RSS
 

Archive for September, 2009

Visit to Reno Part 1…Ham and Spinach Quiches

30 Sep

This past weekend we visited our friends in Reno. Y and S were awesome hosts as usual. We had a great time, relaxed, enjoyed our friends and of course had great food. What kind of food blogger would I be if I didn’t share some of the awesome dishes we feasted on during the weekend. I won’t overwhelm you with all of them at once and will share them one at a time.

So let’s start with the first dish. Upon our arrival we were greeted with excitement and a full table of food. One of the delicious items on the table were Ham and Spinach Quiches.
Quiche

Y was kind enough to share her recipe with me, and I’ll be kind enough to share it with you. By the way you can find Y’s other recipes on her blog She Suggests…

For the Savory Tart Dough:
1 3/4 cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter
1 egg lightly beaten
½ tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 cup ice water or more if needed
Combine flour, salt and butter in a food processor. Pulse until mixture forms coarse crumbs. In a small bowl whisk together eggs, lemon juice, and water. With the motor running add the egg mixture and process until dough comes together. Y found the dough recipe to be a bit bland, so she recommends adding other things to spice it up, definitely a little more salt! Wrap the dough in saran wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

For the Quiche Filling:
1 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter
2 finely chopped shallots
1 cup (2 oz.) baby spinach (regular spinach also works)
1 egg
2/3 cup heavy cream
½ teaspoon dijon mustard
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons of red bell pepper (can be substituted for red pepper flakes)
1 oz. ham
2 oz. Gruyère cheese, finely grated

Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch, use a 2 inch biscuit cutter (for mini muffin tins, and larger for bigger ones) to cut out as many rounds as possible. Put the dough into muffin tins (sprayed.) Preheat oven to 400 F degrees. In a pan melt the butter over low heat. Add shallots and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Raise heat to medium low, add spinach and cook stirring constantly until wilted (about 1 minute). Separately whisk together the egg, cream, mustard, salt and pepper. Add the spinach mixture, bell pepper, ham and cheese to egg mixture and stir. Divide filling among cups. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

As I was the taster, I can tell you that these were very tasty.

Enjoy!

 

Puff Pastry Triangles

23 Sep

Before proceeding to today’s recipe I wanted to share that I was the lucky winner of a cordless Cuisinart hand held blender, courtesy of FoodBuzz.com. This was an unexpected and exciting occurrence. I received the blender this evening. I want to thank FoodBuzz.com for the lovely surprise!!!

Now to our next yummy dish. Today I’d like to share with you some tasty treats. In the spirit of easy-to-make dishes, this is a VERY easy to make dessert. Feast your eyes on puff pastry triangles with cherry filling.
Puff-Pastry-Triangle

Here is what you need to make these tasty triangles:
10 Puff pastry dough squares (usually sold frozen)
1 can of cherry topping
1 egg white, beaten
Powdered sugar
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit.

Thaw frozen pastry squares until soft. Place approximately 6 cherries with sauce onto one pastry square. Fold over the pastry square to create a triangle. Press the edges to seal. I usually press the edges with a fork to make sure they are sealed and to create attractive edges. Brush the edges with beaten egg whites. Repeat these steps for the rest of the puff pastry squares.

Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray (to prevent the triangles from sticking). Place triangles on cookie sheet and bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until the pastry rises and becomes golden. Top with some powdered sugar. Let cool and serve.

Everyone will love this tasty dessert.

 

Wheat and Honey Pancakes with Berry Syrup

20 Sep

Another day in Vika’s kitchen. Today Vika whipped up a batch of delicious and health-conscious pancakes. You won’t need a lot of time or ingredients for these easy-to-make pancakes.
Here is what you will need:
Krusteaz Wheat & Honey pancake mix
Frozen blueberries and raspberries (or any other frozen berries)
Sugar
Cooking Spray

Prepare pancakes as directed, mix the berries with sugar in a cooking pot. Cook until defrosted and slightly boiling. Make sure not to overcook as berries will fall apart.
Pancakes

For a side, Vika threw together a homemade iced tea. To make the iced tea you will need the following:
Brewed Tea (pick a flavor to your liking)
Lemon slices
Orange slices
Ice
Brew hot tea as you would normally and cool. Add ice, lemon slices and orange slice.
Iced-Tea
I hope you enjoy these pancakes as much as I did!
Panckes-and-Iced-Tea
Bon Apetit!

 

Sweet and Sour Chicken

17 Sep

Ask my husband what his favorite dish is at a Chinese restaurant and he’ll tell you it’s sweet and sour pork. Well, at home I make a variation. The variation being…the other white meat.
Sweet-and-Sour-Chicken
I bet you’d like to know how to get this delicious tender meat on your plate. Well here is how:
Ingredients:
Skinless chicken breasts
Flour
Vegetable oil (for frying)
Kikkoman Sweet & Sour Sauce
How to get there:
Cut chicken breasts into cubes and toss with flour. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan. Add the flour-tossed chicken to the frying pan. Cook until chicken is fully cooked through. Toss with the sweet and sour sauce and serve.
Sweet-and-Sour-Chicken
It’s that easy!

 

Egg Salad

13 Sep

New day, new dish. Today I decided to make one of my signature and favorite dishes, my egg salad , but with a slight twist.

Egg-Salad
To make the salad you’ll need the following:
5 Hard boiled eggs
Scallions
Shredded mozzarella and american cheeses (or any other types of shredded cheeses)
Mayonnaise (approximately 1 tbsp)

Grate the eggs and chop the scallions. Mix together the grated eggs, chopped scallions, shredded mozzarella cheese and shredded american cheese with mayonnaise. Chill slightly and serve. It’s that easy!
Egg-Salad
Bon Appetit!

 

Delicious Garden Fresh Eggplant

10 Sep


Hopefully you remember my coworker U, who so graciously brought me home grown tomatoes. Well, a few days ago she brought me an eggplant from her garden.
Garden Fresh Eggplant
I’ve never actually made anything with eggplant, so I decided to make my Mom’s recipe, which I love. The recipe calls for the following ingredients:

1. Eggplant
2. Vegetable oil (for frying)
3. Mayonnaise
4. Garlic (mashed)
5. Tomato slices
6. 1 hard boiled egg
7. Shredded cheese (I used low moisture mozzarella)

Slice the eggplant, fry in vegetable oil until the slices soften. Remove onto a paper towel lined plate. Cover the fried eggplant slices with another paper towel to soak up the excess oil. In the meantime mash two cloves of garlic with a garlic masher and mix with a table spoon of mayonnaise. Brush each eggplant slice with the mayonnaise mixture, cover with a tomato slice. Brush each slice of tomato with the remaining mayonnaise mixture. Top with grated egg and shredded cheese. Chill slightly and serve. Yum!
Eggplant

Enjoy!

 

Minis

08 Sep

Finally my trusty sidekick, Vika, and I got together for the first of many cooking sessions. Where Vika did all of the cooking and I did most of the tasting and the photo taking. As far tasting goes, these minis were fabulous. As far as photos go, judge for yourself…
Bruschetta
Now to describe what’s what and how these minis were created. We’ll go in order of preparation.

First Vika started with salmon minis.
Salmon-Bites
Key ingredients:
1. European whole grain bread (can be found at Trader Joe’s)
2. Salmon
3. Creme fraiche
4. Chives
Top the bread with slices of salmon, creme fraiche and diced chives. Once plated, just serve.

Now for the Bruschetta minis

Bruschetta

To create these tasty minis you will need the following ingredients and will need to take the following steps:
1. Tomatoes (Vika used cherry and pear tomatoes)
2. Fresh Basil
3. Olive Oil
4. Sun-dried tomatoes
5. Baguette
Cut up the baguette and toast slices of baguette in the oven. In the mean time, dice the fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Mix together with olive oil. Top the toasted baguette slices with the tomato mixture and serve.

Try these minis and they’ll fly off the plate in the blink of an eye.

 

Stuffed Peppers

05 Sep

Probably for months now, I’ve been thinking (and sometimes talking) about making stuffed peppers. My mom makes incredible stuffed peppers, but I saw a recipe for orzo stuffed peppers from the Food Network, which is a variation on hers. I finally took the plunge, got all the ingredients, rushed home from work and whipped up stuffed peppers.

The peppers turned out delicious. Judge for yourselves.
Stuffed-Peppers

Of course you are wondering, how can I have a stuffed pepper like this for dinner? Well, it’s actually relatively simple.

What you will need:
Canned Italian Tomatoes (I suggest buy chopped tomatoes, if you want to save on prep time)
Grated zucchini
Fresh mint
Grated Romano Picorino cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper
Chicken broth (I used 99% fat free)
Orzo, and of course
Sweet bell peppers

What you will want to do to turn these great ingredients into actual stuffed peppers is the following:
1. Mix canned tomatoes, grated zucchini, chopped fresh mint, cheese, olive oil, salt and ground pepper in a bowl.
2. Bring chicken broth to boil.
3. Add orzo to boiled chicken broth and boil for a few minutes (make sure the orzo is NOT fully cooked).
4. Once orzo is ready, sift it.
5. Mix the orzo with the ingredients you’ve already premixed in item 1 above and poor the left over chicken broth into the baking dish you’ll use for the stuffed peppers. To identify the dish, I chose a glass pie dish I had at home that was able to fit 6 peppers.
6. Remove all the insides of the bell peppers and discard.
7. Place the peppers in the baking dish and fill with the orzo mix.
8. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes at 400F. Than remove foil, cover the peppers with additional grated cheese and bake for another 15 minutes uncovered…

…and Voila!
Stuffed-Peppers

I would recommend letting the peppers cool off slightly before serving. From personal experience they tasted better when they weren’t steaming hot.

Enjoy!

 

Farmers Market Grapes

01 Sep

This weekend I picked up some grapes from the local farmers market. Nothing compares with fresh, organic, sweet grapes!
Fresh Grapes Storyboard

 

Healthy Snack

01 Sep

On Sunday I decided to make a healthy snack. I gave it some thought and here is what I came up with…
Goat Cheese Toasties with Arugula Salad
…an Arugula salad with Goat Cheese Toasties.

To create this all you’ll need is a baguette, cut up into slices, some beaten eggs and garlic powder. Dip the baguette slices in beaten eggs (mixed with garlic powder) and bake for 10-15 minutes at 325F.

To create the lovely salad, you’ll need some arugula leaves, tomatoes (cherry, pear, and/or grape), cucumbers and Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.

Cut up the vegetables, toss with the Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing and serve with the toasties, topped with goat cheese.

Hope you enjoy! I can tell you I did!

Related Posts with Thumbnails