sarahmichelef | Entries tagged with interests: cooking

I've had a recipe for "Southwestern Shrimp Stir-Fry" knocking around in my binder for ages. Finally decided to make it a couple of weeks ago. This is another one that the whole family loved & that is quite scalable. Also: extra quick (not counting time peeling & marinating shrimp: 15 minutes).

The recipe as written calls for 1.5 lbs shrimp, which fed us for 1 dinner with a generous helping of leftovers for me to take for lunch the next day.
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We had it with couscous and it was quite tasty. You could change up what veggies go in the stir fry for variety.

I have been soooo overwhelmed by STUFF that I have had precisely ZERO time for writing actual blog posts. Srsly.

BUT! I made two things that were really good to eat! Win!

Thing #1: maybe this is not news to everyone, but thick chili over sweet potatoes. The recipe called it spicy beans and baked sweet potatoes - it was (guesstimating here) 2 cans of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of kidney beans, a zucchni, some onions and garlic, and chili seasonings simmered for a bit and then served over baked sweet potatoes w/ sour cream & cheddar. Nom.

Thing #2: pan-fried tilapia. (

tashadandelion , this might be a good one for you!) Tilapia is my go-to we don't have leftovers to eat but I know we're going to need a quick dinner. We buy the fillets pre-frozen and individually packaged at Wegman's. A couple of weeks ago I breaded the fillets with cornmeal and some lemon pepper seasoning and pan-fried them very quickly - it only took a tablespoon of oil and they got nicely crispy and very flaky on the inside. I don't recall off the top of my head what we had with them - probably cous cous and some frozen veggies.

aka, Vegetarian Vietnamese Curry Soup.

Why, oh why, had I paged past this so many times before, when it is two of my favorite foods (curry ANYTHING and soup) in one dish?

( Clickyclicky for the details. )

It is EXTREMELY hearty. Not complete-meal hearty (we had it with stir-fried tempeh with peas) but definitely complete-lunch hearty, if you have some fruit or veggies or something with it.

Straight off of the WW website a couple of months ago. My child ate TWO ENTIRE CHICKEN THIGHS and wanted more. She did not eat the mango salsa, though, which was fine - more for us!

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Adapted from the Vegetarian Times cookbook to use only WW "filling foods". This is how I cooked it, which varies a decent amount from the original.

( Recipe back here... )It was not a great main dish, but would be an AWESOME side. I think it wants a fresh parsley garnish, because it is rather overwhelmingly brown with the brown rice and the brown mushrooms.

We went to the grocery store without a list this week. Dangerous, I know.  I had two meals in mind: farmer's casserole and tacos. The rest I figured I'd wing based on what was available at the store. Eggplants that looked lovely and were cheap?  OK, we'll have eggplant parm. Mushrooms? We can always find something to do with mushrooms. Chicken was on sale for $1.99/lb for the big packs of boneless, skinless breasts - a good $.70 cheaper than it's been costing (even on sale) lately so we grabbed two packs.

Cue dinner tonight.  I know I'm going to do something with the chicken. Haven't used the mushrooms yet, either, so I figure what the heck, I'll invent a mushroom sauce.

And lo, there was chicken with mushroom sauce. And it's WW friendly even.

olive oil for sauteeing
5 pcs chicken, trimmed
1 med. onion
4 cloves garlic
white pepper
thyme
8 oz mushrooms (minus a handful that I had in my lunch yesterday)
1/2 c chicken stock
~1 c fat free sour cream
~2 T cornstarch

Brown chicken in oil on both sides, remove & set aside.
Saute onions, garlic, and mushrooms w/ pepper & thyme until they're getting soft.
Add stock & sour cream, bring to a boil, return chicken. Simmer until it's cooked.  (20 minutes? Or thereabouts - depends on the thoroughness of your browning & how thick your chicken pieces are.)
Remove cooked chicken, add cornstarch & thicken sauce.

We had it with couscous and frozen green beans. I salted it pretty thoroughly, but I salt everything pretty thoroughly.

TRex, who RARELY eats all of her protein first (preferring her carbs) and never want sauces on things, asked for sauce on her chicken and ate all of it before she had anything else.

Next time: less or no stock, possibly cut out cornstarch - the sauce was too watery.  I didn't have time to reduce/thicken it to the consistency I would have liked.

2 C brown sugar (light or dark)

1/2 c butter

2 eggs, unbeaten

2 c flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1 1/4 t salt

generous 2 t vanilla

generous 1/2 c chopped nuts (I use walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350.*

Melt brown sugar and butter together. Add eggs & beat. Add all other ingredients & mix. Spread in baking pan or on cookie sheet, bake for 30 minutes. You will think that they are not done yet when you take them out but if you cook them longer, the ones on the edges will be hockey pucks.

Let cool & cut into squares.

*I use a 9x13 pyrex pan & do it for 25 minutes at 325.

ENJOY!

Tried this last week, from Vegetarian Planet. I'm working from memory here.

( Recipe back here... )
It's really tasty and reheats quite nicely, too.

Current Location: basement of wow I need to fold laundry
Current Music: fox football guys blathering

Another tasty, easy and VERY FILLING recipe.

( Clicky with the here-ing )

Won't lick a cake pan... (by sarahmichelef)

This one is a big fave in our house, at least among the grownups. TRex isn't ever quite sure of them. They're dead easy and freeze very well.

12 whole wheat tortillas, burrito size (because the ones from Wegman's come in packs of six)
cooking spray
1 lb ground turkey (I use chicken or turkey, whichever's cheaper - this week it was chicken)
1 large jalapeño, seeded & minced
2 cans refried beans (I use fat free)
1/3 - 1/2 c scallions, sliced
16 oz salsa
2 c cheese (I use the reduced-fat "mexican" blend)
More salsa
sour cream (I use fat-free)

Preheat oven to 350. Wrap tortillas in foil & put in oven to warm.
Brown meat. Add beans, jalapeño, scallions, & salsa and mix it all up. Then put in the cheese and mix to combine.
Assemble chimichangas by putting 1/2 - 3/4 c. of filling in the middle of a tortilla and rolling it up.
Bake in cooking spray-ed baking pans for 20 minutes, or until tortillas are crispy.
Serve topped with salsa & sour cream.

(Illustration of how loved these are: M demands the dregs from the pot after I've assembled them.)

Current Music: super bowl, start of 3rd quarter

Did this last week at TRex's request (she saw it as I was paging through the cookbook) - it's very tasty, even as a reheat.

6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 tsp finely shredded lime peel
1/3 c lime juice
3 T oil
1 t dried thyme or basil, crushed
1/2 t coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 t salt
2 cloves garlic
bottled salsa (optinoal)
lime wedges (optional)

Marinate chicken for 30 minutes in lime peel, lime juice, oil, thyme, pepper, garlic, and salt.
Preheat broiler. Drain chicken; reserve marinade. Broil until light brown.
Turn chicken & brush with reserved marinade. Discard leftover marinade. Broil until cooked through. Serve with salsa & lime wedges.

NI: 240 calories, 9 g fat (2 g saturated), 88 mg chol, 180 mg sodium, 2 g carb, 0 fiber, 35 g protein.

I'm actually going to try swapping out some of the oil in the marinade for chicken stock next time, to reduce the fat content (and thus the WW points).

Current Music: trex upstairs not napping

Those of you who know my husband will be amused by this:
He had to pause his game of Madden to read something in The Economist.

( lookit my pretty corn muffins! )

Current Music: Madden 2005 (or is it 2006?)

This afternoon, TRex and I made corn muffins. We did the standard corn muffin recipe with two substitutions: splenda instead of sugar, and applesauce instead of oil. This makes them a bit too cakey and sweet for me, so I will continue to play with it.

Over the weekend, M and I also made over the Lemon Mustard Chicken recipe from the Newman's Own Cookbook. The original has chicken breasts breaded with nuts in the crumbs and fried in a significant amount of oil.

( Here's our version )

Because I would totally be sending my kitchen's fragrance out over it right now. I have "Creamy Indian Lentils" crocking away in the crockpot right now. And they smell deeeeeelicious. Yum.

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to the store to buy garlic and OJ so that I can try out

parsedgarnish's Garlic Thyme Chicken recipe which sounds just brilliant. And since I don't have anything ELSE planned for dinner tonight, the timing is fortuitous. (Oooh, SAT word.)

Also, you gotta love having a plumber who manages to come out for a minor problem the same day you call, even when they're still dealing with storm fallout. If you have to call a plumber, that is. (We apparently have a very small leak somewhere related to the kitchen sink, because we have damp carpet and drywall in the basement right below the kitchen sink. Have I mentioned that I hate water? I hate water. Ever since the great toilet tank crack of Fall 2002 (I think it was 2002 - the last time that EK Crown was in Stonemarche), I hate water.)

There was some other inanity I was going to blather at you about, but I don't remember what it was. So off I go to do the lunch dishes and then to the store. And then home to wait for the plumber and work on my stinking lit review. I hate lit reviews.