How to make delicious Brussels Sprouts

I love brussels sprouts. Seriously, I love them. They are like little balls of deliciousness. I hadn't ever eaten a sprout when my good friend taught me how to make them a few years ago. I haven't stopped eating them since.

First step: Steam the sprouts. I use fresh sprouts and trip the hard part on the bottom off. I steam them until tender.

Step 2: Heat up a little olive oil and butter in a pan. I often will saute minced garlic or some chipped onions in the butter before adding the sprouts. Add the sprouts to the pan.



Step 3: Saute sprouts until slightly brown on outside.

Step 4: Enjoy!


Instead of garlic and onion you could also use bacon or something similar. This variation is also delicious but I generally don't have bacon around so the garlic version is easier!

Note to self: stop being lazy and use a real camera instead of your camera phone!

New Recipe: Chicken and Dumplings

As you may remember, one of my 2011 goals is to try new recipes on a more regular basis. In the spirit of this, I made Chicken and Dumplings tonight. Holy deliciousness Batman! This may not be a diet friendly meal (there is a bit of butter in this pan) but it is definitely delicious!

I think you could probably cut out some of the butter without impacting the outcome too much.

Anyway, this will definitely be going into my rotation of go-to recipes.

Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Summer Rolls with a slightly spicy peanut sauce is my new favorite way to enjoy salad. They are ridiculously easy to make, look pretty, and taste great. Here is how you make them.
Start out by preparing whatever you are going to put in the rolls. I chose green and red peppers, carrots, chicken, rice noodles, and lettuce.

Next, soak the rice paper for about 10 seconds so that it becomes somewhat pliable. Then pile up the goodies onto one side of the paper.

Finally you roll the rolls up just like a burrito. Tonight I had mine with some leftover pasta salad and this Thai Peanut Sauce recipe (it is amazing!)

What do you do with Kale?

So this week I got a bunch of kale included in my CSA. Kale is a food that I have very little experience with. To put it simply, I have no idea what to do with it. My go-to meal with leafy greens is to throw it in a salad but kale doesn't really seem like a salad veggie.

So - I googled and found this recipe for Potato Cakes with Onions and Kale.

I have to say - this was a pretty tasty way to eat some kale. I am not a huge fan of the wilted greens but the combination with the potatoes made them tolerable. I didn't use as much onion as the recipe called for, primarily because I was crying too hard to cut any more. Onions make me very sad. I also added salt because I think potatoes always need more salt!

Anyway, here they are right after they came out of the oven.

Lettuce Wraps

So I have an abundance of leafy greens thanks to my CSA and if we are being perfectly honest, I am getting mighty tired of eating salads. Enter Thai Peanut Sauce.

Holy moly it was delicious. It was basically still a salad - but I wrapped all the goodies up in the lettuce to make lettuce wraps. Not quite PF Changs but I will definitely be making it again. Actually - the recipe makes quite a bit that I now have in my freezer so hopefully it thaws well!




Not sure why the picture is sideways. Blogger sometimes changes the orientation without asking. Takes too long to switch it around though!

Quinoa Pilaf

I inherited a box of quinoa from one of my former roommates. I have been feeling a little adventurous this week so I thought I'd see about finding a recipe to try out for Tuesday dinner and Glee night with Candice. I followed this recipe and added some spinach to it because I have some I need to finish up.

I have to say - it was delicious! We both really enjoyed it and I think I'll probably make it again. We had chicken and cornbread with it and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The recipe says it is 4 servings but I think it is probably closer to 6. Guess I'll be eating it as a side dish for the rest of the week!!

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

I tried the cinnamon roll recipe from Amysfinerthings and OH MAN are they delicious - beautiful too! The recipe made about 25 rolls which was WAY more than we needed so we both took them to work.


I made some changes to the recipe - primarily I added mostly whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour because that is what we had on hand. They actually came out pretty good that way so I may try to keep that ratio. Instead of the recommended frosting I made a glaze with vanilla, milk, and powdered sugar. YUM!

Homemade applesauce

In my back and forth between two houses, I've had some apples that got left behind and weren't looking good enough to eat. So I decided to use them to make applesauce. It was so easy and I have to say, it tastes pretty darn good. I can't imagine I'll be going back to the store bought stuff anytime soon.

I don't have any fancy equipment so I just used a big pot. First I peeled and cut up about 7 apples. Then I boiled them covered in about 1 inch of water starting on high and then reducing heat to medium once a rapid boil was achieved.

I boiled them until they seemed mushy. I guess this was about 20 mins or so. I drained the water and mashed up the apples. Then I added cinnamon to taste and that's it! So easy!

Butternut squash with chicken in white wine sauce

This is one of my favorite fall foods. I got introduced to it somewhat recently and plan on making it for YEARS to come. Seriously, I do not get tired of it.

Risotto:
Butternut squash
1 small onion
Some garlic
2 cups Arborio rice
6-8 cups of chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese
Fresh sage to taste
olive oil


Remove skin and seeds of butternut squash and cut into cubes. Steam until soft and easily mashable. Mash and set aside.

In small sauce pan, heat chicken broth.

In large pan (like you would make pasta in), heat some olive oil (medium). Add chopped onion and garlic to taste (I use the pre-chopped stored in olive oil and I just put in one big spoonful). When onions are clear, add 2 cups of rice. Mix around for a min or two and then add white wine and simmer until absorbed. To make risotto, spoon enough hot broth over rice just to cover it. Let absorb over medium heat while stirring often. Repeat....a lot...until rice is creamy and has softened (about 30 mins). When just about finished, add in some chopped sage, mashed squash, and parmesan cheese. Stir together and let sit.

Chicken:
2 Tbs flour
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth

Mix flour, pepper and salt. Dredge chicken in mixture. In large pan, heat olive oil. Cook chicken on both sides, about 2 minutes each. Add chicken broth and white wine. Cover and let simmer until cooked though.


I'm not positive about how frugal this meal is. Let's calculate!

butternut squash - $1 (farm = cheap)
1 onion - ~$0.75 (got a bag of onions on sale for $3 at some point)
rice - this rice tends to be a little expensive. I think the bag was probably $6 and I probably used 1/2 so we will call this $3
Chicken broth - 1 full container @ $1.97
Cheap white wine - 1 small container @ $3.99
Chicken - 3 chicken breasts @ $7.97
Parmesan cheese - package was $1.97, I used only a small portion. We'll say $0.50
Sage - package was $1.99. I probably used about $0.30 worth. I'll be cooking with sage again soon to use this up!

So grand total looks to be about $19.50 and I will get 6 meals out of it so that works out to be about $3.25/meal. Not the cheapest for sure but for a complicated meal with meat, I think it works out to be pretty good. Eliminating white wine and using only chicken broth would make it about $2.50/meal.

Plus it is amazingly delicious so it is totally worth the treat :)

Homemade Pizza!

I love MoneySavingMom's pizza dough recipe. It is quick, easy to make, and delicious. A friend came over to dinner recently and we decided to make a pizza for dinner. I made the dough and used some of the stockpiled mozzarella cheese from the freezer. The peppers were from my Kroger deal from the beginning of this week. Man I love peppers. There are onions on the pizza too but you can't see them. My friend is quite the chef and made the tomato sauce from a can of tomatoes that I had. It was delicious and there was enough for lunch the next day!