My friend dropped off a bag of delicious bagels the other day and so I decided to make some vegetable cream cheese to go with it! I’m pretty happy with the result. If you like store-bought vegetable cream cheese, I suggest you whip up this homemade version – it’s so much better!
Avocados were on sale at the grocery store and I just couldn’t pass up the chance to make some guacamole. We devoured the entire thing in about 3 days using Manny’s Tortilla Strips (the absolute best) as the mode of transportation to get from the bowl to our mouths. Soooooo good! Maybe next time I’ll actually get around to making some Mexican food to go with it.
Best Guacamole
4 avocados, peeled, pitted, and mashed
1 lime, juiced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup diced onion
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 pinch ground cayenne pepper
In a medium bowl, mash together avocadoes, lime juice and salt. Mix in onion, cilantro, tomatoes, garlic and cayenne. Serve immediately or refrigerate until serving.
Granola bars are one of my favorite things to snack on. It’s perfect when I need something to hold me over from lunch to dinner. While it may be convenient to just buy a box (or two) from the grocery store, making them at home allows you to customize the bars to your tastes! I added coconut, walnuts and milk chocolate chips to the fruit and nut “base”, but you could add in an endless number of ingredients!
Granola Bars
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
6 ounces dried fruit
1/4 cup coconut
1/3 cup milk chocolate chips
1/3 cup walnuts
Preheat oven t 350°F. Butter a 9×9 baking dish and set aside.
Mix oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, and walnuts together and spread onto a half sheet pan. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, combine the honey, brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the brown sugar is dissolved.
When the oat and nut mixture is done, remove from oven and turn the oven down to 300°F.
Stir the oat and nut combination into the liquid mixture. Add in coconut, dried fruit, and chocolate chips. Stir quickly and spread into prepared 9×9 baking dish. Press down mixture firmly and distribute the mixture evenly.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from oven, let cool completely, and then cut into bars.
I love slow cookers. They’re a life saver for me. I can throw everything into the pot with almost no prep work at all and come home to a delicious, hot meal. This dish is great. It’s easy, doesn’t have too many ingredients, and it is good. The kielbasa gets cooked down to a melt-in-your mouth texture and the beer, honey dijon mustard, and sauerkraut flavors come together beautifully.
Slow Cooker Kielbasa and Sauerkraut
2 pounds kielbasa
2 small onions, sliced
1 small apple, chopped
2 14-ounce cans sauerkraut, drained
1 12 fluid ounces can or bottle of beer (I used Sam Adams)
1/4 cup honey Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
Brown the kielbasa in a cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Transfer browned kielbasa into slow cooker.
Saute onions in the skillet until browned and transfer into the slow cooker.
Add the apple, sauerkraut, beer, mustard, and caraway seeds into the slow cooker and stir to combine.
One of my favorite things to do is cook for my friends. I think I get this from my mom who is always finding a reason to throw elaborate dinner parties. I honestly hope that I can one day host parties that impress as many people as she can.
I made this for Mike and a couple of our friends one night for dinner and served it with some crumb-topped rhubarb for dessert.
This dish was very easy to make and so good! People who have a lower spice tolerance won’t find it too spicy and if you can handle the heat, then bring on the cayenne!
Fettuccine with Sweet Pepper Cayenne Sauce adapted from allrecipes.com
12 ounces fettuccine
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 red bell peppers, julienned
1 large onion, sliced
3 gloves garlic, minced
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or adjust to taste)
1/2 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup Parmesan, grated
1 cup fat free sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to directions and drain.
Heat oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Cook bell peppers and onions for 1 – 2 minutes. Add garlic and cayenne and cook for 3 more minutes.
Stir in broth and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove sauce from heat and stir in Parmesan. Salt and pepper to taste. Whisk in sour cream until smooth.
This pasta is hands down the best pasta I have ever had. It’s cheap, easy, and delicious. What more could a girl ask for? I need to find a place to buy sun-dried tomatoes in bulk so I can make this dish more often.
Spaghetti with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Feta
1 16-ounce package spaghetti
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium onions, sliced into rings
3 ounces sun-dried tomatoes, softened and chopped
1 8-ounce package feta cheese, crumbled (the tomato basil feta was exceptionally good!)
1 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
Cook pasta in a large pot according to directions. Drain and return to the pot.
Heat olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Saute garlic, onions and sun-dried tomatoes until the onions are translucent. Mix into the spaghetti and stir in feta, Parmesan and cilantro. Serve immediately.
As the GRE crept closer and closer, I found myself cooking less and less. Looking back, I can’t even remember what I ate for the past week. The only thing I remember is going to Harvest with Mike for our fourth anniversary.
Now that I’m done with the GRE, I have a little time to enjoy food again… or at least until I start applying to grad school 🙂
This pasta salad is probably the easiest thing I’ve ever made. It’s food like this that keeps me sane when I’m stressed.
Easy Pasta Salad
1 pound tri-colored rotini
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup black olives
2 green peppers, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cucumbers, sliced
4 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup Italian dressing
Cook pasta according to directions. Rinse with cold water and set aside to cool completely.
Mix mushrooms, olives, green peppers, onion and cucumbers together with the dressing. Stir in the pasta, chill for 2 hours or overnight and serve cold.
Mike and I made a trip to Minocqua two winters ago and he got peanut butter cups at one of the fudge shops in town. I can still remember how happy he was to eat such a huge peanut butter cup. I don’t know why I never thought about doing this earlier, but I finally decided to make some peanut butter cups myself!
They turned out great. My only complaint is that they need to be kept in the fridge or freezer until you eat them because they will melt at room temperature. Other than that, they’re nearly perfect.
Peanut Butter Cups yields 7 large cups
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Fill a small pot with 2 inches of water. Boil and then turn heat to low. Place a heatsafe bowl over the pot, making sure the pot doesn’t touch the water.
Pour chocolate into the bowl and stir chocolate constantly with a spatula or whisk until melted. Remove chocolate from heat.
When chocolate reaches a comfortable handling temperature, begin making the chocolate cups.
Place a large spoonful of chocolate into the bottom of a cupcake liner and carefully smear the chocolate over the entire surface of the cup, making sure everything is evenly covered.
After all cups are covered with chocolate, place them onto a plate and put them in the freezer for 15 minutes to harden the chocolate.
Meanwhile, make the peanut butter filling. Mix the peanut butter and powdered sugar together in a bowl until well combined and smooth.
After the chocolate cups have hardened, remove from the freezer.
Place a spoonful of peanut butter into each cup until it’s about 1/4 inch from the top and smooth flat.
Spoon remaining chocolate on top of the peanut butter. Push the chocolate to the edges of the cup, creating a seal.
Place the cups in the freezer for 20 – 30 minutes, or until the chocolate is hard. Carefully (and quickly) peel off the muffin liners.
Serve straight from the freezer or allow to thaw for 5 minutes at room temperature.
When it’s hot outside and you have no air conditioning at home, the last thing you want to do is have the stove or oven running for a long period of time. The beauty of this recipe? It takes just minutes to make on the stove, and you can use the microwave if you want! This couscous salad is extremely quick and easy to make and the leftovers taste great!
Couscous Salad serves 8
2 cups couscous
2 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cucumber, chopped
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 cup feta, crumbled
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Boil the water with the butter and salt. Once boiling, add couscous and stir quickly. Remove from heat and cover. Let sit for 5 minutes. Stir with a fork to break up the clumps and set the couscous aside to cool.
2. Mix the cucumber, tomatoes, and onion together in a bowl. Add olive oil and balsamic vinegar, to taste. I used about 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar.
3. Pour the veggies and dressing over the couscous. Stir until evenly coated. Continue to add balsamic vinegar and olive oil as desired. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
I love the taste of vinegar and will add copious amounts of it to whatever I’m eating. If you don’t like the taste as much, please feel free to use less of it!!
One of my favorite things to do is cook for my friends. The more people there are and the more food I make, the happier I am. I think that this is a trait I got from my mom who loves to have elaborate dinner parties that never fail to amaze people. I hope that one day I can be as good a cook as she is.
I stumbled across this recipe on allrecipes.com and decided that it would be a good dish for a dinner I had with Mike and two of our friends.
Fettuccine with Sweet Pepper-Cayenne Sauce adapted from allrecipes.com
12 ounces fettuccine
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 red bell peppers, julienned
2 onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 teaspoon cayenne – adjust more or less depending on spice tolerance
1 cup fat free sour cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook pasta according to directions and drain.
Heat oil in a large skillet and saute red bell peppers, onions and garlic for 3 – 5 minutes.
Stir in broth and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream and cheese.
Toss pasta with sauce and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.
DoughSeeDough 