Asparagus Spears, cut into 1″ pieces, leftover from last night’s dinner

Cheese, I had Mozzarella

Tortilla

Sauce, I used Pesto

Make a quesadilla the usual way & consume.

ABC = Apple Banana Compote

Last weekend my darling husband woke up begging (yes begging) for pancakes. I started ‘em cooking and opened the fridge (like a good multitasking cook) to grab the syrup and put it on the table. Instantly it turned into one of “those” mornings when “invention becomes the mother of necessity.” The real maple syrup container was–empty! I started scanning the kitchen. Let’s see…what have I got instead?

1 organic Fuji apple, peeled, cored, sliced and diced
1 organic and overly ripe banana, peeled, sliced and diced
1/4 cup (or more?) brown sugar
4 small tangerines, juiced
1 organic lemon, juiced
2-3 tablespoons butter
pinch of salt

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Add the apple and saute for a few minutes stirring occasionally. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir and cook over low heat until the pancake are done being made. Pour it over freshly cooked pancakes and Voila’. Instant delicious!

And the best part of the morning was Zena helping me in the kitchen. Here she is pushing the pots and pan drawer back in after I pulled the saute pan out.

And here she is after breakfast. We washed our hands. She licked hers. Yumm!

And here’s Queen Zena lounging on her favorite blanket after breakfast.

This led to my bringing up this blog, at which point Kassy whipped out the cutest little handwritten recipe book just chock full of made up food goodness. Well, you can draw a straight line from there to officially welcoming our newest made up foodie, Kassy Daggett.

I can’t wait to see what she posts!

Wife’s out of town on business. Kids put to bed, after cooking up what should have been a simple one-pot meal–that turned into a five-burner affair. Staring dumbly at the cooktop, full of scrub-mandatory cookware. This calls for a cold beer.

No beer? Agh. Home alone: what would I say to the cops? “Oh, I just left the kids in bed to go get some beer. It’s alllll good, right?”

Tired of red wine. Too warm for that anyhow. What’s in the pantry? Gin? Ok. Not a G&T, though. Hmmm. Here’s some Aranciata. And some Grenadine. Here’s what I ended up with: a refreshing, delicious, light cocktail. Almost tastes like an Orange Julius, surprisingly. There’s a slice of lime to cut the sweetness of the grenadine, too. I think it’s a keeper, especially for summertime. But as you can see, it works fine in January. too.

Sunset Gin Cocktail

put into a Highball glass:

• Crushed ice
• 2 shots Hendricks Gin
• 1/2 shot Grenadine
• 6 oz. Pellegrino Aranciata

Stir. Serve with a slice of lime. Enjoy!

1 C Rice
Salt
2 Frozen Tilapia Fillets
Sweet Chili Sauce
Sour Cream

Set up your rice cooker the way you usually do for the rice. I usually put a little salt in my rice. About halfway through the cooking time, toss the frozen tilapia on top. Close the lid & finish cooking the rice as if nothing happened.

When the bell rings, put your rice & steamed fish in a bowl & top with the sweet chili sauce & sour cream. Yumm!

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 9 glass baking dish or any medium sized casserole. Layer the following in the bottom:

• 1 can organic soy beans drained but not rinsed
• 1/4 onion, diced
• 2 pre -cooked chicken sausages, 1/4 in slices – mixed into beans

In a bowl combine:

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1-2 Tbsp Mayonnaise
• 1-2 Tbsp Sour Cream
• 1 tsp garlic (or whatever herb/seasoning you like)
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar or other real cheese
• salt and pepper

Pour mixture evenly over ingredients in the baking dish and top with an additional 1/4 cup of shredded cheese pushing it down into the mixture a bit.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean and top is golden brown and bubbly.

I used eggs and sour cream instead of the larger amount of mayo originally called for because I was scraping the bottom of the jar, but I think the eggs especially added a nice heft to the dish and maybe even upped the nutrition a bit. The end result was a bit watery in the bottom and next time I will drain the beans much more thoroughly before adding to the pan.

Although it could never be the same as the tater tot version this is a really tasty dish in its own right and one I know we’ll be making again – especially since its so adaptable, fast and easy. If you try it and create your own variation please put it in the comments and let me know how it comes out.

The original recipe (8 Minute Asparagus Couscous Soup – Quick and Easy) is on Recipezaar, which is really a great resource if you haven’t checked it out yet. Its so simple I hope they don’t mind me paraphrasing it here.

1 cup israeli couscous
1 bunch asparagus
3 cups broth – I used 1 Tbsp Better than Boullion Chicken & 2.5 c h20
parmesan cheese – I didn’t have any so I used a TBsp of leftover Parsley Pesto

Start the broth boiling and snap off the woody ends of the asparagus. Chop into bite size pieces. When the broth boils add couscous and cook 5 min, then add asparagus and boil for 3 minutes more. That’s it. I added the parsley pesto at this point and ladled into bowls. It smelled so good I burned my tongue because I couldn’t wait for it to cool down to taste it. I did end up adding a dash of fresh ground pepper as well but really the asparagus and couscous didn’t need much help and worked perfectly together in this simple dish.

I really wish I had taken a photo because it is truly beautiful with a gorgeous green hue. I was really pleased that the flavor of the fresh asparagus came through and the texture was perfect. This is the first time we have used Israeli Couscous (we bought a couple cups on a whim from the bulk foods aisle) and I have to say we are now big fans and will be using it a lot more. Its more like orzo than traditional couscous with a bit of pearl tapioca mouth feel. I plan to try this approach with other veggies and maybe even some meats. If you experiment with the recipe please let me know in the comments.

4 medium green tomatoes, seeded and chopped fine, salted and put under a weight for 30 minutes,
drained
4 small pickled jalapeno chili peppers, seeded and chopped fine
2 cloves garlic minced
1 small roasted red pepper (from jar) chopped fine

Mixed these together in a hot dry skillet then I heated mixing continually until tomatoes were softened and changed color and some roasty-ness appeared on everything. I didn’t have an onion in the house but would have added some minced red onion here if i did.

Added 2 tbsp limeade, since I didn’t have fresh limes in the house and wanted the extra sweetness to counter the tart tomatoes anyhow.

I let this cool slightly and added 2 tsp chopped cilantro (little frozen cubes from where else? Trader Joe’s), a dash of cumin, 1 tb olive oil, another 2 Tbsp limeade, a tsp of brown sugar and 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar. I used a handblender to mush this up and some of the liquids added above were mostly to get it loose enough to blend.

It turned out amazing – and addictive – and HOT. That kind of creeper hot that keeps you coming back for more. Next time, if there is a next time I will use less salt (I added a bit more than a tsp in the beginning) and less hot peppers – maybe 3 small to 4 med tomatoes. And I am really really wishing I had that onion around. Since its so spicy I am thinking of using this sauce, thinned out a bit for enchiladas with melty cheese. That is if it lasts long enough. Thanks for the inspiration Julie!

Since the weather is now getting cold, and I want to go out to the grocery even less than usual, I have started to make dinner with what ever is on hand. I tend to make a lot of soups and stews because I can make them in the morning or the day before and let them slow cook all day. They is very little prep involved and they cook a long time all by themselves. And let me say nothing is better to coming home to the yummy smell of stew cooking. I have never made two stews exactly the same and I don’t like to measure anything, but the basics of any stew are all the same. You need a base, some meat and/or veggies, some spices, and a Crock-pot. The following is the stew I made yesterday.

First, I browned some cube steak in dash of olive oil in a skillet. You can really use any cut of meat you have on hand, rump, round steak, cube, roast, what ever. I was using some of our lovely organic cow that we purchased this past summer. I must say that the better the quality of the meat the better the stew in the end. While you are browning the meat add whatever seasoning you like. It is best to add things that go well with the meat as this seasoning will not really penetrate the whole stew but will stay in the meat. I used some dry thyme, coriander, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. As far a how much of everything, they are in order of greatest to least… it was mostly thyme and a small dash of nutmeg. When the meat was browned on all sides, but not over cooked I covered it with red wine. I used pinot noir, but again use what you like. If you like to drink it, it will taste good in your stew.

For other stews I have used beer as the base, but had a bottle of wine opened so I used that. For beer I prefer the stouter variety for stew, but have used just about everything that is amber to black in color… My husband’s homebrew is my favorite.

While browning the meat I start to throw the other stuff into the Crock-pot. I used a can of chicken stock (beef, chicken, vegetable stock, whatever you have) Some more of the red wine, maybe a cup or two, kind of depends on how much stew you are making. The rule of thumb is that you just want enough liquid ingredients to cover the meat and veggies so nothing get scorched in the cooking process, also the liquid will cook down quite a bit. I added about 4 potatoes peeled and chopped, and handful of chopped carrots. I usually like more veggies, but having not gone to the store the pickings were slim this time. In the past I have used frozen and fresh veggies. Both work but the frozen tend to break down more than the fresh, they still taste great but kind of disappear visually. I also added a spoon full of horseradish, a good squirt of spicy mustard (you can use dry if you have it, but regular old sandwich mustard works just fine),a spoonful of beef bouillon, and some butter (about 1/4 a stick).

Next I added the meat to the Crock-pot and that’s it. Let cook for anywhere from 3-8 hours on low. Just cook till everything is nice and soft. You can turn it on in the morning before work and it will be nice and ready when you get home. One final thing you can do if you want is when you are about ready to eat take some of the broth out and put it in a jar and add a spoon or two of flour to it, shake vigorously to mix and then add back in to the stew and let cook for a few more minutes. This will thicken up the base a little bit and make it more stewy. Enjoy and have fun.

Last weekend our friend Lori hosted an outrageous Survivor themed multi-cause celebration and potluck. Steve cooked up some awesome terkyaki burgers to go with. It was going to be another hot one in the 90’s, so I wanted to make something fresh and cool.

I always look at potlucks as a time to get creative. This is usually because I didn’t think ahead to have the ingredients on hand to do a specific recipe and improvisation becomes a necessity. Mother of invention and all that,.

Taking inventory of the fridge turned up lots of broccoli and carrots and luckily we had just been to the farmers market the day before so we also had some lovely basil, zucchini and green onions on hand.

My typical hunt of the internet for some recipes to borrow from turned up lots of ramen noodle varieties and a yummy sounding broccoli coleslaw recipe to work from.

Alas, we don’t have a decent shredder and only a mini food processor bought from a friend’s moving across the country sale years ago and never really put to the test. I tested its limits with this dish though and more or less it passed.

This one came out well enough that several people have asked for the recipe and there were no leftovers at the host’s house or ours.

Broccoli Confetti Slaw
About 3 cups shredded, finely diced or mini-food processed broccoli
About 1 and a half cups shredded, finely diced or mini-food processed carrots
and for fun and because they were fresh I threw in a couple baby zucchinis as I was pulsing and chopping.

The mini food processor yielded the confetti texture which bemused some folks and more than one person asked me what it was and how you eat it. Someone even put it on their burger, which looked good to me.

I also ran 2 cloves of garlic and a small bunch of green onions through the chopper and sliced up a bunch of basil as finely as I could.

Once I had the base well mixed, I toasted about a half a cup of pine nuts, let them cool and gave them a coarse chop and tossed them in.

I also used the mini processor for the dressing, which i haven’t done before but will again. The dressing consisted of:

• 2 cloves of garlic which I roasted and cooled for a bit of sweetening,
• another couple green onions,
• 1/3 cup EVO (extra virgin olive oil),
• 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar (which was actually half balsamic vinegar)
• some sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

I whirled it all up and poured it over.

I think as the original recipe author did, letting this sit together to blend, meld and get to know each other is a key ingredient. So thankfully I had my butt in gear early enough to allow for a decent setting time before we ate. I think I’ll make some more this week.

If you try this or adapt it let me know what you think.