Falafel Pitas with Cucumber-Yogurt Dressing

Coming to you from Pullman

 

I have been exploring some new food options and I stumbled upon falafels!  A fun new word (except I'm having trouble getting it mixed up with the word frittata) and pretty good tasting as well.  I've never had one before so I don't really know if I'm making it right, but I thought it was pretty good.  I got the recipe off my recipes.  I'm really into garbanzo beans right now so I would probably like anything made with them. 

 

Falafel

•  1/4 cup mined red onion
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• can of garbanzo beans
• 1 slice of whole wheat bread torn into pieces
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white

So, I know it's weird that it asks for an egg and an egg white, but might I suggest making hollandaise sauce?...that calls for an egg yolk and then you will have an extra egg white laying around.  I coincidentally had just made hollandaise sauce and saved the egg white in the refrigerator wondering what I was going to do with it - well thinking that I would eat it with toast, but that it was a little silly to save.  Then, 30 minutes later I go to make falafel and BAM! - It just worked out so perfectly.  Anyway, you put this all in a food processor and then fry in olive oil.  I just used cooking spray so it didn't cook through correctly (I think), but it was good enough.  Then I just popped it in a pita with some lettuce and cucumber-yogurt dressing.

 



 Cucumber-yogurt dressing

• 3/4 cup plain fat free Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup diced seedless cucumber
• 1/8 cup minced red onion
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Mix all this together in a food processor and that's it.  This is the recipe halved and it still makes quite a bit for one person.  I'm sure I'll find a way to use it all up.  The 3/4 yogurt is a little more than it called for (proportionally) because it didn't look thick enough so I added more...it didn't help much, but really the texture is good and it could have been because I put the watery insides of the cucumber in (I don't have time to cut that out!).  Anyway, happy to have discovered this food and I think it's pretty healthy.

-Michelle

The Big Mac Conquered

Coming to you from Portland

For awhile now I have been trying to duplicate the McDonald's Big Mac, but I never advanced beyond the assumption that the secret sauce was mayonnaise and ketchup. (Turns out there is no ketchup anywhere in this recipe). I finally stumbled on a website where this guy reveals a bunch of secret recipes from famous food joints and has a great accompanying video as well. Neither the video or the recipe actually gives you measurements for the ingredients used, but someone left a comment under the video with the measurements they used and those worked perfectly.

 

 

They actually turned out wonderfully, and the sauce was SPOT ON. The only thing I forgot to do was toast the buns slightly which would have made the burger hold together better for eating. Also, the buns sold at the store are a little larger in diameter than the McDonald's buns so they end up being much more of a mouthful and the patties were a little small.

A few tricks that are mentioned in the video:
Only use a golfball-sized amount of ground beef for each patty and then really flatten them out.
Freeze the patties on a cookie sheet between two pieces of wax paper so that they keep their shape during cooking and are easy to flip. They are so thin that this would be very difficult if not frozen.
Use the bottom of another hamburger bun for the middle bun. Unfortunately they don't sell just middle buns at the grocery store.

 

I also found these amazing fries at the grocery store called "Fast Food Fries." They were fabulous and after showering them with a ton of salt they tasted very close to the real thing.

Pinterest to Reality: Waldorf Salad

Coming to you from Pullman

I made something that I pinned.  I actually started the pin, so it's not something that I found on Pinterest, but I still think it's an accomplishment any time I actually make something that was related to Pinterest in any way, shape, or form.  Mostly because, Pinterest allows a person to pin things, keep track of them easily...and in this way, I am able to put off projects, because it's so easy to find them later.

I actually first saw this on The Chew, which is one of my new favorite shows.  I've been meaning to make Waldorf salad for a while now, ever since they had it at Subway this summer and I remembered how much I love it, and then when I saw this show it set me into action.  The recipe is here and it's really simple.

Clinton Kelly's Waldorf Salad

• 1 chicken breast (I baked mine in the oven since I didn't have any leftover chicken lying around - here is where I get all my chicken information)
• 1 red apple - cored and chopped (I used fuji of course...they say to skin it, but I didn't do that)
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts - chopped (I used slivered almonds instead, just because I really love them)
• 1/2 cup celery - finely chopped
• 1/2 cup red grapes - halved (sometimes I quarter them too if they are really big grapes)
• 3 tbsp mayo (I used 4 because it looked a little dry - but then i tend to put in a little extra of each ingredient so that's probably why)
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (yeah right, I used the regular kind of lemon juice from the bottle)
• salt and pepper to taste

It was so yummy.  I'm going to make more soon - it's so easy and so good i would like to have some around to make sandwiches with most of the time.  Plus, you get fruit, vegetables, and whole wheat in a sandwich so I'm going to say that it's healthy.  The way I made it, I ended up with 4 cups of salad and used 1 cup to make a sandwich so each serving came out to 250 calories.  This would be a great little appetizer though too...I would just have to figure out where to get those little tart shells :)

Recipe Box Wedding Gift

Coming to you from Portland

Hopefully Mo and Nora have already opened their wedding presents, because I wanted to share this project, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.  They registered for a Martha Stewart recipe box at Macy's and I wanted to include Martha recipe cards, but I couldn't find any.  Instead I just bought some rainbow colored index cards from Fred Meyer that fit perfectly.  The colors are a good way to sparate the recipes between the different tab categories that are included in the box. 

I picked about a dozon or so of my favorite recipes and copied them onto the cards to include with the gift. 

Then I made all of the recipes, and took a picture of them to print off and put on the back of each recipe card.  I know I am much more likely to make something if there is a picture of it so I thought those would help.  I'm always looking for a way to do something beyond the registry and this was a really fun way to personalize and put a little extra thought into something they asked for.  Michelle did a great personalized gift for them as well using her magnent idea that she posted about before. 

Roasted Broccoli

Coming to you from Pullman

Saw this on America's Test Kitchen, one of my favorite shows by the way, and it gave me a craving for some roasted broccoli.  Recipe is here, but you have to be a member or something to see it.  So I'll just tell you...

Recipe
as much broccoli as you want
as much (or as little) EVOO as you want
salt, pepper, and garlic to taste

Mix the garlic in with the EVOO before drizzling over broccoli in a bowl.  Mix around until everything is covered.  Then season with the salt and pepper.  Put in 450° oven for 5 minutes.  I just noticed on the website that I'm supposed to trim the outer peel from the broccoli stalk before roasting because it gets tough and it sure does, but I wasn't too worried about it.  Also, if you put the cut sides down onto the pan they will get nice a brown (supposedly you aren't supposed to eat the burned crispy parts of roasted vegetables because they might be carcinogenic, but I'm ignoring this for now).  I only have a picture of the broccoli because it was a side to my Lean Cuisine Meatloaf and Mashed potatoes dinner, which I didn't think was necessary to share a picture of.

I think I'm going to look into eating more roasted vegetables.  Seems like a good idea.  Plus, if it means I eat more broccoli, even better.  Broccoli is a super star...

This graph is made possible by The World's Healthiest Foods, which is a website I've been browsing recently because you can search for any food or any vitamin and get fun graphs like this so that you can know what you're eating.  Anyway, I would recommend adding a head of broccoli to any meal!

Chard and Shrimp Pasta

Coming to you from Pullman

This is one of my favorite meals.  It's really quick and easy and it has chard in it, which is a favorite food I never knew I had until recently.  And the best part is, chard has 17% DV of Vitamin E and 3.5% DV of Vitamin B7 (that doesn't seem like a lot, but it's probably more than you're getting now unless you take a multivitamin and those only have like 10%...).  and those vitamins are good for your hair.  I discovered this recipe before I started worrying about my hair, so it's an added benefit (I have a split ends problem with my hair right now that I'm working on).

Recipe

Whole wheat pasta

any kind of shrimp you like and a head of chard sauted with EVOO, salt, pepper, and cloves of garlic to taste

parmesan cheese on top

so so good.  I would definitely recommend that you try this for yourself.

Ribeye Steak with Blue Cheese Butter and Walla Walla Onion Rings

Coming to you from Portland

The one from Laurelhurst Market is above and mine is below.

I got this recipe from one of my bon appetit magazines which I featured on a previous post.  I was hoping to duplicate the look and taste of this menu item from Laurelhurst Market and then go to the restaurant and compare, but it goes for $38 so I might have to wait to do that taste test for when I have a real job.  I was very pleased with how mine turned out.  It was very easy and the onion rings were really fun to make.  The onion ring crust is light (nothing like the thick fried ones you get at Red Robins) which I love.  They are best served hot, but you have to cook them in batches so once they make it to the table they have cooled down a bit.  I added a bed of spinach to place the steak on to soak up the juices and add a little color.  I spent about $30 for three servings of this meal, so that's quite a bargain compared to the restaurant price, and I'm going to venture to say the quality of my dish is comperable even though I've never tasted the original.

Sky High Apple Cranberry Pie...That totally rhymes

Coming to you from Portland

Martha's is the one above and mine is the one below

This is another one from Martha - a recipe from her Thanksgiving issue.  Nobody thought this would work because there was so much filling and the top of the pie was a good 6-8 inches tall, but Martha says to just keep piling on the filling even if it looks like too much, because the top crust is made extra wide to seal it up.  The recipe says to top the pie with sanding sugar, but I could not find such a thing at the grocery store.  I ended up sprinkling it with raw suger which is a large granule brown colored sugar.  It doesn' say to foil the crust, but this pie goes in the oven for almost two hours so I secured some strips of foil aroung the crust to keep it from burning and it turned out perfect.  Make sure to set the pie dish on a rimmed baking sheet!  This pie is designed so that it will inevitable overflow with juices (as you can see by the pictures).  Luckily my mom was finished with all of the Thanksgiving cooking by the time I lined the bottom of the oven with cranberry drippings.  I cut it right away because I was so excited, but the filling needs time to set.  It turned out great asthetically and tasted delicious too.  I served it hot with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream.

epic p-town sisters weekend

Julie came to Pullman!  We were in the same "P-town" for 4 days - Halloween weekend.  I didn't have an exam to worry about, and I was off of surgery block the following week, so we basically chilled, and cooked, and partied, and were crafty the whole time (well, Julie worked on the house when I was at school).

WSU vs. U of O

What are the chances that the weekend that Julie comes to visit, the cougs are playing the ducks?  I didn't have a lot of hope that we would win, but enough to watch the game at a local bar.  Julie insisted on wearing duck gear so I took her to my favorite bar where I knew there wouldn't be very many people - particularly, no drunk coug fans that were going to be drunk and disappointed.  See what a good sister I am, protecting my sister like that?

I think that the cougs did a good job of hanging in there in the first half.  And I think our 2 point conversion in the last 2 minutes of the game despite being behind by quite a bit really highlights our heart.  The coug fans never give up, so I really appreciate when the coug football team doesn't give up either.  I had the fish and chips as usual with extra cole slaw and Julie had a very unique southern style burger with a vegetarian patty made of black beans and corn.  Delicious! 

Halloween Festivities

Costumes were Julie: cheerleader night one and girl from future night two.  the cheerleader costume that she wore was my mom's when she was in high school.  and michelle (me) in the ghost costume.  i've been planning that one for a while.  I have decided i'm going to be a minimalist, on halloween anyway.  and i'm not going to flaunt my sexuality and use halloween as an excuse to be half naked in public.  nothing against that...just seems like a lot of work, and since we were on the verge of "no shave november", I thought I would just start my support of prostate health awareness early.  a lot of people actually asked me if i was a man or a woman.  before halloween people made fun of my "lame" and "unoriginal" costume idea, but when was the last time you saw someone dressed as a sheet ghost on halloween?  nobody had the same costume as me, and i had a lot of fun when they played the ghostbusters theme song at the bar :) 

 Food

Starbucks: This is the only way to eat breakfast when you've stayed up until 3am the night before.  We did that three of the four nights.

Ice Cream Sandwiches: These ice cream sandwiches were a serious FAIL!  For one thing, the freezer wasn't very cold to begin with, but we were also supposed to leave the ice cream in the freezer for four hours before cutting out each sandwich.  I waited 30 minutes and the cookie part was so hard that, while attempting to cut it, I just squished it down and all of the ice cream bulged out of the sides.  The decorating was fun, but only a very small part of the project.  In the future I would just buy ice cream sandwiches from the store and dip them in melted chocolate and decorate them with candies.   (from Michelle - my roommate Jill ate one a couple days after we made them and they had had time to harden up, and she said even though they look weird, they tasted good!)

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans?  When I saw all that extra melted chocolate laying around, I thought, this would be a good opportunity to make chocolate covered coffee beans.  Well, there must be more to it than just having coffee beans and melted chocolate because the chocolate was so runny that I could keep it on just one bean and ended up making coffee bean chocolate bars. they are yummy, and deliver a lot of caffein, but I would like to look into making actual chocolate covered coffee beans in the future.

Pulled pork BBQ Sandwiches with Slaw and salad: Sadly we did not get a picture of this one even though we had it two of the four nights I was there.  The slaw is a great fresh side for the pork sandwiches.  Another product of Bon Appetit.  Here is the recipe.

New York Steak with Boursin and Merlot sauce, fried green beans and roasted potatoes: This was absolutely delicious, but a lot of food for one person.  Sadly I also forgot to put the Boursin cheese on top of the steak after removing them from the pan.  This is one of my favorite Bon Appetit recipes.

The result of all of our mad carving was a ton of pumpkin seeds.  I found a bunch of recipes online, but I wanted something cajun stlyle.  I was going to buy seasoning which is hella expensive, but I happened to be purchasing some chicken breasts from the butcher and remembered that you get free seasonings/marinades with your meat.  I got the perfect seasoning.  It was some sort of cajun, southwest, BBQ type of thing.  I just asked for it in a separate container and it was plenty for what I had.  The recipe is just vegetable oil, cajun seasoning and salt.  Super good and a nice change if you are used to the salt and Worcestershire recipe for pumpkin seeds.  

Being Crafty

jar and candle idea that i saw on pinterest, pinned from this 

blog.  hers are prettier.  think i need more of them and have

 them be inside to get the full effect.

michelle's pumpkin vs. julie's pumpkin.  i decided to go

off the grid with pumpkin carving this year and free style

them.  this was my first creation and it was a success.

when i saw the wind-up teeth at the dollar tree, i was

thinking, this will be a great spin on the marth stewert

project that julie did with pumpkins and dracula teeth

in this earlier blog.in the end i decided that this is just

creepy and not very cute.  won't be doing this next year.

the full effect on halloween.  I got a red light because the bright white light that is normally there was making it hard to see the glow of the pumpkins.  only had one trick-o-treater, which is on par with the last 4 years, but that didn't stop me from buying 4 bags of candy.  I even bought the good stuff, or "rich people candy" as my roommate called it. 

Overall, a successful trip.  Julie got a lot of yardwork done, and cooking, and I didn't get any studying done while she was here.  Maybe I'll have better luck over thanksgiving break. the p-town sisters will be in the same town again, this time in Portland.

nuts!

coming to you from pullman

do you have too many nuts around?  i do.  i thought i was going on a health kick a while back, but it turns out i just don't really like raw nuts.  so i have all these nuts now.  i do eat them, just VERY slowly.  my daily nut intake is pretty low.  these are my nuts...

so, i decided that i would look up some recipes online (googled it!) to use up these nuts.  today, i tried my first recipe out. 

Easy Seasoned Pecans

• 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon butter, melted
• 4 cups pecan halves 
• 1 teaspoon seasoning blend with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder (Cajun seasoning or seasoned salt blend)

Preparation: pour melted butter over pecans and stir.  Roast in oven for 15 minutes at 325 degrees stirring occasionally.  Sprinkle with seasoning and toast for another 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

Food safety note from me: at the link above, recipe writer says prepared pecans can be stored at room temperature for up to 1 month, but they should probably be kept in the fridge (make sure to eat a couple right away because they are good warm).  actually, all nuts are "supposed" to be refrigerated after the packaging is opened, but these nuts especially since they have been "tampered" with.  here is where i get all of my food storage information.  i'm pretty sure few people follow all of these suggestions, but it's a good resource to have if you are feeding children or the immunocompromised. 

 

i halved the recipe because i wanted to try it out first.  i also lowered the toasting time to 10 minutes when i put them back in, because some of the pecans were starting to look extra crispy. additionally, i am certain that i put way to much seasoning on them. i freestyled it, which was my biggest mistake.  they are flavor-packed however i think it is supposed to be more of a subtle complement to the pecan.  they are a lot more "snacky" now, but i'm not sure how much of the health factor was lost during this process, especially since "snacky" nuts predisposes to eating more than a serving.  i also think that i like the idea of roasting nuts whether i put butter and seasoning on them or not.  a quick google search and some skimming suggested that roasting nuts could make the protein more available to digest (raw nuts supposedly contain "anti-vitamins" that inhibit digestion) but further skimming revealed that the roasting also destroys certain vitamins so who knows?.  ...also, it made my house smell really good.  overall, this made my pecans more edible for me. 

nuts = a good source of protein for poor college students who don't buy a lot of meat and a good source of "healthy fat" if you can contain yourself to one serving.

Recipe Extravaganza

Coming to you from Portland

I decided to finally go through all of my bon appetits from the last two years and pick out my favorite recipes.  I will rarely cook something if I don't have a picture of it to be tempted by, but luckily this magazine pretty much includes a photo with every recipe.  I cut out my favorites and organized them into my recipe book.  Hopefully this will entice me to start cooking again.  I hate getting stuck in a rut and just cooking the same old stuff over again.  There are so many unique and amazing recipes out there, most of which are very simple. 

Isn't that picture on the left gorgeous! They are homemade ice cream sandwiches dipped in melted chocolate, then coated in sprinkles and crushed up candy bars. Yummm!

The recipe on the left here was featured in the restaurant issue and a Portland Restaurant called Laurelhurst Market was named in bon appetit's top 10.  It's steak with onion rings.  I'm planning on making the dish myself and then going to the restaurant and ordering it to compare.  I'm sure mine won't come close, but I'd like to try. 

I spent all day making this cake from a two page recipe in one of my magazines.  The ingredients cost me $24 which included eight sticks of butter and 32 ounces of chocolate.  I was determined to ignore the cost and avoid shortcuts so it would come out perfect.  However, I couldn't find a pasta machine at the store, which was required to make the ribbon for the top.  I thought I might be able to roll it out, but the chocolate just stuck to the wax paper I rolled it on.  Out of desperation I rolled out chunks of the chocolate and molded the ribbon with my hands.  As you can see, this compromised the aesthetic of the cake.  My mom told me it was beautiful, but once you see the picture of what it's supposed to look like it looks like a major fail.  This is the hardest recipe I have ever followed and I am determined to get it right, so I ordered a pasta machine from Target.com (they only have them online), but I got free shipping and maybe it will one day inspire me to make fresh pasta.  Another thing I would do differently is to save more of the butter cream filling from the layers to smooth out the sides of the cake.  The recipe only says to save 1/2 cup, but the cakes end up cooking with a little hump on the top, which makes the stack have huge gaps, leading to the lumpy sides on my version of the cake.  I spent about eight hours making this cake and lots of money and now most of it is sitting in the fridge, because it is so rich that we can only eat a sliver of it at a time.  Was it worth it?  The jury is still out on that one.