I set myself a goal for the week: to cook dinner every night – not just heating things up, but to actually prepare something each night.

So, how did I do?? Pretty well, I think! (All pictures taken with the iPhone)

SATURDAY

Garbanzo beans, garlic and sundried tomatoes, pureed to create a delicious hummus. served warm with whole wheat pita bread

‘Mexican’ kale chips! Kale that I tossed with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of Trader Joe’s taco seasoning mix, then baked. Perfectly crispy yet not too crunchy

SUNDAY

 Three tablespoons of Olivier’s Tandoori Curry sauce with firm tofu that I’d seared in olive oil until it turned golden, served over Trader Joe’s Thai Jasmine rice and Trader Joe’s naan – DELICIOUS!

MONDAY

Mini-frittatas! Modified from a recipe in Food & Wine Magazine – instead of baking in the saute pan like the recipe suggested, I put the egg, garlic, and broccoli mixture into a muffin tin and baked them that way. I don’t eat scrambled/fried/boiled eggs (only baked into cakes and cookies, lol), so this was a Timmy specific meal. He REALLY liked these – I thought there’d be enough for his breakfast, but he ate all of them.

Same night: yogurt pops for dessert! low-fat all organic strawberry yogurt, to which i added sliced strawberries, then poured into popsicle molds and stuck in the freezer. It was a good texture, and super tasty! Marco loved it

TUESDAY

Vegetarian enchiladas, ole! Bell peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms inside those tasty tortillas. I made Marco a vegetarian refried bean and cheese burrito – after spreading the beans on the tortilla and adding the cheese, I pan seared it for a minute on each side to hold it together and lightly crisp the outside.

WEDNESDAY

Avocado fries – modified from this recipe, which I found on Pinterest. I used whole wheat flour instead of white, and did not sprinkle with parmesan; I sprinkled the panko’d avocados with sea salt prior to placing in the oven. Served with Trader Joe’s Chickenless Mandarin Orange (just like their mandarin orange chicken, but with soy nuggets) and barley rice.

THURSDAY

grilled cheese with white truffle oil – fontina cheese, arugula, caramelized onions and sourdough brushed with white truffle oil. I figured chips would be good, so I made more kale chips, this time with garlic and sea salt.

For Marco’s palate, I had to make concessions, so he had an aged-cheddar panini sans truffle oil.

What should I make tonight!?

P.S. Just because I HAVE to share this, these are the cupcakes I made last week for a company baby shower/bridal shower luncheon in honor of two of our employees (one having a baby and one getting married, duh). It was a Mexican themed potluck, so these were my contributions:

Margarita and Spicy Chocolate cupcakes!

Dark chocolate cake with cayenne pepper, dark chocolate buttercream, chili pepper and spicy chocolate bar for garnish

Jose Cuervo margarita mix cupcake with lime buttercream and a freshly sliced lime

Splendid in my tummy.

My delicious and nutritious, super hearty pasta dish. Easy to make, just a little time-consuming.  Serves 6 (or 4 with leftovers for lunch

2 zucchini, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 garlic bulb
3 cups chopped tomatoes
2 cans of artichoke hearts (optional)
2 large chicken breasts, thinly sliced into strips (optional, I made without)
1 box of whole-wheat spaghetti noodles (or fresh noodles)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Shaved Parmegiano Reggiano

First, slice your zucchini, onions, peel your garlic cloves (I used one whole bulb, but this is a LOT), and chop your tomatoes. I used Pearl and Roma tomatoes for this sauce, as they were the only tomatoes that looked good.  Timesaver:  you can use two cans of unsalted canned tomatoes; especially helpful if you don’t live in an area that has easy access to fresh tomatoes year-round. 

Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a heavy pan over medium heat, and saute your onions and garlic together, just until they start to become transluscent.  Remove from the pan, and place into a bowl for use later on. Do not rinse the pan, but add 1 tablespoon of EVOO.

If you’d like to add some meat to this dish, this is when I would add the chicken to the pan, cooking just until no longer pink in the center. 

Toss the zucchini into the pan over medium heat, and saute just until starting to turn golden. Remove, and place in the same bowl as the onions and garlic.

Now, add a smidge more EVOO, and place your tomatoes in the pan. Cover and stew over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes.

Then, add the zucchini, onions, garlic, and now is a good time to add artichoke hearts, if you decided against the chicken.

Stir occasionally, and simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes.

While this is simmering, go ahead and start the water boiling in a large pot for your noodles. Salt the water well. When boiling, add your noodles and cook until you’ve reached the desired level of tenderness.  Strain the noodles, and toss the noodles into the pan of sauce. Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes.  Sprinkle with shaved parmegiano, serve and enjoy!

Umm, also, last night I made butter!! Seriously…look:

Yep. I MADE BUTTER, which basically makes me a cooking ninja. Not really, it is flipping easy, but go with me on this. 

I made my own butter and I cannot wait to smear it on some croissants for breakfast! Also, am going to make honey butter and cheddar biscuits.

Lately, I’ve been a bit of a mad scientist in the kitchen (working on new recipes, messing with old ones, and sometimes making things up on the fly).  Here’s a few tidbits to nibble on (heh heh)

A special chicken pasta dish that was such a huge hit I will be posting the recipe here soon (as well as whipping up a vegetarian version so that I can eat it!):

Rice balls – based on the recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, but with slight modifications. Instead of just brown rice, I used a mixture of brown, red, and barley; the recipe also calls for chicken or turkey, which I left out, and I used crushed whole wheat garlic croutons instead of wheat breadcrumbs.

SO FLIPPING GOOD. Basically arancini, but healthier. It contains sweet potato and broccoli purees, which give an awesome flavor to the cheese.

For Valentine’s Day, I made Rice Krispy treats dipped in vanilla candy coating for my coworkers; I used food coloring to make it pink. Then I shook some candy sprinkles to make them cute. They disappeared very quickly from the break room!

I made the Rice Krispy treats with a jar Marshmallow Creme, instead of regular marshmallows, as there is no gelatin included (making it vegetarian-friendly). The texture of the bars was perfect, and even the next day were perfectly chewy. I also recently found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade marshmallow fluff, which I can’t wait to try!

I had plenty of candy dip left over, so I dipped a basket full of strawberries for Tim. We had these as our special Valentine’s dessert

We’d been hoarding a block of Bellavitano Espresso cheese, and I finally experimented with it by making a quick panini. Baguette with genovese pesto, Robusto gouda and the Bellavitano, grilled. OMG DELICIOUS. Also had mixed greens tossed with gorgonzola, tomatoes, garlic EVOO and my favorite Olivier barrel aged Balsamic Vinegar.

For Thanksgiving, we spent the day and evening with Micaela and her family.  I racked my brain (and perused Pinterest) to find some good ideas for appetizers. I decided that cheese is always good. So, I made some goat cheese ‘truffles’, inspired by an appetizer i’d tried at 1313 Main, a wonderful wine bar in Downtown Napa. It’s  very simple, and so tasty!

Note: all pics were snapped with my iPhone. I should’ve used my regular camera, but I hate to get food hands on it! LOL

Ingredients: Holiday grapes, Chevre cheese, pistachios (I bought pistachios, and used the tenderizer to smash ‘em good) I spread out a piece of wax paper to keep the cleanup to a minimum.

It’s time consuming, but you have to cover the grapes with the Chevre cheese.  I used a spoon to apply the initial bit, then rolled them around to make them even.

Then, roll around the ‘truffles’ in the crushed pistachios.

epic, tasty win.

For my 2nd appetizer, I found a pretty treat on Pinterest.

Ingredients: Water crackers,  brie, cranberries, sugar, maple syrup (I used Grade A amber), and honey (mint was used for garnish, I forgot it whoops) Follow the recipe as given HERE, but I used honey instead of chutney

stirring the fresh cranberries with the warmed maple syrup

After sitting overnight in the fridge, I sugared them, and let them dry for an hour.

so tasty on their own, BTW.

Assembled as follows: cracker, brie, drizzle of honey, 3-4 cranberries.

Finito, and I might have eaten like 5 of these. Whuuut.

What delectables made it to your Thanksgiving table? Any treats you want to make for the December holidays?

A couple of weeks ago, my office had a baby shower luncheon for a few employees that are expecting babies in the next month. It was a potluck luncheon, so I offered to make cupcakes (I’m known in the office for good desserts).

I ended up making two flavors: my chocolate covered strawberry (seen HERE), and a lemon-lime variation I made up as I went along. It turned out to be the BEST lemon butter cream I’ve ever had (and I am saying a lot there – I love lemon desserts!). I was so happy, and am sorry but not really to say that I ate quite a bit of butter cream with a spoon.

The cake batter was a basic white cake, but instead of adding the full amount of water, I substituted a smidgen of Odwalla Summertime Lime, and then a squeeze of fresh lime juice. It turned out light, with just the right amount of sweetness.

Anyway, the butter cream is pretty basic; all ingredients that I already had on hand: unsalted butter (some say full salt butter, but i really don’t like it – all preference), 2 lemons (zest and juice), powdered sugar.

Soften 1 stick of unsalted butter, and whip it in your mixer (beat it up, don’t be afraid). Slowly add the powdered sugar in (i ended up using about 3 1/2 cups). Add 2 tablespoons hot water (1 at a time)  and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  I then added in 2 tablespoons of lemon zest to round out the flavor. If you like it creamier, you can add in a teaspoon of whole milk.

Look at the peaks! It turned out thick and creamy.

I have definitely perfected my chocolate butter cream – less powdered sugar, more Scharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate.. Diggin’ it. I added a few candy pearls to pretty it up.

For fun, I added some leftover zest and sugar as decoration.

Now I want to make another batch.

The holidays are beginning (anyone else totally freaked out that Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow?! Where the heck did November GO?), which means it’s time to start compiling the recipe list for Christmas treats.  I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest (internet crack), and have found so many great ideas for appetizers and desserts! I can’t wait to try them out.

Last week, I read a post over at Hello Miss Chelsea that featured a tasty treat!

Pretzels and chocolate are one of life’s perfect couplings – salty, crunchy, sweet…

I pretty much HAD to make them. So, I snagged the Snyder’s Snaps (regular, not the Butter) and Hershey’s Hugs and followed the super-simple steps:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees
• Line up the snaps on a cookie sheet, and place the unwrapped Hugs on them.
• Place in oven for 2 minutes – don’t go over this time! You don’t want them to melt completely
• Take ‘em out, and place the remaining Snaps over them to create choco-prezt sandwiches.

After the success, I felt a little cocky. So I decided to mix it up a bit

This time, I used the Nestle Chocolate & Mint chips, and mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

SO FLIPPING DELICIOUS! Thank you a million times for bringing this to my attention, Miss Chelsea!

What other combinations would work?

My cherry tomatoes on Friday….

And same tomatoes on Monday:

How awesome is that?!

I made a watermelon salad on Monday night, and used fresh mint from our garden:

watermelon, mint, and feta with a mere splash of balsamic vinegar

I love planting! It is so exciting to see our garden flourish. We joke now that we’re headed to “the farm” when we go to the back to clip herbs, or pick tomatoes and strawberries. I want to plant more! We’ve tilled the side of our yard, and have begun planning out our fall and winter gardens.

For our anniversary, I decided to go low-key and make dinner at home.  I had a lot of fun preparing this meal! I went with the basics: pizza and salad.

The salad: Strawberries, tangerines, almonds, and baby spinach tossed in a homemade champagne vinaigrette that I seriously made up as I was doing it. Luckily, it was perfect!

Dressing:
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1 Tbsp cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp champagne (we were drinking a bottle of  2007 Schramsberg Blanc de Noir!)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground

Stir ingredients together, and toss with salad. Delicious!!

The Pizza:

This was my first time using the Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat pizza dough, which comes in individual bags in the refrigerated section. You let it rest on a lightly floured surface for 20 minutes, then roll out to desired shape/size. Add a smidgen of EVOO to your rolling pin (or your fingers, if you decide to hand-shape); it adds a smooth flavor to the dough.

Instead of using a sauce, I covered the dough in sun-dried tomatoes that had been soaked in olive oil:

Then, add baby arugula (remove stems first).

Final flavor: crumbled gorgonzola!

I rolled in the sides of the dough to create more of a crusty-edge, but this isn’t necessary.

You can bake or grill this pizza; we opted for the oven. After 10 minutes at 450 degrees, we had a perfect homemade pizza!

Let me tell you: I loved this pizza. I can’t wait to make more. I might try making my own dough,but we’ll see if I can handle it. For now, the TJ dough is fab!

For giggles…

I decided to make my own Sangria this weekend, instead of buying the Stirrings Red Sangria mix and adding wine.

It turned out beautifully!

Here’s what I put into it:

1 bottle of  D’Aquino Chianti (purchased at Trader Joe’s)
1/2 carton of Trader Joe’s Strawberry Kiwi juice (100% pasteurized juice – apple, white grape, strawberry and kiwi)
3 jiggers of Charbay Blood Orange infused vodka
1 large navel orange, sliced
3 large strawberries, sliced
8 oz of sparkling water with lemon

Stir wine, juice, and vodka together in pitcher, and add the sliced fruit. Let chill in refrigerator for several hours. Just before serving, add the sparkling water for a bit of fizz.

This serves 7-8 people.

Super good!

Do you have any delicious drink recipes to share?

Looking for more blogs to become addicted to?! Go to Life of Meg and take part in Mingle Monday!

This week is half over! Thank goodness… Here’s some random notes from the week so far:

OMG wheee!! I finished our taxes. I can’t wait for our refund to arrive! *Happy dance, cha-cha-cha!*

I’ve been trying to keep myself peppy at work. I’m trying to squeeze in 2-3 days worth of paperwork into 1 day so that I can avoid working overtime, because overtime means less time with Marco. I might have to work late tomorrow, because I have a dentist appointment Friday and am taking off early.

My workouts have been going well. I usually use the elliptical, then weight machines. After that I’m on the BOSU balance trainer for stretching, hand weights, and sit ups.

I also discovered an AWESOME post-workout meal. 1 piece of  Flatout flatbread light (90 calories), 1 Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie pack (perfect portion!), slice of tomato, salsa if you want some spice. Roll up and enjoy!  Low calorie count, healthy fats, whole grains and a serving of fruit! It’s filling and delicious.

Last piece of news: Detectives Goren and Eames are back for the final season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent!! YES! Episodes start up in May. I am so happy they are back – the show wasn’t the same without them. I like Jeff Goldblum, but it gave the show a completely different vibe. Det. Goren brought the awesome.

Hope your week is going well – we’re almost there, lovelies!