I love this time of year and Thanksgiving is the quintessential day for fall and winter flavors. It's cozy and warm and lovely. This dish is a great example of this!



For the recipe visit me at The Realistic Housewife

( Or under the cut.Collapse )

Yesterday my grandmother presented many large zucchini to me. And I wanted to cook vegetable burghers. Also, I have decided to bake it in the oven. Burghers were delicious, with the flavor of basil. Yummmmyyy!


( MORECollapse )

I always make the cranberry dish for our holiday dinners. For Thanksgiving this year I was pointed to an amazing concept - Cranberry Pesto. I had to make it. And I'm so glad I did. This is a great appetizer for any time of year!



For more, visit me at The Realistic Housewife

( Recipe!Collapse )

A great summer meal in a bowl! Filled with lots of yummy stuff like, cheese, salami, (you could omit that if you're a vegetarian), tomatoes, cheese tortellini, olives, spinach, and fresh basil.

More over at The Alchemist.



( Read more...Collapse )

These sweet potato fries are delicious -- especially with their tangy lemon garlic mayonnaise for dipping! To ensure you get crispy fries, cut them very thin and spread them out on the baking sheet -- they shouldn't be touching or crowding each other at all. This might mean using several baking sheets. Also, depending on the thickness of your fries, you might need to adjust the cooking time up or down to obtain crispy (but not burnt to a crisp!) fries. Just check early and often -- and remember they'll crisp up a bit as they cool as well.



( recipe + photoCollapse )


To read about work creep (no, not that weird guy that keeps staring at you from the corner cubicle), judge my cleaning schedule, and see more photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and bakebakebake

Today I decided to use some of our local veggies and wanted to make soup and bread. So I decided on chicken barley soup because that's simple enough and I can just put whatever I want in it. And I wanted fresh bread, so I used a simple french bread bread machine recipe and made the dough in the bread machine, then did the last rise and the baking in the oven. I used my new pizza stone for the bread and it worked fabulously. I just sprinkled a little corn meal on the stone right after I heated up the stone in the oven, then put the dough on it and it worked perfectly. I'm going to do all of my baking on that stone - bread, cookies, pizza, etc. Here's the bread:



And for the soup I made it without a recipe - I poached the chicken to cook it, then put it aside. I used our own homemade vegetable stock (we freeze all of our vegetable clippings and when the bag is full we make broth), with boneless skinless chicken breasts. I sauteed the onions, carrots, celery and garlic until soft (I added a little dried basil and thyme into the veggies, along with salt and some of Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning), then added the stock (about 8 cups). Brought to a boil, added 1/2 cup pearl barley and simmered for 20 minutes, then added the diced cooked chicken and cabbage (sliced into strips) cooked for 5 minutes, added the fresh peas, and cooked the whole thing for 15 minutes. The carrots, cabbage and English peas were all grown at a local farm.

( click for the soup!Collapse )

It was all delicious. The bread took time, but was extremely simple. The soup was very hearty and low fat. The only fat was a little oil to sautee the veggies at the beginning. This would be really good as a vegan recipe if you use cubes of extra firm tofu instead of chicken - it would be delicious.

No, seriously, I made something healthy! And it's not a dessert. In fact, I've got lots of veggie-loaded, healthy recipes coming your way in the coming weeks (and okay, a huge cheesecake, but whatever).

This Roasted Tomato and Onion Bread Soup has been on a regular rotation at my house this winter. Something about serving piping hot, bright soup over a toasty, buttered slice of bread feels rustic and satisfying to me. Best of all, each 1 cup serving of soup is full of veggies and has a little over 200 calories, making this recipe ideal for all the resolutioners out there! When I know I'm having a bowl of this with my dinner, I look forward to it all day long. So grab your snuggies, bundle up, and enjoy!



( recipe + photoCollapse )


To hear about my apparent inability to deal with cold weather, discuss how cold it is at your house right now (or how warm -- but you might get beat up), and see more photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and cookingupastorm

Originally posted by pinchofcinnamon at Quinoa with smoky eggplant and roast pepperTo view the recipe click on the post title. The cut works incorrectly.

( Read more...Collapse )

I just received some beautiful dried herbs from my uncle's garden--bay leaves, thyme, fennel seeds, rosemary, and sage. I'd love to put them to good use, but I'm not sure where to start. Any recommendations? I am still a bit new to cooking, but I'm enthusiastic and don't mind something challenging or time-consuming.

Some limitations--I have a very small budget, I don't care for seafood, and I don't have much in the way of baking equipment. Other than that, I'm very open! No allergies, vegetarian is fine, and I've never met a kind of cuisine I didn't like. If possible, something that stands up to being stored in the fridge and eaten over several days is always a good thing.

Bonus points for recipes including: lentils, black beans, green beans, peas, white mushrooms, carrots, collard greens

Thanks!

Spaghettini Estivi (Summer spaghetti)
Serves 4 - 6

Dice about 6 cups very ripe fresh tomatoes or alternatively a similar quantity of sweet cherry tomatoes. Mash some and leave some roughly chopped.
Add ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Add ½ cup fresh lemon juice
Add 2 tsp. salt
Add 2 tsp. Pepper
Add 4 (or so) cloves finely chopped garlic
Chiffonade enough fresh basil to equal about 1 cup loosely packed
chop a handful of flat-leaf parsley to equal about 2 tablespoons

Toss all together and let marinade (without cooking) at room temperature for about 4 hours. May be done the day before and left in refrigerator.

Cook either 1 pound spaghetti # 9 or linguini until al dente

Just before serving time strain the thin liquid juice from the mix, boil down to reduce to your preferred thickness. Leave the solids at room temperature (you want the raw tomato taste)

Recombine warm liquid and room temperature solids and toss all with the hot pasta

Top with grated ricotta salata or crumbled Feta to taste

Goes well with a side dish of that other ubiquitous summer vegetable, zuchinnie

Yum Yum!!

Hi all, first time posting here!

Here is what I made tonight, so simple!

Risotto (Serves 4)

2 cups Aborio Rice
3 1/2 cups of chicken of vege stock
2 Tbl spoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoon minced garlic

Combine all in a 12 cup bowl, cover with double cling wrap and microwave for 10mins, stir, microwave for a further 8 mins or until most of the stock is absorbed.

To add extras like mushrooms and spinach, add when you stir.

Chicken with creamy basil and lemon sauce.

2 chicken breasts
Sauce:
100ml Cream
2 teaspoons garlic pesto
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons leamon juice
1 Tablespoon of all purpose flour
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the chicken breasts slowly in a fry fan until golden brown.

For sauce, add all ingredients (expt flour) in a saucepan on a low heat, stirring constantly, add flour after it has come to a low boil.. stir vigorously so there are no lumps. You may need to add a bit more flour to make it thicken.. I didn't measure anything so just play with it :P

Serve on top of then Chicken Breast and with any vegies + risotto! :)

Also.. May want to half the risotto mixture as it made twice as much as needed!

Since I've been asking a lot of questions, and not sharing a bunch of recipes, I figured I'd give you guys this, which is a meal I made the other night for my girlfriend, my buddy, and his girlfriend and I. I'm not the best writer of recipes, but this is fairly easy, just add more chicken breasts for however many people you plan to feed.

Wrapped Chicken Breast with Proscuitto, Basil, and Mozzarella

Ingredients:
Chicken breasts, boneless/skinless
Thinly sliced proscuitto
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh mozzarella

1. Pound the chicken breasts to thin them to around 1/3"-3/8" of an inch.
2. Shape breasts to make it easy to roll into a log-shape.
3. Lay a thin slice of proscuitto in the middle of the breast.
4. Lay basil leaves enough to cover the proscuitto (about two good-size leaves).
5. Layer mozzarella on top of the basil (I bought the fresh mozzarella balls and just squeezed them to flatten them before putting them on the basil).
6. Roll the chicken breasts around the filling, using butcher's twine to secure in a log-shape.
7. Sear the breasts in a pan until browned on all sides, place in a 350 degree oven.
8. Cook until 165 degrees Farhenheit, or about 15-20 minutes.
9. Serve over pasta with basil cream sauce.

Basil Cream Sauce:

Ingredients:
Heavy Cream
Double Creme (speeds up the process of reducing the cream to nappe thickness), optional
Fresh parmesean, grated
A little yellow onion, minced finely
Garlic, minced finely
Shallot, minced finely
Basil, chiffonade

1. Cook onion, garlic, and shallots in clarified butter until translucent.
2. Add heavy cream, heat.
3. Stir in double creme, if applicable.
4. Stir in parmesean.
5. Reduce until sauce is almost proper consistency.
6. Add basil chiffonade and cook 5 minutes to blend flavor and achieve proper consistency.

It's yummy!