Spaghetti squash pasta with walnut pesto

I've been having a lot of scrumptious girls nights recently; it is a standing Thursday date night for us all. And I say scrumptious because most of these nights are centered around cooking together, eating good, drinking wine and having great conversations. Plus there has been some really amazing cheeses too, and I'm not usually too big into cheese since I'm lactose intolerant. But we're talking about a soft triple cream with a hint of lemon, how could I resist?!
Anyway a few weeks ago I made a walnut pesto in my adorable yellow food processor. The pesto mostly included the walnuts, fresh basil, fresh parsley, artichokes, garlic and lemon. The plan was to put it on roasted spaghetti squash. When cooked the squash can be scooped out of the rind and is stringy like pasta. I added sauteed peas and onions and rewarmed the squash with the pesto mixed in. The flavor was pretty dull and needed a lot of fixing, so we added other herbs and spices that we found in our friend's kitchen. Unfortunately there was not a lot of extras to choose from, but overall all the girls seemed to be happy with the dish. We also had sauteed garlic and shallot chicken breasts, a red quinoa broccoli rabe dish, and a huge green salad to go with the pesto-ed spaghetti squash (and the mentioned OMG cheeses as an appetizer).
I had roasted such a big squash and had made so much pesto that I took home half of what we made. At home I have a fully stocked kitchen with all kinds of herbs, spices, hot sauces, and extra veggies to saute and add, so that is exactly what I did. I added red bell pepper and more onion and a little braggs amino acids to put the BAM in it....BAM! Fortunately for me the revised version of the squash was so much better and more flavorful than when eaten with the other girls. It is unfortunate for them however, but I also know that my palate requires an intense abundance of flavor to be satisfied so maybe they were just as happy with version 1 as I was with version 2. After all they still allow me to cook for them and say I'm a good cook so that says something.

Here is my dinner plate
Bon Appetit!

The recipe for the lemon artichoke walnut pesto and squash was adapted from a recipe on a blog called "paleomg." You may have already guessed, but the woman writing this blog is following the recently trendy Paleo lifestyle.  The link is below.

http://paleomg.com/artichoke-lemon-pesto-chicken-pasta/

Friends fish tacos with crema and slaw

Another great weekend has come and gone, and it was another fabulous time to try try out new recipes with friends. The original plan was to get fresh fish from Pikes Place Fish Market in Seattle, since we were already downtown at the music museum. However, traffic, parking, and crowd really got the best of us and we just winged it with a frozen cod filet. So we never made it to the market, but we did find the energy to put together a  menu including smoked paprika cod, cilantro-lime crema,  and a cilantro- jalapeno cabbage slaw. Each dish had flavors that complimented each other. The smokiness of the fish was evened out by the sweet and vinegary slaw and the tangy plain yogurt crema. We juggled between several different recipes and just used what we liked, as any good chef will do right? Below are the basic ingredients we used for each dish.
Fish spice rub ingredients: cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and garlic powder.
Cabbage slaw ingredients: green cabbage, green onion, red onion, shredded carrot, rice vinegar, white sugar, dried garlic, salt, pepper, jalapeno, cilantro.
Cilantro lime cream sauce ingredients: plain greek yogurt, cilantro, lime juice and zest, salt, garlic clove, green onions, jalapeno.

Hanging guitars at the music museum

This is Pikes Place Market, but we did not make time to go

I tricked ya "rice"

It was Friday night, a perfect night for a low key dinner party with friends. I mean what else is there to do in Portland than to eat delicious food, drink wine and watch multiple episodes of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia?" Did I mention it was just Friday, a day when nothing in this city is going on.....noooo, I don't feel guilty about staying in and snuggling up on the couch with my homies. Okay, what I feel most guilty about is letting netflix do all the work by auto-playing the next episode of a great TV series. Boom! one right after the other they play without ever lifting a finger to make it happen. Modern technology is the reason why we watched so many episodes, immobilized on the couch. But we had fun and laughed together, that's what matters.

Samantha and I set the dinner menu for the night, which included pan-seared rosemary dijon garlic chicken, a sauteed onion cauliflower "rice," and a big spring salad. The dessert menu (of course us ladies need dessert) was an apple, raspberry, blackberry fruit crisp with a chai glaze drizzle. You should be drooling because yeah it was pretty deeeelish. Us ladies (with powered noses and pantyhose...) even had a second helping. 

Had we not scarfed it all down, I could have taken and uploaded pictures. But we did, and so I can't share. There's always next time since I will be making the "rice" again for sure. See the trick to the rice (the 'I tricked ya rice') is that it is all made from cauliflower! You heard right, cauliflower. When you chop up raw cauliflower and pulse it in a food processor it has a similar appearance as rice. Trick or treat....I'd say a definite treat! And now think about adding the raw cauliflower chunks to seasoned and sauteed onions and garlic, cook for a few more minutes and you have a heavenly dish right in your own kitchen. Basically that's all there is to it. You start by sauteing onions with any spices you want and while that's cooking you can gently pulse the raw cauliflower. Add the cauliflower to the cooked onions, cook a few more minutes, add more spices if you want or a little broth to moisten and it's done. I bet peas and carrots would be a great addition to for a little more texture. Even toasted nuts for a crunch, I'm such a texture seeker. 

Our ingredients: cauliflower, onions, olive oil, garlic, vegetable broth, chicken seasoning, red pepper flakes, black pepper.

My inspiration and base recipe came for the 'rice' dish came from this link: 

http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2010/01/recipe-for-cauliflower-rice-with-fried.html

Navratan Kurma

Indian food has made it's way into my mind again recently. I have been missing the flavor of a good Indian dish. I used to go to an Indian restaurant in Folsom, CA called The India House and fell in love with the chicken tikka masala, much to my lactose intolerant stomach's dislike. They had other delicious food as well, including, well everything there was actually delicious. Anyway, I found this recipe and decided to try it because 1) the pictures captured my interest. 2) it is loaded with veggies. 3) it did not use cream like my favorite tikka masala. 4) it looked do-able and easy enough. 5) I like the woman's blog who supplied this recipe.

Here is the link to the actual recipe, I made some very slight modifications.
http://www.holycowvegan.net/2008/09/navratan-kurma.html

The ingredient's list at first was overwhelming; I panicked when seeing it for the first time. But after reading through it I calmed and found that it was mostly the spices that made the list so long.

 I started my Indian journey by letting 1/2 cup of cashew soak in water for at least 30 minutes. Then I started boiling the carrots, broccoli and sweet potatoes in water (they have different 'done' times so I could not boil all at the same exact time). I just boiled each until soft.

Next, I sauteed ginger and garlic in a skillet until soft and browned and started adding the list of spices to coat the onion mixture. After 1 minute I added the tomatoes and tumeric to the mix and watched until the tomatoes started breaking down. Next I added cottage cheese and stirred to incorporate for 2-3 minutes. I added the salt and then the cooked veggies. This is another recipe where you can just use what you have on hand in terms of veggies. I used about 4 cups of mixed veggies including all the favorites: sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots, green beans, onions, zucchini, and tomatoes.

After several minutes or so on lower heat the mixture will thicken and get to be like a gravy that coats the veggies. In the meantime you can strain the cashews and add the soaked nuts to a food processor and blend until it becomes a paste. You then add this cashew nut paste to the veggie gravy deliciousness and stir in. Serve it up and ENJOY! I added a few squirts of braggs and siracha to mine after serving as always because I love the nutty heat this combo provides.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cashews (soaked and ground into a paste)

4 cup chopped veggies (cooked til tender)

2 Tbsp minced/chopped garlic
2 Tbsp minced/chopped ginger
1 medium onion chopped
1 tsp corriander
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp poppyseeds
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp red pepper flakes


1/2 tsp tumeric
2 tomatoes

3/4 cup cottage cheese
salt to taste

Rosemary walnut raisin crisps

There is one night during the week that I have a love-hate relationship with. It may seem odd but here's why.. I love this day because I'm off of work, can plan events with friends and finally start my weekend. Whoo hoo! But, I also hate this day because I am wide awake all by myself well into the wee hours of the night when most 'normal' people are asleep. This leaves me trying to keep busy and find ways to entertain myself, something that I could never do as a kid. I was notorious for saying "Mom I'm bored. What should I do?" Luckily as an adult I've learned a few more skills and know that I can easily entertain myself for hours and hours in the kitchen, without ever realizing how much time has actually passed. Imagine if I had that Easy Bake Oven as a kid, I could have learned this about myself long long ago and not had to ask others if they'd want to "play a puzzle with me." But now, after ditching the puzzles, I can easily get lost in the kitchen creating my own recipes and trying out other's recipes that I find on healthy blog sites. I geek out by searching the internet for new recipes because I love playing around with the ingredients, wondering how they will come together and I love being the only taste tester in the kitchen. Add a little more honey, have a taste. Mix in the rosemary, have a taste. Stir a few more times, have another taste. Preheat the oven, better have another taste before it goes in. You get the point here. In the past I typically turned to 'ohsheglows.com' and 'chocolatecoveredkatie,' two different blogs that feature vegan/vegetarian recipes, but for this creation I found a random blogger and modified the recipe (because I never have all the right ingredients). 

       

So on Wednesday, alone in my kitchen at 12 pm midnight I set out to make these rosemary walnut raisin crisps. They were better than I could have imagined; they were delicious. And now shamefully I will admit that 4 days later they are almost all gone. Think melba toasts, but thinner, more flavorful, possibly healthier, resembling nothing like a cardboard product, and whalllah you have a tasty treat.

 

My ingredients: whole wheat pastry flour, walnuts, plain greek yogurt, water, raisins, honey, baking soda, salt, lemon juice, rosemary, lemon zest.

Banana soft serve y'all

The banana soft serve with chocolate chips and pretzels!

Why this recipe is automatic. It's systematic, it's hydromatic... it's grease lightening! Okay obviously it's not really grease lightening, but it is so exciting and wonderful that I would say the two are in the same category in terms of hype. What is it you ask? Why don't I just tell you the recipe I am speaking of. It's banana soft serve y'all!

I've been wanting to make a mock frozen yogurt/ ice cream recipe for a while now. My first introduction to it was a couple years back when I was having a slumber party with 5 adorable kids. One of them was lactose intolerant (like me) so his mother made him "banana ice cream" so he wouldn't be left out at dessert time with all the other kids. The mother told me it was just pureed bananas, I couldn't believe it. This was when I became obsessed with frozen banana chunks, which now I always have in stock in the freezer. Back to soft serve though. 

Last weekend I was finally motivated enough to make the soft serve when I scored  about 5 dozen overripe bananas from the fruit stand for 2 bucks. If you are considering using under ripe or just regular ripe bananas I assure you it's not the same and the end result may be very different. Overripe bananas are less starchy, more sugary and sweet, and the texture is softer, easier to puree. All of these make the banana a great candidate for the mock ice cream treat.

To get started, once you have the overripe bananas, you first cut the bananas into large chucks and stick them in the freezer. Then when they are hard you can mash them up or use a food processor to puree them into a consistency like soft serve. Once you are happy with the consistency, either pure smooth or still a bit chunky, you can eat it. Although depending on how long you are mashing/ processing you may need to stick it back into the freezer for a bit to harden. And that's it! Easy as that, you have your healthy banana dessert. 

But wait, there's more! I am Miss Piggy, thus I believe more is better. So I added additional ingredients to my soft serve as you can see below. But the bananas are all you really need to make the base, the soft serve itself. (Dare I say that the pretzels and the chocolate chips are just optional ingredients?) If you want you may like to add fun ingredients, i.e. crunchy bits and hidden goodies. I first added chocolate chips, but then realized that frozen chocolate chips really don't have a strong chocolaty flavor. Then I added lightly crunched up pretzels, and fell in love. The salty sweet crunch was more delicious than I could describe. I may experiment with adding peanut butter next  :)

My ingredients 

Final product 

Kombucha brewing

My Kombucha rules!
I tasted my plain flavored kombucha last night for the first time and was so delighted. It was acidic and refreshing, which is exactly what I love about kombucha. Can't you see the excitement on my face in this picture? I tried to capture it, but maybe it didn't come through as much as I hoped.
 I am have also brewed ginger, ginger pear, and peach raspberry kombuchas. I'm addicted!
 I would have never thought it was so easy to make, and so inexpensive. Typically each bottle at the store is at least $3, a scam considering the limited ingredient list and limited chef/ingredient interactions. It becomes a "set it and forget it" process once you have the scoby and kind of know what you are doing.
I found a great website that lists step by step instructions on how to start brewing.
http://www.paprikahead.com/2009/07/how-to-brew-your-own-kombucha-from.html
That's all I have to say now about my Kombucha. Wait, I repeat... It rules!