Oh man was tonight tasty!

First up: Black Bean Hummus. TO DIE FOR. I'm not a fan of hummus but this one rocks. I was googling around for some green lemonade recipes and found a blog called green-lemonade. I went browsing through the posted recipes and came across one that was more of a suggestion than a recipe. Here's how I did mine:

Black beans- I used dried and boiled them for a couple hours since I wanted this now and didn't want to wait for soaking. Super fast and awesome way to cook dried beans! I did not measure out an amount..just dumped some in my pot and set it on the stove.
Garlic- 3 cloves diced up nice and tiny
Green bell pepper_- just 1 average siced...diced up into chunks
salt
pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
lime juice -fresh...I needed to get 3 limes used up. I only got about one lime's worth of juice.
Seasoning salt
A bit of water

Cook black beans and toss in blender/food processor. Sautee bell pepper and garlic together in some EVOO and salt and pepper. Cook until garlic is tender and getting abit crispy/brown on the edges. Add to blender. Add in a dash of EVOO to blender mix and squeeze in lime juice. Blend like crazy. Add in seasoning salt to taste and give it one last go round. Add a bit of water if mixture is too thick. Careful not to add too much!

I topped ours with mozzerella and we dipped radishes, green bell pepper, and celery. My only regret is not having more stuff to dip in it. :)

This is a new one all around. 3-cheese Lasagna Roll Ups ( Clicky!Clicky!) using Azumaya Large Square Wraps. The package for the wraps has a lasagna (tofu) recipe on it so I decided to give this a try. This does not have tofu in it. :)

I used Ragu 3 cheese spaghetti sauce. Not because I'm lazy but because I had it and I needed to get it used up. :) Cheese mixture is 1 tub of cottage cheese (the husband couldn't find the ricotta), 1 8 oz. bag of mozzerella cheese, and some parmesean cheese. I used oregano, salt and pepper for the spices. I used a different recipe than the one linked above but figured I should find an actual recipe to shar for what I acutally made. :)


These weren't too bad. I wasn't thrilled but the rest of the fam was. I set my oven to 350 which was what the recipe called for. A recipe that used real lasagna noodles. It wasn't until I pulled it out a half hour later (and well past our normal dinner time) that I thought about that. The noodles were sorta....gooey. I checked the directions on the wraps package and I was supposed to have cooked them at 400 (if I remember right...not in my kitchen right now to double check) for 45 minutes. I threw them back in, set the timer again, and upped my oven heat. After sitting for a few minutes to cool down the noodles hardened up a bit and were indeed normal. The picture only shows one layer. I was able to get another layer in there for a total of 10 roll ups. Next time I need to remember to allow for extra cooking time for the bottom layer.

I'll definitely make this again but use lasagna noodles and different spices. It was lacking in my opinion. There wasn't much punch to it which was sad. I like a well seasoned lasagna.

My house was tasty tonight! I'm being beckoned to the kitchen by the wee one who should be asleep. She wants more. Gladly.

MMmmmm: Beans and Rice: A veggie staple

We oddly enough have never made it until last night (this is while it was cooking).

I had some leftover black beans from a soup we made (that post is coming soon....) and needed to get making some dinner. I googled around for a black beans and rice recipe (Clicky!Clicky!) and got to work.

I topped mine with sour cream and oooooo. It was heavenly. I used fresh tomato instead of stewed and made sure they were nice and cooked. Oh it was awesome. I saved some for the husband and fought the urge to eat his. Turns out he ate dinner so I could have eaten it if I had wanted!

Mmmm: Avocado Chicken and Caesar Pasta

Oh man this was tasty! First up is the pasta (no amounts are given here since it's very easy to customize...this fed 3 people with plenty left over):
Bow tie pasta
Cucumbers
Tomato
Avocado
Caesar dressing (we used light...not sure of the brand. We picked light since it was anchovy free)
Squeeze of lemon juice

Peel cucumber and chop, chop tomato, and avocado. Add to bowl with pasta. Squeeze lemon juice and add caesar dressing. Done! Soooo good.


Clicky!Clicky!

I didn't have any parsley and I used parmesean cheese instead. Still tasty but next time I'd like to use what they have, I bet it just adds a nice punch to the flavor. Oh I skipped the bread crumbs and white wine as well.

Everyone devoured this! The chik'n was moist and tasted "real". The flavor was light but definitely there. Next time I make this I will use a stronger cheese though. I had originally planned on putting the avocado on top but decided against it at the last minute and tossed it into the salad. So happy I did. It was awesome!

Oh happy day!

See that? That, dear readers, is coming to my house! So what right? Not so! This means I will have actual pictures! Pictures that have a smidgen of decent quality. Posts without the phrases, "Sorry for the crappy pic" or "cell phone pic" ANYWHERE. I am very excited. I have things to take pictues of (such as thenew receipes I am trying out due to a new blog I found!) but I am waiting. Waiting oh so very impatiently for my new camera to get here so I can take some pictures worthy of a blog post.

(Isn't the husband such a nice fella'? That was bought as a present for me when I groaned about the injustice of cell phone pics and my etsy store...I think he's a keeper. :) )

It's coming.

Be prepared. I'm actually coming to post. Food stuff. On a more consistent basis. I know. It's scary. It'll be good though. Good and tasty. :)

Acorn Squash and Corn chowder

Wow. Almost a year since my last post. I'm lame. :)

In that time frame we have gone back to full vegetarian. Tonight we had a different dinner...different for many reasons. The first being, I don't like chowders. Of any kind. Second being I used squash. It turned out mighty tasty! A tad bland but that's because I lacked the main seasonings the recipe called for (and used a different sqaush altogther).

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/367/Butternut-Squash-And-Corn-Chow79985.shtml

My changes were:

Acorn Squash

Salt, pepper, garlic salt, dried cilantro

I boiled the potatoes and sauteed the corn from the last step while I blended...that way I could just throw it in there and let it get warm (not required since they were already hot) and dinner was done. Cut down on a few minutes of end prep. :)

Super tasty!

Knowing when to pass

I recently bought two kinds of persimmon (that's a persimmon tree..pretty huh?), hachyia and fuyu. I had heard such great things about this weird little fruit and the store we were shopping in happen to have them so of course I grabbed a few. I googled them to see how to eat them (how dorky am I!) and then sliced one open. I did the hachyia one first. They are longer, shaped somewhat like a top or dredel. The fuyu are more squat...like a tomato. Hmm. Well the only way to really describe it is to combine the dryness that cranberries create with the milk tounge. Yeah. It was very dissapointing. The fruit itself was very pretty but when I ate some it dried out my mouth and left a grainy film on my tounge and cheeks. Later on I found out that you are supposed to wait until the fruit is SUPER soft. That was not the case with mine. I decided to juice one tonght and it didn't work so well. Oh well. I wasn't too attached to the idea of them anyway. They certainly aren't local which means they are going to be blasted with ripening agents any way. Yum.

I've been living off of tomato, cucumbber, and avocaado salad lately. Super delicious and doesn't take a lot of items. One of each and I have 3 bowls worth! I've been increasingly dissapointed though (seems to be a theme for this post ;) ). Tomatos are not in season. That's just it. However, people continue to want them so they are around all year long. So what right? Well that just leaves for a lot of nasty produce. The last 6 tomatos I have cut open have been super grainy (to the point of seeing the grain while I'm cutting), seeds have been non exsistent, and when there have been seeds they have been shocking green. to the point of questioning the freshness. The sad thing is most people would/do think this is normal. Knowing why I can have a tomato in November and knowing why it's as craptastic as it is grosses me ou. Do I stop buying them? Of course not. I'm just like every other person out there and like tomatos on my salads, in tacos, and on sandwhiches. Should I stop? Umm duh. Yes. I've been thinking more and more about eating locally which would suck n my area. Especially as a vegetarian much less as a raw-er. I've been spoiled with having access to loads of organics. That doesnt't help any. I know what kind of quality I could be getting. It irritates me that in my area it's not more abundant. That there isn't much variety. That foods are sub par. It's not surprising more people don't like fruits and veggies. They're getting fermented crap on a stick! Humans know when a food is good and grainy green tomatos are not! I look forward to moving back to Colorado just so that I can eat better. Believe me when I say I am in an area of meat and potatos. And maybe corn.