Dinner Rush: Steak & Provolone Panini

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It’s hard to believe that I haven’t blogged about panini yet.  I make them almost once a week and it’s usually a way to use up leftover steak or chicken, so this is a quick and easy dinner.

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Ben is becoming quite the master at marinating and grilling New York strip steaks.  It’s almost disappointing to eat steak at a restaurant now.  He usually buys 2 strips and I almost never finish my entire steak, so we’re left with half of a great cut of meat that just cannot be thrown away or given to Ginger.  As much as I love that dog, I don’t think feeding her a piece of meat worth $5 is justified.

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Sweet Saturday: Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

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Crispy M&M’s are no longer being sold anywhere, and this is a bit heartbreaking for me.  I loved those little chocolaty, crispy bits.  My friend Kim and I used to share the big bags of them when we were roommates in college.  For a while after they stopped selling them at grocery stores I could find them at Target, but I haven’t seen them in over a year now.  My second favorite M&M is peanut butter.

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I was at the store picking up some laundry soap and toothpaste when I saw a big bag of the Peanut Butter M&M’s on special, so I decided to buy one and make some cookies!  I thought about doing an oatmeal cookie as the base, or maybe a peanut butter dough, but after much deliberation I settled on a chocolate chip cookie dough.  I used Alton Brown’s recipe for The Chewy for a few reasons.

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Monster Zucchini Part II: Zucchini Fritters

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With the mound of shredded zucchini I could have made 3 batches (6 loaves) of zucchini bread.  I could have done this and frozen loves, or given them to friends.  But lets face it, I just don’t have that many friends and my freezer just couldn’t take the load!

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If I would have been thinking more clearly I would have shredded half of the ginormous squash and then sliced the rest and grilled them or sauteed them to serve with the leftover mac and cheese.  We cannot change the past, so I decided to make zucchini fritters.  I looked at a few recipes.  All used shredded zucchini, at least one egg, flour, and salt and pepper.  From that base I found that the possibilities are endless.  Some recipes used Parmesan or other cheeses in the mix, some used panko or some type of bread crumbs, some used onions (scallions or red), and the seasonings that were used ranged from simple S&P to 6 different herbs in one recipe.  I mixed and matched based on what I had at home.

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Monster Zucchini Part I: Zucchini Bread

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Last week I was greeted at 8am with a bag of fresh vegetables from one of my co-workers.  There were beautiful red cherry tomatoes, a couple of bright green jalapeños and the biggest zucchini I had ever seen!  My first thought was zucchini bread.  I love how moist and wonderful zucchini bread is, and I like that it has vegetables in it…even if none of the original nutritional value remains after it’s been mixed with sugar, oil and eggs.

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Back to the huge zucchini.  I really wish I’d weighed this monster before using it yesterday.  Just use this picture as proof…it was a big vegetable.

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Easy Mac and Cheese with Chicken

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There is something to be said for Kraft Mac and Cheese.  That’s right.  I said it.  Come on people.  You know you love it.  It’s the cheesiest and it doesn’t stick to your cookware like real cheese does.  I honestly and truly like, and sometimes I even crave the unnatural orange colored pasta dish in its blue box of goodness.  However, there are times when a girl needs to eat mac and cheese made from scratch.  This macaroni and cheese recipe comes from the Better Homes and Gardens website.

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I loved the crunchy breadcrumbs on top of this dish.  The sauteed onions and garlic mixed with tomato paste give the sauce a richer flavor that is more than just milk and cheese.  I used 2% milk and half swiss, half sharp cheddar with a great resulting flavor.  I cooked the chicken in chunks, but ended up kind of shredding it into smaller pieces before adding it to the cheese.  The recipe calls for penne or similar pasta, but I used traditional elbow macaroni.

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Firecracker Chocolate Bar

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I saw this confection at Wal-Mart the other day,  and I was intrigued.  I was also impressed that Wal-Mart was selling something so trendy and chic… in the world of chocolate anyway.  The bar is made by Chuao Chocolatier.

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Online this bar goes for $6.00 a piece.  I got mine at Wal-Mart for $4.00!  Anyway, I was not expecting to like this combination of dark chocolate, chipotle, salt and popping candy…aka Pop Rocks!  Pop Rocks?  Even if I didn’t like it, I didn’t care.  How could someone not at least try something with Pop Rocks in it?  I hadn’t had Pop Rocks in a while, and I knew there was no better time than now to have them as an adult.  This is an “adult” candy bar.  The dark 60 % cacao chocolate, spicy chipotle and salt would not appeal to many kids.

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Dinner Rush: Greek Burgers with Tomato Jam

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Over the past few week we have eaten burgers more than once a week.  I know.  Not exactly health food.  We did make them ourselves and tried some pretty different combinations of flavors.  These Greek burgers were the first in our series of burgers, and I thought they were delicious.  I love feta cheese, so the presence of that ingredient alone in the meat mixture had be smitten even while the meat was raw, but don’t worry, I did not do any taste testing until after they were cooked.

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Mamma’s Rice Pudding

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Some foods will always remind me of my childhood and of family.  Among these are my Grandma June’s pecan pie, my mom’s chicken velvet soup, dutch babies, bar-b-cups, spritz cookies, Swedish rye bread at Sundbeck Christmas, Swedish pancakes, and the Rystrom family’s rice pudding.  Of course there are plenty more now that I begin brainstorming, but I’ll focus on this one today.

ricepudding7I asked my mom where this recipe originated but she doesn’t really know.  Her mom made it when she was young, and I plan to make it for my kids…whenever they choose arrive.

My mom grew up in Richvale, California.  Her dad, better known as Gramps, is a rice grower in Northern California, and so they ate a lot of rice growing up.  My mom met my dad in college and he brought her to the great state of Texas.  Thanks to my sweet Californian mother, I don’t have too much of a Texas accent, and I ate of lot of perfectly cooked rice as a kid.

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Almond Butterscotch Friendship Bread

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friendshipbread2My friendship bread starter made it to day 10, and it was ready to be transformed into two delicious loaves of bread.  I loyally stirred and added flour, sugar and milk every day I was supposed to.  I was pretty excited about it this evening.  It was a long day at school…I got there at 7:30 am and did not come home from school until 7:00 pm.  After I got home, Ben and I went to dinner with a friend of his who’s staying with us tonight to break up his car trip from Colorado to Waco.  We got home from dinner at 9.  The excitement of the bread had subsided a bit yielding to the excitement of sitting on the couch and not doing a thing.  I forced myself to go into the kitchen and just get it done.

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Foodie Trivia Answers

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worldFoodiesphere: What is the term for animal innards and extremity meats included in British chef Fergus Henderson’s 2004 cookbook The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating? Offal (pronounced like “awful”)

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starsFood Stars: What type of crustacean is Sebastian, who lands on a first course dinner plate in The Little Mermaid? Crab

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dinnerpartyCompany’s Coming: What sweet, red-pepper spread is a picnic-sandwich tradition in the southern U.S.? Pimento cheese

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scienceLab and Field: How much time, according to a 2003 survey, did Americans age 15 and older spend eating and drinking per day?  About 73 minutes (this seemed short to me…)

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candlelit-dinnerDining Out: What is often served accompanied with baguettes, nuts and condiments made of fruit paste?  A cheese plate

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whiskWhat’s Cooking: What distinguishes classic French-style rolling pins from classic American-style pins? Handles! American pins have them and French pins do not.

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