The Seasonal Salad.

Sometimes you just want a nice salad that is simple, yet full of delicious. And cranberries. It should probably be full of cranberries too. Maybe some blue cheese (or bleu, depending on your spelling preference). Because these things are delicious.

So here's what you need:

Baby spinach leaves
Blue cheese (I like a nice Trader Joe's variety)

Dried cranberries

Nuts (preferably pecans and hazelnuts)
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Lemon (for the zest, not the juice)

First, toast your nuts. Throw them in a pan and heat them over a medium/high flame while constantly tossing them around in the pan so they don't burn. Do this for a few minutes until they brown a bit.

Then, make your dressing. Do this by combining equal parts of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Then use your lemon and the small holes of a cheese grater to make some lemon zest. If you're fancy enough to own an actual zester, that would work too. Throw some zest into your balsamic/olive oil mixture. The amount of zest is not too critical. I used about a 1/2 teaspoon of zest for a two person sized portion of dressing. Use your best judgement.

Finally, assemble your salad by adding crumbled blue cheese along with your toasted nuts and dried cranberries to a bowl of baby spinach. Drizzle with your homemade lemon balsamic vinaigrette. Then eat him up!

Pumpkin Pie a la Fall

Hello again, fine blog readers. I've been in quite the "Fall" mood lately, and since it was a three day weekend, I gave in and dedicated my whole Sunday to the celebration of pumpkins. I LOVE pumpkins.

I began this grand pumpkin day by carving a pumpkin up into little chunks to make a pumpkin puree. It's really quite easy. I hear you can roast the pumpkin to make a puree as well, but I like to cut it up into chunks and boil it until it gets nice and soft. Once its soft, you simply drain out the hot water and fill the pot with really really cold water (so you don't burn yourself when you cut off the pumpkin skin and throw the chunks into the blender). Then, blend the pumpkin. Often times you'll need to add a little of the milk from the pumpkin pie recipe below in order to get it to blend properly. Or you can add a little water, and just make a note to yourself to subtract a little water from whatever recipe you're using.

So now you have pureed pumpkin. In my case, I have A LOT of pureed pumpkin, so I may be posting a few more pumpkin related treats.

Now for the pie. Begin by making your crust. Feel free to use whatever type of crust you like. If you don't feel like getting flour all over your kitchen, premade is the way to go. I was feeling rather adventurous this morning though, so I made it from scratch. Basically, just mix all the dry stuff, then add nice cold butter cut into little chunks. Mix it with your hands, breaking up the chunks of butter until everything is nice and crumbly. Then add just as much cold water as you need to get the dough to turn into a nice ball. Here's a recipe for guidance:

1 and 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

10 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons ice cold water (less or more as needed)

Put the ball of dough in the fridge for a half our or so if you're not in a hurry. It helps to have it cold when you roll it out so it doesn't stick to everything in its path. To roll out the dough, I like to sprinkle a little flour on a sheet of wax paper, place the ball of dough in the middle, and then sprinkle the top of the ball with a little flour. At this point, place a sheet of wax paper on top, and roll out the dough into a nice big circle. This cuts down on a lot of mess, as you can peel the dough off of the wax paper much easier than you can peel it off of your countertop. Once you're finished rolling, take off the top layer of wax paper, and carefully (and quickly) flip the dough into the pie dish. Then peel off the other layer of wax paper. At this point I like to trim off excess dough and try to make it look as pretty as possible. Throw the pie dish with crust in the fridge for few minutes while you preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Interlude: Here is a picture of one of my rats in a pumpkin. Her name is Mochi.

Now for pre-baking your crust. This is usually the trickiest part for me, because I don't own actual cooking tools like "pie weights". Today, though, I discovered that unpopped popcorn makes a pretty decent pie weight. Just throw some wax paper or foil in your pie pan to cover up your crust, and throw in the popcorn kernels to keep the paper/foil firmly against the crust so it doesn't bubble up while you pre bake it. Bake it like this for about 10 minutes. Then take off the foil/wax paper and bake the crust uncovered for another 10 or 15 minutes (I went with 10 because I'm impatient). Take out the crust and turn the oven down to 350. Then pour in the pumpkin pie filling and bake for 45 minutes or until the middle isn't all wiggly and liquidy.

Here is a nice pumpkin pie filling recipe:

2 cups pumpkin puree

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoons cinnamon

(you can add a little ginger or cloves if you'd like, but I prefer it simple with just the nutmeg and cinnamon)
1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup heavy cream

2/3 cup milk

4 eggs

And now you have a delicious pumpkin pie!

• 
  

Lemon Garlic Hummus

Welcome back, readers! I hope you all enjoyed Chef Deanna's post, she will (hopefully) make regular appearances here on the Fork and Dagger!


Today's post is a healthy snack-time favorite: Hummus! I've been getting sick of buying hummus that tastes like lemon furniture polish, so I decided to make my own!

It's very simple, with very strong flavors, and no tahini (which is very high in calories, so we lightened this up a bit!) Enjoy!


Adapted from AllRecipes.com
Ingredients:

• Olive oil (Start with 1/4 -1/2 cup, and increase as necessary for desired texture)
• 3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 cups chickpeas, drained (and rinsed. It'll foam and get sudsy when you rinse it. Gross huh?)
• 2 teaspoonsful minced garlic 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Put the garlic and a small amount of the olive oil into a food processor, and blend until smooth. (You don't want to bite into a chunk of raw garlic. Or maybe you do, to each their own!)
2. When the garlic is well blended, add the chickpeas, lemon juice, salt, and more of the olive oil. Process until smooth (adding more olive oil / lemon juice if necessary for texture and flavor)

Serve however you usually serve hummus! Pita chips, veggies, on a sandwich, whatever your heart desires! 

Yumm! Smooth and tasty!

Steak with Sweet Potato Puree

Hello, this is Deanna! Who the heck is Deanna, you ask?! To answer your question, I am a friend of Chef Megan. We both work to expand our knowledge of drugs at URI College of Pharmacy when we're not busy making delicious food.

Lately, I've been very busy with rotations and haven't had time to contribute to this fine blog. But then I thought to myself, "Self, no more excuses!" So alas, I am here to share a recipe with you.

Much like the Elias family, I enjoy a carnivorous diet. I also enjoy foods that look fancy on a plate. This is how my steak with sweet potato puree recipe was born.

Ingredients (serves two hungry people):

Two nice hunks of steak (choose your favorite cut!)
Olive Oil (enough to cover your steaks without them becoming drenched and drippy)

1 large Sweet Potato

1 cup Milk
1 cup Heavy Cream

1 pat butter (about 1/2 to 1 tablespoon)
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

1. Start off by peeling the sweet potato and cutting up into 1-inch chunks.

2. Throw the chunks in a sauce pan, and cover the pieces with equal parts of milk and heavy cream (or half and half, if that's what you happen to have in the fridge). The amount of milk and cream you need is very dependent on the size of your chosen potato, so just use enough to ensure that all of your sweet potato chunks are submerged. Add about 5 grinds of salt and 5 grinds of pepper.

3. Simmer potato mixture until the potatoes are soft (lid on for 1st half, lid off for second half). Once soft, throw the whole mixture in the blender! Blend until nice and smooth. If it is still too thick to blend at this point, feel free to add some extra milk or cream. The end mixture should be thinner than mashed potatoes, but not so thin that it's runny and weird.

4. Pour the puree back into the sauce pan. At this point, you can add the pat of butter and season to taste with more salt and pepper. Set on the back burner until your steak is ready.

5. Trim the fat off the edges of your steak. Unless you're a person who enjoys eating the fatty bits, get rid of them, they'll just slow you down when it's time to devour your meal.

6. Rub steaks with olive oil, and then season with salt and pepper. I use a very generous helping of both salt and pepper.

7. Preheat your cast iron pan (or whatever device you would like to use to cook these lovely steaks on...I just love cast iron pans and grills...but my grill was stolen on Labor Day weekend, so I had to go with the pan). Make sure the pan is nice and hot before you throw on the steaks.

8. Cook steaks to your desired level of done-ness. Then remove them from the pan and let them rest for a few minutes.

9. While your steaks are resting, reheat your sweet potato puree to make sure that it is nice hot for plating.

10. You are now ready to assemble your plate, puree on the bottom, steak on top! Enjoy! If you'd like a meal that is a little more balanced, serve this with a lovely salad. I went with Romaine lettuce and blue cheese dressing (with those lovely little dried cranberries on top).

Chicken and Corn Chowder

Welcome back summer? It is a delightfully warm night tonight, compared to how the last few have been, don't you think? (Well, you in New England. Those of you not sitting pretty in the Northeast, I have no idea how your weather has been. Just pretend you're here!)
I planned this meal a few nights ago when it was chilly! And I mean, it was really brisk. I even had to break out the bunny slippers, and that means business.
So the type of dinner doesn't exactly match with the weather - this is more of a fall/winter stick to your ribs type chowder, but it was delicious none-the-less!

(And if you're pinching pennies like I persistently seem to be, it was also a very inexpensive dinner! Less than $10 per serving!)


So if you're feeling chilly, winter-y, or just corny, sit back and enjoy my chicken and corn chowder!


Ingredients (serves about 8)
Of course there were only four of us. And it more or less all got eaten. But that's my family for you. Shh...

• Bacon (8 strips, chopped roughly)
• 2 small onions (or 1 large. I'm not picky with proportions) diced
• 4 and 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 4 and 1/2 cups milk (we kept it light and used 1% milk, but you can use whole if you want it a little thicker)
• About 22 oz chicken stock
• 4 ears of corn (slice the corn off the cob and keep the corn and cob separate)
• 2 potatoes, peeled and diced
• 3 springs fresh thyme
• 1 rotisserie chicken  (take the chicken breasts and shred them with a fork... or chop them if you want it more chicken noodle soup style)
• Salt and pepper as desired

Directions:

1. Brown the bacon in a large pot, and cook on medium high until brown (maybe 5 minutes or so) 
2. Enjoy the delightful smell of cooking bacon
3. Add the onions and cook until soft (you can also use this time to drain out some bacon fat if you want)
4. Add the flour and stir constantly until the flour turns golden brown (DO NOT BURN THIS! a) smells bad, b) might ruin the dinner)
5. Slowly add the chicken stock, whisking constantly.
6. Whisk in the milk
7. Add the corn COBS (not the corn), the thyme, and the diced potatoes.
8. Simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly to move the cobs around and add flavor
9. After 15 minutes, remove the cobs and the thyme, and add the corn and the chicken.
10. Heat until the chicken and corn are heated through, maybe about 5 minutes.

Brown the bacon and soften the onions...

After adding the thyme, potatoes, and corn cobs 

Serve with some oyster crackers! (Not those thin stupid hexagonal ones. You need the puffy, New England/Cape Cod oyster crackers!) Add salt and pepper as you like it!

I think I could just eat these for dinner, and be happy.

And there you go, from my kitchen to yours, a yummy, easy, sort of healthy, not so expensive, dinner.

Enjoy!

Chicken Souvlaki

Well, it's the last official weekend of summer, and as a tribute, we made one of our favorite summertime meals: Souvlaki

Little linguistic lesson: "The word souvlaki is a diminutive of σούβλα souvla 'skewer', itself borrowed from Latin subula." (Thanks Wikipedia! The more you know ~★)

So for those of you who haven't figured it out - Souvlaki is Greek Shish-Kabob, and it is quite delicious. Served on a salad or a bed of rice, with some grilled or roasted vegetables, souvlaki tastes like the essence of summer. Souvlaki can be pork, beef, lamb, or chicken, and the below marinade goes well with whatever meat you choose. We chose chicken, but let your heart (and stomach) guide your way! :)

Ingredients: 

• MEAT. (Well, if you're a vegetarian, I'm sure the marinade would go well on tofu or whatever it is you enjoy. I KNOW it goes well on vegetables.)
• Olive oil (we use about 1/2 cup, but there is no precision in the marinade. Add or subtract ingredients as you see fit)
• Lemon juice (use the juice of about 2-3 lemons. Use your best judgement, some lemons yield more juice than others. Try to get a 1:1 ratio of lemon juice to olive oil)
• Minced garlic (How much garlic do you like? We like enough to ensure that no vampires ever come near us. About 4 cloves or so, minced or crushed up nicely!)
• About 1 tablespoon (heaping) of oregano
• About 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I think? We use about 10-20 grinds of our pepper mill. Like pepper? Go crazy)

Directions:

1. Make the marinade as follows:
1. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice before adding anything else. It helps to make the marinade a more even emulsion, as opposed to separating out.
2. Add the garlic, oregano and pepper.
3. Whisk until properly mixed
2. Dice the meat into cubes.
3. Marinade the meat (I bet you didn't see that step coming) **The longer you can marinade the meat, the better it will taste. It's more or less that simple. We let the chicken marinade for about 6 hours today**
4. Preheat the grill on high (See, the grill is what makes it taste like summer)
5. Skewer the meat *Note: if you are using wooden skewers, soak the skewers in water for about a half hour before grilling so they don't burn*
6. Grill the skewers until they are at the level of doneness that you prefer

We served ours with vegetables that we chopped up and roasted in the oven (at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes), and some rice pilaf. Oh, and rolls. Because that is what we do in our house. Bread, bread, carbs, and bread.

You can also choose, if you'd like, to skewer the vegetables in the same marinade and grill them. Warning: I've learned that when you grill little tomatoes, the inside stays roughly the same temperature as the center of the sun for about 4 hours after they come off the grill. Reader, beware.

Anyways, enjoy your last weekend of summer, and if you want to remember what summer tastes like in the heart of winter... it's never too cold to grill.

Enjoy your little skewer of Greece! Opa!

Simple Salmon

Hello! It is a beautiful night out, so I used that opportunity to... cook indoors.
I love grilling food as much as the next girl, but after working from 8 am - 9pm today, I wanted something quick and delicious that I could enjoy from the comfort of my own kitchen.

Enter (on stage right) my mini George Foreman Grill. 
I bought this awhile back when I moved into my own place at school. $18 bucks and worth every tiny penny!


As mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to be healthy, so I decided to grill up a scrumptious piece of salmon. 
I'm a new salmon eater, so when I found an easy recipe that worked, I stuck with it. I don't need any fancy sauces or rubs, and put some wasabi near me and my tongue lights on fire just thinking about it. The following is a very very easy, but delicious way to cook up a piece of salmon.


Ingredients:

• Salmon

• I should mention that when I went to Shaws, they had bright red, delightful looking Sockeye Salmon. I didn't know what this meant, but it looked wonderful (and more importantly, was on sale), so that is what came home with me. For other inquiring minds, Sockeye is a type of salmon native to the North Pacific. I like to think this salmon lived a good life before it ended up on my plate.
• Olive oil (I'm normally not a stickler, but try to use good olive oil. You'll actually be able to taste it!)
• Sea salt
• Cracked black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat the grill (The beauty of the George Foreman is you just plug it in and wait for the light to turn off. If you are cooking on a big boy grill, preheat to medium-high)
2. Drizzle olive oil on the side of the salmon with the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (as you see fit)
3. Place the salmon skin side down on the grill, then oil and season the fleshy, red, delicious side. (If you are using the George Foreman, leave the lid up for a minute or so. That lets the skin crisp up nice without overcooking the salmon).
4. After a minute or so, close the lid. Cook for a total of about 6-8 minutes. (On a real grill, flip about halfway through) Try not to cook for longer, or else the salmon dries out, and really, that lovely Pacific Sockeye gave its life in vain.
5. Definitely squeeze lemon over it - I'm not putting this as an option. It's too tasty to skip this!

A nice quick, easy dinner. Served with a potato and spinach that I cooked up in the microwave. Yum yum in less than 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Tasty omega-3 goodness!

Simple Poached Eggs

Another update so soon? You are really all very lucky that I have nothing to do today. So good morning!
I wanted a simple breakfast today, a poached egg and some toast. However, I've never made poached eggs the old fashioned way. We usually use a microwave egg poacher such as this little guy: Egg Poacher!
It's a very efficient egg poacher, but either the yolks are too hard or the whites are too runny. (I know, I'm like the Goldilocks of the egg world. But come on, life is too short for bad eggs).


So I googled around different recipes, and came up with the following, which yielded perfect, old-fashioned, poached eggs! Enjoy!

What is a breakfast without feta cheese? Or coffee in a homemade coffee mug (Thanks Joanne Zatzkin!)

Ingredients:

• Egg(s) (WHAT. I know, probably the most shocking ingredient here)
• Water
• Dash of white vinegar (helps the egg stay together and look nice)

Directions:

Many different websites talked about measuring the temperature of the water, or messing with the temperature settings throughout the cooking process, but being lazy, that was too much work for me. I found the following to work nicely!

1. In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil.
2. Once boiling, throw in a dash (maybe 1 - 2 teaspoonsful) of vinegar
3. Lower the heat to a low simmer, and swirl the water to slow the boil a bit.
4. Crack the egg(s) into a small bowl. (Each egg gets its own bowl)
5. Lower the small bowl into the water, and gently tip the egg into the water. (If you are doing more than 1 egg, wait 10-15 seconds before adding each egg)
6. Cover for 4 minutes, then remove the egg(s) with a slotted spoon.

Enjoy!

Grilled Shrimp on the Bah'bie (+ Remoulade)

Hello readers! (Reader? Whoever you are reading this, hello!)

Tonight's dinner was based upon (okay, basically a copycat of) the Outback Steakhouse's Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie (R).

However, I didn't want to violate any sort of trademarks or anything, so I threw a Boston accent on it, and voilé! Grilled shrimp on the bahhhh' bie :)

Back on the healthy kick (let's see how long this lasts! Goodbye Red Velvet Cheesecake)

The shrimp is served with a WONDERFUL remoulade sauce that is relatively easy to make. So below, please find (and enjoy) the grilled shrimp rub and the accompanying sauce!

Remoulade Sauce:

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 1 cup of mayo
• 2 tablespoonsful stoneground mustard
• 4 teaspoonsful milk
• 2 and 1/2 teaspoons horseradish (not horseradish spread - entirely different!)
• 2 teaspoons minced celery (roughly, we probably erred more on the side of 3)
• 2 teaspoons minced white onion (again, maybe 3)
• 2 teaspoons minced green bell pepper (3 again.. sensing a pattern?)
• 1/2 teaspoonful white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoonful paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon parsley (we used freeze-dried, you can also use fresh!)
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Mix in a small bowl
2. Cover and chill 

*Note: making this sauce ahead of time and letting all of the flavors come together is very important to the taste!*

Grilled Shrimp on the Bah'bie

Ingredients:

**Caveat!: The portions of shrimp rub below are intended to coat maybe about 6 shrimp. Multiply out the amounts as deemed necessary by your hunger for tiny crustaceans :) **

Layered before I mixed it all up

• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar (We were pretentious and used raw organic cane sugar. It is how I pretend to be fancy in my spare time)
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• A dash of ground allspice

Directions:

1. Preheat grill to high (We used a George Foreman grill because it's raining and a little cold)
2. Skewer shrimp (if on a real grill). 
3. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle seasoning on both sides. 
4. Grill 2 to 3 minutes on each side
5. Serve with lemon and remoulade sauce (and other lovely sides. As you see, we served it with carrots, beans, and wild rice. Also, a dinner wouldn't be a dinner in the Elias house without crusty bread... mmmmm)

Well, enjoy folks. We sure did.

Oh also, I feel I should warn you. While looking up if a shrimp was in fact a crustacean (it is.) I discovered this website: God Hates Shrimp .  Apparently eating this dinner was an abomination or something. I took my chances, good luck to you all.

I will be starting clinical rotations again on Friday, so hopefully I can keep up with this.

Happy eats, and try your best to avoid eternal damnation! 

GLiB 'Chops and Lemon Shallot Green Beans

Hey there folks, it's been awhile!  I had no idea how much time my clinical rotations would take up, but now that I am on a short break, I have time for an update!


I call this recipe GLiB 'chops because.. I had no other name and my sister, Erin, came up with this one. G, L, and B all stand for major ingredients in the pork chops (which came out tasting wonderfully!)

G(arlic) Li(me) B(asil). Erin is so creative! :)

Recipe as follows:
Ingredients (makes 4 chops):

• 4 pork chops (we used bone-in and boneless, for some variety!)
• Juice of 1 lime
• 3 cloves of garlic (we are surprisingly lazy in my family, so we used Dorot Frozen Garlic, still tastes scrumptious though!)
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil
• Course ground pepper (as much or as little as you want)

Note: This makes a very thick marinade, so we used some extra virgin olive oil to thin it out a little to make sure it coated all of the pork chops.

2nd Note: We eat a lot, so although this recipe says it makes four, we tripled it for 12.

No fancy directions, just mix all of the ingredients into a marinade, let it sit (as long as you can! I think we did about 3 hours, but you could do it as long as you want.)

We grilled them on high, about 10 minutes on each side.

Tasty!

Now for the green beans. 

Ingredients (makes a whole bunch of beans!):

• Green beans
• Chopped shallots (as many as you'd like, I used 2 which added a nice flavor)
• Olive oil
• Butter (1 pat. I love that term, so I use a pat of butter whenever I can, just so I can say pat)
• Lemon juice

Directions:

1. Steam the green beans for 5 minutes or so
2. Meanwhile, heat the butter and a few tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat
3. Add the shallots to the skillet and cook until slightly clear.
4. After the beans are done steaming, add them to the shallots, and cook another 5 minutes, tossing everything together.
5. At the last minute, add in the juice of a lemon and stir until covered.

Didn't take a picture, we were too anxious to eat.

So here: 

Easy, yummy dinners... actually possible when you're not working 60 hour work weeks! Amazing! Enjoy!

Gemistas: Greek Stuffed Tomato Dinner

Tonight's creation is one of my own, with inspiration from a few websites and my own personal tastebud preferences!

Gemistas! - aka stuffed tomatoes. 
(Being a slightly more than carnivorous family, it is EXTREMELY rare to have a vegetarian dinner on the menu - but this one did not disappoint!)


Ingredients (makes 6 Gemistas):

• 6 medium-large fresh tomatoes (my mom graciously got these from Jane and Paul's Farmstand in Norfolk, MA. So fresh you have to slap them!)
• 1 cup orzo pasta
• 1 small onion, chopped (some people in my family don't care for onions, so I chopped them really small so they could be hidden)
• 2-3 garlic cloves (I went with 3... helps keep away the vampires!)
• 5 grinds of pepper (about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoonful)
• 5 grinds of salt (see above!)
• Pinch of sugar
• About 2 teaspoonsful oregano 
• Potatoes
• Olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Rinse the tomatoes and cut about a 1 inch thick slice off the top. Scoop out the pulp and set it aside with the tops (get rid of the hard core part though, that's just useless!
3. Sprinkle the inside of the tomatoes with some salt, and invert on a paper towel to drain them a little.
4. Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a pan, and add the chopped onions and garlic. Cook these until they are slightly translucent and soft (not brown).
5. Also, cook the orzo according to directions until al dente.
6. Add the tomato pulp to the pan, turn up the heat a little, and simmer until it is thicker with just a little juice left in the pan.



Your house will smell amazing!

7. Mix the orzo with tomato/onion/yumminess mixture, and add the spices. (The beauty of adding spices is that you can add more or less of what you want. Being a Greek dish, I favored the oregano, but you can also try basil, parsley, dill or rosemary if that is what your palate craves!)
8. Spoon mixture into tomatoes (don't pack them down!), place in a slightly oiled baking dish and put the tomato hats on.

9. Surround the tomatoes with diced potatoes to roast alongside them! (Or any other veggies you like... the potatoes are also helpful in keeping the tomatoes separated in the pan! Again, season according to taste!)
10. Cook for about 50 minutes... finish under the broiler if you'd like to brown up the tops, and serve with whatever sides you like! 
• We did a salad, some fabulous feta (always a good choice), and some crusty bread.

So if you're like my family and feel as though you can't go a meal without meat, I encourage you to try this dish - a healthy and filling meal!
As the Greeks say... Kali Orexi! (Bon appetit!)

Picture found here!

Chicken, Spinach, and Feta Omelettes

Okay friends, we have our first non-baking post today!

Seeing as today was my first day off in about a week... and that I don't have another day off until next Friday.. I thought that a nice brunch was in order.

The true beauty of omelettes are in their simplicity. What foods do you like? Throw them in!


Here is how I created this lovely treat:
Ingredients:

• Eggs! (This omelette was for Chef George and I, so we used 6 because well, we love eggs!)
• Some milk or cream... some liquid to thin it out. We had heavy cream around the kitchen so I put in just a splash of that
• *The Barefoot Contessa claims that less liquid makes for fluffier eggs, so use your best judgement!*
• Salt
• Toppings!



I put the ingredients in ramekins because I had them sitting around and think they look professional!

• In this scenario, we used leftover chicken from dinner the other night, some spinach I chopped up, and some wonderful feta cheese

Directions:

• Whisk together the eggs, liquid, and sprinkle of salt.
• Heat a frying pan on medium-high temperature with some olive oil and a pat of butter.
• This olive oil came straight out of Greece! I thought it made it a more well-rounded Greek breakfast!
• Pour in the eggs and allow them to solidify a bit.
• When the bottom of the eggs seem firm but the top is still a little runny, sprinkle your toppings on: 

• Fold the omelette in half and flip... Cook until you think its about done!

We served ours with some nice crunchy multigrain toast, some Kalamata Olives, bacon, and of course, some more feta cheese.

Paired with a cold glass of orange juice and a coffee, and we had ourselves a lovely brunch this morning!

Nifty Nutella Cupcakes

This was my first creation by request - I stumbled upon this recipe, courtesy of Family Kitchen, and my cousin, Christy, wanted me to let her know how it was!
So here you go, Christy! You judge for yourself! :)

Nutella has never been my favorite... it is good, but not the first thing I reach for in my cabinet. But these cupcakes have changed my perspective on this chocolate-hazelnutty spread! Nutella is not only in the cupcake batter, not only in the buttercream frosting... but also in its pure form inside the cupcake!




Ingredients:
Cupcakes:

• 2/3 cups Nutella
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (I used my old standby: Hersheys!)
• 2 teaspoonsful baking soda
• 1 teaspoonful baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoonful salt
• 3 large eggs 
• 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup butter, softened (my recipe didn't say salted or unsalted, so I used unsalted and it came out fine!)
• 2 and 1/2 cups buttermilk (a good way to not waste the buttermilk from my last recipe!)

Frosting:

• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup Nutella
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoonsful vanilla extract
• 1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions:
Cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flours, cocoa, baking soda and powder, and salt. Then just mix it around a bit to incorporate it all. (This stage made me realize I need a real sifter, since the only one we have hold maybe a cup worth of flour. I'm thinking this one from cooking.com: SIFTER!... Only $20, but I'm poor.)
In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar until thick, and then add the butter and beat. Then add the Nutella and the buttermilk, and beat until incorporated.
Wear an apron if you have one, this splattered on me. I'm sad I left my big, fat, greek apron upstairs.


Add in the flour mixture about 1 to 2 cups at a time, mixing well after each addition. Fill cupcake tins to about 2/3 full, and bake for about 25 minutes.
(This recipe made me 40+ cupcakes, so I had to do multiple batches, make sure you account for that when you set out to make these cupcakes!)


*Fun Tip!: If you have a pastry bag with a round tip... while the cupcakes are still warm, fill the pastry bag with Nutella, and pipe into the center of the cupcake! Fun surprise!*


Frosting:
*Note: allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting. I used this opportunity to go to Papa Ginos and grab some yummy cheese pizzas!*
Beat together the butter and the Nutella until it is nice and creamy, and then mix in the vanilla extract. Add in the powdered sugar, and mix well. Use the heavy cream to change the consistency as desired - it took me about 3 tablespoons until I liked where it was.


And there ya go! Frost however you want. I topped with chocolate shavings. Yumm!

Pre - chocolate shavings... Just a few of the MANY cupcakes this recipe made!