Sweet Potato Curry

Tonights recipe is actually an adaptation of a recipe that a reader gave to me! (Thank you again!)  Although I have made a few changes and feel that it resembles more of a curry than a stew.

I put chopped onion and garlic in a large pot with some oil along with some curry powder and Sriracha (like my reader suggested) and satueed until soft. I then added julienned sweet potato, sliced onion, gold bell pepper, stalks from the gold chard (chopped), white beans (not garbanzo, because I don't really like them), a can of coconut milk, just under two cups of chicken stock and chopped ginger.  This was cooked until the sweet potatoes began to soften.  At this point, I added the chopped chard leaves and cubed tofu.  When the sweet potato was cooked completely, about 5 minutes more, I added chopped spinach, parsley (because I didn't have any cilantro), tumeric, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

I also cooked some jasmine rice while the curry was cooking.

This dish turned out absolutely amazing!!  I am not normally a huge fan of curry, but I'm hooked on this.  I almost can't wait until tomorrow so that I can have it again! (And you all know how I feel about leftovers.)  I didn't add as much of the curry and the Sriracha as called for in her recipe, since Dylan was sharing dinner with me tonight I thought I should keep it on the less spicy side.  Dylan also loved it! She ate two bowls and although she still found it a little spicy, she said that it was the best meal that we've ever had, next to the root beer pot roast of course.

Pasta with Marsala Sauce and Pork

Tonight I wanted to make a dish using the mushrooms and zucchini that I have, so I came up with the idea to use it in a pasta dish.  I decided to make a Marsala sauce and added mushrooms, gold bell pepper, chopped zucchini and shredded gruyere cheese.  Although the sauce turned out a bit on the sweet side for my taste, it was pretty good.  I think that next time I will just use a little less Marsala wine.

I also picked up some pork, precut into strips, and simply cooked these in a little olive oil, salt and pepper.  The pasta that I used was fresh linguine, which I cooked and put back in the pot with a little of the sauce and added chopped spinach just to wilt it a little.

I finished the dish with some cheese sprinkled over top and some fresh crusty bread.  All in all I'd say tonight's dinner turned out pretty tasty.

Friday Bin 2/25

My bin today is full of oranges, reds and greens!  It is very beautiful and once again, I have a huge variety of ingredients to work with.

Gold Chard
Hass Avocados
Red Butter Lettuce
Spinach
Broccoli
Cameo Apples
Garnet Yams
Navel Oranges
Murcott Tangerines
Crimini Mushrooms
Gold Bell Peppers
Strawberries
Zucchini
Cara Cara Oranges (Blood)
Garlic
Honey Gold Grapefruit

I'm extremely excited to have zucchini in my bin this week!  It's one of my favorite vegetables.  Also, I've got a really good idea in mind for these gorgeous strawberries this week, so stay tuned...

Collard Greens with Smoked Pork

I wanted to find a really tasty way to cook these collard greens that I have.  So, after a little internet research, I discovered a recipe that had actually used beer to cook the greens in. I had never thought of cooking them this way and decided that I needed to try it out.  I started off by sauteing some onions and red bell pepper in a bit of butter.  Once the onions were soft, I added some wonderfully tasty smoked pork, that I found at Whole Foods the other day, and the chopped collard greens.  When the greens started to wilt I added a cup of water and a can of beer.  I brought this to a boil, lowered the heat to just a simmer and cooked it for about 20 minutes. 

While the greens were cooking I made some rice. Now, I forgot (again) that I don't have any white rice!  After rummaging around in my pasta/rice drawer, I found a couple of bags of leftover rice (this is the rice from mixes, bags, etc. that never gets used but I, for whatever reason, decide to keep). So I put these into a pot with some water and boiled it until cooked.  The rice turned out quite tasty actually.

I placed the greens on top of the rice, sprinkled some cheese on top and called it done!  For being such a simple dish, it really turned out quite good.  Dylan loved it so much that she decided I need to make it more often!  I just might do that, however I'm really looking forward to my new bin tomorrow so that I can come up with some new dishes to make too!

Haddock with Spinach and Tomatoes

Well, I feel that I should start off by apologizing for the lack of a blog in a couple of days. Last night's meal was just too disappointing for me to even deal with until today.  It was supposed to have been a tasty meal of blue crab cakes with lemon aioli, roasted artichokes with hollandaise and some tasty bread.  I should have stopped immediately the second I had to restart my hollandaise.  The first time it cooked too quickly! The second time, Dylan added too much water (when I said just a little, she poured pretty much the whole cup in), so I thought if I cook it just a bit longer maybe it will thicken up. No, it did not. So I gave up on the hollandaise, and made my aioli (mayo, dijon mustard, lemon zest, lemon juice, capers, parsley, salt and pepper) which, surprisingly, next to the apricot walnut bread, was the only thing that turned out good!  The crab cakes turned out okay, although a little over cooked and the artichokes well, they never stood a chance.  I put them in a pan to bake with some lemon juice, white wine and salt and pepper.  They were supposed to cook and be happy! The ends were cooked to a crisp and after an hour and a half, the heart still wasn't soft.  So, I ended up making a salad with the red butter lettuce, orange segments and apple slices, mixed with some papaya poppyseed dressing, walnuts and pomegranate craisins.  The salad turned out fine, but I was so unhappy by the time I actually sat down to eat, that I barely touched any of it.  Although, I have now come to terms with it. I suppose after all, that this is the very reason why I have titled my blog "Trials and Tribulations..."

So tonight, I knew that I had no choice but to redeem myself and that is exactly what I believe that I have done.  I placed my haddock fillets in a pan and sprinkled with my lavender salt and a little black pepper. I then sliced some lemons and placed this on top (covering the filet's with lemon slices).  Then I layered fresh spinach on top of the lemon slices and poured a can of diced tomatoes with roasted garlic (and the juices) on top of the spinach.  The entire pan went into the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes.

While the fish was cooking, I boiled some broccoli florets and sauteed some butter and garlic in a pan.  To the pan I added chopped red peppers and parsley, salt and pepper.  When the broccoli was done, I added this to the pan and cooked off any liquid.

To finish my meal, I warmed some butternut squash puree (that I found at Costco, yum!) and put a spoonful of this on the plate and placed the fish on top.  Then I warmed up some mini croissants that Dylan insisted upon getting from the grocery store. 

I'm very impressed with the way this turned out.  Dylan loved it, she had two plates!  The flavors were amazing, very light and fresh!  The fish seemed to melt in your mouth and the red pepper added a sweetness to the broccoli that made you forget that you were even eating vegetables! 

Haddock, by the way, is a fish that I was not familiar with up until today.  It has a mild flavor and just might be the best white fish that I've tried yet!

And now that I've redeemed myself, I can go on to plan my next meal. Although, I do now owe Dylan some artichokes.  She was quite disappointed to hear that they were destroyed.

Chicken with Brussel Sprouts and Mashed Potatoes

While I can't fully claim the wonderful taste of the chicken (because I found this super tasty preseasoned and marinated Kalbi chicken at PCC Market), I did manage to roast it to perfection.  It was very moist and the flavor was really awesome.  If you're in a time crunch and you live close to a PCC, I highly recommend picking some up, it takes only about 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

For the brussel sprouts, I made them my favorite way.  I quartered them and sauteed them in some butter with chopped onion.  While that was cooking I mixed together some softened butter with lemon zest and crushed hazelnuts.  When the brussel sprouts were nicely browned, I removed them from the heat, placed them in a bowl and mixed them up with the butter.  I then drizzled lemon juice over top to finish it off.  These have a nice texture to them, not at all like the mushy ones that we usually think of.

For the mashed potatoes, I simply boiled the potatoes and the garlic cloves until tender. After draining the potatoes, I mashed them with some butter, cream cheese, heavy whipping cream, salt and pepper.  I topped the potatoes off with some salsa and aged cheddar cheese.  These turned out very creamy and delicious!

I'm extremely happy with the way my dinner turned out tonight and it took less than 30 minutes from start to finish!

Pasta with Romesco Sauce, Shrimp and Romanesco

Now, I have to admit, before yesterday I had never even heard of romanesco.  I had no idea what it was or what it was supposed to taste like. What do I do with this funny, spiky looking thing?  So, I did some research.  It turns out that romanesco is a cross between a cauliflower and a broccoli (I'm still not sure why it's so spiky though).  After I told my mom about it, she sent me a link to a recipe called romesco sauce.  To which I immediately though, this would be so good with baby shrimps and the romanesco!!

So, my mission today was to make this tasty sounding sauce, that actually has hazelnuts (because I didn't have any almonds) and crusty bread, along with some red bell pepper (I didn't have the jarred roasted peppers, so I used fresh), canned tomatoes, ground red pepper (since I apparently don't have any paprika) and some garlic. I also added a bit of onion, which I think helped the flavor quite nicely.  This is then blended in a food processor (or blender in my case) and poured out onto a baking sheet and baked in the oven for 15 minutes.  I've never heard of baking a sauce in the oven!  The caramelized effect that this gives it really is quite nice though.

While the fresh pasta that I picked up from Whole Foods today was cooking, I placed the sauce in a small pot added some cooked romanesco and the baby shrimps and I warmed this over low until the baby shrimps were warmed through.

To top this pasta dish I shredded some gouda parrana (so tasty) and chopped some fresh parsley.  I also served some fresh bread and mixed olives.

This was one of the tastiest pasta dishes that I've ever had (since I'm not a huge fan of pasta, this is saying a lot from me). Apparently everyone else thought it was pretty good too, because my boyfriend had two big bowls of it and Dylan had no problem at all scarfing hers down. I think that I will definitely be making this again!

As for the romanesco?  I loved it! I think that I actually like it better than broccoli or cauliflower and I love both! In fact, everyone loved it and said that they thought it had a wonderful flavor to it.

Friday Bin 2/18

Yay, it's Friday and my bin is here!!!  By far, my favorite day of the week.  I love how the ingredients in the bin are starting to change a bit now that spring is getting here and I find myself getting even more excited to see what's in my bin each week.  This week I've got a large variety to work with:

Red Beets
Romanesco (which I've never even heard of before, but is apparently a cross between a cauliflower and broccoli, so I can't wait to try it out!)
Yellow Onions
Bosc Pears
Broccoli
Cameo Apples
Minneola Tangelos
Russet Potatoes
Artichokes (yay!)
Brussel Sprouts (I love these!)
Red Leaf Lettuce
Spinach
Red Peppers

It's going to be a fun week!  I am looking forward to finding out how the romanesco tastes and coming up with a creative way to use the beets this week. Also, is there really anything better than fresh brussel sprouts?  I find it sad that these get such a bad rap when we are young (often we are too traumatized that we never even try them again!), but let's face it the ones that we were usually forced to eat when we were little, really never tasted that good.  Cooking them when they are fresh, seems to give them a whole new flavor that has no resemblance to how we remember them.

Meyer Lemon Cupcakes with Blood Orange Buttercream Frosting

When I saw that I was getting Meyer lemons and blood oranges in my bin, I was really excited! My first thought, of course, was to make cupcakes with them and I've been anxiously waiting all week to make them (today is really the first day that I've had the time to).

I have to say, these are definitely worth the wait.  The lemon cupcake is light and fluffy with a delicious lemon flavor.  The blood orange frosting was a wonderful idea too!  It tinted the buttercream a beautiful light coral hue and gave it a light, not too sweet, orange flavor which worked great with the lemon.

I think that I may have to add these to my ever growing list of cupcake flavors! (Please visit http://www.cupcakesbyjess.com/ for my cupcake website.)

Meatloaf and Roasted Root Veggies with Broccoli and Cauliflower.

For some reason, I started craving meatloaf today.  Now, those of you that know me know that this is a strange thing for me to crave, since I don't eat a lot of meat, and I chose the one thing that has the most amount of meat in it! I've never made my own meatloaf before, at least not one where I came up with the recipe myself, so I thought that this might be more of a challenge than it was, given my previous experiences with actually cooking meat. However, I have redeemed myself in the meat cooking department and managed to make quite a delicious, moist loaf of meat.

I stopped at Whole Foods Market today and picked up some ground beef and ground pork, this was a mix suggested by the nice gentleman at the meat counter (he also suggested that I use ground veal, however they were out of this just as I got there, but it apparently takes it to a whole other level).  When I got home I put the meat into a bowl, added fresh bread crumbs, two eggs, chopped onion, minced garlic, a little Worcestershire Sauce, a bit of flour, salt and pepper.  I mixed this up really well, squished it into the loaf pan, topped it with a mixture of ketchup, chopped onion, salt and pepper and finished it off with some very yummy looking dry rub applewood smoked bacon (also from Whole Foods).  This was then baked in the oven for about an hour.

While the meatloaf was cooking, I chopped up sweet potatoes, yukon gold potatoes, red onion, celery root and carrot and placed these into a big bowl.  I poured some olive oil over the vegetables, added some minced garlic and fresh ginger, chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, mixed it to coat and dumped it on a foil lined baking dish.  This baked for about 25 minutes. I finished this off with some sour cream (which I think is my favorite way to top root veggies).

Once the meatloaf was taken out of the oven and resting, I boiled some cauliflower and broccoli.  I drained these, added some garlic salt and butter and covered them in some Seastack aged cheddar (the guy at the cheese counter recommended this).

Thanks to the guys at Whole Foods, I was able to take these comfort foods and add a whole new dimension of flavor to make them even tastier.  I also managed to walk out of there with about 5 other cheeses, some smoked pork and a wonderful fig dip. All of which I can't wait to have later during my late night movie.  I figure if I'm going to do the comfort food thing today, then I may as well go all the way and enjoy every minute of it that I can!

Celery Root, Sweet Potato and Greens Stew

Even though, I made and finished this stew several hours ago, I am just now sitting down to eat it! I've been making cupcakes for my daughter's Valentine's Day party at school tomorrow and, after she raved about how good this dinner turned out, I've been dying to try it!  It is SO good!  This being only the second time that I've made anything using the celery root, I'm beginning to think that it would taste good in just about any meal.

I sauteed up some red onion, garlic, ginger and chard stalks (which I still have reserved from last week) in a little butter.  Once this was browned, I then added some chopped (into large chunks) sweet potato, carrot, celery root and the rest of the fennel from yesterday's dinner.  I boiled this until the sweet potatoes were soft and then I added some arugula, collard greens and broccoli and cooked just until the greens wilted so that they kept their bright green color.  I garnished my stew with some sour cream, diced red bell pepper, fennel fronds and smoked gouda.  The flavors all worked extremely well together, so I'm quite pleased with the results!  It also made a lot, so we will probably be eating this for dinner tomorrow again, since I may not have time to cook.

Chicken Drummette's and Scalloped Fennel, Celery Root and Potatoes!

My dinner tonight was inspired by the fact that I had fennel and potatoes in my bin, which is really all you need to make my favorite dish ever, scalloped potatoes and fennel. However, tonight after trying to figure out what in the world to do with celery root (which I'd never before cooked with, let alone had any idea what it even tasted like), I decided to add this to my scalloped dish.  That was by far the best idea!  It turned the already incredibly creamy dish into an even more flavorful creamy dish (sliced fennel, potatoes and celery root, drenched in heavy whipping cream with a little white pepper and salt, then baked in the oven for 45 minutes).  Celery root has officially become one of my favorite foods to cook with.  I am actually already trying to figure out what else to make with it!

After wandering through Whole Foods with Dylan and her friend this afternoon, I finally asked them what they thought I should make with the potato dish.  They immediately decided chicken, but not just any chicken, chicken drummette's.  So, I referred back to my favorite way to eat these (thanks to my wonderful stepdad, who first introduced me to them).  I sprinkled them with garlic powder, black pepper and lavender salt (because I didn't have and couldn't find anywhere, the hickory smoked salt that should have been used) and baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes.  Dylan's friend exclaimed "This is the best meal that I've ever had!", meaning that she loved the chicken and the bowl of mixed fruit that I had made for them.

I also threw in a salad, just some greens (arugula and red butter lettuce) topped with some blood orange and manchego cheese, and some cooked green beans.  I meant to have the hollandaise sauce on top of them too (because this was so wonderful, that I've been thinking about it all day long), but apparently you aren't supposed to warm that up in the microwave.  Although, it still tasted like it was supposed to, it definitely didn't look like it was supposed to.  I figured it wouldn't make for a very appetizing photograph, but definitely a nice addition to this meal too.

Green Beans with Hollandaise and Dylan's Salad

I often find that some of the best meals are not only the simplest, but the ones that I am able to make with my daughter.  When I calm down and take the time to teach her how to do things in the kitchen, I am all of a sudden at peace. I think that if all we made was cut up apples it would be the tastiest meal ever, if for no other reason than the fact that we did it together.

So, tonight, I cooked up these beautiful green beans and smothered then in the best hollandaise sauce that I've ever made and covered them in manchego cheese. Can I just say, I did all but lick the plate (and you know how I feel about eggs!). So good! Even Dylan exclaimed, "Mom, this is SO good!"  (So, here's a tip, if you can't get your kids to eat green beans, pour hollandaise over it and watch them disappear!)

Dylan made the salad, by herself, tonight.  I'm quite proud of her.  She washed the arugula and red butter lettuce leaves.  She put the avocado in a bowl and covered it in lemon juice and then she segmented the grapefruit.  I'm dubbing this Dylan's Salad, because it seems to be her favorite and she had a lot of fun making it.  We then put some blue cheese dressing on top. A simple, flavorful salad.  The red grapefruit by the way is what did it, I don't think that I've ever had such sweet grapefruit (not very tart at all!).

Friday Bin 2/11

This is by far my favorite and most exciting bin yet!  I have all sorts of amazing, new ingredients this week!

Cauliflower
Celery Root (which I've never used before)
Grapefruit
Red Onions
Arugula
Hass Avocados
Meyer Lemons (I've never used these either, but can't wait to try them out!)
Red Butter Lettuce
Blood Oranges
Cameo Apples
Garnet Yams
Yukon Gold Potatoes (these are baby sized)
Fennel
Green Beans
Kiwi

I can hardly wait to get started!! With so many different ingredients to work with, I know that this week will be filled with wonderfully tasty and healthy meals.

Bok Choy - Stir Fry My Way

Tonight I wanted to find a way to showcase this bok choy that has been waiting patiently in my fridge to be eaten. I took off some of the larger outer leaves, sliced the baby bok choy in half and simply sauteed them in some butter (this allowed the flavor of the bok choy to come through nicely and wasn't overpowered by any additional flavor).

For the stir fry to go with my bok choy, I chopped up the large bok choy leaves, cabbage, red bell pepper, onion and carrots.  I sauteed this mixture in a little ginger, garlic and butter.  About halfway through cooking, I added some soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, salt, pepper and a little red pepper flake (my new favorite secret ingredient, yum!). This turned out to be quite a tasty dish!  Very flavorful, nothing overpowering.  You can taste each of the ingredients individually and the soy sauce was just enough so that it didn't mask the other flavors.  I'm very happy with this.

I also figured that you can't really have a stir fry without rice, however when I went to get some rice to make...I didn't have any!  I did find some wild rice pilaf (Seeds of Change) which wasn't too bad.  I think that this was a nice way to compliment the flavors of the other dishes, the white rice would have been a little too bland I think, since there wasn't a whole lot of sauce on the stir fry itself for the rice to soak up.

Tomorrow I get my new bin, which I am very excited about.  I need to go make some room in my fridge now!

Scallops, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Cabbage

I have to apologize. It's been a few days since my last meal posting.  It's been a rough week for me and I learned a long time ago that it's best if I don't cook when I'm in a terribly bad mood (I tend to ruin everything and nothing turns out as it should).  So, I knew that tonight I needed to make up for it. 

I've been craving scallops for a while now, but I couldn't figure out what to make with them.  I've been thinking about it and today it just came to me!  I simply seared the scallops with a little salt, pepper and red pepper flakes in a little olive oil and butter.  Then I made some wonderfully tasty mashed sweet potatoes with a little salt, butter, pepper and cream cheese mixed in (these turned into the creamiest, tastiest mashed sweet potatoes that I've ever had!). To top off the sweet potatoes and scallops, I added a mixture of red bell pepper, onion, garlic and chopped rainbow chard stalks, cooked with a little butter until soft (this also turned out pretty amazing!).

 After much debate on how best to cook my cabbage for tonight's meal, I decided on roasting it.  I've never roasted cabbage before, so I wasn't entirely sure how it would turn out, but I gave it a shot anyways.  Turned out I was right to take a chance with it.  After topping it with olive oil and a mixture of sugar, salt and pepper and roasting it for 20 minutes in the oven, the result was a creamy, sweet, melt in your mouth mixture of goodness.  And, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I decided to top it with some blue cheese dressing and crumbled bacon! Wow!  I also served some asiago cheese bread from Panera Bread with it, but after the tasty cabbage, the bread was completely forgotten.

I do think that I have out done myself with tonight's meal.  In fact, I think that it will be at least a couple of hours before Dylan is hungry again (she finished off her plate and part of mine). 

Next up, I have to tackle this baby bok choy!

Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad, Chard Stuffed Pita's and Arugula, Bacon and Apples.

It's game day!  I figured that since I have all of these vegetables in my refrigerator that I should put them to good use and come up with some healthy appetizers to eat during the game today.  The first thing I made was a salad to use up my broccoli.  I chopped broccoli and cauliflower, added onions, pomegranate craisins and chopped pepper bacon and topped this with a dressing of mayo, white wine vinegar, garlic and salt and pepper.  I love this salad.  The addition of the sweet pomegranate craisins added a very nice touch, while the dressing had a bit of a tang to it from the white wine vinegar.

I then made a filling for some mini pita's using rainbow chard which I cooked just until wilted.  To the chard I added some onion, sour cream, cream cheese, a little hot sauce, worcestershire sauce and chopped water chestnuts.  I chose to stuff the pita's rather than dip them, because I thought it would be a no mess finger food.  Dylan proved me right, every time I see her she is stuffing another one in her mouth!

The last thing I made was very simple.  I sliced up some apples, topped them with honey goat cheese, arugula and bacon.  These were a huge hit.  A little spice from the bacon and arugula toned down with the crunch of the apples and the sweetness of the cheese. It was a great balance.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

I needed to figure out how to use up all of these carrots. I decided that the best way to do that would be to make carrot cake! But, not just any carrot cake, it had to do these beautiful carrots justice.  So, I went with the cupcakes.  The cupcakes turned out amazing, having never made carrot cake before and having to substitute vegetable oil for olive oil (because half way through making the batter I found out that I didn't have any vegetable oil!), I was quite pleased with myself for the way that they turned out.  The olive oil worked out perfectly! It gave me wonderfully moist cupcakes and they weren't very greasy at all, which is a common problem with carrot cake.

For the frosting, I decided to put a twist on the traditional cream cheese frosting by adding some orange juice and zest, since I needed to get my oranges used up too.  The orange was a wonderful addition and the flavor really complimented the carrot nicely.

To top the cupcakes I decided to try and candy some carrot strips.  Now, I was a bit nervous after my previous incident with the candied orange zest, so you can imagine I was paranoid that I would burn these too.  I watched them very closely.  They didn't burn! Instead they turned out really tasty and they look really pretty on top of my cupcakes.

Simple Salad

When I saw the arugula in my bin today, I knew right away that I had to make a salad.  I love arugula!  So, I mixed some arugula and butter lettuce together in a bowl with some pear ginger salad dressing and fresh ground black pepper.  Then I segmented an orange (squeezing the juice from the remaining orange over top of the arugula mixture), sliced some red pepper and apple, cut up some broccoli and added this to the mixed greens.  I topped it off with some sliced carrots, shredded manchego cheese and a little more dressing.

The end result was tastier than first imagined and I'm glad that I didn't try to add anything else to it!  Now, both Dylan and myself will have enough energy to get through the next few hours of derby practice.

Friday Bin 2/4

This week's bin is filled with greens!

Baby Bok Choy
Broccoli
Rainbow Chard
Red Butter Lettuce
Arugula
Green Cabbage
Carrots
Red Bell Peppers
Anjou Pears
Fuji Apples
Minneola Tangelos
Russet Potatoes
Yellow Onions
Grapefruit

I'm looking forward to cooking with the baby bok choy and getting to use more of those beautiful red bell peppers!  This week I will also have to figure out how to use up all of these carrots and broccoli that I have acquired (I still have some of these left over from last week's bin!).

First off, I'm going to make a quick salad so that I can hopefully redeem myself after all of the not so healthy junk foods that I've eaten over the last couple of days!

Veggie Pizza and Mixed Greens

Tonight, I decided to pull out all of my veggies from the fridge and figure out how to use them up. Since I'm going to be getting my new bin full of goodness tomorrow, I needed to make some room!

I thought, why not try a pizza?  I made a simple white sauce using butter, flour, milk, garlic, smoked gouda, salt and white pepper. Then I topped some pita bread with the sauce, added chopped sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli and beets and covered it in a mixture of shredded gouda parrana and manchego cheeses before baking.

It turned out to be the best veggie pizza that I've ever made (considering it's the only veggie pizza that I've ever made, the odds were 50/50). Although, I think that it would have been a good idea to parboil the root vegetables first.  I ended up having to take the pizza's out of the oven before the veggies were completely cooked, but it still turned out great.

While the pizza's were baking, I chopped up a mixture of leafy greens (beet, chard and collard) and added this to some simmering chicken broth with garlic and red pepper flakes.  I'm very happy with the way that the greens turned out, very simple, but full of flavor!

Now I have plenty of room in my fridge for tomorrow!!

Rainbow Chard and Black Bean Tacos

After last nights disappointing steak, I figured that tonight I had better stay away from meat altogether and find a way to make up for it.  So I spent a few minutes researching a new way to use some of this beautiful chard that I have (the colors really are amazing, pink, orange, pink/white and yellow/green!) and found a recipe where someone had cooked up some chard and put it into a corn tortilla to make taco's out of it.  I thought that sounded like a great idea and decided to come up with my own version.

I sauteed up some chopped onion and the colorful chard stalks, added the chard leaves and cooked until just wilted.  I then warmed up some black beans and added a little cilantro for added flavor and warmed up some flour tortilla's (because I really don't care for the hard, crunchy corn tortilla's).  To top the taco's, I chopped up several cheeses that I found at Whole Foods today (smoked gouda, chili chive onion gouda, muenster), two different types of salsa (tequila lime and smoked tomatillo) and some sour cream.  I am a huge fan of variety, so the fact that I had so many toppings to choose from allowed me to mix it up a bit.

I'm extremely happy with the way that my taco's turned out and have officially been forgiven for last night's meal.  I think from now on I will just stick to what I know best....veggies!!