Catching up

Due to my lack of consistent blogging, there are a plethora of things I could catch you up on.  Here are four of them:   

First, it should be noted that my bedroom smells faintly of chlorine because my swimsuit is hanging up instead of being tucked neatly in my gym bag.   This the subtle consequence of being under the weather and therefore taking a couple days off from the gym.    

Second, I would like to note that I have cooked numerous things in my favorite cookbook since I last posted any new recipes.   Some highlights include: spinach dip, sour cream coffee cake, caramel sticky rolls, vegetable-beef-barley soup (in the crock pot of course!), toffee bars, rice pilaf, sweet-sour cabbage (also in the crock pot!), and an apple-pear salad.    Did I mention that I gained weight over the holidays?   This might be why. . .

Third, I have two new food websites that I have enjoyed frequenting.   They include: http://crockingirls.com/ and http://iowagirleats.com/.  For my stage of life, I find myself gravitating more towards Iowa girl eats because her food is healthier and she's not feeding a crowd.  The crockin' girls created their website for busy moms, which makes their recipes fast and mild. Even though I am less inclined to cook their food, I can't help but be sucked into all of the slow-cooking enthusiasm they are spreading like wildfire! 

Since food is a relevant and necessary part of life, I will probably always love being inspired by new recipes.  For example, equipped with my new Christmas blender, I was able to try this recipe for breakfast.  In another post, Iowa Girl Eats traded out the yogurt for 1/3 cup of oats, and since I like oats way more than yogurt that's exactly how I made mine.   I have to say it was a very satisfying breakfast and I felt awesome about myself for kicking off my day with so much spinach.   You can't go wrong with the super foods! 

Fourth, I may or may not have eaten half a bag of Dove caramel milk chocolates and Gatorade for dinner.  This might actually cancel out my decision to drink spinach for breakfast but I feel as though the occasional un-balanced and indulgent dinner is my right as a single person.  

That about wraps it up.   Have a great night! 

food and fellowship

Sometimes I think I'm at my happiest when I am cooking for a large amount of people.   (And by large, I mean any number greater than cooking for myself).  Maybe it's the anticipation of spending time with people I care about that makes cooking for a crowd such a delightful thing.  It could also be the freedom that comes from knowing that I can cook really good food and not have the sole responsibility of eating copious amounts of leftovers for over a week.  Or perhaps it's the fulfillment of the simple desire to serve other people by meeting tangible needs in their lives. 

Why do I bring this up, might you ask?  Well, in the midst of my school-year-fatigue, I was thinking about my final days of summer and how thankful I was to spend them in Door County with my family.   My mom is ultra supportive of my never-ending experimental cooking, so I showed up with an armful of ingredients and the instructions to make the breakfast bake detailed below.   This creamy, gooey, not-so-healthy breakfast  could feed an army, so it will not be making a re-appearance in my kitchen while I am responsible for only feeding myself.  However,  it's sure to make the menu the next time I'm cooking for large amounts of people :).    

Brown Potato and Egg Bake

1/2 lb bacon, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1 bag (30 oz) frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed and drained

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (8oz)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

9 large eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

1 container (8oz) sour cream

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon ground mustard

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 13x9 glass baking dish with cooking spray. 

2. In 10-inch skillet, cook bacon and onion over medium-high heat about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until bacon is crisp and onion is tender; drain on paper towels. 

3. In large bowl, toss bacon mixture, potatoes and cheeses.  Spoon into baking dish.  In same bowl, beat eggs, milk, sour cream, salt, pepper and mustard with fork or wire whisk until well mixed.  Pour egg mixture over potato mixture. 

4. Bake uncovered 50 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.  

zucchini lovin'

Often the reason you will find dirty knives in my sink or traces of chopped vegetables on my cutting board is because at some point in time during the day I wandered into my kitchen with the simple desire to cook new food.   You see, as a single person, the purpose of my kitchen is much different than the purpose of most other peoples kitchens.  I have no reason to stock my refrigerator full of basic ingredients that will whip together multiple dinners in multiple ways for multiple people.  Therefore, I get to shop and cook a little more creatively than most.  Because I like the challenge of expanding my skills and the adventure of eating something new, I almost exclusively cook new recipes.  While this is a risky policy in the arena of entertaining others, it is the motivation I need to cook for myself instead of purchasing my food already prepared.    Sometimes I turn out less than delicious food, such as the roasted garlic and rosemary chicken I slow-cooked in my crockpot last week.  No thanks!  Other times, I make food that is good enough to eat once but not spectacular enough to make again.   Bracketed by an occasional failure, this unofficial test kitchen of mine has seen some pretty great food come to be.   Tonight, I discovered that whisking ribbons of basil, chunks of tomatoes, handfuls of shredded zucchini, day old bread, ricotta cheese and eggs together makes one mean breakfast bake.   Seriously, so good!

Zucchini Breakfast Casserole 

6-8 eggs 

1 cup ricotta cheese 

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese  

1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce or other hot chili sauce 

1 teaspoon salt 

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 

3 cups grated zucchini 

1 1/2 cups tomatoes

1/2 cup sliced fresh basil 

4 cups day-old bread 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees,  In a large bowl beat the eggs.  Add the ricotta cheese and beat until smooth.  Mix in the grated Parmesan cheese, Tabasco, salt and pepper.  

2. Prepare the vegetables and bread.  Add the zucchini, tomatoes, and basil to the egg mixture.  Mix the bread cubes into the egg mixture.  

3. Coat the bottom of a 9x13 pan with olive oil.  Pour the egg and vegetable mixture into the baking pan and even it out.  Place in the middle rack of the oven.   Bake for 30 minutes at 350.  The casserole should puff up and brown lightly.  If it hasn't after 30 minutes, increase the heat to 425 and cook for 5-10 minutes longer. 

My only regret is that I didn't dig this out of my recipe line-up soon enough to feed to my family at my parents cabin.   This this not scream Saturday morning breakfast?  Oh well, I guess there is always next year!   

tis the season

 As stated in a previous post, summer seems to be a time when people willingly leave the comfort of their  homes in order to socialize with their neighbors, explore the freshness of walking trails a plenty. and of course make plans with friends without the fear of them being sabotaged by looming snow storms.   In order to capitalize on this universal willingness to socialize, I made plans to have one of my friends over for breakfast  the other day.   While some people shy away from committing to early morning plans, I think that  there is something energizing about waking up to a warm & sunny day knowing that I have proactively opened my life up to others.  The only problem with breakfast plans, is the small detail that I don't actually like breakfast.   No coffee, cereal, or yogurt for this girl.   I recognize breakfasts importance in the sense that I do actually need to "break the fast" at some point in time, but that doesn't mean that I'm on board with an early morning helping of cinnamon buns.   In order to not let my anti-breakfast preferences ruin a good opportunity to spend time with a friend, I had to come up with a game plan.   That plan had two parts: part 1: wake up early enough so that "breakfast" feels more like a mid-morning snack and less like actual breakfast.  Part 2: Coconut & banana flapjacks.   The recipe for these bad boys came all the way from Australia, believe it or not.

nutella lipstick

 Way back in 2006, when I wasn't too busy eating copious amounts of nutella or meeting kangaroos, I was spending my free time exploring the local cuisine around me.   I picked up a cookbook on one of my last days there as a gift for my boss at the time, but before handing it over I scored the recipe for the pancakes that have given me hope to someday becoming a breakfast lover after all. 

Coconut and banana flapjacks

2 eggs, separated

2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup coarse thread coconut, lightly toasted

1 ripe banana, peeled and mashed

Beat egg yolks (reserve whites), milk, sugar and vanilla.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt, Add to egg mixture and beat until smooth.  Mix in the coconut and banana.  Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 hours in the fridge. 

Whisk egg whites to soft peaks and gently fold into mixture. 

Heat a frypan.  Spoon ladlefuls of batter into pan and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes.  Flip flapjacks to cook other side once the bubbles that form on the top start to pop.