Quite a long time :P

Here's some random dishes I've made, but like Chewy, not much description here since it's been quite a while since I made them.



These ginger cookies are very yummy! I didn't have any margarine, so I substituted butter instead. The recipe I used makes about 3-4 sheets of cookies, but they'll go really quickly.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Big-Soft-Ginger-Cookies/Detail.aspx

It's been a long time!

As you can see, over the past few months we haven't been posting our culinary creations. Well hopefully that will change! I've amassed many pictures, which are shown below. Unfortunately, the descriptions are limited due to creating these dishes so long ago!

Linguini with chicken, tomatoes, and asparagus:







Ground beef, rice, and tomatoes:



Baked tofu, rice, and long green beans:



Chicken nuggets:



Other various meals:






Saving the best for last - chocolate chip cookies with and without walnuts!

Adding a little extra bang...

Salsa Chicken Rice Casserole

Recipe Link

Here's a pretty easy dish to make! Setup is super easy, although it does take a bit of time while you wait for the baking to complete. For this recipe, I switched to 4 servings, which was enough to last me a couple of meals.

Here's some rice being cooked right next to the boiling chicken.

Mashing it all up here :)
Layering everything on! Unfortunately, I didn't have enough stuff to fill the entire pan, but it still turned out quite alright.


Here it is! Turned out quite yummy. It turns out that leaving a bit on the edges lets it turn out crispier when you bake it. A pretty good meal to make, although you'll end up making this twice, given the usage of half cans of condensed chicken & cream of mushroom.

All about presentation...

I don't have much time to write a long blog, but here are some meals I've made recently:

Chicken, green beans (from co-worker's farm!), and stuffing


Spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce


Tuna salad on a bed of spinach and sauteed green beans garnished with dried cranberries, almonds, and tomatoes


(On a separate note - Wayne where are all of your culinary creations???)

Yellow Squash Soup and Asian Lettuce Wraps

I recently had some odd cravings. Well squash soup made sense since my co-worker kindly gave me more organic squash and since I had stir-fried it last time, it needed a new medium in which to appear. I followed a simple recipe of 30 oz. of chicken broth plus 20 oz. of water that was salted and peppered in which I cooked one de-seeded and peeled yellow squash plus half an onion. A dash of rosemary was also used to flavor the concoction.

The recipe said to simmer for 45 minutes, but 15 minutes more than sufficed to produce translucent squash and onions indicative of their tenderness. The whole mix was cooled in the fridge for 10 minutes and then pureed in a blender. The puree was then warmed and cream added to give a thicker texture. As you can see, the soup is still quite thin and in order to thicken it, I haphazardly added some cornstarch.

What I realized later is that the recipe called for 3 apples. I had decided to take these out and stick to straight squash, not recognizing that the thick consistency of the soup would not be maintained without increasing the number of squash in the absence of apples. What you will see below is the next day when I cooked two additional de-seeded and peeled yellow squash in the soup and pureed them in a blender. The yellow color shows the increased thickness of the soup to the expected consistency.

Heat and serve with parsley as a decorative addition:


Now the part where the odd craving comes in...the very same day I decided I wanted asian lettuce wraps. Of course they don't mix well with squash soup, but none-the-less I made them. Basically the filling consists of ground beef with garlic cooked in a sauce created from soy sauce, hoisin sauce, rice wine vinegar, sherry, and sesame oil. Unfortunately, I didn't have ginger, green onions, or water chesnuts, which I would recommend adding. To create the wrap, wash iceberg lettuce leaves and fill with the stir-fried meat. Wrap and enjoy!

(They tasted really good despite not looking as enticing as they could have been with the additional ingredients!)

Showcase on Side Dishes

Some side dishes I have made at different times throughout the past month.

Sauteed organic squash with garlic and parsley

The squash is from my co-worker who owns a farm and grows most of her own vegetables! I made it for a fourth of July dinner at Hayley and Jason's.

Side dish also made for fourth of July dinner - cucumber, tomato, and onion salad marinated in an oil/vinegar based dressing also containing basil, garlic salt, and sugar:


What would I do without fruit?? Fruit is pretty cheap at the Strip District in Pittsburgh, which is where most of this fruit is from.

Berries with dark chocolate stick (called "Pocky for Men" because of its bitter nature :P)

Bruschetta, Shrimp and Green Beans

The bruschetta actually started out as pico de gallo for tacos I had made the other night, but I had so much left over that I decided to make it into bruschetta. Basically cut bread into small slices, added a little bit of olive oil to the tops and baked for a few minutes until slightly browned.

The topping consists of tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and garlic salt.

Together they are quite tasty :)

Next I made green beans with toasted almonds. First add a little bit of oil and add slivers of almond. You only need to leave them in for about 1 minute until they are browned. In my case, I left them in too long until they became blackened shards! The green beans were stir-fried in oil and lightly salted then mixed with the almonds.

Last was the shrimp stir-fried in a lemon, parsley, white wine, honey sauce that I completely improvised. Still need to work out the balance of components, but I would leave out the honey and use fresh lemon next time.

All in all though, the meal tasted pretty good. This is the final dish:

Watercress with French Tarragon Chicken and white rice

This meal is similar to the previous one and doesn't require much explanation. Here it is:

Chinese style flounder with rice and watercress

This dish is pretty simple and quick. Just poach the fish for about 3 minutes. In this case I used a filet of flounder, but sea bass works really well also. Place the fish on a plate and sprinkle chopped scallions and ginger on top. Lightly flavor with soy sauce. Then heat up oil until close to boiling and pour over top of the decorated fish. You should hear a crackling sizzle. I believe the hot oil helps to bring out the flavor of the ginger and scallions.

As usual, I was lazy with the rice and just made minute rice, which actually takes longer than a minute to cook :P Last was the watercress that was thoroughly washed and stir-fried in oil and salt with a tad of chicken broth.

Unfortunately, the watercress was a bit old, so had a bitter taste. Normally it has a sweeter taste - the important thing is to cook it pretty soon after buying it and picking out bunches that are very green and not yellow! Here is the final product: