I planned to make this for a few days and finally, last night, I did it. I didn’t exactly follow the directions which, I think, made it a little easier and quicker. Still, took a total of 1 hour to make, but that’s including prep and cooking. Otherwise, according to the recipe, it would’ve taken at least an hour and a half.

The casserole isn’t pretty, but it’s oh-so-very delicious. Also, I made a little too much, especially since there are only two of us (well 2.5 + the cat), but I can almost guarantee that it’ll be gone by the weekend.

As fattenting and unhealthy as it looks, it really isn’t all that bad. I used reduced fat cream cheese, 1% milk, 2% (reduced fat) cheese, I used organic, low-sodium chicken broth, plus I got to use zucchini from my garden!

So how did I “save” time? I cooked the rice in the chicken broth first. While the rice was cooking, my lovely husband cooked the sausage in a separate frying pan and then added the onions. Once the rice was almost done, we combined everything in the casserole dish, including the uncooked zucchini and red peppers. We baked it covered for 20 minutes. While it was baking, I made the cheese sauce. After 20 minutes, I combined the cheese sauce with the casserole stuff, added the cream cheese (which didn’t seem to add much to the dish) and the jalapeños.

The original recipe is below.

I believe this was my first time making a casserole, mainly because I didn’t grow up eating them. As mushy as it looks, it was so freaking good and I’m definitely going to make this again.

Zucchini Rice Casserole
(recipe from eatingwell.com)
12 servings, about 1 cup each

Active Time: 40 minute, Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups long-grain brown rice
• 3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (can use veggie broth too)
• 4 cups diced zucchini, and/or summer squash (about 1 pound)
• 2 red or green bell peppers, chopped
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups low-fat milk
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups shredded pepper Jack cheese, divided (we used mexican blend)
• 1 cup fresh or frozen (thawed) corn kernels
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil (didn’t use any oil at all)
• 8 ounces turkey sausage, casings removed
• 4 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese , (Neufchâtel)
• 1/4 cup chopped pickled jalapeños

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Pour rice into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Bring broth to a simmer in a small saucepan. Stir hot broth into the rice along with zucchini (and/or squash), bell peppers, onion and salt. Cover with foil. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking until the rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed, 35 to 45 minutes more.
3. Meanwhile, whisk milk and flour in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until bubbling and thickened, 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add 1 1/2 cups Jack cheese and corn and cook, stirring, until the cheese is melted. Set aside.
4. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add sausage. Cook, stirring and breaking the sausage into small pieces with a spoon, until lightly browned and no longer pink, about 4 minutes.
5. When the rice is done, stir in the sausage and cheese sauce. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Jack cheese on top and dollop cream cheese by the teaspoonful over the casserole. Top with jalapeños.
6. Return the casserole to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes. Let stand for about 10 minutes before serving.

Spider on our deck (by V+I+K+A)

Andy despises spiders and I’m the resident Spider getter-rid-of-er. I’ve never seen spiders like this. Is this one safe to “relocate” to somewhere off the deck or is this one something I should be scared of?

vikax:

Picked from my garden. These pesky cucumbers like to hide, so by the time I see them they are huge! I wonder how they’ll taste.

The only rice pilaf I’ve ever had was always Uzbek and Georgian inspired. My dad makes killer rice pilaf and that’s the only kind I’ve ever eaten at home. Last week I got a hankering for my dad’s rice pilaf but didn’t want to bother him with the recipe. Plus, no one in my family even uses recipes  - which kind of drives me up the wall. It’s always a pinch of this, and a handfull of that. Ridiculous!

So to google I went. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find the recipe! I finally settled on one that sounded fairly simple and flavorful. Well, I was 1/2 right. It was pretty easy. The flavor - well not so much. The rice, was extremely rich and yummy, the meat was bland and tasteless and kind of gross. Maybe I’m not used to eating lamb…I usually eat it only a few times a year, if even that. But the lamb was chewy and gross. Maybe I got the wrong kind of cut, but I followed the recipe exactly, so maybe next time, if there’s next time, I’ll deviate a little bit.

Honestly, I’d make this just for the rice. The meat did add the fat and the richness that the rice needed and the spices were in perfect balance - not too much not too little.

Next time, I think, I’ll try using a cut of lamb with much less fat and gristle and ask my dad for his recipe….or just ask him what exactly he puts in there. This dish is great as leftovers. I made it late Saturday night and have been eating it for lunch for the last 3 days…well just the rice. I pretty much picked out most of the rice and left the meat for my dear husband….which I don’t think he’ll eat either.

Also, the recipe calls for saffron  - I got mine at World Market - in case anyone’s wondering.

Uzbek Style Rice Pilaf
serves - a lot. maybe 5 or 6 (?)
Recipe from Recipes Wiki

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds boneless shoulder or leg of Lamb, with some fat (the fat lends a wonderful flavor to the dish)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large onions, julienned
• 3 large carrots, julienned
• 2-1/2 cups raw rice
• 4-1/2 cups boiling water
• 1 teaspoon adzhika (see below), or crushed red pepper
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon saffron, stepped in 2 tablespoons boiling water for 10 minutes
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Raw Onion, sliced paper-thin

Directions:

1. Cut the Lamb into chunks. Heat the oil over high heat in a large Dutch oven, then stir in the Lamb and brown on all sides. Remove to a plate and keep warm in a 200 degree oven.
2. Stir onions and carrots into the fat remaining in the pan, adding a little more olive oil if necessary. Cook over medium heat for 10–15 minutes until tender but not browned. Return the Lamb to the pot and add the raw rice. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the rice begins to turn golden brown. Then pour in the boiling water, stirring to mix well.
3. Add the adzhika (or red pepper), salt, saffron tea and black pepper. Cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes, or until rice is done. Serve libarlly garnished with paper-thin slices of raw Onion

On Saturday night I made Uzbek-style rice pilaf, but that’s another post. I was also going to make Rugelach but I was just so freaking exhausted that I decided to make them Sunday morning instead. There was no occasion or celebration, I just wanted to make them. It’s very odd, the way my brain works sometimes. I knew that I would end up dozens of Rugelach and didn’t even think about what I would do with all of it, I just made it. Well, less than 24 hours later, I probably have 5 or 6 left…and I made close to 40 (if not more). Who was the contributing factor to the Rugelach elimination? My husband of course! That man has no sweet tooth, or so he says. I don’t believe him anymore - and I’m glad that he liked them. Actually, he liked them very very very much.

I’m not a baker. Well I’m not a chef or a cook either. But I can sort of follow directions. Other than the cinnamon rolls that I sometimes make, these were my next attempt at baking. They may not be pretty but they sure were good. What I loved the most about them was that they weren’t too sweet. Hence - it’s very very easy to eat several (dozen) in one sitting.

Also, these were super easy to make. They’re extremely fattening (8oz of cream chease=1 container + 2 sticks of butter!) but, trust me, they’re worth it. I ended up using low-fat cream cheese and just short of 2 sticks of butter. You’ll need a mixer of some sort, unless you have arms of steel (which I certainly don’t).

I used Bonne Maman Apricot Preserves that Andy picked up at our local Jewel, sugar in the raw instead of regular sugar, and milk instead of egg wash. I actually looked at 2 different recipes and then combined them to form 1-much easier one. The two recipes I used are: Ina Garten’s Ruglelach Recipe and one from Epicurious. So the recipe below is a combination of two. Each recipe is different, so read through both and see which one works best for you. Ina used more ingredients in her, but her preparation/instructions were easier and quicker. So I mainly went off Epicurious’ ingredient list and Ina’s preparation/instructions.

(yes, the plate is on top of a car-seat box)

Rugelach
Makes about 44

Ingredients:

Directions:

Cream the cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light. Add 1/4 cup granulated sugar and the salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and mix until just combined. Dump the dough out onto a well-floured board and roll it into a ball. Cut the ball in quarters, wrap each piece in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

To make the filling, combine 6 tablespoons of granulated sugar, the brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, the raisins, and walnuts.

On a well-floured board, roll each ball of dough into a 9-inch circle. Spread the dough with 2 tablespoons apricot preserves and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the filling. Press the filling lightly into the dough. Cut the circle into 12 equal wedges—cutting the whole circle in quarters, then each quarter into thirds. Starting with the wide edge, roll up each wedge. Place the cookies, points tucked under, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Brush each cookie with the egg wash (I used milk). Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove to a wire rack and let cool.

When there’s even a hint of chill in the air, I want soup. All the time - I want soup. So when I saw this recipe I knew that I wanted to try it asap. Plus, it helped that I had all (but one) of the ingredients. Just like all of my recent dishes, this one was easy to make. I usually save the more “complex” ones for the weekend because the last thing I want to do after I come home from work is labor in the kitchen for hours. Plus, being less than 2 months away from my due date, I’m constantly hungry and I want to eat at the moment I get home. This soup can easily be prepared in 30 minutes  - someone call Rachael Ray!

There was one change that I made to the recipe - I added meat. I usually don’t make meaty soups, but this one just needed something. I can’t explain it. It needed more flavor and, to me, last night, meat was the flavor that it needed.

Lucky for me, while I was making the soup, my husband came home with groceries and picked up some Italian turkey sausage. So he cooked up 2 sausages (separately) in a frying pan (without any oil or spices) and then added the ground sausage into the soup. He then let the soup “sit” for about 10 minutes so it would absorb the flavor of the sausage and vice versa. Now, honestly, I’m not a culinary anything nor have I studied culinary anything, so I have no clue if it worked. But, hey, the soup was incredible and by the end of the night we had a tiny tiny super tiny bowl left over.

Since the chile and the adobo sauce add a bit lot of a kick, we chose to add sour cream to our bowls to negate that spiciness. I also added a few mushrooms because I love veggies in my soup. No other reason. OH! I also used chicken broth instead of veggie stock.

Mexican Potato Soup
serves 4, active time 30 to 40 minutes, total time 50 to 60 minutes
(not sure why it took 50-60 minutes, it took me about 45 minutes including preparations and cooking)
Recipe from Serious Eats

Ingredients:

• 1 pound boiling potatoes, peeled and diced (about 2 cups)
• Kosher salt
• 3 large red ripe tomatoes, about 1 1/4 pounds, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 canned chipotle in adobo sauce, coarsely chopped
• 2 cups vegetable stock (I used chicken broth b/c that’s what I had)
• 1/3 cup cilantro, finely chopped

Directions:

Place in large saucepan and cover with water by about three inches. Season water with salt. Bring to a boil and cook until tender but firm to the bite (potatoes will cook further in step 2). Drain potatoes and set aside. Meanwhile, blend tomatoes, onion, garlic, and chipotle pepper in blender at high speed until smooth, about 30 seconds.

Pour tomato mixture into large saucepan. Add vegetable stock and potatoes. Stir to combine and season to taste with salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until potatoes are completely tender, about 7 to 8 minutes. For thicker broth, mash a few potatoes against side of pot with wooden spoon. Add cilantro and simmer for 2 minutes longer. Serve immediately with extra cilantro, sour cream, and cashew cream as desired.

This was really really easy to make. Seems like everything I make lately is really easy to make. Anyways - sure, I used more pans than I needed, but who cares!? I now have leftovers to last me a while…..or lunch tomorrow. I got the original recipe from thekitchn and then changed a few things. The recipe calls for bacon and squash. Well, unbeknown to me, the bacon decided to spoil ahead of its schedule. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention? Either way, the dish automatically became meat-free. The original recipe also includes squash. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not a huge fan of squash. I do like broccoli and had some on-hand, so we can all guess what I used.

Penne and Broccoli in Goat Cheese Sauce
original recipe from thekitchn <—click here for the recipe w/squash and bacon

Ingredients:

1/2 yellow onion, sliced thinly
1/2 pound Penne
Broccholi - as much or as little as you want.
3 ounces goat cheese
small handful of fresh basil leaves, sliced into ribbons
salt and pepper

Directions:

Cook the onion in a little bit of oil, season with salt and pepper, and cook on medium-low heat until very soft and beginning to brown, about 15 minutes.

While the onion is cooking, bring a pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente. Add the broccoli to the onion, season with salt and pepper, and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. If the pan gets dry, add a splash of olive oil.

Scoop out 1/2 cup of the pasta water, set aside, then drain the pasta and add to the pot with the broccoli and onions. Crumble the goat cheese on top and stir until it is distributed throughout the pasta, drizzling in the pasta water to help make the sauce.

To add a little bit of kick to the dish, I added a tiny bit of crushed red pepper flakes.

A few days ago I decided to make blintzes. I have never, ever, in my life made crepes or blintzes of any sort so this was a complete experiment. The process was fairly easy and quick and the outcome was delicious.

Next time, though, I think I’ll add some sort of a fruit topping or filling. Honestly, I love blintzes so much that I can just eat them as is - without any filling or topping at all.

After reading the recipe, I looked at the reviews (I usually do this) and noticed that most people said that they didn’t get 10 blintzes from the recipe. I’m not sure what they were doing wrong, but I got exactly 10. I bet they weren’t making them thin enough - so if you are heavy handed or want to make lots, just double the recipe. It’s not difficult and the blintzes only take a few seconds to cook.

Also, the recipe says to mix the ingredients in a blender. Yeah - no way was I going to get more dishes dirty so I just did everything by hand with a whisk or a fork. Super easy - trust me!

Cheese Blintzes
(recipe from epicurious.com)
Makes 10 blintzes

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

• 1 1/2 cups farmer cheese
• 2 cups cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Make wrapper batter:
In a blender blend wrapper batter ingredients and let stand 30 minutes.

In an 8-inch skillet, preferable non-stick, melt half of butter over moderately high heat. Pour in enough batter to just coat the bottom of skillet, swirling, and cook, undisturbed, until top is set and bottom in golden (do not turn wrapper over). Transfer wrapper to paper towels in one layer, golden side down. Make more wrappers with remaining butter and batter.

Make filling:
In a food processor, blend cheeses, sugar, and cinnamon until smooth. If necessary, add flour to thicken filling.

Preheat oven to 250°F. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put 3 tablespoons filling in center of each wrapper and fold opposite sides of wrapper over filling until sides barely touch. Fold in ends to completely enclose filling, forming packets, and arrange, seams sides down, on baking sheet. Make more blintzes with remaining filling and wrappers. Bake blintzes, covered loosely with foil, until heated through, 5 to 10 minutes.