Tonight's Dinner

While I was on the couch watching K-State play football, Mike was in the kitchen making butternut squash pie and beef stew.  It was definitely a night of comfort foods.

The Chef...

The stew...

The pie...

Lasagna

I've been meaning to post this recipe forever.  I got this recipe from a professor of mine at K-State.  One day he handed out a packet of recipes in class, titled "Chuck's Recipes:  Prepared for Humanitarian Reasons in the Spring of 1998 - that work even for inept cooks and especially good for starving students".  I've not tried any of the other recipes, but I've used his lasagna recipe for years.  I tweak the recipe every time I make it and it always turns out a little different.

This one didn't turn out as pretty, because I used some orange tomatoes.

Sauce:

3 tbs olive oil

2 medium cloves garlic

2/3 c chopped celery

1 lb ground beef - sometimes I use ground turkey

4 c canned tomatoes (2 cans) - lots of fresh red tomatoes

6 tbs tomato paste

2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

½ tsp oregano - I also add 1/2 teaspoon of : coriander, cumin, fennel, red pepper flakes

Filling:

About 12 lasagna noodles

½ lb Mozz cheese - usually use a mozzarella log and cut into slices

12oz Ricotta cheese

2/3 c freshly grated Parm cheese

Put olive oil in 3 qt saucepan.  Add peeled, finely chopped garlic and celery and sauté until soft and yellow.  Add meat, stir with fork to separate; cook until meat is gray color.  Add rest of ingredients for sauce.  Stir, cover, and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  About 30 minutes before sauce is done, start cooking noodles.  Finely dice Mozz and coarsely grate Parm.

Put 1/3 of sauce into buttered large shallow (about 12x6x2) baking dish; add a layer of noodles, sprinkle diced Mozz over noodles; add another layer of noodles and the Ricotta.  Add another 1/3 of sauce. Add another layer of noodles and sprinkle the Parm over the top; then add the rest of the sauce.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.  Makes a least 8 servings.

Vege Enchilada Casserole

I made this the other night combining and adjusting 2 recipes.  One recipe (from Phoo-d.com) is for the sauce and one recipe (from EatingWell.com) is for the casserole.  I've made Phoo-D's yummy fire roasted enchiladas before, but if I make any type of enchilada dish, I always use her sauce.  We also now use fresh ingredients whenever possible.  We try not to buy food in cans.  

You are going to want to make this!

Ingredients:

Sauce:

2 cans of tomato sauce

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/8 cup of brown sugar

1/2 lime (juice only)

2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon each:  chipolte powder, chili powder, garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon each:  Mexican Fiesta seasoning blend, freshly ground black pepper

Casserole:

1 tablespoon oil (we always use olive)

1 onion, diced

1 zucchini, diced

About 19 ounces (1 can) dried black beans

About 3 or 4 (a 14 ounce can) fresh tomatoes, diced

2 ears of corn, cut off the corn (or 1 and 1/2 cups frozen)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 corn tortillas, quartered

1 and 1/4 cups of shredded Cheddar cheese

Preparation:

1.  Prepare black beans (if using dried beans).  You can soak them over night and then use fresh water to simmer for an hour.  Or, my favorite way is to cover them in water and bring to a boil for 2 minutes.  I then let them sit on the stove, off the burner, for an hour.  Then, I dump out the water and put in fresh water and simmer for an hour. 

2.  Prepare sauce.  Mix all ingredients together and simmer covered for about 30 minutes.  (Using a jar of sauce is an option, but it won't taste nearly as good).

3.  Preheat oven to 400.  Lightly coat a 9 X 13 inch baking pan with cooking spray.

4.  Heat oil in large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onion and cook about 5 minutes.  Stir in zucchini, beans, tomatoes, corn, cumin and salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until veges are heated through, about 3 mintues.

5.  Scatter half of the tortilla pieces in the bottom of the baking pan.  Top with half of the vege mixture, half the sauce, and half the cheese.  Repeat with one more layer of tortilla, veges, sauce, and cheese.  Cover with foil.

6.  Bake casserole for 15 minutes.  If casserole is not boiling by then, remove foil and continue baking until boiling around the edges and cheese is melted, about 10 minutes more.

Enjoy!

Almost Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Mike isn't feeling well, so I decided to make him some chicken noodle soup.  

Taken and tweaked from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 gloves of garlic pressed
• 1 chopped onion
• 3 chopped celery
• 2 quarts chicken broth
• 1 rotisserie chicken, remove skin and bones and chop
• 1/2 package egg noodles
• 3 sliced carrots
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter. Cook garlic, onion and celery in butter until just tender, 5 minutes. Pour in chicken broth and stir in chicken, carrots, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes.  Prepare noodles as directed on package and add to soup before serving.

More CSA photos

We are still going strong with our CSA boxes.  It's fun to get our new box every other Sunday and then find recipes to use all the items.  Sometimes it takes a while to figure out a menu and sometimes we make some pretty interesting things.  We recently had tons of grapefruit and decided to just juice them since neither of us like grapefruit much and I couldn't find anything to make with them besides salsa.  I think it is actually growing on me now.  Currently, I have a lot of lemons and am trying to find ways to use them up.  That's how it goes, you get a lot of the same stuff and you eat a lot of the same stuff.  Then, the season changes and you start to get a lot and eat a lot of the same of something different.  I think Anthony Bourdain said that once on one of his shows regarding how Italians always eat what's in season.

Here are some more great pictures of what we've been getting and eating since my last CSA post.

Spaghetti with Swiss Chard

Albondigas Soup

Fish Tacos with Avocado Grapefruit Salad and Mango Margaritas

One of our boxes

We had never had passion fruit (the wrinkly looking things) before now.

Another box had an eggplant and sweet potato in it.

Something new, a Feijoa or Pineapple Guava, which we used in a Thai dish.

We've been getting lots of these pattypan (or scallop) squashes lately.

I can't wait to see what winter season bring us...

More CSA photos

We are still enjoying our CSA boxes and making new recipes with the food.  Here are some more photos.

Beautiful Tomatillos.

One box had fennel in it and we made Baked Chicken with Apples and Fennel

We get a lot of squash and usually make these Tostadas

Our latest box had leeks and potatoes and we made this yummy soup.

Apple Turkey Picadillo

Here's yet another easy, healthy meal that we like to make quite a bit...Apple Turkey Picadillo.  We found it in the Eating Well magazine.  It's made with turkey and has fruit and vegetable servings in it.  We serve it with tortillas on the side.  I recently discovered it goes very well with a Belgium beer...like Spaten Oktoberfest Beer.  It brings out the clove spice.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 ounces 99%-lean ground turkey
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 medium tart green apple, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup chopped tomato
• 3 tablespoons chopped green olives
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup sliced scallion greens

Directions

1.  Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic; cook until soft, stirring often, about 2 minutes.  Add turkey; cook, stirring and breaking up, until lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes.

2.  Sitr in cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and cloves; cook for 30 seconds.  Stir in vinegar, scraping up any browned bits.  Stir in apple, tomato, olives and Worcestershire sauce.  Reduce heat and gently simmer, stirring often, until any liquid in the pan has reduced to a syrupy glaze, about 8 minutes.  Stir in scallion greens and serve.

The finished product....

Stuffed Peppers

We found this recipe on 24 hour fitness's website a long time ago and it has made our rotation of meals.  It's easy, healthy and tasty!  We like making this on Sundays or in the beginning of the week so we have lots of leftovers to take to work for lunch.

The recipe on their website was vegetarian, but we added turkey meat to it.  You can probably make it with ground beef also.

Ingredients from the recipe (our way):
(optional) 1 lb of ground turkey
8 large green, red or yellow bell peppers or a combination (5 or 6 red peppers cut in half)
3 cups of cooked rice (packaged wild rice, usually Uncle Ben's)
1 can black beans, drained
1 can corn, drained (1 bag of frozen corn)
1 medium onion chopped
1 can green chilies, chopped
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (about 1/8 cup)
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Prepare the rice as directed on the package.

Fill large stockpot with enough water to cover peppers and bring to boil.  Cut the tops off the pepper, removing as little of the pepper as possible.  (We just cut them in half).  Remove seed and inner membrane.  Blanch peppers in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Saute the onions (we usually add some garlic here).  Add the turkey and cook until no longer pink.  Add the rice, beans, corn, green chilies, liquid smoke, cumin and salt and pepper to taste.  Fill each pepper and stand upright (or fill each pepper half like we do) in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Cover pan with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Remove foil, sprinkle with cheese and bake another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

(vegetarian option) You can also add crumbled tofu in place of some of the rice to increase the amount of protein.

Preparing the Peppers

Blanching the Peppers

Preparing Rice in the Rice Cooker (this was a Trader Joe's mix)

Sauteing Onions and Garlic

Combined Onions, Turkey, Black Beans, Corn, Green Chilies

Mixture with rice added.  We chose a rice mixture that made a lot of rice this time, usually it's not this much!

The Finished Product.

Delicious Chicken Curry Bake

Another great recipe that we make occasionally is one that we got from Mike's brother.  We renamed it, I think Sam calls it something else.  It may not be the best for you (think comfort food!), but it's really good!  


The ingredients:
1 lb of chicken
2 cans of cream of celery soup
1 cup of mayo
1 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoon of yellow curry (we actually add A LOT more)
Touch of celery salt
3-4 baking potatoes (or 1/2 a bag of frozen ones like we use)
1 bag frozen broccoli florets
Bread crumbs or croutons
Shredded cheddar cheese

:  

Cut up the chicken into small pieces and cook on medium high for about 10-15 minutes until no longer pink in the middle.  At this time preheat the oven to 350.

Mix the cream of celery soup, mayo, curry, celery salt, and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl.  Add in the potatoes, broccoli, and chicken and mix together coating everything with the sauce.

Place mixture into a coated (butter or oil) baking dish.  You can either:

1)  Add the cheddar cheese and croutons on top and cover and bake for about 30-45 minutes and then uncover and bake for 5 more minutes, or 

2)  Bake the mixture uncovered for about 30 minutes, remove and add the cheese and croutons and bake for another 10 minutes uncovered.  

We did the second way this time, but I think we always change it up.

The finished product.  Sooo good!

Our oven was out of commission for a while, so I was excited to get to make this meal after a year of not having it!

Fire Roasted Enchiladas

We both love to cook.  Tonight we made one of the best enchilada recipes we've found.  We look for recipes online a lot and Mike came across this blog a while back and passed it on to me.  I love the blog (it's actually in our follow list on our blog!) and have tried a few recipes so far.  But this one for Fire Roasted Enchiladas is the bomb!  


Our oven was out of commission for the past year and tonight was the first time using it again.  I wanted to make something good.  The first time and last time I made this recipe I had to use the toaster oven and microwave.  They were still good, but tasted way better tonight.  Here are some photos...

The Ingredients.  A lot of times, we like to use rotisserie chicken instead of cooking the chicken ourselves.  I substitute red peppers for pimiento peppers and anaheim peppers for poblano peppers.  

The Spices.  I found this Mexican Fiesta spice to use instead of Adobo seasoning.

The Fire Roasted Onions and Anaheim Peppers.  I keep forgetting to get an extra anaheim pepper.  I usually have too many onions and not enough peppers.

The Finished Product (the avocado wasn't ripe enough, so we cooked it on top of the enchiladas for a little bit).  This is a time consuming recipe, but so worth it once you taste it!