Ellie's Blog

Easy and Delicious Avocado, Mozzarella, and Tomato Salad

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Avocado, Mozzarella, and Tomato Salad

Mix cubed avocado, quartered mozzarella balls, and chopped tomatoes with a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil, salt, and pepper.

Serve in scooped out tomato or on toast or just on its own. Delicious!

Zucchini Adventures in the Kitchen - Roasted Vegetable Paella & Broiled Zucchini with Rosemary & Chive Butter

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Zucchinis, zucchinis, and more zucchinis! These dishes turned out quite well - but how could they not? I pretty much love all the ingredients, and, surprise surprise, when you put them together they're also delicious!

As usual, I skipped ingredients and steps because, really, I'm not going to go boil fresh garlic or saffron threads... so below I've included the cliffs notes version of the recipes I made.

Roasted Vegetable Paella

Ingredients:

• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 large red bell pepper, cut into bite-size chunks
• 1 large yellow bell pepper, cut into bite-size chunks
• 2 small zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
• 3 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• garlic, chopped and fried, or powder
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 medium plum tomatoes, chopped (optional)
  
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 1/4 cups rice
• 2 tbs chopped fresh parsley (optional)
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Mix bell peppers and zucchini with oil, salt, pepper, garlic and place on a large baking sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until tender and beginning to char.
2. Meanwhile, in a large pan, cook the onion until lightly golden, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, oregano, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook until liquids have almost completely evaporated, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Cook rice in vegetable broth and add tomato/onion mixture.
4. Stir in roasted vegetables and parsley and cook, stirring, until heated through.

Broiled Zucchini with Rosemary and Chive Butter

Ingredients:

• 3 tbs butter, softened (or, replace with olive oil)
• 2 tbs finely chopped chives or green parts of scallions
• 1 tbs finely chopped fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 4 medium zucchini, trimmed, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to broil. Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
2. In a small bowl, mash together all ingredients except zucchini until well combined.
3. Place zucchini on prepared baking sheet and broil until lightly browned, about 3 minutes per side.
4. Remove from oven and, while stillhot, spread evenly with rosemary-chive butter.
   

Source: The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen

Ricotta Stuffed Bell Peppers... And Apple Cinnamon Muffins

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This week's "Adventures in the Kitchen" was perhaps less successful, though still interesting and tasty. I chose a few recipes - some of which I just scrapped altogether, some of which turned into something completely different by the end. Instead of talking about those other - not completed, let's say - recipes, I'll share one dish I did indeed make:

Feta and Ricotta Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients:

• 2 large (red or green) bell peppers, halved lengthwise, seeds and ribs removed
• 1 cup (4 oz) crumbled feta
  
• 1 cup (about 10 oz) ricotta cheese
• 2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tbs chopped fresh dill
  
• 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp lemon-pepper seasoning
• Salt, to taste
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (the juice from 1 large lemon)
• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cups baby spinach leaves (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Lightly oil a baking dish just large enough to accommodate the pepper halves in a single layer.
3. In a medium bowl, mash together the feta and ricotta until well-combined.
4. Add the parsley, dill, garlic, lemon-pepper seasoning, and salt, stirring well to combine.
5. Fill the pepper halves evenly with the cheese mixture.
6. Tansfer to the dish and drizzle with lemon juice and oil.
7. Cover and bake for about 45 minutes, or until peppers are tender.
8. Serve warm, over the spinach leaves (if using).

Results:

So I didn't have feta. Or half of the other ingredients. I basically just grabbed as many of the ingredients as I could find and threw them all in the oven. And it was quite tasty! Seems like a fool-proof recipe, which is pretty awesome.

Source: The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

In addition to all my (attempted) main course dishes, I also made muffins! Tasty (if I may say so myself) apple cinnamon muffins. After hoarding a few for myself, I brought the rest into the office... and they were immediately devoured. Hope everyone liked them!

Oh, and in case you're wondering where the extensive, expert recipe is... well here is my secret recipe (shh don't tell anyone): 1 box of apple cinnamon muffin mix (organic!) from Whole Foods + chunks of fresh apples = delicious muffins!

Enjoy!

Mini Eggplant Lasagnas, Crustless Roasted Red Pepper Quiche, & Pineapple Fried Rice

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Last week I blogged about the recipes I had chosen to cook this week. In an effort to cook more, and to cook new and interesting things, I'm going to be picking new recipes each week to try out.

In preparation for my kitchen adventure, I went grocery shopping on Saturday for about 2 hours. Then I immediately got to work on my chosen dishes, while The Wedding Singer played in the background.

Mini Eggplant Lasagnas

The eggplant lasagnas were pretty darn tasty - hard not to be, considering it's roasted eggplant. I definitely used too much ricotta cheese - it was my first time making any sort of lasagna and cooking with ricotta cheese at all. Also, I accidentally started following a different recipe part way through, since my cookbook grouped all the eggplant recipes together, and the page accidentally turned. I figured it out when the recipe directed me to poach an egg (hence the eggs in the photo). Overall, pretty great. I used fresh tomatoes instead of pasta sauce too, and it worked pretty well.

Crustless Roasted Red Pepper Quiche

I like the idea of this recipe, but the roasted red peppers I got had more of a kick than I realized. It was ok, though in the future I might actually go for fresh red peppers instead. Also, I think the sliced tomato on the mini quiche (instead of many tomatoes on a large quiche) adds a nice artistic touch.

Pineapple Fried Rice

Simple and easy, and quite tasty. I forgot to get some of the spices I needed, so I supplemented with whatever I could find - which was a dash of soy sauce (how appropriate). I also used brown rice instead of white rice, which I think made it even tastier (and healtheir).

Overall, I think my first week of "Adventures in the Kitchen" was a success. I'm definitely going to try to keep this up. I've got a lot of recipes marked in my cookbooks that I want to try, so hopefully that will help motivate me. Stay tuned!

To go back and get the recipes for these dishes, check out my last blog post: Adventures in the Kitchen - Week 1

Adventures in the Kitchen - Week 1

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A new year, a time to try something new. Also, a time for very cold weather in New England, a time to avoid going outside as much as possible. So I've committed myself to trying to cook more - and cook more new things - so that I also can bring tasty food for lunch at work and avoid going out every day.

Taking the lead from fellow HubSpotter, Karen Rubin, I'm going to blog about my adventures in the kitchen (check out Karen's blog for some serious recipes and tasty adventures). This will help me actually stick to my resolution, and will also give me the opportunity to share another aspect of my life with my devoted readers.

Week of January 19, 2009

On the roster for this coming week:

Mini Eggplant Lasagnas

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant, at least 12 inches in length after trimming
• 2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 12 tbs pasta sauce (of your choice) - I'm going to try sliced fresh tomatoes
• 16 tbs ricotta cheese
• dried oregano
• 4 tbs grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 475F.
2. Slice the eggplant in 24 (1/2-inch-thick) slices and arrange on a lightly oiled baking sheet. 
3. Brush eggplant slices with oil and season with salt and pepper.
4. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and reduce oven temperature to 425F.
6. Assemble in 8 stacks on one of the baking sheets:
1. 1 eggplant slice
2. 1/2 tbs pasta sauce
3. 1 tbs ricotta cheese
4. sprinkle of oregano and pepper
5. [repeat 2 more times]
6. top off with 1/2 tbs Parmesan cheese
   
7. Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until heated through and Parmesan cheese has melted. Serve warm.
   

Pineapple Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 tbs peanut oil
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 2 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 2 cups cooked white rice
• 3/4 cup chopped pineapple (fresh or canned)
• 1/2 cup frozen mixed peas and carrots, cooked according to package directions, drained - I'll be using whatever vegetables I happen to have and think will go well
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the scallions and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes.
3. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
4. Add turmeric and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds.
5. Add rice and cook, stirring, until thoroughly coated with the turmeric mixture.
6. Add the pineapple, mixed vegetables, salt, and pepper, cook and stir until heated through. Serve warm.

Crustless Roasted Red Pepper and Cheddar Quiche

Ingredients:

• 1 (12-ounce) jar roasted red bell peppers, drained well and patted dry, cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 2 tbs fresh parsely, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 8 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Arrange peppers in the bottom of lightly oiled pie plate (8 1/2- or 9-inch - though I'll likely make multiple mini quiches in muffin tins).
3. Top with all but 2 tbs of shredded cheese.
4. In medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, parsley, salt, and black pepper. Slowly pour over bell peppers and cheese.
5. Top evenly with tomatoes.
6. Bake in center oven for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Sprinkle with remaining cheese the last few minutes of cooking.
8. Cool, cut, serve warm.

You'll note that these recipes do not actually go together - I didn't make an effort to do so. I picked out three of the tastiest recipes (that were also relatively easy) from one of my new cookbooks. I also simplified the language of the recipe for this blog post.

These recipes came from The Gluten-Free Vegetarian Kitchen - yum.

Photo by Deluxx