Pozole!

Here's our pozole! Lucy's dad's famous original recipe. Says Lu, "its versatile, my dad makes it different every time (sometimes chicken, sometimes shrimp, sometimes shrimp and chicken...you can make with tomatillos instad of tomatoes, etc). also it seems to get spicier every time he makes it. he always makes spicy cornbread to go with it. and he makes TONS at a time and then we eat it for like a month."

it was literally overflowing so we transferred it to two pots.


Some bread to cut the onion tears.

A Shabbat Treat

Nutella challah with sprinkles! We made this at a Bayit challah-making event by spreading a layer of nutella on each strand of the braid and then braided it. We could barely wait for it to come out of the oven and it was immediately devoured, warm and fresh, with more nutella and marshmallow fluff.

Stir Frys of the Fishy Variety

Recently, I made a stir fry for lunch with napa cabbage, red cabbage, kale and lots o' veggies. For protein, I added a can of sardines (an acquired taste as they say). I would have liked it better with eggs or salmon but it was tasty nevertheless.



Kristin and I made the most delicious stir fry I have had to date (no exaggeration) with salmon, asparagus, spinach, leeks, carrots, and a bunch of other veggies. The sweetness of the leeks and added sage, chives, salt, and pepper made a wonderful combination. Mashed potatoes on the side gave the meal some textural variety.

Fall Harvest Quesadillas and Apple Salsa

I found this recipe on the blog Chocolate Chip Trips, and it looked amazing. Unfortunately, my final product DID NOT look amazing (due to an overeager attempt to stuff a tortilla with too much squash) but it tasted great, nonetheless. Here's my adaptation after making it the first time. This is definitely a dish I can't wait to make again with my adjustments.

Acorn Squash and Spinach Quesadillas with Apple Salsa

(makes 2-3 servings)
For the Quesadillas:

• 1 Tb olive oil
  
• 2 cups acorn squash, peeled and chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 handfuls of spinach, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chicken sausages, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• about 12 small mushrooms
  
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• salt, pepper to taste
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 large tortillas (I used whole wheat)
  

For the Apple Salsa:

• 2 medium crisp apple (I used fuji), diced
  
• 1 handful of cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• the juice from one lemon and one lime
  
• salt, pepper to taste

For the Quesadillas:
1. Roast the acorn squash in the oven for about 20 min, until softened, but not mush.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet, and cook the onion for about 5 min. Add the squash, spinach, garlic, sausage and mushrooms and cook for about 10 minutes. Stir in the cumin, and salt and pepper.
3. Add a few drops of oil to a hot skillet. Place a tortilla on the skillet and add to one side half the squash mixture and half the cheese. Fold over and cook for about 5 minutes on each side, until crispy and browned. Repeat for other tortilla.

For the Apple Salsa:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.

Great Baking, Weird Baking and Spicy Hot Chocolate

This was the kind of desert that made me question why anyone ever puts in the effort to make anything more complicated than a good old rice krispy treat. I used this recipe, but I was afraid to burn the butter so I'm not sure I can technically call these "brown butter rice krispy treats." But nevertheless, they were in a league of their own, especially eaten warm, while the chocolate ganache (ghiradelli chocolate chips, crunchy organic peanut butter and a little half and half) was still melty.


Jen had purchased some limited edition "Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses" from Target and realized why they were on sale after she tried the first one....So we decided to use them up with this recipe, except Jen insisted we use whole-wheat flour. We also substituted honey and maple syrup for molasses, which made our cookies turn out looking like this....
Nevertheless, a warm cookie is a warm cookie, and these babies got eaten right up, no matter how odd they were. They were much more like a breakfast scone and some people enjoyed them with strawberry jam.
For the record, although I do love chocolate pepper cookies, I'm not a fan of chocolate pepper hot cocoa. This was not an intentional experiment. A few weeks back, while I was making said pepper cookies, a fair amount of black pepper had been mixed with some extra cocoa. Instead of throwing the cocoa away, I decided to dump it back in to the container, forgetting about the pepper that was hidden within. Weeks later, when Lucy and I taste-tested our home-made hot chocolate, we could not figure out why the hell it taste so awful. We kept adding more and more sugar until we realized the problem. We decided to drink it anyways, which was a daring decision. And not an experience I would ever like to repeat.

Chef Bobo comes to LoRise

Barbara brought from home her high school chef Chef Bobo's cookbook a couple weeks ago. It's a wonderful book full of kid-friendly, health food. We picked three recipes from it for Barbara's first dinner as head chef: mac and cheese (we added some frozen edamame), roasted veggies, and carmelized carrots (I was dying to finally finish off our 10 pound bag of carrots from the co-op like 2 months ago). we also added some sausage at the last minute to turn this dinner into nothing short of a feast.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi

I tried to make gnocchi and halfway through the process realized that I couldn't remember the last time I had had gnocchi and therefore didn't really know what I was looking for. There were too many factors that could have/probably did go wrong and the gnocchi came out as hard as rocks, but with a great flavor, at least. Here's the recipe, if anyone wants to give it a shot.

Strawberry Bruschetta

Oh, summer, how I miss thee. Me and the homefriends made this strawberry bruschetta with french bread, chevre, basil, strawberries, and a balsamic glaze Ana had from a gourmet food store. Delicious!

Chocolate-Chip Banana Pancakes

An easy way to start a day off with pure joy. We used a Food Network recipe (but added the chocolate and bananas, of course) and it was super simple and super delicious.

Lentil Soup by Lucy

Ok, THIS is my favorite soup ever. There was so much leftover, but I had no problem eating it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2am snacks until it was all gone.

Jen made a side dish of some onions, leeks and asparagus and we repeated the same salad from the previous night because it was so delicious.

Yum- scrambled eggs and leeks

Wow, this was one of my favorite dinners so far, I must say. The recipe hails from a famous food blog, "Orangette." I discovered a new favorite way to make scrambled eggs, but it takes some patience.
The salad was an herb mix topped with poached pears (not raw chicken slivers as you may have guessed), pomegranate seeds, curried almond slivers, and avocado. Healthiest salad ever? Maybe not. But definitely a delicious combination. I made a quick balsamic vinaigrette with some of the poaching liquid leftover from the pears.

Curry- A first attempt.

I tried to make some curried squash and chickpeas, but didn't really have the appropriate spices to make it work. It was an interesting first attempt, and I didn't get complaints from my diners, but I was not at all happy with the flavors. It turns out we tried to eat it before the squash was tender enough, so after letting it stew for another half an hour or so, the leftovers were much much better. I improvised a raita with low-fat plain yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, mint, and lemon juice and it was delicious. That alone with the toasted whole-wheat pita probably would have been enough! We were so happy to feed Babs' pre-frosh from last year, Zoe.

Butternut Squash Rissotto with Chicken

When my good friend Josh came to town, I was hoping to impress him with my new skillz...unfortunately I somehow managed to produce my first dinner disaster. I'm aware that I inherited the rice curse from my mother (we can't make rice), but tried to ignore and attempted my first ever risotto. Well, long story short, the rice on the bottom of the pan burnt pretty early on, giving the rest of the dish plenty of time to absorb the wonderful "smoky bbq flavor" as Josh kindly put it. I guess I'll have to stick with the fool-proof 20 minute Basmati rice-in-microwave method until someone shows me how to do risotto. Also, this dish would have been better if I had put in the effort to roast my own squash instead of using the canned kind. I'm not gonna link the recipe, because I'm holding it at partial fault, seeing as I followed it as carefully as I could.

It looked good at least! And as my mother always says, "Appeal is half the meal!"
Fortunately, the rest of the meal was both appealing AND delicious. (That's because I made the simplest asparagus recipe ever: roast asparagus on a baking sheet with LOTS of olive oil and salt for 20 minutes, turning over once--- and Josh brought CHOCOLATE CHIP CHALLAH(!!!!) from New York.

Chocolate-Pepper Cookies- Halloween Style

These cookies were a childhood favorite of mine...you know when you grow up on something and you don't realize it's weird until you tell your friends about it? Yeah, well that happened here. Peeps were def afraid to try these babies which were actually a bit of a bitch to make. But it turned out to be a really fun Thursday night baking project. I used Martha Stewart's recipe which was almost identical to the one I had at home. To compensate for the fact that we rolled them out instead of chopping them from a log and rolling them in sugar, we added a mixture of cinnamon, black pepper, cocoa powder and sugar to the tops of the cookies before baking them. They only took about 5 mins to bake! (But about 3 hours from start to finish, so beware!) Thanks to Ali's Aunt Vicki for the totz adorbz Halloween cookie cutters! (There was no way I was gonna NOT use them to make Halloween treats).

Ricotta-Apple Tartlets

I wanted to make these little ricotta tartlets with the leftover ricotta cheese from the pumpkin pasta and all the apples we get from the Fruit/Veg co-op every week. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right sized pan so my proportions were thrown off. Don't get me wrong, they were still delicious, there was just too much cheese! Mine definitely didn't turn out like the picture, but I think I'll know for next time how to improve these little guys.

Pumpkin-Sage Penne Pasta

This delightful fall dish didn't turn out as delicious as I had hoped...it could have been because we lacked spinach, or because I subbed in ricotta cheese, or because we used whole wheat pasta! Anyways, I had been wanting to make it for awhile, so it was indeed satisfying to pop it out. We had a really nice crowd that night, as well!

Note: This was a meal we prepared for 8 people but 2 dishes had to be meat-free and 2 had to be dairy-free. It was a good test, and I was impressed with my ability to please a picky crowd:)

Baked Egg and Potato Casserole

After a fall break full of eating out, Babs and I really wanted to get back into cooking so we turned to one of my favorite food blogs, Thought for Food for inspiration. Okay, not for inspiration but for recipes. For lunch we had a baked egg skillet with veggie hash; because this was a last-minute decision and we didn't go shopping, we just used what we had in the house: 10 pounds of carrots and 10 pounds of potatoes from our lovely, (at times excessive) fruit and veggie co-op. Although tasty, we probably should have stuck closer to the recipe to get the proportions right.

More Soup! (This time, potato dill)

This "chunky" potato soup (which I forgot to make chunky) was absolutely delicious. Probably because it consisted of potatoes, butter, onions, salt and cream...

I was supposed to only puree three cups of the soup and leave the rest chunky, but I forgot about that little detail and pureed the whole thing...fortunately, it didn't end up being too gummy and the flavor was still incredible.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This "bread" tasted a lot better than it looked! Because it was called a "bread," I allowed myself to eat it for every meal....it was definitely a CAKE and not a BREAD. This was one of those things where we made it and we were like- "oh, this will last us forever! We'll probably have to freeze it, or give it away!" Yeah. Right. I don't think it survived more than three days...The topping really put this decadent vegetable treat over the edge!

Carrot-Ginger-Orange-Almond Soup

As midterms approached, the stress increased and so did the intensity of the cooking....

Carrot Soup from Food Network (I added toasted almond slivers at the end as garnish and it made a huge difference.
I also made some delish salad: herb mix, pears, goat cheese, craisins, spiced walnuts, carmelized onions, mushrooms and chicken sauteed in a balsamic and olive oil.



Hasselback potatoes with rosemary, butter, salt and a olive oil:


Lu made some yummy curry-ginger cous-cous with veggies:
And Sarah, who had to leave early to go to a meeting had a lovely plate full of leftovers to return to when she got home:
I, myself, enjoyed some leftovers a couple days later for lunch with some toast, apple and sauteed spinach on the side.

Compota (otherwise known as applesauce)

So we have this apple tree in our backyard that decided to produce tons of delicious apples for the first time ever. The apples were somewhat misshapen and holey, so they were perfect for applesauce. I made the sauce the first week our Spanish exchange student was with us, and she taught us that applesauce is called "compota" in Spanish (like compote...get it? get it?).

Applesauce:
apples
water
sugar, to taste
lemon juice, to taste
cinnamon, to taste

Cut up the apples into small pieces. Place in a large pot, add some water and lemon juice and cinnamon, and cook on medium-high, stirring constantly, until soft and mushy. Taste and add sugar if you want it sweeter. Use a potato masher to mash the sauce if desired. Enjoy!

Pear Clafoutis

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 2 cups cubed peeled pear
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cups 1% low-fat milk (or soy), divided
  
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°.

Coat a 10-inch deep-dish pie plate with cooking spray, and dust plate with 1 teaspoon flour. Arrange the pear cubes in the bottom of prepared dish, and set aside.

Combine 3/4 cup flour, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl. Gradually add 1 cup milk, stirring with a whisk until well-blended. Add 1 cup milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract, stirring until smooth. Pour batter over pear cubes. Bake mixture at 375° for 45 minutes or until set.

It was delicious, though I think I would have preferred more eggs and less milk for a slightly fluffier texture. I used pears that I had picked the day before from a local pear tree, and they really made the dish special.