Tag Archives: garlic

Spaghetti (Squash) and meatballs!

Posted on March 4, 2010 | 1 comment

I have heard a lot about spaghetti squash throughout the winter on the many food blogs I read and I finally tried it a few weeks ago. I REALLY liked it and I found it to be a great alternative to pasta or rice, or really any starch you need to soak up some sauce. It’s almost like tofu in the sense that it has very little flavor of it’s own and conforms to whatever you want it to be. It is relatively easy to make and did I mention there are like 50 calories in the entire squash and very few carbs!

I decided to pair it with on of my favorite things to make and eat, meatballs!

First the making of the “spaghetti”.

Conveniently, the directions for how to cook the squash are on the sticker. I microwaved it for about 12 minutes and then baked it for an hour in the oven.

Now doesn’t this look scrumptous! Yeah, it’s pretty gross looking but forge ahead and it will be worth it!

Scrape out all the parts that remind you of a pumpkin, ie: the seeds and orange clumps. After that you basically just use a fork to pull out the strands.

Looks like pasta right?

It produces quite a bit of “spaghetti”. I would say at least six servings, if not more.

On to the meatballs!

It’s all pretty self explanatory from here on out.

Yeah, enough meatballs to feed a small army. Leftovers!

Recipe for Meatballs

1 Comment

Posted in Beef

Tagged cheese, dinner ideas, easy, garlic, good leftovers, homemade, Italian, low cal, low carb, Meat

Balti Beef

Posted on February 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

We have a recipe book that is all about curry and one night this week we decided to make a recipe we have made once before called Balti Beef. In following this recipe you primarily make a sauce using onion and tomato and serve it over beef and red bell pepper (along with some more onions!) and Indian spices. It is very delicious and full of flavor and it was a good excuse to give the new blender a test drive.

Lots and lots of onions in this dish! It was a little tough to get through all the chopping without shedding a few tears.

Along with the onions, we sauteed garlic and ginger. The recipe called for garlic paste and ginger paste, but since we couldn’t find those at Giant we just used fresh chopped garlic and ginger. Along with that, we added a can of chopped tomatoes and 8 different seasonings.

After simmering on low for about twenty minutes and cooling for another 10 or so, it was time for the blender. Check it out!

You can get a general idea of the thickness of the sauce here and look at that beautiful red orange color!

Once the sauce was finished it was time to make the rest of the dish.

More onions and garlic!

Some fresh red bell pepper added to the mix.

Next, we added the beef and sauteed for two minutes, followed by the Balti sauce. We let it summer for another 5 minutes.

We served it over some jasmine rice with some fresh cilantro for garnish. If you want to go without the rice it is equally as good on it’s own (I just had it for lunch this way 🙂 ).

Anyway, it was good mush! Foods of the Indian/Paki persuasion often look like mush to me- tasty mush though!

Hope you enjoy this one!

Recipe for Balti Beef

Valentines Day Surf and Turf

Posted on February 21, 2010 | 1 comment

For valentine’s day dinner we decided to make something we don’t eat often and make something that would be a special treat for us. We went with surf and turf, lobster and lamb.

We got two beautiful lobster tails from Harris Teeter.

We did not want to alter the natural flavor of the lobster and decided to steam them and serve them with melted butter for dipping. Greg put a little Old Bay on his, but my lobster tail went au naturale. Both were steamed in water that was infused with Old Bay and vinegar.

Talk about simplicity! Simple food, done well. The “surf” was a great way to kick things off.

Now on to the turf portion of the meal. We bought two racks of lamb from Whole Foods, that were conveniently frenched already. We have made lamb before, but never rack of lamb. We’ve learned that when making lamb at home it’s important to spend a little extra money and buy a nice cut. The cheaper cuts are grizzly and much more gamey in flavor, not good things. We tried two different recipes, so each rack had a different preparation, set of ingredients, and taste. Both sets were first seasoned with salt and pepper before going on their unique paths.

For the first rack we decided to tap into some Greek flavors, involving mint, lemon, and rosemary.

Greg combineded these ingredients with some olive oil to create a marinade.

Before actually baking this rack, we heated a glass dish in the oven for about half an hour. The rack was placed in the hot dish to sear it. Greg brushed on the marinade and baked it for about 15 minutes or so.

We made the second rack in a more traditional French way, using dijon mustard and bread crumbs.

We began by searing the rack in a pan with a little hot oil.

Once it was seared, we coated it with dijon mustard.

The next step was to cover the rack with bread crumbs (which had been mixed with oil).

Once it was well coated, it went back into the pan for the final leg of cooking. We covered the tips with tin foil so they did not burn.

It cooked for a few more minutes in the pan and then it was ready.

We tried both versions and they were both SO good. Very different from one another and it’s hard to say which one was better!

The bread crumb version is in the back, the lemon/rosemary/mint variety in the front.

This was a delicious meal and I love when we make two (or more) versions of things to try them out and then we also to get to eat a nice variety within the same meal. I really loved them both!

Recipe for Mediterranean Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb

Recipe for Bread Crumb Rolled Rack of Lamb

1 Comment

Posted in Lamb, Seafood

Tagged dinner ideas, French, garlic, Greek, lemon, lobster tail, low carb, mint, rack of lamb, rosemary, seafood

Crab and Spinach Ravioli

Posted on February 16, 2010 | 4 comments

This dish has to be the BEST thing we have ever made. I don’t think I can give it the title of the best thing I have ever eaten in general, but that’s only because I can’t remember everything I have eaten and that’s a hell of a title. Seriously though, this dish was sooooo amazing!

We envisioned making our own ravioli from scratch but realized we don’t have a pasta maker or a rolling pin so there would be no way to get the pasta as thin as we needed. Luckily Whole Foods carried some fresh pasta sheets and we were able to cheat a little bit- or as I would like to say, make our dream a reality with a little help. One day I will actually make the dough for this and roll out the pasta, but for now this worked beautifully.

Here is one sheet rolled out.

For the filling we used crab meat. Harris Teeter had a ridiculous in store special/sale on crab meat- this one pounder was cheaper than a 1/2 pound. That is quite, um, special.

We mixed it with some other goodies- including ricotta cheese, spinach, and seasonings.

The real stars of this dish are the cheeses we used: parmesano reggiano and pecorino romano. We had a Whole Foods gift card and purchased some really good and expensive cheeses (thanks Pops and Donna!). It was so worth it! These cheeses played a major role in this dish and made it so flavorful and rich.

The parmesano reggiano

The pecorino romano

Had to add a little to the filling.

Then it was time to start making the ravioli.

To make the ravioli, we placed a sheet of pasta on top of this one. We used an egg wash to help the top sheet stick to this one.

Once the top was on, we just sliced the dough with a pizza cutter and pressed the edges together.

We actually made these ahead of time and kept them in the fridge for a few hours before we were ready to eat. Once we were ready, we brought up a pot of water to a boil and cooked these for about 3-5 minutes, or until they were floating.

While that was going on, we made the sauce. Oh, the sauce. This sauce is sinfully good… it’s made with butter, cream and cheese and the parmesano reggiano is the real superstar.

The black pepper made such a difference here. It really brought out the flavors of the sauce even more so and complimented it nicely. This meal was such a lesson in how fine ingredients make such a difference. Even after dinner, every time we would walk in the kitchen we could smell the intense flavors of this sauce. It doesn’t re-heat that well, so just eat it all in one sitting! haha… you will want to though 🙂

Recipe for Crab and Spinach Ravioli

Recipe for Parmesano Reggiano/Pecorino Romano Alfredo Cream Sauce

Pin it!

4 Comments

Posted in Seafood

Tagged cheese, crab, dinner ideas, fresh, garlic, homemade, pasta

Top Scallop?

Posted on February 16, 2010 | 2 comments

Scallops are one of our favorite foods to eat, but making them at home can be a little tricky. We have made many attempts at cooking them though and I think we got one step closer this time.We picked up some really nice looking scallops at Giant.

We prefer the bigger sea scallops rather than the smaller bay scallops.

They have an almost “meaty” texture. We seasoned these with salt and pepper.

We definitely have not yet mastered the searing technique for scallops! But here we go…

Notice we used the all-clad pan, which is not teflon, and no oil…

We wanted some stickage in order to get the rough seared exterior, but this did not quite work out the way we wanted…

Rest assured, the pan was just fine (after a wine de-glazing) and the scallops still tasted great, they just were not the right texture. We don’t know why we can’t sear scallops! Should we have added oil to the pan? Did we not flip them soon enough? Was the pan too hot? So many questions…

Anyway- as I said, they still tasted really good. I sauteed some spinach and placed this on the plate (er, small bowl) for the base.

Then placed the scallops on top— kinda seared actually!

The sauce we made was a white wine butter sauce with lemon and garlic and red pepper flakes, of course.

We topped it with green onion.

All in all, they came out tasting pretty good. It’s tough to really infuse scallops with much flavor, which is why I like to serve them atop the spinach, which tends to absorb some of the sauce so you can get some really tasty bites!

Recipe for Seared Scallops in White Wine Sauce

2 Comments

Posted in Seafood

Tagged dinner ideas, garlic, homemade, low carb, seafood, wine

Quick Shrimp Pasta

Posted on February 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

This was a quick lunch Greg threw together the other day… I can’t even remember what day it is since the blizzard(s) hit. Anyway- it was a good, simple recipe with several ethnic influences.

Green pepper, red onion, roasted garlic, olive oil.

Scrimps.

PASTA.

Lunch.

Recipe for Quick Shrimp Pasta

Wings- 2 ways

Posted on February 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wahoo! Super Bowl Sunday has finally arrived! This is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s really a holiday to me, complete with it’s own traditions, foods, and drinking privileges. For the past few years we have made homemade chicken wings in the classic buffalo style with homemade blue cheese dressing for dipping. This year we did the same, but added a second variety of wings to the mix- garlic parmesan.

The first question is whether to use fresh or frozen wings. There are arguments for both of course, but we have found that either will be just fine and to get whatever is on sale or the cheaper one. With the frozen ones the most important thing is to make sure the wings are completely thawed. With the fresh wings, you may have to cut off the wing tips, which is not for the faint of heart. Either way you go, the first step is to rinse the wings well and make sure they are dry. If there is any moisture on them, it will pop in the oil and splatter.

The next step is heating the oil. Heat to 350 degrees.

(or 351.5 degrees, who’s counting)

We would have much preferred to have done this deep frying outside but were unable due to the massive amounts of snow. Things get pretty rowdy once the wings go in.

Once the wings are fried, set them aside.

For the classic buffalo sauce, it couldn’t get much easier (or fattening). Hot sauce and butter.

for transport and to keep them warm, we put the cooked and sauced up wings into a crock pot

For the garlic parmesan it’s essentially the same process, just with a different sauce.

Add now for the blue cheese dressing… because I mean what’s eating a chicken wing that’s been deep fried and soaked in a butter based sauce without some seriously creamy, cheesy sauce to dip it in? We are American. It’s our right.

Well, some good food for a good game! The Saints ended up winning, which I am really happy about. Greg picked Indy on the spread and the over and I took the opposite of his picks because that was my only chance in our playoff pool, as I was down by 2. We ended up in a tie and I won the tiebreaker! Kind of shady because I took the opposites and didn’t make my own picks. Anyway, at some point when we don’t need a snow mobile to get around, we will go to our celebratory dinner to Black Market Bistro. Can’t wait!

Recipe for Classic Buffalo Wings

Recipe for Garlic Parmesan Wings

Recipe for Blue Cheese Dressing

Check out Garlic Parmesan Wing Dip

Pin it!

Pork Chops Marsala

Posted on February 9, 2010 | 1 comment

SnOMG, Snowmeggedon, Snowpacolypse, SuperStorm ’10, etc etc etc! Whatever you want to call it, it came, it conquered, and it’s little brother is on it’s way tonight to provide another 10-15 inches. Just what the region needs! I am a little behind on posts so here we go with the first since the onset of the mega snowstorm.

These pictures were from 4pm on Friday.

So for dinner we decided to make pork chops Marsala (a play on veal Marsala). This complimented the weather nicely, as the sauce came out thick and rich. Also, this recipe is relatively easy and doesn’t take too long to make.

First, we dredged the pork chops in flour, a step that can be omitted if trying to go low-carb. I like to use bone-in pork chops for the extra flavor the bone provides. Don’t be scurred of the bones!

Next, we sauteed the pork chops…

…and put them aside to make the sauce.

The sauce ingredients include mushrooms, onions, garlic, and Marsala wine to name a few. They actually sell Marsala wine at the grocery store, so no special trip to the wine store is needed (although if you are on your way there already they probably have it there as well!). We also had some leftover thyme so we threw that in and it worked really well too.

We used “baby bellas” (pre-sliced) for this dish. Any mushrooms on hand will do.

We were happy with the way it turned out, although an afterthought was to add lemon juice to the sauce. This would have been a great way to break down the sauce a little and add some acidity to it. Next time, we will definitely add lemon juice!

Even though having cabin fever would be physically impossible at this juncture because we just got home hours earlier, maybe the thought of being stuck in the house for the next several days was the catalyst for this bout.

Recipe for Pork Chops Marsala