Yowza, Yippee, Yummy!  

Posted by Emily in ,

Tonight I made Cashew Vegetable Korma for dinner and it was DELICIOUS! The recipe is from Post Punk Kitchen (link here). I've made a few things from her site already this week, but this one is the bomb! You're uspposed to mix the sauce in with the vegetables, but I kept them separate because DH wants to see later on if it's good over some chicken (it will be, but I'm not going there right now). Here's a photo (again, sorry for the crappy iPhone pics. Promise I'll dig out my other camera soon):


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I served it with Trader Joe's Garlic Na'an, which you toss in a 400 degree oven for a couple minutes just to warm it up. Just sooo. goood. The recipe makes 16 servings, so I'm really glad it turned out well because I'm going to freeze individual portions which I'll have for lunch whenever I want.

The other food I've been eating has been leftover Snobby Joes on toast, veggies, fruit, etc. Nothing new or noteworthy I suppose, though nice and healthy and pretty good.

Food is my only creative endeavor right now..  

Posted by Emily in ,

..or that how it seems anyway. Besides working (from home for now), doing some housework and preparing to redo the house and backyard, planning healthy meals (well- healthy-ish; I know I'm missing green leafy veggies, but they just don't appeal to me right now) is the only thing I seem to be accomplishing lately. Which is totally fine since that's pretty important :)


Breakfast yesterday. Sauteed (why won't the accent work for me?- pretend it's there above the first e) nectarine and leftover polenta with a little maple syrup:

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Lunch yesterday. Baked sweet potato, grapes and a Morningstar Farms Hickory Riblet (really good!):

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Dinner yesterday. Snobby Joes (recipe here) on jalapeño (the accent worked here!) focaccia (Safeway), homemade guacamole (a friends super-secret recipe) with pita chips and strawberries:

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Breakfast this morning. A toasted crumpet (Trader Joe's) with preserves, strawberries, grapes and mini heirloom tomatoes:

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Lunch was leftovers from dinner yesterday, so I didn't take any photos. Dinner tonight was Chickpea (aka Garbonzo Bean) Cutlets (recipe here), baked red potato and mushroom gravy (recipe here).

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Everything turned out pretty tasty and there's nothing I wouldn't make again, though maybe with a couple tweaks here and there. I froze the leftover Snobby Joe filling by scooping them onto a cookie sheet with an ice cream scoop, flash freezing and putting the scoops in a freezer bag. The leftover individual Chickpea Cutlets are freezing right now and I will put them in a freezer bag before I go to bed. I want to get some ready-made meals in the freezer that weren't mass produced by big companies.

That's it for now.. explore the blog I linked to (with the recipes), she has some other recipes I'm going to try eventually.

Joe.. how ah've missed ye..  

Posted by Emily in ,

I hadn't been to Trader Joe's in months and months before I decided to make the trip this afternoon. What a dope I've been- they have so many great products and actually have pretty decent prices! I bought a 1 liter bottle of olive oil for $5.50- I was expecting to pay $18.00 at Safeway later this week, d'oh! So anyway, I came home with quite a few items and I managed to use six of them in my dinner tonight.


I didn't take step-by-step photos since this is pretty easy and I didn't use a recipe.

Ingredients:

Polenta (I purchased the kind in a roll, but you can use the mix if you want), sliced to 1/2 inch rounds
1/4 of a small yellow onion, sliced
A handful or so of white mushrooms, chopped roughly
4 cloves garlic (more or less to your own taste), crushed and minced
Thyme
Oregano
Salt
Pepper
Sage
Olive oil

Heat the olive oil in your pan. Add the mushrooms, onions, garlic and spices and keep this to one side of the pan. Add the polenta rounds to the other side of the pan. Saute everything, keeping the polenta more or less separate from the rest so you can flip it over without trapping a mushroom or something underneath. Heat until browned and yummy :)

Then I made a simple caprese salad with the mini heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella balls that I purchased, topped off with just sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. So good!

Besides the spices, the only thing on my plate I didn't purchase today are the grapes. This turned out to be a great dinner, light (non-greasy or heavy) but still filling.

Here's a quick pic from my crappy iPhone and horribly lighted kitchen:

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My favorite side dish (that is frequently the main dish here)  

Posted by Emily in , ,

I make these jalapeño "poppers" pretty often. They're so fast, they have 3 ingredients (unless you decide to tweak them a little) and most important- they're SOOO yummy!


I was texting with my sister, describing these awesome morsels and decided to whip up a batch (I had just purchased the ingredients earlier today anyway). I took pictures along the way.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (mine is convection so it adjusts down 25 degrees automatically).

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Assemble the ingredients: fresh jalapeños (try to get uniform size and avoid really thick ones), Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese (or regular cream cheese or another cheese you like), and Turkey bacon. I accidentally bought the regular instead of extra lean like I normally do (or use real bacon or vegetarian bacon). You can tweak the kinds of cheese and add seasonings if you want (ranch dressing mix powder works well), but I mostly like to keep it simple. The Tofutti tastes just like cream cheese in my opinion and has far fewer calories and fat. The turkey bacon of course has fewer calories and fat as well- which means I can eat more of these haha!

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Cut jalapenos in half lengthwise (wear disposable gloves from this point on if you're like me and can't keep from touching your eyes after cutting peppers):

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Use a smallish spoon to remove the seeds and ribs.

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Use the spoon to spread some cream cheese into each half. I don't fill all the way to the edge, but feel free if you'd like:

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Using one slice of bacon per whole jalapeño, cut the bacon in half like so:

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Place on baking sheet with some foil and bake for 30 mins or until bacon is crispy:

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That photo turned out a little too blurry and I already plated up, so here's a photo of my plate with half a Morningstar Farm Riblet (so good!):

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I took all these photos with my iPhone. I have a camera but it is so slow and difficult to adjust with lighting I just went the easy route. I'm currently putting money aside for a new camera, so my photos will look much better soon. Also, I wasn't being too artistic about displaying the food.. If you want that, check out Pioneer Woman (which is where I got the original recipe)!

Dinner's served :)