I bet you wanna know what's in this tomato...

Sorry! Can't tell you. Have to pack for AC. Maybe I'll tell you when I get back, after I tell you all about how I won big on the slots!

OK, ok. I'll tell you what's in there, but don't think less of me!

I know it looks small in the pic, but that is actually a "tomato on the vine" tomato. I had about 5 of them that I needed to use before we went to AC (where I did not hit the jackpot, btw). There was also a cut up chicken breast in the fridge for some reason that needed to be eaten (3-day rule). So, I thought to make stuffed tomatoes. I was going to stuff them with the chicken and a cheesy risotto (yay cheese!), but the trains were late and I was running short on time, and although I do not make it often, I know you you cannot rush risotto. So I bought a box of Rice-a-Roni Parmesan blend. I know! I know! I am such a cheater and I really prefer to cook from scratch. But hey, at least it was ORGANIC. And 99 cents :)

So, once it was cooked, into the rice went a cup of part-skim mozzarella (yay cheese!), the chicken which I heated for a minute in the micro, and a handful of fresh chopped basil.

I hollowed out the tomatoes and stuffed with the rice mixture, then topped each one with fresh, whole wheat breadcrumbs tossed with seasonings (garlic, salt, pepper) and a bit more cheese (yay cheese!). There was a lot of filling left over, so I put that in the dish and topped with breadcrumbs as well. It helped the tomatoes from falling over while they were heating. Then I drizzled olive oil on top and popped them into a 350 oven just until the tops started to get brown. Yum! They were very filling, which meant that Sabrina was lucky and got to have one for lunch the next day. The End.

Using What You've Got

Sometimes there is stuff in your fridge that has been in there a while and you are tired of looking at it. You probably bought it on sale and didn't really have a plan for it, but now you are forced into using it because it is going to expire/spoil/start growing fuzz and you really hate wasting, especially when "times are tough."

That happened to me this week with eggs. Their time had come.

Now, we love eggs. We usually have them every Sunday morning (aren't I a wonderful wife?). But that is why when I need to use them for dinner, I have trouble. I happen to like "breakfast-for-dinner" but it isn't very exciting and sometimes it is not filling enough. I know what you're thinking- why not make a quiche? *Hello* we are trying to eat healthy here!

So I asked around and got a few ideas, but nothing I was really thrilled with. Andrew and I both love poached eggs, and during my dinner research, I came across an oddly named dish called: shakshuka. I love food that is fun to say! (see: Fricassee Fricassee Fricassee) Some sources credited this dish to the Arabs, and others said it is Israeli.

The traditional recipe is basically very chunky tomato sauce flavored with onion, garlic and paprika or another spice-one recipe called for cumin. Where do the eggs come in? you ask. Well, get this- you poach the eggs on TOP of the tomato sauce! I felt this was definitely worth trying, but thought I would give the recipe a Mediterranean spin. That, of course, justified the feta cheese (yay cheese!) and the garlic bread. I bought a large dense whole wheat loaf and cut it into wedges which were then spread with ICB (it's not butter) and sprinkled with garlic powder (so? sometimes I am lazy) and paprika. I didn't toast it too much, because I wanted the inside to stay soft for dipping.

It isn't the most photogenic dish, but I could not believe how tasty it was! I would have never thought to serve eggs in tomato sauce. When I was looking for eggy meal ideas, Greg had suggested a dish called "eggs in purgatory", which is actually a real thing (!). I thought it was just a cute name he made up for eggs in tomato sauce. I guess this dish is very much like that, but not as saucy because most of the liquid evaporates. This is also an easy cleanup meal because you do everything in one pot!

Mediterranean Shakshuka

• 5 eggs
• 2 14.5oz cans stewed tomatoes (I used the kind that had some other stuff in there- I think it was onion, garlic and celery)
• 2 small onions, diced
• 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (you know, oregano, basil, etc, etc)
• 1 teaspoon paprika (if you have hot paprika or you don't like things too spicy, add a little at a time and taste it)
• salt & pepper to taste (taste it before you add the eggs)
• 1/2 cup reduced fat feta cheese (yay cheese!)

1. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. (I found that using a large non-stick frying pan worked well for this recipe, but make sure you have something that has a cover- preferably a glass one)
2. Add one can stewed tomatoes with juice, and one can stewed tomatoes without juice. Break up tomatoes with the back of a spoon.
3. Add tomato paste, stir, and let mixture thicken until almost all liquid is gone.
4. Add Italian seasonings, paprika and salt.
5. Carefully crack each egg over tomato mixture.
6. Add feta cheese between eggs on top of tomato mixture and cover. (The idea is to get the cheese to melt while the eggs poach.)
7. Cook about 5-7 minutes, or until eggs are done enough for your taste. (I watched mine through the glass cover and took the pan off the heat when the eggs had just become coated over with white. The whites were juicy, and the yolk was still runny, just how I like it!)
8. Spoon tomato mixture and 2 eggs onto each plate and serve with pitas or garlic bread.

Here's the Beef

OK, ok. So I lost my momentum. Big deal. Hopefully this recipe will make up for it.

We don't eat a lot of red meat in our house. I am convinced that it really isn't good for us, so I'll cook it maybe once a month on "special-occasion red-meat-night." (No, we don't really call it that.) The truth is, I haven't found much that you can do with ground beef that doesn't work well with ground turkey. Don't get me wrong- I can appreciate a really good steak every now and again, but my tastes run to the more expensive cuts and I don't trust myself cooking an expensive steak. So that's the kind of thing I'll order out when the mood strikes me.

Anyway, this is pretty much a fool-proof recipe for Shredded Beef Sandwiches. I couldn't resist the deal someone was running on whole boneless eye round a while back. I think it was 1.39 per pound. The catch is that they were all HUGE. Well, now I know that I CAN cram a 6 pound roast into my crock pot. I don't recommend making a roast that big though- I couldn't fit all of the liquid I wanted to, so there went my plans to make French Onion Soup with the left-over broth. I am reducing the recipe to 4 pounds. Trust me- you'll still have lots left over which you can use in other things... like tacos!
Or, you can do what I did and invite the fam for dinner! Mom and Dad came over and Sabrina even made it out on a work night for this one! :) We played UNO after dinner and ate Twizzlers. Good times!

Shredded Beef Sandwiches
4 pounds boneless eye round
2 tablespoon minced garlic (Go for the jar 'o garlic!! You'll thank me!)
1 tablespoon dried rosemary (Crush it up in your fingers a bit.)
3 bay leaves
2 medium onions, diced (optional)
1 cup soy sauce (shh...don't tell my dad)
2 cans low-sodium beef broth (or you can substitute water)
3 cups water (If you can't fit this much, it is OK. Don't overfill your crock pot.)

Most recipes will tell you to brown the roast in a pan before tossing it in the crock pot. NOT THIS ONE!

1. Place the onions (if using) and garlic in the bottom of the crock pot.
2. Place the roast on top of the onions and garlic.
3. Place bay leaves and rosemary in crock pot.
4. Pour soy sauce, water and broth over roast.
5. Cook on low for at least 10 hours or up to 12 hours. (Maybe you can leave it even longer, but I have not tried that.)
6. Remove roast from crock pot and scrape off fat and gross stuff. Once it is clean, shred the roast with a fork.
7. Now- you have some options here. The "gravy" is going to be pretty oily and the easiest way to remove the fat is to stick it in the fridge overnight and let it harden. Then you can just spoon it off. If you are looking to eat right away, I recommend using a gravy separator or a ladle to skim the fat off the top of the gravy. You have to have a little patience to do this, but at least you get to eat right away.
8. Place the shredded beef on sturdy rolls (brush the insides with garlic and olive oil and toast lightly-yum!) and top with muenster or provolone cheese (yay cheese!) or any other cheese you like. They are all good in my book! (Well, except for those really stinky ones.)
9. Dig in.

I currently have a 9 pound boneless pork loin in my fridge, so if anyone has a recipe they want to share, I'll probably need three or four. This sucker is *not* going to fit in my crock pot. Come to think of it, it may not even fit in my oven...

A Long Story About Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

This was the first lasagna I ever made, and I will probably not ever be able to duplicate the recipe. It is sort of a long story, which is why it took me so long to blog about it. I'll give it a go...

Back in July, I cut up about a million green and yellow squash, mushrooms, peppers, and onions, and marinated them in some homemade italian dressing. I brought them to our family picnic, and skewered them for the BBQ, but there was really too much food, and I ended up with a whole gallon ziplock bag of veggies that didn't make it onto skewers.

Now, normally, I would just cook them at home, but I didn't. I don't remember why. Maybe because Andrew doesn't eat mushrooms or peppers.... Anyway, I stuck them in the freezer knowing that it might be a bad idea, and they might get totally sogged out. A gallon freezer-bag stuffed full of chopped up veggies is a really annoying thing to have to maneuver around in your freezer, so I finally got sick of it in there and put it in the fridge to defrost.
I thought that maybe I could make them into a vegetable lasagna if I cut up the veggies even more and used a LOT of cheese (yay cheese). I looked up some recipes and couldn't find anything quite right, so I took some bits from here and there and made my own recipe. I was really hoping it turned out well, because all of that cheese was very expensive. (What is up with ricotta cheese costing so much??) My main concern was the water factor. I knew that the veggies might sog up the lasagna, so I roasted them first at 400 for about 45 minutes so they released most of their water during roasting, instead of during lasagna time.
As you can see from the pics, it turned out to be a very pretty lasagna, and it was also very yummy!

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna
6 cups diced vegetables, marinated in italian seasonings, roasted, cooled and drained
1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed (squeezed out all the water)
2 lbs ricotta cheese
4 cups shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp red pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tsp salt
2 cups fat free half and half (or milk)
1 cup skim milk
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
2 packages no-cook lasagna noodles (genius!)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Combine first 9 ingredients, reserving 1 cup mozzarella.
3. Heat butter and garlic over medium heat.
4. When butter is melted, add flour and salt slowly, stirring to combine until a thick paste is formed.
5. Slowly add half and half and milk, stirring constantly until mixture is thickened. Do not let the bottom scorch.
6. Add cheese once mixture is hot and stir to melt.
7. Spray lasagna pan with non-stick spray.
8. Coat the bottom of the pan with white sauce.
9. Add one layer of noodles to the bottom of the pan, spread with 1/2 of the vegetable filling, then top with white sauce.
10. Add another layer of noodles, and repeat with the rest of the vegetable filling and sauce reserving about 3/4 cup of sauce.
11. Add top layer of noodles and add the rest of the white sauce to the top of the noodles.
12. Cover pan with foil, and bake for 1 hour.
13. After 1 hour, uncover pan and add remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese to the top of the lasagna.
14. Bake for 15 minutes. If top does not brown, place the pan under the broiler briefly to brown cheese.

Whew!

There are no tomatoes in this recipe, which is a little sad. I had picked up a container of grape tomatoes on sale (1.28!) so I sliced them in half and tossed with extra-virgin olive oil and salt, and served them on the side.

Tropical Storm Chili

We were supposed to be going to the city for Erin's birthday tonight, but with the storm and everything, we thought we should stay home rather than risk getting stuck in Manhattan. I had thought to crock-pot the 6 pound roast in my fridge today, but I was worried that the power would go out.

I really didn't want to venture out into the rain and wind to go to the store, so I decided to work with what I had. (I actually roasted a bunch of vegetables that I may turn into a lasagna later this week, but I didn't have all of the ingredients to pull that together tonight.) I whipped up a quick batch of turkey chili, which ended up being quite delicious! We eat a lot of Mexican, but I have not made chili in a while. (The 97% fat-free cans of turkey chili are always in the closet for an emergency meal, but although they taste good, the idea that it comes from a can sort of grosses me out.) Sabrina has a great vegetarian recipe she makes, but that one calls for some odd ingredients I don't have lying around.

What I do always have are a variety of beans and tomatoes, so this worked out. Of course we ate it with BOTH cheese (yay cheese) and sour cream. Andrew made his into wraps. The spice factor was just right for me. It definitely had a kick-the cold beer I had with it really hit the spot- but it didn't make my eyeballs sweat or anything.

Tropical Storm Turkey Chili

• 1 onion



• 2 heaping tsp chopped garlic



• 1-1.5 lbs ground turkey



• 1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, drained



• 1 15 oz can beans, drained (I used red beans, but you can use black or any other type of chili bean you like)



• 1 8oz can corn, drained



• 1 15oz can tomato sauce



• 1 tbsp chili powder



• 1/2 tsp salt



• 1/2 tbsp paprika



• 1/2 tbsp cumin



• 1 tsp red pepper flakes



• 1/2 tbsp Worchestershire



• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke (you can skip this if you don't have it, but it adds a nice flavor)



• 1/2 tbsp hot sauce, or more to taste

1. Brown meat over medium heat.



2. Add onion and garlic when most of the pink is gone from the meat.



3. Cook approx 5 minutes.



4. Add all other ingredients and stir to combine.



5. Simmer over low-medium heat 30 minutes, stirring every 5-7 minutes. (Of course, you can cook this a lot longer, just make sure you keep stirring. If it looks like it is getting too dry, cover the pot. If it still looks too dry, add liquid- water or broth will do, or if you want to get fancy, you can add beer or wine which will add some depth to the flavors. Just make sure you cook off the alcohol. )



6. Serve with cheese (yay cheese) or sour cream or cornbread or chips or all of the above.

Potatoes?? Oh, Happy Day!

We were supposed to whip out the mini bbq tonight and roast some 97% fat free hot dogs, but then we found out that they would be spraying our areas for west nile. Would you like a side of fries with your pesticide? Yum.

So we made them in the grill pan instead. Since it was the first night of football, I made celebratory spicy oven fries. I don't normally make us potatoes, so this was really a special occasion. Because I really love football* (*please note sarcastic tone).

I sliced a few potatoes into thin wedges, and tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, paprika and cayenne. Mmmm! Spicy! Oh yeah- I also threw in about a tablespoon of sugar, because I read that it helps crisp up oven fries. It worked pretty well. They were in a 425 oven for about 35 minutes. I'll go a bit easier on the olive oil next time.

Mom came over to play Scrabble with me while Andrew watched the game. It was fun, and nice to visit with mom during the week, but I think my brain might be too tired on weeknights for Scrabble. We might have to stick to less challenging games like Uno.

Tomorrow we are having dinner with Andrew's family. I will do my best to pick something delicious yet moderately healthy. I have to make sure I stay in shape so I can kick Andrew's butt at tennis.

Leftovers with Biff and Buffy

Biff and Buffy are the names my mom calls us when we go play tennis, which we did tonight. It was a great night for it- we both caught the early train, and it had really cooled off by around 7. We had to try a different park, because the courts were full at the first one, but we still got a good amount of playing in before it got too dark. I really need to work on my serve. It will be sad when it is dark out before we even get home.

We had leftovers tonight that I brought back from my trip to Gram's on Monday. She's a tricky one to cook for. She's diabetic and has to watch her salt and fat. I went with a ground turkey Shepherd's Pie which I topped with a combo of mashed potatoes and cauliflower (not realizing that she doesn't eat cauliflower. Luckily, Jill had some instant potatoes and I was able to switch out half the topping when we got there). I am not giving you the recipe because I didn't love it, and it wasn't much to look at, so there are no pictures. I doctored it up tonight for dinner, adding a good amount of salt, some spicy steak seasonings, and some shredded cheese to the topping. If anyone has recipe ideas for the next time I visit Gram, please let me know!

As a side-note, Sabrina has not been to dinner in a very long time. What is up with that? Hmm?

These are a few of my favorite things.

Andrew is doing his workout tonight, so we are having a "light" dinner.

I stopped by the new farmer's market/grocery store on my way home because I was craving tomatoes. Actually, I was craving salt and olive oil and bread. The tomatoes just tie it all together, and make me feel less guilty about eating salt and olive oil and bread for dinner. I am not going to go into how much I love salt and olive oil today. But let's just say that THEY are to ME like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are to Julie Andrews.

The new market used to be called Biggest Banana. I was very excited going there for the first time, because I really wanted to fall in love with it. Who wouldn't want to love a market called Biggest Banana? But seriously, many people know that I have an odd, unnatural affection for grocery stores/ food markets, and I had high expectations. But BB was a disappointment. It smelled funny when I walked in, and most of the produce was mush and had fruit flies. It was embarrassing because there were no other customers, and when I walked in, all of the workers turned to look. So I couldn't very well walk out empty-handed. I think I ended up with some onions that were a bit past the firm stage. Anyway, I was very excited when it closed for "renovations" and a few weeks later, there was a sign out front that said: Farmers Market coming soon. Now, "Farmer's Market" does not have the same ring to it as "Biggest Banana," but it has proven to be much less of a disappointment. When I stopped in today, I had first picked up some plum tomatoes for 59 cents per pound, but then came across the red, shiny and wonderfully round "tomatoes on the vine" for 99 cents per pound. Wow! Bye bye plum tomatoes.

I tossed them with some basil from my windowsill pot, kosher salt (from my happy tomato salt pig), and some (ok, a lot) of extra virgin olive oil. This + crusty italian bread= HEAVEN.

Does it count as a light dinner if you eat a whole loaf of bread?