Customized for You: Cheeseburger Quesadillas

Inspiration

Iowa Girl Eats cheeseburger quesadillas

Ingredients lineup

This is a simple concept, put your burger favorites into a tortilla and grill it up.

Ingredients

• shredded cheese
• pickle slices
• whole wheat tortillas
• chopped bacon (pre-cooked from the freezer)
• green olives, chopped
• ground beef (pre-cooked from the freezer)
• spinach (subbing in for lettuce)
• mayo, mustard, ketchup, etc.

I wish we had tomatoes, those would have been perfect.  I like my burger loaded up with with everything on it.  Of course use what you like on your burger, pickled jalapenos, fried egg, barbeque sauce, sauteed mushrooms, fried onions, avocado, pesto, etc.

Hot grillin' action

I used my electric skillet because it's big enough to hold two tortillas at the same time.  I also use it to make grilled cheese sandwiches or melt sandwiches for the same reason, I can make four at once. 

Cheesy, tangy bites

Lay down a tortilla (feel free to use cooking spray, I didn't), add cheese and your other ingredients.  I also finished with another sprinkling of shredded cheese to ensure everything stuck together.  Watch the cheese to see when it melts, then fold it in half and check the underside to see if it needs to be flipped.  I also put the lid on to ensure the cheese was melted and the rest of the ingredients were warmed up.

This was my first time making folded quesadillas, and they're more manageable to flip than a two-tortilla quesadilla.  We used a pizza wheel to cut them into wedges. 

Verdict

Husband Jeff and I liked this, it was homey, simple, and quick to pull together.  Lately I've really liked dishes where each person gets their own customized version since our toddler Sonny D doesn't always like the same flavors we do.   

I always feel that quesadillas are a good way to have something to eat using ingredients you want to get rid of or when there's nothing else in the house.  For that reason, I personally would never order quesadillas out at a restaurant, in my mind they're cheaply made. 

I would love to make this again for something quick to go with soup, but I have other designs on the remaining tortillas.

Healthy Foods by Mail: Cooking Light Cravebox

Recently Cooking Light magazine sent me one of their regular recipe emails, which sometimes I pay attention to and sometimes I ignore.  But this time they really hooked me with one of their ads for something called Cravebox, they're offering special themed boxes of products selected by Cooking Light magazine.  I checked out the website and signed up for the Cooking Light Cravebox. 

I am assuming I will get healthy food-related items, probably new food products on the market.  If it's anything like my Birchbox beauty box subscription, it was a lot of fun to get each box in the mail each month.  With Birchbox I received a lot of cool items that were definitely worth more than the monthly subscription price.  I eventually had to cancel my Birchbox subscription because I had a hard time using up all of the products and my bathroom storage area was getting overwhelmed.  Maybe we'll do a better job keeping up with with whatever we get from Cravebox.

For the Cravebox, you're given the option to sign up for as many boxes as you want, but there are only four scheduled for the year right now.  I signed up for the first and second boxes available, the "Start Your Year Off Light" and "Fast Meals".  The first box should come right away, and the second one will come in April.  I figured at that point I can decide if I want to sign up for more shipments or not.

If you're interested in joining me, sign up and mention my username 'jessicahk' as a reference.  Thanks!

Have you been to Aldi?

The most recent Aldi ad really looked tempting (fresh pineapple at least $1 cheaper than my regular grocery store!) so I decided to go exploring since I had the day off and could really look around.

Wait, let me give you the five-second intro to Aldi.  It's a small discount grocery store with limited selection and pretty much no name-brand items.  Instead of 50 flavors of soup, they've got 7, and they're all Aldi brand.  Sometimes they will have some name-brand items you're used to seeing in your regular grocery store, but they're few and far between. And you rent a grocery cart using a quarter (not $.25, an actual quarter) and you either bring your own reusable bags or you can buy plastic or paper ones there.  Once you get done paying your cashier (cash or debit card), you bag your groceries yourself on a counter.

Back in the 1990s, Aldi used to be dirty and gross.  Husband Jeff and I like to joke that for vegetables they only had cans of dented peas and creamed corn, so if you wanted something else, too bad.  But in the last few years, they've done a good job cleaning up the stores and making them much nicer.  They've even started to bring in some organic items and fringe things that I consider essential to everyday life, like almond milk.

Oh, one other thing that really tempted me to shop at Aldi... The German parent company that owns Aldi also owns Trader Joe's.  I love Trader Joe's, so I figured they couldn't have multiple suppliers who made two different versions of their private label goods, so I was banking on the fact that some of the Aldi items were good quality like Trader Joe's (or the exact same). 

I tried to do some research online before I went so I could find out what things were good to get there.  It was good to know that some things are quite tasty, others aren't worth the money.  With all of that in mind, I shopped away.

When I started, I wasn't going to fuss with a grocery cart, mainly because I didn't plan on buying much, only a few things to try it out.  But only a few feet from the door my arms were full and I had to run outside to get a cart. I was tempted to buy multiples of items that interested me, but I figured I would wait until I had tried most of the products to know if they were good quality or not.

What I bought

What I bought on a recent trip to Aldi

(top photo starting with the canned goods in about the 1 o'clock position and going clockwise)

• marinated mushrooms (these are normally really expensive, only $2 for these)
• canned pumpkin (this is like the brand-name version, pumpkin only, maybe $.59 each)
• blackberry spreadable fruit
• artichoke hearts
• sweet potato tortilla chips
• mandarin oranges (used for the orange fluff recipe)
• Hormel turkey pepperoni
• light whipped topping (used for the orange fluff recipe)
• sausage & peppers frozen pasta entree
• frozen chicken noodle soup
• no tail, no shell shrimp (I figured shrimp is shrimp, plus it was really cheap!)
• yogurt covered raisins
• gummy bears (Husband Jeff loves them!)
• twisted elbow pasta (has a serving of veggies in 2 oz, but that's not important, they were the right size for the Italian wedding soup I was planning for dinner that night)
• 2 bags of mixed salad (I think butter lettuce and a spring mix, and the expiration date wasn't the next day!)
• bag of spinach
  
  

  

  More Aldi purchases

In the second photo (didn't realize there was a whole 'nother bag of groceries I hadn't opened yet!)

• chianti wine for Husband Jeff
• Cutie clementines
• avocados (I love avocados and eat a quarter avocado smashed on a rice cake every day for a morning snack.  These were only $.59, when at my regular grocery store they're on sale for $1)
• mushrooms ($.59, way cheaper than my regular grocery store)
• spray canola oil (I love the Trader Joe's version, it's better than the one from my regular grocery store, so I was hoping this was exactly the same)

For all of the items I bought, I spent $50. [Edit: Here is my review of the items I bought.]

Verdict

I've already used a few things like the mandarin oranges and the light whipped topping, and they both seemed perfectly fine.  Sometimes when you buy cheaper canned goods, you find that the quality-control is a little more lax, so you'll find pieces of corn husk in your sweet corn.  That wasn't the case here, the mandarin oranges were great.  And the light whipped topping tasted like the not-real-food-product that it is. 

I can't wait to try some of the other items to see if they're just as good.  If they are, Aldi might be on my regular shopping route.

Menu Plan: Week of February 25

This weekend we went to an indoor waterpark in Wisconsin Dells so with the general chaos that happens after a night away, I didn't have a lot of time on Sunday to plan the dinners for the week.  I threw this plan together at the last minute, right before I went to bed.   

• Monday - baked pasta to use up Sunday's leftover meaty spaghetti sauce
• Tuesday - sauteed tofu slices with jarred satay sauce and oven-roasted sweet potatoes and cauliflower with hummus sauce (will roast the veggies the night before.  We need to use up some tomato-basil hummus that we think is only 'ok'.)
• Wednesday - lemony shrimp with quinoa, edamame (green soybeans), and feta
• Thursday - mole-salsa chicken thighs in slow cooker with brown and white rice (I saved the tiny bit of mole sauce from a recipe a while back and I've been unsure what to do with it.)
• Friday - leftovers (I sure hope there are some leftovers from one of the previous dishes!)
• Saturday - broiled Parmesan swai and salmon and some sort of frozen veggie
• Sunday - canned soup, frozen dinner rolls, and popcorn
  
  

Question

Do you plan ahead for any of your meals for the week or do you wing it every night? If you do plan ahead, what is your method?  If you don't plan ahead, how long does it take you to make dinner? 

Italian Wedding Soup

There aren't a lot of pictures for this post because my iPhone (my blogging camera) was dead.  And it's a quick recipe to pull together, so I didn't have a whole lot of opportunities to take photos anyway.

Inspiration

Bev Cooks Weeknight Italian Wedding Soup and Snack Girl Meatball and Orzo Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tsp olive oil
• some onion (I pulled out my onion from my hanging veggie holder and it was icky!  Didn't have any other onion so I resorted to picking out the bits of onion from my peppers & onion stirfry mix.  Now it's just peppers left in the bag.)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (from a jar!)
• 46 oz chicken stock
• couple handfuls carrot shreds (from a bag!)
• 2 regular carrots, cut into rounds (had a couple leftovers hanging out in the crisper drawer)
• 14 oz can cannellini beans, drained
• some frozen meatballs (I had a few beef ones left and a new package of turkey)
• couple handfuls of spinach, chopped
•  4 oz pasta

Soup on the left, pasta on the right

 Heat up the oil and saute the onion for 4-5 minutes over medium heat.  Add the garlic and saute 1 minute.  Add the carrots, chicken stock, and cannellini beans and bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, heat up the meatballs in a bowl in the microwave because if they're frozen, they're going to take forever to heat up in the soup.  Might as well give them a head start. 

Let it all cook together a bit to let the flavors meld.  I would say about 25 minutes at a low simmer.   I was surprised, when the meatballs cooked in the soup, they got bigger.  Totally unexpected.

We shaved fresh parmesan cheese on top of our bowls of soup.

Verdict

This was a comforting, cozy soup.  Sonny D ate the meatballs and pasta.  Husband Jeff and I liked it a lot, but we also love the Progresso version from a can.  Since I used turkey meatballs, mine was less greasy than the canned version, but that's a good thing.

This made a lot, we had dinner the first night, 2 servings for lunch, and 2 more servings for dinner the second night.  I love soup that makes a large batch.

One mistake I made was to cook the pasta separately.  I did that because otherwise it can suck up all the moisture of your soup and release some starch, making it too thick.  Next time I would either flavor the pasta water by adding some herbs or maybe chicken bouillon which would ensure the pasta wasn't too bland, or cook the noodles directly in the soup. 

Whip Up a Light Dessert: Orange Fluff

Orange fluff

Inspiration

The Country Cook Orange Fluff

This recipe must have come up on one of the blogs I read, it's certainly nothing I would have gone looking for on my own.  My mom made a similar version of this over the summer and while at first I thought it was kinda icky, I ended up eating some and enjoying it.  This is actually a Weight Watchers recipe, so it's light. 

Ingredients

• 16oz container cottage cheese
• 3oz box orange Jello
• Container of light whipped topping
• 22 oz drained canned mandarin oranges
• 1/3 bag mini marshmallows (had these leftover from making a batch of marshmallow treats for daycare)

Ingredients lineup.

Mix the cottage cheese and Jello together until they're well combined.  Then add the whipped topping and mandarin oranges.  Mix well again.  Then add the marshmallows.  Like the original post indicates, you'll want to mix this up at least a few hours before you want to eat it so it has time to come together. 

It makes a lot!  That is my 2-quart batter bowl in the photos and it's quite full.

I used more mandarin oranges than called for in the original recipe because that's the size cans I had.  I also eyeballed the amount of cottage cheese, I figured it didn't need to be an exact amount.

Big bowl full of fluff

It seems weird there's cottage cheese in this dessert recipe, but it's good because otherwise it would probably be too sweet.  I'm trying to come up with something else you could put in there, but I can't really come up with anything that would be appropriate, maybe light sour cream? 

Verdict

Husband Jeff and I liked this a lot.  Somehow even a small amount is really filling, I was so full after dinner last night.  Sonny D thought it was fine and ate half of his bowl, but for some reason he was really set on having Cutie clementines for dessert.

I would actually use even more fruit in the future, maybe even twice the amount I used because it seemed like a lot of sweetness and not much fruit.

Variations

You can switch the fruit and the Jello to make different flavor variations.

You can make it with crushed pineapple, which would be good too. And you could switch the Jello to island pineapple or pina colada and add unsweetened flake coconut for a tropical vibe.  Or if you only have some of the mandarin oranges and pineapple, mix the two of those.  And in the summer you could make a strawberry version using strawberry Jello and fresh strawberries. And fresh peaches would be nice too, and apparently there's even peach Jello. 

I wonder if you could switch out the box of Jello for a box of instant pudding?  Because then you could make it chocolate with fresh strawberries or cheesecake with fresh strawberries.  Maybe it wouldn't be light anymore unless you used sugar-free.

If you don't want to make this for yourself because you're scared you might not like it, keep it in mind for a potluck or other situation where you're asked to bring a treat or dish to share.  That way you can try it, but you wouldn't have to eat the whole thing or toss it because you didn't like it.  You might be surprised.  

Comforting Casserole: Chicken Spaghetti

Inspiration

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti

My recipe is probably the similar to Pioneer Woman's in the end, but I got there by a different road.

Some ingredients

 

Ingredient Modifications

In the morning I started a package of chicken breasts in my medium-size slow cooker so they could be ready to shred when I got home at the end of the day. 

I decided that this recipe needed more veggies if we were aiming for a one-dish dinner, so I added the half-can of leftover artichoke hearts from our Valentine's Day Italian sandwiches and a handful of thinly sliced zucchini I had in the freezer.  I'm always buying a random zucchini for no special reason and then I slice it up using my mandoline, throw it in the freezer, and then pull it out for dishes like this that need a little boost.  I also added a can of petite diced tomatoes since it seemed like a good idea.  I also skipped the pimentos, not because I didn't have them, I actually had a jar of them in the refrigerator, but I couldn't find an expiration date and I didn't remember buying them any time recently, so I figured this was a good time to ditch it.  Hmmm... maybe I need to clean out my fridge!

A bright mixture

Makes two casseroles.

For my 'cream of' soups, I used what I had in the pantry, which was cream of mushroom and cream of celery.  I used the remnants of a package of regular spaghetti noodles and the other half was whole-wheat spaghetti because that's what I had.  I measured the dry pasta on my food scale because her "3 cups dry spaghetti" is so inaccurate, I came up with 8 ounces.  I also trimmed the cheese from 3 cups total down to 2 cups to make it a little healthier since I used regular 'cream of' soups.  I also skipped the seasoned salt since I was guessing it was going to be salty enough with the rest of the ingredients.

This is an easy casserole to make, you put all the ingredients into a bowl, mix it up, and pour it into a casserole dish.  This made two medium-size casseroles, so I planned ahead and the second casserole dish is one with a rubber lid so I could freeze it.  It baked at 350 degrees for 35 minutes and was piping hot when it came out.  Since there are no ingredients that would be unsafe if eaten raw, you're mainly just heating it up.

 

Verdict

This was so good, a real throw-back recipe.  It completely reminds me of tuna noodle casserole from the cafeteria in grade school.  So, it wasn't classy, but definitely super tasty.  Husband Jeff liked it, and Sonny D loved it.  I would say it's definitely a kid-pleaser, he had a hard time shoveling it in fast enough.  In the future I would make this with a different pasta because spaghetti noodles are close to impossible for a toddler to deal with.  He eventually resorted to picking the noodles out with his fingers. 

I'm glad I made the changes I did, the extra veggies were nice and it was certainly salty enough without the seasoned salt. 

 

Other Variations

You could easily use this concept to make other variations.

Bacon Cheeseburger
Cooked ground beef, diced tomato, cooked bacon crumbles, rotini pasta or elbow mac, maybe a touch of mustard in the sauce

Italian
Chicken, zucchini, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, mushrooms, maybe only one can of 'cream of' soup, spinach

Tuna
Tuna, peas, sauteed celery

Mexican
Ground beef, corn, black beans, cumin, green chiles or jalapenos, diced tomato, onion

Other things you could add to customize it to your tastes
Corn, broccoli, cauliflower, butternut squash, carrots, peas.  
Or you could even skip the veggies in the casserole and have them on the side.


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A Spin on a Classic - Asian Meatloaf

Growing up I didn't eat a lot of ground beef.  Actually, it was extremely rare.  I didn't like hamburgers, casseroles, sloppy Joes, etc. I think the only ground beef I ate was in tacos/burritos.  But eventually in college I tried a Culver's bacon butter burger deluxe, which was incredibly delicious and completely changed my mind.  Now I eat ground beef and really like hamburgers.  And then recently I decided that meatballs and meatloaf were interesting.  I've even got a recipe bookmarked for a lentil meatloaf!

So my latest inspiration was an Asian meatloaf.  It just sounded like such a good idea, so I made it happen using this Cooking Light Asian Style Meatloaves recipe. 

 

Ingredients

Ingredients lineup

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped bell peppers picked out of a bag of frozen peppers & onions stirfry 
• leftover green onion tops from baked potato soup
• 1/2 can of diced water chestnuts
• 4-5 raw mushrooms, chopped
• remnants of a bag of chopped frozen spinach (so little left, might as well throw it in!)
• 1 T low-sodium soy sauce
• 3 garlic cloves, minced (from a jar)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 T panko bread crumbs 
• 2 T flax seed meal (I threw this in as an experiment)
• 2 T hoisin sauce (all I had left in the jar)

I dumped the meat in a large bowl (use a big, wide one!) and then started prepping the veggies.  Luckily there wasn't a whole lot of manual cutting or chopping.  I threw the individual veggies into the little chopper cup (like a mini food processor) of my immersion blender one at a time and gave them a few spins around to mince things up finely and then added each of them to the bowl. Then I decided the veggies were going to cause the meatloaf to be too wet if I used them raw, so I scooped them out of the bowl and tossed them all in a non-stick skillet and sauteed them for a few minutes until they were a little drier. 

Shaped raw loaf

Then I mixed everything together.  It took a lot of mixing to ensure everything was incorporated.  At one point I thought I was done stirring, only to uncover a pocket of raw egg, so I had to stir more.  That's why I recommend you use a big, wide bowl, it really helps to use your hands to truly get everything mixed.  If you're too squeamish to put your hands into the raw meat, a big, wide bowl will at least help you dig your spoon in and turn all the ingredients.

Cooked meatloaf

I covered my baking sheet with heavy-duty foil and shaped the loaf on top.  It's not really the same size and shape as a loaf of bread might be, mine was a little wider and flatter.  I figured that was better to ensure it was able to be cooked all the way through.  It cooked at 375 degrees for 45 minutes and when I tested it with the probe thermometer, it was done.   I let it rest for a bit while I reheated the frozen rice leftover from making kimbop.  

Verdict

This was super delicious!  I totally loved it and Husband Jeff thought it was really good too.  Sonny D liked it a lot too, I think he might have eaten a slice and a half.  I was surprised that the texture was really light since I figured it could have gotten tough from all that mixing. 

We ate half for dinner!  That's a full pound of meat!

I was so happy that I went with a full batch, I was originally thinking of only making half a batch with only the pound of ground turkey since I didn't want to have to buy any more meat to go with it.  I was super-glad to have leftovers waiting for lunch the next day. 

Not Quite Korean Sushi: Kimbop

Rice in the rice cooker

On Saturday I made kimbop, which is like a Korean version of sushi, but it doesn't have raw fish.  Kimbop are the two Korean words 'kim' and 'bop' put together, which mean 'seaweed' and 'rice', respectively. 

There are some pretty traditional ingredients for kimbop (bulgogi, pickled radish, egg, spinach, etc.), but you can use whatever ingredients you like or have on hand, so there are infinite possibilities.  A friend tells of growing up eating kimbop with hotdog it it, I've also had a filling of bulgogi (Korean grilled meat) with slices of American cheese.  For mine I used pre-coooked ground beef, spinach, scrambled egg, and carrot.

The Process

You start by cooking rice (2:1 ratio of water to rice).  I used my rice cooker, which is an awesome way to cook rice.  Apparently rice is easy to burn on the stove, but I've never made it that way. Growing up, I made rice in the microwave, which is also really good and doesn't require any attention.  I've also read about making rice in a casserole dish in the oven, but since I've got a rice cooker I don't need to worry about another methods.

Ingredients lineup along with my sushi rolling mat.

While the rice was cooking away, I prepped the rest of the ingredients.  I defrosted some pre-cooked ground beef and added some seasoning.  I made some carrot curls with a vegetable peeler and pulled out some spinach that was at the end of it's usable life.  I tossed the carrot slices and spinach in some boiling water to blanch them.  This helped carrot to be soft enough to bite into.  Then you season up the spinach as well.  And I scrambled up two eggs and fried them up in a non-stick pan, then cut into thin slices.  When the rice is done, you add some vinegar, sugar, and salt.   It's all such an interesting combination of seasoning all the separate ingredients differently and then putting everything together and all the flavors blend together.

A sheet of seaweed with ingredients on top

To roll it up, you put down a piece of sushi nori (seaweed) on the rolling mat, spread some rice on the bottom two-thirds, leaving some empty space at the very bottom.  Then lay on your ingredients.  I made the mistake of just throwing the ingredients on and not referencing any instructions on placement, which caused all of my filling to be off to one side once sliced into rounds (see the last picture).  Oh well, they still taste the same. 

The nori is stronger than you might expect, so you can roll it up pretty tightly, which is what keeps it together after you cut it.  I need more practice since this is only about the second or third time I've ever made anything like this.

Rolled up kimbop

When you've got all your rolls put together, then you pull out a big, sharp chef's knife and cut them into bite-size pieces.  Since the rice is sticky, you need to rinse your knife off pretty often to ensure a good, clean cut.

Verdict

I thought they were tasty and Husband Jeff ate a decent amount.  Previously he has professed a dislike of the seaweed and the seasoned rice, but he thought they were pretty good.  I particularly made these for Sonny D since he really liked them at a friend's birthday party, but he only ate about one and a half rounds.   

One plate plus a few extra.  And a bop bowl for Sonny D
using the ingredients that fell out as I rolled.

Menu plan: Week of February 18

Monday - chicken spaghetti casserole with salads

Tuesday - cheeseburger quesadillas and a frozen package of broccoli-cauliflower-carrots

Wednesday - meatball soup(I think like Italian wedding)

Thursday - leftovers

Friday - breakfast pizza

Saturday - Domino's pizza

Sunday - spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread

Quick and Tasty: Tomato-Avocado Salad

Tomato and avocado, a perfect marriage.

For lunch the other day I needed a little something more to eat, and luckily I remembered a recipe I had bookmarked, tomato-avocado salad.  I used everything except the cilantro since I'm not a big fan.  It was tasty and fresh, a good way to eat a little something extra. 

Revolutionary Idea: Oven-Fried Bacon

Bacon destined for the oven.

Inspiration: Oven-Fried Bacon

I buy a package of bacon and bake it in my oven and I recommend you do the same.  It's revolutionary!  It's quick (17-20 minutes), doesn't fill your house with the aroma of cooking bacon (nice while you're cooking it, but kinda gross later), and it's great to have on hand to throw a little bit into a recipe.
 
Use a rimmed baking sheet to ensure you don't start a grease fire with bacon grease dripping into your oven.  As you can see from the photo, I line mine with heavy-duty foil, which is an awesome invention.  I was able to peel it up and toss away all the grease without spilling any.

And cooked bacon fits onto a gallon freezer bag really well.  I separate the layers with waxed paper.

I cook my bacon to be a little less-done so later when I want to warm it up, I can still cook it a bit in the microwave.  I cover a plate with paper towel, toss on some bacon, and put more paper towel on top.  Cook it for only a bit to warm it up and finish cooking.  Remember that bacon will continue to crisp up as it sits a bit.  I chop it up and toss into random recipes.  I like it for creamy dishes like alfredo, or to add a little something extra to homemade pizza. 

Moroccan Chicken with Honey-Sesame-Soy Carrot Coins

Ingredients at the start

I borrowed the book The Everything Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook from the library and decided that the Moroccan Chicken recipe looked good, mainly because it didn't require me to buy any ingredients!  I only made a couple changes -- less onion since my last recipe had too much onion, and dried ground ginger instead of fresh.  I know, fresh ginger is better tasting, easy to keep in the freezer, etc.  I love the flavor of ginger but I hate actually chomping down on fresh ginger, so I prefer to substitute.  I think I used about 1 teaspoon of ground ginger instead.

One interesting thing about this recipe is that it doesn't cook all day while you're at work since the chicken is cut into small pieces.  It cooks for only 5 hours, so I threw it together at lunch time.  I'm glad I saw the details of how long it cooks and what to do with the meat, I was ready to toss the whole chicken thighs into the slow cooker in the morning.

You add the chickpeas and apricots towards the end of cooking, so I prepared those at lunchtime as well.  I diced the apricots instead of cutting them in half since I figured they would disburse through the mixture more.  When Husband Jeff got home, he added the chickpeas and apricots in to warm up. 

When I got home I made couscous because it's an appropriate match for a Moroccan dish.  Couscous is great because it only takes five minutes to make after boiling the liquid. I added some instant chicken stock (Better Than Bouillon is good because you can make the exact amount you need),  chopped frozen spinach, dried lemon peel, and chopped almonds.

I also cut up some carrots into coins and tossed them in the microwave.  While the carrots cooked, I made more honey-sesame-soy sauce (the same sauce I made for the sesame-ginger salmon the other day). 

Verdict

The chicken dish was tasty, but not really the prettiest thing.  Next time I would use chicken stock for the liquid instead of water and add some cornstarch because the "sauce" was thin.  And this was my first time using boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and they're great.  Tasty with no mess of trying to deal with the bones or skin.  Sonny D liked the chicken, but had too many snacks earlier in the day to eat anything other than his grapes. 

The couscous and the carrots were perfect, can't wait to try them again.  Husband Jeff wants me to make up a batch of the honey-sesame-soy sauce to keep in the fridge to add to lots of dishes.  I think it would be great on peanut butter toast, an excellent balance of salty and sweet. 

Ground Beef For Another Day

On Sunday I went grocery shopping and saw that 3-pound packages of 93% lean ground beef were on sale. It seemed like a good price, so I figured I should buy it and cook it before putting it in the freezer.  I had no idea what I would actually do with it after freezing it, so I had to look online for some ideas.  This blog posting talks about various ways to use pre-cooked ground beef, so I'll use it for inspiration.  

After coming home I cooked the ground beef in three portions, mainly so I could keep track of each pound or so.  I put the cooked meat in freezer bags, labeled them, and put them in the freezer.  Some ideas I might use them for: cheeseburger quesadillas, skillet pasta dishes (i.e. Hamburger Helper), maybe a Mexican casserole like tamale pie, Mexican sloppy Joses, spaghetti with meat sauce, picadillo (Latin American style hash), etc. 

Comfort Food: Light Baked Potato Soup

I had leftover potatoes from the bag I bought to make potato chips, so I had to figure out what to do with some more of the potatoes.  I also bought a head of cauliflower to roast for our veggie bowls, but at the last minute I decided that I didn't want cauliflower in them, so it was still lingering in the crisper drawer.  So I looked through my bookmarked recipes to find something appropriate and re-discovered a few recipes for lighter baked potato soup that use blended cauliflower instead of dairy to make the soup thick and rich.  Perfect!  I love the baked potato soups you get in a restaurant, the creamy texture is so warm and comforting.

 

Inspiration

I combined about four recipes into one, but this version of Baked Potato Soup is the one that is closest to what I made.   What I made last night had too much onion (about 1 cup), it was overpowering, so the recipe below is what I would make next time with a reduced amount.  Also, I used only about half of the head of cauliflower, but there was no reason not to use the whole thing, so the recipe accommodates that as well. 

 

Ingredients for Baked Potato Soup

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets (or a ~16 oz bag of frozen cauliflower)
3-4 Russet baking potatoes
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 T canola oil
3 T minced garlic
3 T flour
salt & pepper
2 14oz cans chicken stock (or vegetable stock, or you could use 1 can of stock and 1 can of milk/evaporated milk for extra creaminess)

Toppings
bacon
shredded cheese
green onion
crushed potato chips

Start the cauliflower florets in a steamer or microwave, steam for 16-18 minutes.  Meanwhile, pierce the potatoes with a fork a few times and cook them in the microwave for 5 minutes.  Flip them over and cook for 5 more minutes.

Meanwhile, chop up your onion and saute it for 5 minutes in the oil in a medium-large pot over medium heat until it's translucent.  Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute.  Always start your onion before your garlic and let it cook a bit.  When you add the garlic be sure to pay more attention to it, it can burn really quickly.

Add the flour and stir around so it mixes really well with the moisture.  This is another part of what makes the soup thick.  If you want to be gluten-free, use 2 teaspoons of cornstarch mixed well into in a bit of the cold stock.  Then add a little bit of the chicken stock and mix well so there are no lumps.  Then add the rest of the chicken stock and salt and pepper. 

When the cauliflower is tender, add it to the pot and use an immersion blender to whiz it up.  I found that my pot was too wide so the liquid wasn't deep enough to make the blender work, so I had to tip it a bit to get it all pureed.

By now hopefully your potatoes are cooled a bit from the microwave, you can take off the peels or leave them as-is.  I took off most of the peels but left some on for fiber and texture.  Cut them into bite-size pieces but don't add them to the pot until after you've whizzed it up unless you want a creamy-without-chunks soup.

At this point it's ready!  Quick and actually pretty easy.  Dish it up and put on your favorite toppings.  Since my version had too much onion, the green onion tops were overkill, but still fun.  I completely forgot about the shredded cheese, but that would be good as well.  And the bacon was a welcome meaty addition with the smoky, salty flavor.  But the best addition was something I never would have come up with if I didn't see the idea elsewhere.... crushed potato chips.  Salty, oily, crispy texture -- so perfect.

 

Verdict

As I said, my version was too oniony,  but it was still good.  If I feel inventive next time, I'll try it with some milk/almond milk for more body and creaminess.  And I'm definitely not going to forget the potato chips!  Sonny D liked the taste of mine, but he wouldn't eat his own bowl.  Instead he completely cleaned out his the leftover salmon from the other day. 

Better Broccoli and Sesame-Ginger Salmon

2 quarts of cut broccoli (two bundles from
the grocery store) plus the almond coating

Broccoli

A recent blog posting I read described a method for preparing broccoli where the writer described that that it was difficult to stop eating it because it was so delicious.  And his son ate a lot as well. Broccoli is an ok vegetable, I like it well enough but I don't love it.  I figured if a recipe could get his son to eat a lot of broccoli, it must be tasty, so I made it as well.

Coated broccoli, waiting for the oven.

It doesn't have an official name on the guy's blog, but I guess I would call it almond-crunch baked broccoli.  You cut up the broccoli florets and stems, toss them in two foamy egg whites.


Meanwhile, mix up some almond meal with spices.  When I went to pull out my almond meal, I didn't have the 1 cup specified, so I added some flax seed meal and hemp seeds. I also added garlic powder, paprika, and salt & pepper. Husband Jeff found it easier to mix the broccoli up with the egg whites and then the coating by dumping everything into a gallon zipper bag. 

Cooked broccoli

Toss it into a sprayed rimmed baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  It didn't seem done enough for us when they came out of the oven (a little too firm), but they sat for a bit while our fish cooked and they were much more to our liking.

Sesame-soy glaze

 

Salmon

To go with our almond-crunch broccoli, I made toasted sesame-ginger salmon.  I was too lazy to marinate the salmon since I had trouble just remembering to pull it out of the freezer to defrost, so I followed the writer's recommendation that you can skip the marinade and just make the glaze.  I used only half the amount of honey since I prefer more savory meat items.  I cooked the salmon under the broiler for 10 minutes and spooned the glaze on each piece as we put them on the plate.  It was so delicious!  The glaze has a perfect balance between salty and sweet, and it works great on salmon since it's such a strongly-flavored fish that it can stand up to it. 

Salmon

There was a tiny bit of glaze left, so I saved it and am planning to put it on buttered carrot coins later in the week.  I am definitely going to make this glaze again.

I would also love to try the almond coating on other things, I've used a similar coating for chicken breasts using Parmesan cheese, but it would be fun to make mozzarella stick in a similar manner using string cheese cut into bite-size pieces.  And a coconut shrimp using half unsweetened flake coconut and almond meal, and then dip in a spicy-sweet fruity sauce. 

Menu Plan: Week of Feburary 11

Monday - Baked potato soup

Tuesday - meeting friends for a margarita happy hour and Mexican food at Laredo's

Wednesday - Moroccan chicken in the slow cooker with pasta, honey-sesame carrot coins

Thursday - Valentine's Day picnic on the floor in our living room.  This is a tradition Jeff and I created when we first started dating and we've tried to continue it ever since.  We'll have Italian sandwiches (salami & ham with giardinera), hummus & crackers, and individual brownie/chocolate cakes made in the microwave.

Friday - going out to the Green Owl Cafe to use a Groupon that will expire soon.

Saturday - Asian meatloaf with a package of frozen veggies, rice, maybe kimbop (a Korean version of sushi, not raw)

Sunday -  chicken spaghetti casserole

Bringing Home More Than You Bargained For?

You're doing your part to help the environment, taking your reusable bags to the grocery store and big-box store. Sometimes even taking them to department stores to carry home other purchases like clothing.  But there might be something important that you don't want to be carrying around -- icky germs! 

This Huffington Post article describes a study connecting a spike in e. coli infections and reusable bags.  It comes from using the bags at the grocery store for things like meat and vegetables and then not washing the bags, contaminating your future food products.   Gross. 

If you need more encouragement to toss those bags in the washing machine, here's a Food Network article about food safety related to reusable grocery bags.  

I wash my bags occasionally, but I should probably do it more often.  I use rip-stop nylon Baggu bags and love them. I get many compliments on them when I'm at the store.  They're the same size and design as a standard plastic bag like you might get at Target or the grocery store. They come in so many great colors now, more than when I first bought mine.  And rather than stuffing them into a bag, they fold up compactly into their own little pouch, which is convenient so they fit into a smaller space.  Aside from buying them from the company, they're also available on Amazon.com if you want to take advantage of the free shipping deal.

And next time you buy reusable bags, make sure they're washable. If you're interested, there's currently a Groupon deal for a set of four nylon Envirosax reusable bags.  They supposedly hold the contents of two supermarket plastic bags.  One feature I appreciate is that there is a snap attached, so they roll down into a little bundle rather than going into a little pouch that is easy to lose.    

So go right now and throw your reusable bags in the laundry.  And maybe buy more so you can wash them after every use. 

Prep-ahead: Roasted Veggie Bowls with Quinoa

Roasted vegetables.

On Sunday I roasted some veggies for dinner later in the week.  I cut up sweet potatoes, onion, yellow squash, carrots, and the mushroom stems left over after making stuffed mushrooms.  I tossed everything with a little olive oil (and possibly salt, I don't remember) and roasted them for 45 minutes. 

On Wednesday I started up some quinoa in the rice cooker (same ratio as rice, 2:1 water to quinoa), and we discussed our flavor options.  We went with Asian, so I pulled out all the various sauces and flavorings from the fridge. 

Quinoa made in the rice cooker.

Husband Jeff used the last of the gochujang, a spicy Korean pepper paste.  Sonny D and I had chunjang, Korean black bean paste along with some soy sauce.  We also had hard-boiled eggs and tortilla chips with nacho cheese sauce.  We also ate a lot of Cutie clementines for dessert, they're so good!

Not pretty, but tasty.

There is a bit of roasted veggies and quinoa left over, so I'm going to have it for lunch today with mashed avocado and horseradish hummus.  It should be delicious, I can't wait.

Stuffed Mushrooms for Later

De-stemmed mushrooms, waiting for filling and freezing.

Creamy spinach filling for stuffed mushrooms.

On New Year's Eve we had friends over and I made stuffed mushrooms.  They were so tasty that I had to have more. Stuffed mushrooms are excellent savory snacks or add-ons for a meal when you need a little more food to round it out.  Plus if the filling isn't too rich, they can be pretty low in calories.

I bought two 8 oz. packages of whole mushrooms, gently pulled the stems out, and mixed up the cheesy spinach filling. I froze all of them so I can have them later.  To try to make them lighter, I skipped the goat cheese and replaced it with light cream cheese and two wedges of Laughing Cow garden veggie cheese.   I added fat-free feta, skipped the red peppers, and added a little dried lemon peel and sprinkle of cayenne, a little more salt & pepper.

I put them on a baking tray and put them in the freezer until they were solid, then moved them to a gallon freezer bag.  

I tasted the filling and it was delicious, I can't wait to bake them up. They're supposed to bake for 20 minutes, but I think I'll use the toaster oven to bake them since it's usually quicker.  And the nice thing is that Husband Jeff doesn't like mushrooms, so they're all mine.  Sonny D might want a taste, but luckily he's a slow eater, so I can hopefully finish them off before he wants more.

Cajun Sausage-Lentil Soup

On Sunday I prepped some food for later and made dinner.  I made a batch of stuffed mushrooms and froze them so I could pull some out whenever I want.  

Roasted Vegetables

This blog posting inspired me to roast vegetables for dinner on Wednesday.  I cut up sweet potatoes, onion, yellow squash, carrots, and added the leftover mushroom stems from my stuffed mushrooms.  I'm not sure what sort of flavor we'll use in our quinoa veggie bowls, I could make an Asian dressing out of miso and tahini sauce like the blog poster, or we could use Trader Joe's horseradish hummus since that's the container we've got open right now (yes, Sonny D likes horseradish hummus), or I could make something a little more Southwestern by adding cumin and chile powder.   Or maybe add some feta cheese, olive oil, and lemon juice and make it Mediterranean.  I've even got a jar of eggplant-garlic spread that would probably be excellent.  So many possibilities. 

Hot soup.  Check out those
bay leaves hanging out in the back.

Soup for Dinner

I tend to prefer simple foods for dinner on Sunday, usually this turns out to be soup and sandwiches.  This week, our Sunday dinner was kimchi jeon (an appetizer/snack kimchi pancake, not sweet like American pancakes), Cajun sausage-lentil soup, leftover frozen coconut rice to go in your soup or on the side, and freshly-made peanut butter cookies (from dough I had frozen previously).

I made the soup the way the poster did, with only two Cajun chicken sausages.  I added a can of tomato sauce for more depth of flavor instead of using all water.  I tasted the soup in the middle of cooking and determined it needed more flavor so I added a little Cajun seasoning.  Before serving I added some frozen chopped spinach instead of chard or kale.

It made a lot of soup -- 2 full servings for dinner, 2 lunch-size leftovers, and another full meal's worth that I froze.  

Verdict 

It's a good basic soup.  Since I haven't made this recipe before, I figured I'd mostly follow what it said, and it called for one cup of lentils.  I like lentils a lot but I don't cook dry lentils often to know how it will turn out, and it turns out this soup was loaded with lentils.  In the future I would be ok to make with the same amount, but 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup might be good next time. 

Next time I would definitely use four sausages, the meat was my favorite part.  And more vegetables might be nice.  

We grated fresh Parmesan cheese on our servings, that added just the right finishing touch.  Sonny D didn't even taste his, so I have no idea if he would eat it again. 

Menu plan: Week of February 4

Monday - frozen mandu (Korean potstickers), frozen beef meatballs with satay peanut sauce, frozen veggies stir-fried, frozen coconut rice (made with light coconut milk and unsweetened flake coconut), salad

Tuesday - today is national pancake day so we'll have pancakes (banana pancakes, if I can find the ripe bananas in my freezer), frozen turkey breakfast sausages, clementines, cottage cheese

Wednesday - roasted veggie bowls with quinoa (I roasted sweet potatoes, onion, mushrooms, yellow squash, carrots on Sunday afternoon)

Thursday - chicken packets in the pressure cooker (Mexican for Husband Jeff and I, probably Italian for Sunny D), salads, butternut squash

Friday - pepperoni pizza grilled cheese sandwiches with pizza sauce to dip them in, salads, broccoli with cheese sauce

Saturday - salmon, almond roasted broccoli

Sunday - middle eastern takeout with friends plus leftover creamy tomato-basil soup and peanut butter cookies (I froze raw cookie dough, bake for fresh cookies)