Try a new recipe every month

The man and I are making an attempt to eat less meat, so to that end we are trying to include 1-2 meatless dinners per week.

I found this recipe for curried quinoa at this site:

http://www.quinoa-recipes.com/

We both think it is pretty tasty, and really isn’t that much work.

Ingredients:
1/2 c Quinoa
1 c Water
1 1/2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1/2 c Diced Onion
1 tsp grated Fresh Ginger Root
Fresh Green Chile (finely chopped)
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/2 tsp Coriander
1/8 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 c frozen Peas

Directions:
1.Place oil and diced onions in a heavy saucepan. Saute the onions on medium high heat for four to five minutes.
2.Add the ginger root, chile, and quinoa. Cook for one minute stirring constantly.
3.Stir in the turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, and salt. Cook for one minute stirring constantly.
4.Add the water and bring it to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.
5.Stir in peas. Cover and cook for four or five minutes or until peas are tender and all the water has been absorbed.

We’ve had it twice now. I usually don’t have fresh chiles around, so both times we have not included those. Also the recipe on the site calls for salt, and we always omit extra salt when we are cooking.

This is an adaptation of a recipe in the Dec 2007 issue of Cuisine at Home magazine. I was going to do the full recipe but I forgot to buy the tomato paste for the pasta sauce so I used canned sauce I had in the pantry instead. Looking back, I’m glad I did. It simplified the recipe a little bit and made it easier for a weeknight meal. I read some feedback on the full recipe in the magazine’s forum and one person said the sauce wasn’t that flavorful anyway. She also had trouble slicing the mozzarella. I didn’t have trouble with that because I bought mine out of the deli case and they sliced it for me. I think it’s also cheaper that way. D and I also debated whether to purchase our shrimp from the freezer case or the seafood case since the signage said they were previously frozen. But we found out the shrimp in the seafood case was already deveined, so that made up our minds. Anyway, we both readily agreed that this recipe packed a lot of flavor while being nice and light at the same time. I think the parsley is a great pairing with shrimp and will definitely put them together in the future. Enjoy!

2 oz angel hair pasta (I used spaghetti)
pasta sauce
1 cup panko crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
3 T. flour
4 slices mozzarella 1/4” thick (1 oz each)
10 shrimp, peeled, deveined (I bought medium sized)
1 T. garlic, minced
1/4 t. red pepper flakes
1/3 cup white wine
2 T. fresh parsley, chopped
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

Heat the pasta sauce and put the pasta on to boil.
Dredge each slice of mozzarella in flour, egg, panko and then egg and panko a second time. Heat oil in skillet over high. Add breaded cheese and fry until golden, 2-3 minutes each side. Remove to towel-lined plate. Pour off all but 1 T. of oil.
Saute shrimp, garlic and red pepper flakes for 1 minute over medium. Deglaze with wine and simmer until reduced by half, about 1 minute. Stir in parsley, lemon juice and salt.
To serve, divide pasta between the two plates and add sauce. Next to the pasta, add the breaded mozzarella and top with the shrimp. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

I fixed this for an early Christmas formal dinner for my Mom and my in-laws. We devoured it. The recipe says it serves 8-10 and that’s about right. This ham is wonderful! The recipe is from W & S cookbook titled “Meats & Poultry”.
Enjoy!!

partially boned country style ham 6-7 lbs.
about 30 whole cloves
1/2 cup pineapple juice
3 tablespoons maple syrup (I used grade B)
3 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar

Rinse the ham in several changes of cold water. Place in large bowl, cover completely with water and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the ham from the water and pat dry. Place in roasting pan. Using a sharp knife, remove skin and all but 1/2 inch of fat from the ham. Score the ham with criss-crosses to form diamond patterns all over. Place a clove in each diamond.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a saucepan, combine pineapple juice, maple syrup and brown sugar. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves, about one minute. Brush the surface of the ham with the glaze and bake, basting every 30 minutes. Bake for 2 to 2.5 hours.

D and I often buy a strawberry muffin mix and we enjoy it quite a bit. I thought it would be nice to make some from scratch so I printed off a few recipes from the internet. I’m not a fan of strawberries because of the seeds but strawberry flavored things are just fine. So the recipe I ultimately chose used seedless strawberry jam instead of the fruit itself. The batter looked great. The muffins were very dark in color, they looked like bran muffins. They tasted like bran muffins too. Not a hint of strawberry at all. So, we got the jar of strawberry jam out of the fridge and spread it all over the muffins anyway. When life give you lemons…. make lemonade. I’m not sure if I’ll try a different receipe or just go back to the mix. Tomorrow I’m making quiche!

This is a simplification of several recipes I found online. D and I thought it was pretty good. He said more herbs would be nice. I would have liked more mustard, but that’s because I want to mask the ‘fishy’ taste as much as possible.

two fillets
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup mixed fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, tarragon)
salt
pepper

Make sure the oven is preheated to 400 before you start. While the cast iron skillet is getting hot, sprinkle the salt and pepper on the flesh side of the fillets. Next spread on a tsp of the mustard and then pat on the herbs. Put the fillets flesh/mustard side down in the pan. Cook for two or three minutes until nice color has developed. Flip fillets so the skin side is down. Add the broth. Put in the oven for 10 mins.

My mint plant is out of control. It’s just HUGE. So I started looking for recipes to use it with and I don’t like lamb, so I came up with ice cream. Most of the online recipes I found used mint flavoring from the store. I finally found one which used the herb, like I wanted. (Original recipe at link below). It calls for chocolate pieces. I don’t like chocolate slivers or chips in my ice cream, they’re too hard for my liking. I opted to substitute crushed chocolate wafer cookies instead. I was going to use Oreo cookies – specifically Mint Oreo cookies – but I felt guilty over all that extra sugar. I had never made a custard-based ice cream before so I decided to make a half-batch in case it didn’t come out well. At first I was concerned because the custard didn’t get thick like I thought a custard should, even though I cooked it to the temp called for. It came out okay. Definitely different than the green stuff you find in the store. Both of us agreed that we could reduce the vanilla a little bit. It reminded us faintly of the vanilla mint chewing gum we had not too long ago and we wanted a ‘pure’ mint flavor instead. D said he wouldn’t mind having it again, so I guess it’s a keeper. And it’s a good thing too because there’s still MORE mint in the garden!

http://kitchen.apartmenttherapy.com/food/dessert/recipe-mint-chocolate-chip-ice-cream-028535

This was really a side dish but D and I used it as an entree. We try and have a couple of meatless dinners a week. It was really rich and savory, good comfort food. I got the basic recipe from Martha Stewart Living 2003 cookbook and then halved it and substituted a different kind of onion. I used white button mushrooms.

1.5 lbs mushrooms (any kind, any combination) chopped
5-6 tbl butter
1 lg Vidalia onion, diced
3/8th cup heavy cream
salt & pepper
2/3 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
1 piece of bread pulsed in food processor for bread crumbs.

Saute mushrooms in two batches with 2 tbl butter each batch until they give up their liquid. Saute the onion with the rest of the butter until caramelized. Mix mushrooms, onion, cream, salt, pepper and half the cheese. Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle on the rest of the cheese and then the bread crumbs. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Assembly was easy. I was attracted to the recipe because it seemed quick and you didn’t have to cook the pasta sauce forever. I was also looking for something meatless. Neither D. nor I could eat it but we couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong with it. Too herby? Too simplistic? So we got take-out instead. Oh well, not every recipe is a winner. 1/5

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1635,155176-249207,00.html

It’s almost the end of the month and I hadn’t cooked anything new so I browsed the web looking for recipes for which I already had most of the ingredients. I substituted fresh thyme for the dried called for. The thyme in the garden is growing like mad, I have to use it whenever I can. And I used a storebought pie crust.
The quiche came out absolutely gorgeous! Very tasty. I’m ashamed to say that D. and I ate the whole thing for dinner. We didn’t fix a side item and it was 2.5 hours past our normal meal time. We were starving and it was sooo good. 5/5
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1726,153172-240195,00.html

I’m on a diet and I’m not cooking so until April at least this one is one hold!