Nothing fancy tonight. Just fueling up to run 26.2 miles tomorrow morning. Whole wheat pasta with a mushroom tomato sauce. I just sautéd onions, mushrooms and garlic and added a can of Hunts sauce. As I said, nothing fancy. But it will help me fill my muscles with glycogen for tomorrow’s fun.
Marathon Meal
May 17, 2008 by Leave a Comment
Soba Stir Fry
May 14, 2008 by 1 Comment
Nothing like the thought of Asian food to make me start instantly salivating. I made this chicken, broccoli and soba noodle stir fry and it really hit the spot. I first cooked the soba noodles and set it aside. Then I quickly stir-fried some broccoli, garlic and ginger in a mixture of olive oil and sesame oil. Once they were just slightly cooked I removed them from the wok. The chicken was marinated in a mixture of soy, sesame oil, mirin, and a splash of teriyaki sauce. This was added to the hot wok and fried just until cooked. The veggies were added back to the wok and the noodles were tossed in. I did add some more soy, sesame oil, mirin and teriyaki sauce. A quick toss and everything was nicely mixed together.
Crazy Concoctions
May 11, 2008 by 1 Comment
I’ve been pretty busy lately. Consequently I haven’t had time to cook, or time to shop, or time to do anything. So getting lunch together in the morning has been somewhat of a challenge. With pantry items waning and no time to prepare good food I found myself foraging through the cupboards and fridge for anything to throw together. This leads to some pretty wild combinations. Like this wrap I made for lunch on Friday. I started with the last of a package of tortillas. I had a bit of refried beans in the fridge, so I smeared the tortilla with that. On top of the beans went some crumbled maytag blue cheese and that was topped with some hard salami I picked up from Trader Joe’s the last time I was down in The Cities. A few parsley leaves and that made a quick and, well, strange lunch wrap. It was pretty good. Except I forgot to cut the casing off of the salami and it was hard to chew.
Greco Burger
May 4, 2008 by 3 Comments
Ever since Susan Mello won the 2003 Build a Better Burger contest in 2003 with her “My Big Fat Greco-Inspired Burger” I wanted to make this. I have taken several liberties with her original recipe. First of all I could not find good lamb to save my life today in my local grocery store so I resigned myself to making my Greco burger out of ground beef. Regardless, it turned out really good. I also wanted something more substantial than a pita to serve it on so I opted for a thicker ciabatta roll. The meat is flavored with mint and cumin. It is layered on top of some chopped lettuce, topped with a feta tzatziki sauce and a lemon and oregano grilled eggplant. I also served it with a grilled vidalia onion.
Tzatziki Sauce with Feta
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced finely
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup non-fat yogurt
1 tbsp dried dill
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
Ingredients mixed well and chilled for at least one hour.
Grilled Eggplant
1 eggplant
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
2 tbsp dried oregano
1/4 cup olive oil
Eggplant was sliced into half inch slices. The remaining ingredients were whisked together. The eggplant was tossed with the marinade and allowed to sit for one hour. Eggplant was grilled on a hot grill until soft.
Burgers
2/3 pound ground beef
1/2 cup chopped mint
1/4 cup chopped chives
1 tbsp ground cumin
salt and pepper
Spring Green
May 1, 2008 by 2 Comments
Yes, spring is arriving here in the frozen north. I can’t wait to get digging into the dirt and get my garden planted for the season. One thing I grow in abundance every year is basil. I love pesto and can’t wait for the height of summer when the basil comes into my kitchen by the bushel. I can eat pesto on anything from pizza to sandwiches to, of course, pasta. In anticipation of the coming gardening season I made a pesto pasta dish. This is not my usual pesto as the little containers of basil I find at the grocery are way too expensive to make a big batch. So I kicked this one up by combining the basil with baby spinach leaves. So, I guess it’s a basil and spinach pesto. It was nicely flavored with the basil but the spinach tamed it down so it was not so over the top as I usually do it. I also added some chicken, mushrooms, onions and garlic to this dish along with some fresh tomato at the end. Here are more details of the recipe I whipped up for this dish. Oh, I didn’t realize I was out of pine nuts and walnuts so I used almonds instead. Turned out pretty good.
BASIL SPINACH PESTO
1 package of fresh basil leaves (about 1/2 cup loosely packed leaves)
2 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1/4 cup slivered almonds (walnuts or pine nuts are better)
juice of one lemon
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper
extra virgin olive oil, about 1/2 cup (I didn’t measure)
All the ingredients except the oil were added to a blender. The ingredients were processed while drizzling in the olive oil to make a loose sauce or paste. You could add a bit of water too if you want to cut down on the oil. A wooden spoon was carefully used to stir the leaves in the blender while processing. The pesto sauce was set aside until needed.
OTHER SAUCE INGREDIENTS
1 pound of sliced boneless skinless chicken breast
1 onion, sliced
3 cloves of garlic chopped
5 large button mushrooms, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
2 chopped fresh tomato
To a hot large pan (I used a wok, actually) was added about a tablespoon of olive oil. The onions and mushrooms were added along with a bit of salt and pepper and sautéed until fully cooked. The garlic was added toward the end of the cooking. The onion and mushroom mixture was removed from the pan and the chicken slices, seasoned with salt and pepper, were added. Once the chicken was cooked through the onion mixture was added back to the pan.
Meanwhile in a large pot of boiling water a 1 pound package of thin whole wheat spaghetti was cooking. Once it was cooked to al dente the paste was drained and added to the chicken and onion mixture. A splash of the pasta water was added to prevent burning in the pan. The pesto sauce and fresh tomatoes were added and the paste was tossed to mix everything well. This was turned out into a serving bowl.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
April 30, 2008 by 1 Comment
So simple to make and they don’t have to be your typical cheddar cheese Mexican quesadillas. The sky is the limit on the permutations you can make on this basic flat bread cheese sandwich. This one is made with gruyere cheese and roasted red peppers. That’s it! That and some flour tortillas. I like to use a bit of butter and a heavy cast iron pan to make my quesadillas. They come out delicious and crispy. The combination of a flavorful cheese with the roasted peppers was wonderful.
Smooth Satisfaction
April 24, 2008 by Leave a Comment
I don’t post breakfasts often but I do eat them. Often after my runs in the morning I will whirl up liquid nutrition to get my muscles recovering and get me going in the day. This morning after a fast 5 mile run I made one of my favorite concoctions, a blueberry banana smoothie.
1 cup skim milk
1 banana
1 cup frozen blueberries, slightly thawed
1 scoop (3 tbsp?) whey protein powder
1 tbsp Nestle’s Quick Chocolate Milk Powder
1 tbsp natural creamy peanut butter
I like to drink them out of my big tall Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville glass.
Bi Bim Bap (sans meat)
April 21, 2008 by 2 Comments
Bap (or bop) in Korean means rice. Bi bim means to ‘mix up’. Bi bim bap means to mix up stuff with rice. Traditionally in Korea this usually includes bulgogi style beef, various vegetables including bean sprouts, spinach, carrots, mushrooms, cucumbers among others, and always with a fried egg on top. This is mixed up with a spicy sauce and flavored with sesame oil and sesame seeds. Some of the vegetables are raw and some are cooked and marinated with sesame oil, garlic and soy. It is also traditionally served in a heated stone bowl. My take on it this time is hardly traditional on may fronts. I probably have vegetables that are not used commonly, I don’t have a special stone bowl to put on the fire, and after last evening’s t-bones I left out the beef. The flavor, however, is still quite good.
I began preparing this dish early in the day. I steamed some mung bean sprouts just until tender. I did the same with baby spinach leaves; steamed just until they were wilted. These were marinated with a mixture of chopped garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. I didn’t measure anything, so bear with me. I just splashed some together. I also hydrated some dried shitake mushrooms by boiling in a bit of water for about an hour. These were cooled and sliced. Other vegetables included raw carrots, raw green peppers and sliced romaine lettuce. These were all assembled on top of a bed of sticky Thai brown rice. An egg fried in sesame oil was placed on top.
Before mixing this all up I added some sesame oil, sesame seeds and a spicy sauce. The sauce was made with gochujang paste (about 2 tbsp), rice vinegar (about 1/4 cup), soy sauce (about 1/4 cup), water (about 2 tbsp) and sesame oil (about 2 tbsp). Just mix everything together well and enjoy.
Beef, It’s what’s for dinner
April 20, 2008 by 1 Comment
To me there is nothing more satisfying than a big slab of medium rare grass fed cow seared on a grill. We’re not talking steak sauce here. Never ruin a good piece of meat with too much seasoning. We buy our beef a half cow at a time from a local farmer. Let me tell you, I’ve had Kobe beef before but North Dakota beef wins in taste and texture hands down. All this tender juicy piece of cow flesh needs is just some salt and pepper.
Beef shouldn’t be adorned with complicated side dishes either. Just a grilled vidalia onion and some home baked fries make a perfect accompaniment to what is flesh perfection.
What more is there to say? I likes my beef now and then.
More Pasta
April 16, 2008 by 7 Comments
My pasta love affair is not over yet. With the same dough I made for the orrechiette, I rolled out another favorite pasta shape of mine, pappardelle. This is like a big wide fettucine noodle. I rolled them out into sheets using my pasta roller and then cut them into wide strips by hand. Another mushroom based sauce was perfect for this. I sautéed garlic, onion and mushrooms in olive oil, added bit of non-fat half and half for richness and tossed in some fresh grated parmigiano reggiano. This was garnished with a bit of fresh parsley. Another satisfying pasta meal.