Recipe Reviews

Oven-dried tomatoes

• Even after forgetting to water it for 5 or more days, the cherry tomato plant is still producing tomatoes like crazy. We found ourselves with a "problem": what should we do with all of those tomatoes?
• I found a few different blogs that showed how to make oven-dried tomatoes. We love sun-dried tomatoes, but hate how expensive they are. This is a great alternative, and I read that people freeze these too. We haven't done any freezing yet, because we used up all of our oven-dried tomatoes, but I'm sure we will be freezing a batch soon.
• This is how I did it (copy-pasted from an email that I sent to my mom):

1) Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil

2) Cut the cherry tomatoes in half

3) Put the tomatoes in a bowl and drizzle them with a little (very little - if you put too much they won't dry/cook right) olive oil. Add a little pepper and sea salt. Then mix them up a little.

4) Put them on the cookie sheet with the cut side up (skin side touching the sheet/foil)

5) Put them in the oven at 325 degrees for about an hour. Some recipes say to cook them for 2 or more hours at 200 degrees. That will probably work too. After an hour at 325 degrees, most of the tomatoes were perfect. A couple of the smaller ones were burned... so maybe turning down the temp is a good idea? You just need to keep an eye on them.

Cottage Cheese Chicken Enchiladas

• This recipe was a 3-stepper. Here is a link to the enchilada recipe.
• The night before we had these for dinner, I made the chicken in the crockpot. I put a small chopped onion on the bottom of the crockpot, then added the can of diced green chiles (the enchilada recipe calls for a 7 oz. can). I used the equivalent of half of a package of taco seasoning mix (but I didn't use store bought taco mix - too much salt). Then I added 1/2 of a bottle of beer, and 2 frozen chicken breasts. I cooked it on low for 5 hours. When they were done cooking, it was super easy to shred them. Then I used a slotted spoon to remove the onions and chiles from the crockpot, and added them and a little bit of the cooking liquid to the shredded chicken.
• While the chicken was cooking in the crockpot, I made enchilada sauce. I was trying to avoid all of the salt in the store-bought canned enchilada sauce. I used this recipe. It made more than the 10 oz. can that the enchilada recipe called for, but I ended up using all of it in the enchiladas.
• The next day, I put all of the ingredients together and made the enchiladas. They were really good. They tasted even better as leftovers, and we had a lot of leftovers.

Polenta with Spinach, Black Beans, and Goat Cheese

• We have made this recipe since I was a 1L, and we both still really like it.
• It calls for 1/4 cup of sun-dried tomatoes, so we were able to save ourselves some money by using our oven-dried cherry tomatoes. Yummy!

Tomato-Cream Sauce for Pasta

• I was extremely underwhelmed by this recipe.
• E really liked it, but I didn't even want the leftovers. I wouldn't recommend it.

Chicken Parmesan Burgers

• We had these for dinner tonight. We made them on the grill.
• We used ground turkey instead of ground chicken (probably because of our previous bad experience with ground chicken).
• These were really good. Definitely an "E-style" meal, too :) He likes pretty much anything with a marinara sauce.
• Baby bellas were on sale this week, so we sauteed them and put them on our burgers. They were good, but probably weren't necessary if you are looking to save a few bucks :)

Cherry Tomatoes and Mac and Cheese

Well, our cherry tomato plant has been producing tomatoes like crazy. And despite my lack of gardening skills, it is still alive :)

We found a couple of good recipes for using up cherry tomatoes... and we also tried out a new Mac and Cheese recipe.

Chicken Pesto Pizza

• This was amazing! I loved the way the cherry tomatoes tasted on this pizza.
• We did things a little differently than the recipe.
• First, we grilled the chicken the day before.
• Also, when I made the pesto, I toasted the pine nuts and the garlic in the oven instead of on the stovetop. I knew I would be heating up the oven anyway (to bake the pizza), so it just made things easier. I set the oven to 325 degrees, and then toasted the pine nuts for 5 minutes and the garlic for 7 or 8 minutes. It worked out well.
• I would also recommend cutting the salt for the pesto in half. I would use 1/4 tsp instead of the 1/2 tsp that the recipe calls for.
• Finally, we cheated and didn't make our own pizza dough. Maybe we will learn how to make our own this winter... but we had to draw the line somewhere. We typically use the "Thin Crust" (not the "Classic") version of this. Then we just follow the directions on the tube for baking it. Someday we will use our mixer or food processor to make pizza dough, though.

Warm Tortellini and Cherry Tomato Salad

• Another great recipe, and a great use of our cherry tomatoes.
• It made A LOT, so we had enough for 4 servings of leftovers.
• I would consider cutting the asparagus into halves before cooking it, because it was difficult to get it to cook all the way through (especially closer to the ends of the asparagus) in 2 minutes.
• Here's a link to the recipe.

Mac and Cheese

• We have a favorite mac and cheese recipe already (if you make this recipe, be sure to not use as much salt as the recipe calls for), but I thought that it would be good to try out a new one.
• There's not much to say about our new recipe, except that it is really really good, and I will definitely make it again :) I highly recommend trying it out.

A Batch of Recipes

5-Cheese Stuffed Shells with Homemade Tomato Sauce

• Here is the recipe for the stuffed shells.
• The tomato sauce was a little more complicated. I found this "how to" and decided to use the tomatoes from my MOH and the "baby" tomatoes from the plant that my mom gave us. I sort of followed the eHow instructions, but I added an onion (also from my MOH), and 1/2 cup of red cooking wine. I also used fresh oregano (leftover from another recipe), fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley (from our deck garden). It was super yummy, even though it took a while. I also recommend taking the seeds out of the tomatoes first (the eHow recipe doesn't say that you need to do that, but when I googled it, most websites said to remove the seeds before making tomato sauce).
• All in all, this recipe was good. Trying to stuff the shells wasn't that fun, though. Also, the recipe made a LOT of stuffed shells - enough that we froze a couple of servings for later.

Falafel with Tzatziki Sauce

• Even though the recipe doesn't clearly specify it in the ingredients list, you will want to have pitas and tomatoes to serve with this. Also, I didn't know how to make bread crumbs since I didn't have any dried bread sitting around our house. Lucky for me, the internet came to my rescue.
• We used this recipe for the falafel, but we didn't make the cucumber sauce from that recipe. Instead we used this recipe for Tzatziki.
• E made the Tzatziki the night before, and we only made 1/2 of the Tzatziki recipe. If you only plan on using the Tzatziki for the falafel, 1/2 of the recipe is the right amount. We used FAGE Greek yogurt for the Tzatziki, a cucumber (from our MOH), and we had to substitute mint leaves for fresh dill because we couldn't find fresh dill at the grocery store.
• This was a great recipe; I give it a double or even a triple recommend :)

Shredded, Saucy BBQ Chicken Sammies

• This is a good recipe for when you are craving something that is like a Sloppy Joe, but you don't want a Sloppy Joe.
• We usually end up freezing some of this to use later, because the recipe makes a lot.

Lots of Recipes

One of the best parts about the bar exam being over is that I get to cook again. It feels good to be back into a routine. I have been craving a lot of Italian and Greek ingredients lately, and the recipes that we have made definitely reflect that.

Penne Alla Vodka

• Absolutely delicious!
• We substituted crushed tomatoes for whole tomatoes; I thought that it would make the sauce have a better consistency.
• I highly recommend this recipe.

Light Alfredo with Spinach Ravioli

• We made this for our first wedding anniversary.
• It was really good. The only thing that I might change next time is that I would use a little less chicken broth.

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Feta Cheese

• Another great recipe.
• Fairly easy to make (although E made this; but it seemed like it didn't take him too long)
• It was a nice Sunday night dinner.

Phyllo Pizza with Feta, Basil, and Tomatoes

• We used cherry tomatoes from our "backyard" garden for this recipe... and fresh basil from our deck garden.
• I liked it, but dealing with the phyllo dough was kind of frustrating, and it wasn't that filling. It seemed like something that I would order at a restaurant, but it was a lot cheaper to make it myself.

Slow Cooker Stuffed Greek Peppers

• This was a good way to use up some of the feta from the phyllo pizza.
• It was easy to make and pretty good; I didn't really like the way that the peppers tasted after being cooked for so long, but the filling was really good :)

Lemon Thyme Chicken

• Chicken is E's favorite meat, and this recipe seemed like an interesting way to prepare it.
• It wasn't mind-blowingly amazing, but it was good.
• We ate this with broccoli.

Teriyaki Vegetable Noodles

• Another recipe that wasn't amazing, but it was good.
• The bright side: we had most of the ingredients at home, so it didn't cost too much to make. AND the recipe made A LOT of servings of noodles, so we froze some of the leftovers into individual containers for when E has night classes this fall.

Baked Potato Skins

• I really like bar food. Potato skins are a favorite for me.
• This is a good recipe :)

Monkey Bread

• When I asked E to make monkey bread, I figured that he wouldn't like it very much. Usually I'm the one with a sweet tooth. I was wrong; E loves it!
• The only thing that we changed about this recipe is that we didn't add raisins.

Busy Times

It's been a busy week or two since I've updated this blog. I'm pretty worried about the bar exam, and I'm really glad that E is here to take care of me and RatDog :) He's been making dinner every night, making us chocolate malts almost every night as a bedtime snack, cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, meal-planning, doing laundry, walking RatDog twice a day (I only have to take him out once a day - woohoo!). Plus, he is putting up with my bar exam induced mood swings, and still manages to tell me that he loves me several times a day (barf! I know...sorry blog-readers). Needless to say, I'm very very lucky.

Our neighbors really like lighting off fireworks. This is bad news for RatDog. Yesterday we had a thunderstorm AND people were lighting off fireworks like crazy. RatDog definitely was in panic mode. Poor guy :( Last night we took him for a walk, and while we were on the walking path, one of our lovely neighbors launched a firework ON to the walking path. I ran away, screaming. RatDog ran as fast as his little dog legs could run (faster than me). E wanted to go have a talk with the neighbor who launched the firework and tell him/her that you should launch them UP and not onto the walking path. I thought that it might be too dangerous to talk to someone who was doing that; drunk people + fireworks.... I'll stay away, thank you very much. On our walk back into the house we saw a family with little kids heading onto the same walking path that we were just on. People (our neighbors) really need to be more careful.

Anyway, our meal plan from a couple of weeks ago turned out well. The corn and potato chowder was a favorite in our house. Instead of buying the seasoning mix that the recipe calls for, we googled it and just made our own from the spices in our cupboard. It turned out great.

Last week we also tried out:

Miami Black Bean and Corn Salad

Delicious; I really liked the citrusy flavors.

Wagon Wheel Taco Pasta Salad

Yummy! But this recipe makes A LOT of pasta salad, so I would recommend making it for a potluck ... or maybe cutting the recipe in half.

Tonight we had:

Lentil Barley Skillet

We had a lot of lentils and barley in our cupboard; this was a good way to use them up. E liked it better than the lentil soup I made in January :)

Here are some recipes that E will be trying out this week:

Herbed Greek Chicken Salad

Creamy Bean Soup with Taquito Dippers

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

Crockpot Burrito Soup

Have a great week! Happy 4th of July, a day late :)

A Couple New Recipes

Black Beans and Rice

We made this recipe using 2 "cans" worth of black beans from our freezer. The curry powder that the recipe calls for is a nice addition to a typical rice and beans dish. We also liked that the recipe uses brown rice, since it is healthier than white rice (I think). We also used crushed red pepper flakes instead of the fresh red pepper, just because we didn't have a fresh red pepper on hand. All in all, this was a good, simple recipe and we will definitely make it again.

Baked Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Cheese

This is a recipe from Cooking Light. We made it because we already had 2/3 pound of browned Italian Sausage in our freezer, and we have basil growing on our deck at home (thanks Mom!) that we wanted to use. We had most of the other ingredients at home, too. In fact, we only had to buy the tomatoes, the ziti, and the mozzarella. It was pretty inexpensive to make, and it was good, but it wasn't amazing. It was a good way for us to use up some extra ingredients that we had siting around our house, though. And it was cheap :)

We're going to be trying out quite a few new recipes this week. E will be the chef, because I will be studying for the bar. 

Here are the links to some of the recipes that "Chef E" will be trying out, in case you're looking for some ideas:

Barbecue Chicken Taco Salad with Sour Cream-Lime Dressing

Corn and Potato Chowder

Easy Layered Bean Dip

Penne with Spinach, Feta, and Toasty Pine Nuts

Pesto (I will post this recipe later)