A Whole Lotta Food

Mom making buffalo chicken pizza.

Whoops, forgot to get back to this blogging thing. Well, I have a lot to blog about because I've cooked A LOT of food this week.

Let's start with the grilled veggie turkey burgers. They turned out okay. The veggies were wonderful. I used turkey because it was on sale. However, I wanted the veggies to be the star of the show so I didn't want to over season the meat. Not a great idea because the turkey was rather bland. I grilled red onions, baby bellas, red peppers, and zucchini. The mushrooms were amazing. I mixed them in with the burgers. I did some experimentation and in some burgers I only rough chopped the veggies. In other burgers I finely chopped them. The finely chopped ones were more "burger-ish" but the rough chopped ones were amazing when you bit into a mushroom. I would try this again but probably with beef.

Last weekend I went and visisted Mom & Larry. We made buffalo chicken croissant pizza, which is one of our regular recipes. We rolled out a can of crescent rolls and spread a mixture of Frank's buffalo sauce & blue cheese dressing (not Marie's... bummer). Then we tossed the already cooked chicken in some more Frank's with some salt, pepper, & paprika. Spread that on the pizza. Lastly cover the pizza with provolone cheese and bake.

Then on Monday I made a Good House Keeping recipe of toasted walnut pesto pasta. This was a pesto of toasted walnuts (duh), parmeasean, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, & water. No oil because it was from a collection of heart healthy recipes - same collection I got the walnut crusted chicken from. This recipe called for chicken also but I was going vegetarian. Anyway, the pasta was whole grain penne and there was also red pepper, asperagus, & mushrooms mixed it. It was pretty good. At first I thought it was too "nutty" but then it grew on me.

Lastly... I made a seafood pizza (finally!). I was going to mix my left over cream cheese & goat cheese for my base... but alas, I waited too long. The goat cheese was a goner. So then I was bummed because I didn't have enough cream cheese to put on my crust (this was originally going to be another crescent roll pizza) so I decied instead of making a big pizza I would make 2 small pizza with whole wheat tortillas. So I mixed the cream cheese with some mayo, parm, mustard, garlic, pepper, & Old Bay and baked it for 15 min at 350. Meanwhile I rough chopped some parsley, imitation crab meat, and thawed my mini frozen shrimps. I also cooked up the remaining Baby Bellas. After I baked the cheese mixture, I spread it on the tortillas, then spread a layer of parsley, a layer of mozzarella, a layer of shrimp, crab, mushrooms, & capers, and a last, thin layer of mozzarella and a dash of Old Bay. Baked for 5 more minutes. Turned out pretty good. I was impressed at how the tortillas stood up to being in the oven and I was even able to pick up my slices and eat them. I overcooked the mushrooms, but they were still good.

I don't know what I'm going to be making next... but I have leftover asperagus, baby shrimps, parsley, & salad fixin's in the fridge so who knows what might come out of there this weekend... or maybe I'll order out.

More About Couscous

Well, I would love to report that I have jogged or hiked or walked or even skipped somewhere since my last blog but that would not be the truth. However, I'm super excited about the couscous I made for dinner tonight so that's all I'm going to blog about today.

So, I know, couscous isn't that exciting and I blogged about it last time. However, this is different. In the past when I've eaten couscous, I've always had it alongside fish. It was usually fish that I seasoned and cooked and often had an Italian-based flavor (basically garlic and olive oil). Tonight I made coconut crusted tilapia (store bought from Safeway, so I can't take credit for it but it was REAL good). However, the thought of the typical garlic, olive oil, and parmesean couscous didn't mesh, so I tried something I've never really tried before. Sweeter, olive oil-less couscous. How to make the couscous sweeter... hm... ?

Inspired by the Food Network show Chopped, I decided to had to make something with what was available to me. So I fished through the cupboards and found these remarkable ingredients... cinnamon, parsley, oranges, pine nuts, mozzarella, and honey. I figured mozzarella would be the sweeter cheese (choosing between mozzarella, edam, cheddar, & parmesean). Then I used a tiny bit of cinnamon and honey to sweeten and flavor the couscous, toasted the pine nuts, zested the orange, and chopped the parsley. Mix together and POOF, slightly sweetened cinnamon couscous. However, it was still savory enough that it was still good with a bit of salt and pepper. Looking back, I might use orange juice instead of orange zest because it was a bit chewy.

Also with my meal I had the last piece of my peachy pecan cornbread I made earlier in the week. This was another Good Housepeeking recipe that I thoroughly enjoyed aside from the fact that I think my pecans were a little dried out because they were rather bitter. But the recipe is exactly what it sounds like, cornbread, a can of peaches, peach juice, and pecans. Very southern. Very sweet-savory. Very moist, and oddly, very buttery in flavor (the entire pan of cornbread had 2 Tbps of canola oil and 2 Tbsp of margerine so I don't really understand where the butter flavor originated from.

Tomorrow night for dinner... roasted vegetable & turkey burgers. They will be bunless because I'm an idiot and didn't get buns at the store tonight. Still haven't made up my mind about the seafood pizza/goat cheese situation.

Little Bennet Regional Park

This morning Kandi, Lisa, & I hiked in the 70 degree weather in Little Bennet Park. http://www.mc-mncppc.org/Parks/PPSD/ParkTrails/trails_MAPS/trailmap_pdfs/LittleBennett_trails.pdfdf We hiked from the Kinglsey Parking area (where he had our labor day grill out back in September) down the Kingsley Trail. We turned up in the Purdum Trail and cut back across Browning Run Trail and down the Pine Knob Trail to Logger's Trail and that concluded our loop. There was a bit of trail blazing towards the finish line that resulted in a bit of blood, making our day of hiking complete.
[Its all fun and games until someone gets hurt and then its hilarious!] I did not take my camera today because it was so overcast but I did take my binoculars so I could get some practice in. I didn't see anything exciting, but enjoyed watching house wrens, turkey vultures, blue jays, white throated sparrows, and cardinals. We also heard a lot of chickadees, woodpeckers, and angry squirrels. Our loop was approximately 3 miles putting me at a total of 6.8 miles for the month of March.

For dinner tonight I made roasted garlic couscous with imitiation crab meat, toasted pine nuts, parsley, & cherry tomatoes. Turned out pretty good. I've made couscous quite a few times in the past but this was the first time I roasted garlic to put in it.

Walnut Crusted Chicken

So today I ran 1.8 miles. It would have been 2 miles but I was terribly distracted by the Ride On bus that caught fire and exploded by my apartment (no one was hurt). Anyway, I took the short cut down Father Hurley and went around Lake Churchill which cuts off approximately a quarter mile of the run (http://www.runningmap.com/?id=97591). So that puts me at a whopping 3.3 miles on this 6th day of March.

On to food... I know I promised seafood pizza and burgers but none of that has happened (yet!). My thought with my seafood pizza was to use up the shrimp, imitation crab, cream cheese, and goat cheese that is in my fridge. However last night I worried about the shrimp being in there too long so I just steamed them and ate them. I also haven't made a move on the burgers yet either, but they will happen at some point, I promise.

I did, however, make walnut crusted chicken and brussel sprouts in butter sauce (okay, so Green Giant made the brussel sprouts and butter sauce but I microwaved them!). The walnut crusted chicken was a mildly altered recipe from Good Housekeeping (my new favorite magazine because yes, I'm a bit of a dork). Into the food processor I put walnut, fresh flat leaf parsley, bread crumbs, cayanne, black pepper, & salt. Then I made an egg wash of an egg white and some wasabi ginger mustard. So I coated one side of each of my chicken strips into the egg, then the walnuts, and baked them. Turned out to be a pretty good and healthy meal. Protein from the chicken and heart-healthy oil from the walnuts. Plus I was smart and cut my 1 chicken breast into 8 strips and only ate 2 of them so I didn't gorge myself on chicken and brussel sprouts, I was smart and used portion control! Yay!

Snow Day & New Improved Blogging Status

Okay, so based on my first blog, I suppose my first time wasn't that great. I did it once, and then didn't do it again for 2 months. But now that I'm more experienced, I'm going to give it another try. I'm going to blog about something I love... FOOD! and also I'm inspired by Kandi and I'm going to keep track of the number of miles I walk & jog & hike this month.

So, yesterday, was a snow day. (YAY March snow!!) Kandi took a snow day too and apparently she did not get the memo that snow days are lazy-lay-around-the-house days. She made me go to the gym, which was really better than what I had planned for the day. I went 1.5 miles on the treadmill (I'm not going to count eliptical and bike miles) and that begins my March count. (Too bad I can't count the 5 mi. hike around Sugarloaf from Saturday). Anyway, I don't really have a goal, just thought I'd keep track. My only goal is to run, walk, or hike 10 times during the month of March for a minimum of 20 minutes or a mile, whichever comes first.

Now, to the heart of the matter. I had a mad cooking day. The first thing I made was Maryland Crab Soup with my homemade shrimp stock.

• Crab Meat (Special), about 4-6 oz.


• Shrimp Stock


• Water


• 1 can of green beans


• 1 can of corn


• 1 can of fire roasted tomatoes


• Old Bay


• frozen pearl onions


• 1 carrot & approx. 10 baby carrots


• 2 cloves of garlic

As you can see, my ingredient list was a hodgepodge assortment. A few items I threw in the soup simply to get them out of the house (onions & carrots). I used a ratio of about 1:3 with the shrimp stock to the water but the shrimp stock was still WAY too strong and really hid the crabiness of the soup. The soup is okay, not great. The stock turned out too hot and too salty so the soup primarily tastes like hot salt. Oh well, I think maybe homemade shrimp stock is not for me! Although it turned out okay in my jambalaya I made earlier this week. Oh what the heck, I'll throw that in here too...

• 1 lb. shrimp


• Crab Meat, Special, about 2-4 oz.


• 1 red pepper


• 1 can diced tomatoes w/ jalapenos


• rice


• shrimp stock


• Jambalya Seasoning (paprika, cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, sugar, celery seed, salt & pepper)

Usually I make it with some sort of pork product as well but I didn't have any thing and I wanted to make it healthy. I did this one a little different than in the past, I cooked the rice directly in the pan with all the stuff and it cooked up the shrimp stock a lot. Still salty, still hot (but hey, its jambalaya!), but not as overwhelming shrimp-stocky as the crab soup. I'm having the leftovers today for lunch :)

Okay, back to yesterday, I also made fish that turned out rather heavenly, if I do say so myself. I take credit for this recipe so much so that I even named it

• A's Buttery Parmeasan Crusted Orange Roughy


• orange roughy fillet(s)


• butter (actually I used really cheap margarine)


• lemon juice (I would have prefered a fresh lemon but juice was all I had)


• toasted pine nuts


• parmeasean cheese


• breadcrumbs


• salt, pepper, lemon pepper

Melt the butter on the stove top. Add some lemon. Taste it to make sure the lemon doesn't get out of control. Meanwhile salt & pepper the fish in a small baking dish and set the oven to broil. Pour the lemon butter over the fish and make sure both sides are coated. Broil about 6 minutes. Remove from oven and coat fish (both sides) in a ground up mixture of pine nuts, parmeasan, lemon pepper, and breadcrumbs (go easy on the parm it can easily overwhelm the yumminess of the fish). Last night was the first time I used pine nuts on the fish, previously I only used breadcrumbs and parm. I used to broil the fish another 1-2 minutes after breading it but last night the pine nuts burned. (My new smoke detector works, yay!) So next time I'll probably lower the oven rack and keep a closer eye on the pine nuts. Even with the burnt pine nuts, it was extraordinary!!

Stayed tuned later this week for walnut crusted chicken and granola stuffed peaches. Also, I might do seafood pizza and/or hamburger experimentations. Maybe next time I'll even take pictures :)

Pay if Forward

I got a pay it forward from this great blog - http://treefrogjewelry.blogspot.com/

This means that she will make something and send it to me, and I will do the same for 3 other people. Those people will be the first 3 that post a comment on this post. Here are the rules (which I copied from her blog).

1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me.

2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

3. The gift that you send to your 3 Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!

4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love! If you are not one of the Top Three Commenters on this post, you can still play along. Go ahead and start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same!SO, REMEMBER... Pay it forward!