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My birthday was last week. It was full of chocolate, flowers, cards and lovely friends. Yeah. I'm really not into this whole getting older thing.

I had breakfast for some of those lovely friends on Sunday and made up this quiche recipe. Never made quiche before, just frittata, which is the same thing but without crust. Since some recipes called for tons of heavy cream and some for cream cheese, I decided to just put in what I thought would taste good (all the heavy cream was already reserved for the scones).



Homemade pie crust (I used Nigella's recipe, but it didn't have enough butter in it. Bittman next time I think.)
8 eggs
6 oz cream cheese
3/4 c half & half
about 1/4 c shredded parmesan
1/2-3/4 c shredded cheddar
1-1 1/2 c frozen spinach
4 chopped green onions
and i forgot to put pepper in it, but it's important!

Baked the crust for 15 min at 425, then turned it down to 325 and poured in the filling and baked that for about an hour. I'd put bacon in it next time (couldn't cos of feeding pregnant friend who isn't into meat too much lately).

8.8

We also had blueberry scones, made with this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It's the best scone recipe. Seriously. I've made them with cranberries (yum x 1000), blueberries, chocolate chips, plain, and with brown sugar and chocolate chips (also yum x 1000). Always a treat.

coconut

One of my favorite made up recipes. I'm sure it's not original, but I've never followed any recipes for it. This time I put yellow sweet potatoes in it and it's sooo yummy.



Red Lentil Coconut Curry with Sweet Potatoes

2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
1 Tbsp fresh grated turmeric
1 Thai chile or serrano pepper
1 Tbsp or so ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne
some lemongrass
1 can of coconut milk
1/4 c grated coconut (i use dry)
1 c. red lentils
1 medium yellow sweet potato chopped into small cubes

Cook the onion in the oil for awhile and then throw in the garlic, ginger, turmeric, chile, lemongrass, cayenne and coriander. Cook for another couple minutes then add the coconut milk, grated coconut, lentils and potatoes. Add about a cup of water. Cook on low until the lentils disappear and the potatoes are soft. Add salt to taste.

It's vegan but not on purpose. The red lentils have more protein in them than other varieties and they completely melt into the sauce. Always makes me feel good when I eat this!

8.6

veg burgers

These veggie burgers mostly just taste like vegetables. I just took whatever I thought would taste good together and it was pretty good! This was definitely a "use whatever's in your house" experiment. Four other people tried them and said they liked them so I have to record the recipe on the internets.


Lovely BlackBerry pic

1 c. split peas cooked
3/4 c. millet cooked
three carrots
two onions
three or four big stalks of celery
cooked spinach
few tablespoons lemonaise
tablespoon or so of sriracha
tablespoon or so of grainy mustard
little cayenne
1 tblsp Dill
1 tblsp fennel
1 tsp sage
1 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
lots of salt
chickpea flour

I grated the veggies, mixed it all and then added as much chickpea flour as it needed to soak up the extra water. The mixture was very wet, but that makes for not too dry burgers. Baked them at 375 for 20-30 minutes, turned them over and baked some more until they were kinda brown.

I had them on lavash with spinach and a little yogurt. Homemade street food. 9.7

swiss chard

Started knitting something new, but ripped it right away...still looking for a good lace project.

In the meantime, I wanted to record this recipe in history on the internets because it's so yummy.


Swiss Chard Tart

Loosely based on this recipe, though that is a sweet one, and this has garlic in it!

Millet Bread for the base, spread with butter
Filling:
Swiss Chard
1 Egg
Parmesan Cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Pine Nuts
2 Cloves Garlic
Salt & Pepper
Millet Breadcrumbs with butter for the topping

Bake at 350 for 30 min

8.9!

cheese + rice = yummies

Rice with cheese and leeks:



I bought Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I love it! It's full of simple recipes with all kinds of variations and good ideas. I think I've changed every recipe I've made so far, but that's the point of the book.

This recipe is rice with cheese, and I added the leeks and red pepper flakes. So so yummy! This is fontina and asiago - creamy and sharp. The leeks blended into the background and the red pepper flakes contrasted against everything. I used sushi rice because I was starving, but I think this would be even tastier with brown rice.

I give it an 8.8.

beans!

Oh man this thing has gone from knitting to beans. Crazy times.

They arrived!



14 lbs. of beans from Rancho Gordo. I cooked a cup of Good Mother Stallards last night in the slow cooker with some onions for 8 hours. They came out perfect! The skins didn't split and the insides were creamy and delicious. I had them with rice and some tomato chili sauce I made, and then used the leftovers for some nachos.



Yummy!

beans, part 1.5

Black beans & Millet (7)

black beans, cooked
onions
garlic
cumin
paprika
chile pepper
cilantro
cayenne
organic ketchup (the thick kind, nothing like Heinz)

The millet cooks just like white rice, 20 minutes in a covered pot with 1 1/2 times as much water. Pretty tasty!

These were some black beans I bought long enough ago to forget when I got them. Most of them split and didn't get creamy, but they still did the job. More cayenne and fresh instead of dried cilantro would make these better!

beans, part 1

Mushy beans (8.2)

1 c. minced onions
1 clove of garlic
1/4 tsp. cumin
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tbsp. chile powder
1/8 tsp. cayenne
black pepper
salt
1/2 c. pureed tomatoes
2 c. Anasazi beans

Cook onions and garlic in oil until soft, add spices and cook a few more minutes. Add tomatoes and beans, mash beans and stir well. Cook on low for about 10 minutes. I had them with brown rice, cheese and avocado. Sour cream and cilantro would be good, too.

Omgz this was so good! Kind of like sloppy joes, but with no meat and kinda mexican flavored.

Yeah, since I hardly knit anymore, this is gonna turn into a food blog. Probably a bean blog, since I just ordered 13 lbs. of beans from Rancho Gordo. Just not that interested in eating meat lately, so beans it is!

indian

Still working on the lace, but there was a little bit of distraction tonight.



Butter chicken loosely based on this recipe. I used fresh ginger, fresh garlic and added cilantro. I give it a 7.6 out of 10 - have to work on my garam masala.

Here's some progress on the shawl:

gf meatballs

Back to gluten free for now. I'm posting this mainly so I remember the recipe, cos of these are yummy!

Ground Turkey
An Egg
Cooked Rice
Parm Cheese
Parsley
Basil
Sage
Thyme
Salt
Red Pepper Flakes
A little bit of Milk

450 degrees for 10-12 minutes

sushi #5

A few months ago I got some sushi at this place and they used rice paper instead of rice. The other night I was too lazy to make rice, so I thought I'd try it with rice paper. It was interesting...

Looks diseased, but those are sesame seeds between the rice paper and nori.

Yeah.

easter breakfast

More things I am not supposed to eat!

Cinnamon honey challah french toast with strawberries. They were out of raisin challah and I was only slightly disappointed. I didn't expect much going the night before Easter though. That is honey all over, not syrup!

Goes well with french press:

black & white

So I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (♥). The cookies didn't turn out flat at all like the pictures, but I loved the massive amount of salt in them. Salt plus chocolate = awesome.

I have been making chocolate chip cookies since I was about 7, so I know the basic recipe by heart. Always feels weird changing things! For the chocolate white chocolate chip cookies, I just added some cocoa and big pieces of white chocolate instead of semi-sweet. So good. So so good.

N.B. These put me into a coma, so I won't be making them again anytime soon. They are so pretty though, I had to share.

eggs

I had all these leeks I had to do something with. Ummmmmmm.

Leeks
Bacon
Gruyere
Salt
Pepper
Red Pepper Flakes
Eggs

Pretty tasty!

vegetables. amazing.

A couple of weeks ago I came home on a Sunday morning after possibly too many homemade cosmopolitans the night before. You could say the world was not quite solid yet and I was not quite ready to eat pretty much anything. My good friend suggested a big bowl of veggies. It was perfect.

Leeks
Purple Onions
Bean Sprouts
Green Beans
Red Peppers
Rice Noodles
Fresh Ginger
Sesame Seeds

Before you get the wrong idea, I don't drink very often. This meal has become one of my recent favorites though and I've made it since. I am such a meat eater, I never thought I'd be able to just eat veggies and be full.

Amazing.

homemade sushi

Raw tuna
Cream cheese with one chopped up little red chili and minced fresh ginger
Cucumber
Sesame Seeds

This was ridiculously spicy. So good!


Since I haven't knitted anything in forever, I'm gonna keep track of my favorite food on here. At least for a little while.