Anniversary Meal for Two

As mentioned in my last post, we have not been cooking as much due to lack of energy. But, we couldn't break our anniversary tradition. Typically, we go out for one fancy meal and then we also make something together. Our past anniversary meals that we made have been a bit more lavish, but we did the best we could with our mono and lupus ridden bodies.

Let me back track a little. I have been spending more time at home and even though I haven't had the energy to cook most days, I have been looking up tons of recipes that I want to make as soon as I am back on my feet. This was one of those recipes. The recipe we chose to make was Martha Stewart's "Baked Sage and Saffron Risotto." We saw that it required little prep work, little active cooking time, and quality ingredients. It was really rather pleasant cooking this and it tasted amazing. If you are looking for a rich creamy risotto, this is not the recipe for you;but, if you want a different take on risotto check this out. Basically, the only prep work is mincing the shallots and roughly chopping the sage. Then you start the foundation as if you are cooking regular risotto (cook the shallots until they are translucent and then add the rice until mixed and shiny). Next, you add the white wine and saffron and cook until liquid is absorbed. Then you add all of the chicken stock at once (rather than 1/2 cup at a time stirring constantly with regular risotto) along with the rest of the ingredients-sage, salt, and pepper. Cover the dutch oven containing what you have made and put it in your 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes. All that is left is taking it out after 20-25 minutes and putting little pieces of butter and more sage on top and sticking it back in the oven for five minutes. SIMPLE AND DELICIOUS. We ate this with a side of roasted asparagus.

Take-Out and The Plague

The last couple months there has been lots of take-out meals walking through our door. We have been plagued with mono and other various diseases and apparently cooking requires a lot more energy than we ever realized. Grocery shopping, prepping food, and standing for long periods of time near a stove or oven became as insurmountable as Mt. Everest. With the plagues slowly retreating we are hoping to get back to our normal cooking routine. The few dishes we made over the last several months had to be excellent to be worth the energy expenditure. Below are some pictures and blurbs of the few and far between cooking experiments since we last posted.

First, we made "hippie-style" stuffed eggplant. Moosewood's recipes have never let us down and this was not the exception. This is a fantastic and filling meal. It does take a little prep work, but is worth it (even if you find that you have no energy). After scooping out the eggplant saute it with onions, garlic, mushrooms, and salt and pepper. Then you combine that mixture with cottage cheese, cooked brown rice, cheddar, thyme, hot sauce, sunflower seeds, parsley, and paprika. Stuff all that back into the shells of the eggplant and pop it in the oven. In 40 minutes or so a wonderful vegetarian meal emerges.



The picture below does not do justice to this amazing dish. We were down on the fact that we hadn't been away on vacation together in almost a year. Our last trip was to Portland, Oregon. We really wanted to recreate our favorite restaurant meal in Portland and due to the wonders of the internet it was possible without a sweat. Our favorite restaurant in Portland was The Farm Cafe. Not only is the atmosphere exactly the way we like it (homey), but the food is a local home run. Our favorite dish we had there was herb-crusted tofu in a marsala mushroom sauce. We shouldn't have poured the mushroom sauce on top of the crisp fried tofu, but we had decided not to make the mashed potatoes that traditional are served with it to save energy. I would highly recommend googling this recipe and trying it out. Ingredients needed without the potatoes are: extra firm tofu, soy sauce, marsala wine, water, thyme, salt and pepper, bread crumbs, canola oil, yellow onion, cremini mushrooms, herbs de provence (we just did our own mixture of what we had on hand), and silk soy creamer.



This last meal was a gamble. My soon to be husband's parents brought us back a cook book from their trip to Thailand over the holidays. The pad thai recipe looked so simple we just had to try it. It turned out that the flavor was successful and delicious, although it seems like we need a little more practice cooking the noodles.

Valentine's Day Feast

We hate going out to dinner on the actually night of Valentine's day, so we always go out for a special meal the night before or the night after. We cook together on Valentine's day and just hope that it turns out well. We hit the jackpot this year. Since we have decided that we will be honeymooning in Spain, we thought a Spain theme meal would be appropriate.



We opened a bottle of Marques de Caceres-Crianza 2005. After the first sip we weren't that impressed, but then after letting it air for an hour it really opened up and went perfectly with our meal. We started our meal with jamon and manchego. As I am new to eating meat, I am still getting used to certain textures; but, flavor was unbelievable. We then made a pizza recipe from one of the Spanish cookbooks we rented from the library with candied (or as my mom would say 'drunk') peppers and onions. Homemade pizza dough is a staple in our diets and we always have it on hand, so we thawed a batch and cooked the peppers and onions in olive oil, sherry or red wine vinegar and sugar. We Placed that deliciousness on top of our stretched out dough and 18 minutes later an amazing pizza emerged from the oven.



After adequate digesting we began to prep and create our own version of paella. We have made Mark Bittman's basic paella many times and love it! We took his basic recipe and added eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms and chorizo. We couldn't love our dutch oven more when this dish is removed from the oven.

Damn Good Pizza

I am not typically a person who flaunts or brags when I do something well (in this case nearly perfect). Below are the pizzas we made last night. We tried out our same crust recipe, but substituted a little cornmeal for the regular flour. It was AMAZING.

Banana Bread Ice Cream Sandwich

Long Time

I apologize for the lack of posting. I haven't had the time to write about my recent food adventures and I don't foresee having time in the near future (I am still holding my crazy job that is very time consuming, playing in a band, and now live with my boyfriend). I have been busy eating, cooking, and creating new recipes. Despite my lack of time, I would still like to share my food adventures. This blog will become more of a photo blog. The next couple of weeks I will be posting all sorts of photos from my gourmet adventures this summer.

This summer was the summer of ice cream and pizza. I bought myself an ice cream maker at the beginning of the summer (to reward myself for holding my job for a whole year) and well I have been obsessed with pizza for a long time and figured it was time to create my own. The first two pictures are of our batch of blueberry ice cream (which was one of our favorite this summer). The last two are photos of one of many pizzas we made.

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I love french fries. I especially love sweet potato fries. However, I have not had any fries in a long time (trying to eat a little more healthy). Today I decided that I need a little something on the side with my garden burger and there is nothing that goes better with a burger than fries. I had a sweet potato lying around and decided to try and make oven baked fries. I have baked sweet potatoes and regular potatoes whole many a times. My mom always made great oven fries-so I tried to recreate those with my sweet potato. First, I peeled the potato and then cut it into strips-trying to make them all equal. I dumped the sweet potato strips into a bowl and drizzled olive oil on top-making sure it spread evenly. Then I added some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder and mixed them all together. While all of that was going on my oven was preheating at 400 degrees. Place some foil on a baking sheet and spread the fries out evenly, then put them in the oven for 30-45 minutes. I like my french fries crisp on the outside-but soft on the inside. These sweet potato oven fries were delicious-I would make them again in a heart beat. They also were a perfect sweet compliment to my spicy jalapeno and cheddar garden burger.