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October 24, 2009

Original Sweet Potato Fries and Grilled Cheese

So although you already know the recipe for our delicious sweet potato fries, I had to post them again as they're always such a treat!! This particular occasion we made them because Caitlin came to visit for the weekend and we had to have her try them. We all made it a team effort to skin and dice the yams and by the end we had more sweet potato fries than we knew what to do with. As an added flair, we added some shredded cheese on top of the fries. YUM!

In addition to the fries, Greg concocted some hands-on grilled cheese slices for us to eat. These are fun shareable, warm snacks. We certainly enjoyed them!

Thanks to Caitlin for being a trooper and cutting like a pro and creating a whole new shape of yam fry. Come visit us again soon please! I'm thinking this month or next :)

October 27, 2009

Homemade Mac & Cheese topped with Bread Crumbs

Mac and Cheese is another delicious dish we all crave at one point or another but feel guilty indulging in. However, just like I discuss in my post on nachos, it is a dish which can easily be made at home and made just for your taste preferences (and calorie count!) instead of paying a high price for it at a restaurant. By changing a few of the ingredients usually included in mac and cheese, it can become a dish that you can enjoy with far less guilt. By using low-fat or part skim cheese and using milk (even 1% or 2% works!) instead of heavy cream or half-and-half, you already cut a significant amount of calories. Obviously, when having mac and cheese you know you're not digging into a healthy meal per se but adding vegetables can never hurt. In this specific case, I added fresh chopped tomatoes but any number of veggies could be added to mac and cheese. Some ideas could be tomatoes, zucchini, asparagus, peppers, onion, broccoli, peas, and cauliflower. As I keep repeating, since it has been so long since we made these recipes my descriptions and ingredient lists are going to be somewhat less extensive and I will try to replicate the recipe as closely as I can.

Ingredients:

- Pasta, any type you prefer

- Extra Virgin Olive Oil

- Garlic

- Spanish onion, diced

- Fresh tomato, diced

- Flour, a small amount

- Milk (probably 2%)

- Low fat sour cream

- Juice from jarred capers

- Shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

- Shredded Italian Cheese Mix (such as this one from Sargento)

- Basil leaves

- Crushed red pepper flakes

- Garlic Powder

- Salt, to taste

- Black pepper

Now, this is a loose re-interpretation of the above meal. I have made this recipe again more recently and always just wing it depending on the ingredient's I've got on hand. If I have ricotta cheese, I add some of that. If I have some heavy cream, I might add some. For a creamier, richer mac and cheese, you definitely want to use half-and-half or heavy cream as opposed to milk but it can definitely be done without (a little flour is the magic trick!).

Start your pan off with olive oil, garlic, and onion. Let those ingredients heat up until the oil is beginning to bubble, the garlic is browning and the onion is becoming translucent. While that's happening, put your pot of water on to boil. When the olive oil, garlic, and onion mixture is ready, mix in the milk. Put about as much milk as you think you want sauce. This is going to be the main base of your sauce. If you are using half-and-half or heavy cream, do not use the same method. In that case, use some olive oil, some butter, a little heavy cream/half-and-half, a little water, and some sour cream or ricotta cheese if you have it.

Continuing to the next step, add your basil leaves, garlic powder (not too much), crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. Add these all to taste. Turn the sauce down to a medium heat at this point and let the mixture simmer. Mix in about a tablespoon or two of sour cream. At this point, your sauce is probably not thick enough or cheesy enough yet. Don't worry! Start remedying this by turning the heat down to a medium-low heat and sprinkling a thin layer of your shredded cheese on to the top of your sauce mixture. You can sprinkle in some of each kind of cheese you plan to use, if using more than one type as we did here. Let the cheese melt a little and then slowly mix into the sauce so that it does not simply melt onto your pan and also does not turn into solid globs of semi-melted cheese (a problem we've often had when trying to make queso). Continue to do this until you've added a reasonable amount of cheese (not too much, not too little). At that point, your sauce will start to resemble your final product. Now add two large pinches of the flour to the sauce and slowly mix in. You will see your sauce

thicken immediately! Flour is a great thickening agent in sauces but use sparingly because it can become gloopy and nasty tasting if too much is added. If your water is boiling now or was before, the pasta should be in the water. Taste your sauce and make any alterations you need or want to (add more salt or spices, more cheese, more sour cream, a little more flour etc.) Cover the sauce letting it simmer on a low heat until the pasta is ready. When the pasta finishes, strain and put back into pot. Turn the heat off on the burner your sauce was cooking on and pour your sauce on top of the pasta and mix thoroughly until all the pasta is covered in sauce. If you are adding vegetables, add the fresh chopped vegetables now and mix well. The dish could be eaten just like this, as is, but we chose to bake it in the oven with bread crumbs and more shredded cheese on top. 15 minutes later, a warm, cheesy, crunchy heap of goodness was all ready for us to devour!

M

Finally returning!!

Well, well, well....

After a long hiatus Greg and I feel ready to....at least try to...catch up on our food blog. In the last 2 months or so many delicious dinners have been cooked and new recipes discovered. The cooking always continues in our kitchen regardless of whether they end up here or not. However, time does not always allow for the lengthy posts we so enjoy and last term was definitely a busy one for both of us. With the rush to the finish line being right before the holidays and then going home for Thanks, Christmas, New Years etc., we somehow managed to find no time for the food blog, however unfortunate that may be.

In any case, I am, we both are, really excited to be back and of course have amassed photos and recipes to share with you. Because, for some of them, so much time has passed, the recipes may be foggy or some may have no pictures BUT we will try to catch you up on some of the more important ones. Because there are so many things to share, my ingredient lists and recipe descriptions will not be as lengthy or in depth as usual. There's just too much to cover in too little time!! Let's get started!

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So we begin on the eve of our anniversary: Greg and I got somewhat carried away, followed our eyes instead of our stomachs, and made the largest (most ridiculously delicious) mexican dinner ever...in our history at least. We decided that we really wanted to aim for an all out feast and boy did we get one. With a huge platter of homemade Nachos con Verduras to "start" and for the main course, a quesadilla/burrito hybrid filled with all kinds of deliciousness, it took all our best efforts not to finish every last bite.

October 18, 2009

Nachos con Verduras y Burritos

Making nachos at home is really quite a simple task - as well as relatively cheap compared to the $7-$12 bucks they're going to cost you out at a restaurant. In most cases, when you order nachos at a restaurant they're never quite right. There's either not enough cheese, too few chips, too many beans, too spicy, too mild etc., but since nachos can be made to fit just about anyone's food preferences, they're that much more delicious when they're made by you and personalized for your tastes!

Because they can be topped with absolutely anything you like, it can be a chance to experiment. In our situation, we try to incorporate veggies in our meals every night no matter what we're eating, so although this is probably not the healthiest dinner, we gave it some health value by throwing a mixture of veggies (including fresh leaf spinach which was our experimental ingredient) on top in addition to a mixture of black & refried beans, a little ground beef for extra flavor, cheese (of course!) and at the end garnished it with sour cream and our homemade guacamole (another simple thing to make fabulously at home).

The nacho recipe is fairly straightforward so I'll just give a brief overview.

Ingredients:

- Tortilla chips, any brand or variety you like

- Cheese, usually shredded, in any type (or variety of types) you prefer

- Any other toppings you desire

As I said, very simple. Take a baking sheet and cover with a layer of tin foil to catch any cheese or toppings that might fall off the pile. The tin foil is really helpful because these spill-overs can be really obnoxious to scrape off the baking sheet once they've been burnt onto the surface for over 15 minutes. Turn the oven on to the desired temp and let it pre-heat. Next, put down a layer of chips. Another thing I've learned over time is that the more time and care you put into making your layers, the better the nachos will be. Although this sounds kind of silly, if you just throw down a layer of chips completely randomly you will have some chips with no toppings at all and some with too many (which end up getting soggy). Obviously chips are not perfectly symmetrical and they don't always lie flat but take the time to try and arrange them in such a way that they create the most flat, even layer you can achieve. Next put a layer of any toppings you wish. In this case, we put a layer of beans and veggies and saved all our beef for the top. Next, create your second layer. Again, try to be patient and neat. Apply your last layer of toppings, cheese included, and stick in the over. I don't remember the exact cooking time or oven temp. for these nachos but usually between 325 and 375 degrees is fine (depending on how impatient you are) and I would guess about 15 minutes should be plenty. Keep an eye on them and again, always moderate to your preferences.

As I mentioned before, guacamole is another treat that is always so overpriced at restaurants and at grocery stores yet so cheap to make. The most expensive part of this recipe is going to be the avocados, but once in a while they are so worth it. In terms of health value, avocados are great for you but only in moderation. Similar to nuts, they contain healthy fats but they are high in calories so keep your guac munching to a minimum. The following recipe is for a small serving so obviously increase ingredient amounts if you are feeding more than 2 people.

Ingredients:

- 2 Hass avocados, you'll know they're ripe when they're soft and squishy (not too squishy!)

- 1 fresh lime

- Fresh tomato, chopped small

- Fresh onion, chopped small

- Salt

Finding an avocado that is the perfect ripe-ness is always tricky. If your avocado is a little more firm, that's okay it's just going to take more elbow grease to crush it up. Now, I prefer my guacamole chunky and not too smooth so I crush my avocado and mix my ingredients in a bowl by hand however if you prefer a less chunkier guacamole, you may want to consider using a blender or a food processer if you have one available.

Start by cutting your avocado in half. Be mindful of the pit in the middle! It's best to cut around the avocado instead of trying to plunge your knife right through the whole damn thing. Once you have the two halves with the pit removed, I use a fun trick to gut my avocado halves. With the inside of the avocado facing you, run a sharp knife gently through the avocado vertically and horizontally, scoring it so that you have small squares. Don't push the knife through the skin on the other side. This will make it much easier to gut and much easier to crush by hand the way I do it.

(image courtesy of Google Images ©)

Once that's done, simply scoop your squares out with a spoon into a bowl. If the avocado is nice and ripe this should be easy. Once that's done, start crushing the avocado with the back side of the spoon until it's the consistency you want. Squeeze 1 or 2 small pieces of lime into the bowl and add salt to taste. Next chop a small amount of fresh tomato and onion and throw that into the bowl as well. If you don't like chunks, you don't have to include the onion or tomato. If you are blending the guac, blend the onion in to give the guac more flavor and add the tomato chunks after. Taste and as long as it's satisfactory to you, serve with chips, on burritos, or as we did here, on homemade nachos!!

(The burrito/quesadilla creation we made that night I will not describe in this entry because, to be honest, I don't remember what went into them but basically, fill a soft tortilla with whatever you like, cook in the oven and enjoy!)

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MORE TO COME LATER as it's my lunch break.

I'm currently enjoying spruced up Trader Joes vegetarian chili with tons of Trader's shredded lite mexican cheese and Cholula. Why does Cholula make everything taste so much better?!

M