One big catch up post

So compressed summer classes are fantastically time consuming. All of the time that we would do basic things like watch TV, leave the house, blog post, or clean got sucked into academics instead. But now the classes are over, except getting final grades, so it's time for one big catch up post. Here goes...

Here is our homemade pizza. Just dough (from the store), sauce, cheese, fresh basil.

Our usual grocery store doesn't carry premade dough, so we shortcut other nights by using whole wheat naan as our pizza base. This is a similar version with pureed spinach and goat cheese.

This is recipe is from my friend, Danny. We slice up our Yukon Gold potatoes from the CSA into discs, dip them in a balsamic vinegar and olive oil mix, then dip them in a flour and fresh grated Parmesan mix before baking in a 425 degree oven until done (about 20-30 minutes).

Look food! Since we made these first during the World Cup, we call them world cup fries. They are good with a balsamic vinegar or ketchup dip, or naked.

Here is a haul from a recent week of our CSA. Look at the enormous zuke! The yellow softball looking thing is a lemon cucumber. We love our mismatched, delicious, fresh eggs.

Here is an amazing egg casserole Liz made to use up some of our CSA eggs. It has a dozen eggs, red pepper, CSA onion and garlic, cheese, and a blend of cumin, cayenne pepper, and kosher salt in it. We top it with our homemade guac.

Here are the ingriendts for the swiss chard pesto we made before basil started coming in the CSA.

... and the result. Right now we make fresh pesto every week.

This has quinoa, citrus, avocado, raisins, and spices in it. Be careful to not too much citrus in.

Here is a farmers' market insipred creation. We took pattypan squash and sliced them into discs and made little pizzas out of them. So a little sauce, cheese, and leaf of basil. We do seem to have tendency to slice things into discs and make pizza out of them...

Onto dessert... Here is Liz's amazing Oero cheesecake cupcakes. They are from the Martha Stewart cupcake book and are amazing.

And one of Liz's angel food cakes. This is also fabulous.

Springtime 2010

So we had a lot going on this year, but we had a lot of good memories. With the coming of spring, the snow depths finally gone, we were able to open up the windows and the doors. One truism we've found in life is that you more effort you put into something, generally the more you get out of it. One such something for us was the balcony. This year we went all out (for our little space) in terms of plants and also tried to make it more room with little touches like an outdoor rug. It turned out really well, and we've used it a lot more this year than in the past. Here are some pics from one spring day:

View from the corner of the balcony.

View from inside - before we got things hung up.

Our strawberries!

Unfortunately, at one point since this picture was taken we were gone for 5 days, and the strawberry plants seem to have taken in personally. While they haven't died, they refuse to bear fruit. But hope is still out that the everbrearing plant will bear fruit, but we will see. Otherwise the tomato plants and sage are still going strong, but of course the basil is dead. We're not sure what to do with sage, but we have lots of it. I need to more research on what do with it - expect posts about sage in the future.

In other news, a few weeks ago we had my immediate family over for my Mom's birthday. From hosting a few of these gatherings, we've learned to try to not be overly ambitious in trying new recipes when we have large groups over as having we normally have to clean the whole apartment too. But we did try out potato slab pie (sorry no picture), which was a hit. Everybody fit in the apartment and had a good time:

And Liz made two kinds of cupcakes. One was lemon cupcakes with lemon custard inside and pink lemonade mini-cupcakes.

We've also discovered so much about our area this year. Liz and I keep looking at each other wondering where all of our time went last year before remembering we were planning a wedding. We've been on our balcony more, we joined a gym for a bit, now we go running on trails near the house (yes, Liz runs), and we have discovered a lot of new places.

More recipe posts coming soon!

Well, it's been a long time

So where do we begin? It's been nearly three months since our last blog post.

Here are the highlights:

• Liz is going back to school
• Liz has her license
• I finished another graduate class
• Farmers market season began
• We cooked but didn't post about it

Over the course of the next few weeks we'll post about some of the things we cooked over the past few months. Here is one, I made scrambled eggs with chives over asparagus. To the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound thin asparagus
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons of heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh chives (from our window boxes)

To begin, set oven to warm. Then hold a asparagus spear in both hands, bend it gently; it will break naturally at the point at which the spear becomes tough. Repeat with remaining spears. Set the tender ends aside with all the tips pointing in the same direction; discarding the tough ends.

In a small bowl, beat eggs and cream together with a fork. Make sure to "measure twice, cut once" on adding the liquids so you don't waste 4 eggs like I did.

In a large skillet, bring an inch of water to a boil over high heat. Add asparagus, keeping all the tips pointing in the same direction. Boil until just tender, about 2 minutes. Lift asparagus out with tongs and transfer to a clean dish towel. Pat dry. Drain skillet, return the asparagus to the skillet and toss gently with 1 tablespoon of butter and salt to taste, taking care to keep the tips pointed in the same direction (I never figured out why they care about this so much). Transfer

asparagus to serving platter and place in oven to keep warm.

The directions call for making the eggs using a double boiler, which we don't have, so I just made scrambled eggs as I would normally with the chives mixed in. The directions say you should put the eggs over the asparagus just as they set. I just finished them and spooned them over the warmed asparagus.

This one is out of the book "Fresh From the Farmers' Market". The book is very useful, it outlines how to pick the best of different kinds of food and how to store them. For example, strawberries shouldn't be stored in the containers they come from in the store. They want to be stored in an airtight and dry container. So I now move the strawberries into a Tupperware with paper towels when I get home and they last longer.

More posts soon we hope!

Sweet Potato Soup

Tonight I made something that was outright good. Not that the other things weren't good, but this was "I want to share with this other people RIGHT NOW" good.

Here are the ingredients (link to full recipe):

• Olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 2-inch chunk fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced - about 1/4 cup
• 3 large sweet potatoes, about 2 1/2 pounds - peeled and cubed
• 3 tablespoons light miso
• 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth, or water
• 1 cup whole milk
• Salt and pepper

First prepping the ingredients:

Now that I had all of our ingredients ready to go, I sauted the onion and ginger in olive oil until the red onion is nearly translucent. We didn't have fresh ginger so I used 1 tsp of ground ginger instead. So at this point I'm fying onion, ginger, and garlic - so the kitchen is very aromatic.

And now the sweet potatoes and miso:

I sauted it all a little longer and then added 4 cups of vegetable broth and let it simmer for 25 minutes.

Okay, now one DVR Simpsons episode later, it's time for the fun part. This is my second time making soup and my second time using the immersion blender. Look at it go... (Liz helped)

Now to just mix in 1 cup whole milk and some salt & pepper and we have soup!

I've never had miso before to my knowledge, but I'm guessing that is flavor that is pulling this all together and making it awesome. The garlic provides a nice background flavor and the onion has occasional but somewhat understated presence. It is also filling but pretty much guilt free as the only fatty ingredient in the 2 quarts of soup is the 1 cup of whole milk. It also has a lightly spicy aftertaste.

Liz's quote says it all "this is so good that I'm not missing that we don't have bread".

Pie!

I made pie! This is a chocolate peanut butter pie from Good Eats. In the episode this recipe is from Alton Brown roasts his own peanuts, makes them into peanut butter and then uses then in the pie. That was a little ambitious for me so I used the home-style peanut butter from the deli section at the grocery store.

Ingredients

6 1/2 ounces chocolate wafers
1 tablespoon sugar
5 ounces unsalted butter room temperature, divided
3 ounces powdered sugar, approximately 3/4 cup
12 ounces of "homemade" peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream

First preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. I always forget to do this ahead of time.

In the food processor, combine the cookies and sugar. Process until the wafers are fine crumbs.

Melt the first 3 oz of butter in microwave and drizzle into the crumb mixture. Use the pulse button to mix it so that the butter doesn't pool at the bottom. Pour the mixture into the pie pan and press it into place. I used my fingers and a rubber spatula. Bake for ten minutes.

While the crust is cooling put the peanut butter and the last 2 oz of butter in the food processor. Process for 1 minute. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and process for another 1 1/2 minutes. It totally changes texture as the peanut bits get smaller and more air gets into the mixture.

Dump it into the pie pan.

Carefully spread the mixture into the pie shell and then bake for 10 minutes.

While the pie is cooling make the ganache to go on top. The recipe calls for chopped chocolate but I used chocolate chips because that's what I had on hand.

Place the heavy cream into a heat-proof bowl and microwave on high. I over did mine a little. Next time I pay closer attention. Pour the chocolate into the bowl and let it sit for 2 minutes. I actually timed it so I wouldn't cheat. Mix it up with a spoon. It takes a while to combine.

Pour the topping over the pie and spread with the back of a spoon. It says to chill for 90 minutes but we only waited thirty minutes. Yum! I'll definitely do this one again.

Mustard Green and Potato "Puree"

So we went to the grocery store on Saturday and by the time we got home it was clear what we should make for dinner. Pictured below are the almost untouched ingredients for tonight's meal. That huge pile on the right is what 2 1/2 lbs of mustard greens look like.

So rather than have to store this huge clump of veggies in the fridge, we made it that night. The initial idea came from here:

Kitchn Blog Recipe Link

We adopted a few of the suggested changes as well as a few of our own.

This is what we started off with:

• 2 and 1/2 lbs of mustard greens
• Chunk/wedge of cheddar cheese
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 and 1/2 lbs of potatoes (4 potatoes in our case)
• Salt & Pepper

I wasn't sure how to cook the mustard greens since I've never touched them before and becuase the recipe link doesn't discuss if you cook them the same as you would kale. So I did a little research and found that you can "quick-boil" it. Basically you rinse it off, tear it into bits, and then toss it into a stock pot and turn on high heat. The water used in the cooking process is just the water that clings to it from rinsing. After about 2-4 minutes they will have reduced in size and you can transfer it to a colander before it burns. Look how small it is after cooking!

I couldn't get it all to fit into one stock pot so I did it in two rounds. Unfortunately, I underestimated the residual heat from the first round and I burned some of the second round. This meant that I had to pull out a second stock pot for the potatoes which I had hoped to avoid. But I did, and I filled up the second pot with water, salt, and the four garlic cloves (which I peeled). By adding the garlic cloves here they give a nice background flavor that is not too strong. Once the water boiled, I tossed in the potatoes and they cooked in about ten minutes, after which I drained and mashed.

At the same time I sliced the cheese into bits and melted them in another pot (except for the ones I ate). Just as the cheese melted I combined everything into our mixer and let it have at it for a bit. Look at it go....

So again, it's not the prettiest thing. Liz does "pretty" much better than I do.

And here it is finished. It's basically really hearty mashed potatoes in terms of texture. I think it has a good flavor, which is good, since this apparently serves 8, and of course it's just Liz and me. (Note to self: check the number of servings before buying ingredients.)

So here is the updated list of new things we've tried:

• Kale
• Acorn Squash
• Brussel Sprouts
• Sardines
• Spaghetti Squash
• Mustard Greens

In other news:

• We went a full week here without snowing, but it supposed to wintry mix on Monday and snow on Friday.
• I'm really cheering for team USA hockey now. I would like my Caps players to do well too, but if it is USA vs Caps player team, I'm going USA.
• Speaking of, Liz and I just renewed out Caps season tickets for next year. And now there are rumors that DC will host the NHL Winter Classic next year (@ Nationals Park). I cannot begin to describe how excited I would be if we get that.

Coming soon... sweet potato soup from scratch!

Spaghetti Squash with Sage and Orange

Happy President's Day! So today was yet another day off for me and I decided it was time to try this spaghetti squash recipe while the squash was still good. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.wholeliving.com/recipe/spaghetti-squash-with-sage-and-orange

Liz and I think generally think that squash is unappreciated for how awesome it can be. Up until recently we hadn't touched it outside of pumpkin until we started buying butternut squash ravioli at Costco. A few weeks ago we tried out an acorn squash recipe which came out well, so we're gradually expanding out and getting the hang of it.

To begin, I pulled out the squash and started to slice it up. I think I may not know enough about how to pick the right knife for the job; I used a 5" santoku knife and had to really push it to halve the shell. In retrospect, perhaps a serrated knife would have been a better choice. It would also seem that the squash I picked out was a bit larger than the recipe expected as I had trouble getting it to lay flesh-side to lay down toward the steam in the pan which led to some issues later. While the squash was steaming, I prepped the rest of the the ingredients - random, zesting an orange is kind of fun.

Here are some pics:

(squash steaming - it's a bit crowded in there)

(the orange, post-zest & juice)

(the sauce)

So, at this point the squash is steamed-ish, the sauce is made, and now it's time to make into spaghetti. This part is pretty cool. To "make spagehetti", you rake it with a fork so that it breaks into little strands. Here is a picture of one of the quarters before and after as well as some of the strands:

To finish up I just tossed it all together...

(yay food)

Unfortunately, we didn't have fresh sage so I couldn't garnish it to make it look pretty. I also had to sub-out deli mustard for yellow mustard. But I remembered to take a picture this time before we started eating, just in time for a recipe where it doesn't show whether or not you've dug in.

The review: Liz and I thought the sauce came out well but that the squash was a bit too al dente as it was rather crunchy. That goes back to the over-sized issue I mentioned earlier. I was concerned about overcooking it and probably pull it out a bit early. Basically, you should cook until the fork slides easily into the flesh but before it is mushy. Whereas, when I took it out when I still had to push the fork a bit to get into some of the flesh.

The flavor is very light and delicate. If you're pairing it with a non-water drink you'll want to go with something that won't overpower it. I went back for seconds, so apparently I like it (we have brownies too, so it's not just because I'm hungry).

Positive Notes:

• From start to finish this took less than 30 minutes to make
• As with all veggie dinners, there are plenty of calories leftover for beer
• The new food list increases to 5 (sardines, acorn squash, brussel sprouts, kale, spaghetti squash)

Random Asides:

• Less than one day to Men's Olympic Hockey
• I don't think drinking Coke and eating at McDonald's makes me an Olympian, despite what the Olympic ads tell me
• In honor (or dishonor?) or President's Day - this is hilarious. A very good friend happened to send this to me while I was writing this post. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZfRaWAtBVg&feature=player_embedded#

Alright, back to work tomorrow :)

Alton's Sardine Recipe

So, as you are almost assuredly aware, DC has set all new records for snow fall in the last week which has led Liz and I to be stuck in the apartment for most of the week. Ideally, this would have led us to getting every apartment cleaning goal we've ever had done. In reality, when you're stuck all day in one place, you mostly just past the time. But Liz did make yummy cupcakes early on, which she'll post about later. But, today while she is at work, I tried sardines for the first time.

I was inspired by a diet food episode Atlon Brown had done a couple weeks back which included some recipes for using sardines. After the show, I did some additional research and found out that sardines are very low in mercury as seafood goes because they are at the bottom of the food chain and have such a short life span. Before the show, I had never had them, and had generally forgot they exist. And since Liz seemed less than enthused about trying this one out, I decided to have it for lunch on my AWS day. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sherried-sardine-toast-recipe/index.html

First off, I pretty much did everything in this recipe wrong. I had just got home from a Crossfit workout, and as I've found, cooking post-CrossFit goes better sometimes than others. Being hungry and tried is not the best combination for following directions well. As the recipes states, you are supposed to reserve the olive oil in the container, I poured it down the drain (and added in fresh olive oil to compensate). You're supposed to wait 45 minutes to an hour, I waited 5, maybe. You're supposed to spread olive oil on one side of bread, I did both. We also didn't have fresh parsley, so I used dried; no sherry vinegar, so I used apple; and no fresh lemons, so I used lemon juice. I also totally blanked on salt.

Despite all of this it came out alright.

(Again, I forgot to take pictures before I started eating.) It definitely not the prettiest thing I've made and I have to say based on the reactions that people normally give to sardines, I was prepared to take one bite and toss it, but I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked it. The avocado, parsley, sardines, olive oil, and bread share the flavor equally; so while it has some fishy in taste, it is not overpowering. I recommend picking a good bread since that is what your tongue will hit first. We had a little bit of country what bread-maker bread left over which worked out well.

Some other random notes:

If I could toast bread at work (which I currently cannot do) I could have a minimal cook meal on a work day... if people don't object to the smell of fish.

Fullness Factor: The fat of the avocado and the density of the bread makes this meal very satisfying while being pretty healthy. Sardines are a great and natural source of omega-3s which are often left out or under-represented in most American diets (including mine).

So now with this meal, I can update our list of new foods that we've tried this year:

• Kale
• Acorn Squash
• Brussel Sprouts
• Sardines! (pat only)

Alright, back to my lectures.

Stressy Eggs

So we wanted to go to IHOP for comfort food, but thought we would try to do something fancy at home instead that was a little more nutritional.

So Liz whipped up a tasty egg dish:

(Next time we'll remember to take the picture before we start eating)

Here's what she used:

• 5 extra large eggs (beaten and set aside)
• 1/4 of a red onion (diced)
• Handful of baby spinach (cut into little strips)
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil
• Black pepper (to taste)
• 1/2 Cup Sargento 4-Italian Cheese Shredded

Sauteed onion in olive oil for one to two minutes, add spinach and sautee for another minute. Add eggs and pepper, cook through. When the eggs are almost done, add cheese. Garnish with spinach leaves.

It was really good and took only about 10 minutes to make.

Welcome to the Blog!

Hi! So Liz and I started cooking a lot more and thought we would share pictures and news about the food we make via a blog, so ta-da! We'll also throw in some other updates about our life and maybe some other fun stuff. Hope you enjoy it!