A Year; A Broad

Tonight’s dinner was a quinoa salad, with watermelon, feta and basil.

I cooked the quinoa and let it cool.

Then I cut the watermelon into chunks, and seasoned it with salt, and a bit of honey.

Then I cut the feta and shredded the basil.

I tossed it all together with some lime juice and salt & pepper.

It was a perfect summer dinner. I’ll definitely be repeating this recipe.

Quick and Easy Ginger Curry Stir-fry

Ingredients: 

• rice or noodles
• curry powder
• cinnamon
• crushed red chili peppers
• butter or olive oil (optional)
• garlic
• ginger root
• onions
• zucchini
• peppers
• spinach
• raisins

Recipe:

1. Make rice.
2. While rice cooks, cut and fry veggies. 
3. Start with onions and garlic. Then zucchini. Shake in some chilies. Stir.
4. Then peppers. Then ginger root. Let it cooks a little. Stir.
5. Then toss in your raisins and spinach. Stir.
6. SPICE IT UP. Add curry powder and cinnamon. More curry than cinnamon.
7. The rice should be done by now. Throw it into your pan. Toss around until it is coated in spices and the spinach is wilted.
8. Optional step: Stir in a spoonful of butter (or margarine) to make it saltier and saucier. 
9. EAT AND LOVE.

Enjoy your life.

I just really like the taste of cooked raisins with curry. And cinnamon is just amazingly tasty. So, this was a good “get-rid-of-all-the-veggies-that-are-going-bad” meal. Because it was tasty. And it did that.

Eggplant and Spinach “Lasagna” (No noodles)

Dinner tonight was fabulous! I bought an eggplant this week, because I think eggplants are beautiful. However, I had no clue how to use it. Then it hit me. Lasagna. I replaced the noodles with slices of eggplant and voilà! Deliciousness was born.

What you’ll need:

• One eggplant
• One can of crushed tomatoes
• One can of tomato paste
• olive oil
• 1 small onion
• two cloves of garlic
• grated Edam cheese (or mozzarella cheese) (I used edam, because I had it)
• Grated Gran Padano cheese (or parmesan)
• Spinach leaves
• spices (oregano, red crushed chili peppers, salt and pepper)
• Balsamic vinegar

1. Cut the eggplant into fake noodles, aka slice into strips or evenly sized rings. Sprinkle with salt. This is to draw the extra water out of the eggplant. Let sit.
2. While the salt is coming out of the eggplant, make the tomato sauce. You can use any italian style tomato sauce in a jar or can, but I made my own.
3. In a small pot, pour some olive oil
4. Chop onions and add to the olive oil. Cook over medium heat till the onions start to get translucent.
5. Add chopped garlic.
6. Add oregano and chili pepper
7. add a can of crushed tomatoes. I only had a small can, so I chopped up some fresh tomatoes to add to the sauce.
8. Add the tomato paste. STIR WELL
9. Pour in two can fulls ( tomato paste sized) of water into the pot. Add more or less depending on the consistency you want. But try to make the sauce relatively thick so that it stays in place and doesn’t run out of the lasagna.
10. add spices to taste. Salt, pepper, more oregano and chilies.
11. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar
12. Let the sauce boil, but stir often.
13. While the sauce is cooking, wipe the salt off of the eggplant. Season these with the spices and a bit of olive oil then bake them for 10ish minutes. Maybe less depending on how thick you cut them.
14. Now you wait. What I did was “grate” (aka thinly slice as I don’t have a grater) the cheese. And STIR THE SAUCE!
15. When the eggplant is done, you are ready to assemble the lasagna. 
16. Layer 1: eggplant. Cover with a layer of sauce. Then Edam. Then spinach. Then Gran Padano. Then another layer of eggplant. More sauce. More cheese. More whatever you want.
17. Bake for 20ish minutes until the top layer of cheese starts to get nice and bubbly.
18. EAT AND ENJOY!

I guess my inner italian was getting fed up with all the stir fries and salads I have been eating this week. But now I’ll be eating this casserole for the next day or two at almost every meal, seeing as it would feed 4, and I am only one person. (despite the inner italian comment, I still don’t think I have multiple personalities)

I was lucky and got to celebrate Valentine’s day with not just one but two lovely ladies. We had a nice classy dinner, then watched 300 (how romantic) and ate these delicious cupcakes. 

Yes they are Cookies and Cream cheesecake cupcakes. Recipe is here.

They are dangerously easy to make, and even easier to eat. We quartered the recipe, because it makes about a million cupcakes. 

Family chili recipe

what you need:

One carrot

Half a zucchini

A medium sized onion

two cloves of garlic

One can of crushed tomatoes

One can of whole, peeled tomatoes 

One can of tomato paste

Half a can of kidney beans

Half a package of ground beef

olive oil

spices (chili powder, crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, salt and pepper)

cheese and bread to serve

How you put them together:

• Dice onions and toss in a pot with some olive oil
• Add the ground beef and cook till the onions are translucent and the meat is brown
• Finely chop (or crush) garlic cloves into the meat mixture
• Add all tomato products, finishing with the tomato paste, as well as two cans full of water (Rinse out one of the tomato cans and use that to measure)
• Add kidney beans
• Add spices
• Turn heat down to low and let this simmer stirring occasionally
• Finely chop carrots and zucchini
• About 20 mins after the tomatoes have gone in, add the other vegetables
• Cook over low heat for another 30 mins, until all vegetables are soft and well coated in tomato-ey goodness. Make sure you stir regularly.
• Serve in a bowl, with a sprinkling of grated cheese and a fresh bun
• Enjoy

Serves a whole family, so if you are just making it for yourself, as I was, you’ll have plenty of leftovers. It freezes really well.

I made a huge pot of what my family likes to call refrigerator soup. 

Essentially, you take whatever vegetables are in your fridge, water, chicken stock, and any spices your heart desires.

This particular batch was spicy honey curry soup, with carrots, zucchini, kidney beans, shallots and peas. 

Toss everything in a pot, and bring to a boil. Voilà!

Also, yesterday, I tapped into my inner Nadia G., and made homemade spicy mango chutney.

Mangoes were on sale at la Coop, so I figured “how hard can it be?” Turns out it’s not hard at all. 

2 Mangoes-cubed

3 limes- juice and some zest

sugar (I don’t measure things, so I don’t know how much I used)

1 pepper, minus seeds- cut into rings (use as much or as little as you want)

just enough water to keep the mangoes from burning to the bottom of the pan

Put all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil, then switch to low heat and let simmer for about 30mins, constantly stirring to avoid stickage.

When I first put it into the jar, it smelled like… nothing. Kind of like boiled potatoes. I was super disappointed. But after leaving it in the fridge for a couple of hours, I gave it a taste. Yum!

I can’t wait to actually use it on something. I might have to using it as sandwich spread before I figure out a recipe that I can incorporate it into.