Eggplant-Parm sandwiches, Curry, Salad, Cajun chicken, and Blintz Hotcakes

This week I made:

• Eggplant-Parm Grilled Cheese, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• Thai Pork Chops, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• Butternut Squash & Arugula Salad, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• served with steak
• Blackened Chicken with Broccoli Slaw, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
• served with black beans and rice from a package that was G's favorite when we made it a few months ago, but he didn't remember it :(
• Cheese Blintz Hotcakes, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014

We got to the end of Sunday and were suddenly really hungry! I had planned to make the butternut squash salad, but we didn't want to wait for the squash to bake, so we looked for a fast recipe instead. This one sounded like it would be good, and G always likes to put his George Foreman grill to use with hot sandwiches. In this recipe, the eggplant is broiled in the oven. You cook up some garlic until golden-crispy too. But other than that, it's just cutting up some cheese, tomatoes, and basil, so it's pretty simple. 

The only annoying thing is that it calls for pressing the buttered bread into 1.5 c grated Parmigiano-Reggiano before grilling. First, that's a waste of $, since that amount is uncalled for. Second, it basically all falls off anyway. Or maybe that's because I used no-name parmesan cheese and it knew it didn't fit in?? Anyway, I guess she had to put it so that it would really be eggplant-parm, but it didn't seem to work that well. The recipe was also funny because it calls for a whole eggplant, sliced very thin. And yet each sandwich (makes 4-6) only has a single slice?? It could use some more (and we did, for leftovers).

On Monday we have ceramics, so we always need to cook a quick recipe. (And even then, we are usually late! :-/) This curry was pretty fast, starting with jarred red curry paste. The recipe called for bell peppers, but we had some sweet peas so I put that in too. I guess there's not too much to say about this, because it really depends on the red curry that you choose-- ours was a little more spicy than I would have preferred!

 On Wednesday we had a bit more time, so we made the butternut squash salad. Actually, since I used frozen butternut squash (cut pretty small, too), it didn't take as long as it called for. I left it in for a while anyway though (and forgot about it until some of the smaller pieces burnt and the rest were nice and crispy #overlyhonestmethods). Meanwhile, we made some steak. When I asked G what he wanted to eat with the salad, he chose steak and talked as if he knew exactly how to make it, but then when it came time to cook it he said he didn't want to do it because he didn't know how! We sauteed it in the cast iron skillet and then stuck the pan in the oven for a while after, since we (I?) like steak to be cooked all the way through. It was pretty good-- I sometimes don't like beef that much, but every once in a while I'm hungry or iron-deficient or something and it tastes amazing. I think there was a lot of fat. Oh, and we put a pat of butter on top when we put it in the oven too.
The salad was good too. We didn't have any dijon, so the dressing was just vinegar, brown sugar, and EVOO. It was really thick!

This blackened chicken is super fast and easy, because it's just rubbed with Cajun seasoning and pan-fried. The slaw is just a bagged slaw tossed with lemon juice and mayo. We don't really like mayo that much, so I guess we should've done something else for the side. But the chicken was good! I think this was our first time using the Cajun seasoning that came with the set of spices G has had for an embarrassingly long amount of time. I know that spices aren't supposed to be as good after a while, but they all seem pretty fragrant still!

These pancakes were so good! They're really easy, because it's just mixed in a blender, and can then be poured straight into the pan (another #overlyhonestmethod-- I made big pancakes instead of small ones because the lid of the blender fell off while I was pouring and smushed my nice small batter puddles into a big pond). It's a mix of eggs, flour, milk, sugar, baking powder, and cottage cheese. It's moist and the cottage cheese gives it a good texture. We didn't have any jams except ones so old the caps are stuck on, so we topped them with fresh mango instead. Yum! This is such a simple and great breakfast recipe-- definitely keeping :)

Quick burritos, pasta, and chicken parm sliders

This week I made:
Chicken and Black Bean-Stuffed Burritos, Cooking Light December 2010
Citrus and Radish Salad, Cooking Light December 2010
Sausage Ragu with Pappardelle, Rachael Ray December 2013
Chicken Parmesan Burgers, Cooking Light April 2011
served with steamed broccoli and a dash of lemon

We didn't have much time on Wednesday and were hungry, so I made this ready-in-30-minutes meal. It's speeded along by using rotisserie chicken  in the filling along with black beans that have been mixed with salsa. The chicken is boiled briefly with lime juice, chili powder, cumin, and black and red pepper to give it a little extra oompf. After wrapping up the burrito, it's toasted on each side (as you can see from the picture, a little too much), which makes it nice and crispy.
On the side is a salad with a citrusy dressing. Maybe our dressing to salad ratio was off though, because it wasn't very pronounced, even though it had potential.

On Thursday I made this sausage ragu. G picked out the next couple of recipes from the recipe binder, and I think it reminded him of some of the past meat sauces that we've had and he liked.

 The recipe calls for pappardelle, but the kind our supermarket carries isn't quite as wide as the magazine pictures. The sauce was good, but it was overpowered by a strange taste that the pasta had. We think we might keep the recipe, but will use a different brand of pasta next time!

On Friday I made these chicken parm burgers. It looks pretty monotone in this picture,  but in the magazine's cut-through view it's red, white and green. It's put on ciabatta rolls that are toasted and then rubbed with garlic. The patty is a mix of ground chicken, marinara, and some spices. They're cooked in the skillet and then put into the oven with a little mozzarella to melt. It's layered in the ciabatta roll with some basil leaves and more marinara sauce. 

The addition of the marinara to the ground chicken seeemed to mabe make it a little too moist, and I'm not sure that the flavor was very apparent. G makes some great Italian-spiced hamburgers (stuffed with cheese), so I would rather eat those :) I don't think we'll save this recipe, but it's an interesting idea I guess.

Chocolate fest

Today I made three desserts from Rachael Ray's top 25 chocolate recipes list:
1. Hot Cocoa Cookies
19. Subtly Spicy Chocolate Brownies
23. Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Bars

I saw these cookies in the December 2011 issue, but didn't end up saving the recipe. But G picked them out from the top 25 list. It make sense, because his all-time favorite cookie recipe is for s'more cookies, which are basically this same thing except with graham cracker chocolate chip cookie instead of chocolate cookie. Like the s'more cookies, these cookies bake a few minutes before getting topped. They're topped with a piece of chocolate and half a marshmallow. The chocolate melts and stays melty and gooey for quite a while. I like the cookies best without the top, but G liked these. I think he liked them the best of these 3 desserts.

The brownies are called "subtly spicy" but they're neither subtle nor spicy. They have chili powder, which isn't spicy, but smokey. Maybe they meant spice-y? And it's a decently strong flavor. Chili and chocolate go together, I guess-- I know I've seen chili recipes that call for chocolate. But I think it's more common to have chocolate go with actual spicy things like red pepper or something. Anyway, these were interesting. People were eager to taste them, but not that eager to have seconds. I wouldn't make it again.

 This truffle bar is like a brownie, but I guess it's meant to be a little more moist and ganachey. I ended up baking this quite a bit longer than called for, because it kept seeming like it failed the toothpick test. I think it's supposed to be a little undercooked though, and so it ended up a bit dry. I really liked it though! It's a brownie covered in melted chocolate and topped with raspberries. I would definitely make this one again :)

One Grocery Bag, 3 Great Meals

This week I made:
Chicken Turkey Meatball & Vegetable Soup, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
Chicken Turkey & Broccoli Stromboli, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014
Asian Chicken Turkey Lettuce Cups, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014

These three recipes were grouped as 3 great meals that could be made with one grocery bag. It kind of seems like most three meals could probably fit in one bag, but I guess this is special because you should be able to pass through the express lane since it's just 10 unique items (although I feel like 2 cans would count as 2 items for express lane purposes. And the express line doesn't let you get your Monopoly tickets to participate in this year's edition of the frustratingly-never-even-win-$2 promotion).

The shopping list:

We had an incredibly cold, windy, snowy, rainy day on Thursday, so it was great to follow up with a warm bowl of soup.

This soup was very fast and easy. A lot of the seasoning just comes from the Italian-style canned tomatoes. The onion and carrot are sauteed a little first, but then the broccoli, orzo, and meatballs are just cooked in the broth so it simmers for a little while. I don't usually use Italian-style tomatoes, but it's nice to think that with that and some random vegetables you could make a soup almost any time. I guess that sprinkling in some Italian seasoning isn't the time-consuming step, though :-P And don't seasoned tomatoes probably have more sodium or something bad like that? Oh well.

For Valentine's Day we ate in and I made stromboli:

I don't know if this is really a stromboli though. I guess it's more like a calzone except it's log-shaped. A stromboli (according to Google) seems more like a roll. Like a cinnamon roll with salami and cheese instead of cinnamon. But this one was just closed up (and barely... I didn't do a good job rolling out the dough and so it got a lot of hole) as a tube, not a pinwheel. The filling was onion, broccoli, ground turkey, and cheese, and it was topped with more Italian-style tomatoes. So... a lot more of the same flavors as the previous dish. But I guess if it tasted good the first time, it's not bad to have it a second time? I used a pillsbury can of whole wheat pizza dough, and it tasted better than I expected it to.

On Monday we finished up the trio of meals with these lettuce cups:

The problem is that butter lettuce really doesn't want to make cups. This was the super messiest meal to eat. It tasted fine, although it wasn't anything too extremely compelling.

Apps from the freezer

Tonight was Open Doors Night, a biannual event at our dorm. The past two times we've gone easy and just put together a cheese platter and some truffles or other chocolate. This time, emboldened by his success with the meatball sliders he made for Superbowl, G wanted us to make some of the other recipes in the group. The theme was appetizers that can be made very quickly from a small number of ingredients, mostly from the frozen food section or pantry. The meatball sliders for example used frozen meatballs.

Today we made:
Chicken 'N' Mini Waffles, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Lemony-Dill Salmon Cakes, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Bacon-Tater Bites, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Ginger-Miso Sweet Pea Spread, Food & Wine December 2010 (not pictured)

The chicken and waffles sounded really cool, except for the fact that it literally is just a chicken nugget on top of an Eggo mini waffle. There's not too much to it! But luckily there is a sauce, which made it seem like it was something. The sauce is just honey and Sriracha (6:1), but is pretty tasty.
The lemony salmon cakes were a bit more complex. It's smoked salmon on top of a blend of feta, cream cheese, and lemon zest, on top of a mini pancake. The feta/cream cheese mix was kind of odd, but good, and the Aunt Jemima Frozen Lil' Griddles Mini-Pancakes were nice and sweet :)
The bacon-tater bites were just bacon wrapped around tater tots. We didn't make the sour cream + chive dip.
Individually, these were each super easy. But, since they were all frozen things, there wasn't a whole lot of space in the oven! So it was hard to get everything together and be warm at the same time. We baked the waffles and chicken nuggets separately, although I guess you could have baked them as assembled units to save on space if you wanted. The pancakes could be microwaved, but the tater tots and bacon needed to be cooked briefly separately before being wrapped and then baked for longer. That was a sight to be seen. Basically, the bacon and probably the tater tots too were just sweating grease. We poured off a lot after the first bake, but when we checked on them later during the second bake to see if they were crispy, they were just bathed in grease! I guess that's what makes them taste so good....
Almost everything was eaten, except a couple of the salmon pancakes and two waffles which were left behind by someone who just took off the chicken nuggets (!)
Noticing that these three apps all had meat, I wanted to make a veggie option too. I made this ginger-miso sweet pea spread, which is incidentally also from a frozen food. It's thawed frozen peas blended with green onions, ginger, jalapeño, and some miso. It makes for a kind of strange flavor combination. Everyone, upon hearing the ingredients, was really excited to try it. But, I don't think that many people went back for seconds or thirds. It's a little too odd, or maybe everyone was just full from bacon. I wonder if it would be better with edamame or something instead of the green peas.

Pasta, Orange buns, and Stoup

This week I made:

Chicken Ragu with Fennel, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014

Sweet Orange Buns, Saveur January/February 2012

Sausage, Zucchini & Potato Stoup, Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2014

Thursday I made this pasta with ground turkey, fennel, and half-and-half. It was ok, but nothing too special. Unfortunately I didn't give the flat fettuccini enough of a stir after first putting it in the pot, so some of the noodles clumped together, becoming super thick masses that were quite al dente, in a bad way :-(

But while that was being eaten, these babies were in the oven:

I made the dough, filling, and rolled these out the night before, and they sat in the fridge until tonight. I baked them for the final meeting of book club. They were pretty ridiculously sweet and buttery, definitely needing some straight tea to mellow it out. The filling is two sticks of butter plus 3 cups of powdered sugar along with some zest, extracts, and more sugar (brown this time). It's about a centimeter tall once it all gets smeared on top of the dough! Of course, during baking that basically all just melts, such that you end up with these rolls sitting in a bath of melted sugar-butter about halfway up the sides. They have you use a bit more of the filling mixed with a bit of orange juice to drizzle, but it just seemed so excessive and not even different (how does adding 1 Tbs juice to 1/4 cup frosting even make it more like icing? Seems like icing needs less liquid, not more, or else it just melted in instantly).

We enjoyed the leftovers for breakfasts and such :)

On Friday we warmed up after a cold day with this stoup:

I thought I had a lot of extra Italian sausage in the freezer, but didn't. Instead of just skimping, I used up some other sausage that was in our freezer-- a fully-cooked chicken sausage with apple and sweet maple syrup. Um, this did not fit in well. The rest was hearty and savory, but then you'd have these cloying bites of this sausage with a weird texture to boot. It would have been better without it, and on my second bowl I started fishing it out. The rest of it was great and used up the rest of the fennel from the earlier pasta. As a kid, we used to eat a similar soup basically every week as per my sister's demands. I named it "rainbow soup" because it had so many colorful ingredients, but I think I was the only one who called it that. I guess the only similarities are ground meat (but sausage instead of ground beef), potatoes, onion, garlic, and tomatoes. I'm not sure what makes this a "stoup"-- it's pretty much the definition of a soup.

Superbowl Spread

Today I made:
Meatball Sub Sliders, Every Day with Rachael Ray November 2013
Veggie Taco Bowls (made as a layered dip, not put into bowls), Family Circle September 2013
Tricolor Trio-- Kale, White Bean, what Chile Crostini, Every Day with Rachael Ray December 2013
Sweet Chile Hot Wings Drumsticks , Every Day with Rachael Ray January/February 2013
Guacamole

So I've never really watched football. I don't think G really does either, but anyway on Saturday he was bemoaning the fact that all of our friends were going to be watching the Super Bowl and we hadn't been invited to anyone's parties. (...maybe because we are homebodies who don't often go to parties even when we are invited...) I suggested that we throw our own party, because it would be fun to do the cooking thing, and we sent an email out to the dorm to see who else was "homeless" for the event. It turned out to be a party's worth! 

I've never been to a Super Bowl party, but the Internet told me that you've got to have some sort of wings, some sliders, chips and dips, and some veggie sticks (gotta pretend to be healthy, right?). We selected several recipes that seemed like they'd be pretty quick.

Although each dish was less than 15 minutes of hands on time, I started a few hours before the party to do whatever seemed like it could be done in advance. And at this leisurely pace, it took up basically the whole time until people arrived.

The sweet chile hot drumsticks were definitely the star food, and they got eaten up quickly. They're just slow cooked with soy sauce, honey, and sriracha (4:4:1 ratio, plus broth or water to cover) for a few hours, then broiled to get nicer looking. After slow cooking they looked pretty gross, but after baking they looked much nicer. We ended up baking them for longer than recommended, because the slow cooker took a while to get up to speed and we wanted to make sure it was cooked through.

The close second hit were the meatball subs. That was G's pick to make. They all got eaten too, and we made a second batch partway through the evening which also got devoured even though everyone was pretty full by that point. They're simply assemblies of purchased items, so they're very easy. It's jarred marinara, frozen meatballs, and slider buns. The buns are broiled with cheese (we used provolone), the meatballs are heated up in the marinara, and other than that it's just a bit of torn up basil.

The odd-one-out was the kale and white bean crostini. Too healthy? Not flavorful enough amongst all the other intensely spiced items? At the end of the evening we had several of these left, along with some dips. We repurposed the veggie taco bowl filling (beans, corn, spices) as quesadilla filling the next day for dinner.