2011.06.02 - Sandwiches, Asparagus Artichoke Salad

This week felt like kind of a cop-out.  Sandwiches!  However, the side salad was pretty amazing, so hopefully that makes up for it a bit.  And sandwiches *was* the first Thursday night dinner, after all.

Sandwiches

Every Saturday, A and I have lunch at a local bagel establishment.  My usual is turkey and havarti with tomatoes and lettuce on a rosemary bagel (or sesame or pretzel).  I almost never eat havarti outside of that lunch, so I thought it would be nice to replicate my favorite a bit for this dinner.  I thought that roast deli chicken and havarti sounded good, and amazingly enough, those were the two things on sale at the deli counter.  Extreme couponing!  (not)

Asparagus Artichoke Salad

I've been going asparagus crazy this spring, but it seems like that's the only thing that's seasonal right now.  It's been a cold and rainy winter in Washington state and the crops just aren't ready yet.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had artichoke, but for some reason the description of this salad called to me.  I love simple, non-lettuce based salads, and this one is certainly near the top of my list now.  The simple dressing of lemon juice, garlic powder, artichoke marination liquid, and oil from roasting the asparagus was just right.  The asparagus, artichoke, and tomato worked well together.  This salad was great and I need to make it again soon!

2011.05.26 - Taco Thursday, Black Bean Salad, Funfetti Cupcakes

Another simple-to-prepare-after-work meal is tacos.  I jazzed these up with a black bean and pineapple salad.  We were celebrating a big award won by B, so I thought funfetti would be appropriately festive.

Tacos

I typically make my tacos with ground turkey breast and Penzeys taco seasoning.  I like the flavor of this spice mix and think that turkey tacos are a bit healthier than ground beef.  I served them with corn soft tortillas, tomato, mexican cheese blend, sour cream, and lettuce.  I make a toppings bar so people can add what they want, which does mean that tacos win the record for most bowls and spoons used in a meal. 

Black Bean and Pineapple Salad

This "salad" was delicious.  The roasted pineapple was amazing.  I think this would be even better on the grill because I didn't have the patience to get my pineapple fully caramelized under the broiler (it took over 30 minutes just to get a light broil!).  I would definitely make this again.

Modifications: I left out most ingredients from the original recipe because I was serving it as a taco topping, not as an individual meal or side.  I only used the onion, beans, pineapple, and spices. 

Funfetti Cupcakes

These were a paaaain to unmold from the muffin tin because they grew slightly over the edge of the paper liner and cemented themselves to the pan.  They were pretty sticky from the sugar in the recipe and it was just an annoying unmolding (although at least most stayed intact).  Aside from all that, funfetti is FUN and one of my favorite kinds of cake.  I've only made it with a box mix before, but this recipe was pretty simple.  I'd love to try it as a full cake sometime.  Rainbow sprinkles are the best!

Modifications: After I bought my stand mixer, I threw out my crappy hand mixer and rejoiced that I would never need one again.  Unfortunately, marshmallow frosting like the one in the recipe requires using a hand mixer over a double boiler.  After realizing this at 10:30 PM the night before the dinner, I gave up and used a container of cream cheese frosting that I had in the pantry.  I bet the marshmallow frosting would have been amazing though.

2011.05.19 - Minestrone Soup, Secret Dessert

The crockpot world tour continues.  Another week, another slow cooked dish.  Until summer produce arrives, which makes for the ultimate quick and easy dinners, my version of quick and easy is set it and forget it.

This week was a simple soup with bread and cheese, and a secret dessert.

Minestrone Soup

Healthy!  Delicious!  This was so much better that my usual minestrone from a can that I want to make sure I have a stash of this soup in the freezer at all times.  No more canned soup for me.  I think the tomato paste was really they key to making the soup taste rich and not watery.  It was mainly dumping cans into the crockpot and chopping a few things -- super easy. 

I accompanied it with rosemary bread and a cheddar/gruyere "melange" cheese from Trader Joe's.  The cheese was really great -- best of both worlds.  Everyone loved it, I think it will become one of my default cheeses for entertaining in the future.

Modifications: This soup makes a LOT.  I filled my crockpot almost to the brim with the initial set of ingredients, so I could only add in the zucchini for the last hour of cooking.  I left out the cabbage, green beans, and pasta.  The soup was still delicious without those, and I think I actually prefer making pasta-less soups.  The pasta soaks up too much liquid for eating soup as leftovers.  I also omitted the garlic, per usual. 

Secret Dessert

I've been doing a small amount of recipe testing for Jeanne's gluten free holiday baking book.  I can't share the details, but it is a delicious buttery rich cake that's definitely a keeper.

2011.05.12 - Crockpot BBQ Pork

Back after a two week hiatus due to a new job and a family wedding!  Since I am no longer unemployed, I can no longer choose meals that take all day to make.  I eased back into things with a crockpot meal -- one of the easiest ways to get food on the table with very little work.

Crockpot BBQ Pork

This is hardly even a recipe -- some pork, soda, pre-made BBQ sauce, salt, and garlic powder in the crockpot for 8+ hours. I used Stubb's Honey Pecan BBQ sauce, which was pretty good. This wasn't my favorite pulled pork recipe -- that award still goes to this one.

I served it with baked beans from a can (gasp!) and some cucumber sticks.  Nothing fancy here.  Hopefully as I get more acclimated to having a job again, I will try things a little more on my usual grandiose scale for dinner.

2011.04.23 - Easter Brunch

A special Sunday edition of Thursday Night Dinner!  I try to host an Easter brunch every year for as many people as I have plates and chairs for (and usually more than that).  Sometimes it is more on the breakfast side of brunch, sometimes more on the lunch side, sometimes very involved (homemade pop tarts...what was I thinking?), and sometimes simple.  It usually involves chicken salad, because I really like chicken salad. 

Rosemary Chicken Salad and Egg Salad in Carrot-Shaped Rolls

The carrot-shaped rolls made the rounds on Pinterest and I knew I had to make them.  Thanks to the wonders of Amazon Prime, I had the conical molds in time for Easter.  My only regret is that the molds were a bit on the small side, so I couldn't fit too much salad into the rolls.  I liked how the rolls turned out, although they were a bit difficult to make because I was unable to find seamless crescent roll dough, so I had to mush together the pre-cut seams.  The overall effect was very cute.

I despise hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise, so the egg salad was purely for the benefit of my guests who like such things.  They seemed to like the egg salad :)

I thought the chicken salad was good.  The almonds were an interesting crunchy alternative to celery and the scallions were an interesting touch.  I hardly tasted the rosemary at all.  I think this is a nice savory option.  For something a little sweeter, I prefer Ina's chicken salad veronique (which is amazing).

Modifications: I used all yogurt instead of a yogurt/mayo mix in the chicken salad.

Veggie Platter with Herb Dip

I love the look of the garden-like veggie platter from the linked Martha slideshow, but I didn't have time to track down a galvanized metal garden tub and perfectly tiny baby vegetables.  I used what I had and came up with a somewhat artful display of carrots, radishes, asparagus, tomatoes, and green cauliflower.  The radishes were my biggest splurge - French Breakfast radishes from my favorite vegetable store.  These radishes were so much better than conventional varieties I've had -- they were hardly spicy at all.  I was worried that the herb dip would be too dominated by dill (because that's all it smelled like), but it tasted very good and balanced.

Challah with Raspberry Jam

A got me a braided sesame challah from Blazing Bagels, one of our favorite local places.  Challah is one of my favorite breads, so it only gets broken out for special occasions :)  I was going to make strawberry jam, but realized that the red berries in my freezer were raspberries, not strawberries.  I therefore substituted the strawberries for raspberries and doubled the amount of sugar.  Because of raspberry's lower pectin content (I think), this didn't firm up much at all, but it was a nice "spoon jam".  Most recipes I saw for raspberry jam had a 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio, which I thought was crazy.  I believe it is mainly for preservation reasons, but I wasn't canning this jam, so I greatly scaled back the amount of sugar and it turned out properly sweet.

Dirt Cake

Dirt cake is a home ec favorite.  I'd love to make a "luxury" version of this someday with real pudding and whipped cream, but the box pudding/cool whip version has a sense of nostalgia.  I did not bury gummy worms in it because I don't like them, but apparently this was missed :)  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but my dirt cake had peeps hanging out on top.

White Wine Spritzer

A and I are obsessed with the show "30 Rock".  I've often been compared to Liz Lemon at work (which I realize isn't flattering...but can kind of explain why I quit that job).  In an episode this season, it is revealed that her signature drink is white wine with Sprite and ice cubs in a thermos, called "Funky Juice".  I thought that this white wine spritzer recipe sounded like a classy Funky Juice, so I had to make it.  It was delicious, even though I was drinking it from a glass without ice cubes.

Modifications: Trader Joe's was out of sparkling lemonade, so I used sparkling limeade, which I thought was even better.  I made a pitcher out of 1 (750 ml) bottle of "3 buck chuck" sauv blanc and 1 (1 L) bottle of sparkling limeade (a higher proportion of juice to wine than the recipe).

2011.04.21 - Ham, Slow Cooker Mac n Cheese, Lemon Tarragon Asparagus, Strawberry Sour Cream Bread

I decided against making a ham on Easter (huge blog post about my Easter brunch to come), so I wanted to get my yearly fill of ham in on a smaller scale.  I often associate ham with macaroni and cheese, and I believe this slow cooker version was another Pinterest find.  Asparagus is seasonal right now, so chose that as my vegetable, and I had a loaf of strawberry sour cream bread in my freezer pantry.  Easy!

Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese

I just heated up a ham from the supermarket, so no recipe for that. I was intrigued by the idea of making macaroni and cheese in the crockpot, since making the bechamel cheese sauce on the stovetop is kind of a chore. I thought it came out ok, although a little grainy. Since it only takes about 3 hours in the slow cooker, it isn't a dish that you can start before work and eat at the end of the day, which is one of the huge benefits of a crockpot for me. This wasn't my favorite mac and cheese and probably wouldn't make it again.

Modifications: I didn't add toasted bread crumbs at the end, but I bet that would have been good. I added another quarter-box of macaroni (without adjusting any other proportions) to get more servings, and added chili powder (a teaspoon) as recommended in the recipe's blog post. I didn't coat the crockpot in oil (since I didn't understand how this would help against sticking considering you whisk things in the crockpot after that step), and I didn't have any sticking problems.

Lemon Tarragon Asparagus

I looooved this. It was definitely the most popular dish on the table.  I usually pair lemon with my asparagus, but this was the first time I've tried a tarragon vinaigrette over it.  The tarragon paired so well with it, and (bonus!) I got the tarragon right out of my garden.

Modifications: I left out the shallot and garlic and didn't miss it. I used my usual steaming method for the asparagus.

Strawberry Sour Cream Bread

I had a loaf of this bread in my freezer from my Christmas baking frenzy. I figured it was high time to actually take it out of the freezer and serve it :) The bread was good, but as I discussed in my post about it, using whole strawberries caused there to be huge bites of strawberry in some pieces and almost no strawberry in another. I would definitely chop the strawberries if I made this again.

2011.04.14 - Roasted Vegetable "Enchiladas", Mexican Chocolate Cookies

I am a teeny bit obsessed with Pinterest.  It is a site that collates all of these pictures that you find and clip across the web and shows you what other people are pinning, which you can then "repin" to your own board.  I love it for making inspiration boards and gathering pictures of things I love.  I still use Delicious for my recipe storage since that's more of a searchable list interface, but Pinterest is great for tagging lovely cake designs, home ideas, and wedding ideas.

I was browsing Pinterest early last week, and saw this gorgeous picture of something called a "roasted vegetable enchilada".  I knew I had to make it for Thursday Dinner.  Have I ever turned down a roasted vegetable?

Since I was going with a "Mexican" dish, I decided to go with simple Mexican Chocolate cookies for dessert.

Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas

This was great!  It really has nothing to do with enchiladas, more like a Mexican casserole.  The vegetables all went really well together (who knew cauliflower would work well in this?)  Everyone loved it and it is fairly simple to put together.  I was going to add black beans into the dish, but forgot, so I just served them on the side and mixed it all up together on my plate.

K also brought some pulled pork, which was delicious and went really well with the dish!

Modifications: I left out the poblanos (no spice for me!) and increased the amount of cauliflower, corn, and spinach.  I used a 9"x13" pan instead of 9x9 and still found that I only had room for 2 layers instead of 3.  I also omitted cilantro (ew).  I used Trader Joe's pico de gallo, and found it to not be too spicy, even though it had jalapenos in it. 

Mexican Chocolate Icebox Cookies

These were nice and chocolate-y with a nice spice flavor.  I love mexican chocolate most things, as long as I take it easy on the cayenne.  Although they aren't the most attractive cookies while making them, slicing and baking right out of the freezer is awesome.  I still have half a batch left in there!