Cook-apoolza Sunday Red Stick Style!

Sorry Raimster for stealing your title, but obviously great minds were thinking alike...and in unrelated news, we both decided to spend Sunday cooking.  ;)

Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of my recent endeavors.  So fire up the ol' imagination and let's get started!

I have been struggling in recent months to be creative with meals, while adhering to the busy lifestyle of a fun-sized accountant.  I want healthy, home cooked meals filled with variety and a dash of intrigue.  And I want it to be fully cooked and ready on my TV tray with my most recent Criminal Minds DVD queued to where I left off as soon as I walk in the door from a long day at work.  No amount of hallucinogenic drugs will help here, so I've been trying to find some other means of obtaining my goal.  My slow cooker is most certainly a God-send, but even that is beginning to become a little redundant.

So I was excited to pick up a recent Rachael Ray magazine that boasted "One Day, 20 meals!"   http://www.rachaelraymag.com/food-how-to/grocery-shopping-tips/one-month-of-make-ahead-meals.  BINGO!  I decided to give the woman I normally have to watch on MUTE a chance.  The article called for a day of making meal "building blocks" and then it followed with 20 recipes that built upon these building blocks.  I made three of the five recipes, Laura style of course,  -- pulled chicken, roasted vegetables (red bell peppers, onions, and butternut squash) and some rice pilaf (rice, chicken stock, peas, bay leaves) and I will use those to concoct the following recipes during the next couple of weeks:

Spanish Rice with Shrimp
Butternut Squash and Spinach Strata
Veggie flat breads with Hummus
Chicken Fried Rice
Chicken Lime Soup

I also bought a cantaloupe because I've been dying to try a cantaloupe smoothie.  Today was the day!  I liked it, but it definitely needs some tweaking.  I used about half a cup of cantaloupe, a container of Greek yogurt, a fourth cup of 1% milk, and about a tsp. of honey.  Less yogurt, more honey, maybe a sprinkle of granola.  The melon was already a tad bit tangy so the yogurt threw it over the tang-edge.  I still ate it though...Momma don't miss meals much.

I also have plans to make some rosemary walnuts for snacking!  I don't know why that required an exclamation point, but it just felt right. 

So, in summary, I had a goal, I put a plan in motion, and I am feeling confident that I'll have some nice pictures soon!

Oh, also I have two more big sweet potatoes that keep begging me to introduce them to my new mandolin.  I thought that I was out of the woods after I finished the first "chip" test, but I was shocked to discover that it was only the dress rehearsal to the real test --- putting the sucker back together after washing it!  The cuts on my hands have healed nicely, so I think the sweet potatoes will get their wish pretty soon :)

Cheers!

Cook-apalooza Sunday

Before I tell you about my successes, let's review my recent failures:

1)   Kale chips.  Their crispy, melt-in-your-mouth texture transformed into ass-taste on my tongue that lasted several minutes after the chip had been consumed. I kept going back to the stove, plucking another one from the pan into my mouth, only to hate myself after each and every bite.  I tried. I tried hard to love you kale chips.  But you didn’t love me back.

2)   Pho.  I was convinced I would like this because it involved broth and noodles and sriracha.  However, it seems to me that is just a variation on ramen noodles. What’s the big deal?

3)    At home hair color. When I got my haircut last weekend, my stylist was trying to convince me to go for a “chocolate brown”. I confessed that I had a box of l’oreal in my bathroom closet the exact shade of my natural hair color and I only wanted to use it to cover my gray. Turns out, L’oreal’s “light beige brown” translates to “dark reddish brown” on my head.  That box lied to me.  It lied hard core. Lucky for that box, I kind of like it.  Plus, it will simply and easily wash out in 28 shampoos. (Unless that’s a lie too.)

And now, for the successes:

All of the following recipes were made to utilize aging produce in my fridge.  Sometimes that's how the best recipes are made. With a little love, and a lot of desperation to not waste food.

1) Roasted Tomato and Corn Soup. (the hands-down WINNER of the day)

I had a carton of grape tomatoes and a fresh ear of corn about to perish in the fridge.  Solution? This soup from edibleperspective.com

 ooohhhh MAMA!!! I'm in love with this soup! You MUST make this. NOW.

2) Roasted Broccoli and Sautéed Leek Soup

Leek about to wilt in the fridge?  Bag of broccoli about to frost over with freezer burn?  The last bit of goat cheese crumbles waiting for a cause worth dieing for? Make this: 

Roast broccoli and garlic and saute leeks simultaneously.  Add broccoli and garlic to pot of leeks. Add almond milk and broth until desired consistency. Immersion blend. top with goat cheese crumbles, salt and pepper.

3) Split pea soup

Sorry, no photo for this one.  I'm going to try to think of an interesting add-in/topping to make this blog-worthy.  Right now it's just your average split pea soup.

I sense a theme here.  I think i have developed an obsession with immersion blended soups. I’m a crazy girl with an electric mixing stick.

Veggie and Bean Stuffed Bell Peppers

I think I forgot to tell you about this...

It's so yummy, and so simple, I must share. (the best part--no deadly mandolin blade required)

I got it from here at neverhomemaker.com

I used red bell peppers instead of green because I like their taste better.

Check out the food glory:

I picked this recipe because it was simple, and because it had both beans AND veggies in it.  However, I was a bit skeptical about the flavor.  I thought it would be "just okay", but it was DELICIOUS. Totally a repeat recipe.

Simple AND delicious...sign me up.