Guinness Beef Stew

I’m not really a meat eater. Ever since I was a little girl the texture of meat, both beef and chicken, has grossed me out. The thought of biting into and consuming a muscle is sometimes just too much for me. To this day I still will not touch raw meat with my bare hands. I either use tongs or, if there is no way around touching the meat, I wear some of my lab gloves to handle the raw meat. However, meat is full of protein and minerals, so I do try to eat it on occasion. I usually crave red meat about once every 3-4 months. I figure my body is crying out for a boost of iron. Well, yesterday was one of those days. But I haven’t been feeling well, so I wanted an easy meal that would require little to no prep work nor be too involved. I bought some ingredients that I thought would make a simple, tasty stew. I tend to cook more by ratios rather than by exact amounts, so I can’t really say for sure what amounts I used. But the end result was so good, exactly what I wanted. I get my meat from Whole Foods; at their meat counter they have lean stew beef that is already chopped so all I have to do it put the meat in the pot (carefully avoiding actually touching the meat, of course). Perfect. I wanted pearl onions so that I could just dump them in the pot, but they were out of them at Whole Foods. Instead, I bought a container of shallots that were already peeled, since I was feeling too lazy to peel my own. I love a dinner that just requires dumping everything in a pot and walking away.

Hot Buttered Tomato Soup

Yesterday I was craving a grilled cheese sandwich which is weird since I don’t really like cheese (it bothers me that cheese had to age and mold before it gets consumed, that just grosses me out). I figured my body just needed a boost of calcium. Of course I couldn’t eat just a grilled cheese sandwich, I needed some soup to go along with it. This is my all time favorite tomato soup. It’s quick to make and oh-so-good. Sometimes I like to sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. This soup is also delicious served cold. Make this today, you won’t regret it. And if you have access to fresh basil (unlike I did) by all means use it instead of dried.

Thai Yellow Curry Chicken and Rice

I love, love, love, curry; especially yellow curry. There was a Thai restaurant near my old office and I would often get their yellow curry with chicken for lunch. I was so excited recently when I saw this yellow curry sauce at Trader Joe’s.

Now I could attempt to recreate this delicious dish at home. The restaurant curry sauce was pretty thin and flavorful, almost like a soup. It was served with white basmati rice on the side so you could add the rice to the sauce to, allowing the rice to soak up all the delicious sauce. When I’m adding the bottled sauce to the pan I put a little bit of water (a Tbl or two) in the bottle, shake it up, and dump it in the pot so that I get all the sauce out. I suppose that if you feel like you need to you could add water or chicken broth to stretch out the sauce. I don't because I don’t want to risk diluting the flavor. Of course you could use any rice that you want, but I prefer brown basmati rice, since it has a low glycemic index. Also, you don’t have to add the sweet potato; you could use all white potatoes. But sweet potatoes are so nutritious that I try to mix them in with white potatoes any chance I get. I prefer using baby yukons because all you have to do is wash and cut them in half. I have used russets before, just peel them before cubing. I debated whether or not to add garlic, but decided against it this time. I think I have added garlic in the past. Of course vegetarians/vegans could use tofu instead of chicken.

Roasted Green Beans

I love vegetables. I’m always trying to think of new healthy ways to make them. Usually I just steam them; boring I know. I made these up a couple weeks ago based on what I had on hand. I just didn’t feel like steaming vegetables again, I wanted something different. So I decided to roast the beans instead of steaming them. The first time I made them I just used green beans, a shallot, a few cloves of garlic, and a lemon that was threatening to go bad if I let it sit another day. But when I made them last night, I happened to have a red pepper in the fridge and thought it would add some nice color to the dish. Any color pepper would work, or it could be omitted altogether. I used fresh green beans, I’m sure you could use frozen beans. I’m not sure about the amount of green beans I used. When I buy them fresh at the grocery store I just keep adding them to the bag until I feel like I have a good amount for two people. I guess it’s about 3 cups, but who knows, I’m not very good at estimating, and I didn’t think to weigh them. This time I used my mini food processor to chop the shallot and garlic. Usually I just slice them up by hand, but I have cut two fingertips, one on each hand, which at the moment makes chopping difficult for me.

Honey Beer Glazed Chicken

I know a lot of people don’t like Rachel Ray. But her recipes are so easy, quick, and delicious that I can’t help trying some of them out. We eat chicken often and I’m always looking for easy ways to try to jazz it up a bit. When I saw this recipe I had to try it. The ingredients are things I almost always have in the pantry. I like sauce so I kept the sauce ingredients the same, but only used 2 chicken breasts. Next time I will try substituting agave for the honey. I used a whole bottle of beer because right now I can’t drink alcohol (otherwise I would just measure out a cup and drink the rest of the beer). Maybe this is why my sauce was a bit thin. That wasn’t a problem, I just added a slurry at the end to thicken it up so I could serve it over the chicken. I think next time I might toss in some red pepper flakes to give it some heat. I love foods that are sweet but with a little heat.

Spring Vegetable and Bean Soup

This soup was surprisingly flavorful for how simple and easy it was to prepare. The original recipe called for fresh tomatoes, but since it's winter and tomatoes are not in season, I used canned. I also added a potato since I didn't have any cauliflower. I wish I had a sweet potato on hand to use instead of a yukon gold, it would have added a nice color. I would also like to experiment with different vegetables, like butternut squash or acorn squash. You could also use chicken broth instead of the vegetable broth, if desired.

"Clean" Carrot Cake

I love having a small dessert to finish off dinner. I try to have always have something sweet on hand. This weekend I decided to try out a recipe I have been wanting to try, but just haven't gotten around to making it. I modified the recipe to fit our tastes. It turned out pretty well. I still might play around with oven temperature/cooking time. But I'm satisfied with how this batch turned out.

Black Beans and Brown Rice

I’m sure everyone has some version of a recipe for black beans and rice. It’s so easy to make, the ingredients are inexpensive, the dish is filling, healthy and, most importantly, delicious. This recipe is based off a dish my aunt made for a family reunion years ago, after some members of the family became vegetarian. My sister used to make this for me during the two years we spent attending the same college, and it has always been a food staple for me. I make sure to have the basic ingredients on hand all the time because this is such a quick, easy dinner. My boyfriend has never been a fan of this dish until last night. He declared it to be the best black beans and rice I have ever made; therefore, I had to record what I did so I will remember it in the future.

Spinach and Lentil Soup

Lately I’ve been making a lot of soups/stews because they’re quick, easy, and we can eat leftovers another night, thus saving me a day in the kitchen. I have been looking through a lot of cookbooks, magazines, blogs, etc looking for soup recipes that look interesting. I read good reviews about Jamie Oliver’s book Jamie's Diet Revolution and decided to buy it. It’s really good. He gives great tips and the recipes are basic enough that you can adapt them to your own personal tastes; I love recipes that are adaptable to what you have in your kitchen. I’ve only had time to try a few recipes and thus far they have been great. However, this one really stood out as being extra delicious. I saw that it served 6-8 and decided not to halve the recipe because I planned on freezing some of it to have on a night that I didn't feel like cooking. But once I made it, my boyfriend ate so much of it that there wasn’t enough left over to save. I added some of my favorite spices to the recipe to liven it up a bit. We really liked the cumin flavor. I can’t wait to try more of the recipes in this book.

Pork and Sauerkraut

Everyone, I’m sure has their own New Year’s traditions. Southerners eat black-eyed peas (which resemble coins), Italians eat lentils (which, again, look like coins), some eat fish (fish swim forward, therefore, by eating fish you can move forward in the new year), greens (kale, cabbage, collard greens, because green=money) and of course pork (since pigs root around and push their snouts forward). Growing up in my family, my grandmother, who is of German descent, believed firmly in eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s day. Grammy’s secret to making sauerkraut more palatable was to sprinkle brown sugar over it. Any New Year’s that I stopped by for a visit this dish is what she would have in the oven. As kids, my sister, brother, and I were never really excited to eat sauerkraut. It smelled so bad, kinda like sweaty feet. But my sweet Grammy would make all of us eat at least one bite of sauerkraut (which was usually mixed in with mashed potatoes) to give us luck in the coming year. As I got older and my tastebuds changed, I began to warm up to sauerkraut, happily eating it on New Years. Sadly, to this day, neither of my siblings upholds the tradition of pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s. I have been faithful to this tradition, though. Even in college, I would make pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s day for myself and any friends who wanted to join me. Grammy would be so pleased when I would call to wish her a happy New Year and to let her know that I was being a good German girl by eating my pork and sauerkraut.

Now, it’s my turn to make sure that my boyfriend, who isn’t a fan of sauerkraut, eats at least one bite on New Year's for good luck. Usually, I’m the one who ends up eating the sauerkraut leftovers, but this year that all changed. My boyfriend actually willingly ate 2 servings of sauerkraut, and even ate most of the leftovers. I was shocked and happy. I tweaked my methods slightly this year and came up with how I will probably prepare my sauerkraut next year. Also, I noticed that this year my kitchen didn’t reek of cabbage, nor did the refrigerator. I’m not sure what my luck was, but I’m going to guess it was from the apple and apple juice I added this year.