Latin-Inspired Friday Food

Yesterday, for both lunch and dinner, I had Latin inspired food.  Lunch was Mexican: I had a Spinach Bean Tostada.  I didn't really know what a tostada was before making this, but my impression now is that it's basically a pizza on a tortilla.  YUM! First, I cooked veggies in a skillet for a few minutes until the spinach was wilty...

Then I basically made a pizza of refried beans, veggies, salsa, and cheese on a tortilla!

The only thing I didn't love about the recipe is that it directs you to cut the onion and bell pepper into 1 1/2 inch strips.  Those are big strips to put on a pizza!  I think it would have been much better if they were chopped up very small :-)

For dinner, I went Cuban and made Cuban Black Beans and Rice.  This was an interesting recipe.  The black bean sauce mixture was delicious - onion, pepper, carrots, orange juice, tomatoes, and spices.

Then, I added black beans and was instructed to blend part of the bean mixture?  I ended up blending all of it, and don't really understand what the point of that was.  Maybe blending the mix BEFORE adding the beans would have made more sense?  Oh well.  It still turned out pretty decent - served with brown rice and lime.  I was supposed to put plain yogurt on top, but I don't LOVE yogurt so I skipped that part.

Today, although I had meals planned, turned into a leftovers day.  I had plenty of leftover polenta, so I decided to reheat some of it for lunch.  Then for dinner, I was all ready to cook one of my two recipes left for vegetarian week, but I was seriously craving a second tostada.  So that is what is currently in my oven!

Tomorrow, M and I are running our FIRST RACE: a 5K in Chapel Hill.  I'm both excited and nervous.  Wish me luck and look forward to a recap some time tomorrow!

pizza and beyond!

And the pizza continues!  Last night after I finished making and devouring my cheese pizza, I prepared lunch for today.  On the menu: Chilly Garden Pizza.  The recipe technically asks for a prebaked thin Italian pizza crust, but I obviously wanted to make the crust myself, so that's what I did!  Second time around, this Bisquick + water combo is AWESOME!  To start, I baked the crust and let it cool.

Next, I covered the pizza with garlic-and-herbs spreadable cheese and topped it with a TON of veggies.
I was out of cucumber, but I had some bell pepper on hand, so I made a little switch.

The only negative to this recipe was my fault: I didn't chop up the spinach very small, so it kind of covered the pizza and made it harder for the other veggies to stick to the cheese spread.

This recipe definitely invoked some nostalgia.  My grandmother makes a Vegetable Pizza appetizer when we visit her, which uses crescent rolls as the crust and an Italian dressing/cream cheese mix for the "sauce".  If you are curious - I found an approximate version of what she makes here.  It's definitely one of my favorite appetizers to share with her when I visit!

The chilly garden pizza turned out great, but it feels like more of an appetizer than a main meal.  I definitely think I'll make this again - but probably to take to a party as a snack or something, not as a main dish.

Tonight for dinner, I got to work with a new ingredient: POLENTA!  I didn't really know what polenta WAS before today.  For those of you who also don't know, polenta is ground cornmeal that has been boiled in water.  The recipe started with me chopping up THREE medium sized onions.  However, after chopping two and seeing how much onion I had, I decided my onions must have been "large" and put my third onion back in my drawer.

After chopping up the onions I got to put together the sauce for the recipe, which was a peperonata sauce.  Before today I also didn't know what a peperonata sauce was - doesn't it sound like it should have pepperoni in it? No?  Anyway, instead of pepperoni, it had roasted red bell peppers, kalamata olives, and diced tomatoes... yum:

I actually didn't have as many olives as the recipe called for - but I think this was a good thing.  My friend S came over for dinner and she commented that she usually finds kalamata olives to be too salty... so I was glad I didn't add more!  Anyway, after I cooked the sauce, I piled layers of sliced polenta, sauce, and parmesan cheese into a dish...

And then popped it in the oven!  With my friend coming over and all, I kind of forgot to take a picture... but we did have leftovers, so here is what it looks like after being in the refrigerator:

Hooray for dinner with friends!  It turned out delicious - I'm really becoming a big fan of onions!  The only thing I might change about this recipe for next time is to add more garlic... I think garlic is one of the most key ingredients to any Italian style dish :-)

pizza pizza!

Last night, I prepared Veggie Pita Pizza for lunch.  I really, REALLY love pizza, as does my boyfriend, so finding healthy ways to consume pizza is definitely a priority for me.  This was a good and easy start - though not one I can ever see Scott enjoying (he hates almost every vegetable imaginable).  So, first I had to chop up lots of delicious pizza toppings:

Next, I had to modify this recipe so that I could pack it and take it for lunch.  So instead of cooking the pita with everything on top of it, I made pizza in pita pockets!  Sorry the picture isn't the best - it was already packed up.

But after all the chopping, I was in need of a snack.  So I baked a mini pizza on one half of a pita.

It was delicious as a snack AND as lunch for the next day.  For lunch, I just put it in the microwave for a minute to melt the cheese.  Yum!

Tonight when I got home for dinner, it was time to pull out my baking stone and try my hand at Family-Favorite Cheese Pizza (note, my recipe says "make fun shapes" out of the cheese - but the one I found online was Halloween-specific). 

The last time I made my own pizza crust, it was delicious but messy.  The crust stuck to the stone, and it was such a pain to scrape off!  This time the, the recipe for the crust was slightly different: instead of Bisquick, sour cream, and water, it was just Bisquick and water.  The crust was much less gooey and much easier to work with. 

I knew I wanted some veggies on the pizza instead of just plain cheese, so I added some mushrooms and olives. Yum!

I also mastered the art of transferring the pizza crust from the wooden cutting board I made it on to the pizza stone, which was heating in the oven.

Then, since I didn't feel like getting down my cookie cutters and instead just put random pieces of sliced American cheese on top instead of fun shapes.

This pizza turned out great!  The crust was delicious, and didn't stick to the stone at all!  And I even had leftovers.

Three days, no meat, and I'm perfectly content :-)

in the mood for MEXICAN.

I've had a headache for almost two days :-/  I'm pretty sure I've figured out why: On Sunday at Yoga, I decided to try crow pose:

(source)

And I fell forward onto my head!  Oops.  I just laughed at the time, but... now it kind of hurts!  Advil doesn't seem to be helping all that much... I guess it's like any bruise, it just has to heal with time.  Oh well!

Back to food!  Apparently, cheese quesadillas I ate yesterday just brought out a craving in me for Mexican.  Luckily, Vegetarian Week had plenty of recipes to oblige.
Last night, I prepared part of my lunch: Fire-Roasted Tomato Gazpacho.  I've been looking forward to this recipe for a while.  I considered making it back in the spring, but I lacked a food processor.  Now that I have my awesome blender, I was better equipped to make gazpacho!  First, I had to peel my cucumber, with my brand new peeler!

My peeler worked so well, it was so easy!  Yayy!  Next, I chopped up everything and threw it into my blender.

Puree for about 30 seconds, and you are good to go!  I put my blender into the fridge to blend flavors before packing it up.

I was so excited, I had to have a taste as I was packing it up.  It was deeelicious.

Of course, at 50 calories per serving, there's no way I could have gazpacho on it's own for lunch.  Cue cheese enchiladas.

First thing to note about the cheese enchiladas: I think this is the first time I have ever eaten cottage cheese.  I was always grossed out by the texture and look of it - so I assumed I wouldn't like it.  Now, within one day, I think I'm addicted!  It's so good - even by the spoonful!
Now, the cottage cheese was a good discovery, but it pales in comparison to the overall deliciousness of the cheese enchilada.  When you look at the "food I've cooked" tab on my blog, you'll find my rating system for food.  I try to give honest opinions about every recipe, and so over the past 116 recipes I've only given 6 A Minuses, 9 A's, and 3 A+.  Because A is defined as "This is so delicious, I'm kind of pissed I can't just eat it for the next 6 meals straight."  Ladies and gentlemen, these cheese enchiladas were a SOLID A+.  I came home from school this evening and sulked over having to make anything BUT another cheese enchilada.  The Taco Sauce is the jam.  THREE types of cheese, including my new star ingredient cottage cheese.  Overall, just, amazing.
Easy too.  Chop up your ingredients, put everything in the tortilla:

Wrap it up, pour taco sauce on top, top with cheese...

and bake for 15 minutes.  Oh man.  It. Was. Incredible.

I feel the need to say that it was better than it looks... I realize now that this picture does not look as appetizing as I'm describing, but trust me, you wish you were eating one right now.

Alas, I have 182 recipes to cook and 194 days to do it... so it was time to keep moving.  Tonight for dinner I made Fettuccine with Spring Veggies.  Except - shockingly - I used spaghetti instead of fettuccine, because that's what was in the pantry.  This is a great cold pasta for a hot day.  It has lots of vegetables,

Woohoo, veggies!  And the combination or pepper, oregano, and grated Parmesan gave it some great flavor.

Annnd a close up:

In other news, I went for a 2 mile run with M this morning.  Although the daytime highs are still pretty hot, it's finally feeling cooler in the morning!  I love not dripping in sweat 2 minutes into my run :-)  We went fairly slow - 11:30 pace... but M is convinced that the hills on our morning running route really slow us down.  Our race plan suggested we take Thursday off to rest before the race (we may cross-train with a walk or spin class or something else instead), so this was my LAST RUN before my FIRST RACE.  I'm getting excited for the race!

Monday Monday

Today for lunch, I had Curry Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole.  I made it Sunday evening, and I was initially concerned that it looked... dry and overcooked!  For good measure, I added just a little bit of water into it before storing it for the night.  I'm not sure if it was legitimately too dry to start, but today for lunch it wasn't dry at all!

before

after

maybe a little burnt?

Although not dry, I have to give this recipe an overall grade of a C or C+.  It was decent, but a little bit boring.  The curry powder and raisins added some interesting flavors, but I was hoping for more.  I think that perhaps I just don't love meals when lentils are the star of the show.  For instance, I liked the Mediterranean Bulgur and Lentils because it had lentils, corn, and bulgur (slash rice), as well as lots of great flavors.  But this casserole had lentils as the main player, and I wasn't as excited about it.  Perhaps more soy sauce or more red bell pepper would have helped?  Or adding something to make the dish creamier - like cottage cheese?

it looks very orangey, no?

That sort of makes me realize - I've totally been in the mood for creamy, rich foods lately.  I wonder how much that contributes to my not liking this dish, simply based on its lack of creamy texture?

Good thing I was able to make myself a nice creamy vegetarian dinner!  Dinner tonight was Cheese Quesadillas.  The recipe technically just called for Cheddar cheese, tomato, green onions, and green chiles... but it suggested adding more veggies and beans.

So, I added sliced bell pepper and onion, and then a little cottage cheese.

I also had a side of leftover black eyed peas, mixed with some taco sauce to spice them up!

This turned out pretty good, and it was sooo quick and easy!  Preheat your oven, throw ingredients on the quesadilla, bake for 5 minutes... and that's it!  Although this was super simple and very tasty, I think I might prefer cooking quesadillas in a pan, though, as I did with the chicken quesadillas I made in August.  Have you ever made quesadillas at home?  If so, what is your favorite method?

my first risotto!

Sunday night for dinner I made Sweet Potato Risotto.  I have a friend from high school that is an AMAZING cook, and he has made me great risotto in the past... but this was my first time doing it on my own.  I forgot it can take a REALLY long time to cook Arborio rice correctly, and this recipe took a bit longer than the time it said in the cookbook.

It was a challenge for me to mash the sweet potato!  I've never mashed a potato before, and I don't own a masher.  So, I cut it up into small pieces and then used a fork to mash it.  The result was quasi mashed sweet potato with lots of chunks left in the dish.  I'm sure it would have been much better if the sweet potato had been mashed and thus mixed into the dish more thoroughly.

Overall,. I think I wanted to like this recipe more than I actually liked it.  I think it had too much nutmeg, and ended up being too sweet for me.  I also forgot to add the Parmesan cheese until halfway through.  I think a different, creamier/melty-er cheese (maybe shredded mozzarella or crumbled goat cheese) would have made the risotto's flavor and texture better.  Something to try next time!

So, this recipe was good but not great - and I think with less nutmeg and creamier cheese it could definitely be awesome!  I will also say that it was EXTREMELY filling, and after Day #1 I am not missing meat!