Go To Grub

I have a stash of meals that I call my "go to's" and pull them out when I'm feeling food-lazy, uninspired or bored. The stash includes a favorite soup (tortilla!), pasta dish and paninis. However, lately I've found myself making variations on this dish, earning it a slot in my go-to list.

BBQ Tofu with sweet potatoes and a veg.

It meets all the requirements: easy, tasty and healthy.

BBQ Tofu

The BBQ tofu is pretty simple. I press a brick of tofu (we use a delicious brand made somewhat locally) for a 1/2 an hour before slicing it and marinating it in our favorite store bought BBQ sauce. Bake for 20 minutes at 350, flip the slices and bake another 20 minutes.

In the meantime, prep your sweet potatoes. Sometimes I'll cut them in shoe strings and we'll have oven fries, but the other night I sliced them thin with my mandolin and baked them for 5-10 minutes on each side at 450.

As for the veggie - I use whatever is in season or what I'm in the mood for. I had some string beans in the fridge, and steamed them with a touch of salt and lemon juice.

While it may take a while for everything to cook, there's very little hands on work, and the results are incredibly delicious for very little effort, and so far it seems nobody has minded that it's been showing up on their plates at least once a week around here!

(I know I missed a Monday Night post, but due to a weekend away and an icky cold, we sadly skipped out on potluck this week.)

Spring Greenbeans

After a week of rainy days, we've finally managed to snag a few sun filled ones and I couldn't be happier. We decided to celebrate by hosting potluck and having it outdoors. The weather cooperated, giving us a sun filled afternoon that ended in a comfortably cool evening.

I wanted to make a bright green side dish, but when I was unable to find asparagus (a sure sign of spring!) at the market, I ended up grabbing a bunch of greenbeans. I knew I didn't want to mess with them too much, and ended up grabbing a few things from the pantry to create a light, flavorful and easy dish.

Most of the ingredients: beans, lemon, salt

While I cooked the green beans (4 minutes in boiling water...no more or you pretty much kill them) I roasted up some almonds in a skillet with a teaspoon of oil.

It was really hard not to eat them right then and there. Yum.

I chopped up the nuts once they were toasty brown and salted them. Once the beans were finished cooking I tossed them with the nuts, some lemon zest and a few hearty squeezes of fresh lemon juice. A bit of salt finished the dish.

 

Super easy, for sure, but still incredibly delicious. It also went well with the rest of the meal, which just screamed SPRING! 

Freshly made purple sauerkraut - still warm! - green salad, lentil/walnut/sweet potato burritos, chick peas & squash, and sticky rice

Our first outdoor potluck of the season wouldn't be complete without lighting up the fire pit, and of course, once that's going you must pull out the marshmallows.

The perfect way to end potluck.

Potato Roast

The end is near...I can almost taste the pizza from here!

Today is the last day of Passover, and my mind is already in overdrive, planning all the leavened food I'll be consuming. Although, truth be told, it's been quite the delicious week. I have also cooked potatoes in pretty much every form imaginable...baked, fried, roasted, sliced, diced, cubed and more. And yet, I'm still not sick of them.

It helps when you make awesome recipes such as this one. This crispy potato roast comes courtsey of Martha Stewart via Smitten Kitchen. It was an easy recipe that allowed me to use one of my favorite kitchen appliances - my mandolin!

Click the link above for the entire recipe. I followed it pretty closely, substituting regular black pepper for the fancier pepper they used.

I probably used about 3/4 of a bag of potatoes (granted my potatoes were on the smallish side).

I also used the mandolin to slice up the shallots - easy peasy and no tears.

I may have overfilled the dish with potatoes, so it was a little tricky to stuff all the shallots in between. However, when it baked up, a bunch of them got extra crispy delicious on top, so I figure it wasn't that big of a problem in the end. 

It was a big hit at potluck, and the rest of the meal was surprsingly Passover friendly. We had two green salads, deviled eggs, meatballs & sauce, and some snacky type food.

Sadly, my dreams of turning any leftovers into homefries this morning were dashed as...there were no leftovers.

Sights of Passover

Between family, seders and a bunch of traveling, it's been a busy week over here. Surprisingly, however, there hasn't been much cooking...at least on my end. My mother put out a delicious seder filled with brisket, turkey and more sides than you can imagine.

Now we're back home and settling into the remainder of Passover. Here's a little glimpse into what we've been eating...

Potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes. These fingerlings will join some chicken sausage, peppers & onions for my tried and true super easy roasted dish. Last night we baked some Idaho taters and overstuffed them with steamed broccoli, shredded cheese (for the kid), mayo (for me), and crumbled veggie bacon bits. Delicious.

Ring Jells

These are the epitome of Passover candy (for me at least). Sugary sweet gummy filling surrounded by crisp chocolatey goodness. I may have them in both "pink" (raspberry?) and "orange" (actually orange).

Macroons

I'm "eh" when it comes to macaroons, and can either take them or leave them, but my husband goes crazy for them, so we always buy a can or two during Passover.

My go to lunch for the week is salad, and then I try to dress it up any way that I can. Today's included tuna with mayo and a drizzle of mustard on top, eaten with...potato chips. 

The rest of the week looks a haze of potatoes, salad and chicken, topped off with a few ring jells and some macaroons. I also might buckle and attempt these.

Corn Waffles

Since I'll be living in the land of the unleavened for the next week or so, I figured I'd whip up a blog post full of chametz. However, I ended up cooking something that wasn't super "chametzy" in the end after all. There are various schools of thought, especially amongst Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews as to what constitutes chametz (corn? beans? etc...). So...perhaps in some Sephardi household across the globe, somebody might even make this meal during Passover, while I'm eating my tenth helping of matzah pizza.

A few weeks ago, a friend posted on Facebook that she whipped up some banana bread batter, but instead of baking it in a loaf pan, decided to cook it in a waffle iron. I thought that it was an ingenious idea, and attempted to make a savory version. This couldn't have been simpler, yet it ended up being something that I see quickly becoming a staple in our kitchen.

Start with a box of Jiffy mix. I'm certain you can make this entire meal even further from scratch with corn meal, baking powder/soda, salt, etc... but since this started as an experiment, I didn't go that far this time.

 

All I did was prepare the mix as directed (for the muffins. I noticed that they did have a waffle recipe on the side, but I didn't use that) and then added in some shredded cheddar cheese as well, about a half a cup. I also tossed in about a cup of frozen corn. I will definitely be making this again during fresh corn season. yum.

Super kid friendly. Definitely have them mix the batter up while the waffle iron heats up

I brushed a little oil on the waffle iron, poured the batter in and let it go (I had it set at around a "7"). One batch of batter makes 4 waffle squares. I served ours with black beans, salsa, avocado and some grape tomatoes. Every single waffle was gobbled up without hesitation. This would also be an awesome brunch item, for sure.

The next week is looking like a super hectic one, full of family, food and fun, but I'll do my best to pop in with some Passover sights and recipes.

Link Love

some mini daffodils that reside on our dining room table

Spring is finally here! While it's officially been spring for the last few weeks, it hasn't quite felt like it until the past couple of days. In fact, just this morning, my son stepped outside, took a deep breath and went "ahhh...smells like Spring."

And it's that "ahhh" feeling that has me away from the computer and outside more often these days. Wearing t-shirts, tossing around a frisbee, biking or just rolling around in the fresh grass...I find it really hard to sit down in front of the computer and blog. Also, all of our time spent outside has us sometimes rushing around, throwing a meal together at the last minute (and when that happens I am blogger fail and forget to snap photos).

However, I love relaying what we've been eating around here, especially on Monday nights, so that won't change. As for today...sometimes Mondays sneak up on you. We're not sure who's hosting yet, and I think we're going to be making a tried and true (and easy!) dish. So I don't have any new recipes or pictures for you.

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to show some link love...Here are some sites (and sights) I've been enjoying lately. Hopefully you'll enjoy them too!

Cooking With My Kid is a fabulous website for those who have little helpers in the kitchen. The recipes are easy to follow, totally kid friendly but not bland or unimaginative (which I find happens sometimes when people cook for kids. Don't get me started about the lame-ness of most "kid menus.")

Picture from Cooking With My Kid. Click here for recipe.

When I just want to look at amazing pictures of food that I'll probably never get a chance to try, I head on over to Serious Eats. They even have an entire section devoted to "photograzing." With the warmer weather in the air, and my serious love of fish tacos, I might just have to try my hand at this recipe soon.

 

 

 

Catfish tacos

One of my favorite things that comes with warmer weather is our local outdoor Tuesday Market. While there are still a few more weeks until it actually begins, I figured a few inspirational pictures can't hurt. This market goes beyond just selling produce and has a wide variety of offerings. I'm sure that when the season begins I'll be posting more of our adventures at the market, but until then, here are a few of my favorites.

Well fed, indeed.

My mouth is watering at the taste of fresh strawberries already

The best shaved ice ever.

To find a fabulous farmers' market in your neighborhood, check out Local Harvest.

Caketastic

While there are aspects to this Winter --> Spring season that I can do without, the fact that there are two birthdays celebrated in our household within 2 weeks of each other makes it a little easier. We celebrated Marc's birthday yesterday, and since he had gone to great lengths to make me a homemade cake, I decided to return the favor.

The only direction I got was that he wanted a chocolate cake, but I wasn't set on just any chocolate cake. Oh no. I looked everywhere until I settled on what can only be described as the most decadently amazing cake ever. It was truly caketastic.

I snagged the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, and you can get all the details there. This cake is pretty much the epitome of a grown up Hostess Cupcake. It wasn't the simplest cake I've ever made, but it was well worth the effort, for sure.

I will say...there was a lot of chocolate happening in this cake. I used Godiva for all the different parts, chopping up a bar of semi-sweet to go into the actual cake batter. I didn't follow any of the varied directions on Smitten Kitchen's post about building the cake and went with my own version. I layered both cakes (only one was cooked in a 10" pan, the other, sadly, was relegated to a 9" springform pan...but you work with what you've got).  I spread the 7-minute frosting (Yum, btw) in between the layers before adding ganache.

Moist cake, creamy filling...what more could you ask for?

Ah, yes. Chocolate ganache coating. You could ask for that.

Suffice it to say, the cake was a hit with everyone, including the birthday boy. It was rich, decadent, and certainly fit for a celebration.

All the kids helped blow out the candles

Batches upon batches of wings preceded the cake (we made teriyaki glazed ones, and there were also hot wings and spiced chutney wings in attendance) as well as roasted potatoes, lentil soup & salad. The meal was delicious, our house (we hosted!) was full, and by the end of the night, so were our bellies.

Hmm...fingers crossed it's somebody else's birthday next week...