Eggplant Rollups

Any food that can be rolled up or kept inside another food is cool in my book. Which is probably why I was attracted to these eggplant rollups. The eggplant slices are covered in egg, pesto, and breadcrumbs and fried. Then you put ricotta inside, roll them up, and bake them. The hardest part was slicing the eggplants really thin. I didn't do a great job, so I'll have to keep practicing that. Also they wouldn't stay rolled up so I stuck some toothpicks in which did the trick. All in all, a vegetarian success. Which is a relief because I tried another Rachael Ray dish last week, a tortilla chip casserole, which was not so good. That one sounded weird and it was. But this one is definitely worth a try!

Local Grocery Bliss!

We have a lovely independent grocery store nearby that caters more towards the ethnic population here in Naperville (we have a lot of families from India and Pakistan). But the best part of the store is the produce aisle. I'll come away with fresh bunches of everything from mint to lemons to dandelion greens (if i wanted). The best part? Super cheap. One dollar gets me 10 limes or 10 cloves of garlic, or two to three lemons, or packet of cherry tomatoes.

Gotta love fresh produce!

A Saturday night feast

Since I don't know many people out here in SF yet, I've had plenty of time to make some nice meals. Last night I made a southwestern themed meal with combinations of dishes from several recipes.

I made a burger with fresh salsa on top of it. Salsa was just a homemade combo of chopped tomatoes, shallots, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, lime juice, and salt and pepper. I put salt, pepper, and chili powder in the ground beef when I made the burger.

I also made some chili powder onion rings, taken from this recipe. I don't often fry things, but occasionally I check what little sense of healthy eating that I have at the door and fry away. I just substituted chili powder for the garlic powder to give it a little heat.

Finally I made a southwestern salad, adapted from this recipe. I just left out the shrimp.

It was a bit of a juggle to watch the onion rings and the burger at the same time. I also burned my finger and had a small paper towel fire(!!), but the meal turned out really well.

By the way, if you don't have one consider buying a grill pan. It is a pretty good alternative to real grills and nice to have when you live in an apartment building like I do and grilling outdoors is not an allowable option. This is the one that I own and I've been pretty happy with it - I use it a lot.

pork!

I make a mean tonkatsu (breaded and fried pork) but had little idea what to do when it came to other things. Pork Medallions was totally easy and took less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Paired with Mashed potatoes because the gravy was soooo good, and cranberries that have been in our freezer since thanksgiving--it was easy to whip up a quick sauce.

Yum! Delicious!

perch soup

So we bought perch.

I'm not sure what to do with perch. I make killer salmon, and J knows a great whitefish curry, but perch?

I took inspiration largely from this recipe, but ended up with a nice pot of fish soup in half an hour. Here's the altered recipe:

2-3 small onions, chopped in chunks
2 carrots, peeled and chopped the same size as the onions
2 cloves garlic
splash of olive oil
pinch of cayenne
a pinch of saffron
Sarah's interpretation of Herbes de Province: a pinch of oregano, rosemary, lavendar and 2 bay leaves
splash of white wine
about a tsp of zest
1 package of frozen perch (we got probably about a pound's worth)
1 can of tomatoes
water
Dash of salt to taste
Spinach (optional)

I know it's a lot of ingredients, but the prep is pretty easy.

Defrost the perch either in the microwave or in a pot of water.

Cut the onions and carrots and then put in the pot with olive oil, garlic and all the spices. Let cook until onions and carrots are soft. Then, throw in the tomatoes, wine and zest and bring to a boil. Then, put in the water and let cook for another 15-20 minutes. Add salt if needed. I put in a handful of spinach right at the end for color and a bit more nutrition.

Fish Soup!

Lemon Cream Pasta

I just made this lemon pasta! I kept going back and forth thinking it was good or a disaster. For a while there the cream was so liquid I didn't get how it could go on the pasta. But when I put it on, it actually did what the recipe said and kind of thickened and sank in. And I kept thinking there would be no lemon taste but it really did add a tasty tang. Very good, and something different from regular old pasta. The only problem was that it took forever to get the lemon zest and juice. Any tips on zesting and juicing would be greatly appreciated! But I highly recommend you try this pasta, it's so good. And as an added bonus I discovered what arugula is.

Coconut-Apricot Macaroons

The other night I was looking for a dessert to make that didn't involve chocolate and settled on these Coconut-Apricot Macaroons. Very easy, but kinda messy since the mixture that you turn into the mounds is really gooey.

I actually made them the same night I made the mini meatloaves. I lined them up on the tray while the meatloaves were cooking and then popped them in the oven while we were eating dinner. The timing worked out perfectly.