Category Archives: Recipes

Mediterranean Tilapia

Tonight we made our version of Mediterranean Tilapia and it is a really easy recipe and tastes great. I call it ‘mediterranean’ only because we used feta cheese and pine nuts but really you can put pretty much anything you want into the topping and it should go well with the subtle flavor of the tilapia.

For the topping Greg started off by wilting the spinach and adding some green onions, toasted pine nuts and feta.

For the tilapia he “breaded” it with some parmesan, put the topping on each fillet, and baked for about 10-15 minutes.

We served it with some cauliflower that was roasted with Indian spices.

Recipe for Mediterranean Tilapia

Gratin dishes

One of the best parts of being newly married is using the new things we received as gifts! My sister gave us four gratin dishes from Crate and Barrel and we used them tonight for Greg’s famous mac and cheese. To know Greg is to know his mac and cheese. It’s SOOO good. He was making it for a work function on Friday and made a little extra to go with our steaks tonight. The steaks were also a gift and were shipped to us frozen a few weeks ago. Anyway, on with the mac and cheese prep…

Greg started out by making a roux.

lots of black pepper

…and then he put in an entire bottle of Cholula hot sauce hence the vivid orange hue.

…and then he forgot to take pictures of the rest of the process! Essentially, he added the cheese to the roux and once it was thoroughly mixed in and melted he poured it over the cooked pasta. He topped it with more cheese and baked it to perfection!

We enjoyed it with the seared steaks and broccoli (which was cooked with a little olive oil and parmesan cheese).

dinner at the bar

We are still working on the honeymoon planning as well. I think we are getting closer to making a decision and may be heading to Jamaica! Hopefully by the weekend we will have this settled… either way it will be great and I can’t wait!

Recipe for Mac and Cheese (almost fire version)

Espresso!

So as promised I set up the espresso machine for it’s inaugural run this weekend. It was a little daunting at first, but by mid-morning on Saturday I had it up and running. I followed the step-by-step directions in the book, which led me to cleaning the machine by running water through it. I had it all set up but there was no water running through at all. I was worried the machine wasn’t working properly and consulted the internet. On the Cuisinart website they have a demo video of how to use the machine. As I watched though I didn’t really learn much about the cleaning part, but I tried again. I fidgeted with the water tank in the back and voila, it worked! I ran the water through and decided it was time for the real deal.

This leads me to the espresso. I ended up buying Whole Foods organic espresso. At Whole Foods they had several brands of espresso ranging in price from $7.99 to $15.99. I really could not discern one brand as being better than the other so I went with this one, which was in the middle of the pack at $10.99. It comes in a burgundy, round canister. Anyway, I am really pleased with how my drink came out. I microwaved  1/4 Cup of half and half and added two shots of espresso. Simple, but good!

I enjoyed it very much with my bacon and eggs. Also, as two-cup a day coffee drinker I have to say I have not felt the effects of caffeine in quite a while. The espresso was a nice change and really got me going. I am yet to mess around with the milk frother but I am sure that will come soon! This will definitely be a weekend treat as it was a little more time consuming than making regular coffee and much more messy. All in all, I love having this option at home now! Also, I realized I need to buy some espresso mugs!

MLK day

Wahoo! A day off! It’s always great to have Monday off. First you get a long weekend and then you face a short work week when you get back on Tuesday. It’s also really nice when on the day you have off it is almost 60 degrees outside! I got in a nice long run, did some pilates, and then hit the supermarket for tonight’s dinner: Red Coconut Curry with Shrimp and Vegetables. I was actually the visionary behind this one, but got some assistance from Greg because he is an excellent shrimp cooker. I also have to give credit to Thai Kitchen for creating and selling this curry paste. This took a lot of the trickery out of creating our own curry, which we lack the skills, knowledge and time for.

I started off by chopping the veggies:

On the cutting board: carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, onion, ginger, and garlic. To the left of the cutting board: water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.

I sauteed the onion, garlic, ginger and mushrooms in a combination of chili oil and sesame oil until they were softened. I then added the coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce and brown sugar as the recipe on the jar suggested.

Once that got nice and hot I added the broccoli and carrot and let it simmer for about ten minutes.

I then added the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and shrimp. The shrimp do not need long to cook before they turn pink. Once they do turn pink, they are done!

This is great served over rice or by itself.

Topped with some fresh green onions and basil

Recipe for Red Coconut Curry Shrimp

Chicken Carbonara Casserole

It’s Thursday night and we have made some really good meals this week. Energy and motivation are slightly down for me, but not for Greg. He was the creator of this dish, which utilized some of the leftovers we had in the fridge. He ended up making what he dubbed, “chicken carbonara casserole”. Once you read the recipe you will see that it is a perfect title- except if you are expecting to see fettuccine noodles or some other pasta derivative. We aim to eat low-carb for most of the week, but this could have easily and quite tastily been served over said carbs. Honestly though, I didn’t even miss them. This was that good.

He started out the casserole by chopping up the leftover broccoli we had from the broccoli cheese soup, blanching it, and placing it on the bottom of the casserole dish.

Then added some chopped mushrooms, which he sauteed first with some oil, salt, and pepper.

Then he re-heated a leftover bacon and onion mixture and placed it in the casserole.

bacon makes everything better

He then chopped up some leftover chicken from last night and added that.

Now on to the good stuff: the carbonara sauce. For this he made a basic roux with some roasted garlic, added half and half and skim milk, “Italian” mix cheese and some grated Parmesan, and generous amounts of ground black pepper.

He then poured the gooey cheese sauce over the casserole and added another layer of the Parmesan.

Lastly, he baked it for about ten minutes, and broiled it for an additional 5 to get the top nice and brown.

After a garnish of fresh chopped tomato and basil, dinner was served!

After dinner we continued to work on the honeymoon planning. I think we have narrowed it down to the Domican Republic, but we still have some details to figure out, like which resort to go to. It’s hard to tell from the websites what they are really like, but at some point we are just going to have to pick one and trust our instincts. My only criteria is that I would like the resort to have a swim-up bar (priorities people!).  Oh, and also that it’s clean, has decent food, and has some sort of nightlife 🙂 Hopefully, we will find just what we are looking for very soon and then we can really start to get excited for it! Below is the recipe for tonight’s dinner. I have to admit we did not measure out everything so these are my best guesses.  We used the half and half and milk mixture to cut some fat but you can use 3 cups of any dairy that you like.  There should at least be some fat in the dairy though as skim only may be too thin.

Recipe for Chicken Carbonara Casserole

Pin it!

Thyme Roasted Chicken

As soon I as walked in the door this evening I was pleasantly greeted by the aromatics of this dish! Greg prepared the chicken by stuffing it with some sprigs of thyme and putting a serious coating of McCormick’s rotisserie chicken seasoning all over the bird. I definitely recommend this seasoning!

The chicken had a lovely self-timer on it and took about 2 and half hours to roast. We added some of my homemade creamed spinach and Greg made one of his favorites- instant mashed potatoes (which he spiced up with some remaining thyme and red pepper flakes).

Bird in the oven

We have made roasted chicken so many times before, but this was definitely the best one yet. It was so juicy and flavorful. The recipe for the creamed spinach is very easy also and you can pretty much use whatever cheese you have in the fridge, though the recipe calls for parmesan.

Recipe for Eileen’s Creamed Spinach

Seared Tuna Salad

Tonight we made seared tuna salads. We experimented with four different types of rubs/marinades for the tuna steaks. These included soy sauce, crushed black pepper and garlic powder, old bay and mexican chili. They were all delicious in their own right and it was fun to get different flavors with each bite.

raw tuna steaks

The rare tuna steaks

Some serious searing action going on

The four types of tuna, cooked medium-rare

Shredding carrots with the new grater (check out the "storage" container at the bottom)

Seared tuna salad

In terms of what salad dressing to use, I must reccomend the ginger miso dressing by Genji. I don’t know if it’s sold everywhere, but I have found it at Whole Foods in Silver Spring and Rockville. It is SOOOO good.

Recipe for Seared Tuna Salad

The Perfect Sunday

Even Bogie enjoyed the down time!

Today was the perfect lazy day. We lounged around all day, watched football and braised some beef! The first game was very disappointing as New England just didn’t show up at all. The second game started off similarly but became a really good game and it was nice to just lay around all day together.

It’s NFL playoff time! For the third year in a row Greg and I decided to do an NFL playoff pool where we pick each playoff game’s winner and over/under based on the spread. At the end of the playoffs, the loser has to take the winner out for a nice dinner. This year’s dinner will be to Black Market Bistro in Kensington. I have been very successful in years past, but got off to a rough start yesterday going 1-3. Greg went 4-0 so I had some ground to make up today. Unfortunately only one out of my four picks differed from his, but it was a winner! Going into next week Greg has 5 and I have 3.

For dinner, we decided to break in our new dutch oven! We scoured the internet for recipes and ultimately went with this one by Emeril because this was the kind of meat they had at the grocery store. Also, the dutch oven is made by Emeril too, creepy.

This was one of the only times that we’ve followed a recipe and the cooking times were spot-on. That was exciting and we actually got to eat a Sunday dinner before 8pm! It came out really tender and it was very easy to shred. It needed a little seasoning, but overall it came out great and was very tasty!

At the half-way point

After shredding the beef, we put it back in the pot. Here is our version of Beer-braised pot roast in the dutch oven

the final product

Recipe for Beer-Braised Pot Roast and Vegetables

Souper Saturday

Ok. I know this title is a little much, but I assure you they won’t all be this awesome. Just kidding… I just couldn’t resist. This Saturday was pretty great though. We woke up after a good night’s sleep, which is always much needed after the work week. We spent much of the day hanging out and got in an episode of Big Love before football came on. It’s freezing outside so I decided to make broccoli cheddar soup for dinner, using this recipe from CDKitchen.com, which attempts to mimic Panera’s version.

This recipe came out great! The last time I made it, I tried the whole pureeing thing. I really didn’t like the consistency of it, as the tiny bits of broccoli gave it an odd texture. This time around, I cut up the broccoli into really tiny pieces and did not puree it. This left the soup velvety and thick. I think it was very similar to Panera’s version and it was delicious! Next time, if I add chicken again, I will probably make the broth a little thinner by adding another cup of chicken stock and another cup of half and half so it will be more soupy. With the chicken and all the veggies it was pretty thick, but still really good and overall, pretty easy!

Check out my new food scale!

I cup of my best attempt at "julienned" carrots and 1/2 pound of broccoli in itsy bitsy pieces

I forgot to take a picture of it once it was served, but here it is in the pot almost finished

Recipe for Broccoli Cheddar Soup (with Chicken)