Glazed Salmon

I was afforded the opportunity this evening to have someone cook for me. My boyfriend had built up his salmon (a family recipe), so I finally decided it was time for him to make it!

We actually decided to get the salmon yesterday, and have it marinate overnight in a pretty simple glaze of soy sauce, Puritan oil, brown sugar, garlic powder, and rum.

From there it was just a simple broil, and we paired it with some mashed potatoes and salad.

Well let me tell you, he can cook for me any time!! I love cooking and the sense of accomplishment from preparing something delicious, but getting cooked for wins. Especially when it’s made with love!

So two thumbs up for this quick, healthy, and delicious meal!

Mexican Pot Pie

Last night, I decided to make a recipe I stumbled upon from a weekly Betty Crocker e-mail I get. I was a little skeptical, but with a leap of faith I dove into the recipe.

I had always assumed pot pie was extremely tedious. I guess it all just depends on the recipe, because this only took me about 15 minutes to prepare, and another 25 for it to bake in the oven; which just involved me sitting at the kitchen table sipping some Yellow Tail chardonnay.

The great thing about this recipe is it’s easily modified. I consider myself a halfetarian (one that usually eats a more vegetarian diet, but sometimes needs a good burger or piece of chicken). So, this time I made it with chicken. If in an all veggie mood, though, it could easily work with a bunch of different vegetables.

I definitely give this recipe two thumbs up. I brought leftovers for lunch today, and it was just as good reheated in the microwave. It made the office kitchen smell delicious too!

You’ll find both the recipe and pictures of the finished product below.

Happy nomz!

Ingredients:
1 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 medium bell pepper (cut into strips)
2 cups cooked chicken
1 3/4 cups thick & chunky salsa
1/4 cup of water
1 cup Bisquick mix
1/3 cup Montery Jack cheese
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400F
2. Heat oil in 10 inch skillet
3. Cook bell pepper. Stir in chicken, salsa, & water (cook 1-2 minutes), until bubbly
4. Pour into un-greased 1 1/2 inch casserole dish
5. In small bowl, stir Bisquick, cheese, milk
6. Pour over chicken mixture, spread almost to edge
7. Bake uncovered 30 minutes (until golden brown)
8. Enjoy!

A Simply Delicious Monday

Today was a somewhat hectic day. So, to calm the nerves, instead of going to the gym like a good girl, I spent it in the kitchen, cooking and baking.

I subscribe to a lot of food/recipe sites on my Google Reader and Twitter, so I’m taunted with deliciousness all day long. I’m constantly sharing and e-mailing recipes that are just filed away and rarely used. In the mood to bake AND cook, I decided to whip out my growing stack of recipes.

I suppose we should start with dinner. Late last week, while browsing Twitter, I happened upon Every Day Food, which is actually a division of Martha Stewart Living. Laugh all you want, but they offer up some seriously simple and delicious recipes! This recipe was the epitome of simple; it required mini-shell pasta, smoked bacon, frozen peas, heavy cream, and Parmesan cheese.Can it get any easier than that? Aside from EasyMac, I don’t think so. Take a look at the final product, and judge for yourself.

It was surprisingly light, despite having heavy cream and a ton of cheese (6 oz of Parmesan!). Mix in with one of the most underrated veggies out there (peas), and some bacon – quite the mix. The recipe makes 4-6 servings, and since there’s only two of us, my boyfriend has a nice re-heatable meal for later in the week when I’ll be away for work.

Now onto the good stuff!!

Being that I’ve made multiple pumpkin recipes in the past few weeks, I decided to continue on the trend (really just because I had 1/2 a can of pumpkin puree sitting in the fridge). I found the recipe for the chocolate chip pumpkin brownies on Betty Crocker’s website. I don’t think I’d call them brownies, though. They’re more like super-moist cookies, or bars.

At any rate, they were absolutely delicious. Again, my kitchen started to smell like fall almost immediately after putting them in the oven. Taking a lick of the leftover batter, it tasted a lot like pumpkin pie. I knew I had success! I decided to pair mine with some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and it was pretty heavenly. I think I could have gone for some more chocolate chips, though. It’s definitely a repeat.

I’m starting to worry that my pumpkin days are numbered. Being that I don’t enjoy mint flavored things aside from toothpaste, gum, and mouthwash, I’m going to need to find another “winter flavor.” Suggestions are more than welcome!

I think my next feat will be either Cherry Pie (for you, MerMer) or a sweet snickerdoodle cupcake recipe I found on Bakerella. They look phenomenal. I’m not sure when I’ll have time, though; the next few weeks are extremely busy.

It’s now time for me to nurse the not-so-pretty burn I have on my wrist, courtesy of pulling the brownies out of the oven a little too hastily.

More pumpkin!

Last night, I had the fine opportunity to make Pumpkin Bread.

Never having made bread of any sort before, I was definitely nervous. I was somewhat comforted when I found a recipe from Simply Recipes, since simple was at least in the name. And let me tell you, the name of the site couldn’t have been more accurate – it was SO simple, and absolutely delicious!

While mixing all of the ingredients, the kitchen really started to smell like fall; I think it was a combination of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. I also, however, was faced yet again (for the third time in the past two weeks) with the not-so-pleasant smell of puree pumpkin. It really reminds me of baby food; and not in the “oh, babies are so cute I love them and want my own one day” kind of way.

I’ve started to wonder if anyone can have too much pumpkin in their diet. I sure hope not, because I’ve ingested enormous amounts of it since the beginning of September. I even managed to work in some Pumpkin Pie Spice coffee that I found at Target over the weekend, on top of mixing it into fudge.

The bread definitely has a ginger-bread taste to it, but it also embraces the pumpkin flavor. This is definitely lower on the pumpkin intensity, which I happen to enjoy a lot. I find that pumpkin is a delicate flavor that needs to be measured meticulously, as too much can be extremely overpowering and unpleasant, while too little bodes the question of “what was the point?”.

pumpkinbread

I’m definitely going to make my co-workers jealous when I whip this bad boy out for my morning snack. Cue the salivating!

At any rate, here’s the recipe for the Pumpkin Bread. I definitely suggest giving it a try!

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups (210g) flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (1/4 L) pumpkin purée*
1/2 cup (1 dL) olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup (1 dL) chopped walnuts

* To make pumpkin purée, cut a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a foil or Silpat lined baking sheet. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh. Freeze whatever you don’t use for future use. Or, if you are working with pumpkin pieces, roast or boil them until tender, then remove and discard the skin.

METHOD

1 Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.

2 Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, 1/4 cup of water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in the nuts.

3 Pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack.

Makes one loaf. Can easily double the recipe.

Pumpkin Part 2: French Toast Style

The promise for this post is two-fold: on my first Pumpkin post, I promised to document each of my experiences with all things involving pumpkin throughout the fall. In my most recent post, I vowed to share my own kitchen cooking experiences with you, the lucky reader.

That being said, I tackled both this fine Sunday morning.

The recipe for the Pumpkin French Toast fell deliciously in my lap. Well, it was shared by one of my boyfriend’s friends on Google Reader, which he immediately forwarded to me, in which I quickly replied that would be our Sunday morning. The recipe comes from Recipe Girl, who actually has quite a few other tasty looking recipes I’ll probably sample at one point or another.

But back to the task at hand, my Pumpkin French Toast.

ingredients

It was a pretty simple recipe, just time consuming in terms of preparing all of the ingredients and then cooking them; as my pan only fit about 3 pieces of the bread at a time. I forgot to grab some cinnamon, so that was missing from the recipe, but the Cinnamon Toast Crunch coating easily made up for it.

My only qualms with the recipe were it’s bread size suggestion, and amount of pumpkin. It calls for 3/4 to 1 inch thick slices of French bread. I have to say, that was a little too thick for my liking – the pumpkin coating didn’t really soak through, and made it a little more difficult to cook quickly. Surprisingly for both my boyfriend and I, we thought the pumpkin flavor could have been a little more subtle. I was surprised that only 3/4 of a cup of pumpkin puree could be so strong. But it was!!

After all of the pieces were made, we threw it together with some turkey bacon and smothered it in maple syrup. I can honestly say that for someone who up until recently despised pumpkin, never really liked breakfast food, and never would have chosen French toast when given the option, I was impressed with myself. I quickly noted during the whole process that one of the best parts of cooking with pumpkin is the color. It’s such a rich combination of yellow and orange, an when mixed with different ingredients (such as eggs and whipping cream), it is truly a beautiful color. Now that I come to think if it, it’s shade is quite close to that of my living room. No wonder I enjoy that room so much…

This is definitely a recipe I’ll be revisiting in the future. I think it would also be delicious as a dessert with some ice cream and maybe whipped cream as well.