Bread and Simple Dinners

Saturday Baking Trend

For the last three Saturdays I've baked bread.  It's been such a great way to start the weekend.  There's something to be said about taking the time to mix the dough, knead it, and fill the house with the smell of it baking.  We even shared a loaf with the neighbors who brought us cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood!

I've done three recipes too...this weekend was a winner for the standard loaf though.  I managed to make a killer "gluten" loaf that is super soft and super delicious.

This summer I plan on experimenting with sourdough recipes and rye recipes.  Yum!

Kitchen Time

Everyone has as sanctuary in their home, I think.  For some it's their bedroom, others it's their office.  For me, it's my kitchen.  I stream Netflix or watch DVDs or play music while I commune with the cooking gods and try my hardest not to submit any burnt offerings, food or otherwise.  There's just something special about putting your special touch into a recipe, that extra stir for luck or kneading dough to the beat of the music playing on your speakers.

I know a lot of people see cooking as a chore, something you have to do because it's required.  In a lot of ways it is, especially if you're on a budget and eating out every day is not an option, it is necessary.  It's really in how you look at it though.  We're on a budget; but cooking is like an adventure every night.  I can express my creativity and play.  I can decompress from work...which, let's be honest, chopping things with a really big knife is great for stress...and do something special for us.

I love my kitchen time, and I love my kitchen.  It's the best place in the house for me!

Simple Dinners

Tonight, despite being a Sunday, wasn't really a day to inspire lots of cooking.  I know, crazy after the shpeal before this section.  Sometimes being lazy is just how it is.  That being said, I still cooked dinner.

Lazy fallback #1?  Pasta with marinara.  Seriously.  You want to make it even easier?  Use jarred marinara that's pre-seasoned (I personally think it's still bland...but to each their own), or used pre-seasoned meat.  Tonight's lazy dinner was with Harmon's Spicy Italian Chicken Sausage and plain tomato sauce and those twirly pastas that I don't remember the name of.  Oh, and some of that homemade bread...from last week...it was the last of the loaf, so it was perfect for Texas toast garlic bread.  The pasta dish had no creativity (but you don't mess with perfection, and the sausage we used is perfect); the garlic toast though...oh my...softened vegan butter, garlic powder, basil (jarred in oil), and shredded goat gouda.  Baked for 15, broiled for 4.  Yeah.

This dinner is better than most dinners you'll pay for at cheap diners, and it's less guilt ridden too; based on my rough estimation, it was about, oh, $10 total.  For four servings.  Take that, budget.  I can win sometimes too!!

Have a great week everyone!!  Eat Happy!!

Soul Cooking

Bread

It's amazing how baking bread can make a kitchen smell like home.  There's just something about fresh bread that makes everything seem right.  I've heard some real estate agents will even get the oven ready breads and bake them before showing houses to make them seem homier to the people who view them.  Genius, if you ask me!

Nothing says home to me like bread; when I first moved out I had just learned making bread in my parents' bread maker.  After moving out, I learned the simple pleasure of making bread by hand.  By the time we got our stand mixer a few months later, I had developed muscles I didn't know where there from kneading dough and had an entirely knew respect for those who made bread without machines.  I develop my dough in the stand mixer these days but I do the final knead by hand; it lets me know if I need to adjust the flour or water, and no matter how chaotic my life is kneading bread grounds me and gives me a sense of peace.

Yesterday was the first time I've made bread since we've moved and it was overdue.  I feel like my kitchen is finally broken in.  Not to mention the yeast so was spectacularly active I ended up with three loaves instead of the recipe promised two...no complaints here!

Soup

Today was rainy and dreary outside; I'm torn on the rain though.  I love rain, and it clears out the inversion (nothing quite like tasting your air...yuck); not to mention it wasn't snow, and after the feet upon feet of snow we've gotten this winter, I'm all for a break.  The catch is our new yard is no longer frozen, and we're finding mud patches as the snow melts...which the dog is fond of.

Anyway, in honor the weather and at the request of my main cooking audience, my wonderful hubby, I made bean and pasta soup.  This is a great soup to kill off the random little bits of uncooked pasta that are left; you know the ones where there's just enough you can't bear throwing them out, but not quite enough to actually be a serving?  It's also great for those bits of bacon that won't go very far on their own (four pieces for four people? If you're creative, yes!).

The soup in the recipe below make 8 servings.

Eat Happy!

Bean and Pasta Soup

1 cup bacon, raw and cut into small pieces
1 small onion
3-4 cloves garlic
4 stalks celery, chopped
salt
oregano, basil, onion/garlic powder (if not using fresh) to taste
2 cans great northern or cannelloni beans, rinsed
8 cups beef stock
3-4 springs thyme
1/3-1/2 cup pasta

1. Cook bacon in a stock pot until cooked through and starting to crisp.  Remove from pan and drain on paper towel.  Drain all but 1 tbs grease
2. Cook onion until fragrant; add garlic and celery.  Season with salt and saute until onions are transparent and the celery beings to soften
3. Add beans to the pan and mix well
4. Season with oregano, basil and onion/garlic powders if not using fresh
5. Add stock and sprigs of thyme
6. Bring stock to boil and add pasta
7. Simmer until pasta is cooked
8. Serve hot and garnished with Parmesan (or asiago, or goat cheese.....)

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