Two-Potato Curried Home Fries

I have always wanted to make yummy, restaurant-style, home fries, but could never get them just right.  Alex and I always go back and forth about what the trouble is with my home fries...too much oil?  too little oil? High heat versus low heat? Skin on?  Skin off? But you know what the key is to perfect textured home fries?  BOILING them!!!!  Because I am lazy, I have always microwaved my potatoes and never considered that might be the problem.  Don't get me wrong, microwaving will totally help you out in a pinch and I'm sure you'll find me microwaving them again the future, but the way to go is boiling them until they are soft.

Check out this KILLER curried home fries recipe I found in the October edition of the Food Network Magazine.  It has the PERFECT combination of curry seasoning that makes a GREAT side dish for dinner or AWESOME home fries to serve with breakfast!

Two Potato Home Fries:
2 Yukon Gold Potatoes
2 Sweet Potatoes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon grated garlic
1 teaspoon curry powder
salt
pepper
cilantro, chopped - I added a sprinkle of coriander because I didn't have cilantro.

Boil potatoes in a pot of salted water and cook until tender, 5-8 minutes.  Drain and pat dry.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  add the potatoes and cook turning until browned, about  8 minutes.  Stir in ginger, garlic, curry powder, salt and pepper.  Cook for an additional minute.  sprinkle with chopped cilantro.

Falafel Veggie Burgers

A couple of weeks ago Alex and I checked out a local Israeli restaurant and tried the falafel.  FABULOUS!  It was like fried hummus.  I instantly fell in love.  What do I do when I find a food I love?  I find a recipe so I can make it at home.  I found this recipe at Allrecipes.com.

If you'll notice, the title of this blog entry is Falafel Veggie BURGERS.  I visited a local restaurant that had the BEST veggie burger I have EVER had.  TRULY!  It was made our of chickpeas.  I searched the net high and low looking for yummy recipes for chickpea veggie burgers.  I found a couple, but they looked rather bland.  So I figured I would search out straight up falafel...and stumbled upon the falafel recipe I had been wanting to make.  Instead of having these babies on a pita, I put them on hamburger buns with lettuce and mayo.  FREAKING PHENOMENAL!!!!  I am going to make these ALL the time!!!  We had them with a side of sweet potato fries.  I gorged myself on this meal tonight and just typing the words out is making my mouth water!!!

Sean's Falafel:
1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained

1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 egg
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash pepper
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup dry bread crumbs
oil for frying
1 (6 ounce) container plain yogurt
1/2 cucumber - peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon mayonnaise

In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin.

In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.

In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.

Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.

In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

I am getting pretty bad at taking pictures of the completed product.  The meals are too FAB to plate it up, take a picture and then eat...I just dive right in. :)  ENJOY!!!

Come on Baby Light my Fire...Potatoes!

This last weekend a couple of my favorite blogs featured potatoes... ZestyCook...For the Love of Cooking. These blogs gave me a hankering for my Fiery Potatoes.

There is a fun little Tibetan restaurant in Salt Lake called, 'House of Tibet.' I have been eating there since I was in high school. They have a GREAT lunch time buffet that you can taste each of their fabulous, flavorful dishes. One of my favorites after their noodles with cabbage are the spicy potatoes.

I bought my office dinner from House of Tibet and every LOVED their potatoes. One of my co-workers loved the potatoes so much he went online and found a recipe similar to what House of Tibet serves. I have modified the recipe he found as I didn't feel it used enough seasoning as the original recipe called for.

Life My Fire! Potatoes:

3 large garlic cloves (roughly chopped)

3-5 tablespoons olive oil

2-3 tablespoons pepper sauce

1 tablespoon turmeric

1 tablespoon salt

2 teaspoons pepper

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

6 medium russet potatoes (scrubbed and cut into 1 -inch chunks)

Notice from my picture I didn't include the garlic...yes, I forgot to add the garlic to the potatoes...they still turned out just as fabulous!

Preheat oven to 500 F.

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl...you can do this on the cookie sheet you intend to bake them on...but I find it is easier to do it in a bowl. Toss and coat evenly. Place coated potatoes on a cooking sheet in the center of the oven for 15 minutes.

Remove, scraping bottom while stirring to expose uncooked potato.

Return to oven and continue to roast an additional 15 minutes or until tender when pierced with fork.

Talk about comfort food! These potatoes can mend ANY bad day! I love that they are spicy and baked!

Stuffed Zucchini

I am a ROCKSTAR!!! I am not good at 'making up' recipes. I'm not always good at following recipes when it comes down to it. :) But today, I created a KILLER recipe for stuffed zucchini. I am fortunate enough to have a co-worker that has zucchini in her garden and is willing to bring them to me so I can cook yummy things.

I was up in the air on what to use the zucchini for and opted for dinner instead of zucchini bread. Alex made some stuffed zucchini a while back that was pretty yummy. There are a LOT of versions of stuffed zucchini out there and I wanted a little from each of them so I had no other choice....I had to make my own. Here it is.

Stuffed Zucchini:

2 links spicy Italian sausage, removed from their casings

2 medium zucchini, cut in half evenly

1 small onion

2 teaspoons garlic

1 large jalapeno, roughly chopped

1 1/2 cups wild rice, cooked

3/4 cup mozzarella

2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

1 teaspoon oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cook up the sausage links in a frying pan on medium heat until crumbling. Push sausage over to the far side of the pan (you can totally take the sausage out of the pan...I just didn't want to have to clean an additional bowl), add a teaspoon of olive oil to the opposite side of the pan and saute up the onions and garlic until translucent. Add jalapeno with or without the seeds to the onions (I had originally wanted red peppers, but I forgot to grab some at the store and had to go with what I had). Mix in onion mixture with cooked sausage. Add wild rice, mixing well and take off the burner to cool.

Scoop out the seeds from the zucchini so there is a little ravine in the zucchini to stuff the yummy goodness in. Sprinkle with a little olive oil and Salt and Pepper. Place in 350 F oven for 7 minutes.

Add mozzarella, parsley and oregano to the rice mixture. Stuff zucchini with sausage, rice mixture to over flowing. Cook for 30 minutes.

Three Pepper Soup - KNOCK OUT!!!

My aunt made this soup for Alex and I a couple of weeks ago and it ROCKED!!!! My father's mother was Belgian and her side of the family still lives in Belgium. My aunt visited the family not long ago and came home with this recipe. Lucky me and now lucky you!

Three Pepper Soup:

2 medium onions, chopped and sauteed in butter until just transparent.

6 Peppers (red, yellow, orange) - my aunt and I both suggest the Costco six pack.

2 - 3 teaspoons beef or chicken bullion

Enough water to cover the peppers

Boursin cheese with garlic

Chop large and add to onions and continue to saute a minute or two. Add enough water to cover the peppers and onion along with bullion. Bring to a boil and cook gently until vegetables are soft. Then put through the blender so it is smooth. While still hot, add one package of Boursin cheese with garlic. This is a creamy white cheese, so it melts. Stir it in until completely melted and blended. Salt and pepper to taste.

This soup is so simple and so flavorful! The texture is really cool because you have the smoothness, but some chunks from the pepper. If I had kids, I would get them to eat veggies by sneaking them into their soups! What they don't see will only make them healthier!

I am short on pictures for this post because I making the ravioli for last night at the same time. This was the first course of our dinner party last night. I was worried that this soup would be the only edible part of our dinner party. :)

Butternut Squash Rissotto

Alex and I couldn't stop at spaghetti squash and had to try out this butternut squash risotto recipe. I really dig butternut squash. It reminds me a lot of yams in color and taste. It is a great autumn food.

We went a little over the top with the butternut squash in this recipe. Obviously you start out with a whole butternut squash. We didn't want to waste the left overs above and beyond the 2 cups this recipe calls for, so we used all of it. I'm not going to say that was a good call or a bad call. It was decent. In all honesty, I would use the two cups the recipe calls for...and I would use the correct amount of risotto. Alex and I had a little less than a cup of risotto left so we had to make due.

Butternut Squash Risotto:
2 cups cubed butternut squash
2 tablespoons butter (I rarely use butter. I use olive oil because it is healthier and I think it tastes a million times better.)
1/2 onion, minced
1 cup Arborio rice
1/3 cup dry white wine
5 cups hot chicken stock
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Place squash cubes into a steamer basket in a saucepan. (If you don't have a steamer basket...GO BUY ONE! They are heavenly and make you want to steam your veggies 24-7).

Add water, cover, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Allow to steam until the squash is tender (10 to 15 minutes), then drain, and mash in a bowl with a fork.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook and stir for 2 minutes until the onion begins to soften, then stir in the rice.

Continue cooking and stirring until the rice is glossy from the butter, and the onion begins to brown on the edges, about 5 minutes more. Pour in the white wine; cook, stirring constantly, until it has evaporated.

Stir in the mashed squash and 1/3 of the hot chicken stock; reduce heat to medium. Cook and stir until the chicken stock has been absorbed by the rice, 5 to 7 minutes. Add half of the remaining chicken stock, and continue stirring until it has been absorbed. Finally, pour in the remaining stock, and continue stirring until the risotto is creamy.

Finish by stirring in the Parmesan cheese, and seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

This dish LOOKS elegant! And it is 354 calories per serving! How do I know it is only 354 calories per serving? Because allrecipes.com tells you stuff like that when you snag one of their recipes! I LOVE that site!

SQUASH!

It is that time of year for squash...and I'm not talking sports. As the weather gets cooler, my cravings for squash, particularly pumpkin goes through the roof! Since pumpkin hasn't quite made it to my grocery store, I have opted for what they do have. Spaghetti squash.

I got the idea for spaghetti squash from my friend Jen who had a recent spaghetti squash success! It sounded so yummy I had to have my own spaghetti squash success. I came across a lot of recipes that called for using the squash like it WAS spaghetti and for some reason that just didn't appeal to me. My sister made some yummy spaghetti squash with butter and brown sugar and that was the route I chose to take my success.

I split the spaghetti squash down the center and scraped out the seeds. I have to admit, I have never made spaghetti squash myself and when I cut into it, I expected to see the strand part of the spaghetti squash and actually had to check the sticker on the squash to make sure I had bought the right kind.I saw one recipe that called for keeping the squash flesh side up and it took an hour to cook. Another recipe said to put it flesh side down and cook for 30 minutes...I chose face down. I am impatient.

When the squash came out it was knife tender. I scraped the insides out and the spaghetti strands came forth! I added 2 tablespoons of butter and a 2 tablespoons brown sugar. It could have used additional brown sugar, but I wanted to stay on the healthy side so I kept it short on sugar.