Refrigerator Roundup

Seem to be a decent pinch hitter

     While I normally have Mondays off to menu plan and grocery shop, today was not one of those days. After working 8 hours I drove home to to have a cup of coffee with my Mom and get my daughter off the bus and I was honestly too tired to bother going to the grocery store and putting together much of anything. Thankfully I keep a small stash of fake meat options in my fridge and other pantry staples for such occasions. So I chose the 'hot dogs' my daughter wanted to try a week ago and started staring within my fridge for a side dish.

     It didn't take too long for a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes to catch my eye. Whipped those up last night with butter, sour cream, and salt and pepper for St. Patrick's Day. Certainly a solid side dish on their own, but I decided to instead make them into potato pancakes... of a sort. I started by sauteing 1/4 of a leftover onion, about 1 stalk of celery, and 1 clove of garlic. Once sauteed, I mix into my mashed 'taters along with 2 small handfuls of flour (That's a valid for of measurement, right?), and a heaping handful of shredded pepper jack cheese. Finally I formed some patties, pan fried those suckers up, and tossed them in a 250 degree to keep warm while using the pan to fry up the hot dogs. Dinner made in under 30 minutes (for once!).

I'd venture these are not that "good for you", but they sure are good!

     Dinner was overall a success tonight. The 'hot dogs' were a bit spongier than I'm used to, but the last time I had a hot dog it was more than likely a Hebrew National or Nathan's, which tend to be denser and meatier in texture anyway. My daughter didn't seem to notice though and she's had hot dogs far more recently than me. The potato pancakes were awesome, nice crust on the outside and creamy and flavorful on the inside. All they needed was a sprinkle of salt on top, though ketchup or sour cream would certainly be tasty as well. The girl gave me two thumbs up and was sad that I cut her off after 3 potato pancakes. As for me... I'm excited for potato pancake leftovers, and while I wouldn't dread eating another one of those hot dogs, I think I'll be leaving the rest of those to her to finish off.

   

Tacos! Olé!

     Want to start this post off with a bit of bragging, it may be minimal but I did break through my plateau from last month. Lost 2 ¼ inches overall and a fraction of body fat percent! As I close in on my “ideal” weight and fat percent progress seems to be slowing, but it is progressing at least. And in immeasurable ways I’ve seen progress as well. I fill up faster, I have more energy, my tastes are changing, I feel more confident, and I’m overall more comfortable with myself. I even managed to get myself to the gym without an appointment last night. It felt pretty good too, I may make it a Tuesday habit. We’ll have to see about that though J.

Saucy!

     On to the food... Tacos still remain a favorite in my household, and the spices allow me a lot of room to play around with protein options. This time around I used straight up tofu and lentils instead of going the fake beef soy protein route. Once again I pressed my tofu dry and sliced up real thin. This time I used Trader Joe’s Enchilada Sauce as a marinade.

     A few hours later my daughter came home, we spent an hour jumping on our new trampoline, and then I meandered inside to get started on dinner. I strategically had my mom and daughter stay outside so I could sneak the tofu past my daughter and the lentils past my mom.

Using these guys!

     I didn't go for the broiling option this time with my tofu, I chose to crisp these suckers up in the frying pan with a drizzle of Peruvian lime olive oil. Even sliced thin and on high heat it took longer than expected to get a good crisp on both sides. Which was fine, I just used the extra time to chop my peppers, onion, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, and lettuce. I also got our tortilla bowls ready. Handy tip, spray with Pam or brush with oil and then season your tortillas before placing in the molds... so much tastier!

     After the tofu was done pan searing, I cut each strip in thirds length wise and then 5-6 more times in the opposite direction. Just to make smaller pieces that would get lost in the taco filling mix. While cutting those down I put all my veggies (less the lettuce) in to the fry pan with some homemade taco seasoning. I used to buy the stuff in stores and packets, but I'm also trying to watch sodium intake... when I remember... so I've been mixing my own seasonings recently. Most have turned out well, this one included. But this is the only one I have a recipe for! Anyway, once everything was near done I put in half of a leftover pouch of Trader Joe's precooked lentils and half a bag of frozen roasted corn. Once those were warm, in went the tofu for a quick reheat. Just as I was finishing up, the girls came back inside looking for dinner.

     As with burgers, I've learned that taco topping are incredibly personal, so we assemble the bases at the stove top and final touches were performed at the table. We had black olives, sour cream, Mexican cheese, pepper jack cheese, and fresh tomatoes to garnish our taco salads with. We have guacamole in house too... but we forgot to get it on the table. Ooops!

I tend to skip the sour cream and fresh tomatoes

     These tacos went over without a hitch. Mom enjoyed them, my daughter enjoyed them, I enjoyed them. That's six thumbs up around Monday night's table. The smaller sized tortillas make a perfect sized salad bowl. Enough to make a meal, not so much that you are tempted to over eat. Get the whole wheat, reduced carb ones and you have a huge winner all around! 

     As for leftovers... that's what we had tonight! I did add a little salsa to the mix as I was reheating to provide some moisture. I suppose water could have worked, but why be plain when you can be flavorful? Even reheated, these tacos are a winner. I think I may see tomorrow's lunch in my fridge.

Not So Fast Fast Food

     A few weeks back, I was shopping the aisles of Trader Joe's with my mom looking at all of the, sometimes strange, offerings. One such item that caught our eyes was the Tri-Colored Quinoa. We like rice and cous-cous so why not try something else?

     Weeks went by and the bag got pushed around in the cupboard and near forgotten about. On a Monday off with my daughter she and I were grocery shopping and trying to figure out what to make for dinner. In the bakery section we found a bag of mini burger buns, so we settled on mini veggie burgers. And then instead of fries I would make oven roasted potatoes. TJ's didn't have fake beef product that I was comfortable making into burger patties, so we planned to get that at another grocery store.

     Back at the house, it was confirmed that I was going to be making diner for my parents as well. When I mentioned mini burgers, Mom got all excited and asked if I wanted to use the quinoa to make black bean burgers. Oh yeah! There was a recipe for that on the back of that bag! Dinner plans were finally set. Couple condiment purchases later and the kitchen counter looked like this:

It's not even all in the picture!

     As the quinoa boils away on the stove, I get to chopping, slicing, and sauteing. The recipe is fairly straight forward and easy to follow. I did omit the egg, since it was optional anyway, and made them slider sized instead of a full burger. Other than that I stuck with the directions for once!

     The recipe made A LOT of 'burger' mix. I made enough to fill all the burger buns, plus 6 patties to enjoy at work for lunch, and I have enough mix to make 12 more sliders hanging out in my freezer. But I'm grateful to have those extras because it took over an hour to get these suckers made! So much more labor intensive than a beef burger for sure.

Two sliders, a serving of asparagus, and roasted potatoes

     I left condiments up to personal preferences, so mine have guacamole, fried red onions, and Mexican cheese. My daughter had cheese and ketchup. Mom had hers like mine. Dad had cheese and maybe that's it? I only have one teeny tiny regret... I wish I had toasted those buns... it would have made them perfect. Other than that though, everyone really enjoyed their black bean burgers. Mom enjoyed them so much she split the final burger with me, Dad said he would eat them again, and my daughter gave them "all the thumbs up in the whole world!" The leftovers at work attracted quite a bit of positive attention, but no way was I sharing! I put the time in, I'm enjoying my burgers. Speaking of time... I'm glad everyone enjoyed these and they made so much mix... made me feel the time in the kitchen was worth it.

Oh Hi....

     Where did the last month get to? Oh yeah, Girl Scout cookie sales... taking care of Mom... work... daughter... life in general. I also hit a bit of a funk I suppose. I had measurements with my trainer a few days after my last post and while not bad... they weren't what I was hoping for either. Lost a few pounds, down another percent body fat, but didn't lose any inches.... not a single one. Ouch. All that work and very little to show for it. But! I did keep up with the vegetarian diet. And with the picture taking.

We call it "Button Soup"

This was a happy sort of accident. My mom bought me a vegetarian slow cooker recipe book and I was aiming to make a French Alpine Cheese, Tomato and Onion Soup. But... I was cooking for not only my daughter and myself but my parents as well and my dad can be a picky eater. So I blended the tomatoes instead of chopping them. And it just snowballed from there. I added Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo, some mushrooms, italian seasoning, and a few odds and ends left over in my fridge. Soon it was nothing like what I had planned to make for dinner, but it was really pretty good. The soy chorizo added a bit too much of a kick for my daughter and mom, but Dad and I enjoyed it well enough. I later heard that maybe it would be good served over rice, but by then it was all gone.

     A few nights(?) later I was cooking for just us three girls, and started playing around with Phyllo dough. If you've never worked with it before, just carefully follow the instructions about keeping it covered and what not. This stuff can dry out seriously fast. To fill my phyllo cups, I made something similar to Trader Joe's guilt free spinach and kale dip and added the chicken-less strips. The dip was pretty good cold, I could have eaten it like that anytime. Once hot though... still darn tasty, but the texture wasn't exactly as I would have hoped. Still, we ate all the cups from that night and reheated the filling a few nights later as part of our quest to kill off some leftovers.

     The following week I tried my hand at making curry for the first time. I searched and search for a recipe that I thought would work for three distinct personalities. I like spicy, no one else does though so I was outvoted for a milder curry. I also went for lentils over tofu just to avoid another tofu disaster for my daughter. This dish was made simple with the addition of pre-chopped vegetables. Just sautee, season, add lentils, add coconut milk, cook down until you're ready to eat, and toss the naan into the oven in a foil packet to make it over the top awesome. The texture of the lentils was distracting at first, but over time I began to appreciate them more. The leftovers from this dish were amazing, even fresh from the fridge cold. I had a few days worth to provide me with lunch at work for a change. My coworkers were a bit jealous.

     Other than that it's been vegetarian tacos, meat-less chicken stir fry (don't tell my daughter though, she thinks it was real chicken!), waffles one night, spinach cheese pie, vegetarian sushi with my mom on Wednesdays... stuff like that.

     It's been a far more time consuming adventure than I thought it would be. Some nights take 2 hours to starting dinner to serving time. Most take about 1 though. This sort of cooking has also made so many more dishes to be washed! My time in the kitchen has easily doubled, maybe tripled. That sort of work can keep me away from the computer at times, so I apologize to those that have missed my stories into vegetarian cook, I'm working on getting caught up. But hey, check back again soon and I can tell you about the third vegetarian meal I made my my father. 

Pizza Pick Me Up

     After Monday and Tuesday last week I was really not in the mood to deal with a failed dinner idea. I was a bit punky, my daughter was a bit punky... we really just needed something to cheer us up. I tossed around a couple of ideas in my head but had no clear idea of what I wanted going to make when I walked into Trader Joe's after my Wednesday workout. 

     I knew I couldn't spend too much time browsing the shelves since I had to get home to Mom. Two days after surgery and I left her alone... after making sure she had her coffee, breakfast, and whatnot. Still, didn't want to leave her hanging. Anyway, I usually find my dinner ideas come together fastest if I pick out my 'protein' first, so I head to the vegetarian/vegan area and browse their selection.

     Nothing really struck a cord with me this time though. I was just... stuck. Reluctantly I pick up a pack of extra firm tofu. I have a few recipes waiting for me to try that guarantee the enjoyment of even non-tofu eaters. Okay... I guess I'll try one of those? I don't know. I was really not feeling the healthy eating thing. Tofu in hand I browse the rest of the produce section hoping to find some real inspiration and fast. Five minutes later and still not feeling anything except the need to use the restroom, I put the tofu back on the shelf  and take a quick pit stop.

     It's on the way out I finally see something that inspires me... pizza dough! Three varieties even! I briefly consider the whole wheat one, then decide on garlic herb. Pizza sauce is even conviently right next to the dough so I didn't have to waste time trying to find it. Dough and sauce in hand I look at everything in a new light. Wasn't there a ground veggie protein kinda like ground beef? Yep! Onions, peppers, and mushrooms round out my veggies. I even have three different bags of grated cheese at home that I should use up, so that's perfect. I grab a particularly beautiful bouquet of roses for Mom to cheer her up, and check out excited for dinner again. Pizza may not be exactly healthy, but for as far as pizzas go... this one is healthier than the usual pepperoni/meat lovers/what have you that I would have normally had.

All the makings for pizza and all from Trader Joe's

     Making dinner from there was a snap. I browned the 'meat', chopped my veggies then added them to the mixture, stretched my crust out, topped, baked, and enjoyed. Tell you what, having pre-made dough was awesome. I have yet to find a recipe that I'm happy with, so I didn't have to fight with that and start dinner hours ahead of time just so we could eat at a decent hour. Just pull it from the fridge a few minutes before you want to start and viola!

     My daughter was fairly thrilled to be having something so close to 'normal' food this time. It was familiar looking and she has yet to meet a pizza she hated. She was optimistic throughout the prep and cooking periods saying things like "Smells soooo good", "I can't believe I'm having pizza tonight!", and "Can I try some of that now?" I tease her a bit and tell her she has to wait until it's all done, no previews available tonight.

Can you smell the browning cheese?

     As dinner comes out of the oven she excited jumps up from the floor where she's watching tv/doing homework/coloring and sits at the table with a huge smile on her face. I cut her about an eighth of the pizza, and join her with two slices for myself. I even had a little extra sauce heated up for dipping the crust into between us. After giving it a minute to cool she takes her first bite and... doesn't like it. Puts it on the plate, shakes her head no, makes an 'unt uhh' noise, crosses her arms and learns away from the table. My heart just about sinks... I couldn't believe I made something she didn't want to eat, again.

     Perhaps a bit delusional at this point, after playing nurse, cleaning house... ya know, doing the whole responsible Mom thing, I ask her to take another bite and reconsider her opinion. She does and isn't much more thrilled. Well, it's dinner anyway so she has to finish her slice. I cut it into pieces so she can countdown how many more bites she has and (somewhat less) happily eat mine. I think it's great by the way. I had to remind myself not to eat any more than those two slices. I could have easily eaten half that pizza.

     A sneak peek over to my daughter's plate reveals that dinner is disappearing quite quickly for a girl that gave me that reaction to her first bite. Usually I have to bargain dessert options when that happens.. not this time though. She ate her whole slice without even a sigh of discontentment. And then something truly surprising comes out of her mouth, "Mom, can I have another piece?" What the what?! Wait up... hold the phone... this is out of left field. She didn't like it. She almost refused to eat it after just the first bite! Now she's asking for more? I don't even know... but I'll take it. I do deny her a second piece though. Not to be mean, but because she was asking about dessert before dinner and that question was just waiting to be asked again. I tell her I'd give her a second piece, but then she might not have room for her two cookies. Totally not true, she could easily have eaten another slice and then two cookies. But she doesn't know that ;-) silly mom trick I've picked up... make them think they need room for dessert so they don't overeat dinner and then add dessert to the calorie count.

     Anyway, her final thumb rating came in at "All the thumbs up in the whole world" so without stopping to examine too much into the change of heart, I put this down in the win column. She loved the leftovers just as much as she ended up loving the first go around.

A Couple Rough Days

     Monday presented an especially tough challenge for me... It was vegetarian day, but my mom really wanted chicken casserole for dinner. On any other day my parent's dietary habits are of little concern to my own, but on Monday my Mom had outpatient surgery and I wanted to make her something comforting. So I set out to get what I needed to make Betty Crocker's Chicken Rice Casserole and to make myself something as well.

Tasty!

     Having made plenty of casseroles in my 26 years, I figured a simple salad for myself and a casserole for everyone else was going to be about the extent of the work I felt like doing for dinner. And maybe I was feeling a bit bummed that I wasn't having casserole too.... because I really like casserole. So pitty party salad for me. Though, I make an awesome salad in my opinion. It's made with baby greens, carrots, peppers, cucumbers (not pictured), dried cranberries, mozzarella cheese, and sweet and spicy nuts. I eat it without any dressing, I just don't think it needs it.

     The casserole was fairly easy to make, basic direction following. The biggest challenge was to not taste it as I went. I work as a chef, we're trained to taste everything. But I promise I didn't taste anything.... until Tuesday, yay for leftovers! But damn is it hard to watch everyone else eat something you wish you could. But I did it!

    Then Tuesday rolled around. I was free to eat my yummy casserole! Yay! And it was my turn to make snack for my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I like making snacks for my daughter, so this should be no big deal deal, right? I even enlisted my daughter to help. She put the berries and granola in and I piped the yogurt in.

Even good the next day for breakfast

     The big deal is, I didn't take into account how other parents feed their children. I made yogurt parfaits, a nice healthy but kid friendly sort of thing. Low fat vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, and granola are apparently not on these girls radars. To say they didn't like their snack is an understatement. I think my daughter is the only one who ate her snack. The rest didn't even try theirs. One girl even made a snide comment about the middle looking like puke, which was quickly the new funny thing for all the other girls to repeat.

     I think this whole thing bothered me for several reasons. The first is that my daughter's (and my own) feelings were hurt. She put thought and love into making these for her friends and they turned up their noses at her efforts. Secondly, as far as snacks go, while not expensive, these cost more than an off the shelf junk food item and to see them uneaten in the trash was hard. Thirdly, I'm mad that the troop leader or her assistant didn't say anything to stop the rude comments. One girl may be able to slip a rude remark in, but it certainly shouldn't be repeated by all the other girls as well. Fourthly, it turns out another troop (older) troop made a cake and brought it in for everyone. So even after misbehaving, the girls were rewarded with huge pieces of cake. My daughter on the other hand, asked for only a small piece just to feel included. And finally, I didn't get a thank you.

     But, to focus on the positives... My daughter is awesome. She insists that we bring a healthy snack again, because she likes how she feels after eating healthy food. She didn't give in to her peers and ate her snack because she liked it and wasn't going to let them tell her what to like. She also, on her own, decided that she'd probably had enough to eat that night and didn't pig out on cake. And finally, when I joked about bringing carrot sticks next time, she fires back, "Mom, I don't think those girls eat carrots. Like ever."

My First Guest Reviewer - Red Beans and Rice

     A few weeks ago I had a friend coming over to hang out on a Wednesday. He's been following my blog, so he knew he was taking a chance by coming on a vegetarian night and I was a bit nervous cooking for someone besides my daughter when I'm still obviously struggling through this vegetarian thing. I've been getting more hits than misses (in my opinion, not in my daughter's) but every once in while a dish will fail or need some tweaking. Nevertheless, I went out shopping after my training session to find something to inspire me.

     It is a very rare thing for me to go to Trader Joe's but everyone keeps telling me that I have to try their soy chorizo, so I went out to pick up a pack. After a bit of hunting around the store I leave with some soy chorizo and a new found love for that store. I'm going to have to make it a habit to bring my wallet to the gym so I can hit that place up after my workout. It's just a bit too far from my home otherwise especially with two chain stores within a mile from my house... yes I am that lazy when it come to grocery shopping.

     From TJ's I head home to figure out what the heck I'm going to make. I had no idea what kind of groceries I was sitting on at that point so I wanted to do an inventory before picking anything else up. Turns out I had a whole lot of not much. A little bit of brown rice, some risotto rice... that's about it. My cooking habits tend to leave little in the way of partial anything. So I do a quick search on vegetarian red bean recipes   and hit up my local store to get the rest of dinner.

     Turns out 'good' red beans take a day or more to make, what with soaking the beans and all. I cheated and bought a couple of cans instead. Though, come to find out a few brands add bacon without putting that information on the front. Good thing I've been a label reader for the past year plus, otherwise I might have accidentally ate bacon (mmmm... it would be a tasty accident though). Also grabbed a can of crushed tomatoes and the holy trinity of veggies (onion, green pepper, celery). Then it was some to get started on a dish that I should have started hours ago.

     I didn't follow a recipe when it came to the actual making of the red beans. Just kinda took the veggies, sauteed them up with some garlic, mixed them with the beans and tomatoes, then put the whole mix into a large casserole dish and into the oven at 300 to let it simmer until dinner. The whole point is to cook the beans until they start to break apart. Mine just didn't have that sort of time though. Next time. Maybe.

    The chorizo itself was a bit weird to work with. I've never worked with a sausage type meat that didn't either hold its shape or have an edible casing. This stuff has to be removed from its plastic casing and then just falls apart to a ground meat like appearance. As I said, strange. I was kind of hoping to have slices of meat-like goodness, oh well.

Looks like dinner to me

     As I'm cooking, my friend arrives and is quite eager to try out what I made fore dinner. Turns out he is a huge fan of chorizo and is quite curious about this impostor. With a stroke of luck (and some mad kitchen skills) my rice finishes up at the same time as the chorizo and dinner is ready. We all layer our bowls with proportions we find pleasing, toss some cheese on top, and dig in.

     Individually, everything was pretty good. As I said, maybe the red beans could have cooked longer, but they tasted pretty good. The chorizo was spicy and very meat like, I'm sure it would fool an unsuspecting taste tester. Mixed all together with a bite of everything though, and this dish was awesome. Thumbs up from me, thumbs up from my friend, and an almost up thumb from my daughter. It was a bit spicy for her. 

     This is one dish that I happily ate away at the leftovers for a few days. I even ended up sharing some with my Dad, and he liked it as well. Though, by that point the dish had morphed slightly. I had mixed everything together and added a can of crushed tomatoes to help cut down on the spice. So it was maybe a bit more chili like by that point. Which my Dad is a fan of for sure. Even though I just fished this dish off a few days ago I'm considering a similar dish for the upcoming Superbowl... even though it isn't on a Monday or Wednesday. That's how much I like this meal.