Mary Lou's Cinnamon Peach Cobbler

I got this super simple recipe for peach "cobbler" from my aunt, Mary Lou. As I've mentioned before, I'm not big into baking, so for me to bake something it has to be super simple. This totally fits the bill.

Ingredients
-Two 28oz cans of peach slices, reserve liquid from one can

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-1 box yellow cake mix

-3/4 Cup butter, melted

-vanilla ice cream (optional...but so worth it :)

Steps

1. Put peaches and about half of the packing liquid from one can in the bottom of cobbler pan (13 X 9).  Add vanilla, cinnamon, and stir.

2. Sprinkle cake mix evenly on top - do not stir! Also, try not to let the peaches peek through the cake mix.

3. Drizzle melted butter all over top.

4. Bake at 375 for about an hour, until golden on top.

5. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Vegetarian Taco Pasta

Last night was one of those nights where we didn't have much in the house, but I REALLY didn't want to stop at the store on the way home. So I took a mental stock of some things we had: pasta, cheese, salsa, corn, green onion, veggie crumbles, and realized we had almost everything we needed for Taco Pasta, which I first learned about from my friend, Noemi's blog. All I was missing were the beans, and thankfully my friend, Melissa, and fellow food blogger, was able to lend me a can of Navy beans. Originally I wanted black beans, but I actually think the Navy worked out better for this because they're a bit blander and more porous than black beans, and thus able to soak up more of the seasonings. Anyhow, for just kind of scraping something together this ended up being super easy and really tasty. Thanks Melissa and Noemi for making it happen!

Ingredients
-1 can Navy beans (or black if you prefer)
~8 oz pasta (bowtie, shells, macaroni, penne...whatever)
~1 C frozen corn (or one can of corn)
-1/2 bag of Morning Star Farm veggie crumbles
-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
-1/2 packet taco seaoning
-1 jar salsa
-1 C Mexican shredded cheese
-1 bunch green onions, chopped
-couple TBSPs of sour cream

Steps
1. Cook pasta and drain.
2. While pasta is cooking, saute veggie crumbles, beans, corn, garlic, and taco seasoning with a little EVOO.

3. After a few minutes, add the jar of salsa and about 1/3 C of water. Mix and let simmer on low-medium for as long as it takes the pasta to cook.

4. Once pasta is done and drained, you could: a) mix it in to your skillet with the bean/corn mixture, top with green onions and cheese and serve, or b) plop pasta and bean/corn mixture into a greased casserole dish and mix. If you use the casserole dish, layer 1/2 your chopped green onions and then add cheese on top.
5. Bake for about 5 minutes at 350, or until cheese is melted. Top with remaining green onions. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Fettuccine with spinach and cheesy herb sauce

This is a slightly modified recipe from Cooking Light. It was super easy and I really liked all the dill in the pasta.

Ingredients
-8 oz fettuccine
-1/2 C whole-milk ricotta cheese
-3 C baby spinach leaves
-1/4 C chopped fresh chives
-1/4 C chopped fresh dill
-Grated Romano or Asiago cheese
-2 TBSP olive oil
-1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
-1/4 tsp salt

Steps
1. Cook pasta according to package. Drain over a colander and reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid.
2. Combine 1/3 C cup cooking liquid and 1/2 C ricotta in a blender and process until blended. (Add more cooking liquid if needed, depending on how you like the consistency.)
3. Combine hot pasta, cheese sauce, spinach, herbs, salt, pepper, grated cheese, and EVOO in a large bowl. Toss gently.

Simple protein smoothie

Ingredients
-1 Handful of frozen blueberries
-1 banana, quartered
-1/3 C Greek yogurt
-2 T honey
-splash of O.J.
-splash of soy or almond milk

Steps
1. Blend above and enjoy!

Note: I subbed apple for banana one day and that was good. Another day I mixed yogurt, banana, and heath bar chips and that was nice for dessert.

Sausage, potato, and red pepper turnovers

I got the original recipe from Cooking Light, but I modified it a bit. Well, in all honesty I actually forgot to put in one of the key ingredients (spinach), but these still tasted awesome, and I ended up just making a little side salad with the spinach I forgot to add :). This recipe looks a little complicated (at least to me), but it was really pretty easy.

I'm sure you could easily make these vegetarian by using the fake meat crumbles instead of sausage, if you prefer.

Note: This recipe makes 8 turnovers..and you'll probably end up with a little extra stuffing--we plan to serve it over noodles with some marinara or add it to some beans and broth and make a soup.
Ingredients
-4 red potatoes, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-1 red bell pepper, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-1 yellow onion, diced into smaller than bite size pieces
-5 links hot Italian chicken sausage, casings removed
-3 T fresh basil or oregano, chopped
-1 package refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)
-1 egg, lightly beaten
-3 T Parm or Asiago
-salt, pepper, crushed red pepper

Preheat oven to 400.
Steps
1. Heat a large skillet to medium-hot. Add sausages (with casings removed) and brown on both sides. Then, using a spatula, break the sausages up into small pieces.
2. Once you've broken up the sausage, add in the diced onion, potato, and red pepper. Saute for 3 minutes, then cover for about 3 minutes. Stir and cover everything again for about 3 minutes or until potato is soft.
3. Stir in basil/oregano, salt/pepper/crushed red pepper to taste, remove from heat. (This is where you were supposed to add the spinach, if you were so inclined.)

4. Flour a large working surface and a rolling pin (or if you're like me and don't own a rolling pin, flour a cylindrical object like a coffee thermos).
5. Cut your two rolls of pie dough into four equal pieces each. Ball each up and then press them out into a circle with your hands. Then roll them out into large circles, about 6 inches wide.

6. Spoon about 1/2 C sausage mixture on half of each circle, leaving a 1/2-inch border.

7. Fold dough over potato mixture and then bring bottom edge of dough over top edge; press with your fingers or crimp with a fork.  
Tip 1: the warm sausage mixture is going to make your dough gooey and start to tear easily, so don't overfill your turnovers. Also, try to work quickly. I ended up just pressing the edges together with my fingers because crimping with a fork was making the dough tear. If your dough does tear, don't worry unless it's a big tear, as a small tear will allow ventilation. If it's a big tear, borrow some dough from another turnover to patch with.
Tip 2: make your turnovers on the greased baking pan. I made the first one on my work surface and then it started to fall apart when I transferred it to the baking pan. So, I recommend making all your turnovers on the baking pan you're going to cook them on.
8. Brush your whisked egg over the top of each turnover.
9. Bake for about 15-18 minutes (on the TOP rack) or until turnovers are golden brown.
Tip 3: All ovens vary, but my turnovers started to burn on the bottom rack, so I transferred them to the top two racks. Then, I rotated the turnovers (switch the top and second to the top) half-way through so they got equally browned.
10. Grate some cheese on top of each turnover once you pull them out of the oven.

11. Enjoy, but be careful because they'll be very hot inside!

Super Easy Homemade Pickles

I always thought to pickle something you had to let it sit for days, if not weeks; however, these pickles are ready to eat in a few hours. They do pick up more flavor after several days, but they really are good to go after only a short time. These make for an awesome snack or appetizer.

Note: It's going to seem like you don't have enough liquid for your pickles; however, if you just shake them and rotate the jar every now and again all the cucumbers should soak up enough liquid. Plus, more liquid will be made during the fermentation process.

I made them "Japanese" style by cutting them into thin rounds instead of spears. However, if you prefer spears you can cut them any way you want.

Ingredients
-4 small cucumbers (I recommend getting the pickling kind of cucumbers, sometimes called "hot house")
-1/2 C cider vinegar or distilled vinegar
-1/4 C water
-3 T sugar (I used light brown, but that's the only kind I ever use...)
-several sprigs of dill
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 red onion, cut into thin slices
-2 cloves of garlic, sliced

Steps
1. Cut cucumbers into thin, round slices.  Put cucumber and onion slices in a large mason jar or some other kind of air tight container.
2. In a small saucepan, combing vinegar, water, sugar, dill, garlic. Bring to a boil.
3. Pour vinegar mixture over pickles and seal container.
4. Shake/agitate the container very well.
5. Chill for at least two hours (might be good to give the pickles a shake every 30 minutes - 1 hour for first two hours, and then once a day after that).

Southwestern Sweet Potatoes

I'm finally feeling good enough to cook and eat (I was seriously sick for about a week) so I will be back to more regular posting.

This recipe was a cinch and has such great flavors. We'll definitely be making this again. Credit and thanks go to Andrea's Easy Vegan Cooking for the original recipe.

Ingredients
-4 sweet potatoes, scrubbed
-2 avocados, diced
-1 can black beans
-1 can Rotel (diced tomatoes with chiles)
-2-3 cloves garlic, finely diced
-1 bunch green onions, chopped
-1 scallion, finely diced
-juice from 1 lime
-3 TBSP cilantro (optional), chopped
-1 TBSP EVOO
-salt & pepper

Steps
(Preheat oven to  425)
1. Cook sweet potatoes for about 40 minutes in the oven or until you can easily stab through them with a fork.
2. About 10-15 minutes before potatoes are done, put together your guacamole, my mashing your avocados (a fork usually works fine) and stirring in the lime juice, cilantro, salt & pepper, and diced scallion. This this link for a step by step on making guacamole.
3. Heat a skillet over medium. Add oil and saute garlic and green onion for about 1 minute.
4. Add beans and diced tomatoes; stir until heated through.

5. Your potatoes should be done by now. Slice them open down the center, and squeeze the ends in to make an opening for your toppings.
6. Top potatoes with black bean mixture and then scoop on a big dollop of guacamole.

Pasta Caprese

This recipe comes direct from Chef Adam. I decided to leave it unchanged and have made only minor additions (in italics).

Ingredients

- 1 lb. Penne pasta

- 2 - 2.5 lbs plum tomatoes

- 3 TBSP EVOO

- 1-3 TBSP red wine vinegar (depending on how sour you like the tomatoes)

- Juice from 1 lemon or lime

- 8oz Mozzarella cheese

- 3T basil chopped (one of those packages with fresh basil at Publix will do) 

- Salt & pepper to taste

- 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

- Chilled Vodka 

- Romaine lettuce (optional)

Steps

1. Wash your hands.  

2. Retrieve vodka from freezer and mix with whatever sour-mix, soft drink, or, depending on your bravery, other alcohol that is readily available and proceed to imbibe.  

3. The original recipe calls for “seeding” the tomatoes and this is the best method that I have found for doing so: Rinse and cut the ends off the tomatoes then cut them in half lengthwise.  Using your thumb, remove the seeds, you may need to make extra cuts in the tomatoes to get to the other compartments as halving them sometimes does not expose all the seeds.  (I used a melon baller and that worked really well.) Once finished, chop them up and place in a large plastic dish.  

4. Continue drinking vodka, you should be on glass #3.  Ignore the large gash you have inflicted upon yourself during the tomato cutting phase.  If asked about the gash, brush it off as the remnants of the tomato paste balsamic bald eagle skull wine reduction that you just whipped up in order to make what you now call the “Great Meal of Unending Happiness and Perpetual Tranquility” more enjoyable.  

5. Cut mozzarella cheese into bit size pieces, place in dish with tomatoes along with oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, & pepper (and garlic if used).  Let marinate at room temperature for 15 minutes - 2 hrs.  

6. Relax and watch “Rock of Love” remarking how stupid the human race is.  

7. Cook and drain pasta, mix with tomato mixture, adding basil and a dash more salt/pepper.  

9. Serve and enjoy, making sure to exclaim how amazing the food currently numbing your mind of all toxic thoughts is, thanking the person whom sent this recipe to you (i.e., Adam).  

10. Optional: Serve over romaine lettuce.

Breakfast Strata (aka Erik Estrada)

This is a great recipe to make for a brunch because you make it the night before, so all you have to do in the morning is pop it in the oven. Strata is one of my husband's favorite things that I make (and he tends to be overly protective with food he likes), so I was really surprised when we had some friends over and Jonathan offered to heat them up some of the left over strata. I have to say I thought it was really sweet that he kept telling his friends, "Oh, man you have to try this Estrada. It's out of this world." It was all the sweeter because he really thought it was called Estrada, and so now it has been renamed after the eponymous Chips character.

Note 1: You need to prepare this the night before you make it.
Note 2: These pictures aren't very good because I took them with my phone.

Ingredients for the Meat Strata (feel free to mix and match)
~1 lb sausage
-2-3 C shredded cheddar cheese
-1 pepper, diced
-1 onion, diced
-8 eggs
-1-2 C milk
-1 loaf day old French bread cut into cubes (it's best if you leave this out to air dry so it gets really crusty, but if you forget to do that you can can toast the bread cubes in the oven
-1 TBSP Worcestershire
-salt & pepper

Ingredients for the Veggie Strata
-1 package soyrizo or other fake meat product
-2-3 C shredded cheddar cheese
-2/3 package fresh spinach
-1 onion, diced
-1 small tub of white mushrooms
-3 handfuls of cherry tomatoes, quartered
-8 eggs
-1-2 C milk
-1 loaf day old French bread cut into cubes (it's best if you leave this out to air dry so it gets really crusty, but if you forget to do that you can can toast the bread cubes in the oven
-1 TBSP Worcestershire
-salt & pepper

Steps
1. Cook your meat (or fake meat). Remove from pan.
2. Saute your veggies in the meal drippings.
3. Layer half the bread cubes in a greased 13X9 pan.
4. Sprinkle half the cheese, half the meat, and half the veggie mixture over the bread cubes.

5. Repeat layers with remaining bread cubes, cheese, and ingredients.
6. Whisk eggs, milk, Worcestershire, salt & pepper together.
7. Pour egg mixture evenly over bread mixture.
8. Cover and let sit in refridgerator over night.
9. In the morning, bake at 325 for about 50-70 minutes or until completely set in the middle.

White Truffle Mac and Cheese

Put truffle oil on anything and it makes it more amazing. Put truffle oil in Mac & Cheese, which happens to be my favorite food, and you have a culinary taste sensation. I got this recipe from my friend, Adam, and it rocks. It's pretty rich, and definitely not "healthy," but it's perfect for a special occasion. My husband and I made this for Valentine's, and to me this meal was way better than anything we could've gotten on one of those overpriced Valentine's menus.

Ingredients (makes 4-5 servings)
-1/4 C (1/2 stick) butter
-1/4 C all-purpose flour
- 1 C milk
- 1 C heavy cream
- 6 oz (2 C) dry elbow macaroni
- 4 oz (1 C) shredded Cheddar
- 2 oz (1/2 C) shredded Swiss cheese
- 1 oz ( 1/4 C) crumbled blue cheese or Gorgonzola
- 1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
- s & p, to taste
- Bread crumbs (we used panko)
~ 3 TBSP White (or Black_ truffle oil)

(Preheat oven to 350)
Steps
1. In a large saucepan over med-low heat, melt the butter, then whisk in the flour, stirring for several minutes.

2. Slowly pour in the milk and cream, whisking constantly. Bring the sauce to a simmer while whisking regularly so it does not stick. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.

3. While the sauce is simmering, cook the macaroni according to package directions until al dente. Run cold water over the pasta, drain and set aside.
4. When the sauce is ready, remove it from the heat and stir in the cheeses, Worcestershire, and 2 TBSP truffle oil. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce and stir over medium-low heat for a couple minutes. Poor the noodles into a greased casserole dish and top with bread crumbs. Bake for about 15 minutes and then broil for a few minutes until breadcrumbs are golden brown.

6. Lightly drizzle with truffle oil.

Lemon Blossom Muffins

These guys are AMAZING. Any time I make them they are a huge hit. They are fresh, tangy, moist, with a little crunch from the glaze. They are perfect for dessert or breakfast...or as a mid-day snack. Also, since the recipe makes so many, they are great for taking to parties. These muffins are also really good cold, right out of the refrigerator. And the best part about them is that they are super easy to make. My Mom gave me this recipe, and supposedly it's from Paula Dean, though given the lack of butter, I find that hard to believe.

Note: since these make about 4 dozen, it really helps to have at least 2 mini-muffin pans.

Ingredients (makes 4-5 dozen)

Muffins

- 1 yellow cake mix

- 3.4 oz instant lemon pudding mix from Jello

- 4 large eggs

- 3/4 C vegetable oil

Glaze

- 3 C powdered sugar

- zest of two lemons

- 1/3 C fresh lemon juice

- 1 TBSP vegetable oil

-2 TBSP water

(Preheat oven to 350)

Steps

1. Mix muffin ingredients in a large bowl for about 2 minutes. Note: the batter will be quite gooey.

2. Spray miniature muffin tins with oil.  Using two cereal spoons, spoon batter into muffin tins filling only halfway. Bake at 350 for 11-12 minutes. 

3. While muffins are baking, make glaze by whisking all glaze ingredients together in a medium bowl until smooth.

4. It's best to glaze muffins when they are warm, but not right out of the oven (they'll fall apart if they are too hot). So let the muffins sit in the pan for a few minutes before removing. The muffins are kind of delicate, but I discovered a trick to more easily remove them: lightly grab the tops, and then turn them as if you are unscrewing them from the pan. This will release them and make it easier to pop them out of the pan.

5. Glaze them completely by dunking them/rolling them in the glaze (I just used my fingers). Shake off excess glaze.

6. Repeat steps 2-5 until you're out of batter.

7. Allow muffins to dry on a wire rack with some foil underneath that the glaze will drip onto. Let the glaze set before storing in a container.

Curry-Spiced Noodles

Normally, I would not have made this recipe because it has a lot of ingredients. However, I recently visited by good friend, Jon, and we made some super awesome Indian food. He taught me an important trick to preparing Indian food more easily--have a well stocked pantry of spices (e.g., cumin seeds, coriander, turmeric, anise, cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks). So I ended up stocking up on spices and basically had almost everything on hand to make this. It was more time intensive than most of my recipes, but it was really flavorful. I think you can save time and make it easier by doing some prep work up front (e.g., combine all your dry spices, chop all your fresh herbs and veggies).

Ingredients (makes enough for at least 4 servings)
 -8-12  oz dry udon noodles or spaghetti
- 4  tsp peanut oil, divided (I used sesame oil)
- 2  C  julienne-cut carrot
- 2  C  julienne-cut red bell pepper
- 1  C  julienne-cut green bell pepper (I forgot this)
- 8 oz  cups thinly sliced shiitake mushroom caps (since shiitakes are expensive, I did 4 oz of white and 4 oz of shiitake)
- 3  TBSP  chopped peeled fresh lemongrass (see this video to prepare in slices)
- 1  TBSP  grated peeled fresh ginger
- 1  TBSP  red curry paste (I used Sriracha sauce...but 1 TBSP made it too spicy for us, so maybe do 1 tsp to start, or add it to taste in your individual serving)
- 2  tsp  ground cumin
- 1  tsp  ground turmeric
- 8  garlic cloves, minced
- 1  C vegetable broth
- 1/2  cup  water
- 2  tsp soy sauce
- 1/4  tsp salt
- 3  green onions, thinly sliced
- 1/3  C  cilantro leaves
- 1/4  C  chopped dry-roasted, unsalted cashews

Steps
1. Combine lemongrass, ginger, curry paste, cumin, turmeric, minced garlic cloves in a small bowl.
2. Combine broth, water, soy sauce, and salt in a small bowl.
3. Cut up all your veggies.
4. Cook noodles according to package directions. Set noodles aside; keep them in the cooking water so that they don't get sticky.

5. Heat a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add 2 teaspoons oil. Add carrot to pan; sauté 2 minutes. Add bell peppers; sauté 2 minutes. Remove veggies from pan.
6. Heat the remaining 2 teaspoons oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; sauté for 2 minutes.
7. Add bowl of spices (lemongrass, ginger, curry paste, cumin, turmeric, garlic cloves); cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
8. Add bowl of liquid (broth, 1/2 cup water, soy sauce, and salt). Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 2 minutes or until slightly thick. Add noodles, carrot mixture, and green onions; cook for 2 minutes, tossing to combine.
9. Top with cilantro and cashews.

Italian Eggs over Spinach and Polenta

I got this recipe from Cooking Light, but modified it slightly. This recipe was SUPER easy and very tasty. Excellent meal for a night when you don't feel like cooking and/or have the time. The one issue I had was with overcooking my eggs. In the sauce pan the whites stayed sort of runny looking so I kept cooking them. Finally, after seeing the consistency of the whites wasn't changing I decided to turn off the heat, only to find the eggs were pretty much cooked through, instead of soft like I wanted them (still tasted good though). So my recommendation when making this would be to go less on the appearance of the eggs and more by the time. After 5-10 minutes they probably should be soft-set.

Ingredients (enough for ~3 servings)
-5 eggs
-1 16 oz tube of polenta, cut into 12 slices
-1 jar tomato-basil pasta sauce
-1 package of fresh baby spinach
-1 small red onion, diced
~1/2 C Asiago or Romano cheese, shredded
-cooking spray or EVOO

(set oven to broil)
Steps
1. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray or EVOO, then arrange polenta slices on top and coat on top with cooking spray or more EVOO. Broil about 5-7 minutes.
2. While polenta heats, saute onion for about 3 minutes in a Large sized pan (at medium heat).
3. Stir in sauce to pan and bring to a simmer.
4. Stir in spinach and cook for 1 minute or until spinach wilts.
5. Make 5 indentations in the spinach mixture using the back of a wooden spoon. Break 1 egg into each indentation.
6. Cover pan and simmer for 5-10 minutes until eggs are desired degree of doneness. Sprinkle with cheese.

7. Put 3-4 polenta slices on a plate and top with 1/3 of spinach mixture and 2 eggs.

Melon, Mozzarella, and Prosciutto Appetizer

This is really easy and very tasty! And I think it looks really pretty.

Ingredients
-1/2 cantaloupe
-1/2 honey dew
-1/4 lb. thinly sliced prosciutto
~8 oz. fresh mozzarella
~3 TBSP rosemary
-2 TBSP EVOO
-fresh ground pepper
-skewers, preferably about 4 inches long

Steps
1. Use a melon baller to make fruit balls out of your cantaloupe and honey dew.
2. Use the melon baller to make balls out of your fresh mozzarella (this is a bit harder...ours were definitely not perfect circles.
3. Tear off pieces of prosciutto and wrap them around the melon balls, spearing them with the skewer as you go. Alternate a honey dew ball, mozzarella piece, and cantaloupe ball.
4. After you've made all your skewers, drizzle EVOO on top of them and then sprinkle the rosemary and top with ground pepper.

Kelly's Truffles

First, I'm finally back from a month of traveling for internship interviews, and I'm excited to get back to cooking and more regular posting!

I got this recipe from my good friend, Kelly, and made them for New Years. They are insanely good. I love that they look pretty fancy, but are actually super easy to make.

Ingredients
-8oz cream cheese (room temp)
-1 pound bag of Oreos (don't get double stuff)
-1 pound of milk or dark chocolate (I used chocolate chips)
-1/2 pound of white chocolate (I used chips)

Steps
1. Using a blender or food processor, finely crush the Oreos.

2. Next, using your hands or a food processor (I used my hands), incorporate the cream cheese and Oreo crumbs.
3. Make little balls out of the Oreo dough and chill for 45 minutes.

4. Melt your chocolate. I did mine in the microwave at 70% power for 20-30 second intervals. This was my first time melting chocolate, and the microwave trick worked okay, but the melted chocolate stayed a bit thicker than I would've liked. If anyone has better suggestions about how to melt chocolate I'd love to hear in the comments!
5. Dip the balls into the chocolate using a slotted spoon, toothpick, fingers, or whatever works best for you.

6. Melt your white chocolate. Melting white chocolate was harder for me, as it seized up twice. However, I found a trick for "unseizing" the chocolate--add a spoonful of vegetable oil to mix into the chocolate and it should smooth it up.
7. Drizzle the white chocolate over the truffles. Again, my white chocolate didn't get runny enough so I sort of had to glop it on top, but it still tasted delicious.
8. Let set. (I put mine in the fridge for an hour or so).