Black Bean & Mango Salad

Hello loyal food blog readers, I have forsaken you and I am sorry! I have been so busy this past month (why the heck am I busy? I graduated!) that I’ve barely had time to post. But I’m back… and with a vengeance! I vow to be more consistent in my food blog posts and I’m kicking it off with a yummy recipe! (And lots of exclamation points!)

I went to Whole Foods yesterday with the intention of buying burgers to throw on the grill for dinner and stumbled upon a great (non-burger) recipe which I will now share with you. But let’s back up a moment…. That’s right foodie readers, I bought a grill. It happened over 4th of July weekend when I went to Home Depot with the intention of buying some potting soil. As you can see I’m an impulse shopper.

Anyway, Whole Foods has this awesome little flyer called “Meals for Under $15.” Since I just invested $1000 in a trip to LA for a writing conference I figured a less than $15 meal is just what I needed. Enter Black Bean & Mango Salad. Also, there is no actual “cooking” involved, it’s all chopping and throwing in a bowl. Score.

I think chopped up mango sort of looks like cubes of cheese....

This salad was so summery and delicious and I even got to use some fresh items out of my very own garden, including cilantro which has magically stayed alive! (Apparently, fourth time’s a charm when it comes to growing cilantro plants.) The salad was also a great accompaniment to the Au Poivre burgers, but I think it would also be tasty with some grilled chicken or fish.

Fresh cilantro!

BLACK BEAN & MANGO SALAD compliments of Whole Foods

Prep time: 20 minutes Total time: 20 minutes (aka, the whole thing is prep)

Ingredients:

• 1 (28 oz) can of black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 large mango, peeled and chopped
• 1 small red onion, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, minced
• 1 jalepeno pepper, seeded and minced
• 4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1 fresh lime, zested and juiced
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:
Mix beans, mango, onion, peppers, cilantro and garlic in large bowl. Toss with lime zest and lime juice, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve chilled. See how easy that was? Serves 4-6.

I also served mine with some taco chips. Yummmmm.

Happy summer, see you soon… I promise!

Panini Perfection

I bought myself a new kitchen gadget -- a panini press! It's more than just a panini maker though, I went for the Cuisinart Griddler so it serves a lot of functions, including the fact that I can buy waffle inserts to make my own Belgian waffles. YUM.

In the past week I’ve tried it out three times, all with amazing success. I’ve made two grilled sandwiches and one quesadilla. What I love about this grill/panini press is that it has removable/reversible plates so you have the option of a flat surface or a rippled one -- I’ve learned that I completely prefer flat.


MEAL 1 : Proscuitto, Fig & Fontina Panini

Ingredients:

• A few slices of proscuitto
• Fig spread
• Fontina cheese
• Salad greens
• Good bread (I splurged and used $6 a loaf rosemary/garlic bread from a local bakery – Nashoba Brook Bakery -- that I got at Whole Foods. It made an incredible difference.)

Directions:

• Spread fig preserve on one slice of bread.
• Add cheese, greens, and proscuitto on top of spread and top with second slice of bread. 
• Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half. Enjoy!

Photographing sandwiches is hard....

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MEAL 2 : Beef & Cheddar Quesadilla

Ingredients:

• A few slices of roast beef
• Sharp cheddar cheese (I recommend using really good cheese, not that phony cheese stuff. The better the cheese the more delicious this quesadilla will be, and with only a few ingredients you really want the cheese to shine.)
• 1 medium onion
• Tortillas

Directions:

• Slice onion and sauté until translucent. While onion is cooking slice cheese into thin strips to help it melt.
• Layer cooked onion, cheese, beef in a tortilla and fold over so it looks like a big taco.
• Grill on medium until cheese melts and outside of tortilla is toasty. Enjoy!
• (Note: Watch out that cheese doesn't melt too much and run all over the panini plate… mine did.)

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MEAL 3 : Roasted Pepper & Veggie Panini

Before grilling... it looks like a big piece of bruschetta.

Ingredients: The best part about this panini is that you can use basically anything you have on hand. I used:

My ingredients all chopped up

• Roasted red peppers
• Artichoke hearts
• 10 kalamata olives
• Basil & sun dried tomato goat cheese
• Salad greens
• Good bread (I used the same bread as Meal 1.)

Directions:

• Chop up all veggies and cheese.
• Layer all ingredients between two slices of bread.
• Grill on medium until cheese is melty and bread is toasty. Cut in half & enjoy!

All three of these meals were incredibly delicious and relatively healthy, too! I’m so excited to make some more. Thank goodness I no longer have to do the awkward attempt to flip sandwich/quesadilla on pan and watch all my fillings fall out routine that I used to do when making grilled sandwiches. YAY!


If you have a favorite sandwich/panini recipe I would love to hear it! Share!

Pasta With Mushrooms & Rosemary

Last week a fellow Simmons grad student lamented about the difficulties of meal prep/planning on her food blog, and I couldn’t agree more. Planning meals is hard work! Especially when you have boyfriends to factor into the equation and can’t do the single girl thing of “eat a bunch of cookies for dinner and call it a night.” I have a hard enough time deciding what I want to eat for dinner on Wednesday night ON Wednesday night, let alone trying to decide that on Monday night as I pour over food blogs and cookbooks and try to plan out my week. But I’ve been trying… with some success. With such a busy schedule this semester I’m still relying heavily on take-out, but I’m trying much more to do some easy meal-prep and to shop accordingly.


I’ve also re-instituted “date nights” which makes The Boyfriend laugh when I call it that since we live together and all it’s not like we’re really going out for a date. But I insist we are… it’s a reward for my careful meal planning and preparations all week long. And it’s our chance to get out of the house.


I’ve been on a mushroom kick lately, so when I saw that Fellow Grad Student posted that one of her recent meals was pasta with mushrooms I knew I had to try it. 

After all, it already had a stamp of approval. The original blogger she got the recipe from HERE served it with a side of sautéed kale, but heeding Fellow Grad Student’s warning that pasta plus kale was a lot to cook together, I saved the tasty-sounding kale recipe for a later date and just stuck to the mushrooms and pasta. Definitely a good idea.

I couldn’t find the cute little ear-shaped pastas at Trader Joe’s so I had to settle for bow ties, which were still cute. It made an enormous batch and we had leftovers that I ate for lunch for a few days after. I liked that this recipe was so easy... it was definitely a good mid-week meal for when I drag myself home from class or writing group or pull myself away from the computer after writing/working all day long. I think next time I try to the recipe I might fancy it up a bit with some wild mushrooms to give it an extra kick.

I served the pasta with steamed artichokes and butter for dipping. Delish!

Eating Healthy and Eating Cheap(er)

I love food. So a lot of my money naturally goes to filling up my belly with delicious goodness. In a city like Boston it's so, SO easy to abandon the kitchen and order moderately priced take-out every single day... and when one is tired and over-worked and doesn't have energy for cooking, those menus look better and better. Indian, please. Oh, no, wait, Thai. Oh, or pizza! Thin crust! Wait... wait... there's an Anna's down the street... I want a burrito. *sigh*

But while there's tons of great, easy food that can come right to my door, I love dining out even more. Perhaps if I can do a little more homecookin' I can convince the boyfriend that we deserve more date nights out. 

So in a effort to be a little healthier, and save a little cash (not that Whole Foods is inexpensive by any means, cooking at home can be pricey too), I'm trying to reconnect with my kitchen. The problem I've had this past year is that when I cook it's a big production. It takes hours, I labor over recipes and chop veggies til my fingers hurt. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the meals I have been making take time. And time is a precious thing right now...

I decided what I really need are some quickie recipes. But I don't want to sacrifice flavor either. Ramen noodles might have cut it in my younger years, but not anymore.

So I scoured my cookbooks for some relatively easy, moderately priced recipes and planned out some meals for the rest of my week. What's cookin' at casa de Jillian?

Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms & Panchetta in Cream Sauce

Puttanesca Bianca (kalamata olives, anchovy and caper sauce)

Penne with Spinach & Ricotta Cheese

Wild Mushroom and Rice Soup

Black & Blue Beef Quesadillas (with blue cheese)

Veggie stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Off to Whole Foods I go!

Do you have quick go-to recipes that are somewhat inexpensive and don't take hours to prepare? I would love to hear them! Share away! 

Hodgepodge Couscous Salad

Continuing the celebration of Farmers Market Week and the blogathon to raise money for Mass Farmers' Markets put on by Loving Local and In Our Grandmothers' Kitchens here's a tasty treat for this Tuesday:

I don’t know exactly when the whole D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) trend came about, but I must confess that I like it. Love it, actually. I love watching cooking shows, reading cooking magazines, home decorating magazine, and craft magazines. I think it’s because I really like to make things my own. What fun is the world if everything is cookie cutter similar?

Chopped up fresh cucumber was a tasty and refreshing addition

I carry my love of DIY into the kitchen, which as I’ve mentioned before, means that I like to make recipes my own and change them somehow from the pre-set directions. Usually this means adding in a thing or two. Sometimes it means taking out an ingredient I don’t like (or more often it’s removing an ingredient I just don’t have on hand and I don’t feel like buying. Rant alert: I find it incredibly annoying to have a recipe where they tell you to add in a tablespoon of vinegar or a half cup of chicken stock or a quarter of a bell pepper and then I’m left with the rest of that product wondering just how I’ll get through it before it goes bad. Someone should really make a cookbook that incorporates only whole products –- a whole jar, can, veggie, bottle, etc. If one of these cookbooks exists somebody do me a favor and let me know, I would be forever grateful!)


Anywho… where was I? Oh yes, DIY. Aside from salads, I have found my favorite sort of thing to cook up DIY style: couscous salad. And thanks to my farm share, I usually have lots of odds and ends that I never know quite what to do with. I’ve posted earlier about tabbouleh, and this recipe is very similar but I’ve adapted it so that it’s just called “hodgepodge couscous” and is a recipe that is truly all inclusive. Really kids, feel free to get wild.


My favorite things about this recipe:

• It uses up left veggies from previous recipes
• It’s a great way to use my share because sometimes I get a solo tomato or just two cucumbers
• It’s healthy
• It’s easy to make
• It tastes good
• No “cooking” involved, it’s just chop and mix

This is how I usually build my DIY hodgepodge couscous salad:


Step 1: Pick a grain. A box of couscous works, they are about a dollar to two dollars for a box and it’s usually a nice portion size. For my most recent variation I used a bag of Harvest Grains Blend which was a variety of grains including Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa. I got it from Trader Joe’s, also inexpensive.


Step 2: Pick some veggies. Tomatoes work well. So do peppers of all varieties. I’ve never tried with an onion, but I bet a sweet one would be good. This time I had some celery and cucumbers grown by Enterprise Farms so I use those, it gave the couscous salad a nice crunch. Chop the veggies up into nice little bits.


Step 3: Pick some herbs. My most recent variation included both flat leaf parsley and a bunch of basil. You could probably use some actual lettuce in here too. If you want to make this more of a Mexican fare I bet that cilantro would work well. I didn’t have scallions on hand this time, but sometime I use those or chives. Chop this up nice fine.


Step 4: Pick some spices/flavorings. Sea salt, pepper, anything you like. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil – it helps break apart the grains but also gives it a nice flavor. If you have fresh lemons on hand lemon juice is a nice accompaniment.


Step 5: Clear out your fridge. Add whatever you want. This time I used a can of garbanzo beans and it worked out great. If you want to get experimental you can divide the whole thing into two batches and try out different ingredients with each.


Step 6: Mix it all together and enjoy! Cheers!

German Red Cabbage

Welcome blogathon! As I mentioned, this week I’m participating in the Loving Local blogathon to celebrate Farmers Market Week and raise money for the Mass Farmer’s Markets. If you love my blog, and love local food, go ahead and donate a bit of green to that wonderful cause. Visit HERE and click “donate”  I also encourage you to visit Loving Local HERE to find some other area bloggers who are writing about local food, cooking, farms, and much more. As part of the blogathon I’ll be posting (or attempting to anyway!) a new post every day this week, so be on the lookout for some great new content from me daily! 
Now let me tell you about cabbage...

A wonderful mix of colors on this plate!

My ancestors would be proud. Why? I succeeded in cooking cabbage. *Polish/Ukrainian/German ancestors applaud* Really, I’m proud of myself. As a previously self-professed Cabbage Hater, I’ll say that I’m officially a convert. It really happened approximately three years ago when I went to Germany. I always turned up my nose at the idea of sauerkraut, but once I had some real, authentic German sauerkraut (you know the kind… it’s tangy and warm and oh so delicious) I fell in love. Maybe cabbage wasn’t so bad after all.

Flash forward to today and welcome in the good old Enterprise Farm Share which supplied me with a head of red cabbage. My cabbage cooking history includes no previous usage of cabbage. Not a one recipe ever cooked with cabbage before. Nada. But this was the time. I found a wonderful recipe at www.allrecipes.com and it’s everything that the reviewers said it would be. 

My bouquet garni looks a bit like a mummy.
Is it supposed to look like this?

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THIS RECIPE:

• It was warm, tangy, sweet, and a superb accompaniment to any meat dish. Oh, and easy too! (I served it with baked chicken drumsticks and sautéed Swiss chard, though in retrospect I should have made some sausage or something… maybe next time.)
• The color! After cooking lots of greens for the past few months it was nice to have this wonderful pinkish-red accompaniment to my meal!
• Because of the apples, allspice, and cloves (and my own addition of a pinch of cinnamon) this recipe really reminded me of the of fall and the holidays so maybe I’ll make some for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year.
• Oh yeah, I also made my first every bouquet garni (with the peppercorns, allspice, cloves) for this recipe. I’m starting to feel pretty professional!

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German Red Cabbage as found on Allrecipes


Ingredients --

• 1 medium head red cabbage, cored and sliced
• 2 large tart apples, peeled and sliced
• 1 medium sweet onion, sliced and separated into rings
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 whole peppercorns
• 2 whole allspice
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 2 teaspoons cold water

Directions --

1. In a Dutch oven, toss cabbage, apples and onion. Add water, vinegar, sugar, butter and salt. Place the peppercorns, allspice, cloves and bay leaf on a double thickness of cheesecloth; bring up corners of cloth and stir with kitchen string to form a bag. Add to Dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1-1/4 hours.
2. Discard spice bag. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and cold water until smooth; stir in cabbage mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Tasty Tabouleh

One of my favorite restaurants back in Rochester is a Greek/Mediterranean place called Aladdin’s. On their menu (which includes many pitas, wraps, and pasta dishes) is also a substantial amount of appetizers and dips for pita, including tabouleh, which is where I fell in love with this delightful dish.

According to Wikipedia “tabouleh is a Levantine salad dish. Traditionally a mountain dish from the Lebanon, and one of the Lebanese main dishes, it has become one of the most popular salads in the non-Persian side of the Middle East. Its primary ingredients are finely chopped parsley, bulgur, mint, tomato, spring onion, and other herbs with lemon juice, olive oil and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice. In the Arab world, but particularly the Greater Syrian region, it is usually served as part of the mezze, and is served with romaine lettuce. The Lebanese use more parsley than bulgur wheat in their dish.”

Now that we have the details out of the way I can tell you how much I love tabouleh. It’s refreshing and tasty and perfect with pita. That’s why I was super excited that I received a bunch of fresh parsley in my farm share a few weeks ago AND that the weekly newsletter came with a recipe for tabouleh! And lucky for me, I already had some fresh mint in my refrigerator that my dad had sent me a few days earlier. Again, the cooking fates align.

Since I was already well-equipped with the herbs and spices I needed I didn’t feel like going out to the store to buy the bulghur wheat that the recipe called for so I just substituted a packages of couscous that I already had on hand (making it according to the box directions but not including the spice packet.) That worked out really well and the tabouleh came out phenomenal! It was very tasty with crackers, and pita, and these wonderful herb pita chips that my mom found at the Rochester Wegmans. Oh Wegmans, how I miss you. I made the tabouleh only a day before I ventured back to Rochester to do some research for the book I’m currently writing so both of my parents had the chance to sample the tabouleh (including my Dad who had supplied the mint.)

I would gladly make this again and I think it could be a real hit at a summer picnic or a casual dinner party.

Cheers!

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Tabouleh (recipe compliments of Enterprise Farm Newsletter)

Ingredients --

• 1 cup bulghur wheat 
• 4 scallions, finely chopped 
• 1 box grape tomatoes, finely chopped, with their juice 
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 
• 1 3/4 cups finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 
• Freshly ground pepper 
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt 
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint 
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions --

• Soak the bulghur in cold water for 10 minutes. 
• Drain in a sieve lined with damp cheesecloth, squeezing out all the water. 
• Transfer to a bowl and fluff with a fork. 
• Stir in the tomatoes w/ their juice, the parsley and the scallions. 
• Add the lemon juice, salt, and oil. 
• Season with pepper. 
• Toss to coat. 
• Just before serving, mix in the mint.

Ratatouille with Steak Au Poivre

Time to put the fancy new cookware to use! I’ve never made ratatouille before and I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten it either… honestly, before seeing this recipe I’m not sure I even really knew what it was, other than the bits and pieces I was able to glean after watching the first half of the Pixar movie. But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s really just a whole bunch of chopped up fresh spices and veggies like eggplant, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. 

This recipe was very easy, especially because I got to chop up all the fresh spices (parsley, thyme, etc.) in my little food processor so it made a very savory addition to the veggies. Then, of course, I cooked it in the oven in my fancy new Fontignac dish. Using fresh veggies and spices from Whole Foods was definitely key to this recipe and I’m pretty addicted to using all fresh ingredients now whenever I can (rather than anything canned, frozen, or dried spices) – I can’t wait for summer and farm market season!

I also chose a nice sirloin steak to accompany the ratatouille which I decided to cook “au poivre” style, coated in cracked peppercorns – I even found a recipe online for how to make the pan sauce (which was quite easy and especially delicious, thank you Julia Child!) 

I made my pan sauce with red wine rather than cognac and I added some Dijon mustard which gave it a nice kick. I think I want to keep experimenting with sauces now that I get the jist of how to make them (basically adding some gravy, alcohol, spices and such to the drippings from the steak pan).

Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

Spicy Peanut Soup

Again, another one from “The Soup Bible”. (I’m really getting my money’s worth!) I picked out this recipe for a mid-week meal to accompany the current writing binge I’ve been on, plus I wanted to use up some of the carrots and shallots in my fridge that are left over from the mussels and saffron soup. My parents used to make a great spicy peanut soup with chicken but unfortunately the recipe has been lost, but this one sounded like it could probably top that one because I won’t have to cut up and cook chicken (which isn’t one of my favorite things). What this recipe lacks in meat it makes up for in veggies – it has a wonderful mixture that includes onion, garlic, potatoes, red pepper, carrots, corn, and celery, so it very much like a winter stew. (A winter stew infused with spice and peanut butter, that is.) And yes, I did really chop up all the veggies myself! The soup smelled really good and flavorful while cooking, but after it was done and I had the first bite I realized a slight problem: I seem to have underestimated the spiciness of cayenne pepper, because WHEW this soup really warms inside and out. Luckily I like spicy food and was in the mood for it and it’s not too spicy that it’s intolerable to eat (some of you would probably actually really appreciate the amount of zing that this soup has). It’s delicious though, and definitely packs a punch. Extra bonus: it’s very good the next day with some crunchy French bread! Score: 8 out of 10.

I'm looking into take a little bit of my Christmas cash and buying a new cookbook or two. Here are a few I'm considering:

Gourmet Today 

The Gourmet Slow Cooker 

The Big Book of Casseroles 

Bake Until Bubbly: The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook