Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Carina Cooks, 2013 Edition v2

In 2013, I resolved to cook 52 recipes from scratch, and I'm trying to keep track of most of them.  I posted my first batch of recipes here

As before, if any recipe in particular sounds good, let me know and I'll either post it or scan and email it to you (though I can't promise it will be prompt).

11.  Undated March 2013: Two mushroom barley stew from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.  Blah, not one I'd probably make again.  Hubby seemed to have some trouble finding pearl barley, so we used regular barley and maybe that made a difference.  It was fine, just nothing special.  Included carrot, onion, dried mushrooms, white mushrooms (and we added portabella mushrooms).  Fairly bland.

12.  3-20-13: Chipotle-kissed red bean and sweet potato chili, from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker.  Blah.  That chipotle/adobo flavor just doesn't do much for me, and the sweet potatoes didn't seem soft enough.  Would not recommend, will not make again.

13.  3-23-13: Bulgar pilaf from a website (recipe here).  Good.  We doubled the recipe and ate leftovers as our grain for about a week afterward.  The recipe contains orzo, bulgar, and zucchini.  I used my alligator dicer and loved the tiny, tiny perfect squares of zucchini.  Nice way to eat bulgar, which is not in our regular rotation. 

14.  3-23-13: Two different tofu recipes to see which I liked more.  Easy tofu marinade and baked tofu. From Kim's page (look for "easy tofu marinade"). Can't remember the second source unfortunately, but I have it printed (called "perfect baked tofu").

15.  3-31-13: Asparagus citrus salad from Asaparagus Festival (a special little cookbook all about asparagus!).  My Easter brunch contribution -- a salad with mixed greens, asparagus and blood oranges, with a homemade dressing made of blood orange juice, shallots, blood orange zest, sherry vinegar, balsalmic vinegar, and olive oil.  Good, would gladly make again. 

15A. BONUS: For Easter, two recipes for sweets from Pinterest. No bake bird's nests (chow mein noodles coated in butterscotch and chocolate, formed into nests, topped with chocolate eggs and peeps) and no bake marshamallow squares (white chocolate and pastel colored marshmallows, topped with spring looking sprinkles). The nests looked and tasted awesome. The marshmallow Easter bark was okay, not great.

16.  4-6-13 Mediterranean Eggplant and Barley Salad from this link at gourmet.com.  Not a new recipe to me, but a good one.  Roasted eggplant and zucchini, added to barley -- again, the recipe called for pearl barley, but we only had regular, which I've done before and enjoyed.  But to my surprise, we didn't have enough regular barley, so I did half barley and half orzo.  And I didn't have parsley or mint to add, and I forgot to add the tomatoes (which were only going to be in my husband's half), but it was still delicious.  Actually, when I mention all that, it sounds like I didn't even follow the recipe, so it's somewhat questionable whether I should count this as a meal from a recipe! 

17.  4-12-13 Homemade whole wheat pizza dough from this recipe at selfdishes.com.  A recipe we got from friends years ago and we've made it every year for our rehearsal dinner anniversary party.  It's a whole wheat pizza dough that you grill, and it's easy to have dinner guests then build their own pizzas. 

17A.  BONUS 4-12-13:  For our rehearsal dinner party this year, we also made a cannllini bean-garlic dip from a cookbook we got for our wedding from my cousin called Dips (a very, very, very simple recipe), and a creamy avocado yogurt dip, from this recipe (also very simple), and a recipe from a law school friend for spinach artichoke dip (fairly simple, and easily made in advance and then baked on the day of).  We also made brie-raspberry tarts from a recipe found on Pinterest (very simple again, using frozen phyllo mini tart shells). 

18.  4-14-13 Red lentil curry from this link, but had originally gotten from Pioneer Woman (just doesn't appear to be on her site anymore, at least not in the form I like and make).  I've made this a few times before and it's definitely a winner.  This time, however, I made it with petite red lentils, which meant they practically dissolved and it had more the consistency of a red lentil mush, but man, it was tasty!  The first night, I ate mine over a baked potato (primarily because I cooked the recipe on a Sunday, I forgot I had a potato to eat from the grocery store, and I knew I wouldn't have an hour to cook it on a weeknight), hubby ate his over brown rice.  The second night we ate the leftovers, hubby had his over quinoa, and I had mine over tortilla chips.  Definitely a recipe I should make more frequently. 

19.  4-28-13 Black bean sweet potato burritos from Vegan a Go Go.  A friend emailed me this recipe years ago and I love it (I don't actually own the cookbook).  We've had it several times.  Basically just mashed sweet potatoes on a tortilla, topped by salsa, topped by seasoned and cooked black beans, then with cheese for me (but no cheese for hubby).  I used 2 sweet potatoes and 1 can of beans and we had enough for 7 burritos (more like tacos really since I couldn't close them this time).  I think that was because we're using a new kind of fresh tortilla that is smaller.  Insanely good. 

20. 5-5-13 Vegetable stew from Little Big Vegetarian cookbook (below, just turn your head sideways...).  Hubby's choice (I am trying to get him to choose more recipes).  Very good.  Lots of dicing of eggplant and zucchini and bell peppers, but super healthy and very tasty.  We had enough for two dinners and one lunch.  For some reason, I thought black beans were in the recipe (well, because the picture made it look that way, but I guess for the photo the eggplant got very dark and there were olives), but it was just veggies, so no protein.  I served it over black beans and brown rice so it seemed more balanced. 

1 comment:

  1. You've been busy! So many of them sound so delicious.

    ReplyDelete