if you have one; on medium heat. Add ginger and let cook about 1 minute, just so the oil sort of becomes infused with the ginger. Add onion, bean sprouts, water chestnuts and mushrooms. Cook approximately 5 minutes, enough for the onions to become translucent, but not long enough to brown. Add garlic and cook about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add the bag of Cole Slaw mix, water, soy sauce, seasoned rice vinegar and teriyaki sauce. Cook until cabbage softens, but not cooked all the way. Maybe 5-7 minutes.

Let mixture cool. Place a heaping spoonful onto the center of an egg roll wrapper and fold according to package directions. In a deep skillet, add a couple of inches of oil, enough to cover the bottom half of an egg roll. Fry until golden brown on one side and then flip the egg roll and fry until golden brown on the other side.

Asian Vinaigrette

½ tablespoon of minced ginger

1 garlic clove, minced

½ tablespoon sesame oil

2 ½ teaspoons seasoned rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

Dash of soy sauce

Salt and pepper

Add all ingredients to a bowl; wisk well. Let sit about 10 minutes so all of the flavors can really blend together. This dressing was even better the next day! (Aren’t most things though). 🙂

Eggrolls, Pak Choy Salad and Barely Asian Soup

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Recipes

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Food; Soup; Asian

As mentioned a few posts back I needed to do something with the Pak Choy in my garden, well I waited a bit longer than I should have. I was able to salvage enough for an Asian feast for Mr. E and I but not enough to feed anyone else.

So the menu was going to consist of homemade egg rolls, Pak Choy salad with an Asian vinaigrette and Beef Pho soup. Well I read a few recipes on how to make beef pho, and honestly, it sounds like a pain. Since I’ve never had pho I wasn’t confident in my ability to pick a good recipe. Add to that the fact that I didn’t have hardly any of the ingredients the recipes called for and I ended up taking a shortcut and buying a beef pho broth at Sprouts.

Well, THANK GOODNESS I decided to give it a smell and taste before I poured the whole thing into a pot to make the soup. OH my Lord! The overwhelming smell of beef marrow and anise almost caused me to pass out. Whew! So what do I do when a food item is suspect??? I turn to the best taste tester in the world… Mr. E! I heated up a small amount in the cup thinking, well maybe it’s just that initial opening of the container that made the pho smell so strong, and passed the cup to him. “Taste this and let me know if you think I’ll like it” LOL yes, that’s exactly what I said. He smelled it, tried to be open-minded and took a healthy size sip. “Well…” I said, scrutinizing his face for any indication that the taste is a putrid as the smell. He looks me dead in the eye and says… “Well, it’s unique. I don’t mind it, but I’m not sure if you will like it.” Hmmmm this is a new response to me. Usually he’s pretty direct about if I’ll like something or not. I decide, against my better judgment, to taste it. It took me three times to actually get it past my nose and into my mouth. I wish I could say that it was good, I wish I could say that the smell didn’t reminded me of gravy train dog food and that the taste is what I would imagine heated gravy train dog food would taste like. But…I can’t.

I looked at my counter, with all the veggies and everything chopped and ready to go for the making of this feast and thought… hunh…what now. Okay, I can do this… I can make an Asian soup with beef flavoring to add noodles, Pak Choy and mushrooms to… I know I can. (I hope). The results were pretty good! Especially given that I don’t have many of the staples such as a good quality oyster sauce or a good fish sauce. Yep, I’m quite happy with it! I’m going to call it my Barely Asian, Asian Beef Soup. LOL.

Barely Asian, Asian Beef Soup

1 green onion (or scallion) sliced, green part only

1 large garlic clove (add more if you would like it hotter), minced

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

1/8 cup onion, chopped

3 mushrooms, 1 – diced, 2 thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

Sriracha, optional and to taste

4 cups beef broth

1/2 a package of Pad Thai noodles

Pak Choy (Bok Choy)

Salt & pepper

Sesame oil

Butter

Water chestnuts, optional sliced

Pour sesame oil in the bottom of a pan and add a little butter. You won’t need a lot of either, just enough to coat the bottom. Add onion and diced mushroom, sauté on medium heat until both onion and mushroom have browned. Approximately 7-8 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add ginger and garlic and continue to sauté for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.

Turn heat up to medium high and add the beef broth. I had yummy flavors browned on the bottom of my pan so I used the beef broth to de-glaze. Add soy sauce, Sriracha, water chestnuts, the green onion and mushrooms. I couldn’t decide how I wanted to work in the sliced mushrooms so i added a few to the pot and then also put some in a bowl with the Pak Choy. I think next time I’ll just put it in the bowl and let the broth heat up the mushrooms when I serve it. Let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes so all of the flavors can meld together.

The Pad Thai noodles we got needed to be boiled, so we did that while the soup was simmering. We added the cooked Pad Thai noodles to each of our serving bowls, which already had the thinly sliced mushroom and Pak Choy.

We poured the simmering broth over the Pad Thai noodles, mushrooms and Pak Choy and enjoyed!!

I’ll be adding the recipes for the egg rolls and salad soon and will link them to this post so everything will be handy for you to make your own Asian feast! Link to egg rolls and salad

A New Breakfast Joint!

02 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Uncategorized

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I love breakfast! And, I love, love, love going out for breakfast! One of my Besties (best friends) came in to town to visit her family for the weekend and was able to ‘escape’ long enough to meet us for breakfast. Yea! She and I used to work together, with Mr. E, and so when we all get together it is like one big reunion!

We met at this breakfast place called Crackers & Co. Café. I’d never been there before or even heard about the place. I HAVE BEEN MISSING OUT!! I, of course, did some research prior to going and every site I went to had great things to say – I couldn’t agree more! Plus, the menu had lots of different omelets and skillets to choose from.

One of the ways I measure a great breakfast joint is by their coffee because, really, eggs, pancakes, waffles… they’re pretty much the same at any diner. Now if you’re going somewhere fancy or upscale, that’s a different story… but this was just a diner/café type place.

Their coffee was perfect diner coffee right down to the carafe they set on the table after bringing out the heavy, thick rimmed mugs. Bonus: they had vanilla and hazelnut creamers – yes I did have a little (or as Mr. E said “OMG that’s a lot of creamer”) hazelnut creamer in my coffee. 🙂

It’s so hard for me to make a decision when it comes to breakfast because if I could have my way, I’d have a couple bites of pancake or waffle (I love maple syrup), a biscuit smothered in sausage gravy (not a bite, but the whole thing), a few bites of an egg thing, a couple slices of bacon and a bite or two of sourdough toast with orange marmalade. (Yes, this is what goes through my head every time I go out to breakfast LOL! Yes, I know I’m a freak LOL). So of course I try and sway Mr. E to something that contains one or two of these items so that I can steal bites. How do I do this? Well, I start before we even leave the house, talking about what I hope they have. (Of course, I already know what they have because I’ve read the menu online. He he he). Then when we get there I start reading the menu out loud, pointing out specific items of course. LOL. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. This was one of those times it didn’t work. He zeroed in on the Huevos Rancheros with the carnitas and salsa. I knew by the intense look in his eye, that no other item on the menu stood a chance. Oh well.

I ended up ordering a skillet (after much internal debate and conflict) …

and my Bestie ordered beautiful looking eggs Floretine.

We were all super pleased! By the way, I did get my maple syrup because I subbed a pancake for the toast (they didn’t have orange marmalade…).

So, next time we go I’ll just have to feed him Mexican food the day before so that my power of persuasion can overcome the allure of Huevos Rancheros. 🙂

Chicken Tikka Masala, Basmati Rice and “The Killing” Viewing Party

27 Wednesday Jun 2012

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There are a few TV shows that I religiously follow – one of them is The Walking Dead (this show is totally preparing me for the Zombie Apocalypse – KIDDING sort of) and the other is The Killing. Hmm, I’m not sure this is painting a good picture of me – I ALSO love puppies and rainbows…LOL.

So, when The Killing season finale was broken down into two episodes, we decided to invite our equally as addicted friend over and have a dinner-viewing party to watch the last two episodes together. So, let’s see The Killing takes place in Seattle and the only really “cultural” part of the show was that the victim’s family was loosely connected to the Russian mob…what do I make for dinner? Indian Food!! Makes total sense right? I mean there IS a connection somehow right? LOL I think I am lacking in my ability to pair food with events.

The recipes I use for these dishes are so very good that I don’t do any real modifications, except for using less onion than the recipes call for. BUT, I do that for any recipe because, while I totally understand and appreciate the importance of onions in a recipe, they are not my favorite. However, I do love extra crispy onion rings though I often pull out the onion and just eat the crispy coating. Mr. E. LOVES my onion ring leftovers…ha ha – not really, it usually embarrasses him a bit. I think that’s why he eats my leftover onions; he doesn’t want the waitress to see a pile of onion rings without their coating sitting in the basket… This is reminding me of a time I was making fried chicken and decided to make little batter balls and fry and eat those instead of the chicken pieces…. It was delicious! (Mr. E. did not partake in eating the batter balls – he stuck with the fried chicken – Fool) LOL.

Chicken Tikka Masala via Food & Wine, contributed by Grace Parisi; Basmati Rice via Food Network, courtesy of Curtis Aikens. The Garlic Naan was store-bought – I know, I know, I’m disappointed in myself too, but Trader Joe’s does such a good job! Even though I didn’t really adapt the recipes, I’ve still included some pictures, because I always think it’s helpful to visually see some of the steps in a recipe.

The first time I made these dishes I had to make a run to the spice store because I didn’t have some of them. I’ve become a huge fan of Penzeys, they have a great selection. The spices and herbs, I think, are good quality and I find the prices to be really reasonable. Plus you can buy smaller sizes!

I don’t remember where I saw or read this trick, but I think it’s really cool! Using the tip of the spoon you can really easily scrap off the skin on a ginger root which is nice when working around all of the offshoots!

The recipe for the Chicken Tikka Masala has two steps; one is making the marinade and letting the chicken sit in it overnight. Below is a picture of the marinade ingredients. Lots of yummy garlic and ginger!!

The next day, you wipe of most of the marinade and then broil the chicken in the oven. This step is really hard for me because the marinade smells so good and you just end up throwing it away! I’m sure (at least I think) that you could cook the chicken with more of the marinade on it and make a dipping sauce and have a completely different meal. I’m going to try that next… I’ll keep you posted regardless of its good or a FAIL. The directions say to place the chicken about 8 inches from the broiler. I was really worried about doing this and kept peeking every few minutes to make sure the chicken wasn’t burning. Mr. E was making fun of my neurotic-ness until I reminded him about the times I’ve overcooked (aka burnt) garlic bread. 🙂

One of the ingredients for the sauce is using blanched almonds that you sauté in a pan with some oil until they are nice and golden… I don’t really think you need a visual of this, but I thought the picture came out pretty LOL.

The dinner came out fantastic and there was even some leftovers for us the next night! A word of warning – if you use the amount of chili powder and cayenne the recipe for the sauce portion of the Chicken Tikka Masala calls for, it will be spicy. Even more so the second day. I thought it was perfect, but I do like it spicy. If I had been making it for my mom, I would have halved the amount of both ingredients.

I hope you give this a try – it is a bit time consuming and does require some planning, but the results are so worth it!!

Gardening and the Caterpillars’ Pak Choy Eating Contest…

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Gardening

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I visited my garden Saturday afternoon to see how the veggies and herbs were doing. No my garden isn’t in some communal location or far from my house… it’s in my back yard… my medium-sized (for a city) back yard and is maybe 30 ft. from my sliding door LOL. But rather than just quickly watering it or peeking at it from inside, I actually got on my knees and looked at my plants, checked for bugs and measured growth – I “visited” it. 🙂

So the positive first – my carrots (actually only 1 made it through the transplant, but it sounds so sad to say my carrot) is doing really well and is surviving the 100º+ AZ summer. I peeked through the dirt and there is a little baby carrot growing down there!!

Also, the kale, swiss chard and cauliflower are looking good, except there aren’t any buds or flowers on the cauliflower, so I’m not sure how it does the whole making a cauliflower part, I only have leaves right now. (“Making a cauliflower”??? I have no idea where that super intelligent gardening statement came from…LOL).

So while doing my happy dance about my carrot and kale success, I wiggled over to check out the Pak Choy. <SIGH> The bugs had gotten to it and were having a huge Pak Choy eating contest. There were holes and nibbles in a bunch of the leaves. So, I ran inside and shouted to Mr. E “something is eating the Pak Choy!” Without turning from his Fantasy League on the computer he grunted a “hunh, sorry babe…” I realized he wasn’t going to take this serious until I showed him proof of the catastrophic-ness of the situation! So I grabbed my gloves and started looking through the leaves knowing I would find at least 1 nasty, mushy, FAT caterpillar. (I don’t like touching anything yucky, gross or bug-y, I typically leave these things for Mr. E.) Sure enough I found one right away, I cut the leaf and very carefully and quickly took it inside to Mr. E and showed him the seriousness of the situation. You might be able to imagine his reaction to me walking up to him (or “sneaking up behind him” as he accused me of later) and showing him (“shoving it in front of his face”) and saying (“shrieking”) “Look at how big this one is!” Needless to say, he was immediately as agitated as I was, unfortunately it was directed more at me then the caterpillar. Ha ha 🙂

However, being the Hero that he is, he came out and helped me find and pluck 12, yes 12 caterpillars from the Pak Choy. We’ll have to check again in a few days, because we may have missed some, but at least we stopped the eating contest. I think the Pak Choy is getting close to being ready, so I’ll have to start thinking of some recipes for it! Hmmmm…what to make…

Tuesday Leftovers Night

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by frenchnovel in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

So remember in my Tuesday (6/12/12) post I mentioned that the other half of the quinoa not used in the stuffed Pasillas, could be turned into cilantro lime quinoa and that it was really yummy?? Well, I didn’t end up making tacos with it, but I did make a really great dinner using the leftovers from the Pasilla dinner and then adding a few fresh things to make a well-rounded meal. AANNNDD…it was MEATLESS again! I think I’m on a roll here. 🙂 (Mr. E is reading over my shoulder and shaking his head. Being a Wisconsin boy, he’s only going to go along with meatless meals so many nights in a row LOL). In addition to the leftover quinoa I also had some leftover Ranchero Sauce.

The Cilantro Lime Quinoa recipe is one I found online and is so good that I don’t make any changes. Link to the recipe:Cilantro Lime Quinoa via wholefoodmommies.com. One of the optional ingredients is Olive Oil. I have found that it doesn’t need it, but then I usually am eating it with some type of salsa.

Part of the reason I didn’t make tacos is because when I went to the fridge we had, red and orange bell peppers, tomatoes, variety of hot peppers and Mexican squash, which is like zucchini, that were in dire need of being cooked before they went bad. As I was yelling to Mr. E the veggies we had in the fridge, he started chanting “Fajitas, FAJItas,fajiTAS, FAJITAS!” Excellent idea!!

I sliced and sautéed some onion, red and orange peppers, squash and banana pepper in a skillet. Added some cumin, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper; not a lot, but just to add a bit of flavor to the veggies.

I made a quick sort of Pico, with chopped tomatoes (3), cilantro (1-2 teaspoons), 2 scallions thinly sliced and just using the white and pale green part, lime juice (~ 1 teaspoon), a bit of minced jalapeño and serrano peppers and salt.

We reheated the Ranchero Sauce and Cilantro Lime Quinoa (I had made it earlier while I was waiting for the Pasillas to bake), heated some corn tortillas and piled up our plates!! Perfect dinner to make after work, minimal mess and super easy!