Garden Sides and Salads

I've been harvesting up like a fiend, and was entertaining last weekend.  Being as I didn't want to buy anything (or much of anything), I pulled together what I could find from the garden and pantry and made due.

1st Dish: I made beet salad.  But, I've made (and you've read) that before, so I won't bore you with those details again.  But, for the record, it's good EVERY time you make it.  And people don't seem to bore of it, so double bonus.

2nd Dish: Yellow squash casserole.
Ingredients:
3 medium squash, sliced
1/2 stick of butter (4T), melted
1 small sweet onion, diced
about 20 saltines, crushed

Directions:
Saute onions.  Boil squash until al dente (not soft).
Combine veg with about 1/4 of the cracker crumbs.
Place in greased 8x8 dish.  Top with remaining crackers, then top with melted butter.
Bake at 350 until the crackers turn golden.  Everything is already cooked, so it's just to combine the flavors so nicely.

3rd Dish: Cucumber, Tomato, and Feta Salad

Ingredients:
4-6 Roma Tomatoes, diced large-ish
2 Cucumbers, diced large-ish
1/2 C Feta crumbles
Dressing Ingredients:
2 T red wine vinegar
3 T olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste




Directions:
Combine first three ingredients in a bowl.
Whisk dressing ingredients.
Toss everything together just before serving.

Crispy Parmesan Asparagus Spears

First off, here's the recipe. I followed it almost exactly (only doubled).  Asparagus is so cheap right now (.99 for a huge bundle), so we made three bundles, doubling the recipe in the mean time.

It's not quite asparagus season around here (at least not for another month or so), but any chance we get to make an asparagus dish on the cheap is good for me.  We used Progresso's Italian Panko, and I omitted the salt and pepper, leaving that to everyone's taste.  It really didn't need either, though.

 Look at how gorgeous those stems were!  My mouth is still watering just at the thought of them.

 One nice aspect of this recipe, in addition to how easy it is, is that you don't really come away with an overly breaded taste.  The breading is nice and crunchy (as panko usually is), but not over powering.

Thomas ate it reheated and said it was still wonderful, but I can't do second day breading.

It's a great side for entertaining or a nice weekend meal.  I, personally, wouldn't do it during the week because I have no patience with multi-stepped sides after work, but when I have the time for it, it is wonderful!

Quinoa con Queso

Holy time-suck, Batman!  I have fallen in love, and you might just reap the benefits of it.  My new obsession love?  Pinterest!  Pinterest itself is not a new idea, it's just taking the bookmarks I have in my favorites and putting them on a visual board for me (and my friends) to enjoy.  However, it has re-sparked my love of reading different blogs to look for new ideas for crafts, recipes, and inspirations in life.  It's also fun to peek into the heads of others to see what their bookmarked favorites may be.  Sure, Pinterest is getting to be old news now that almost everyone is there, but the more that join and play with it, the more fun it is becoming.

To keep this story short (too late!), one of my fabulous friends posted a recipe for Quinoa con Queso, and since we love to buy the 5lb bags at Costco, I figured this might be the perfect recipe!

 First of all, I only kind of followed the recipe.  I mean, I did, but if you look at the picture on the recipe link above, you'll see that my final picture looks nothing like it, so here was my recipe (and this was doubled for left overs).

Quinoa con Queso Ingredients
2 C of Quinoa
4 C Water
1 T Olive Oil
2 T Butter
1 Large Chopped Onion
2 tsp Pressed Garlic
4 Diced Bell Peppers
4 Diced White Chili Peppers
4 C Chopped Zucchini
4 T Tomato Paste (mine is far more red than the original recipe's photo!)
4 Roma Tomatoes (seeded and diced)
Kosher Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste
1/2 tsp Italian Herb mix (I was out of Oregano)
10 oz of Queso Fresco diced
1 1/2 C milk



Directions:  This was SO SIMPLE, I'm definitely making it again!
1. Make the Quinoa according to the package (boil water, simmer, set - same as rice)
2. Take your big pan/pot and melt the olive oil/butter.  Add in your onion and cook until about halfway to clear.  Add garlic (for about a minute), then add your peppers and work them all until close to tender.  Then, add your zucchini, tomato paste, and tomatoes, and let the mixture cook down a bit.
3.  Next up, add your seasonings.  Once everything is tender and ready to go, add your cheese.  Our chicken wasn't quite ready, so the cheese was more melty than cubed, but I dug it that way.
4. Before serving, warm the milk and add it to your quinoa.  This finishes it off with a slightly creamy texture that compliments the cheesy warmth of the "con queso."

Sorry it's a bit blurry, but it was incredible just the same!

Awesome Au Gratin!

Seriously, that's the name - Awesome Au Gratin Potatoes!!  Hard to believe, no?  I certainly had some qualms before trying out the recipe, especially after the broccoli fiasco mistake.

Well, it started off an a high note - I got to use my apple peeler/corer/slicer on the potatoes, making them A BREEZE!






So, the thing about this - other than it's coring my potato, is that it's one continuous whilygig.  That's fine, if you're going for a flat curly-fry, but I was looking for just plan rings, so I sliced down one side of the ring to separate them.  This made peeling/slicing a dream, and I completed 9 potatoes in about as many minutes!
 

I mixed up the soup and cheese.  Of course, they wanted only 6 oz. of cheddar, but really?  We all know they come in 8 oz bags, and who doesn't love cheese?!  I amped up that puppy and put in the whole bag.  No big whoop, just the way it goes!

Then I laid it out in my biggest pyrex, because this was way more potato than Thomas and I could finish in three meals, let alone one!

Again with the cheese?  I just put down a layer, didn't measure out the one ounce!

After an hour of baking, this is what my dish looked like.  Quite yummy, but I wanted more cheese.  (Quelle surprise!)  So, I went ahead and added another light layer of the parmesan.  What could it really hurt?

This is after an hour and 15 minutes.  Definitely done, and flippin' amazing!

Just pair with your favorite steak and salad, and enjoy!!

A Tuesday for Thomas

I always brag about Thomas' skills, but I never really showcase him.  Sorry about that, I just hardly ever catch him in the action.  He's on like Donkey Kong and then gone, baby, gone.  So, I snuck into the kitchen this past weekend to catch him making one of our favorites - asparagus!  There's hardly a week that goes by without asparagus in our household, so I thought I'd share one of Thomas' new recipes he's been trying from the Food Network Magazine. 

As you can see, Thomas is already a firm believer in a Pampered Chef kitchen...  Here, he's using the much abused Food Chopper (not a meal goes by where this one gets any rest), and one of our two cup prep bowls, with lid.  That way he can prep the drizzle and take it with him to our cook out and leave the rest of the mess at home!

For this asparagus, Thomas also pulled out the garlic press and our microplane adjustable grater/zester.  These are also staples in the kitchen.  He is not, however, using one of our flexible cutting mats, but I think that's because this one warped in the dishwasher and so it holds the lemon juice in!

As Thomas was peeling the asparagus, I noticed him putting them into iced water.  I know that asparagus grow well in sandy soil, so I know soaking them helps to get them clean, but the ice?  I had no idea.  Thomas, first of all, told me that he was cleaning them in salt water.  He added salt to the water to help kill of any other nasty that still might be on the asparagus.  As for the ice?  He said it seemed like a great way to keep them fresh and crisp.  Seeing as he makes asparagus all the time, I had to trust him on this one!

Finally, when we got to the cookout, he cooked them quite quickly, and then added his drizzle on top.

Yummy!!

A-side from the Obvious...

What the what?  I made a side dish?!?  Oh yeah!!  I found a recipe this week for Peperonata.

Thomas claims this dish is like ratatouille, but without the zucchini.  Since I've only seen the Disney movie, I have no basis for comparison.  There were no rats in the kitchen, I promise.  The other part about this recipe that surprised me was the tomatoes.  I'm not a fan, unless they're cooked, but I figured since the recipe calls for them diced, they would be negligible.  Sweetness.  I started with the tomatoes, since it's the part I dreaded most.  I used more huller (which is now part of the core and more), and this mess was actually a breeze.  I then used my nicer dicer to, well, dice them, and I was ready to roll!

Luckily, I still had some basil in the house from my crusty pasta, and I bought three packages of peppers (a red and a yellow per package), but I also had a pepper in the fridge that needed to be used, so there were a walloping seven peppers harmed in making this dish, in addition to the whole package of Roma tomatoes...

I followed the recipe pretty closely.  I only used half of an onion (I had already used the other half), and I used Italian seasoning mix instead of dried oregano.  Either way, it all worked out.  I had to upgrade the pan I was originally using, but I probably should have started with my stir-fry wok anyway.  The dish was easy to make, and Thomas worked on the grill and making the rice, so the night was a piece of cake for me!

Don't mind the screen, it's been very warm this week, and we needed the airflow.  No lights going in this household!  As you can see, Thomas grilled a whole chicken, made Jasmine rice (with some of my peperonata juice and tomato boullion), and I contributed the peppers.  I can't wait until my garden peppers are big enough so I can make this all out of my garden.  AWESOME!