Pizza style zucchini

I wanted to make stuffed zucchini today but had nothing -- neither meat nor vegetarian substitute -- worthy of stuffing into it. So then I researched zucchini fries, but they were all seriously breaded and coated with butter, cheese and egg. That wasn't what I had in mind.

So, I peeled that big old zucchini and sliced it into pickle spear style pieces. I preheated my oven to 500. I then found some Wegmans Italian breadcrumbs. (I never buy breadcrumbs so my mother-in-law must have left them here.)

I lightly oiled my cookie sheets with my cold pressed extra virgin olive oil imported from Beirut.

Now, I learned long ago that some vegetables, like zucchini and eggplant, have enough moisture that they can hold some breadcrumbs with the normal egg coating. It won't get that thick coating, but a thin one. Like this:

I cooked them about 15 minutes, turning in the middle.

I layered them on a plate and put sauce on them. I sprinkled shredded Parmesan liberally on them and returned the plates to the still warm oven to melt the cheese.

I added a vegetarian breakfast patty to add more protein.

The whole family loved it.

Tuna and peas over egg noodles

I originally planned to make this to use up some leftover tuna from sandwiches earlier in the week.

But I had a really crazy shift at work and then I fell walking out of the store so my husband made his own version of my vision.

- Egg noodles

- leftover tuna

- peas

For the sauce:

- soy milk

- cornstarch 

- cheddar

- Swiss cheese

And a sprinkle of shredded Parmesan on top.

Cheesy spinach orzo

It's 95 degrees here and for some reason, I get the idea it would be *nice* to have baked mac and cheese for dinner. My mother gave me this really nice block of aged sharp provolone. She deemed it "too stinky" for her crew to eat.

But then I had no full sized pasta, just spaghetti or orzo. So I made orzo. A LOT of orzo.

Ingredients:

- about eight ounces aged extra sharp provolone

- about three ounces Monterey Jack

- about two ounces cheddar

- about 4 ounces grated Parmesan 

- 3 cups coconut milk

- 2 tablespoons flour

- 3 tablespoons butter

- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground four color peppercorns

- 1 teaspoon garlic pepper

- 1 block frozen spinach, thawed and drained

Preheat oven to 375.

Prepare pasta as desired. Set aside.

Melt butter in pan, slowly mix in flour. When bubbly, slowly mix in coconut milk so flour-butter roux blends in nicely.

Add desired seasonings. 

When bubbly, add all cheese but Parmesan, in tiny chunks. Remove from heat. Stir. When melted, add spinach.

Mix sauce and pasta in oven safe dish. Top with Parmesan. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes.

The Ultimate After Work Sandwich

I got home from work at 10 pm today and I didn't think I was hungry (having not eaten dinner) but at 10:30 it became clear that I was.

One thing led to another and before you know it I had made this truly, truly beautiful sandwich.

INGREDIENTS (per sandwich):

- one Morningstar chickpea pattie

- chopped raw kale (a double to triple layer) 

- a hot dog bun

- a couple tablespoons of grated Parmesan

- a couple heaping tablespoons Archer Farms fire roasted habanero salsa

I toasted the hot dog bun under a high broiler, added the cheese to both sides and returned it to the oven.

Then I heated the chick pea pattie in the microwave.

I took the hot dog bun out of the oven. Cutting the chick pea pattie into strips, I arranged them on one side of the bun and the kale layered on the other. On top of the kale I plopped the salsa and then I plopped the two halves together.

This will be repeated for dinner for the family sometime soon.

Heaven.

Chicken spinach Alfredo

My husband requested "some sort of Alfredo sauce" over linguine.

So I whipped this up:
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
(Melted and blended in the cast iron skillet until bubbly)
Add:
- parsley
- Italian seasoning
- dry mustard
- generous amounts of garlic pepper
Add about 3/4 cups each:
- milk
- half and half
- soy milk
- fresh spinach
- frozen peas
Cook until bubbly.
Add chicken if desired.
Once chicken is hot, add:
- about 1/2 cup grated Romano
Then put over pasta and top each serving with shredded Parmesan

Pizza-ish Pipettes

I had to use up a bag of salad, so I started this meal with the following:
- side salad of iceberg lettuce, carrots, red cabbage and cucumbers with raspberry cherry vinaigrette dressing
- last of the pickled, mustard seed vegetables canned last summer

Drink: juice with bubbles

And the pasta:
INGREDIENTS
- one box pipettes, cooked
- Morningstar vegetarian meatballs
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- one small can Hunts no salt added tomato sauce
- one can pizza sauce
- hearty handfuls of real parmesan cheese

1. Fry the meatballs in the skillet until thawed and slightly warm
2. Add sauces and cook on low until bubbly
3. Add pasta, stir well
4. Top with cheese and serve

Parmesan pasta florentine

My husband is trying to perk me up after we've all had a rough weekend. My physical health is not what it should be and after working close to 15 hours already this weekend (and two more days to go), he wants to help and make a nice meal.

He looked through my family favorites cookbook and he managed to find three options, two of which he thought looked too complicated. He suggested:

- omelet (the easy one he knew he could handle, why didn't I just pick this?)
- chicken française (more complicated AND our chicken is frozen)
- Parmesan pasta florentine (easier than chicken française)

I picked the pasta. And then I realized I don't think it's in this blog. The recipe is from an old Kraft promotional cookbook.

The Kraft recipe for Parmesan pasta florentine:
(mine is always vegetarian, they use chicken broth. Because really, how can you make something this green and put it chicken broth?)
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup chicken broth (I usually use vegetable or even spicy Thai vegetable, but today i'm advocating the use of the liquid in the can of spinach)
- 10 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained (today I used 13.5 ounces canned spinach and used the liquid to replace the broth as I mentioned earlier)
- 1/2 cup chopped onion (I normally omit, or through in some chives instead)
- 2 garlic gloves, minced (I had to use the jarred garlic as I still have no fresh, bad me)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 8 ounces linguine, cooked and drained ( I often use rotini)

Place milk, broth, and spinach in blender.
In saucepan, or in a big French skillet if you're me, sauté the onions and garlic in the butter. Add spinach mixture and cook for five minutes. Stir occasionally.
Add cheese and pepper, stirring one minute until slightly thickened.
Pour onto pasta.

Cheesy Stuffed Peppers

I made a cheesy version of stuffed peppers which is in my Pfaltzgraf (sp) casserole dish in the oven now.

I started with seven peppers picked from the garden after a hail storm Monday. I cleaned them, cut the tops off, took the seeds out and boiled them for five minutes.

Then, I steamed (as in my steamer) some Israeli couscous with some garlic salt. Israeli couscous is huge compared to its "standard" cousin.

Next I made a sauce:
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1 teaspoon four color organic pepper

Heat. Add:
- 1 can plain tomato sauce
- 5 torn basil leaves from the garden
- About 1/2 cup torn homemade bread, stale

Add:
- The couscous (I made one cup dry = hell of a lot prepared)
- About 1 cup shredded cheddar
- About 1/4 cup grated romano
- About 1/8 cup grated parmesan
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 2 tomatoes from garden, diced

Stir. Stuff peppers and arrange in casserole dish. Plop extra filling around the peppers. Pour a second can of tomato sauce all around. Cover with lid. (My casserole dish is ceramic)

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Skillet pizza

My daughter and I made a pizza crust after school. I think this is what we did:

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1.5 cups white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  
• 1/3 cup rye flour
• 3/4 teaspoon iodized sea salt
• 1 packet Papa John's pizza seasoning
  
• 1/3 cup corn meal
• 3/4 cup oats
• 1/4 cup flax seed

Mix and set in a warm dark place. Could take an hour to rise. (Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes)

Toppings:

• Wegmans extra chunky pizza sauce
• monterey jack cheese
• cheddar
• asiago
• parmesan
• black olives
• four color organic peppercorns
• Pasta and pizza seasoning
• Garlic powder
  

Method:
Here's the plan.
I hope heat my Le Creuset skillet on the stove over medium high with a thorough greasing of extra virgin olive oil. Then, I plan to carefully arrange the pizza dough inside and put the toppings on and bake in the skillet.

Will it work? I hope it will. I thought it was a cool idea but now I realize, it's PAN PIZZA.

Parmesan Tuna Sandwiches

So, I did make tuna sandwiches for lunch on the store bought wheat bread from Wegmans. (I bought it because I had a coupon.) We only have one can of tuna, so that means a half-sandwich for each of us (Mommy, Daddy and Baby).

My tuna today was:

• one can solid white tuna packed in water
• 2 tablespoons safflower mayonnaise*
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
• 3 slices Wegmans whole wheat sandwich bread sliced in half.

*What shocked me is that my mayonnaise is really mayonnaise. For years, I've been using vegan/soy mayonnaise for health reasons and because I hate mayonnaise in the traditional sense. But when I was scraping the last of the mayo out of the jar, I noticed that the ingredients listed eggs. I had purchased safflower mayonnaise instead of soy!

What made that even more compelling was the high vitamin E content in the mayonnaise. 1 tablespoon of that safflower mayonnaise has 2o% of the RDA of Vitamin E. Interesting.

To accompany these meager sandwiches, I also served tortilla chips and mango salsa (vitamins A & C thanks to the salsa) and applesauce. We also had a snack a few minutes ago of dried Italian meat stick so I'm sure that will also help compensate for the half-sandwich.

More Super Salads! (Croutons)

We're having more salad tonight (It's a spring thing for me. I *want* it.) I bought fresh spinach to add to last night's salads and we're transforming my last homemade baguette into homemade seasoned croutons.

We heated the oven to three hundred.

We sliced the bread, put it in a bowl, drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on it, and sprayed it down with cooking spray. My daughter mixed them all up and we poured generous amounts of the following in there:

• garlic powder
• pizza and pasta seasoning
  
• parmesan cheese
• parsley
• four color organic peppercorn
• garlic pepper

And bake as long as it takes, turning every 15 minutes of so. They smell scrumptious.

Italian Veggie "Pizza"

I took some of my homemade bread out of the freezer, plain today which means 50% wheat and 50% white. I made some Aldi Steam-in-bag Italian blend vegetables with herb sauce and I plan on making "French bread pizzas" out of them... probably with some garlic bread as the base and parmesan and cheddar on top. All broiled in the oven until bubbly.

Four Cheese Vegetarian Crôque Monsieur

Ah... finally!

Adapted from Ina Garten's Barefoot in Paris:
Angel's four cheese vegetarian crôque monsieur

• 12 slices homemade wheat bread (each about half the size of store-bought bread)
• six slices Morningstar vegetarian bacon
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons unbleached white flour
• 2 cups hot heavy whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground four color organic pepper
• pinch nutmeg
• 2 cups shredded swiss cheese (I got French Entremont)
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
• less than 1/4 parmesan (I ran out)
• 1 cup shredded smoked gouda

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Melt the butter over low heat and add the flour all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon for two minutes (is it supposed to end up as a lump? Because mine does.) Slowly stir in all the milk (oops I did mine fast) and whisk until sauce thickens (mine did fine, even if I neglected the subtle nature of the instructions).

Remove from heat and add salt, pepper, nutmeg, parmesan, 1/4 cup cheddar, and 1/4 cup swiss.
Stir until melted and set aside.

Toast the bread about five minutes on each side in the oven.

On the bottom halves of the sandwiches, pile 1 tablespoon sauce, about a tablespoon shredded cheese (at this point I mix all remaining the cheeses together), one slice vegetarian bacon (folded), one more tablespoon cheese sauce, then the lid, one more tablespoon sauce, then a little pile of cheese.

Return sandwiches to the oven until bubbly and browned.

Prepare some frozen peas and cauliflower and top with leftover cheese sauce. The remaining cheese sauce can be refrigerated and used for a killer alfredo sauce, or more sandwiches, or a really decadent fondue.

Spaghetti and sausage

Easy dinner tonight. We went out to eat at Little Italy Food Center in Pohatcong last night. I brought home about 2/3 of the sausage in my spaghetti and sausage. So, since my daughter and I are heading to Philadelphia tomorrow and won't be cooking, I thought we could make our own spaghetti and add the leftover sausage. It was a hit.

Eggplant Parmesan

I unexpectedly worked late tonight, so I briefed the husband on how to make eggplant parmesan with some frozen eggplant cutlets we bought at the warehouse club. For lunch today, I made my daughter a scrambled egg with the last of the blueberry bread pudding. And leftover broccoli sicilian for breakfast. Yes, we splurged and got a sicilian last night.

So, the eggplant cutlet come breaded. My husband added layers of sauce, garlic pepper, Italian seasoning, grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, with some diced broccoli for good measure. It's yummy.

More Daddy Pasta

Daddy made his hamburger helper style stuff... the red kind. He browned some hamburger (almost a pound, goodness gravy) and added it to shells with red sauce.

Daddy Pasta

While cleaning Tuesday a.m. I did something to my back. I've spent much of the last few days with ice packs and Aleve. I thought I was better today but an unexpected day on my feet at my desk job destroyed any progress I had made.

This directly relates to my post. I made chicken diable to use the chicken I had planned to prepare as a fancy French style meal on Tuesday. The effort killed me. So, for yesterday and today we lived on leftovers.

Last night my husband made this pasta. He loves to experiment with noodles. Nothing drastic, always lots of cheese.

He made spaghetti. For the sauce he used two tiny cans of the plain tomato sauce, seasoned them with Italian seasoning, and added the tail end of a big old block of cheddar we'd been cooking with for the last week or so. I don't buy sliced cheese. I either get cheddar in blocks from Aldi, $1.20 for 8 oz., or the warehouse club, about $5 for 32 oz. Orange American freaks my daughter out because in our house cheese is white. And since the big blocks dry out if you don't store them perfectly, my husband thought it'd be a good idea to finish this one off.

Then, he added frozen vegetables. Peas, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli to be exact. I would have left out the carrots, but it was a bag of 'California blend' and unlike me, he wasn't about to pick them out.

Chicken à la diable with Asparagus

I made Chicken à la diable for lunch to use the four chicken breasts I thawed for last night's dinner. Click on the chicken link below to see the recipe. I more or less followed it today, except I added some Indian Chili Powder into the bread crumbs for kick. I used the last of my homemade breadcrumbs and had to add some storebought to make it work.

The asparagus. Well, I meant to glaze it with olive oil and bake with the chicken. Except the olive oil came out too fast so it may be heavier than I wanted. I sprinkled library with garlic pepper, my four-color peppercorns and some sprinkle parmesan.

Greenbean Caesar

I harvested about a pound of greenbeans from my garden. I started making greenbean caesar, but then we also had nachos. (Odd combo, I know, but we just got home from the park and we need to get food in someone's belly so we can get her in the tub.)

We used a special hot bean dip, mango salsa and cheddar cheese for the nachos. They were so good no one wanted any greenbeans so I think I'll wrap them up and serve with dinner tomorrow. I have jury duty so who knows if I'll be home in time to cook.

The original recipe came from the recipe software Darrell bought me for my old Mac Performa... ten years ago.

Greenbean Ceasar:
1.5 pounds fresh greenbeans or two 9-ounce packages frozen
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used EV olive)
1 tablespoon wine vinegar (red works, so does balsamic, so does apple cider in a pinch, and today I tried champagne. Fabulous, especially since my family detests a strong vinegar flavor)
1 tablespoon minced onion (I skip, though I may try fresh chives instead)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I skip)
1/8 teaspoon pepper (I use my grinder with my four-color peppercorns and I don't measure)
1 clove garlic, pressed

Topping
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons grated parmesan*
1 tablespoon butter or margarine*

Paprika

* To make this recipe vegan, I skip the cheese and the butter.

Cook beans to desired crispness. Then toss with all the other ingredients, except the topping. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put beans in oven safe dish. Combine topping ingredients and mix with fingers to form "crumbs." (I often skip this and just sprinkle whatever I want on top, including other seasonings.) Sprinkle over beans. Add paprika to top if desired. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes.

Ice Cream Man and Spaghetti

My daughter had a meltdown today when I told her we didn't have money for the ice cream man. She must have cried for ten minutes. A little while after she settled down, I offered her an ice cream cone Mommy-style and she enthusiastically said yes. I warned her this would be the best ice cream cone ever.

I started with a wafer cone, the kind my father-in-law brings. I packed in some vanilla bean ice cream and lined the top with Goldfish honey grahams, a gift from a neighbor who visited the Pepperidge Farm Outlet. I spooned on some butterscotch topping, added another portion of ice cream and topped the whole mess with rainbow sprinkles.

My daughter is so over the ice cream man.

For dinner, I wanted to use the leftover beef BBQ. My daughter had eaten most of it for lunch yesterday. I opted for spaghetti. We made meat sauce with the beef BBQ and then served with grated parmesan and shredded mozzerella. We all had two big plates.