Exactly 7 Days

It's been a week since I've created a great veggie dish. Sorry, if you were checking the blog looking for something fun, it's just been a crazy week. I've been busy at work, after work activities (to celebrate MY Birthday!) and getting things together for a little weekend jaunt to Gatlinburg. I left my vegetables behind, unless you want to count the blueberries that were in my mediocre pancakes at breakfast yesterday or the cherries in my deliciously alcoholic "cherry flip" at the Hardrock Cafe.

However, I remembered my promise to retry the plantains. Pretty sure that plantains just aren't my thing. First, I let it get almost black and after a week I could still see the yellow skin. Come on a banana doesn't last that long. Tonight I sliced it thinly and horizontal. I prepared them just as I had last Sunday, with brown sugar and buttered by way of frying in the skillet. They did not have the "green banana" taste but were still missing something. Sorry- I just don't think I've got the taste. Try them though, you might like them.

While I took the week off cooking there was research done. I've prepared a shopping list and some recipes for this week. It's a little ambition for me to get these 3 dishes in but with your encouragement I know I'll get it done. Here's a sneak peek for what's planned:

Balsamic Greenbeans

Spinach Dumplings

Vegetarian Lasagna

Stay Tuned....and have a healthy week!

Jazzy Jambalaya & the Plain Plantain

Folks, 2 great lessons in cooking were learned today. One, the jambalaya I have been fretting to make this week turned out pretty good. I've never thought about making the dish until a good friend was throwing ideas around about what my next post would be about. I also need to note that this is a "vegetarian" version plus shrimp-sorry no sausage. Lesson 2 is, if you want to fry plantains even if they look very ripe they aren't and you should wait for them to get black for the best flavor. At least the way I prepared them. I'll be waiting 2 more days at least.

So here goes the deliciousness....

Do remember that I don't always use exact measurements when cooking. This isn't baking. Also be warned these makes a heaping helping. I had 4 people eating and it didn't make a dent.

Jazzy Jamba:
1 cup onion chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves minced
4 cups diced tomatoes (I used the canned kind)
3 boil in a bag brown rice
2 cans organic black beans

a nice sprinkling of parsley, I went dehydrated because Kroger was out of the fresh stuff
a sprinkle of salt
a good sprinkle of paprika
a good sprinkle of chili powder
smidge of cayenne, based on your tolerance for heat
sprinkle of black pepper
3 bay leaves

raw shrimp,the bag I bought was 51-60 with tails but take the tails off!

Here's the word on making it:

I half cooked the boil in a bag rice based on box instuctions but not all the way.

In a large pot use the oil to cook until tender the onion, celery, green pepper and garlic. Stir in diced tomatoes, rice, parsley, salt, paprika, cayenne, chili powder and pepper. Add in shrimp and watch for them to get pink. Toss in DRAINED black beans.

Transfer to a 2-1/2 qt baking dish rubbed down with some butter. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 60-70 minutes or until a fair portion on the liquid is absorbed.

I served with mini corn bread muffins which seemed to be a hit.

Ahhh the plantains. I did alot of research on how to make this a good experience and I thought it would a breeze.

I peeled and quartered the plantain(or huge banana) got the skillet primed with a large spoonful of butter and put some brown sugar in a bowl. I shook the pieces of plantain in the brown sugar and coated them and placed in the skillet. Pushing the pieces around they began to form a nice caramel in the pan. It looked ooey, gooey and yum. Serving them over vanilla ice cream was the best thing I could do. Even the sugar laden bananas could not be taken for delicious by my 10 year old sister. The concensus from my taste testers (sister and mom) was that they tasted like a green banana. Forgive me for my short report but I wasn't impressed but this blog isn't just about the successes. It's the mistakes too. Like I said earlier I will try again later this week with my super ripe version of the fruit and try again. How's that sound?

What will be next on the veggie venture???

Makin' It Saucy!

Today being Valentines Day, I wanted to make my husband a special dish that incorporated what this blog is about. Pasta was on my mind. A tomato based sauce has been on my mind as of late. So perusing the internet I decided a Vodka Sauce would be my target. Finding a decent recipe on allrecipes.com
I decided to kick it up to my level. The basic recipe is as follows:

1/2 cup butter
1 onion, diced
1 cup vodka
2 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
1 pint heavy cream

In a skillet over medium heat, saute onion in butter until slightly brown and soft. Pour in vodka and let cook for 10 minutes. Mix in crushed tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes. Pour in heavy cream and cook for another 30 minutes.

But I did it a little differently. Choosing olive oil over butter and adding yellow squash and zucchini(which I decided is one of my least favorite words to spell)and a few pieces of yellow bell pepper while the onion/crushed tomatos/vodka simmered. With a touch of some fresh cilantro, dried italian seasoning, black pepper and 2 tablespoons of sugar to break down the acidity of the tomatos.

The smell in the house is amazing, my husband said it smelled great. I'll go ahead and admit this now- I LOVE to taste test my food as it cooks. I dipped my spoon in before the heavy cream was added and it was delish. I went in for a dip or two after the cream and it is rich. Serving the sauce over angel hair style pasta, with some crescent rolls. Sounds sexy to me on Valentines Day!

By the way, it makes a TON of sauce I'm sure will freeze well or work for leftovers....I do have some of the meatballs left that I made on Thursday.

Lull

This week has not been so adventurous with the vegetables. I had a spinach salad with grape tomatos for dinner on Monday but since then I've got nothing inspiring for you. Unless....could we count the apple jacks I for dinner as part of the fruit category? Consider that, get back with me. It's just been a crazy week, I did dabble in swedish meatballs but my sauce was a little bland.

I may not get back to creating a meal until Sunday so if anyone out there has a suggestion I'll consider it.

Until next time...

Game Day Snacks

I meant to get all my blogging done yesterday morning however laying on the couch until noon sounded like a better idea. Super Bowl Sunday brought me 3, count 'em THREE ways to use veggies.

For breakfast there was my Spinach, green pepper and purple onion omelet. Here's what it included:

3 whole eggs with a touch of milk
a sprinkling of fresh organic spinach (rinsed and dried)
a smatter of chopped purple onion (just so I could get a little bite here and there)
and a few bits of leftover green pepper I had in the crisper

I topped off the delicious egg rolled garden with a touch of cheddar cheese on top.

Now for the important stuff. What was being snacked on while the Saints and Colts got their game on??? Fresh guacamole and roasted red pepper hummus. While preparing these creamy dips it made me realize that the Procter-Silex food processor that holds maybe 1 cup of chopped food needs an upgrade. But until then I'll keep using it to make the green monster of party dips which included these ingredients-

3 organic avocados
a handful of organic grape tomatoes (chopped)
finely chopped red onion
5-6 sprigs of fresh organic cilantro
fresh lemon & lime juice

I halved my avocados, pitted and slide into a glass bowl I realized that the avocados weren't as ripe as they should be (improvising is sometimes key in cooking) I squeezed some fresh lime juice on the avocado with a sprinkle of salt and stuck in the fridge for about and an hour and a half. BING! When I pulled the bowl out the avocados were a little softer so I gave just as much as I could stuff into my mini processor a whirl to get it creamy and transfered it back into the glass bowl. I added the tomatos, red onion, cilantro and squeezed some more lime and added lemon juice. Once we got to our friends house we added a heaping spoonful of sour cream to give it a creamy consistency, however we did reserve some without the sour cream for those who preferred it less white :)

And when you thought you had enough veggies.....Hummus came along. Such an easy, easy dip to make. Here's whatcha got:

1 can of chickpeas, you find these right next to your assorted baked beans, chili beans, etc.
a jar of roasted red peppers, which I cam acrossed in the produce cooler. Great find.
a touch of minced garlic
a swirl or two of olive oil

Draining the chickpeas and scooping just as much as can be held in my little processor again, I added just enough olive oil to make the peas blend easier. I took a few slices of red pepper from the jar and sliced it into pieces and through it in the processor with just a little(not even a spoonful) of minced garlic. By no means is my food processor a work horse so it did take me a good minute to 2 minutes getting the right consistency. Have you ever had store bought hummus??? This was what I wanted. I served it with pretzel crisp. Those little flat pretzels are great with almost anything.

Sheww....what a long post but I just had to give you the play by play of all my veggie ventures! Side note, none of these recipes came directly from a book, I just wing it sometimes.

Christening the Blog!

With my very first blog post comes the sharing of my favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Now wait...this is a blog about making things with vegetables. Right? Yes my friend it is. A few years back I got a fun new cookbook as a gift. "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld holds this moist, texture fantastic cookie recipe. She uses fruit and veggie purees to sneak nutrition into recipes. Though I have tried maybe 2 recipes in this book I'll be sure to try more as the blog progresses.

I made it tonight as a snack but quite frankly I'll probably eat one for breakfast too! Here's how the recipe goes but please be warned I am not a firm measurer but I'll give you what I got here:

1 cp of whole-wheat flour
1 cp old-fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cp firmly packed light OR dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons trans fat free soft tub margarine spread(I cheated here I used regular ol' country crock)
1/2 cp banana puree*
1/2 cp zucchini puree*
1 large egg white
1/2 cp raisins
1/2 cp walnuts(I don't add these)

*Making the puree is a cinch, cut your zucchini into about 1in pieces, steam them and then put them through the food processor or blender. For the bananas, smash them up a bit then whirl them through the processor too.

1. Preheat your oven to 350 and spray your baking sheet with some cooking spray.
2. In a bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir it to get it combined.
3. In another bowl, large enough to house all the ingredients, beat the brown sugar and margarine until just combined. Add the banana and zucchini purees, the egg white and stir just to blend. Add the flour mixture from Step 2 and the raisins and walnuts at will.
4. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheet about an inch apart. They won't spread out all over though so don't get carried away measuring because it's not too big of a deal. Bake until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, just until firm enought to handle.

Enjoy! While baking these I thought of a few variations I may try as I have a little zucchini puree, several bananas and half a bag of chocolate chips in my cupboard. I'll let you know how that turns out......with a photo to come.

~Word to all the dog lovers out there, remember that raisins ARE NOT our puppies best friends. If you drop a few while making these pick them up.