Monday, April 8, 2013

Catch up!

The past few weeks have been busy but i've been cooking anyway! I've rekindled a passion for my favorite cooking apparatus... The Magic Bullet!  I saw the infomercial the other day and realized I could do so many things i'd never tried.  This thing is seriously magic.  So far, i've made tons of smoothies, sorbet, omelets, pasta sauces, and used it to chop onions/garlic/sage to spice things up :)

This was for the second-to-last-night of Passover at Matt's house:

More Matzah pizza...

Then there was the last night of Passover:


Mustard Potato and Green Bean Salad

Blanche the green beans and boil the potatoes for about 12 minutes.
Cool the veggies.
Mix together dijon mustard, lemon juice, and chopped shallot.
Cut the potatoes into chunks and cut the green beans in half.
Mix the mustard sauce with the veggies.
Enjoy!

Mixed Veggie Tofu Soup

This recipe actually came from an Acai juice cleanse recipe book Matt bought at Costco.  We modified it with the tofu to add some protein since we weren't juice cleansing:

Pick your veggies!
We used shallot and a bag of mixed veggies from Trader Joe's (carrot, broccoli, cauliflower).
Cook in vegetable stock until soft. Add in whatever spices you want (we used garlic, salt, and pepper).
Place in blender and add cubes of silken tofu. (we used 3/4 of a regular box of tofu).

HERE'S THE SECRET!
If you blend hot things in a regular blender, it forms a terrible vortex of death that will explode and burn you if you don't do it properly!  Take the circular insert out of the blender top before turning it on and hold a folded up kitchen towel over the hole. Hold it while you blend. Prevents splashes and lets the air flow through so you don't end up with vacuum-sealed-explosion-death soup.

Put it all back in the pot and cook it a few more minutes. Pour into bowls and enjoy with your boyfriend and his parents who said they weren't hungry until they smelled the soup and then finished it all!


Another time, I made cantaloupe sorbet!  I didn't get a picture of it, but you can see the other half of the cantaloupe that I just ate out of the rind with a spoon!


 Magic Cantaloupe Sorbet

Freeze chunks of cantaloupe.
Put in magic bullet along with some coconut water (or rum...)
Squeeze in some lime juice
Put the lime in the coconut and mix it all up
Blend it in the bullet!
YUM!

I didn't cook this, but I went to a party that served mashed potatoes in a martini glass and had a table of toppings next to it. My new favorite way to eat mashed potatoes!


Last night, I made two very yummy recipes!

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Adapted from a bunch of recipes I googled...

Mix roasted squash, soy cheese, chopped sage, salt, pepper, and egg white together. 
Place little spoonfuls on a wonton wrapper.
Wet two sides of the wrapper and fold over to press it closed.

 
These ones turned out a little floppy and not so structurally sound... so I ended up folding the edges over with more water again.

 After boiling them in a pot of water for 3 minutes, I pan fried them in some garlic-infused olive oil.


Served with some soy parmesan and chopped sage. Soooooooo delicious!

Then there is this salad, from the incredible Smitten Kitchen!

Endive and Celery Salad with Fennel Vinaigrette


Always wanted try an Endive!

Someday i'll have beautiful serving dishes, but when i'm making a giant salad for the week just for me, a big tupperware does the trick!

 The fennel salad dressing was so fun to make! I ground the seeds with the magic bullet :)

I used mixed greens instead of frisee because I don't enjoy eating weeds... no offense, frisee.

Unrelated to cooking... but I bought a loaf of sourdough in a paper bag and realized I was out of plastic baggies... Necessity is the mother of invention!



That's all for now! I'm off to eat some leftovers!

No comments:

Post a Comment