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Eggplant Parmesan

03 Sep

I’ve never made eggplant Parmesan before. So I decided to make it tonight. Couldn’t be that hard, right? It wasn’t. The recipe I made I thought would serve just us two, but I think it could have easily fed 3-4 people.

Starting line up:
•1 large eggplant, cut into rounds 1/2-inch thick
•2 eggs, beaten
•1/2 cup flour
•1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
•Olive oil
•1 jar marinara sauce, or any sauce
•6-8 slices provolone cheese
•1/4 cup grated Parmesan
•1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
•1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes

Preheat your oven to 435ºF

Wash the eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch round pieces. Add them to a large bowl and sprinkle some salt on them. This will help release some of the moisture so the eggplant won’t be soggy. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so. Then rinse them under cold water, to get rid of the salt, and pat them dry.

Get your dredging stations ready: 1 plate with flour, 1 shallow bowl with two eggs beaten with 2-3 tablespoon of water, 1 plate of bread crumbs. I added the oregano and red pepper flakes to the bread crumbs and tossed them. You could even toss them onto a cookie sheet and bake them for 5-10 minutes so they get toasty and golden brown. Totally optional though.

In a large, deep and wide skillet add enough olive oil (so it’s about 3/4 inch deep) and let that heat up

Take some eggplant, pat in the flour, then the egg, then the bread crumbs and set aside on a plate (while you wait for the oil to heat up). Continue doing this until you have all the eggplant prepared.

When the pan is hot, add 2-3 rounds to the pan and let them cook on each side for about 4-5 minutes.


Looking good! Once they’re all cooked, put them on a plate lined with paper towel to let some of the oil drain.

In a glass baking dish, pour the sauce. We just used jar sauce since I was lazy and didn’t have time to make my own. But making a marinara sauce is super simple. Heat up some onions and garlic in a sauce pan. Add a can of crushed tomatoes, your seasonings, you can add some tomato paste to help concentrate the flavor, and you’re done!

After you’ve poured the sauce into the baking dish, arrange the eggplant pieces in the dish so they’re snuggled into the sauce. Cover each eggplant piece with provolone cheese, sprinkle some Parmesan all over the top and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown and ooey-gooey delicious!

Now that I now how to make it, whether it’s the traditional way to or not, it was super tasty and was super easy to make. Enjoy!

 
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Posted in Italian, Main Dish, Vegetarian

 

Tomato Bread Salad

23 Aug

I’m hanging on to every ounce of summer. I love fall, don’t get me wrong. It’s my favorite season, but there is one thing I absolutely love about the summer. I love eating fresh fruit and vegetables, but I especially love it in the summer time when you know it was grown fresh near you. So delicious.

REB and I went to one of our favorite restaurants in town, Zingerman’s Roadhouse and I had the most amazing salad there. They feature it on their summer menu each year, and each year we’ve gone, they’ve been sold out of it! So when I found out it wasn’t sold out, I had to have it! It was just as delicious as it sounded and was described to me. And it was light!

I recreated the dish after figuring out what ingredients they used (and what I could taste). I can in no way take credit for this dish, and I know it isn’t exact, but this variation was just as delicious. And the secret? Heirloom tomatoes!!

What you’ll need:
•3-4 heirloom tomatoes (I bought some orange, a huge red one, some green), cut into bite-size pieces
•1 Roma tomato, cut into bite-size pieces
•1/2 loaf sourdough bread (day or 2-day old is best), cut into 1-inch cubes
•1 cucumber, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (leave the skin on!)
•10-12 cherry mozzarella balls, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
•1/4 cup capers, drained and rinsed (don’t get the kind in oil)
•10 basil leaves, chiffonade
•2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
•2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
•2 tablespoons olive oil
•S&P to taste

Preheat your oven to 300ºF.

What I found best was to let the bread sit for a day or two, then cut them into 1-inch pieces (you’ll only need about half the loaf). Place on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, toss and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown and toasted. I’m not sure if this is what Zingerman’s did, but I figured if it was fresh bread, it would just fall apart with the dressing. By toasting it lightly, it kept its shape and still sopped up the delicious dressing.

In a large salad bowl, add tomatoes, mozzarella and cucumber together. Add the capers, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, basil, and toss well. Add the bread in last, toss lightly. The heirloom tomatoes do it all for me. No, scratch that. The capers. I love capers. I could eat capers all day long, I love them so much. But the tomatoes are the star and they are so juicy and delicious.

Drizzle olive oil on top before serving and enjoy!

 
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Posted in Food, Main Dish, Vegetarian

 

General’s Tofu

04 Aug

Much like the famed dish that stars chicken, this dish is the perfect one for vegetarians every where! It has a ton of heat, the sauce is smooth and man, is it good. We found this recipe online but jazzed it up a bit for our tastes.

Here’s what you need:
•1 block of extra firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
•2 1/2 cloves garlic, minced
•1 1/2 teaspoons ginger, some minced, some grated
•1/4 cup soy sauce
•1/4 cup water
•1/4 cup orange juice
•1 1/2 tablespoons corn starch
•1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper (we LOVE spice, so we added more. This amount is totally up to you, though!)
•2 tablespoons vegetable oil

We served this with rice, so start by cooking some rice.

In a large, deep skillet coat the bottom with vegetable oil, about 2 tablespoons.  When it’s nice and hot, add the tofu and cook until brown on all sides.

While that’s happening in a 2-cup measuring cup (you know, like those Pyrex doohickies), measure out the soy sauce, water and orange juice. Add the corn starch, minced garlic, cayenne pepper and add some minced ginger and then grate some in there too, Stir it all together and finish cooking the tofu.

When the tofu has browned on all sides, reduce the heat to medium and add a few pieces to the sauce mixture to help warm it up to the temperature of the tofu. Then pour it all back into the skillet and then the magic happens. Almost instantly, you’ll see the sauce thicken into a beautiful glaze (ah, the beauty of corn starch! It worked in the 1950s, it still works today!). Let that reduce and continue to thicken for 2-3 minutes.

Serve hot over white (or brown) rice. Enjoy!

 
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Posted in Asian, Food, Vegetarian

 

Truffle Mac and Cheese

03 Aug

It was fancy dinner night in our household. REB found a recipe for truffle mac and cheese and so we tried it out. Now, I’m not a huge mushroom person. I’m warming up to the taste of them, but it’s a slow process. However since we’re vegetarians, we need to find protein in other forms, which mushrooms fulfill.

The recipe he found was out of Maxim magazine in a segment about “foods guys can cook”, or whatever. The chef is Graham Elliot Bowles from Chicago, IL, and this dish actually tasted great. We changed it up a bit, but for the most part, it’s great as is.

What you’ll need:
•2 cups pasta (we used Cavatappi, my favorite kind of pasta!)
•1 can cream of mushroom soup (I bought the low fat, low sodium variety)
•1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated (more like 1/2 cup for us :-X oops)
•1/4 cup Provolone cheese, grated (more like 1/2 cup of us :-X oops)
•1 tablespoon white truffle oil
•12 Cremini mushrooms, whole
•1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

If you noticed, the star ingredient in this dish is white truffle oil. So what the heck is it?


Truffle oil is basically a cop-out move to add truffle flavor with olive oil, rather than spending a whole lot of money to buy real truffles. And believe me, you can buy real truffles. I saw them in a locked up box in Wegmans store in upstate New York. Crazy stuff. Anyway, I bought this bottle which will last me forever because I have no idea what else I’ll use it for, but oh well. Another pretty something to add to my pantry. It’s a smooth flavor though and believe it or not, we could taste it in our dish.

So start by boiling the water for your pasta. While that’s going, heat up the cream of mushroom soup in another saucepan. No need to add water, let the soup just kind of warm away on low heat. Once it’s heated through and it starts to kind of bubble, whisk in the cheese and the add the truffle oil. You want to whisk and/or stir until the whole thing is smooth in texture. Then take it off the heat and set it aside.

While all this is happening, heat oil in a large saute pan. Add some regular olive oil to the pan and wait until it’s screaming hot (almost smoking), then add in the mushrooms. Now, this recipe calls for 12 whole Cremini mushrooms (baby Portabellas). However if you remember, I said I’m still getting adjusted to the taste of mushrooms, so I sliced a few up. The end result was having some texture to the dish, which is always a plus!

Cook the mushrooms for about 7-10 minutes, then add the sherry vinegar and let it cook an additional 2-3 minutes. The smell. I can’t even begin to describe the smell in our kitchen. It smelled so, so amazing.

Once the pasta is cooked, we scooped out about a cup of pasta water in case we needed it (we ended up not needing it), drained it then tossed the pasta into the mushroom sauce and then added the whole thing to the saute pan to mix with the mushrooms.

For a girl who isn’t 100% sold on mushrooms, I absolutely loved this dish. It was the perfect serving, full of protein and flavor and made me appreciate mushrooms just a little more. Of course, I didn’t eat any of the whole ones, but I did love eating the ones I sliced up!


Add some Parmesan shavings and cracked pepper on top and enjoy!

 
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Posted in Food, Main Dish, Pasta, Vegetarian

 

Kheer [Indian Rice Pudding]

19 Jul


I made Kheer tonight, which is Indian rice pudding. I don’t eat a lot of Indian desserts because they can sometimes be too sweet, but kheer isn’t so bad. This Indian dessert happens to be REB’s favorite. It’s velvety and rich, and has a nutty bite to it. It’s also incredibly easy to make!

He started his new job today so to celebrate, I made my mom’s kheer recipe just for him.

What you’ll need:
•1/2 cup uncooked Basmati rice, washed and drained (Basmati rice is long-rain Indian rice. The typical rice used in Indian cooking)
•4 cups milk
•3 tablespoons sugar
•5-7 cardamom seeds (in pod)
•1/2 teaspoon slivered almonds
•1/2 teaspoon crushed pistachios

In a saucepan, add the rice, sugar and milk and let it come to a boil (will take about 15-20 minutes). Since I’ve never made it before, I kept stirring it the whole time. You don’t want the milk to burn or it basically ruins the whole dish. Plus, if you let it sit around for that amount of time, it’ll get that nasty skin on top (not a fan of that), so I kept it moving.

Once it has come to a boil, you want to let it simmer gently until the rice is cooked and the milk has thickened. You’ll see the rice plump up and you can taste it to make sure it’s cooked. This took about another 15-20 minutes.

Add in the almonds, pistachios and the cardamom (in the pod and all!) and stir. Some optional ingredients you could put in to add a rich flavor include: rose water, ghee (clarified butter – very big in Indian cooking) or golden raisins.

It’s best and typically served warm, but you could serve it cold. Garnish with pistachios, almonds, cardamom, mint and enjoy!

 
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Posted in Desserts, Food, Indian

 

Caprese Salad

09 Jul

The colors of Italy never looked so good! This super simple, and very popular salad is one I love anytime of year. However, having this salad in the summer with fresh ingredients is how I like it best.

What you’ll need:
•1 tomato, sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
•Fresh mozzarella, sliced in to 1/4-thick slices
•9 fresh basil leaves
•Balsamic vinegar
•Olive oil
•Sea salt
•Freshly ground black pepper

You’ll need three slices of tomato and three slices of the fresh mozzarella. Layer tomato, mozzarella, two basil leaves until you have a little stack.
Take the remaining basil leaves, roll them up, and slice them (chiffonade) into ribbons. Sprinkle that on top, along with a splash of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. It’s as simple as that!

 
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Posted in Food, Italian, Sides

 

Baked potato wedges

06 Jul


A very simple recipe and I’m sure most people can figure out how to do it. I thought I’d share how we make ‘em! Sure beats deep frying some potatoes for super oily, greasy french fries.

Here’s what you need:


•3-4 potatoes. We figured about 1 potato per person, but I love potatoes, soooo..really we split up 3-4 potatoes between us ;) Don’t worry, I worked it off after dinner (damn you, Jillian Michaels!)
•Cookie sheet
•Olive oil
•Sea salt

You’ll also need a potato brush.

A what?


This. Really, we just bought a soft-bristle brush to clean the potatoes. Any brush will do.

So first thing is preheat your oven to 350ºF


Clean the potatoes under cold water with the brush. You don’t want to scrub too hard to rub away the skin. Just get the dirt off of ‘em.


All clean! Clearly I rubbed too hard on some of them, but I guess really it’s OK ;-)



Cut the potatoes length-wise and then into wedges or strips.


Drizzle olive oil on them and some sea salt, then toss around. Arrange in a single layer and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, they should be fork tender. Turn the broil on and stick them under the broiler for 5-7 minutes until they turn crispy and delicious.

You can add some seasoning salt right when they come out of the oven, or keep it simple with salt and pepper.

The last time we made these, we actually sprinkled rosemary and olive oil on them and baked them off that way. They were soooo good! You could also mince some garlic and do Parmesan cheese and garlic or something. The possibilities are endless! What I do know is that they’re delicious and definitely a better option than deep frying in oil. Enjoy!

 
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Posted in Food, Sides

 

RLB’s Warm Pasta Salad

25 Jun

REB’s brother makes the most amazing warm pasta salad. We’ve made it a few times and I’ve posted pictures of it on Flickr, but I decided it was time to post the recipe since I actually asked REB to tell me how much of what he put in.

This pasta salad evolved when REB and his family were in Vermont, where they vacationed every year when they were growing up (right through college, actually). They own a share out there and trek out there for a week. Apparently one time while out getting groceries, they wanted to get this pasta salad that looked uber delicious, but cost quite a bit (common in Vermont: the land of organic, delicious food). REB’s brother, who we’ll call RLB (/wink), said he could probably make it, so they bought some ingredients, went back to their share, and he made it. It was a success.

The first time I had this dish I was in heaven. it’s so simple and reminds me of summer and also reminds me of REB’s family. We try to make it a few times a year, but it makes a TON so be prepared to have leftovers for 3-4 days. This easily serves about 8-10. I’m sure it should be served as a side dish, but it always is a main dish for us.

Here’s what you’ll need:

•1 1/2 pounds Penne (that’s 1 1/2 boxes ;))
•1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
•1 red bell pepper, chopped
•1 orange bell pepper, chopped
•1 green bell pepper, chopped (optional)
•1/4 cup (basically cut a smaller half) red onion, chopped
•1 8 oz. block fat free mozzarella cheese, cut into cubes
•1 can medium whole black olives (or whatever olive you prefer…we think black works better than green in this dish though) NOTE: save about half the liquid from the can
•1/2 cup olive oil (I know that sounds like a lot, but you’re making it in a big vat, so it’s not THAT bad
•1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce (more if you want a real kick)
•1/2 cup red wine vinegar
•1/2 the liquid from the can of olives
•Couple splashes of balsamic vinegar (you don’t want this dish to be sweet though, so 1-2 splashes will be fine)
•S&P to taste

A disclaimer:


In addition to the block of mozzarella cheese, we also buy fresh mozzarella. We don’t use the whole thing, but this is what we top the whole dish with (just a few pieces) so it kind of melts into ooey-gooey-cheesy-heaven as you eat it. This is totally optional and you’ll have leftovers of this cheese to make an antipasti platter or Caprese salad or whatever.

On to the cooking!

Boil water and cook the pasta according to the package. Drain and set aside. Add the dressing/liquid, half the cubed cheese and stir. Then you add the vegetables and the rest of the cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Top with the fresh mozzarella if you want, or it’s ready to go! We eat it warm, but it really tastes best if you let it sit a day and then reheat it. I don’t know why, but it does. Or you can have it cold as a side dish.


It’s the perfect summer dish and yes, it has a lot of dressing, but it’s well distributed so it’s actually quite light. I love it! And the best part is eating it for the next three days. Enjoy!

 
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Posted in Food, Main Dish, Pasta, Sides, Vegetarian

 

Tindora Curry (Kundru)

21 Jun

I made Tindora Curry or Kundru (as it’s pronounced in Telugu) tonight. It is definitely not my favorite, but REB absolutely loves it after he had it at my parents house. My mom, of course, makes it the best, but I tried tonight and it actually turned out pretty good. So good that I even had some [gasp].

Tindora, or Ivy Gourd, is actually only found in the eastern side of the world (Philippines, Asia, India, Thailand, etc.). It’s a fruit of the ivy gourd weed (I know, I know) and is most commonly sliced up and cooked as a curry.

It’s super easy to make, too. I’m not sure at all how my mom makes it but I threw something together and the key was: spice!

What you need:
•Tindora (2 cups, sliced)
•1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
•1 small onion, finely chopped
•1/2 tablespoon ginger, grated
•Salt to taste

Heat some oil in a frying pan and cook the onion until soft. Add the tindora, and cook for 15-20 minutes. You can even buy tindora frozen at the Indian grocery store and it will take less time to cook. The garam masala gets added next and I grate the ginger right over the pan so it kind of melts into everything (amazing). Add salt to taste.

And that’s it! It’s super easy to make and really good for you, too! It’s full of beta-carotene despite not being orange and full of other vitamins.

Enjoy!

 
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Posted in Food, Indian, Main Dish, Vegetarian

 

Stuffed Crust Pizza

04 Jun

Made homemade pizza tonight. Have I mentioned how much I love to do this than ordering in? I mean, it’s so simple to make your own dough! Ah, the little things in life.

This time we opted out of making individual pizzas and just made a bigger one and saved the rest of the dough to be used another time (heads up: it keeps well for up to a month in the freezer!)

You can find the recipe we use to make our own homemade dough and pizza here. Instead of cutting the dough into six little pieces, we cut it in half and made one the halves pretty large and then cut the remaining chunk in half to make two little dough balls for later use.

The one thing we did differently? Made the pizza a little large and then took string cheese, cut them in half, put them along the outer edge of the pizza and folded the dough over. Ta-da. Stuffed crust pizza.

Yeah, I don’t need to go into how amazing and delicious it was. This recipe is a complete no brainer and works every time.

So again, it’s the same recipe found here but just use the string cheese (or any kind of cheese you like) to get a stuffed crust effect.

And yes, REB and I are still on the healthy track. We didn’t finish off the whole thing. All about portion control, people. ;-)

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Posted in Food, Main Dish

 
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