Making up salads & new obsessions

So I seem to have unfollowed most of the terrible “recipe” posters from Pinterest, and I found some really great people to follow – my faith in Pinterest is restored. Huzzah!

I combined elements of  this recipe and this recipe because I had a bunch of the stuff in the fridge – zucchini, tomatoes, limes, cucumbers, eggplant – added some shredded chicken, and it turned out to be really good!  Very pleased.

The child liked it too.

She is sixteen months old today.  I can hardly believe it.

That’s what we had for dinner tonight – this week has been:

Sunday:  steak fajitas and black beans

Monday:  breakfast for dinner – egg and bacon sandwiches

Tuesday:  made up salad

Wednesday:  pulled pork sandwiches and sauteed zucchini

Thursday:  spaghetti with Italian sausage and kale

Friday:  homemade pizza

Saturday:  paprika rubbed fish with cheddar polenta and veg – we’ll see what we get in the CSA this week

Obsession:  Carla made me some agua fresca de jamaica, and it is AMAZING.

Also, the jar of hibiscus infusion looks like a jar of blood in the fridge which is nice and creepy.

I also made some infused waters – this weekend it was lime/rosemary and a cucumber/basil.  Both were delicious.  Tomorrow is lime and berry.

 

Day of the pork

So we bought this huge pork shoulder at Costco, and Saturday of this weekend was the Day of the Pork.  Now we have pulled pork for sandwiches, bulk Italian sausage, and tomorrow we’ll have cochinita pibil for tacos.  For a long, long time.

I realized that I got so into bee-bim bop last week that I didn’t post a meal plan!  So last week, we had:

Saturday: bee-bim bop

Sunday:  La Casa that my mother-in-law brought over.  Love La Casa.

Monday:  pasta with italian sausage and red sauce

Tuesday:  turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, sugar snap peas, and broccoli

Wednesday:  falafel salad

Thursday:  BBQ spiced shrimp & grits

Friday:  we had dinner with our friends (and former neighbors) Rick and Kate – enchiladas!  Their oven died the next day.  I swear I didn’t touch it.

And then this week, we begin using the pork!

Saturday:  grilled salmon, potatoes, parmesean-lemon green beans (Wild sockeye was $25 a pound at our local grocery store but $13.99 a pound at costco, which isn’t cheap but compared to $25 a pound sounds like a freaking bargain.)

Sunday:  lasagna (I made a second one for the freezer – my general theory on lasagna is that it is a pain to make so you might as well make a ton.)

Monday:  Buffalo chicken salad with blue cheese dressing

Tuesday:  pulled pork sandwiches with sauteed green beans

Wednesday:  we are going to the College World Series!  I haven’t been since I was a teenager.  I think it’ll be fun.  Curt wants to eat a hot dog.

Thursday:  crock pot minestrone soup

Friday:  Hoisin chicken with soba noodles

Have a good week, everyone!

 

Don’t eat the paint.

Bee-bim Bop

We got E this book a few weeks ago – it’s super cute.  After reading it a few times, Curt started asking me to make some bee-bim bop for dinner one night.  So I did yesterday.

The book says that bee-bim bop is a popular meal for many Koreans, and I can see why – it was delicious and it came together really quickly.  Also, since everything is served separately if you have picky eaters they can easily avoid the greens or carrots or whatever.

Bee-bim bop – recipe adapted from Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park

Ingredients

Marinade:

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 green onions, sliced

5 TB soy sauce

2 TB sugar

2 TB vegetable oil

2 tsp sesame seeds

1 TB sesame oil

Black pepper

Meat:

1 pound tender lean beef (I used sirloin), sliced very thinly against the grain

Vegetables

3 – 4 carrots, julienned

2 10-oz. packages frozen spinach (I used kale we had frozen from last summer), defrosted and well-drained

1 pound mung bean sprouts

Other ingredients:

4 eggs, well beaten

salt and pepper

vegetable oil for frying

Serve with:  kochugang (Korean hot pepper paste), kimchee, steamed rice

Instructions:

Combine marinate ingredients and meat and set aside.

Stir-fry carrots in vegetable oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.

Season with a little bit of salt and pepper and set aside.  Repeat with bean sprouts and greens or spinach.

For eggs, the recipe stated to season the eggs with salt and pepper, make four thin egg pancakes, and slice them into ribbons.  I unfortunately am unable to make egg pancakes without everything turning into a hot mess, so I just scrambled the eggs.

Finally, the meat.  Heat your skillet over medium-high heat.  When the pan is hot, dump the meat and marinade in all at once.  Cook quickly until the meat is done; keep the marinade as a sauce.

Hungry E is ready to eat!  To serve:  put some rice (“bop”) in the bottom of your bowl.  Top with meat (and sauce), veggies, and egg.

Stir until mixed up (“bee-bim”), top with gochujang and kimchi, and enjoy.

She loved it – no kimchi, but she had some of everything else!

Happy Mother’s Day

Curt made brunch today – it was glorious.  Quiche Lorraine, a spinach and feta quiche, potatoes, and my sister and fake brother-in-law brought cut up fruit and banana bread.

The child very much enjoyed playing with her grandmothers.

Since it is Mother’s Day, I decided that I didn’t want to spend all day cooking for the week – so this week’s menu is super, super simple.

Sunday – crunchy black bean tacos (found on Pinterest – they were ok but next time I will just make quesadillas and be done with it) + salad

Monday – salmon puttanesca pasta (found one lonely salmon filet in the freezer – thought this would be a good way to use it up)

Tuesday – veggie burgers + baked potatoes & sauteed veg

Wednesday – falafel salad

Thursday – “pork” and beans (chicken sausage and baked beans)

Friday – kale & feta pinwheels (a spanikopita-inspired version of this recipe)

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there who is a mother or has a mother – and here’s to a week of easy food!

Clearing out the cobwebs

My, but it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?  Last weekend I was in San Francisco for my race, and I visited a friend from college who lives in the Bay area.  He asked if I was still cooking, which is a fair question since I have not been posting.  And the answer is yes, I have been cooking.  Just not writing about it.

There is this feeling of obligation (for me at least) that if I haven’t posted in ages, my opening post must be epic!  And contain tons of pictures!  Etc.  But I haven’t had time to compose an epic, photo-heavy post because the child is distracting me.

An adorable distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.  Which is as it should be, but I’d like to post more often.  So here goes.

It’s fall!  Time for soup and stew and butternut squash in everything.  Today I’m making cochinita pibil and also boeuf bourguignon, Julia Child’s recipe.  I also made some beginner’s beef ragout from this book for the baby.

She loved it.  So far, feeding E has been a lot of fun.  She likes everything but avocado (darn.  More avocado for meeee!) so far.  We’ve been using a mix of homemade and store-bought foods, and she’s just starting to get some meals at daycare too.

I think we’re going to try and work our way out of purees and see if she can start feeding herself soon.  If nothing else, the dogs will LOVE it when she throws things on the floor.  Especially Nettie.

One fish, two fish, red fish, new fish

Why, hello there.  I have a blog, do I?  I also now have a baby.

Her name is Eileen and she is four weeks old.  She has zero appreciation for cooking of any kind to date.

Lots more pictures – I’ve slowly been cooking again and hopefully can post something of substance again soon!

Baby shark!

Not horribly unhappy to be laying on her stomach.

E and her daddy – this was taken in the hospital still.

Baby shower cake!  Thanks to Sully Bakes for doing an amazing job.

Baby shower food – thanks to Carla for your amazing creativity with the menu, and to my sister and aunt for hosting.

Nursery.

More nursery… most items purchased at Ikea or on Craigslist.

Broccoli and cheddar pinwheels – from Parents Need to Eat Too!

Debbie’s book comes out tomorrow!

If you want to pre-order, today is the last day to get your free digital starter kit.  Or, if you’re the gambling type, leave a comment on THIS POST about your first food memory by Tuesday, February 21st at midnight CST and you will be entered to win a copy!

I have to say, I’ve been really spoiled by having a copy in hand for a couple of weeks now.  This book is great and I forsee using it a lot once this kid is born (due date in t-minus 26 days.  OMG.).  The recipes I’ve tried have worked well and the time estimates aren’t gross exaggerations like they are in some recipes/cookbooks (see also:  damn near every recipe in Cooking Light magazine’s time estimates, Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals that take an hour).

Also, Curt is seemingly enthralled by the “make baby food” instructions that accompany most of the recipes.  It’s the little things that count.

Broccoli and Cheddar Pinwheels

1 pound prepared pizza dough, white or whole wheat (I used half a batch of this dough)
2¹⁄₂ cups finely chopped broccoli, or one 10-ounce package of frozen chopped broccoli, defrosted and finely chopped  (If you don’t mind the additional cleanup, you can do the fine-chopping by pulsing in the food processor. It’s important that the pieces be quite small, or you’ll have trouble in the assembly.)
1 to 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, depending on how much you like cheese (who doesn’t like cheese?  We definitely used two cups.)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line or grease a baking sheet.  (I would HIGHLY recommend lining the baking sheet.  We used a silpat and there was some cheese-oozage that would have been a bit of a nightmare to remove from an unlined sheet).

1. Remove pizza dough from the refrigerator 30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to use it.

2. Steam the broccoli until just tender, 5 to 6 minutes. (We used the food processor to chop the broccoli up, as suggested.  Worked like a dream.)  Cool slightly, then combine broccoli with the Cheddar, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste.

3. Roll or stretch the dough on a floured work surface into a large rectangle, about 10 x 14 inches. Don’t worry if you can’t get those exact measurements, but take care not to stretch the dough so thin it rips.

4. Spread the broccoli mixture over about three-quarters of the dough, leaving an uncoated portion at one short side.

Begin to roll the dough from the short side covered with the broccoli spread, and keep rolling until you’ve got a nice, neat log of dough.

   

5. Using a serrated knife or a pastry scraper, cut the log into 8 equal pinwheels.

Carefully lay the pinwheels flat on the prepared baking sheet, and bake until crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted, 15 to 20 minutes.

Verdict?  These are REALLY tasty.  This is one of those recipes that is greater than the sum of its parts – the ingredients list isn’t much but don’t let that fool  you.  Also, they come together really quickly.  I plan to make another batch as soon as I have more pizza dough.