A.K.A. The healthiest thing I have ever made or eaten. For whatever reason, February is the time of year where I decide it’s time to make healthy changes. While I have no intention of turning this into a diet/healthy eating blog, you may from time to time see some recipes here that are a bit more health conscious. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the word “butter” is in the blog’s title. I guess I’m just looking for a bit more balance in my life, and luckily, the scale is starting to reflect that a little bit.

For you vegetable soup lovers, this is an easy soup to add to your repertoire. It comes together quickly, and makes for a satisfying light lunch. It’s easily adaptable if you want to choose different ingredients. I swapped out spinach for kale, for example. I also like it because it’s low-calorie at 140 calories per 1 & 1/2 cup serving, which leaves me some wiggle room for when I want to make brownie pudding.

Tuscan Vegetable Soup
Adapted from Elie Krieger

Note: Use whatever herbs you think will taste good in the soup. The original called for thyme and sage, but I know some people don’t like certain herbs. I think Herbs de Provence or some kind of Italian herb blend would be fine. Also, there is very little salt in this recipe, so you may choose to add more.

Ingredients:

1 can (15 oz.) of no-salt added canellini beans, rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Half of a large onion, diced (about 1 cup)
2 small carrots, diced (about 1/2 cup)
2 celery stalks, diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 medium or 2 small zucchini diced (about 1 & 1/2 cups)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried thyme (optional)
2 teaspoons dried sage (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
32 ounces low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 can (15 oz.) no-salt added diced tomatoes
2 cups chopped kale
Parmesan cheese, for serving

Preparation:

In a small bowl, mash half of the canellini beans with a fork and set aside. In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat, then add the onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, salt, pepper, and herbs, cooking for about 5 minutes and stirring occasionally, until vegetables start to soften. Add the garlic, cooking for another 30 seconds to 1-minute until you can really smell the garlic. Add the broth, tomatoes with their juice, kale and bring to a boil. Add the mashed beans and the remaining whole beans, and reduced to medium-low, simmering for another 10 minutes until soup has thickened a bit, and the kale is cooked. Serve with a little grated parmesan.

Please forgive me, but this is the only photo I have of these beauties. I’ve been doing a fair amount of cooking lately, but most of it has been around 10 p.m., which is just not a good time for food photography. Besides these lemon bars, this past week I’ve made a really great salmon dish, mango curry chicken, and a chocolate peanut butter layer cake for my husband’s birthday. I’ve also been busy with school, as usual. This semester, I’m only taking four classes, which is still full-time, but on the lighter side of full time. I’m glad that I have a couple of days without classes this semester so that I’ve got a little more time to cook and bake. These lemon bars have been on the “must make” list for a long time, and I’m happy to have finally had the time and inspiration to make them! I am a lover of all things lemon, so these are right up my alley. I’m also one of those weirdos that if it’s a choice between a lemon bar or chocolate cake, I’ll probably choose the lemon bar. And with these, the choice is that much easier.

Lemon bars
Adapted only the tiniest bit from Ina Garten

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1/2 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

6 large eggs at room temperature (if you’re like me and always forget to take them out of the refrigerator early, just put them in a bowl of slightly warm water for a minute or two)
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest (should take about 4-6 lemons, depending on size of the lemon)
1 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed, about 6 lemons (I highly recommend investing in one of these to juice lemons.)
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preparation:

For the crust, use an electric mixer with the paddle attachment to cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes on medium speed. Then add the salt and flour, reducing speed to low, mixing until just combined. Take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a well-floured counter or board. Gather it into a ball, then flatten a bit and place into a 9″x 13″x 2″ baking dish, pressing dough into an even layer, coming about a 1/2-inch up the sides. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes, then bake in a 350-degree oven for about 15-20 minutes until very lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack, leaving the oven on.

While the crust is cooling, whisk together all the ingredients for the filling.(Tip: On the reviews for this recipe, one reviewer suggest whisking it for about 8 minutes to make sure that the filling stays set if you’re going to have these around for multiple days. I put the whisk attachment on my mixer and let it go for about 5 minutes on medium-low speed. Everything seemed really well combined, and my bars did stay set for multiple days.) After crust has cooled, pour the filling on top and bake for 30-35 minutes until filling is set. Let cool to room temperature or chill in the refrigerator. I prefer them cold, but it’s up to you. Dust with powdered sugar if you choose. Enjoy!

When I feel the need for some comfort in life, I always seem to want soup. Lately, I’ve needed that comfort a little more than usual. I was rear-ended the other night, and have been suffering from a case of whiplash for the past few days. Also, my husband has some kind of bronchitis/sinus infection combination. Oh, and I’ve had a headache for two days. This is the second soup I’ve made in three days, if that tells you anything.

Also, today is New Year’s Eve. To be honest, I’ve never been a sentimental person, which I think is because I don’t have a great memory. I’m also not a details person, and I am always amazed when I read memoirs or hear of people who can describe their childhood in detail. I frequently mix up the order of events in a story, such as how I met my husband. All that to say, trying to recall the events of this past year is challenging, and let’s face it, some things are better left forgotten. One thing that I’ve found to be of great use to help me remember this past year is this blog.

This blog has helped me remember having strep throat, a trip to Asheville to see some friends and bands, Borders going out of business (truly tragic), the joy of getting my braces off, barely passing my pre-calculus class and finishing community college, my youngest brother’s high school graduation, a wonderful vacation to San Francisco, a summer full of making pimento cheese and eating peaches, transferring to a big university, and well…after that it’s really been a blur. Overall, it’s been a pretty good year and full of a lot of change, which keeps things exciting. I hope you’ve all had a good year and I wish the best for everyone in 2012. I think a good way to start it off right would be to make this soup. Mostly because it’s delicious, and it would probably be great at helping you get over your hangover, should you have one. Stay safe, everyone!

Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

Notes: The main thing I changed, is that I used baby bok choy when the original recipe called for spinach. I thought it would make it feel a bit more authentic, and since I live close to an Asian grocery store, I got it for a good price. Also, I’m a baby about spicy food, so I dialed down the amount of chili-garlic sauce. About the noodles, I found fresh, and the smallest package I could find was 16 ounces, so I only used about 12 ounces of it. Finally, since I had more chicken than the original recipe calls for, I upped the ingredients a bit. I’m posting it as I made it. One thing I’d like to point out as a criticism of the original recipe is that it calls for “2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 12 ounces.” Sorry, but I don’t know the last time I saw chicken breasts that small. Most of what I see are chicken breasts that are at least 12 ounces each (assuming we’re talking about the half breast, not the whole breast.) I usually think America’s Test Kitchen gets it right, but I just want to know where they’re getting these tiny chicken breasts from.

Ingredients:

8 cups chicken broth
2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons mirin
3 tablespoons grated ginger (I use the jarred stuff because if I buy a piece of ginger, I never use it all.)
2 teaspoons chili-garlic sauce (a.k.a. sriracha/rooster sauce: feel free to add more to your liking.)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (mine totaled just over a pound)
4 teaspoons sesame oil
12 ounces fresh Chinese egg noodles (or 2-3 packages of dried ramen noodles, minus the seasoning packets)
1 lb baby bok choy
3 scallions, sliced thin, plus a little more for garnish

Preparation:

In a soup-pot, bring chicken broth, mirin, ginger, and chili-garlic sauce to a boil. Then, add the chicken to the pot, cover, simmering over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, until chicken is cooked through (mine took about 13 minutes since they were larger). Once chicken is finished, transfer to a bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces, and add the sesame oil to the chicken, making sure to coat evenly. Add the noodles to broth, cooking for about 2 minutes. Then add the bok choy, scallions, and sesame oil-coated chicken pieces, simmering until the bok choy is wilted. Serve, garnished with a few more sliced scallions.

I am someone who likes to eat Christmas cookies, but not necessarily make them myself. I’m so lucky to have a sister-in-law who sends me a box of goodies every year, because otherwise I’d probably go cookie-less. Growing up, it was my grandmother who would always send us home with a tin full of Christmas snacks, one of which was her famous fudge which neither my mom or I have ever been able to replicate. If I ever get it right I will consider it a miracle.

I discovered these cookies a few years ago, and after making them once, I knew they’d be a part of my Christmas tradition, and so far are the only Christmas cookies I make. I wish I could mail them as a gift, but unfortunately, they would never make it without shattering into bits and pieces. I wanted to show you these earlier so you would have had time to make them for your holiday parties, but well, I had finals, and then immediately went back to work between semesters. (Oh, and I was reading the Hunger Games books.)  And who says you can’t make these any time of year? Maybe for your New Year’s party? I suspect these would be excellent with a glass of Champagne, but really what doesn’t go with Champagne?

Cranberry Pistachio Lace Cookies
Adapted from Rachael Ray Magazine

Notes: I used unsalted pistachios and shelled them myself because they’re just a lot less expensive. I think salted pistachios would probably taste great in this recipe and would make a nice sweet/salty snack. Also, the recipe didn’t call for the cranberries to be chopped, but I did anyway to spread them out a bit more. Also, that fancy green thing I used to chop the pistachios is a double-bladed mezzaluna. I picked it up at T.J. Maxx a few years ago, and it came with a cutting board with that has a little bowl on one side. It is absolutely perfect for chopping nuts and herbs. Here’s the link to it if you’re interested. It really has been a great thing to have in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pistachios

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325° F/162° C, placing the the racks on the top and bottom 2/3 of the oven. Melt the butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stirring until smooth. Add the flour, oats, and salt to the pot, stirring to combine. Then add the chopped cranberries and pistachios, stirring until everything is evenly distributed. Grease two cookie sheets, or put parchment paper on two cookie sheets, making sure its flat and not coming up at the sides. (If you use parchment paper, it will be easier to get the cookies off the pan.)

Drop teaspoon amounts of the batter onto the cookie sheets, with three inches between cookies. For me, I could fit six per sheet. (The cookies will spread out, so don’t crowd them, or they will run into each other.) Bake for 8-10 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom/bottom to top halfway through baking, until the cookies look a shade darker than the batter. After taking out of the oven, let sit on the pan for a minute or so to finish setting, then lift the parchment paper off and let finish cooling on the paper on a wire rack or the counter. If using a greased cookie sheet, use a metal spatula to lift the cookies after a minute or so and put onto a flat surface. If they’re still bending a lot when you try to pick them up, they’re not ready to come off the cookie sheet yet, and give them a few more seconds until they’re more set.

Store in an airtight container or ziplock bag to maintain crispiness.

…Are these cookbooks. This is the time of year that many bloggers talk about their favorite cookbooks of the year. These are some of my favorite posts to read because I LOVE cookbooks, and already just in reading a few posts this morning, I’ve discovered a few more that I’d love to get my hands on. Since I am a poor college student, this post will be my own personal wish list of books that I want instead of books that I already have. Obviously my description of them won’t be as long as if I actually owned the books, but these are the ones that are currently calling to me.

(Note: I do not participate in the Amazon affiliate program.)

The Art of Living According to Joe Beef

Back in 2008, I took a 10-day solo trip up to Montréal. I loved it so much I made my husband go back there with me the following summer. Unfortunately, I did not know about the restaurant Joe Beef either time I was there, and only learned of it afterward in Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie episode about Montréal. I’ve been intrigued ever since and when I found out this book was coming out, it quickly jumped to the top of my cook book wish list.

The Food52 Cookbook

I am sure many of you are familiar with the good people over at Food52. I’ve known about Food52 for awhile, but only recently really started to check out their website, and their new Tumblr blog. I also took a look at the physical book the other day, and what I love about it is that the food looks accessible. The people coming up with recipes are not trained chefs but just enthusiastic home cooks. So, not only is this food that I would actually want to eat, but food that I am actually capable of making myself.

Ruhlman’s Twenty

I first discovered Michael Ruhlman on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” show. I loved watching the bickering between Bourdain and Ruhlman on the show, and as I sought to learn more about this Ruhlman guy, I soon discovered he had authored many books, and had a blog. I’ve been following the blog for awhile and couple of his other books. What I think is important about this book is that it teaches you why things as simple as water or eggs or salt are so important and what they can accomplished when used correctly. I think this book would be a great gift for someone in your life who wants to be a better cook but doesn’t really know how to get started. For me, even though I have come a long way in the last few years, there are so many areas where I can improve, and I think this book will be a valuable asset to help me do so. Someone get it for me, ok?

Essential Pépin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food

A few years ago, the local PBS station had an excellent Sunday afternoon cooking show lineup, with Jacques Pépin’s “Fast Food My Way” as one of the shows. I just loved watching this man breeze through the kitchen and explain why he was doing things one way as opposed to another. I learned how to properly crack an egg watching his show. This man is so well respected by other chefs and everyone in the food world. I’d love to own this cookbook, and it would probably take me the rest of my life to work my way through the 700 recipes it includes.

Bi-Rite Market’s Eat Good Food

Yet another story about discovering a place too late. My husband and I went on vacation to San Francisco this summer, and I didn’t learn of this place until a few months after we’d returned. Huge bummer, but hey since I know we’ll be returning to SF at some point in the future, it gives me something to look forward to. I love cities that are endlessly explorable, and SF is one of those places. As I skimmed the pages of this book, it looked like part cookbook, part manifesto, part story of a community built around this grocery store. As someone who loves grocery stores almost as much as cookbooks, this is the best of both worlds. I found myself wanting to be a part of the community here and wishing my town had its own Bi-Rite equivalent.

Well, I know that’s only five books, but it’s a good place to start. I look forward to adding at least a few of these to my shelves over the next few months!

Oh hey. How have you all been the last month? School has been good, but busy. I can’t believe how fast this semester is going. My classes are going well overall, which is encouraging. Since the last time I posted, it has finally begun to look and feel like fall. The colors are particularly beautiful this year. I know fall is almost everyone’s favorite season, and I am no different. I absolutely love the cooler weather, the colors, and I don’t even mind that we’re getting more rain. It’s just a part of the beauty. Also, walking around a beautiful old brick college campus during this season isn’t half bad either.

Another thing I love about fall are pears. They’re one of my favorite fruits that I am happy to just cut up and eat, but I also really like them baked into desserts. I found this recipe as I was looking for a good fall dessert. I thought it sounded good, and I don’t have a lot of experience making cake from scratch, so I was up for the challenge. Good grief, I had no idea how frustrating it could be to make a cake. I chalk it up to both user-error and recipe-error. First, there was the caramel sauce I was supposed to make. I burned it the first time. The second time I tried, it turned into hard candy. Delicious hard candy, but not going to work for the cake. Then, I was out of white sugar, but I had already cut up the pears and started on the batter, so there was no going back or going to the grocery store. So, I improvised and found a different sauce that would probably work just fine.

Making the batter was relatively uneventful, thankfully. I got the cake into the oven, and had planned on baking it for around an hour. I am glad that I looked in on it at a half hour. It looked done, but surely a recipe that says to bake a cake for an hour wouldn’t produce a cake that was done after a half hour? I let it go another ten minutes, and then trusted my judgement and took it out. I toothpick tested it and it was definitely done. By then, it was late, and I put it in the refrigerator to eat the next day. Well, that was yesterday, and I was gone from approximately 8 a.m. until midnight. So, this morning, I finally took it out of the refrigerator and yes, I ate cake for breakfast.

The truth? The cake is good. It’s not earth-shatteringly good, but good. I probably could have used more pears, or maybe added a bit of lemon juice to make them a bit tarter. About the actual cake, I will say that if you are one of those people who really loves a good dense vanilla wedding cake type texture, then you would really like this cake. My favorite part were the edges which were extra gooey and delicious. Overall, I would say it was a success, and I have myself and my intuition to thank for that. I think the cake part would make a great base for some kind of layer cake.

Pear Upside-Down Cake
Heavily adapted from Bon Appetit

Notes: Okay, bear with me. Like I said, this was a tricky recipe. After two failed attempts at caramel sauce according to the original recipe, I consulted the internet and found a caramel sauce recipe that’s basically the same as my mom uses for her caramel rolls (which I’ll definitely have to post here soon), which uses brown sugar, light corn syrup, and butter. Also, instead of vanilla extract, I used vanilla bean past because I’ve had it for awhile and never used it and thought it would add more vanilla flavor to the cake, which it did. That being said, no need to rush out for vanilla bean paste, just use extract. Finally, I know all of our ovens are different, so you’ll just have to use your own judgement about how long to bake it. Somewhere between 30-60 minutes. Specific, right?

Special equipment: An 8-inch diameter round cake pan and parchment paper

Ingredients:

For the topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick of butter (4 oz.)
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 medium pears (your choice on what kind), sliced into thin slices, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8-inch

For the cake:

1 stick (8 oz.) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 tablespoons coarse yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
2 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup whole milk

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter the cake pan, and cut out a round piece of parchment paper to fit in the bottom of the pan. Whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Bring the brown sugar, 1/2 stick of butter and corn syrup to a boil over medium heat, stirring often. Once boiling, continue to boil for another minute and pour into the cake pan. Overlap the sliced pears in even circles on top of the syrup.

In a mixer or large bowl with a handheld mixer, beat the softened stick of butter with 3/4 cup sugar and vanilla on medium speed until light and fluffy, around 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time, continuing to beat. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, until just blended. In a separate bowl, with clean, dry beaters, beat the egg whites on low until frothy, and then increase speed to medium and beat until soft peaks form. Fold about 1/4 of the whites into the cake batter, and then add the rest of the egg whites, folding in until just blended. Pour the batter over the pears in the cake pan, and smooth the top.

Bake the cake for 20 minutes, and rotate. Check it at 30 minutes. If the top is golden brown, go ahead and test it with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean with just a few moist crumbs. If so, it’s done. If not, bake another ten minutes and test again. Like I said, my cake was probably done somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes, but the original recipe said an hour. Cool on a wire rack for 30  minutes. Run a thin knife around the inside of the cake pan. To release the cake, invert it onto a large plate by putting the plate on the top of the cake pan and flipping it upside down. Take the cake pan off the cake and remove the parchment paper. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Friends, today is the first day of my fall break from school, and although it just barely feels or looks like fall, there are signs. Apples are a great price right now, for one. Once the weather starts to cool down, I can almost think of nothing else more comforting than some kind of sweet apple dessert. Well, last year when I went to visit my parents, I raided my mom’s recipe file and came upon the famous “apple goodie” I remembered from my youth.

I know there are more than enough recipes for apple crisps/goodies out there, but after making this one, I really do feel it’s better than most of the others I’ve had. It’s probably the butter. All I know is now that I have “mom’s recipe” I don’t plan to try any others for a long time. Feel free to make my mom’s recipe yours, too.

Apple Goodie
-From my mom’s recipe file.

Ingredients:

For the filling:
4 cups sliced granny smith apples
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the topping:
1 stick of butter, softened, not melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Filling: Mix the white sugar, tablespoon of flour, and cinnamon together in small bowl. Layer a third of the apples in an 8×8 square baking dish. Sprinkle a third of the sugar over the apples. Repeat twice. Topping: Mix the brown sugar, flour, oatmeal, baking soda, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Add the butter, using hands to combine all ingredients together until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over the apples in an even layer. Bake for 30-40 minutes until topping is golden brown.

My husband informed me it has been a whole month since I posted last. For those of you who have kept up with me over the last year, you’ll know that it is mostly school related. I would love to put a more interesting spin on it than that, but that’s really all it is. Being married and taking five classes doesn’t leave a lot of time left for blogging.

I made this recipe back in May, but completely forgot about it until I was looking through some old pictures. Convenient timing, yes? I do realize this is a very spring/summery dish, but perhaps it will be nice for those of you who are already knee-deep into fall, and aren’t quite ready for summer to be over yet. Down here in the South, summer is still reluctant to let go.

I hope you are all enjoying the first day of October. It actually does feel like fall today, and I hope you are out enjoying it! I’ll be doing homework. Try not to be too jealous.

Baked Shells
Adapted from Rachael Ray’s “Look and Cook”

As my memory and pictures serve me, the original recipe called for a 10 oz. box of frozen chopped spinach, but I had a big bunch of fresh spinach, so I just used that. Also: it is totally unnecessary to use buffalo mozzarella, I just happened to have a huge tub of it due to a great price at Costco. Also, even though the recipe calls for fresh mozzarella, I found it a little weird to eat in this dish, and might actually go with shredded mozzarella next time.

Ingredients:

Salt
1 pound medium pasta shells
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of extra liquid, OR 3-ish cups of fresh chopped spinach (so precise, right?)
Pinch of nutmeg
Black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup basil leaves
1 cup ricotta
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 pound fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/4 inch circles, or 8 oz. grated mozzarella

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Boil a large pot of salted water to boil, and cook pasta to about 2-3 minutes less than the package instructions. (Note: reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water when finished cooking the pasta.) While the pasta is cooking, sauté the onion in the olive oil until translucent (3-4 minutes), then add the garlic, cooking about 30 seconds, then add the spinach. Make sure to break the spinach apart if you’re using the frozen kind. Add nutmeg, and salt and pepper. After the spinach mixture is heated through, transfer it to a bowl and set aside. In the same pot, melt the butter, and then add the crushed tomatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste, then add the basil leaves, tearing them a bit while you add them. Cook the sauce for about 7-8 minutes until thickened.

Drain the pasta, and put it back in its pot. Add the spinach mixture, 1/2 cup of reserved pasta water, ricotta cheese, and 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese. Stir until well combined, adding salt and pepper if needed. Use a little more pasta water if necessary to bring pasta mixture together. Put the pasta mixture into a baking dish, and top with the tomato sauce, mozzarella, and rest of the parmesan. Bake until cheese is melted everything is bubbling, about 6-8 minutes.

Sloppy Joes take me right back to family dinners when I was a kid. There was a few years where my grandparents lived with us, and the family joke was that my grandpa was so messy when he ate that he needed a bib. I mean, we all know people who manage to spill something on themselves every time they eat or drink, right? Well, being that both my grandma and mom were pretty skilled with the sewing machine, eventually one was made for him. He would actually wear it at meals, and if there was ever a meal where an adult could use a bib, it’s Sloppy Joes.

There are times when I remember why I named this blog what I did, and this is one of those times. This recipe starts out innocently, sautéing some onions in butter, but it ends up something that brings nostalgia with a little something extra (wine, to be specific). Today after class, I took myself and my shiny new iPad to the grocery store with me, and hung out at Starbucks for a little bit while searching on Epicurious for something to make for dinner tonight. I stumbled upon this recipe, and all the reviews were pretty positive. It also fit the bill of being uncomplicated, and I didn’t have to buy a lot of extra ingredients for it. Always a plus for this full-time student. This recipe is definitely going into the “something easy and tasty to make when I don’t know what to make for dinner” category. Once you make it, you’ll see why.

Fancy Sloppy Joes
Adapted a tiny bit from Epicurious “Sophisto Joes”

Really the only thing I changed was that the original recipe called for whole tomatoes to be puréed, but I skipped a step and just bought a can of crushed tomatoes. To be honest, I just didn’t feel like washing my food processor.

Ingredients:

One 14.5 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
1.5 pounds ground beef, not too lean (I used chuck)
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup dry red wine
1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Sauté the onions in butter for about four minutes, or until soft. Add the minced garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds to a minute, until aromatic but not burning the garlic. Add the carrots and celery and sauté for another 5 minutes or so until soft and starting to get a little color, but not burning. Add the ground beef, breaking it up into smaller pieces and brown for about 5 or 6 minutes. Then, add the chili powder, cumin, and about 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Cook another 2 minutes. Add the wine, crushed tomatoes, and brown sugar, stirring to combine, and cook another 5 or 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened a little.

Serve on toasted kaiser rolls, and wear a bib.

I’m probably committing the cardinal sin of food blogging, and that is posting two similar recipes in a row. There isn’t much of an excuse other than that I came across more peaches at the state farmers market recently. For a peach fiend like me, the more ways to eat them, the better. I figure this time of year, nobody will mind another way to use up what they’re compulsively buying at the store, farmers market, roadside stand, or getting in their CSA box.

I wish I could blame being a food blogger on a few unwanted pounds, but the truth is that I started my summer off with a 10-day trip to San Francisco, followed by a move across town, and then a couple months of relentless 100-degree temperatures. Let’s say I haven’t been making the wisest food choices in the world. Awhile back, when Borders was going out of business, and I still lived next-door to one, I hit up their cookbook section when the prices were lower and picked up The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger. I’d been eyeing it for awhile, and the recipes seemed like a really great compromise of healthy and delicious. After buying all those peaches, I considered making another tart, but felt perhaps I should lighten things up a bit, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a recipe in this book that looked good.

For now, it’s just baby steps, because I’m back to school in two days. I’ll be starting at North Carolina State University as a transfer student. I’ll admit it’s a bit intimidating going from community college to a school with a student population roughly around 35,000. My feet are sore from walking all over campus the last few days just to get my bearings.

(Copyright of University of North Carolina)

But, perhaps all that walking combined with delicious and healthy recipes like this one will get me back to a comfortable place, or at least a place where the pants that were loose last spring aren’t so tight anymore. If I’ve learned one thing from being in school, it’s that when the schoolwork starts to feel overwhelming, there’s pretty much nowhere else I’d rather be than in the kitchen, escaping all that reading and research papers. If you have any advice for this student besides “get involved!” (sorry, long day at orientation today), I’d appreciate it!

Peaches with Balsamic Cherries
Not really adapted at all from The Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger

Note: This is not a very complex recipe at all, so there isn’t a lot of room for adaptation, but if you have any good ideas on adding anything, go for it and let me know how it goes. I figured I’d stick to the basic recipe. I think perhaps it could use a touch of vanilla? I might pour the extra cherries and syrup I have back in a pan with a little to see how it tastes. I’ll post in the comments and/or adapt the recipe if it turns out well.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 pound of fresh sweet cherries, halved and pitted
2 tablespoons sugar, plus a little more if needed
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 pound-about 4 medium ripe peaches, cut in half, pitted and sliced

Preparation:

In a small saucepan, heat the pitted and halved cherries, sugar, and balsamic vinegar over medium heat until boiling. Continue to boil for about five minutes, stirring occasionally. Combine cherries and syrup with the sliced peaches in a medium bowl and serve.