Dinner!

Tonight was a lazy dinner; I'll admit though, it didn't seem lazy with how it tasted!!  A couple nights ago I made pasta and asparagus; it was tasty.  Unfortunately I was overzealous with how much pasta I made, and overly ambitious thinking I would eat a whole bunch of asparagus.  I had about six cups of pasta/asparagus in the fridge begging for something. By chance I was flipping through an excellent cookbook looking for dinner ideas for the week and I found a recipe for Lemon Asparagus Pasta.  Luckily for me, the recipe called for asparagus and pasta cooked first.  I'm also on a mushroom kick right now, so I decided to add those too.

"Nom" is an understatement.  It was incredibly easy, and even modified it was super awesome.

If you have asparagus, give this a try; my changes are in purple.

Lemon Asparagus Pasta

• 8 oz angle hair pasta (3 cups cooked penne)
• 2 1/2 cups asparagus chopped to 1 inch
• 1 TBSP butter
• 3/4 cup Mushrooms, sliced
• 1 TBSP butter
• 1/2 cup green onions
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon peel
• 3 TBSP lemon juice (I used the juice of a whole lemon, and I thought it needed a little more)
• 3/4 cup milk (I used soy milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1 TBSP fresh dill (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg

1. Cook paste for 4 minutes. Add asparagus and cook 2 minutes longer or until tender. Drain.

2. While pasta cooks, melt 1 tablespoon butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and saute until butter is absorbed.  Add second tablespoon butter to the skillet.  Add green onions and lemon peel, saute 1 minute. Add lemon juice and cook until liquid is almost gone.

3. Beat eggs and milk together. Then add it with the cooked pasta and asparagus to the skillet with green onions. Cook over low heat until milk mixture is slightly thick, about 4 minutes. Do not boil.

4. Stir in seasonings and serve immediately.

2013 and New Beginnings

Happy New Year!

I know, it's nearly March already.  Where did the time go?  I've kept cooking despite my lack of blogging.  I've decided I'm back in a place in my life where blogging is an option.  We moved to a place where the dog is much happier, and we are too.  With a new place came a new kitchen...one with a gas stove!!  I also have a better countertop layout, so cooking is easier and faster.

In addition to this, I've given up dairy from cows altogether.  I'm much happier; I'm also happy I can keep having goat and sheep cheese in small quantities though.  While vegan cheese is a good alternative in some cases, it's just not the same as the real stuff.

Imitation food

Speaking of real stuff, the 2013 resolution that tops my charts is to go natural: cut the processed stuff and eat only natural food.  If I can't pronounce it, and it can't be eaten as is (as in: can this individual component be eaten?) then I won't eat it.  For the most part it's been relatively easy.  By avoiding milk, that reduces quite a bit of processed food.  Where I get stuck is chain restaurant food and my "drug of choice," Coke Zero.  I'll get there though!!

If you're wondering where my "immitation food" reference is coming from, check out Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food.  I'm almost through it, and it has been a fascinating read.

Cookbook

I haven't had as much time to read as I would like; part of that was my OCD project to enter all of my recipes into Living Cookbook.  It's been fun!  I love my cookbook system (Levenger Circa), and plugging all of my handwritten recipes and random print offs and scraps from documents long since lost seemed like a good idea.  I can back them up, and I can print them...which, if anyone has really used a cookbook, you know the pages you use the most usually end up covered in gunk.  It's nice to know I can just reprint those pages when they become illegible.

I'm going to finish getting the recipes I use out of the books the most into Living Cookbook, and then I'm going to have it printed.  I'm so excited to have a table of contents!!

So about food...

With my contents organized I'll have an easier time finding fun recipes to cook and share!  I've kept up with my strange habit of taking pretty pictures of my food, and those pictures have even ended up in my cookbook.  Next entry will have some of the food I've been making lately and some recipes.

Until next time....Eat Happy!!

Happy 2012!

Greetings from 2012!

New year, probably a new format, and hopefully a better commitment to this whole blog thing!

This year has brought a new commitment to losing weight, which has been going very well so far!  I'm part of a Biggest Loser competition, and the best part (besides losing weight) is it encourages me to cook more at home instead of eating out.

Today started the week off strong.  I admit, I did eat out for lunch; hard to feel guilty when it was the salad bar at Whole Foods though.  But I got groceries for the week and made pizza from scratch; and quiche too.  Quick breakfasts mean I'm less tempted to get something on the way to work, and because they're protein loaded I'll snack less.

Quiche

I made this quiche recipe; I swapped the regular cheddar for almond cheddar and used fake meat instead of turkey sausage.  Oh, and almond milk for real milk.  They came out super fluffy and smelling incredible.  I did have to bake them longer than the recipe said, but I really think it's my oven more than anything else.

Pizza

I've got half the dough from the crust left for another dinner this week; the recipe is from a pizza book I borrowed a while back.  The thin crust recipe is to die for and it's so easy.  The catch is it needs to rise for an hour...which, with my oven, really isn't that much of a catch...my oven needs a full hour to reach 500 anyway.


And?

And that's it.  Short post.  Happy to be back.  No promises on how long I'll be back!  I have great intentions but really, with the house, the dog, the cats, work, GRE study, and car issues.....this unfortunately falls under "hobby" and that just can't keep up with the rest of it!

See you when I see you!

Eat Happy!

Oh the Fall

Well, my last publishing goal didn't work, obviously.  Here we are in October.  We're all a little older, and life continues to putter forward.

As I explore life as a temporary single while my other half is at Basic training, I'm also exploring Vegan cooking.  I've mentioned before that dairy has become an enemy, and it has gotten worse the last few weeks.  For all I know it's stress and I'm misdiagnosing my own issue.  What I do know is that cutting it completely I felt infinitely better; so I'm taking the plunge and purging it from my diet for the next 10 weeks.  It's a good time to do it and it will only affect my meals...especially if they flop.

I've started a blog solely for tracking my Vegan adventure, if you are interested you can check it out here if you feel so inclined!  I would like to share recipes where I can, but most likely I will be sharing the books I'm using and name only the recipe that's worth mentioning.  I'm quite excited to play with the new ones I just picked up from the library!! 

Stick around, if you're willing, and I will work on being more present!

Welcome to Summer!

Greetings readers!  

Thanks for sticking with me throughout my hiatus.  It’s good to be back writing and cooking again.  And what a time to be back, with summer staring in full swing, gardens becoming lush wonderlands of fresh ingredients, and the farmer’s markets hopping with vendors and happy buyers.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Tonight we made Garlic Scape Pesto with fresh organic garlic scapes purchased at our local farmer’s market yesterday.  These are so fleeting we’ve missed them in years past.  I was afraid we’d miss them this year but we lucked out.  We bought two bunches, one is waiting in the fridge crisper for another experiment, one was dinner!

What is a garlic scape, you ask?  Garlic scapes are the flower buds that garlic bulbs put out.  In order to get the garlic we’re familiar with (a bulb with cloves) the scapes are cut, and the garlic forms cloves.  If the scapes weren’t trimmed, the garlic bulb would resemble an onion instead. 

This pesto is super, super easy to make.  My problem is the last time I made it was two years ago.  So I found a few recipes online, played with it, and it was good!  It needs a little work though.  It was a little strong and a little thick, but it was just as wonderful as I remember!!!

I’ve included the recipe for all of dinner below.  If you get the chance, give it a try!

Plans for the week

I’m not sure what we’re going to do this week, I do have a few bell peppers and another bunch of scapes.  It’s definitely grilling season so maybe we’ll play with the grill a bit.  We’ll see.  It’s going to be a short work week, what with the fourth, so that will mean more time to get back into the kitchen!  It has been one of the things I have missed greatly while work has been so crazy, and now that things should hopefully be calming down I will have more time to play. 

With any luck I’ll see you guys next week!

Have a great week and happy summer!!

Eat Happy!

Recipe:

Garlic Scape Pesto with Chicken and Sundried Tomatoes

Pesto

• 1 bunch garlic scapes, washed and chopped roughly
• ¾ cup walnut halves
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• ¾  olive oil
• Salt to taste
• Water to texture (plain yogurt might be good, milk or almond milk too…)
  
• Chicken, sliced bite sized (we used a little less than a pound, and had lots left)
• Sun dried tomatoes to taste (I used the ones packed in oil)
• Pasta of your choice (we used fresh spinach pasta, store bought)
• Parmesan or asiago

 ~Cook pasta according to instructions; once you get the water going you can work on the rest!

~Put all but salt and water in a food processor or blender

~Blend until smooth.  Add salt to taste.  Add water (if using) until it is as thin as you like it.

~Cook chicken in a non-stick pan, adding maybe 4 tablespoons of pesto to the chicken

~After the chicken is no longer pink on the outside, add sun dried tomatoes to the chicken

~Toss the remaining pesto with the drained pasta (it’s preferable if the pasta is hot)

~When the chicken is cooked through, add chicken and tomato mixture to the pasta

~Toss and serve, topped with cheese if desired

Long time no see

Well folks it's been way too long.  Work has been wild, home life has been wild too; never a dull moment with a puppy, that's for sure!

Meal planning, cooking and all of that has had major changes lately.  With the new job the time to cook is almost non-existent, and now I've started Weight Watchers, and that changes how we cook.

Needless to say we've been less than creative lately.  But I thought I would check in and with any luck I can go back to checking in regularly!

Thanks for sticking with the blog!!

No picture of any special food, but please enjoy the cute froggie cupcakes that graced a bake sale last spring.  I think they turned out quite cute!

Bountiful Baskets, Banana Bread, Cinnamon Rolls and Upcoming Attractions, Oh My!

Hi there!

I’d like to start by saying how excited I am the follower count is at five.  Talk about a great way to start the week!!  Welcome to the Kitchen!!

This week is another Bountiful Basket week, and we’ll have to get a little creative.  I have more broccoli than I know what to do with, along with two beautiful bunches of pencil thin asparagus…yum… We also have huge heads of bok choy and Nappa cabbage that are full of promise.  The most random though is a coconut…I have no idea what to do with it yet, but I’m sure we’ll figure out something!

I’ll let you guys know how the basket turns out.  It should be a wild ride this week!

Breakfast Breads

Yesterday I had a dilemma; I had six bananas on the verge.  Now, the banana bread recipe I have is my grandmother’s, and if I remember correctly it was her grandmother’s too.  The perk of this recipe is it assumes you’re using bananas that are almost beyond edible as wells as sour milk, a kind of cleaning-out-the-pantry kind of thing.  I have not used spoiled milk (in fact, I have never made it with regular milk, period) but I have used bananas that were…well…almost frightening.   So I decided to make banana bread.  My recipe calls for 2-3 per batch, and I had six.  So, logically, I figure I’ll make a triple batch. 

My first hiccup came when I realized I was almost out of sugar; that was an easy fix, I substituted brown sugar for regular and it gave a really nice color to the batter.  My second came in the actual amount of batter that a triple batch creates.  How much batter is actually in a triple batch is half again what my stand mixer holds; before adding six cups of flour there was approximately ten cups of batter.  Needless to say it took some careful pouring to cut the batter in half so I had room to add the flour…but the bread turned out good.  I probably should have split the one large loaf into two or possibly three, but it was still good!

This morning brought another baking whim: cinnamon rolls.  While my husband took his turn to sleep in, I split my attention between a new cinnamon roll recipe and our rambunctious puppy.  The dough was a little on the disagreeable side but the rolls turned out amazing.  Granted, they need to bake longer, but they were quite good.

Up Coming Attractions

In trying to keep blog posts flowing, I was brainstorming topics I could write on.  After some thought I figured it would be fun to write on different diets; what fun to explore Vegan and Gluten Free cooking, and further explore Vegetarian cooking.

I plan on starting with Vegetarian, as Vegan expands on the Vegetarian principles; Gluten Free is a whole new ball game for me, so it will take me longer to research.  Check back for new posts on these diets in the near future!

If you have anything you would like me to touch on, whether on the diets or something else, I would love to hear it!  Drop me an email at niaskitchenadventures@gmail.com or leave a comment!

Stay tuned for some fun explorations!

Happy Eating!