My week in eats

Last week, I was convinced I could hold out no longer... in regard to making Angela's In-A-Jiffy Curry Chickpea burgers!

With one batch of the recipe, I made 7 palm sized burgers!

Curry burger topped salad beast, which was repeated at least one other time over the weekend.

On Monday, I was a busy baker. It started out with muffins:

I used a recipe from One Frugal Foodie's Smart School Time Recipes, which is a free downloadable cookbook featuring easy, healthy and not too expensive recipes. (sorry, I had to share- how can you go wrong with a free cookbook, right?)

The muffins were delicious! I didn't have the vanilla extract  that the recipe called for, so the next time I make it with the extract, I bet they'll taste even better!

Later on, I decided to make Baked Ziti for my sister. After I was finished cooking, (and just as we were going to dive in and take our portions), this conversation took place:

   Me: "Wait, wait wait... I have to take a picture."

   Melissa: "You're going to post this even though it's not healthy?"

   Me:" Well, you just got back from your trip to Asia and you said you didn't like the food there so... for

           that reason, maybe this is kinda healthy?"

I guess what I meant by that is that indulgences are part of every healthy diet. True, I wasn't the one who went to Asia and who has jet lag, but I figure we were also celebrating her birthday and I was celebrating her return.

Anywho, the pictures, the pictures!

 

As I was baking this, I like to think I was channeling my dad (who is infamous in my household/family or maybe just to me, for his baked ziti. I didn't make his sophisticated version though, I was kinda strapped for time) and my old roommate, Marc (who, after school vacations, would come back with ingredients from the Italian shops in his neighborhood. I also vaguely remember his pronunciation of ricotta as "rih-gutta", but that's another story, haha!)

Anywho, the ingredient list:

Cooked ziti 

Cooked ground beef (or meatballs!)

Ricotta

Mozzarella

Favorite or homemade tomato sauce

Now for the layers:

(Little bit of tomato sauce on the bottom, to prevent burnt ziti)

Ziti>Sauce+meat >ricotta> sliced/grated mozzarella

Repeat until you reach the top of your container or run out of ingredients

Looking back, I think I needed to add some things to it, mainly the ricotta. In future, I'd take 1-1.5 cups of ricotta and mix it with salt, pepper, garlic powder/minced garlic and maybe even mix it with mozzarella cheese. I think this is how it's usually done, and I think this batch would have been even better with some more spices. Ah well, we live and learn!

My happy meal

Question: Can a 'for your happiness' meal still be a 'healthy' meal? What's your favorite indulgent meal/food?

Coleslaw Nostalgia

Last week, I went to the grocery with one thing in mind: I wanted to make carrot ginger dressing for a salad. But as I was walking around the grocery store, I started thinking: "So if I'm going to get this bag of carrots and red cabbage (I love red cabbage, I would eat with a little bit of balsamic and French dressing any day!), why don't I make cole slaw too?" And so I was going to make cole slaw, but not just any cole slaw. Let me explain:

When I was little, my parents and I would go to this little restaurant called "The Iron Horse". It had this train station feel and was kind of quirky. See, instead of serving bread before the meal, they would come around with pickles and cole slaw. I loved eating them together so much that, these days, I'd rather not have pickles without cole slaw or vice versa (especially if it's creamy cole slaw!)

Fast forward a couple years (roughly 10-13 years old). My parents and I were visiting my grandma and step-grandfather in Arizona. My step grandfather Ben likes to cook and bake a great deal, and at this point in my life he was well known for his "cakes" and ruggelahs. The dough always tasted of a hint of cinnamon, a dash of lemon and very little sugar. They were filled with a dried fruit mixture that I would mistake for chocolate (if only for the color, not necessarily the flavor). This time when we were visiting, I was obsessed with his homemade cole slaw. I asked my grandma what he put in his cole slaw, but Ben didn't have recipes for what he prepared, he would just go based on what he was trying to make and how it tasted. She did, however, tell me some of the things she knew he put in his coleslaw, so I could try to reproduce it at home: tarragon vinegar, a very little bit of mayonnaise (Ben's cole slaw was not heavy- it contained just the slightest bit of creaminess), salt and pepper, and maybe a little bit of lemon? These were my guides and after I came back home from my trip, I tried to reproduce his cole slaw. I remember making cole slaw a couple times, but I felt that I could never get it right, so pretty much stopped trying and that was that.

 Flash forward ten or so more years and here I am again, making some cole slaw. Luckily, I had this baby to help me out with the shredding:

Six or Seven cups of shredded cabbage, red cabbage and 2 carrots later and I'm ready to make the sauce!

Dressing:

1/3 cup rice vinegar (though I would recommend tarragon if you can get your hands on it!)

3 tablespoons light mayonnaise

pepper to taste

2 small pinches of salt- makes it!

My little bowl of cole slaw

When I first tasted this, I was so sure it tasted just like Ben's cole slaw. Right now, I'm not so sure, but I do think this was the closest I came to reproducing it. If nothing else, it brought back wonderful memories of my family while we were celebrating the Jewish New Year.

Carrot Ginger Dressing

Hello and happy Thursday!

Ever since Ralph and I went to Moosewood on Saturday, I have been dreaming of making carrot ginger dressing. Yesterday, that finally came into fruition.

OK, I admit it turned out a little more like a puree than a dressing, but I don't have a juicer or anything, which would probably solve the problem.

Carrot-Ginger Dressing

3 carrots

2 inch piece of ginger (though I'd use a little less, it was a bit spicy)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce

~2 tbsp rice milk

Shred the carrots, then use the food processor to puree the rest of the ingredients.

I let the dressing chill in the refrigerator for a little while, and then went for a jog. I ran 2.75 miles in 25 minutes. I would have gone further, but I was ready to take on a salad beast:

I know it looks small from this angle, but this was a huge salad. Underneath the dressing, I had lettuce, tomato, yellow pepper, red cabbage and a dab of hummus, yum!

This morning, I biked 7.8 miles to the post office and back in 50 minutes. It was such a nice day for a ride!

Stay tuned- I'll be posting my favorite cole slaw recipe later! Until then, enjoy the day!