What's for Dinner? Veggie Bean Burgers!

Ok, I'm back again.  I know I have been slack at my blog posts...I will try and do better! Cooking, and definitely blogging, have not been on the top of my list of to-dos lately...two kids under 2 1/2 definitely keep a person busy! Most of our meals these days consist of a quick protein, like grilled chicken or fish, and a steamed veggie.  So, there is no need to blog that kind of "recipe". But I did get an itch to make something the other day, so I emailed my good friend, Molly, to send me this recipe I had been thinking about.  She made these delicious veggie bean burgers on our vacation a while back to Charleston, with a great group of friends.  They were so good but for some reason I forgot about them until the other day.  I made these and they were fantastic!  I adapted the recipe just a little bit...they will make a lot, but trust me...you'll be happy to have extras in the freezer.  Enjoy!

Veggie Bean Burgers
Makes 10 burgers

• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 1/2 large red onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup sliced black olive, diced
• 1/2 large red bell pepper, finely diced
• 1 container sliced mushrooms, finely diced
• 2 TBSP minced pickled jalapeno
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup finely diced canned artichoke
• 1 15-oz can seasoned black beans, drained
• 1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained
• 1 15-oz can cannelini beans, drained
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 3 TBSP minced fresh parsley leaves
• 1 1/2 teaspoons red chili flakes
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground sage
• 5 TBSP seasoned panko bread crumbs
• 2 large eggs

 

In a medium saute pan over medium heat, add 1 TBSP olive oil and all raw vegetables except beans. Saute until translucent. Remove and cool. 

In a medium mixing bowl, add all beans and coarsely mash with potato masher or fork.  Add veggies to beans and mix thoroughly. Add all dry ingredients along with the eggs. Thoroughly mix all ingredients and form into 10 patties. Individually wrap 6 (or however many you want to freeze) in plastic wrap and place in freezer for a later date. Cover the remaining patties and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
 
In same saute pan add remaining TBSP olive oil, and cook patties 2 to 3 minutes per side. Serve on toasted buns with cheese, avocado, guacamole, tomato slices or whatever toppings you like!

Thaw frozen patties in fridge overnight and fry up in the pan when ready to eat!

What's for Sides? Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread

This weekend, fall was in the air.  It was the perfect time for chili and cornbread!  My friend Greg got out his awesome chili recipe (which I will be posting here later) and I looked around for a few cornbread recipes.  I found this one that I adapted.  It was orginally supposed to be for corn sticks, cooked in a cast iron mold.  I know I have just about every kitchen/cooking gadget known to man, but shockingly, I do not own cast iron corn stick molds.  So...I adapted the recipe and it came out REALLY good.  The recipe had just a hint of the jalapeno flavor without being too hot.  If you want more heat...add more jalapeno!  You could even add crisp, crumbled bacon to this and it would be awesome!  This is a simple recipe sure to please. Try it and enjoy!

Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread
Serves 6

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and finely minced
3 scallions, diced (white and green parts)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBSP butter or spread (I use Brummel & Brown)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (not self-rising)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 425. In a small skillet, heat the butter until hot.  Add jalapeno, onion and garlic.  Saute 1-2 minutes until fragrant and they begin to soften.  Remove from heat and let cool a bit.

In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, baking soda and baking powder.  Mix together and form a well in the middle.

In a small bowl combine egg and buttermilk.  Beat until combined.  Pour into well of dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined and a sticky dough is formed.  Add in pepper mixture and cheese.  Combine well.

Coat a 9x9 glass dish with cooking spray and add the dough mixture to it.  Cook for 20 minutes until bread is just starting to brown.  Serve hot with butter!

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What's for Dinner? Gazpacho!

It has been over 100 degrees here (with the heat index) for over a month.  It's been brutal!  So, when thinking about dinner tonight, something light and cool sounded good.  We have a ton of tomatoes in the garden and gazpacho sounded perfect!

I have two friends that sent me gazpacho recipes the same week a while back, so I kind of combined the two and the result was fantastic!  My friend Erin sent me her recipe...something special she made her dad for Father's Day.  And my friend Holly also sent a recipe. That recipe was created by a wonderful private chef her and her husband, Bill, so generously hired when several of us came to visit them in Chicago.  We had an awesome meal, that was like 10 courses, and this gazpacho really stood out.  She also served it in these adorable little hollowed-out cucumber cups...but I will stick to serving it in a good old-fashioned bowl!

Garnish the soup with whatever accoutrements you like...the more the better (I served it with sour cream and avocado...and the avocado really made it!).  And when served with a big crusty piece of bread...YUM!  Enjoy and stay cool!

Gazpacho

Serves 6-8

• 4 Roma tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• ½ cup good olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine or Sherry vinegar
• 2 cups low sodium vegetable juice cocktail (like V8)
• 1 cup diced, toasted or day old baguette
• 2 English cucumbers, seeded, peeled and chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 large handful cilantro
• ½-1 jalapeno (seeded if you desire less spicy)
• juice of half a lemon 
• 2-3 tsp hot sauce (to taste)
• Salt and pepper to taste  

In a food processor, combine oil, vinegar, and tomato juice.  Add all other ingredients and puree until smooth (you may have to do this in two batches and stir together).  Season to taste.  Chill for at least 2 hours. Serve with sour cream, avocado slices, croutons, boiled shrimp, chopped fresh cilantro, and/or fresh basil. 

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What's for Sides? Spencer's Salsa!

Our friend Spencer makes the best salsa.  Whenever we have get-togethers, someone always asks her to make it.  I got the recipe from her a while back and ever since, I have not purchased any store-bought salsa.  Her recipe is so easy and so yummy!  It takes like, 5 minutes to make...less time than walking down the salsa aisle in the store. You definitely have to try it.  You will be a convert, too!

Tonight we had Taco Night and, of course, Spencer's salsa made an appearance.  I also found something new and tasty in the store.  I discovered this Frontera taco sauce (and no, I'm not getting paid to advertise this...I wish!). It is a sauce packet in the Mexican Aisle...the one I got was the Taco Skillet with Red Chile and Cumin.  I just added it to some lean ground beef (you can use turkey) and onion that I browned and simmered it for about 10 minutes.  Really good!  There is a whole line of these sauces (although my local store only had 2). It really was flavorful and made the tacos special. Give it a try and enjoy!


Spencer's Salsa

1 clove garlic, peeled
1/2-1 jalapeno, seeded
1 large handful fresh cilantro
1/2 medium onion
1 14 oz can fire roasted tomatoes, drained
1 14-oz can tomatoes and green chilies (like Rotel), drained (use desired heat level)
juice of 1/2 lime
pinch of kosher salt
grind of black pepper

In a food processor, add garlic, jalapeno and cilantro and process until finely minced.  Add the remaining ingredients and pulse until desired consistency is reached.  Enjoy!

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What's for Lunch? Bacony Egg Salad!

I love it when my food cravings coincide with items I have in my fridge! I had a dozen hard-boiled eggs I needed to use, and when I came home from my workout today I was seriously craving egg salad (very weird, I know...guess I needed a protein fix!).  I remembered an egg salad that my friends Kelly and Molly made when we went out to visit them in Denver that was awesome.  The key ingredient was bacon--because bacon makes everything taste better, of course!  It is really easy to make and really tasty.  Put it on some great crusty bread with some garden-fresh tomatoes, and you have a delicious lunch.  Enjoy!

Bacony Egg Salad
Serves 4-6

• 4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into small pieces
• 12 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 TBSP white wine vinegar
• 3 TBSP mayonnaise (I use light, olive oil mayonnaise)
• 1-2 TBSP dijon mustard
• pinch salt
• a few grinds of black pepper

In a hot skillet, cook bacon pieces until crispy.  Remove from pan with slotted spoon and let drain on paper towels. Set aside.

In a bowl, combine eggs, bacon, onions, vinegar, mayo, mustard, salt and pepper. Carefully fold ingredients together...try not to mash up eggs too much.  Serve open face on baguette slices or on crusty bread as a sandwich and enjoy!

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What's for Dinner? Summer Tomato "Pizza" Pie!

Home grown tomatoes sunning themselves on our sill

Man, I am worn out from this past week!  Finn was sick, turned one year old, we had BOTH sets of Grandparents in town and a big party on Saturday.  It was exhausting, but a lot of fun. We've been eating leftovers from the weekend for 2 days now (I had the party catered), so tonight, I wanted something else, and needed to use some of our garden tomatoes that were sunning in the window.  Some of the ladies at Sully's work were talking about this tomato pie recipe and I decided to try it.  I had all the ingredients on hand and seemed simple enough to do (as a general rule, I do NOT bake!). I adapted the recipe a bit, but it came out really good.  Sully said it tasted like a tomato pizza...hence the name.  If you have fresh tomatoes and basil, this is a great, simple dish to make...and it will impress your friends!  Enjoy!

Summer Tomato "Pizza" Pie

Serves 4

• 1 refrigerated pie crust (or can use frozen already in pan)
• 3-4 tomatoes, sliced (you can peel them first but isn’t a must)
• kosher salt
• 5 large basil leaves, rolled up and cut in a chiffonade
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 green onions, chopped
• ¾ cup shredded mozzarella
• ¾ cup shredded cheddar
• ½ cup mayonnaise (I use light Olive Oil Mayo)
• pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Roll pie dough on to 9-inch pie pan (spray with Pam) or put in a tart pan. If using pie pan, crimp edges of the crust so they look nice.  Prick bottom of crust with fork.  Prebake pie crust for about 12 minutes, until slightly golden (you may need to prick more halfway through, if you see the crust is rising up in the middle).  Lower oven temp to 350.  Set crust aside to cool.

Pie before cheese mixture is added on

Place sliced tomatoes in a colander.  Add a pinch of salt and let drain over sink for about 20 minutes to get a lot of the liquid out.

In a small bowl, mash together the cheeses and the mayo until combined.

In the pie pan or tart shell, layer tomatoes on the bottom.  Sprinkle with herbs and onion. Layer on the cheese mixture and spread evenly over top.  Add fresh ground pepper.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Broil for about 2-4 minutes (watch it!) until the cheese is golden and bubbly on top.  Let sit for about 10 minutes and slice and serve!

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What's for Dinner? Roasted Eggplant and Pepper Marinara over Spaghetti Squash!

Ok, so we have more eggplant and peppers galore from the garden (holy cow, we are having a fantastic first attempt at a garden!) that we needed to use and I came across this recipe that looked really good.  We also had spaghetti squash from the garden as well.  Funny story...

Back in the early 2000s, Sully and I did the South Beach Diet for several months.  We both lost a lot of weight, mostly because we didn't eat many carbs for that period of time.  A substitution for pasta, according to the South Beach way of life, was spaghetti squash.  I used to make it every so often, and liked it.  Flash forward to this spring.  We were planting the garden and Sully bought a spaghetti squash plant because he thought I really liked it (I like it ok, but it wasn't something I ever would have thought about growing).  Anyways, little did we both know, the spaghetti squash is an unruly plant that completely takes over.  It grew out into our yard, up our deck trellis and every other which way.  When it was all said and done, we had 4 large squash and a crazy, cracked-out plant we had to get rid of!  But, I digress...

This recipe has a lot of steps, but I added some notes to make it a bit simpler, if you like.  You can't get away from roasting the eggplant, but you can buy jarred roasted peppers instead of doing it yourself.  This came out great and I did really like the spaghetti squash.  I didn't even miss real pasta (and I LOVE pasta).  But if you don't want to deal with the squash, by all means, use pasta!  I hope you try it, it's really good and doesn't get much healthier than this!  Enjoy (and beware of the man-eating vines, if you ever plant spaghetti squash)!

Roasted Eggplant and Pepper Marinara over Spaghetti Squash
Adapted from Rachael Ray
Serves 4

• 2 medium eggplants (or 4 thin, purple Japanese eggplant)
• 1 spaghetti squash, sliced lengthwise and seeds removed
• 1 red bell pepper (or 1-2 jarred roasted red peppers)
• 2 red chile peppers , I used overripe Anaheims from the garden (or 2-3
• jarred Piquillo peppers)
• 1 head garlic
• 1 sprig rosemary, minced
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 carton sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 28-oz can whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes, with juice
• 8 basil leaves, chopped
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• grated Parmesan or Romano cheese  

Preheat oven to 425.  Cut top off of garlic bulb and remove outer skin.  Place on a sheet of tinfoil.  Drizzle with olive oil and top with rosemary.  Fold foil around bulb to form packet and seal tightly.  Place in oven.  Total cook time with be about 45 minutes (while eggplant is roasting) or until garlic is soft and removes from skin easily. 

Cut eggplants in half, lengthwise.  Brush cut side with olive oil and place, cut side down, on a baking sheet.  Roast for 30-45 minutes, until browned and very soft.  When done, set it and garlic aside and cool.

If roasting your own peppers, brush all peppers with olive oil and broil for 3-4 minutes, until skin is charred, and turn with tongs until all sides have been well charred.  Remove from oven and let cool.

Place spaghetti squash, cut sides down, on a microwavable plate.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Microwave on high for 8-10 minutes, until flesh easily shreds with fork (be careful when unwrapping plastic...the steam is HOT).  Shred flesh of squash and put in serving bowl.

While squash is cooking, in a large saucepan, add 1 TBSP olive oil.  Sauté mushrooms until brown.  Add chicken broth and tomatoes.  With a fork or hand potato masher, mash whole tomatoes so they break up a bit (watch out, sometimes they will spit at you!). Let simmer.

While tomatoes are simmering, scoop flesh from eggplant and add to food processor or mini prep.  Remove skin, stems and seeds from peppers and add to processor.  Scoop garlic from skins and add to processor.  Process until smooth (or leave a little chunky, if you like).

Add eggplant mixture to tomatoes.  Stir well.  Cook for another 10 minutes, until sauce starts to thicken. Add oregano, basil and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over sauce over spaghetti squash and top with grated Parmesan cheese.  Enjoy!

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What's for Dinner? Pesto Pasta Primavera!

I was thinking we needed some major veggies tonight...we hadn't had many lately.  We had MORE zucchini from the garden and I made a ton more pesto from the ridiculous amount of basil that keeps popping up. I went to the store and got a few more of our favorites, and threw this dish together.  We were about half way through dinner and Sully yelled..."HEY! There's no MEAT in here!"  Well, he obviously didn't mind too much, 'cause he ate it up and said it was great.  Every once in a while it's nice to be a vegetarian, if only for one meal!  Oh, and our little boy Finn loved it, too...at least most of it!  Enjoy!

Pesto Pasta Primavera

Serves 4-6

• 1 pkg (9 oz) fresh, refrigerated linguine (or a little more than half a box dry)
• kosher salt
• 1 crown broccoli, cut into florettes
• 1 TBSP olive oil
• 2 TBSP Brummel & Brown spread or butter
• ½ onion, diced
• ½ bunch pencil asparagus, woody ends cut off and then cut into 2-3 sections*
• 1 carton sliced mushrooms
• ½ red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
• ½ zucchini, cut into half moons
• ½ cup fresh basil pesto
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Roma or Campari tomatoes, cut in large pieces
• grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

In a large pot, bring salted water to boil. Once boiling, add broccoli and cook for 3 minutes.

While broccoli cooks, in a large skillet over high heat, add olive oil and butter and add onion and pepper and sauté 1 minute.  Add zucchini and asparagus and continue cooking 1 more minute.  Use a slotted spoon to remove broccoli from the boiling water, and add it and mushrooms to the skillet and continue cooking until all veggies are cooked through and soft, 5-10 minutes (if you want to, add a couple of tablespoons of water and cover the skillet to let steam).

In the boiling water, add pasta and cook per instructions on container.  Drain but reserve ½ cup of cooking liquid and add to skillet with cooking veggies.  Return pasta to large pot and stir in pesto.

When all veggies are cooked through, add garlic and tomatoes and continue cooking 1 more minute and remove from heat. Add veggies to pot with pasta and combine gently.  Sprinkle with a generous amount of Parmesan and serve!

* If you can only find the thick-stemmed asparagus, cut as instructed, and cook in boiling water with broccoli (and follow same instructions for them).

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