• Home
• Me & Food
• Recipes
• Blogroll!

RSS

Archive for the ‘Magical Magical Animal’ Category

Memorial Day Feasting!

Santana gets grumpy if we sit down to dinner and she hasn’t eaten yet.  She also gets grumpy if we do anything throughout the day that doesn’t involve feeding her or laying on the couch with her, but especially grumpy if she thinks we’re forgetting her dinner! In fact, if we say the word “Dinner” her ears perk up and she runs towards her food/water mat.  It’s adorable.  Matt got some cute shots of her wolfing down her dinner in celebration of Memorial Day. 

To celebrate the holiday and the extra day together at home, we got lots of chores done, had a bagel topped with scrambled eggs for breakfast (along with Daniel’s Banana Latte…SO good and super easy.  You have to try it!), grabbed soup from the market across the street for lunch, and tested our new grill pan on some burgers for dinner!

The burgers were made from:

• Ground Beef
• Finely chopped red onion and red bell pepper
• Cayenne
• Ground sage
• Ground thyme
• Salt & Pepper
• Paprika
• Cumin

We topped our burgers with bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cheese and condiments.  Yum!  We had some onion rolls from the store that were perfect and complimented the spicy, flavorful kick of the burgers! As you can see, I’m a fan of pickles 🙂

On the side we had Grandma Brown’s Baked Beans (who else has had these?? I can only get them when my mom sends them from home!), corn on the cob (from the freezer, sub par, but fitting for the occasion), and sweet potato shoestrings.  Our CSA box called these “yams”, but "yam shoestrings” sounds funny, so we’re going with sweet potato! Julienne, toss with a tiny bit of olive oil, bake and then salt! SO tasty!

Matt had a Red Hook Slim Chance and I went with a Berry Nectar + Vodka to wrap up the day.  I love long weekends…and this one was much much needed!

In other news, our car is ready to pick up this week AND take a look at my new hair cut! Matt likes the flash on the camera that makes me look like my chest is exploding with an energy ball and says he needs to look at me some more to get used to the hair. Hopefully he will recognize me tomorrow 🙂

 

Ooh ooh! I meant to direct you over to Erin at I Walk In This World.  She won some nut butter cups a while ago and I was SUPER delinquent in getting them to her because of some crazy life things.  However, they arrived across the country in pretty good shape (better than the ones I sent to Angelea for sure) and she seems to love my experimental flavors:

• Puppy Love Cups (I have actually made a version of these before): Carob heart-shaped cups with peanut butter filling.  Carob is the puppy’s friend…if you’re doing special baking for your pup, carob is a safe alternative to chocolate! And what pup doesn’t love peanut butter??
• Peanut Butter Scotchies: Butterscotch Cups filled with Peanut Butter
• Nutty Nut Butters: Peanut Butter Candy Coating filled with Almond Butter
• Dark Chocolate Cashew Bites: Pretty self-explanatory. Some yummy Whole Foods Dark chocolate filled with cashew butter. 

These turn my entire kitchen into a sticky mess for at least a couple days anytime I make them, so it is usually not a super-common occurrence.  However, I have some white chocolate chips looming in the cupboard and am tempted to take them for a test drive with some nut butters.  I love sending yummy treats to excited bake sale winners, but these babies are easy to make for yourself too!

Ok, Santana just started making adorable half-wimpering/half-growling dreaming noises on the couch behind me (I’m hoping she never grows out of this), so I have to go squeeze her and head to bed!  Hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and is excited that tomorrow is Tuesday already!

A few kitchen things!

Happy Memorial Day! We’ve spent the extra day getting some chores done and getting ready to make burgers and yam fries for dinner!  Plus, I’m getting my hair chopped off in a couple hours! I don’t have a plan and am trying a new stylist, so hopefully all goes well! Cross your fingers for me 🙂

Check out our new grill for the stovetop! I am really excited about this thing! The other side has a flat griddle, which will be wonderful for PANCAKES!

In the pan next to the grill, there are some onions cooking down for a really fun and delicious new sauce.  We had rhubarb in our CSA box this past week and I have never cooked with it, so I wanted to do something other than just Strawberry Rhubarb pie.  I found this recipe from Gourmet magazine that used golden raisins, onions and rhubarb to make a chutney to go along with some pork.  This turned out really great! I got distracted and forgot to get a picture of the final product, but here’s the chutney as it cooks down:

It worked really well with the pork, and we served it with some parmesan toast and some grilled asparagus (way to go grill pan!!) Also check out my meat thermometer at work…

the pork was cooked perfectly!! I cooked it to 160 degrees, the setting for Pork-Medium.  Then let it rest, wrapped in some foil and it came up to a perfectly moist, thick-cut pork chop. Yum!

Earlier in the week, we used up some ciabatta rolls and made italian garlic croutons to go on a salad with: lettuce mix from Full Circle Farm, frozen popcorn shrimp, random veggies and a parmesan dressing.  A very satisfying and light-ish dinner (the popcorn shrimp was not the healthiest thing we could have chosen, but it hit the spot and is exactly what we were craving!).  The croutons are super easy…tossed in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and italian seasoning.  Baked in a low oven. The ciabbata bread got nice and crispy on the outside, but kept a tiny bit of chewiness inside.  I almost lost track of them, but managed to pull them out just in time to avoid burning the edges!

   

As promised, I tried out my mom’s Crockpot apple butter.  Well, it comes from a local newspaper at home, but it was easy and I am excited to try it on some toast!

Slow-Cooker Apple Butter

• 5-6 pounds apples – peeled, cored and chopped
• 4 cups sugar
• 4tsp cinnamon
• 1/4tsp each ground cloves, salt and ground nutmet

1. Mix everything together in a large bowl and add to the crockpot.  You should use enough apples to have your Crockpot heaping full.
2. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour.
3. Reduce to low heat and slow-cook for at least 9 hours. (I planned this poorly and woke up at 4am to turn it onto “warm” so it wouldn’t burn while I finished sleeping).
4. Remove lid and continue to slow cook until thick and brown with no liquid left.
5. Even though the recipe doesn’t call for this, I wanted smooooth apple butter, so a little before there was no liquid left I pureed it with my amazing stick blender and then let it  bubble away for a little longer.
6. Fill containers.  The recipe says you should use sterile jars and boil them in a hot water bath to seal.  Neither my mom or I did this.  A) I don’t have the equipment. B) I don’t have the patience.
7. The butter will thicken a bit when it cools.  I put one container in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.  It made about 7 small containers of apple butter.  And it is GORGEOUS.

This is what the apples looked like after I woke up in the morning:
 

And the final smooth product:

Use this apple butter in things like my mom’s pork dinner.

Mom’s Blogging Debut

Keep reading for a mini-guest post from my mom with a hard-core apple themed meal!

I am light on meals to post because Matt was out of town all weekend and I didn’t do a ton of cooking. Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll be posting a more successful version of my fried rice…Soy Squared Fried Rice.  Stay tuned!

Before we get to Mom, check out Missy Maintains for a Rudy’s Organic Bakery giveaway! These products look delicious!

Ok, on to mom…a little info first.  My mom is hilarious and has recently been getting really creative with her food! So when she sent me some pictures of her Sunday dinner this weekend I told her I’d feature it on my blog if she sent me a post to go with it!  Mom doesn’t have a blog (sad, but true), but she does have an Etsy site that is great! Guess who designed the banner??? 😉 As I wrote about before, she crochets like crazy and everyone in the family has piles and piles of afghans to show for it.  This is spectacular!  I love afghans, and Santana loves to dig them (maybe I will try to get a video of this sometimes), so it’s good that my mom keeps cranking them out!  With her surplus of afghans, she’s created Crochet By Shelly, where you can buy your very own, spectacular, hand-made afghan from my mom! All proceeds go to benefitting my mom make more afghans! I think she’d probably be up for suggestions or requests if you had a particular pattern or color that you wanted…we haven’t quite figured out the Alchemy section of the Etsy site, but there’s a way to do this! ANYWAY, check out my mom’s Etsy shop for all your afghan needs.  First, though, check out my mom’s Apple Butter Pork and Apple Pie Sunday dinner!

—————————————————-

On the roast, I don’t really have a recipe..

I browned it (peppered) with olive oil on all sides on the griddle since it was out from making grilled cheese last night. Chopped up a good size onion and placed in bottom of crock pot after adding some season salt.  Had some small carrots and threw some in.  Placed the roast in.  Added the rest of the carrots.  Put some apple butter (Mallory’s note: My mom makes this from scratch in the Crockpot!! I have the recipe and plan to try it soon…expect a post about it!) on the top.  Threw in some beer (surprise – it was the handy liquid and didn’t feel like opening up stock). Turned the roast once and added some more apple butter and some water.  Too much liquid now, so I took some out and put in a pan to make gravy with later. Have no fresh potatoes so I add a can at the end – you know those cans dad always has in the cupboard for chili. (Mallory’s note: these cans of potatoes are SO handy! Not fresh potatoes that you want to eat on their own, but great for soups or random things like this.)

 

We don’t have a picture of the final product all plated up, but Mom’s new to this blogging thing, so we’ll let it slide…if she sends one later, I’ll post an update! 🙂 She said the pork was AMAZING and you could taste the apple butter all the way through. Yum!

PIE:

• I’m weak – use Pillsbury dough.
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

Mix that stuff  ( I put in a little more because I over stuff it so when it cooks down – dad still has lots of apples).  Add the apples sliced.. the recipe calls for 6 – but I use the whole bag from the store… When the seasoning is right and I don’t’ have to buy at the store, I will guess how many.  Mix apples with above.. put in crust (don’t grease pan).    Cover with other crust.  Do the sealing, fluting and all that good baking stuff.  Add some slits to top crust to let the steam escape.  Cover with that crazy thing to keep the edges from burning… remove 10- 15 minutes before done.

425 – 40-50 minutes.. 

Serve over vanilla ice cream!

I am crazy craving apple pie now! Thanks mom!!!! Miss you!

Super Easy Homemade Pizza

I love homemade pizza crust…it makes me really really happy. The problem is, I usually am not in the mood to make dough. So I have a ridiculously easy pizza method I use when we want that quick dinner bite of pizza. Just as easy and fast as heating up a frozen pizza in the oven (or toaster oven), and you have more control over the ingredients, which is always a good thing!

I use a homemade, Crockpot marinara that I usually make in giant batches when canned tomatoes are on sale, or when we have herbs at the end of the summer to use up. I freeze the sauce in small freezer bags in two-serving portions. Perfect for heating up and throwing on top of pasta for a quick dinner for Matt and I. Also perfect for defrosting the day before and using for pizza! Since we only made two small pizzas, there was still lots of sauce left, but that’s something that you can easily heat up and throw on some pasta or veggies or whatever you like for marinara (dipping sauce for breadsticks??).

Here it is:

 Top 2 whole wheat pitas with about 2 Tb of marinara, spaghetti or pizza sauce. Sprinkle on a little Italian Seasoning and Parmesan Cheese. Add toppings of your choice (we used what we had leftover in the fridge…pepperoni, bacon and some sautéed onions). Top with shredded Italian Cheeses (mozzarella, provolone, asiago, whatever you like). Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese is bubbly and just starting to brown.

 That’s it!! Let it cool for a few minutes, slice and enjoy! So easy! Pitas make amazing mini pizza crusts because they have a doughy chewiness, but also get nice and crisp when you bake them in the oven. If you’re just doing one pita, you can also just throw it in the toaster oven, which makes it even easier.

We’re crazy about pizza and are always looking for new ways to fit it into our meal plans! Since we had falafel on Monday night, we had leftover pitas, and this worked perfectly. It’s not NY style pizza, but it will definitely hold us over.

I am looking forward to the next chance we get to go to Queens together (I have NO idea when this will be) so we can share some Napoli pizza, right across the street from where Matt grew up. Look how happy it makes us! (Please note our awesome fake smiles.  We have perfected this artform.  Also, who thought it was a good idea to eat a giant pizza before we went to Herhey Park that day?? It seems like poor planning, but it was delicious!)

My parents are flying into Seattle this afternoon, so it will be a busy weekend of eating out rather than much cooking at home, so we’ll probably be a little sparse on the blog side of things, but maybe some new places will pop up to review!

Have a wonderful sunny weekend!

Baked Falafel!

To make up for our super-heavy comfort food dinner last night, we went a bit healthier after work on Monday! (We also followed it up with some Cherry Garcia ice cream…so it wasn’t completely healthy)

Falafel Pita Sandwiches

(adapted from this recipe)

What You Need

3/4  cup  water

1/4  cup  uncooked bulgur

3  cups  cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans)

1/2  cup  chopped green onions

1/3  to 1/2 cup water

2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour

1  tablespoon  ground cumin

1  teaspoon  baking powder

3/4  teaspoon  salt

1/4  to 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 tablespoon dried parsley

3  garlic cloves

Cooking spray

Pitas

Tzatziki or Tahini sauces (I made a quick tzatziki with plain greek yogurt, a ton of diced cucumber, a splash of lemon juice, ground black pepper and a tiny bit of garlic powder)

Sandwich toppings (we used more cucumber, the gorgeous heirloom tomato pictured above, thin sliced onion and parmesan cheese)

What You Do

• Bring 3/4 cup water to a boil, add bulgur, remove from heat, cover and let sit for 30 minutes.  Drain.
• Blend chickpeas through garlic until mostly smooth. Stir in bulgar.
• Form into 1/4 inch patties (makes about 12) and place on baking sheet lined with cooking spray.  Give them a little space, as they’ll puff up just a bit.
• Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking time. 
• They’ll get nice and brown and crispy on each side. Yum!
• Fill pitas and enjoy! (sorry for some of the fuzzy pictures…I was too tired and hungry)

 

This was really easy to make.  I’ve done fried falafel from a mix before, which is even easier (and frying gives you the most amazing flavor, of course), but this was SO good and so much healthier than frying.  They were a little dry, so I might add a little more water to the mix next time.  I also think it would be good with some red pepper blended into the mix as well.  Matt and I are crazy about falafel, so i’m sure I’ll have some opportunities to udpate this recipe!

We were missing our loveable friend, bacon (which got two minor roles in yesterday’s meals)…