Saturday morning leftovers

I don't know about you, but some mornings I wake up absolutely famished.  This morning was one of those days.  I tried to hold off my hunger for about an hour before I could not take it anymore.   After experimenting with a carrot juice/coconut concoction (trust me, it was bad), I decided to go the more straight forward route and use eggs.  We had leftover squash from the night I made the Zucchini and Chickpea recipe, cheese from the green chili enchiladas, a baked potato from my lunch on Wednesday, and spinach from Matt's lunch. And on top of all of those leftovers, my eggs needed to be used by the beginning of October.  What a perfect combination of ingredients for a big ol' egg scramble!

All the beautiful ingredients!

I put a little bit of olive oil in the skillet and turned the heat on medium.

Threw in my squash and potatoes to warm them up.

Then added the spinach so it would get slightly wilted.

Added the five eggs and scrambled them up a bit in the skillet.  Topped the egg and
vegetables with a handful of cheese along with some salt and pepper.

Scrambled the eggs on medium heat.

A breakfast full of protein and goodness!

It is fall. Time for some soup.

Soup!  Oh my goodness, my heart is warming right now at the thought of a good bowl of soup.  One reason why I love the fall so much is that soups begin popping up on restaurant menus and in food magazines.   Finding a good soup recipe is like finding a good sweater.  It is something you can always go to when you need a little comfort.

The soup recipe I made last night is from 101cookbooks.com, a website I have mentioned in a previous post.  I had made this soup in May or June of this year and have been waiting to make it again when the weather was a little cooler.  Unfortunately for our meal planning, I had planned to make this recipe on Thursday evening.  It turned out to be about 82 degrees Thursday.  Yep, that's right.  However, Matt and I decided we had planned that meal so we were going to eat that meal.  End the end we were so happy that we stuck with our plans.  It was delicious!

Here is the link to the website where you can find the  recipe: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/green-lentil-soup-with-curried-brown-butter-recipe.html

Besides the lentils, this soup is made with ingredients you might have in your fridge or cabinet on a regular basis. Hopefully the pictures below will help show the steps in this delicious soup making adventure. Enjoy!

PS- Do you see how happy Matt's hands look in these photos?  Matt said this soup should go on our list of regular weeknight meals.  He likes it that much.  Unfortunately for him, that "regular" list does not exist in this household.  However, I do agree, this soup recipe is a keeper and will probably be called upon again in the near future.

A simple and sweet applesauce

While growing up, applesauce was always a staple at our house.  My grandmother would make applesauce on a regular basis from the apples she and my grandfather grew on their farm.  Now that I have all these apples from apple picking last Saturday, I thought I would try my own attempt at making applesauce.  Because on Weight Watchers natural applesauce is 0 points, I definitely knew when going into this applesauce making adventure that I wanted mine to be natural (meaning without sugar) too.  I also knew I wanted it to be chunky like my grandmother's applesauce.

However, one thing I didn't know before beginning this process was just how simple making applesauce actually is.  Even though we had about 24 apples sitting in the kitchen and I knew I wanted to bake with them, I was very intimidated by the idea of actual using them to make applesauce.  After talking to my mother this afternoon, I felt reassured this project wasn't that big of a deal.  The recipe below is her inspiration.  She understood my desire to stay away from sugar and worked around that.  What a helpful mom I have!

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Simple Cinnamon Applesauce

12 apples of different varieties
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 medium sized lemon

Peel, core, and cut apples into bite-sized pieces.  Put apples in a big pot.  Add water and cinnamon to big pot. Cut lemon in half and squeeze into pot the juice from both halves. Cook covered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When apples are soft, mash them with a potato masher until you reach your desired applesauce consistency.    Let cool.  When cool, the applesauce needs to be eaten within a couple days or frozen.  If freezing, scoop 1 1/2 cups of applesauce into freezer bags.  Stack on top of each other to save freezer space.  Enjoy!

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Six ingredients...what?!?

Tonight's recipe is one of sentimental value to me.  After Matt and I had been dating two or three months, we decided we wanted to try to cook dinner together.  This dinner was the first dinner we ever cooked as a couple. When we made it the first time, it took us about an hour to figure out what we were doing.  Oh, what novices we were!  However, for someone who has more experience in the kitchen, this meal will take about 20 minutes.  It is super fast, very hearty, and amazingly delicious!

Here is the link to the original recipe I found in Real Simple way back in 2009.  
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/linguini-zucchini-chickpeas-recipe
The Real Simple recipe has slightly different ingredients and directions compared how I like to cook this recipe these days.  I like to switch up the type of pasta and the order in which I cook the ingredients.  Enjoy!

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Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Zucchini and Chickpeas 
(serves four hungry people or three very hungry people)

1/2 box of whole wheat spaghetti
1 15 oz can of chickpeas
1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 medium zucchinis
grated parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the packaging.  Meanwhile, cut zucchini into 1/4 inch thick half-moons and place to the side.  Add about a tablespoon of oil into the bottom of a large skillet.  Add the red pepper flakes, garlic powder, and chickpeas.  Let these cook together for about 5-8 minutes or until the water for the pasta starts boiling.  As soon as you put the pasta into the boiling water, add the zucchini to the skillet full of chickpeas.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Zucchinis will begin softening as they cook.  After pasta is finished cooking, add zucchinis and chickpeas to pasta.  Mix.  Serve sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

(I forgot to add the garlic powder here.  This photo only shows five ingredients but there are really six.) 

Hot enchiladas!

I have been looking forward to writing this blog all day because I am so excited to share last night's recipe.

Last night I made jalapeno and green pepper enchiladas that were crazy good.  I don't mean to brag or anything, but seriously, they were that good. Matt gave them a 4.25 out of 5 chicken wings which is pretty impressive since the meal was so simple (and meatless).  And since I don't eat meat these days, I would give the recipe 5 out of 5 broccoli florets.

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Jalapeno and Green Pepper Enchiladas for Four

2 jalapenos
1 green pepper
4 flour tortillas
1 1/2 cups of pepperjack cheese
1-8 oz tomato sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon of Kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Begin by dicing the jalapeno and green peppers.  Once diced, add to a large skillet with a touch of oil at the bottom.  Cook about 10-15 minutes or until slightly soften. Place peppers to the side in a bowl.  Add tomato sauce, vegetable oil, water, onion salt, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, and Kosher salt to the skillet you sauteed the peppers in.  This will be your enchilada sauce. Cook sauce on medium high heat for approximately 15-20 minutes or until it has reduced and thickened.  Stir sauce every 3-5 minutes to prevent burning.

While sauce is reducing, divide your peppers into four equal sections.  Place one section of peppers in the middle of a flour tortilla.  Sprinkle the peppers with approximately 1/4 cup pepperjack cheese.  Roll the cheese and peppers up in the flour tortilla and place in a baking dish.  Make sure the tortilla seam is facing down.  Repeat this process three more times.

Once enchilada sauce is thickened, pour over the flour tortillas filled with cheese and peppers.  Place baking dish in oven and cook for 15 minutes.  Sprinkle any remaining pepperjack cheese on the top of the enchiladas.  Bake for an addition 5 minutes in order for the cheese to melt.  Enjoy!

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As you can see, we had Spanish rice and black beans as our sides.  While I was cooking, I was thinking about all the options that could go into these enchiladas.  If you wanted to put ground beef or other vegetables into the flour tortillas, it would work just as well.   Matt and I had two of the enchiladas last night for dinner and the remaining two for lunch today.  Even the next day, this dish was delicious. If you get to make it, I hope you like it as much as we did!

Sunday is steak day

On Sunday afternoons/evenings, I love staying at home, sitting around, and eating a big dinner.  The preparation for this meal is so much fun because I have all afternoon to pull the components together.  If I have found a recipe that requires an ingredient to cook for 4-6 hours before serving, Sunday is my day to try it out!  The possibilities are endless on a Sunday.

So this week I wanted to try to make Matt another steak.  Instead of buying a seasoning or marinade, I decided to season the steak with items we already had in our pantry.  About an hour and a half before we were planning to eat dinner, I mixed 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon of crushed red peppers in a bowl.  I then set that aside to let the flavors combine. 

About 45 minutes before I was ready to cook, I took the steak out of the refrigerator in order to get it to room temperature.  I seasoned both sides with Kosher salt and ground black pepper.  About 10 minutes before cooking, I brushed on the olive oil/pepper/garlic mixture to the steak.  Using our cast iron skillet, I turned the gas burner on high, added a little more olive oil,  waited until the skillet was nice and hot, and then seared the steak on both sides.  Matt likes his steaks medium/medium rareish so I attempted to reach that level of cookedness (?) before serving.

We had mashed sweet potatoes, broccoli, and rosemary bread (remember that from two days ago?) along with the steak.  Below is a little bit of the process.  If you decide to experiment with your steaks, please let me know.  I would love to hear about some other steak seasoning/marinating options!

Apple picking in Ellijay

On Saturday, Matt and I headed to Ellijay, Georgia to a U-Pick apple farm called Little Bend Orchard. Because I was hoping to bake something with apples, about a week ago I mentioned the idea of apple picking to Matt.  Neither of us had ever done this before. He was totally up for it because he knew he was going to end up with an apple dessert from this excursion.  It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday for picking apples and we had a really good time.  

With apples in hand, we headed back home.  While we were driving home, I was dreaming about what I could do with all these apples.  Below is an apple pecan dessert I made this afternoon. I made Matt try one and I got a very good review from him.  I think he is planning on having another one (or two) after dinner tonight.

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Apple Pecan Hand Pies

2 tablespoons butter
3 medium apples (any color), diced
1/4 cup agave nectar or honey
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 tablespoon sugar
2/3 cup pecans, chopped
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 pie crusts (meaning 1 box of pre-made pie crusts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Dice 3 apples.  Place diced apples, butter, agave nectar, all the cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, pecans, and lemon juice in a pot with a lid.  Cook covered for approximately 20 minutes on medium low heat until the apples are soft and they have turned a caramel color.  Make sure to stir the apple filling every 3-5 minutes to prevent burning.

While apple filling is cooking, take the two pie crusts and roll them out separately on a clean surface.  They might need to be rolled over with a rolling pin to make sure all cracks are smoothed out.  Once the pie crusts are rolled out, take a bowl or any container with a rim that is approximately 5-6 inches and cut a circle into the crust using the rim of the bowl.  Continue this process until all dough from both pie crusts has been used.  This should make approximately 6-9 circles depending on how thin the crust is rolled out.

Once the circles have been cut out of the pie crust and the apple filling has turned the caramel color, put approximately 1/3 cup of apple filling on the bottom half of the circle.  Fold over the top half, creating a half moon shape.  Make sure to squeeze the edges of the pie crust together so it doesn't pop open during baking.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve with whipped cream, ice cream, or just by itself.

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If you try this recipe, I would love to hear what you think about it!  I have about six more of these sitting on my stove right now waiting to be eaten.  If you are in the area, feel free to come by for one. Matt and I would love to share. Hope you enjoy!