Turnip and Onion Au Gratin

This is a pretty good approximation of potatoes au gratin, without the potato. If you have somebody who doesn't eat potato (freaks), make this for them. It's tasty! Not much else to say on it. Going to be a little of a recipe hiatus, since we're starting the cleanse Monday. I've started a separate journal geared toward that. Comment with your email address if you would like access. I'll continue to post on this journal as well, just in a limited way.

Bottom Line 4.3 Stars (Turnips just aren't potatoes)

Master Cleanse

I think Chris and I are going to do the Master Cleanse for 10 days starting on Monday. I am mostly doing it for health reasons, but I am also attending a wedding on the 13th and was thinking that dropping a few lbs prior would be a good thing, I am fully aware that I will almost certainly gain that weight back, but this cleanse is going to be the beginning of a permanent dietary change that Chris and I are starting.

The plan as of now is this:
Saturday July 30th - No meat or dairy, 70/30 veggies and fruit. As much liquids as possible. focusing mainly on soups and drinking a lot of water.
Sunday July 31st - Fresh orange juice and any left over soup/veggies
Monday August 1st - Day 1 of cleanse
Wednesday August 10th - Last day of cleanse
Thursday August 11th - Orange juice and possibly some soup
Friday August 12th - Soup and some solid foods, no meat or dairy
Saturday August 13th - Wedding

Mama's Chili

I don't like chili. Unless it comes on a hot dog or french fries I'm generally not interested. That being said, of all the chili I have tasted, I still think my Mom's is best. I know that most children think their Mom's cooking is the best, however, when you have a chef with 30 years of experience as your Mother, you are probably right.

When I made this Chris was a little dubious. Cocoa powder? There's a lot of water... etc. If you aren't familiar with cocoa in chili, you should try it. It brings all the flavors out, adds an earthy sweetness that when it's mixed with the beans and the meat make it hum.

I had a mix of beans so you'll get some mixed directions. Making it with dry beans is BY FAR the cheaper way, so as long as you have the time to devote do it. We have a bajillion cans of kidney beans so I added 3 of them to the dry beans I had soaked. It was yummy. You can make it spicier if you want. To my mind it's always better to make it milder, since spice tends to grow the longer it sits, and you can always add more.

This is a pretty sizeable batch of Chili. Chris and I filled up 4 yogurt containers which we froze, and still had enough for two lunches each and a little to have with dinner.

Meyer Lemon Semifreddo

I love semifreddo. A lot, its such a versatile and relatively easy dessert. It's like having the perfect combo between ice cream and mousse, it's awesome for the summer because it's frozen, but you don't need any special equipment to make it. It can be a little (a very little) time consuming but I think it's well worth the effort.

For this recipe I used strawberries and blueberries, I would really like to use blackberries and raspberries instead, but I used what I had. Also, I can't slice almonds, I'm just not that patient. so I gave them a rough chop, which I thought was fine. Last but not least, and I have to say, I think I'm pretty brilliant for doing this, but that probably just means that everyone has figured it out already. Do not make this in a loaf pan. Make it in lined muffin tins. No lie, it makes individual servings that you don't have to frustratedly slice, you can just pop them out. Serve them almond side up with the berries piled on top or around one side. It's looks sophisticated and just downright tasty. It also cuts your freezing time waaaay down because you're not trying to freeze a big block of mousse.

Bottom Line: 5 stars!

Fried Eggs and Mustard Creamed Spinach on a Bagel

At work we're hosting summer workshops for upcoming High School Seniors who are applying to College this fall. We provide snacks and last week we had bagels, but we over bought so we had a TON left over so I took some home. Including some specialty ones: Spinach and Provolone and  Sundried Tomato and Red Pepper with Mozarella. I got home that night and was really not excited about cooking. Chris said he wanted eggs and I thought about this recipe which I had seen in an older issue of Bon Appetit. Chris was a little apprehensive about the combination of spinach, egg and mustard, but this recipe seriously won him over. I think he said "Baby, this is really good." about 6 times in the 15 minutes it took to eat. I agree. The acidity of the mustard with the fattiness of the egg yolk was awesome. It was almost like a mock hollandaise.

Obviously I substituted the bagels for the bread crumbs. I think either would be delicious, it's just a matter of whether you want a heavier meal or a lighter one. I think in the future I would serve this with English Muffins rather than bagels if I was to use something other than the crumbs. I also didn't have half and half on hand so I did 2.5 tablespoons of milk and 1 tablespoon of butter, which I thought was fine, but stick to the recipe if you can. Don't skip the fresh thyme! It's really important.

Bottom Line: 4.7 Stars

Slow-cooked Beef Stew/Pot Roast

Okay, something you should know about me: I have a huge crush on my slow cooker. That's right. I admit it. If you have one, and use it, you probably do too.

There's nothing I love more than putting everything together the night before, flipping a switch as I (often quite literally) run out the door and then coming home... Specifically coming home to a wonderful smelling house, a meal that is already cooked and only 1 pot to clean. That my friends is pure joy.

This beef stew is awesome, simply and extra tasty. You can also substitute beef shoulder, boneless chuck roast or some other fatty well marbled piece of beef and turn this same recipe into pot roast if you prefer. If you are going to do this get more poundage of beef, since it will have more fat and cook down to less meat.

Bottom Line: 4.5 Solid recipe

Sundried Tomato and Basil Hummus on toast with Avocado and Shrimp

This didn't include ingredients from my produce box, but was really good so I thought I would post it. I think it would be great as an appetizer served on toast rounds or flat bread.

Yesterday was kind of hot, I wasn't super hungry and really didn't feel like cooking, especially since we didn't have charcoal so I couldn't grill. Chris didn't have any objections so I made Hummus to spread on toast, with avocado and sauteed shrimp.

I increased the garlic by half (seeing a pattern yet?), and had a little extra sundried tomato that I decided to through in rather than keeping 2-3 pieces that wouldn't be good for anything. It was great.

Everything would have been perfect except the shrimp were a little off. But if they hadn't been off it would have been delicious!

Bottom Line: 4.9 Stars

Chicken Provencal w/ Sauteed Spinach

This is pretty yummy and quite easy. 

I doubled the garlic (I'm a garlic fiend in case you hadn't noticed!). I added 1 tbs of tomato paste, since the tomatoes I had were a little unripe still. Make sure you salt and pepper the sauce well. Other than that the one thing I would encourage is NOT skimping on the kalmata olives! Normally I feel like they can easily overpower a dish, but I think they make this one. 

I sauteed the spinach in oil with onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I then laid the chicken quarter on a bed of the spinach and spooned the sauce over the top. 

One other thing. This sauce was NOTABLY better the next day. I think letting the flavors have some time to mix was a good thing for the sauce. I don't know if I would ever make the sauce the day before or not though, just seems like a hassle.

Bottom Line 4.3 Stars

Upcoming Stuff

I'm pretty excited about the food for this week! I bought a container of veal stock from grocery outlet, and it and my veggies are sort of determining what I'm making. Tonight is going to be Chicken Provencal, tomorrow is Pork Chops with Apple-Balsamic Sauce, after that there's going to be some Slow-cooked Beef Stew and Prawns with Zucchini and Salsa Verde over spaghetti. Yummy!

***Edit***
Prawns are cancelled until I go an yell at the people at QFC for selling me cooked prawns that were off when I wanted uncooked and certainly un-spoiled prawns.
Might re-think the pork chops too. I ended up using the veal stock in the slow-cooked beef stew since I didn't have beef stock.

Galumpkis: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This has been one of my favorite meals since I was tiny. So I decided to make it for my boyfriend who had never had it. The recipe I followed was good, but I made a near fatal mistake: I forgot to season the filling. This is a SUPER bummer, because the meat-rice mixture this gets filled with requires a pretty large amount of salt and pepper otherwise the natural flavors just don't come out.

There are three things I'm going to do with this recipe in the future:
1. Add 1.5 tsps of paprika to the filling
2. Double the garlic in both the tomato sauce and the filling.
3. Increase by half the amount of the sweet and sour tomato sauce that is added to the filling

The only change I made to the recipe this time (aside from my spectacular blunder) is that I made a full 1 cup (uncooked) batch of rice and added that to the filling, which I thought was balanced pretty well aside from needing a little more of the tomato flavor.

EDIT: I just remade this and like an idiot a forgot ANOTHER ingredient, this time the egg, so I'm not going to adjust my rating. Still the filling was soooo much better with the changes I made. the only thing I would for sure say is salt and pepper the hell out of that filling I probably added around 2 tsps of salt to the filling and I would say another wouldn't go amiss.

Bottom line: 4.6 (with the above changes this would be a 5)