prosciutto-wrapped tilapia

so i'm probably the last person to realize this, but fish purchased at whole foods is of tremendously better quality than fish purchased at safeway. and if you didn't know that, i am happy to pass on that bit of wisdom.

and i'm probably only just the next person to realize this coming point, but goodness-- planning a wedding is difficult! yes, i recently got engaged. and yes, my fiance and i are taking care of the planning by ourselves. it's an interesting challenge, having lived in denver for less than a year and not knowing all of the local sites and venues well enough yet. and i have these wonderful visions and dreams of having the most spectacular food at our reception. but the best cook i know is also my maid of honor, and i'm pretty sure that that's a big enough responsibility without adding catering duties on top of that. and since the wedding is only 7 months away, my dreams may not come to fruition. but you'd better believe that i will end up hosting the best-ever post nuptial dinner party. that's where the plan stands at this moment.

don't you just love that my upcoming wedding is my most recent excuse for not posting on my blog very often? if you ask me, it's a darn good excuse. but since i have a bit of time tonight, as i patiently wait to hear back from reception halls, here is a recipe that i made a while ago. mark bittman made this look so easy and yummy on the new york times video blog (he cooked it with one hand tied behind his back. literally). it really is simple, but quality ingredients are essential. i'll admit- i went slightly on the cheap end with the tilapia and the prosciutto. so while it still tasted delicious, its presentation leaves something to be desired . . .


roast prosciutto-wrapped fish
recipe from the minimalist, new york times

• 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• about 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 4 tilapia fillets
• about 3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto
• 2 tablespoons butter

1) preheat oven to 450 degrees
2) in a small food processor (or magic bullet), combine herbs, pine nuts, enough oil to form a thick paste, salt, and pepper
3) lay 2 (or so) slices prosciutto on a cutting board. spread evenly with herb mixture. lay 1 fish fillet in the center and wrap prosciutto around it
4) repeat step 3 for all fillets
5) melt butter in a large skillet (with metal handles!) over medium-high heat
6) add fish to skillet and cook for about 1 minute per side
7) immediately place skillet in oven. roast fish for about 5 to 10 minutes. remove from oven, let cool for a few minutes, and serve

as you can see, my fish didn't wrap very well. but it was still a delicious dinner that we enjoyed very much. i even used the leftover herb mixture as a semi-pesto topping for tofu noodles, which turned out to be surprisingly tasty as well.

red bell pepper frittata

i think thanksgiving wore me out.
we hosted the holiday at our apartment. it was wonderful because many family members were able to attend (including my sister from california!). we prepared a well-rounded, fairly gourmet, quite extensive selection of food items. i started planning weeks ahead and i think, in the end, about five trips to various grocery stores ensued. maybe six.
so perhaps you can understand why i haven't done much cooking or menu planning since. or grocery shopping, for that matter. i put it off and put it off as much as i can anymore.
my boyfriend and i recently decided to turn our grocery laziness into a bit of a challenge. we're trying to go as long as possible with just eating what we already have stocked. this results in a few seemingly boring entrees (such as my current lunch-- cold firm tofu, cut up in chunks, covered in mild salsa). but it's also a way to fulfill my love of creating intriguing meals that i never would have thought to make before.
we're having the most fun with frittatas at the moment. it makes perfect sense for us, because we bought egg substitute in bulk a short while ago. and you can make anything into a frittata. canned corn works marvelously as an ingredient after sauteing it. and we can put morningstar farms garden veggie patties in anything and we'll be happy.
our most successful frittata to date was our red bell pepper frittata. the recipe calls for couscous, which is something we always try to have on hand because we love the taste and it's so easy to make.


red bell pepper frittata
adapted from cookinglight.com

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup uncooked whole wheat couscous
• 1 tablespoon water
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• dash ground black pepper
• 4 large egg whites
• 3 large eggs -or- 3/4 cup egg substitute
• cooking spray
• 2 cups red bell pepper strips
• 1 cup thinly sliced onion
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/3 cup manchego cheese (optional-- we didn't use it)

1) preheat oven to 350°
2) bring 1/2 cup water to a boil. add couscous. stir. cover, remove from heat, and let sit for about 5 minutes
3) combine 1 tablespoon water, salt, pepper, egg whites, and eggs/egg substitute in a bowl. whisk
4) spray large skillet with cooking spray. place on stove over medium-high heat. add bell pepper, onion, and garlic. saute for 5 minutes
5) stir in couscous and egg mixture. reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes (until almost set)
6) sprinkle with cheese, if using. place skillet in oven and bake for about 10 minutes (until set)
7) remove from oven and let stand for about 5 minutes. slice and serve


i'm sure i don't need to mention this, but it is very important that you use a skillet that can safely be placed in the oven. check the paperwork that came with you skillet if necessary. but the handle should be entirely metal, at the very least.
now . . . let's see what other exciting concoctions i can come up with before i have to go to the grocery store again. ;)

happy new year everyone!

chocolate chip cookies -or- panacea

i had my whole day planned out yesterday. wake up at 5, get to work at 8, go to whole foods for lunch, leave work at 4:45 for a 5:15 appointment, drive home, go to the fitness center, and come back to the apartment to eat our delicious lamb and lentil stew that had been in the crock pot all day.
that's how i operate. i am a planner.
so when i found out at 8:30 yesterday morning that i was becoming a 'workforce reduction' statistic and was immediately being sent home, i had absolutely no idea what to do with myself until 5:15. i wasn't interested in watching my tivo'd episode of 'desperate housewives' in the middle of the day, and you really can only read your friends' facebook status updates so many times.
so i baked chocolate chip cookies. delicious, big, fat chocolate chip cookies. and made enough extra dough to keep in the fridge. chocolate chip cookies make everything better-- don't you think? :)

chocolate chip cookies
recipe adapted from cookie madness

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cut into chunks
  
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 2 large eggs, cold
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon hazelnut extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour (13.5 ounces)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 12 ounces chocolate chips

1) preheat oven to 375°. line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
2) in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
3) in an electric stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and sugars until just creamy
4) add eggs, vanilla extract, and hazelnut extract. beat until incorporated
5) add dry ingredients and beat until it is just blended. do not over-mix
6) stir in chocolate chips
7) divide dough into 4-ounce lumps. place on prepared cookie sheet. bake at 375° for 8 minutes. keep in oven, but lower heat to 325° and bake for another 8 minutes. remove from oven when they look set and cool on a rack

of course i am very pleased with these cookies. they get rave reviews from all who try them. kudos to anna from cookie madness for posting this recipe!
and self-congratulations to me for doing better than these. =)

have a great week, everyone!

peanut blondies - a bit of dorie

first of all-- completely off topic-- i want nothing more than to try emiline's circus animal cookie clones. she calls them a failure. i call them a delicious-looking craving that has oddly lasted for days now.

now back to me and my food. =)
i think that it's not too unfair to expect that, when i leave blogger hanging for so long (again), if i return with a dorie greenspan recipe, full forgiveness should be warranted.

i've only baked two batches of brownies from scratch in my life. i was hankering to get a third under my belt and was poring through 'baking: from my home to yours' to find that perfect recipe. that's when my (amazingly wonderful, totally hot, tell me when i'm making you sick) boyfriend reminded me that he's not that big a fan of chocolate. which, after careful consideration, i have decided is ok. that's normal, right? not everyone has to like chocolate. really. it's fine. no brownies. ok.

thanks to him, i have now produced my first from-scratch blondies. i can always tell that i've made a good recipe when i tell him that i want to take some of my baked goods to work and he exclaims, 'why?!'. so we enjoyed our peanut, peanut butter, chocolate chip (see how sneaky i am?) blondies on our own, completely unbeknownst to my coworkers.

peanuttiest blondies
recipe from baking: from my home to yours, by dorie greenspan

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup coarsely chopped peanuts, toasted
• 6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

1) preheat oven to 350°. line a 9-inch square baking pan with foil, and spray foil with cooking spray
2) in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt
3) in a stand mixer on medium speed, use the paddle attachment to beat together peanut butter and butter, until smooth
4) add both sugars and beat until incorporated
5) add one egg and beat for about a minute. add the other egg and beat for about another minute. beat in the vanilla
6) reduce mixer speed to low and add in dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the wet ingredients
7) add the peanuts and chocolate and just mix until they are spread throughout the batter
8) scrape the dough into the prepared pan. stick the pan into the oven and bake about 40-50 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. remove from oven, place pan on a rack, and cool to room temperature before removing the blondies



these were very tasty. they completely made me forget that i had originally wanted to make something fudgy and chocolatey. we're big fans of peanut butter around here, so this was as perfect compromised treat. and of course it goes without saying-- it's a dorie recipe, so it's pretty much going to be awesome.


and i just realized, as i went back to older posts of mine to copy the degree symbol for step 1, that i haven't posted a baking recipe in quite a long time. so enjoy!

mcgriddle - our way

right now you are going to wish that i could be as smart as my best friend back in california who built his own forum website that elicits all sorts of great conversation and back-and-forth debates about intelligent and perhaps not-so-intelligent topics
not that i think you'd prefer to be on a forum right now instead of reading about all of the delicious food the internet has to offer
but one feature of his site is that you can set a 'spoiler alert.' meaning your text is hidden unless someone makes the conscious decision to highlight it in order to read it
you see, i'm about to tell you some nutrition facts about mcgriddles from mcdonalds
sausage, egg, and cheese:
560 calories, 32 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 265 mg cholesterol, 1360 mg sodium

mmm hmm. for as many mcgriddles as i've consumed in my lifetime (and the number would be higher if mcdonalds had ever decided to extend their breakfast hours), i wish i didn't even have access to that information. goodness gracious. i really should have my friend develop for me a blogger hack

or . . . i could just make my own version of a mcgriddle. which brings me back to this food blog. =)

my boyfriend and i just bought our first nice coffee maker, because we love to lounge around all morning long on weekends drinking coffee and doing crosswords. we wanted to come up with something special to make for breakfast to have with our first pot of coffee in our new, wonderful coffee maker.

mcgriddle - rebecca-style
for the pancakes:

• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup sugar (or splenda, equal, whatever suits your fancy)
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup reduced fat soy milk
• 1/4 cup sugar-free syrup (approximately-- i didn't actually measure the syrup)

1) whisk together dry ingredients (flour through sugar)
2) in another bowl, beat together egg, milk, and syrup
3) gently stir wet ingredients into the dry, stirring only enough to moisten the flour (lumps are fine!)
4) heat a nonstick skillet sprayed with cooking spray. spray two pastry rings (see photos) with the cooking spray. spoon batter into each ring, about halfway full. cook until bubbles start to form on the edges and the top. remove the rings and flip your gorgeous, fluffy, perfectly round pancakes
5) continue to cook pancakes until the batter is gone. we get about six pancakes out of this sized batch

for the filling:

1) pour egg substitute into the same rings you cooked your pancakes in (slowly-- allow the base to set a little before filling very much). cook until the bottom seems set. remove the rings and flip. remove from heat when desired level of cooking has been reached
2) in the meantime, heat two morningstar farms veggie sausage patties (in any way you choose. the box will tell you how)
3) place one egg patty and one sausage patty between two of the pancakes. grab a cup of coffee and enjoy your breakfast!


it's pretty simple. but it tastes JUST as good as the real thing-- and cuts down immensely on the fat, sodium, and cholesterol. i find it very satisfying to be able to healthify something that i love-- and can now start eating again.

one last photo (as i pine away yet again for a copy of photoshop so i can at least simulate decent lighting). enjoy-- and have a great week!

oat risotto

why hello there, internet friends! it's, uh, been a little while.
i know it, you know it. i am very ashamed for taking who knows how many months to come back to blogger (ok, i know how many months-- it's nearly 8. yeah. a bit of a long time . . .).
but there's this little recipe that we love and i knew that i finally had to blog about it. when i say 'we,' i mean my wonderful boyfriend and me. and also the best part of my excuse for taking so long to blog! i know i can be the queen of blogging excuses, but these ones are really good. basically, i moved to denver and got a fantastic apartment and a fantastic new job that leaves me no time for cooking or even working out or doing anything extracurricular at the moment but it's all been fantastic and maybe possibly worth not having the time to blog. but 'we' still love to take the time to cook together (usually when 'we' get off of work at decent hours). so i haven't jumped ship from this kitchen thing yet.
one of our kitchen ventures months ago was based on a whim of mine. i found this tiny, nondescript, non-photographed recipe in 'food & wine' magazine for a savory oat risotto. if you have been a reader of my blog in the past, you know i can't pass up a recipe that includes oats, leeks, and sheep's milk cheese. it's just too perfectly odd. so in a moment of weakness, my boyfriend took me to the store and followed me around as i grabbed ingredients that he in no way could understand would work together. but being the lifetime learner that he is, he agreed to let me do my thing.
and we loved it.
we both had seconds. there might even have been thirds involved.
we have made it, i believe, four other times since then.
it's really quite a gem of a recipe. provided the word 'risotto' doesn't scare the bejeezus out of you. or you don't get all tripped up over risotto not having to be rice. really, it's a style of cooking. kind of in the way that 'shrimp scampi' both is and isn't redundant.
but oatmeal for dinner? yes! yes yes yes.

oat risotto with peas and manchego
adapted from food & wine, july 2008

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 leek, white and tender green parts only, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 cup steel-cut oats
• 5 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup frozen baby peas
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup manchego shavings

1. place chicken broth in a pot and bring to a simmer
2. in a large saucepan, melt the butter. add the leek and cook over moderate heat until soft, about 5 minutes
3. stir in the oats and cook for about 1 minute
4. add 1 cup of the simmering brother to the oats/leek mixture. stir until nearly fully absorbed
5. continue to add brother, about 3/4 to 1 cup at a time. stir until the broth is about fully absorbed and repeat until you have used all of the broth. this process should take about 25 minutes total
6. stir in the peas, scallion, and 3/4 cup of the manchego. cook about a minute, until peas are heated through (no need to thaw them-- use them frozen)
7. transfer risotto to individual bowls. top each portion with some of the unused cheese

and there you have it. i would agree with you if you think it doesn't look like much. but it is delicious in the most unexpected ways. it is a very simple dish that can stand on its own and has an amazing combination of flavors. there are only a few ingredients, but they meld delectably well.
and even better-- it's great to make with a partner. one person can chop the veggies, the other can shave the cheese. take turns stirring so neither person's arm gets too tired. and then enjoy together. it's perfect. perfect enough for me to come back to blogging.

and oh how good it is to be back.
will someone please give me a jokingly hard time about it if i ever go so long between posts again? i just need a little nudge here and there.
and maybe my own copy of photoshop. maybe i should put that on my wishlist.

but in all seriousness-- i've missed this and i've missed my fellow bloggers and blog readers. so hello again. i hope to be a stable source of unique recipes from here on out. at least on weekends. i will do my best.

have a lovely saturday, everyone!