BACK!

March 6, 2016Leave a comment

Hello Blogosphere!!

After a much too long hiatus I am back in action. A lot has happened since I last updated. My biggest news is that I got engaged – YATTA! So lately, much of my free time has been absorbed by planning this wedding – 98 days to go! Yikes.

Lately, however, I have been once again channeling my stress into cooking. This combined with some fun new kitchen toys (the BF got me a sous vide for Christmas!) and the re-start of our CSA tomorrow, should hopefully lend itself to more posts!

So stay tuned, gastronauts!

If you haven’t already, check out my cooking Instagram. I have been keeping up with posting over there (because it’s easy and I’ve been lazy) @sdgastronaut .

In the interim, here’s what I’ve been cooking up!

Spicy pesto and breadcrumb stuffed mushrooms topped with cheese and microgreens.

Chicken skewers – marinated overnight in buttermilk, baked for 5 mins at 375 and then pan seared in black chili powder and smoked paprika.

SOUS VIDE STEAK – this was my first time ever doing the sous vide! I will be posting a separate post about this so stay tuned!

Homemade cream of chicken soup – with garlic and celery tops, all in a bread bowl. This was SO good, I ate 2 bowls.

Polenta medallions served with homemade sauce and topped with artichoke hearts, zucchini and shaved parmesean.

Maple bacon Brussels sprouts – ZERO EXPLANATION NEEDED!

Pesto and truffle oil gnocchi served with heirloom tomatoes and radicchio!

And finally, cream cheese and chive stuffed fried squash blossoms, OH YEAH.

5 Minute Post! – Salmon,bacon,potato hash, served with a fried egg and a blood Mary.

March 1, 2015March 1, 2015Leave a comment

Hi Guys,

Happy Weekend!

I just wanted to quickly share today’s brunch with you guys. I didn’t get a chance to photograph each stage because I was too busy thinking about eating it, I forgot to think about blogging it. In fact, this happens to me a lot. So I think going forward I’ll post 1 recipe a week, that may not have been planned for the blog, but ended up coming out so good I had to share. These will be my 5 minute posts!

Hope you enjoy!

Step One- the Hash!

Ingredients- potatoes, bacon, salmon, onions, salt, pepper, cumin and paprika.

Dice up any potatoes you have on hand, red, russet, sweet – you name it! (In a pinch a frozen hash browns can be used, simply heat them up and break them apart to small pieces. ) Set potatoes aside.
Dice up 3 slices of bacon into small pieces. In a skillet cook the 3 chopped up pieces of bacon, and 1 intact piece of bacon medium heat.
When the bacon is 1/2 way cooked, set the intact slice aside and add the potatoes and spices listed above to the pan with the diced bacon. Mixing all ingredients together, continue to cook on medium heat.
Salmon- For this hash the salmon needs to already be cooked. I had cooked the salmon the night before (let me know if you want that recipe.) Flake the salmon into little pieces and add it to the mixture, continue to heat on medium heat.
Add cream cheese or shredded mozzarella cheese as desired.
When the hash is done, remove from pan and set aside. Do not allow pan to cool.

Step Two – Fry your egg!

Turn the heat up to high and then fry your egg.
Serve the hash, with the egg on top, and sprinkle the plate with dill.

Step Three- Make your drink!

I served this meal up with a bloody Mary complete with a celery, olive, onion and bacon garnish. That’s right! Remember you 1 slice of intact bacon? Well add it to your bloody Mary for the tastiest garnish there is.

FINAL PRODUCT

Moroccan Meatballs and Orzo.

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014Leave a comment

TGIF! Happy Friday, happy weekend.

Today is an adventure in crock pot cooking. I love crock pots. Whoever created the crock pot is one of my personal heroes. Okay, maybe that’s going too far, but really, crock pots are amazing. I love that you can literally throw a bunch of ingredients in one, turn it on, and walk away for hours, and come back to find dinner made! It’s such an easy way to make good meals on a work day or busy weekend. I’ll be featuring many a crock pot recipe throughout the life of this blog.

Hope you guys enjoy this one:

What you’ll need ^^

Meatballs (not pictured)
Scallions
Yellow Onion
Parsley
Green Pepper
Garlic
Coriander
Paprika
Cumin
Turmeric
Olive Oil
Flour
Tomato Paste
Flour
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Orzo ( not pictured.)

A couple of things to note:

1. The recipe I based this off of called for saffron. Unfortunately, we did not have any in the house and I did not have the car today, so alas, I made the meal without it. The meal ended up tasting great, but I could for sure see how the saffron would add to the overall taste.

2. The recipe also called for tomato paste, but I did not have that either! What I did have was an open jar of pizza sauce. Sometimes you just gotta make substitutions 🙂

3. I ended up not using the flour. The recipe called for it to thicken the sauce as needed, but the good old crock pot did the trick and I didn’t need it.

Let’s get started!

If you want to be a total badass, you’d make your own meatballs. That would, however, defeat the purpose of a low maintenance meal. So, instead, I used store bought meatballs from Costco.

Step One- Combine all ingredients (except for the orzo) in crock pot. Turn on high. Walk away for several hours!

Just judge based on your knowledge of spices. Do not put in too much of the spicier ones (i.e. the red pepper, the paprika, or the green pepper.) Be more generous with the sweeter ones to even out the tastes (i.e. the cinnamon, the nutmeg and the tomato paste.) Add only a minor amount of salt and pepper to the mixture. You can taste the sauce as it cooks and add spices accordingly.

A few notes –

I put the meatballs in frozen and there were no issues with them being fully thawed/hot by dinner time.

I used the powdered chicken broth and thus I added water to make the sauce. If you have liquid chicken broth I do not think you’ll need additional water.

I turned my crock pot on high at 5pm. The meatballs were ready by 7pm.

Step Two- When the meatballs are ready, turn the crock pot to warm.

Step Three- Cook the orzo – I really don’t think this needs that much explanation.

Step Four- When the orzo is ready, fill the bottom of the bowl with a few spoonfuls of orzo. Don’t serve too much orzo per person, the meatballs are filling and the extra carbs can be overload. (I think this would have tasted better of served atop couscous and I would recommend trying that in place of the orzo if you have it on hand.)

Step Five- Remove the meatballs from the crock pot with a slotted spoon, allowing the sauce to drain off back into the crock pot.

Step Six- Spoon a few spoonfuls of sauce on top of the Orzo. Then add the meatballs atop.

Step Seven- Top the meatballs with lime and cheese. I used gorgonzola because that’s what I had on hand, but I would recommend using either feta or goat cheese.