Spinach Quiche

Ok it's been awhile since I last posted...and that's because school has been crazy hectic and I've been eating frozen meals for the past month. Pretty sad.

Anyway, I had a couple of friends over for dinner last night and I decided to make Spinach Quiche, mostly because I already had most of the ingredients in my pantry. It was very easy (took less than 1/2 hour of prep time) and a big hit, so I think I'll be making this more often. I cobbled this recipe together from a couple of other recipes I found online and added a couple of ingredients of my own:








Ingredients:
1 9" pre-made pie crust
1 10 oz package of frozen spinach, thawed
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 scallions, 1 thinly sliced and 1 cut into long pieces
1/2 cup of cottage cheese
1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup of roasted chicken, chopped
4 eggs
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Saute onions in olive oil for about 5 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the thawed out spinach and saute for about 8 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add two liberal pinches of salt and a pinch of pepper.
While the spinach and onions are cooking, combine the eggs, various cheeses, chicken, 1 sliced scallion.
After the spinach and onions are cooked and have cooled down, add that in to the egg and cheese mixture.
Pour everything the pie crust, garnish with the long pieces of scallion
Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 40 minutes, or until the quiche has developed a golden brown color on top.

Chocolate Pudding Pie

I had to make a dessert for a potluck last night and only had 30 minutes or less to churn out something presentable. I always turn to Smitten Kitchen when I'm in need of a dessert recipe and this recipe for Chocolate Pudding Pie did not disappoint. A couple of time saving tips:
- use pre-made pie crust, pick it up in the frozen aisle of the grocery store
- canned whipped cream, definitely not as tasty as self whipped cream, but it'll look just as nice
The pudding itself only takes about 15 minutes to make and anything in the shape of a pie always looks impressive.

Remember to constantly stir the pudding while it's cooking over medium heat, otherwise the bottom will burn and your dessert might or might not taste like burnt chocolate.

Enjoy!

Chicken with peach salsa

It's been awhile since I last posted. Moving to Chapel Hill and starting grad school has kept me pretty busy! For the first few weeks right after I moved down here I was eating whatever I could scrape together - ramen, toast, canned soup. It was pretty crappy. I'm finally slowly getting back into the swing of cooking on a regular basis. I've got a much bigger kitchen to work in, plus a dishwasher, so it's pretty exciting! Amar came down for a quick visit this weekend and he cooked a delicious Sunday night meal. I wish I took a photo of the dish, it was bright and colorful.

I usually go into a grocery store with a meal in mind and buy the ingredients that I need. Amar likes to wander around the produce section until he's inspired by something that he sees. This time he was inspired by a package of store made peach salsa from Whole Foods:

Chicken:
Marinade:
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 liberal splash of orange juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice from one lime
pinch of salt

Combine the marinade ingredients in a food processor
marinade 2-3 large chicken breasts for 3 hours
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Pan fry the chicken for 3 minutes on each side
Put the chicken in the oven, cover with aluminum foil, bake for 8-10 minutes
Meanwhile, cube one ripe avocado
combine with fresh peach salsa (or mango or pineapple salsa)
Take the chicken out of the oven, pour the chicken and juices over the salsa
combine so that the salsa is warmed

Serve with rice and beans

Indian Recipes

I had dinner at my friend Alex's apartment last night and he made a really great curry. While he was cooking, Alex rushed between the stove and his laptop, reading the cooking instructions from a website, showmethecurry. I've always been a little scared of making Indian food...the recipes all look so long and complicated. This website is really useful and well organized, there are lots of instructional youtube videos with awesome muzak playing in the background. I'll report back when I make a recipe from the site.

Tortilla Soup

Thanks Molly for the recipe!

Ingredients:
1 chipotle chili pepper in adobo sauce
1 14 oz can of black beans
1 14 oz can of chicken stock
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 package of frozen corn
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 corn tortillas, ripped up
2 zucchinis, chopped
1 handful of cilantro, diced (optional)
lime juice (optional)
avocado (optional)
salt, lots of it
water, lots of it
1-2 tablespoons of cumin, adjust accordingly
1-2 tablespoons of ground coriander, adjust accordingly
1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
1 teaspoon chili powder (optional)

Instructions:
Heat up a good amount of olive oil in a large pot, saute the garlic and onion for about 5 minutes at medium/high heat
Chop up one chipotle chili, take out seeds if you don't want the soup to be too spicy
Add the chopped chili to the pot, stir for a few minutes
Add the crushed tomatoes, chicken stock, black beans and frozen corn in all at once
Add water to dilute the mixture. Add as much or as little as you want, depending on how thick you like your soup. I added about 2 14 oz can's worth of water to the soup
Add the spices and the salt
Add the chopped zucchini
Continue to salt to taste
Put a lid on the pot and simmer at low/medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally
Take the tortillas and cut/rip them into thin long strips
Add the tortilla strips to the soup, stir and simmer for another 10-15 minutes or so.
Optional: Garnish soup with cilantro, lime juice and avocado

Saturday Lunch

This past Saturday, after blowing all of my cash on take-out, I had to make myself lunch. I've been so spoiled over the past week...my parents made me three meals a day! Whenever I come back from a trip home, I get really lazy about cooking and don't make myself anything for 3 or 4 days. Anyway, I looked in my mostly bare cupboard and fridge and this is what I found: 1 old lemon, 1 can of chickpeas, 1/2 a bag of red lentils, 2 cans of tuna, a couple of tomatoes. Not all that much I could do with this stuff, so I went on a quick trip to the grocery store to supplement what I had to make a decent soup and sandwich combo. I ended making an italian-style tuna sandwich and a lentil, tomato and chickpea soup (an adaptation of a Rachael Ray recipe.) Turned out surprisingly well given I was just trying to eat whatever I could find in my house. Recipes below (serves 2 with some left over):

Italian-Style Tuna:
2 cans of tuna packed in water, drained
a handful of pitted kalamata olives, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped (try to get rid of as much juice and seeds as you can)
a handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of olive oil
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt & pepper
Combine all of the ingredients, spread on a roll and add a few large basil leaves.

Lentil, Chickpea and Tomato Soup:
1 can of chickpeas
1/3 cup of red lentils
1 can (28 oz) of fire roasted tomatoes (or just regular whole tomatoes)
1/3 cup of chicken stock
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin

Puree the chickpeas and onions in a food processor
Cook the garlic in olive oil at medium heat
Add the chickpea and onion puree, combine with the turmeric, cumin and salt(liberally)
Stir for about 5 minutes
Add the can of tomatoes (juice included), chicken stock and lentils, stir and combine
Simmer the soup at medium heat for about 20-25 minutes, or until the lentils are mushy
Stir occasionally, use your stirrer/spatula to break up the tomatoes if necessary
Taste and add salt if needed.

Easy Sorbet

I just made a sorbet (recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman/NY Times) that was ridiculously easy and really tasty. It only requires 3 ingredients and takes less than 5 minutes to make. Also! It tastes any overpriced sorbet that you would buy at a place like Ciao Bella. Now that I've made my own home-made version, i don't think I'll be going out to buy sorbet anymore.

Ingredients:
1 bag of frozen fruit (I used strawberries)
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1/4 cup of sugar
A few tablespoons of water

Instructions:
1. Combine ingredients in a food processor
2. Blend until the fruit is broken down and the ingredients form a smooth consistency
3. Serve

Vegetable Soba Noodle Soup

I love this dish because it's healthy, versatile and super quick and easy to make. It's the perfect meal on a cold winter night...it's guaranteed to warm you up! You can use whatever vegetables you want....spinach, bok choy, carrots, mushrooms, cabbage...my favorite is a combination of carrots, tofu and enoki mushrooms. The following recipe serves one with a little bit extra.

Ingredients:
Half of a brick of firm tofu, cubed
1 scallion, chopped loosely
1 carrot, sliced into thin pieces
1/3 package of enoki mushrooms (the weird looking ones with the long white stalk and a very small head)
2 cups of water
1 teaspoon of hon-dashi (seafood flavoring, you can find this in any japanese grocery store, M2M in Manhattan sells it, it comes in a small round jar with a red cap. you can find it in the spices aisle)
1 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of miso (available in many regular grocery stores and all japanese grocery stores)
1 small fistful of dried soba noodles

Directions:
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil
stir in the hon-dashi and soy sauce
Add the carrots and bring down to medium heat
After a few minutes, add the tofu
After another 5-7 minutes add the mushrooms
In a small dish, mix a spoonful of the broth with the miso, until it turns in to the consistency of a thick paste
Add the miso paste to the broth and stir
While you're working on the broth, bring another pot of water to boil
Add the soba noodles and cook according to the instructions on the package (probably will instruct you to cook the noodles for 6 minutes)
Drain the noodles, place in your serving bowl
By now, your soup will be done. Ladle the soup into the bowl with the soba noodles
Garnish with scallions
Sesame seeds would also be a nice finishing touch.

Really Easy & Healthy Fried Rice

2 cups cooked brown rice
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen edamame
1 stalk of scallion
1 egg, beaten
sesame oil
soy sauce
optional: diced bacon

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a wok, mix in the peas, corn and edamame, saute for about 8 minutes.
Make a space in the center of the wok, pour in the beaten egg, scramble and mix well with the rest of veggies

Mix in the brown rice, add a small splash of sesame oil and one splash of soy sauce, mix well

Add the scallions at the end. Plate and serve!

Some things i learned....

...flavoring turkey burgers with turmeric and cumin is really tasty...
...mixing cucumbers with chopped beats in a salad is no good...unless you like your cucumbers bright pink....

Pasta with Arugula Pesto and Roasted Tomatoes

This is the fourth week in a row that I've gotten a big quart of arugula in my CSA share. I needed to find a way to use up all of the arugula in one meal, preferably something that I can freeze and eat over time. Georgia suggested that i make arugula pesto, which i've never done before. And pesto freezes really well and goes with anything - pasta, chicken, fish, as a spread, and the argula leaves tend to go bad really quickly in my fridge, so i really needed to cook all of it immediately. Arugula pesto isn't much different from regular basil pesto, you just substitute the one leaf for another. Argula is quite bitter, so I added basil olive oil and walnuts to mellow out some of the bitterness in the pesto. Even with the basil oil and walnuts, the pesto was still very better. So, when making my pasta dish, i added some roasted grape tomatoes to boost the sweet flavor. I topped it all off with some basil from my CSA. This was literally the best basil i've ever tasted....the flavor was bright and strong, and had a lemony after taste. The basil gives this dish a summery taste!

Arugula Pesto
Ingredients:
1 quart of argula
3 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 cup of walnuts
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons of basil olive oil (or regular olive oil)
salt to taste

Directions:
combine all of the ingredients in a cuisinart and blend until it has smooth consistency

Roasted Tomatoes:
Dice half a quart of grape tomatoes
Mix with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees

Orecchiette and Chicken Meatballs

I made pasta with chicken meatballs for my little dinner party on Sunday. It took a long time and rendered my kitchen a big mess of dirty pots and dishes, but it was worth it because it was surprisingly good. There's something really satisfying about making meatballs....mixing the lifeless ground meat with breadcrumbs and parsley and turning it into something that's hearty and satisfying is really fun.

I've never made a pasta dish with orecchiette...it seems like it's always placed on the highest shelf in the grocery store...the shelf that i can't reach. It's got an interesting texture and a bit more interesting looking than your everyday ziti or rotini.

Ingredients:
1 box of orecchiette pasta
1 pound of ground chicken
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup of bread crumbs
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 tablespoon of milk
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
5 cups of cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
a bunch of basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Meatballs:
Mix the ground chicken, 1/3 cup of parmesan cheese, parsley, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, ketchup, salt and pepper together and mix well
Heat the olive oil in a large pot, roll the mixture into small balls, fry on both sides for two minutes each, in batches

Sauce:
Add the tomatoes and chicken stock in the same pot and bring to a boil
Return the meatballs back into the pot, simmer sauce and the meatballs for another 15-20 minutes.
Add the cornstarch to thicken the sauce

Pasta:
Cook the pasta according to the instructions, drain the pasta and reserve a 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid
Add the remaining parmesan cheese to the pasta and add a little bit of the cooking liquid
Add the meatballs, sauce and chopped basil leaves and mix well

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

This is my second ever rhubarb dessert and it was much better than my first try. I got two stalks of rhubarb in my csa share a few weeks ago and I used it to bake a rhubarb and chocolate cake...which was ok but too dense...it looked like one large thick cookie. I definitely preferred the rhubarb/fruit combination over rhubarb with chocolate. I adopted this recipe from Simply Recipes and it came out really well...it was a bit on the tart side, so next time i increase the proportion of strawberries to rhubarb. Served with a big scoop of good vanilla ice-cream....it is really delicious.

Ingredients:
2 frozen pie crusts
3 cups of rhubarb cut into smallish pieces
1 cup of strawberries, halved
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca
1 tablespoon of lemon zest
pinch of salt

mix all of the ingredients together
fill one pie crust with the mixture
cover the mixture with the other pie crust, crimp the edges of the two crusts together and slice a few vents on the top
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and then another 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees

Cajun-ish style Catfish

This is the first and only real meal Amar and I have made and eaten together since we moved into our new apartment last month...which is a little pathetic really. It's just so easy to get lazy and order take-out or go out to eat in this neighborhood now that I have so many delicious options right at my fingertips.

It was a very tasty and colorful meal...the stir-fried green beans and asparagus we just sauteed, and the mashed sweet potatoes were also pretty straight forward. The fish recipe came from Foodnetwork.com, courtesy of Emeril. For the sauteed vegetables, i first cooked 3 cloves of thinly sliced garlic in olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, then i added the string beans and a pinch of water and cooked it over medium heat for about 7-8 minutes, with a cover over the skillet. Then I threw in the asparagus last and cooked everything for another 5-7 minutes, because those cook through pretty quickly. If the vegetables start to look a little dry, add some more olive oil.

For the sweet mashed potatoes, peel and dice the sweet potatoes into one inch pieces, boil starting in cold water for about 15 minutes, mash together with a few splashes of milk and a tablespoon of better...more milk if you like it creamier. Add lots of brown sugar, otherwise it'll taste slightly bitter.

Onto the fish. This was the first time i used a broiler to cook anything and the fish came out pretty well. Broiling the fish gave it that blackened char around the edges, but still retained the juiciness of the fish.

Ingredients:
2 large filets of catfish
3 pinches of salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
generous amount of olive oil
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup of bread crumbs
1 tablespoons of paprika
1/2 tablespoon of garlic powder
1/2 tablespoon of black pepper
1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon of dried thyme

Directions:
mix all of the seasonings
Season the catfish with salt and seasonings on both sides
combine the olive oil, fresh thyme and garlic, spread over the catfish filets
drizzle the lemon juice over the filets
add the bread crumbs to the top of the filets
add some more olive oil over the bread crumbs
put the fish in the broiler for about 12-15 minutes (the directions said to flip the catfish, but that made the bread crumbs all soggy...so i wouldn't advise doing that)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

We had a little dinner party last weekend...I gotta mention Nikki's delicious butternut squash risotto...it was excellent. Creamy and starchy, with hints of sweetness from the butternut squash puree. I made roasted brussels sprouts...I tried to replicate The Smith's brussels sprouts, but it didn't have the same lemony flavor. But still, it came out pretty well, the flavor was mellow and almost sweet, with a bit of crunch from the charred outsides.

Ingredients:
2 lbs of brussels sprouts
3 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 lemon
salt and pepper

Directions:
- Preheat oven at 400 degrees
- Cut off the stems of the brussels sprouts and peel off the first layer
- Salt the brussels sprouts with 2-3 generous pinches of salt
- Combine olive oil with juice from half of the lemon
- Zest the lemon and add the zest to the olive oil/lemon juice combo
- Pour the olive oil/lemon juice combo over the brussels sprouts and mix so that it's all coated evenly
- Roast at 400 degrees for 40 minutes
- Shake the baking pan occasionally so that all of the sides are roasted

Beef Stew

This hearty beef stew is a great winter dish. It also freezes well, so you can make a big pot of it and eat it slowly over many weeks. Chop the potatoes and carrots into large chunks, so you get big meaty bites with each spoonful.

Ingredients:

2 pounds beef chuck for stew, cut into 1-inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
4 medium carrots, peeled, halved and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 14 oz cane of chicken broth
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce
1 box of baby Portobello mushrooms, chopped
5 red potatoes, diced
2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans reduced-sodium beef or chicken broth
1 bay leaf
handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
two pinches of dried thyme
two pinches of oregano

Instructions:
Season the beef cubes lightly with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy 6-quart pot over medium heat. Brown the beef in two batches, for approximately 5-6 minutes per batch.

Scoop out the second batch of beef, then add the carrots and onions and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook until the onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the flour.

Add the chicken broth, wine, tomato sauce and herbs and bring to a boil

Simmer for 20 minutes

Add potatoes and mushrooms, simmer for another 45 minutes

Stir in parsley at the end

Chocolate Truffles

Twas Amar's birthday last week and I made he-who-has-a-major-sweet-tooth (seriously, the dude belongs in a Cathy comic) bittersweet truffles. I tried to make truffles last year and all I got was a hard lump of brown goo. This year, I measured everything to the T and hunkered down for 6 hours to make these damn things. Truffles aren't particularly hard to make, just extremely time consuming. So if you're just lounging around at home on a blustery winter day, tis a good time to make truffles. My truffles tasted pretty good but looked a bit off...I got sick of waiting for the truffle base to solidify, so i started rolling the chocolate concoction into balls before it was fully firm...thus my little balls of chocolate wouldn't hold up..it started to droop and flatten out as soon as I placed them back in my baking dish. So, wait at least 4 hours before you start rolling them into truffles...you can try to put them in the freezer for an hour, that might speed up the process.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
9 1/2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped - for the truffle base
8 ounces of bitter sweet chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped - for the outside shell
3-4 handfuls of walnuts, finely chopped

Instructions:
Bring cream to a simmer, remove from heat and pour over the 9 1/2 ounces of chopped chocolate
Stir until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate is fully melted
Refridgerate the base until it is firm enough to roll into balls, at least 3-4 hours
Once it's firm, take a large spoonful of the chocolate mixture and roll into a small ball, repeat until you've used up all the mixture
Chill the balls for another hour
Place the other 8 ounces of chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and melt the chocolate by stirring the chocolate chunks until its smooth and completely melted
Take each ball of truffle base, roll it in the melted chocolate and then roll in the chopped walnuts
Refridgerate the truffles for another hour.

Spaghetti Bolognese

I craved pasta and meat the whole time I was in Spain...one can only eat some much ham, cheese and hard as rocks bread. I wanted to feel the comfort one gets from eating a bowl full of heavy pasta. Cold little bocadillos just don't do it for me. So i made Spaghetti Bolognese at my earliest opportunity. This dish was both tasty and economical. Recipe makes enough for 4. Prep and cook time: approximately 50 minutes.

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 boxes of whole wheat pasta
- 1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 lb of ground beef
- 1 medium sized yellow onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1/2 cup of chopped basil
- 1/4 cup of grated pecorino romano cheese
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

Instructions:
- Heat the olive oil in a pan, saute onion and garlic for about 3 minutes or until the onions become translucent
- Add carrot and green pepper and saute for another 5 minutes
- Add ground beef and saute for about 10 minutes or until the meat is no longer pink
- Salt to taste
- Add can of crushed tomatoes, simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes (sauce should thicken up)
- Salt to taste
- Add chopped basil and cheese at the end

Molly's Birthday and Red Velvet Cupcakes

Most of the gang was down in DC this past weekend to celebrate the disappearance of Molly's youth and the onset of middle age. We had a great meal at Indique, although I spent of the rest of the night feeling my food slosh around in my stomach alongside champagne, bloody mary mix and birthday cake shots. Yum.

During the day we made a batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. For my first attempt at baking red velvet cupcakes, it came out decent enough, although it was more pink than red and was a little bit on the dry side. It also didn't have that hard to pinpoint red velvet "flavor". I used a recipe from Epicurious and had to substitute skim milk for buttermilk. After doing a bit of research on the web today, I think that the lack of buttermilk was the cause of the pink-ness of my cupcakes. Apparently, the chemical reaction from combining white vinegar and buttermilk is, in addition to the red food coloring, what gives the cupcakes that deep red color. (See! I told you people there is some sort of chemical reaction involved!) Also, most recipes called for three eggs and I only used two. An extra egg and buttermilk is probably what gives the cupcakes that moist and rich texture. Word to the wise: don't think that skim milk is an acceptable substitute for buttermilk.

Click Here to read the recipe I used. I would recommend adding an extra egg and another 1-2 teaspoons of red food coloring. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Chicken and Vegetable Orzo Stew

Daylight Savings Time is in effect and that means the sun sets at approximately 4 in the afternoon. Which means that it's soup season! This soup is very easy to make, takes only about 45 minutes. If you like hot, steamy soup and mushy vegetables, then this dish is for you.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 zucchini, diced into big chunks
- 1 package of frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon of thyme
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
- 1 teaspoon of basil
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes
- 2 cups of water
- 1 cup of orzo
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
- Sautee the diced onion in olive oil for a few minutes, until the onion pieces are translucent.
- Add the chicken and sautee for another few minutes
- Add the zucchini and spinach and sautee for another few minutes
- add the can of diced tomatoes, 2 chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cups of water
- add all of the spices
- bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes
- stir in the orzo and simmer for another 15 minutes
- add generous amounts of salt and the tomato paste at the end
- stir continuously throughout the cooking process