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Meat-Free Mal & Matt?

Matt and I are experimenting.  Our lunches are pretty much the same thing throughout the week—he takes a sandwich or a wrap with deli meat along with a snack of some sort, I take leftovers from the weekend.  On the weekends we like to indulge in lots of meat…for example, this past weekend we managed to eat two meats that come from a pig, one that comes from a cow, and one that comes from a bird.  It was delicious, but also very overwhelming.  It will make for wonderful leftover lunches throughout the week, and I had a wonderful time cooking up some new recipes and some old favorites.  However, meat can be expensive…especially if you are trying to purchase meat of any decent quality…and I find that the more meat we put in a dish, the less veggies we end up consuming during the meal. 

With our CSA box coming every other week and random cravings for vegetables lately, we came to the conclusion that we’d try to take our Monday-Friday dinners meat-free.  We made it through week one and are just starting week two.  The first week was pretty easy, since we had a crockpot full of sweet potato soup leftover to start us off on Monday, and we went out for Thai on Tuesday (Thai is one of the easiest cuisines to go meat free with).  Thursday, our planned risotto was a bust when I was off my feet with a lingering back pain and really just wanted a big plate of stir fried veggies…Buddhist Tofu from the Chinese place across the street it was (so delicious and simple!). 

However, I imagine it will get a little more challenging in the coming weeks.  To prepare for this, we started a list of things that we love that can easily be meat free. We have a long list already…and most of the things so far didn’t even come off of that list! One stipulation: we aren’t going to make meaty things with meat-like products….the point of this experiment is for us to eat more veggies, not to eat more fake meat.

This is a dish we actually made a couple weeks ago, but I just realized that it’s not one that’s on our list…adding it now!  I first made this before Christmas for a couple friends and it might be the new favorite Italian dish in my repertoire.   Special thanks to our Kentucky friends Bob & Shannon, who sent us two jars of homemade marinara sauce.  AMAZING.  We still have one left because I want to save it as long as possible.  We shot through the first one with this dish and then a mini-meatball sub and salad dinner a couple nights later. 

Zucchini Parm for Two

• 1 large zucchini sliced lengthwise into four strips
• 2 Tb flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
• marinara sauce
• a handful of your favorite italian cheese

1. Heat 1/4 inch vegetable oil in a deep pot over medium heat
2. Bread each slice of zucchini by dusting in flour, dipping in egg white and then dredging in breadcrumbs (you could also use cornmeal and it would probably be amazing)
3. Fry in hot oil, about 2-4 minutes per side, depending on heat of oil and thickness of zucchini.  Flip when crust in deep brown in color.
4. Drain on paper towels.
5. Place zucchini slices in a small baking dish in one layer.
6. Top with marinara and cheese.
7. Broil or bake until sauce and cheese are hot and bubbly.

I served with roasted broccoli and shallots and some orzo tossed in some additional marinara (which I was eating right out of the pan while waiting for the zucchini to fry…very classy).

This is ridiculously easy and made a fun and easy dish to serve to company.

Love it.

Lots of Yum

So we are still around…I know I have been way off schedule with this blog, but there has been a lot going on and I have been putting way too much energy into watching football lately (how did that happen!?).  

Anyway, we’ve had lots of delicious things going on.  I’ve got a few recipes and more detailed things to post, but for now, here’s a breakdown of some really wonderful things we’ve been eating.

Root Vegetable Chowder, thanks to Emeril (with lots of additional veggies tossed in)

Cheddar Garlic Chive Scones topped with pan-fried ham and sunny side up eggs for breakfast:

Cuban-inspired panini: ham, turkey, thin-sliced pickles, onion, tomato mustard—all on garlic bread.

Chili Mac Casserole, made with ground turkey and topped with a corn tortilla chip crust (plus cheese, sour cream and salsa, obviously).

Roast chicken with kale pesto rubbed under the skin, with green beans and potatoes and a Caesar salad.

  Amazing breakfast scramble with bacon, spinach, potatoes and onions….plus Beecher’s flagship cheddar. This was our treat breakfast for the week and was so so spectacular.

Spinach, onion and garlic english muffin pizzas with italian and feta cheeses. Plus a side of broccoli.

And I’m still celebrating this amazing Christmas present from Matt:

Love <3

November Has Been Good To Us

As November wraps up, I’m realizing that amid some craziness, stress and worry, there has been a lot to be thankful for.  Matthew and I have had a really great month.  We got our holiday flight for Christmas nailed down, watched the Yankees win the World Series and got a brand new comforter for our bed…we are easily impressed

Mid-month, around my birthday, we flew to Hawaii (a  partial work trip) and took full advantage of the sun, relaxing atmosphere, tourist-y goodness, and amazing food.   Here are some pictures to share: 

Love

    

Some of the food….

Sampler (for lunch) at the Kona Brewing Restaurant. Lots of pineapple at the Dole Plantation…where we tried to refrain from chomping them right of the stems    

   

Fancy dinner at Roy’s, where we had an AMAZING meal:

Free spicy edamame appetizer. Pineapple martini (that piece of fruit had been soaking in vodka for days).

Macadamia-crusted Mahi Mahi w/ lobster butter sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caramelized scallops with a blueberry vinaigrette and some bacon-wrapped sweet potatoes I think. The scallops were cooked to perfection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, pineapple upside down cake, which you give them 30 minutes to prepare because they make each one fresh.  They sliced the pineapples thinly so there were juicy amazing layers of pineapple on top of the cake.  On the side: vanilla bean ice cream in a burnt sugar cup.  All in a caramel sauce.  Unbelievable.

———-

To wrap up our wonderful November, we are in the middle of a spectacularly relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.  We’ve been together almost 3 years and this is the first time we’ve spent Thanksgiving together.  It was wonderful.  We went with turkey tenderloins, sliced into medallions, marinated in Annie’s Natural Tuscany Italian dressing, breaded with Panko breadcrumbs and pan fried.  Really yummy.  With some comforting sides and homemade stuffing/dressing….yum! We went with a nice mix of new/more-involved things and easy standbys. Matt was in charge of the traditional green bean casserole and did a great job!  I made some dinner rolls from a Cooking Light recipe, and my favorite was the turkey knot…

Here are the rest of our pictures, including pumpkin pie that we were so excited about we made 4 days earlier, and some gorgeous orange flowers we got for $5 on sale!

 

Thankfulness all around!  Happy Thanksgiving!  Let’s cross our fingers for a December that is full of pleasant surprises, healthy families, lots of love and new adventures.

Bacon, Two Ways

Bacon was on sale…good, center cut bacon. What can I say…I had to take advantage.  Instead of having an insane amount of bacon in one meal, we broke it up into a couple co-starring roles.  The first was an accompaniment to a really interesting concoction. 

We had (still have) a ton of lentil tomato soup in the freezer.  A really hearty, yummy soup that we happened to make four thousand gallons of the first time around.  Instead of just eating as soup again, I rubbed down a couple chicken thighs with a spice rub and let it sit while we were at work, then tossed it in a casserole with the soup.  It looked like a big dish full of…well…nothing good.
I baked it at 350 or 400 degrees along with some roasting root vegetables, using my wonderful meat thermometer to know when to pull the chicken for maximum moistness. When it came out of the oven, it looked…well…like a big dish full of baked nothing good.

Where’s the bacon!?! That is what you may be asking.  Well…here it comes!

Chop up some bacon, crisp it up and drain almost all of the fat.  I had that amazing center cut bacon, so there wasn’t all that much fat in the pan anyway. 

Chopped onion gets sautéed in a thin layer of bacon grease, and then frozen peas (a little too frozen apparently) get added with a little chicken broth and cooked down.  I usually make this dish with a little bit of cream or half and half at the end (and usually with Brussels Sprouts), but I had some plain yogurt on hand, so that went in.  Not quite as creamy, but added a little tang and a lighter feel to the side dish.

 

Add the bacon back in at the end and serve with the meal.  Bacon in side dishes! Hooray! 

Bacon made another appearance at breakfast.  This was a huge success.  Take note.

Repeat the bacon cooking and onion sautéing above.  Fry some tiny diced potatoes in with the onions and toss in a chopped tomato.  Take this all out of the pan and lightly scramble eggs to your preference.  For a soft scramble, just before the eggs are completely cooked, fold in the veggies and some shredded cheddar cheese.  AMAZING breakfast.  Thinking about it to write this post makes me want it again!

It’s officially fall…

I am on the road.  Insanely on the road.  Next week I actually get to be in the office for the whole week, but other than that I’m spending most of my time out of town until Thanksgiving.  Fun and new places, but exhausting!

Even though I have a bit more time while I’m on the road to write, the preparation for the travel has made blog food scarce.  We’ve been relying on a lot of old standby meals, leftovers from the freezer, and way too much restaurant food.  We’ve also done some crazy travelling as we’ve moved from summer into fall….including our trip to North Carolina, during which Santana stayed at PetSmart.  The very next weekend we zoomed down to Berkeley for a wedding, which Santana can also fill you in on.  Both were a bit quick and chaotic, but really fun and relaxing.  I loved being able to have a couple trips with Matt to just relax and enjoy our time together without work craziness getting in the way.

In better food news, since fall has definitely set in, it is crock pot weather for sure!  We actually used the Crockpot a decent amount during the summer, but fall means lots of soups, stews and chili…plus lots of leftovers to restock our freezer!

We said goodbye to the summer with a light meal that lasted us through two dinners and 1 lunch for me.  Tomato bacon quiche (which we had frozen from a couple months ago) with a spinach honey mustard salad and some lightly salted Kettle chips.  We were both huge huge fans of this meal, which is why it was repeated twice…usually we make some changes, switch up the side dishes, etc.  This time the same meal found its way to our plates two nights in a row.  So delicious and satisfying.  And a nice light end to the summer.  Bonus: homemade garlic croutons!

 

To welcome in the fall, we made a vegetarian chili cornbread casserole that completely outdid itself as a shared dish at a potluck, dinner for us at home, and is lasting Matt through this week while I’m out of town.  To make the chili, I mixed 4 or 5 cans of black and pinto beans (1 can of beans got mashed up) in the Crockpot with sautéed onion, green bell pepper and garlic.  I also added some spices, hot sauce and a can of green chilies.  Two cans of diced tomatoes rounded out the liquid in the pot and it cooked all day on high, bubbling away. 

I poured the cooked chili into two casserole dishes and topped each one with the batter for this cornbread with the addition of some shredded cheese to the mix.  They baked for about 40 minutes or so and then one went to the potluck, while the other chilled in the fridge, waiting for us the next day.

For our leftovers, we covered the 2nd casserole and popped it back in the oven to reheat.  While that was cooking a tossed some fresh broccoli with a tiny bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Into the oven it went to roast away.  It got crazy crispy and had a tiny zing from the balsamic.  Really wonderful.

The other star of the potluck and our leftovers was a fruit cobbler with fresh plums, pluots and nectarines, frozen blackberries, and a whole wheat cobbler crust.  Served with vanilla ice cream, obviously.

 

Meanwhile, Santana’s meals have remained pretty steady.  Because of her allergies and anxiety, she gets Benadryl and Pepcid before dinner.  Since she is so fussy, she gets the wonderful treat of having her meds wrapped in peanut butter (freshly ground peanuts from Whole Foods….Matt and I don’t even get this fancy for ourselves!). She follows this up with some dry food which must be amazing because she gobbles it down like a fiend.  What a gourmand.