Simple Udon Soup

This is super fast and easy, and is a perfect snack or small meal. I love the broth; there's something really comforting to me about it. Udon is made from buck wheat, so the noodles are actually pretty healthy.

Ingredients (makes 2)
-12 oz udon
~2 T soy (1 T per bowl)
~2 T mirin (1 T per bowl)
~4 cups reserved cooking liquid (2 cups per bowl)
-4 green onions, diced
-2 T basil, chopped
-1 block tofu, cubed (optional)

Steps
1. Cook noodles as directed. If you are adding tofu, add the tofu to the water once it starts to boil so that the tofu heats up as well. Once noodles are done, remove them from pot but reserve most of the cooking liquid.
2. Split the noodles between two bowls.
3. Add a couple cups of the water you cooked the noodles in to each bowl.
4. Stir in soy, mirin, green onion, and basil.

Happy Homemade Gazpacho

This recipe is SO easy, and the end result is SO tasty. To me, gazpacho is the perfect summer soup. I have a huge blender, so I could fit all the ingredients at once...I think if you're using a regular sized blender you'd need to half the ingredients or do it in two batches.

Ingredients:
-3 medium tomatoes, quartered
-1 small cucumber, cut into chunks
-1 green bell pepper, seeds removed and cut into strips
-1 small onion, cut into sixths
-3 cups tomato juice (I used spicy V8)
-salt and pepper to taste

Steps:
1. Combine the above ingredients in a blender, and mix to your desired consistency. Serve chilled. (See, it is really easy!)

Mini Polenta Pizzas

I came up with idea for these guys when we had some friends over for a movie and I needed to come up with a quick, easy appetizer. These were both quick and easy, and they were also very yummy.

Ingredients
-1 tube of polenta
~5 oz fresh mozzarella
~7 oz of pizza sauce
-chiffonade a handful of fresh basil
-2 T EVOO

Steps:
(Turn your broiler on)
1. Cut the polenta into 1/4 inch thick rounds, and place on a baking sheet covered with tin foil. Lightly baste the slices with EVOO and broil for about 4 minutes. (Basically, the point of this step is just to heat your polenta slices through, so the EVOO is probably not necessary.

2. Top each slice with a small spoonful of pizza sauce and a slice of mozzarella. Broil until cheese is brown and melty.

 3. Top with basil.

Lemon Basil Egg Salad

Much to my fiance's chagrin, every now and then I make egg salad (he thinks it's gross and smelly...I think it's comforting and yummy). This weekend I got a craving for it, and was pleased to see that we already had all the ingredients to make it on-hand--except dill. So I looked around and decided I would try subbing basil, seeing as my basil plants could use some trimming. I also added some lemon juice, onion, pickles, mustard, and crumbled bacon, and I have been happily munching on the super tasty end result for the past few days. See below for more detailed recipe.

Ingredients
-5 hard boiled eggs
-3-4 T red onion, finely diced
-4 pieces cooked turkey bacon, crumbled
-2 T mustard
-3-4 T pickles (I highly recommend the bread and butter kind)
-2 T fresh basil
-1.5 T lemon juice
-salt and pepper to taste

Steps
1. Hard boil your eggs. I assume there are many ways, but I usually add my eggs to a pot of water, bring the water to a boil, then I turn off the heat, cover the eggs, and let them sit in the water for about 20 minutes. Then, I rinse them under cold water until they are cool enough to handle.
2. Dice your eggs and place in a medium sized bowl.

3. Chop up your pickles, onion, basil, and bacon and add to bowl.

4. Stir in mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
5. Serve on toasted bread with some lettuce.

Cold Soba Salad

I'm just going to say: this recipe qualifies as a blog win! Super easy, incredibly flavorful, and very healthy. Perfect summer recipe.

Ingredients:
-12 oz soba noodles
-1 ripe mango, cut into pieces
-1 red pepper, cut into pieces
-1 block of tofu, drained well and cut into pieces
~6 oz frozen edamame
Dressing
-3/4 C rice wine vinegar
-1/4 C brown sugar
-3/4 tsp salt
-3 large garlic cloves, minced (definitely use fresh garlic, not bottled for this)
-1 heaping T of diced jalepeños
-zest of one lime
-juice of one lime
-1 T sesame oil (I subbed EVOO)
Optional toppings
-fresh mint
-fresh basil
-peanuts

Steps:
1. Chop up your veggies. Thaw edamame by placing it in a bowl, covering with water, and microwaving for about 4 minutes. Drain edamame.

2. Cook soba al dente (probably about 6 minutes, but check package instructions). Once cooked, rinse very well in cold water.

3. While soba is cooking, begin making your dressing by heating the rice wine vinegar, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan until the salt and sugar dissolve. Once the salt and sugar have dissolved, remove the pan from heat, and stir in the garlic and jalepeños.
4. Let the sauce cool a bit, then add in lime zest, lime juice, and oil. Stir well.

5. Add mango, pepper, edamame, and tofu to your noodles. Pour on dressing and toss well.
6. Let sit in the refrigerator until completely cooled, serve with your garnishes of choice.

Homemade Gnocchi

First, I have to thank my good friend, David, for getting all the supplies and doing all the research for this endeavor. Our homemade gnocchi ended up being fun and relatively easy to make.
The basic gnocchi-making premise is simple: take a starch, add an egg and some flour, and mix until you get a dough the consistency of Play-Dough.
We made two types of gnocchi: potato and butternut squash. Because the cooked squash was very moist, we ended up having to add a lot more flour to get the right dough consistency, thus the squash gnocchi ended up being considerably more dense than the potato gnocchi. We couldn't really tell a difference between the flavors of the two types, so I'm just going to post the recipe for the potato gnocchi, which were easier to make and much fluffier.
One thing to keep in mind is that gnocchi by themselves are pretty flavorless so you'll want to pair them with some flavorful sauces.

Gnocchi Ingredients:
-2 baking potatoes
-1 egg
~3/4 C flour

Sauce #1 (Herbed brown butter sauce) Ingredients:
-1 stick of butter
-4 T fresh basil, chopped
-3 T fresh oregano, chopped
-4 T Parmesan

Sauce #2
-2 T tomato paste
-3 pieces center cut bacon, cooked until crispy
-4 handfuls fresh spinach
~1/3 C wine (whatever you're drinking ;-)

Steps:
1. Cook potatoes until very well done.
 2. Cut in half and use a fork to make shallow scraping motions, removing the potato from the skin onto a large plate as you go. Keep doing this until you get all the potato out of the shells. Once you get all the potato out, fragment any large pieces of potato with your fork (you want your pieces of potato to be as fine as possible). If you actually own a potato ricer you should just use that.

3. Let the potato sit for about 5 minutes, which will allow the steam to escape, leaving less moisture. (Less moisture -->less flour --> fluffier gnocchi).
4. Mix in 1 egg and a 1/4 C of flour at a time, kneading your potato mixture as you go. Keep adding flour until your potato mixture takes on the consistency of Play-Dough. (It took us about 3/4 C of flour).

(Note: the picture is of the squash gnocchi dough; I didn't get a picture of the potato dough)
5. Once you have the dough the right consistency, break your dough into half, and roll out each half on a floured surface into thin logs.

6. Cut your logs into bite-sized pieces.

7. Make your sauce. Both the sauces we made came together super fast. For Sauce #1, simply melt the butter in a small sauce pan and add the herbs. Saute for about 4 minutes. Add the Parmesan about 30 seconds before you serve so it gets melty. For Sauce #2, saute your wine and tomato paste in a sauce pan, add the spinach and crumbled up bacon, and cook for about 1 minute or until spinach wilts.
8. Add your gnocchi to boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes or until gnocchi float to the top.
9. Serve with a sauce of your choice and enjoy!

Pistachio Ice Cream Torte

This is a recipe from my fiance's grandmother and holy smokes is it good. The pistachio flavor isn't super strong, but that might be because it has so much other deliciousness going on. This made a lot, so you might want to cut the recipe in half if you're just making it for two people.

Ingredients:
-1 bag Oreo cookies, crush half into fine pieces, crush other half into bigger pieces
-1/2 stick of butter, melted
-1 quart vanilla ice cream (1/2 of a 1/2 gallon), softened
-1 8oz tub of Cool Whip, softened in fridge
-1 pistachio flavored Jello pudding mix
-2 cups milk

Steps:
1. Let Cool Whip soften in fridge for a couple of hours. Let ice cream soften for about 15 minutes on counter (you can pull it out as you're making everything else).
2. Crush half the bag of Oreos very finely and mix with melted butter. Crush the other half of the bag into bigger pieces and set aside.
3. Push the finely crushed Oreos into the bottom of a 13X9 pan with your fingers to form a crust.
4.Make pudding as directed.
5. Mix pudding with ice cream and spread over cookie crust.
6. Spread Cool Whip over pudding/ice cream mixture.
7. Top with the remaining crushed up Oreos.
8. Let re-freeze before serving.
Note: When you serve, it is best to let the pieces sit out for about 10 minutes to re-soften and get a nice smooth, pudding-like consistency.

Giant Southwest Cobb Salad

This salad ended up being really flavorful and easy to make (though it did take a bit of time to shop everything up). Plus, it was filling but light enough for a hot summer day. We didn't serve any dressing with it because the pico and black bean corn salsa added enough of their own juices to serve as a dressing.

Ingredients (for two salads):
-2/3 head of Romaine lettuce, torn into small pieces
-1 avocado, chopped into bite size pieces
-3 slices turkey bacon (optional)
-2 faux chicken patties, such as Morning Star farms
Pico de gallo ingredients:
-3 Roma tomatoes, diced into small chunks
-2 T diced red onion
-2 T cilantro, divided
-1 T lime juice
- salt and pepper to taste
Black bean corn salsa (note: if you want to save time you could just use plain black beans and some feta or queso fresco)
-1 can black beans
-1 can shoepeg corn
~3 oz crumbled feta cheese
-2 T cilantro
-1/4 C apple cider vinegar

-1/8 C EVOO

-2 T brown sugar 

Steps
1. Make pico de gallo by combining tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and salt and pepper.

2. Make black bean corn salsa by whisking oil, vinegar, and brown sugar, then tossing with beans, corn, feta, cilantro, and green onion. See this link for step by step.
3. Fry bacon and crumble.
4. Cook faux chicken paties per directions and chop into pieces.
5. Assemble salad by layering ingredients vertically.

Bacon, Gouda, and Spinach Bread Pudding

This turned out to be a comforting, easy to put together type of meal. Also, the leftovers were great heated up in a toaster oven the next day. I like bread puddings, but I don't want them to remind me of pudding. In other words, I like mine really firmly set and crunchy on the edges. In order to achieve that I usually reduce the liquid and bake mine for longer than needed. If you like your bread puddings more pudding-like, then I suggest either adding more liquid or reducing the cooking time.

 Ingredients:
-1 large stale baguette, torn/cut into pieces (if your bread isn't stale, leave it out overnight or toast slices in the oven)
-7 oz Gouda, shredded
-3 large handfuls of fresh spinach
-1.5 red onions, diced
-4 slices turkey bacon
-1.5-2 C milk
-4 eggs
-salt & pepper to taste
-1/4 tsp nutmeg

Steps:
(preheat oven to 350)
1.  Cook bacon and chop into small pieces.
2. Saute onion for about 6 minutes, using the bacon drippings for oil.
3. Whisk eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg together in a bowl.
4. Place bread pieces in a large bowl. Pour milk mixture over bread pieces and toss to coat all pieces.
5. Add bacon, onion, and spinach to bowl and mix together with bread pieces.
6. Scoop mixture out into a casserole dish or greased 13X9 pan.
7. Top with shredded Gouda.
8. Cook for 1 hour. (I put foil over mine for the first 40 minutes, and then removed to let the cheese get a little browned).
9. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Vegan Crockpot Curry

This was really simple and tasty. The recipe I used only called for one can of coconut milk, but that wasn't enough liquid so I added some vegetable broth. However, I wanted the curry to taste more coconutty, so I recommend using two cans of coconut milk. You can basically use whatever combination of veggies, toppings, and spices you like, but I'll list the ingredients I used below.

Ingredients
-1 14 oz can garbanzo beans
-2 13.5 oz cans coconut milk
-2/3 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into cubes
-1 zucchini, cut into bite sized pieces
-1 red pepper, cut into bite sized pieces
-2 small sweet potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
-1 onion, cut into bite sized pieces
-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
-3 T tomato paste
-2 T curry powder
-1 tsp cumin
-several dashes hot sauce
-1.5 inch knob of ginger, grated
-salt and pepper
-green onion and cilantro for garnish (optional)
-brown rice (to serve curry on)

Steps
1. Mix the coconut milk, ginger, curry powder, garlic, hot sauce, and cumin together in a large crock pot.
2. Stir in your veggies. Heat on low for about 6 hours (or high for about 3 hours), or until sweet potatoes are done to your liking.
3. Serve with rice.

Tuscan Bean and Sundried Tomato Soup

A friend of mine recently posted something on Facebook about having a belly full of homemade bean soup and for some reason that just struck me as being exactly what I wanted--a belly full of homemade bean soup. So I searched the Internets and compiled some recipes and came up with this, which ended up being really tasty and hearty, and made my belly quite happy :)

Ingredients (makes 4 generous servings):
-2 cups of small pasta shells
-1 white onion, chopped
-6 cloves garlic, sliced
~2 tsp fresh rosemary
~1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
-1 cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
-2 carrots, chopped
-1 can kidney beans
-1 can navy beans
~1 T EVOO
-salt and pepper to taste
-2 C water

Steps:
1. Cook pasta al dente.
2. While pasta is cooking, in a LARGE pot or wok, saute EVOO with onion, garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes for about 5 minutes.
3. Add 2 cups of water, sun-dried tomatoes, carrots, and beans.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Puree 2/3 of vegetable mixture in a blender or food processor.
6. Add pureed soup to the remaining soup mixture in large pan. Stir in pasta. (Add some more water if soup is too thick.)

7. Garnish if you like...we garnished ours with chives and some mozzarella.

Chilaquiles

These are traditionally eaten for breakfast or brunch, but I was really craving them so we had them for dinner. This was my first time making them, and they ended up being very easy. The fried tortilla-salsa mixture is the base, and you can add pretty much anything on top: pulled chicken, beans, fried eggs, avocado...We topped ours with fried eggs, queso fresco, cilantro, and green onion. Since the tortillas are fried (making them delicious) this is not the healthiest recipe, but it does pack a lot of flavor.

Ingredients
~12 white corn tortillas, cut into sixths
~1.5 C salsa verde (you can buy this at the store)
~4 eggs, fried
-queso fresco (Mexican crumbling cheese)
-vegetable oil
-salt
Optional additional toppings:
-Cilantro, green or red onion, beans, chicken

Steps:
1. Get a fair amount of oil (about 1/4 of an inch) nice and hot in a large frying pan. Add your pieces of tortilla and fry on both sides until pieces are a nice golden brown. (This took me about 4-5 minutes, and I had to do three batches).

2. Once tortillas are done frying, place them on paper towels to remove excess oil, and lightly salt.

3. Start frying your eggs in another pan.

4. After you're done frying all your tortillas, dump out most of your oil (not down the drain), but reserve about 1 T of oil in the pan. Add your salsa verde to the frying pan and heat on medium. Once salsa is hot, stir in all your tortilla pieces until they all get some sauce on them.

5. Pour half the tortilla mixture onto a plate and top with two fried eggs.
6. Crumble some queso fresco on top, and garnish with cilantro and green onion.

Low-fat chicken salad

I'm finally back in Tallahassee, and plan to get back to regular posting. However, I thought I'd start with a simple, easy post to get things going. My Aunt Nan made this delicious chicken salad for my shower. This comes together really quickly and is great for lunches.

Ingredients:
-2 boneless chicken breasts (about 1.5 lbs)
-1 8oz container of plain yogurt (Greek yogurt would also probably be good)
~2 big handfuls seedless red grapes, cut in half
~6 stalks of celery, chopped into small pieces
~1 handful of chopped pecans (or walnuts)
-salt and pepper to taste
-whatever bread you prefer

Steps:
1. Cook your chicken breasts (I usually season mine and then grill on my Foreman) and cut up into bit size pieces.
2. Combine with remaining ingredients.
3. Chill in refrigerator before serving.

Traveling in Europe...

...through Munich, Salzburg, Lucerne, Zurich. Will be back in a week, and will get back to regular posting!

Jalapeño Poppers

This is just one of the many tasty recipes made by a member of my family while I was traveling in Austin and Nebraska City (my mom gets credit for this one). These were incredibly flavorful and delicious, and even though we made a ton of them they all got eaten. They were a little spicy, but the cream cheese really helped mellow them out...and if you don't like spice you can soak the peppers in water to reduce their spiciness. I plan to post even more recipes from my amazing, beautiful shower that my wonderful aunts threw for me, so stay tuned.

Ingredients
~20 medium sized jalapeño peppers
-1 package of cream cheese (get the full fat kind and allow to sit at room temp to soften)
-1 package good quality bacon
-toothpicks (soak these guys in water for about 30 minutes so they don't fry in the oven)

Steps
(Preheat oven to 350)
1. Cut peppers in half and scoop out the seeds. Toss peppers in a bowl of water for about 30 minutes (more if you don't want them to be very spicy).

 Note: You might want to wear gloves while doing this so you don't accidentally rub your eyes later and find that your fingers still have jalapeño juice on them.

2. Dry peppers off and scoop about a tablespoon of cream cheese into each pepper half.

 3. Cut bacon slices in half with a sharp knife or scissors.

4. Wrap a half slice of bacon around pepper and secure with a toothpick.

5. Cook for about 45 minutes or until bacon is crispy.