Beets!!

Balsamic Beets

1 cooked beet sliced
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Crumbled Goat Cheese
Salt
Pepper


The entree was just a conglomeration of leftover pizza ingredients. This last Saturday, I had my nephews over and we made our own pizzas. I had leftover marinara, chicken sausage, and shredded cheese (Romano, Parmesan and Mozzarella: thank you food processor). I also had some sad looking basil and sundried tomatoes. I made the pasta and then drained it but left just a little pasta water. I stirred in the cheese, sausage, sun dried tomatoes and basil, and left it all on low. I have to say it turned out pretty darn good for a made up recipe.

So, this week's challenge:

I finally faced my fear: the pressure cooker and now we have all these beets. Okay, so my other fear was cooking beets, so two fears faced. The first night I quartered three of the red ones, tossed them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, then made a greek yogurt and chive dipping sauce. Yum.

You saw the results from night 2, but I still have 9 beets and I am out of ideas. Help please??

A few recipes and lessons learned from the dinner party

As I am enjoying leftover crust-less pumpkin pie over lunch, I thought I would share a few recipes and some leassons learned.

My last minute add on to the appetizers--goat cheese empanadas and roasted red pepper sauce- ended up being awesome! I am always a little leery of Real Simple's recipes because of some previous bad experiences but this was easy and impressive.

Ingredients:
Refridgerated Pie Crust (feeling a little less dirty about using them in this recipe than I have in the past)
Goat cheese 2 oz per pie crust

Spread out the pie crust. Cut small circles (approx. 3 inch diameter). I used a glass to do this. Put a LITTLE bit of goat cheese in center. Wet the outer edge of the circle and fold over. Then use a fork to press it together and give the edges a nice crimped look.

*You really only need a little goat cheese. I had a terrible experience making ricotta and jam pockets (shudder, cringe) and I put in too much filling. It was a mess! And it was disgusting so it was a lose-lose.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.

Real Simple said to pair this with corn salsa. You could, but I think it's much better with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. The sweetness of the sauce goes well with the goat cheese.

The other big hit of the party were the crust-less individual pumpkin pies. Essentially use your favorite pumpkin pie filling recipe (I have an awesome WW one that is fairly healthy) and put the filling in little ramekins and bake until the center is firm.

Two things I added that I would never do without: spiced whipped cream and ginger snaps.

For the spiced whip cream, whip heavy cream with:
2 parts cinnamon
2 parts ground ginger
1 part ground cloves
1 part allspice

Last night, I did 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and ground ginger, and 1/4 tsp of cloves and allspices. As I eat my leftover individual pie, I am still debating whether I would increase that or not. It's pretty subtle now and I can't decide if I want to risk the spices overtaking the dessert or if it would just enhance it.

Lessons Learned

1. If you want to actually enjoy the night: 1) Serve an appetizer so people don't get too hungry 2)Have a schedule! My biggest slip up was that I forgot to put something on the schedule and had to rush it so it didn't turn out quite as I planned.
2. People don't know if you screw up and are forgiving. I always have to remember that. Did people know the sauce was supposed to be thicker? Well not until I just admitted it now but oh well.

Dinner Party

Too tired for words. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

The Dinner Party

Part 1: Preparations

Tonight I am having a dinner party. Now what is the cardinal rule of entertaining? Never make anything you haven’t made before. Now what did I do with this dinner party? You guessed it! Broke cardinal rule with absolutely every dish that I am making.

As Manatee said, why make things easy?

With the exception of the dessert, the menu is designed to pair with Pinot Noir. But by the time we get to the dessert, hopefully the guests won’t be caring too much about pairing.


Here is our menu:

Appetizer:
Cheesy Mushroom Bread
Goat Cheese Empanadas with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce with Lemon and Basil

Salad:
Aragula and Spinach, Red Grapes, Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, Sesame Sticks, Feta
Balsamic Dijon vinaigrette

Entrée:
Roasted Chicken Breasts with Pinot Noir Sauce
Buttered Green Beans with Mushrooms
Roasted Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes

Dessert:
Crust-less Pumpkin Pies with Spiced Whipped Cream


Last night I made the pumpkin pies and the roasted red pepper sauce. I also shredded a pound of Swiss cheese (yay food processor!), cut up the mushrooms, and prepped the green beans.

Things I learned:

1. Parchment paper is only ‘oven safe’ up to 425 degrees. Lucky I learned this before I put into the oven but after I subbed it for foil when roasting peppers and garlic. I had an inkling it could result in disaster so I actually read the package. Oops. Worked totally fine on a pan.

2. Why haven’t I roasted red peppers before? It was so easy! I guess it's not technically a lesson but a pleasant surprise.

That’s all I have so far. As part of my heritage, it is impossible for me to make just one trip to the store so I do have to run back for foil, chicken broth and possibly either ginger snaps or ingredients for ginger snaps. The crust-less pumpkin pies need a crunch so I may add either crumbled cookies or small cookies inserted into the top. We’ll see.


How to Roast Red Peppers

1. Cut red peppers in half vertically. Discard seeds and stems.

2. Place on foil (or just on a pan) skin side up.

3. Mist with olive oil.

4. Broil for 10-12 minutes until tops are charred.

5. Remove and let ‘rest’ until they are cool to the touch.

6. Peel off skins and voila! You have roasted red peppers.

*I roasted garlic alongside the peppers for the sauce. I was supposed to put them into a foil packet but it worked fine just leaving them out on the pan. When I took the peppers out, I turned the oven off but left the garlic in until the peppers were cool to the touch.

The White Flag

Some people take in stray animals. I take in stray cabbages. For some reason, I associated my failure at coleslaw with my food processor. Tonight I learned it was not the fault of the food processor. I am just not destined to make good coleslaw.

The photos I took somehow did not even stay on the camera. Don't worry, you didn't miss much.

Imagine a cabbage the size of the basketball with the weight of bowling bowl.

Then imagine a small vat of brightly colored coleslaw (putting carrots through the food processor was way too fun, seriously, TOO fun, I had way too many carrots in there by the end).

So I quit. No more taking home stray cabbages, no more lofty dreams of non-dairy creamy coleslaw. From now on I buy my coleslaw at the deli counter.

And now I have to burn some seriously smelly candles in my kitchen. As Manatee told me when he walked into the kitchen tonight, cabbage smells like fart.

Lessons Learned

Looking over my last few entries, I realized that I was starting to come across like I actually might know what I am talking about. This is grossly untrue. Therefore I decided to start a tradition of posting 'Lessons Learned' to prove that I am still in fact learning thereby lowering the standards if any of you readers come over to our house for a meal.

1. If you touch one of the burners inside an oven, the oven will turn off. This is also linked to...
2. When baking salted eggplant and zucchini, juices from the veggies do not come off the pan and start a fire. Thank God. Also linked to...
3. Always check to make sure the oven is on when you think something is baking.

So when making Garden Casserole, the recipe told me to put my slices of zucchini and eggplant on a rimmed baking sheet. Now despite our very generous wedding guests, we only have one very old rimmed baking sheet. I also needed to toast breadcrumbs for this recipe and quickly decided (based on a previous lessons learned) that it would be far worse for a 1/2 cup breadcrumbs to end up on the bottom of my stove than a slice of zucchini or eggplant.

So I put a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom rack and prepared my sliced veggies and put them on two of my new unrimmed but awesome cookie sheets (Thank you Aunt Ellen!). This actually leads to another lesson learned:

4. Two cool unrimmed but awesome cookie sheets do not fit on the same rack in my oven.

Manatee and I developed a plan and rearranged veggie slices on sheet #1 so we could overlap them. Then I went to put in sheet #2 and I swear I wasn't throwing it in the oven, but in the process, one zucchini slice flew off the sheet (in slow motion) and landed under the racks and under a burner in the oven. Manatee came to the recipe with his new grilling fork (Thank you Aunt Bev) and in process bumped a burner.

Fast forward twenty minutes as I impatiently check the veggies and alas they didn't seem to be making much process. After I sighed and probably slammed a drawer shut, Manatee examined the oven and determined that it was no longer on. Oops.

5. Don't give up on something if you think it sucks. It may taste better tomorrow.

I hated the stuffed mushrooms we made on Monday. But Manatee didn't let me throw them away. At the last minute, I decided to reheat them with the garden casserole and with some additional baking time, they actually tasted good. Was it my low expectations? Maybe. The glass of wine I drank BEFORE dinner (see above lesson learned)? Maybe. But I am glad we tried them again.

6. If your oven locks down and starts to clean itself WHILE you have two pans of food in the oven, unplug it. When you plug it back in, it will reset and unlock.

Did I know this when it happened? No. Manatee figured it out. I could have also made this a here's what not to do:

6. When your oven locks down and starts to clean itself WHILE you have two pans of food in the oven, do NOT
1. Scream.
2. Call your mother who will also freak out.
3. While your poor mother is on the phone, pull on the oven door, yelling OPEN! Please Open! (Amazingly ovens do not respond to vocal commands)
4. Tell your husband that this is actually great because you can now get that stainless steel oven you have been fantasizing about.
4. Also tell him you will need new baking pans, a new refridgerator, new kitchen table to go with new appliances, or maybe just a new house...

Garden Casserole

This week, Manatee and I dove back into cooking. Our first night, Monday, was a bit of a disappointment. Well for me, at least, Manatee loved it but I am also blessed with someone who would be content to eat salads and hard boiled eggs every night so he still thinks all my cooking is awesome (Yay low standards!). We made white bean stuff portobella mushrooms. I admit, I was a little overzealous in creating bread crumbs (my new food processor is so freaking cool!) so Tuesday night I had a baggie of fresh bread crumbs and about 2 1/2 lbs of fresh tomatoes from our CSA.

I did a little online research and found a recipe from Food and Wine magazine which I modified a bit (due to reviews and my complete inability to follows a recipe) and it was stupendous. This will clearly be a staple in our diet. Even the leftover white bean stuffed mushrooms tasted good with it.

Here are some pictures, one includes said leftover mushrooms. We of course added a salad and voila: a complete hearty and healthy summer meal!

Ingredients:

2 eggplants

3 zucchini

6 oz of feta cheese (we chose tomato basil fat free feta)

1/2 cup of TOASTED breadcrumbs (toast them until they are almost black- keeps it from being soggy)

2 1/2 lbs of fresh tomatoes (any kind)

1/2 cup of fresh basil (chopped)

1 shallot (minced)

Olive Oil

1. Slice the eggplants and zucchini length wise 1/3 to 1/4 inch thick. *If you want to skin the eggplant, go right ahead. I did not have the patience for it but the original recipe mentioned it.

2. Dice the tomato into 1/2 inch cubes.

3. Brush the eggplant and zucchini with olive oil and lay out on two baking sheets.  Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.

4. While it's baking, heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a pan. Add shallot and cook for 2-3 minutes on medium heat.

5. Add tomatoes and cook for 1 minute Remove from heat.

6. In a lasagna pan, layer eggplant, tomatoes and then 1/2 of feta cheese and basil. Then zucchini, tomato, basil, and rest of eggplant and zucchini. Then rest of tomatoes and cover with remaining cheese and bread crumbs.

7. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

8. Take out and let the pan 'rest'. We did it for 5 minutes but it was probably 10-15 before you could actually get something resembling a slice.

It may not be pretty when you slice it but it sure does taste good.