Libraries Rock

When I was young and car-less, I knew the greatness of the public library. I methodically worked through the entire Nancy Drew series, and many other books by making my way down the library shelf. I looked forward to my weekly-ish trips to the library, and I always left with a new stack of books to devour. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how awesome libraries are. So sad.

I instead became sucked in to Barnes and Noble culture, buying books I thought I might someday want to read because they had cool covers or were on sale. And they languished on my bookshelf. I also bought a ton of books that I did actually read, and ended up selling these on half.com or amazon.com. I read too much to keep all the books lying around. And I'm not really a re-reader. There are so many great things to read; I feel like I must move onward instead of rehashing books I've already covered. After moving to Lex (where there is no large bookstore), I switched my addiction to online book ordering. As soon as I saw a review for a book I wanted, I'd order it (and probably several other amazon suggestions), and then I'd get a happy surprise about a week later in the mail!

And then, it hit me. I work in the courthouse, and there is a public law library downstairs. I finally got around to asking if they did inter-library loans... and they do! All I have to do is go online and search the card catalogue and press a little button, and they deliver the book to the library in my building as soon as it's available. It's like amazon, but FREEEEEE!

So, thank you Roanoke Valley Libraries. Thank you very much.

Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Another great recipe! I found this one in Cooking Light. Apparently, I tore it out to save and try later in October 2007. I'm so sad that I waited so long to try it (but I am glad that I finally rifled through saved recipes to find something for dinner). While I've found Cooking Light's recipes to be hit or miss, this is definitely a hit. It's very light, but doesn't taste like it at all. And it has just the right amount of spinach - it's not overpowering. I'll enjoy these left-over lunches.

Cooking Light's Photo, not mine. Because I'm lazy today.

Spinach and Ricotta-Stuffed Shells

2 cups Basic Marinara, divided (I just used a jar of pre-made sauce. Next time, I might thin the sauce with some water first)
Cooking spray
2 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
1 large egg yolk
1 garlic clove, minced
24 cooked jumbo pasta shells

Preheat oven to 350°.
Spread 1/2 cup Basic Marinara over bottom of a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
Combine ricotta and next 8 ingredients (through garlic) in a large bowl, stirring well. Spoon about 1 1/2 tablespoons filling into each pasta shell.
Arrange stuffed shells in prepared dish; spread with remaining 1 1/2 cups Basic Marinara.
Cover and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.
Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 4 stuffed shells and about 1/3 cup sauce)

CALORIES 329 (27% from fat); FAT 9.8g (sat 4.8g,mono 3g,poly 1g); IRON 2.8mg; CHOLESTEROL 67mg; CALCIUM 377mg; CARBOHYDRATE 39.4g; SODIUM 552mg; PROTEIN 19.6g; FIBER 4.2g

Spicy Braised Beef with Sweet Potatoes

I found this recipe in Real Simple this month and gave it a shot - we loved it! Is is a surprisingly great combination of flavors, and super easy. I like easy. It is 500 calories a serving, but it's uber-filling, so I figure that is probably in line with the real calories of other lower cal recipes, once I eat enough of them to be this full.

(Real Simple's photo - because mine wasn't this pretty)

Spiced Braised Beef with Sweet Potatoes

Makes 6 servings
Hands-on Time: 0hr 15m
Total Time: 4hr 30m

Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds beef chuck, cut into chunks
2 sweet potatoes (about 1 pound), cut into 1/2-inch-thick half-moons
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 large red onion, cut into wedges
1/2 cup dried apricots
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
kosher salt
1 10-ounce box couscous (1 1/2 cups)
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed
2 cups baby spinach (1 1/2 ounces)
1/4 cup roasted almonds, chopped


Directions
1. In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine the beef, potatoes, tomatoes (and their juices), onion, apricots, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup water.
2. Cook, covered, until the meat is tender, on high for 4 to 5 hours, or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
3. Ten minutes before serving, prepare the couscous according to the package directions.
4. Add the chickpeas to the slow cooker and cook until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the spinach. Serve with the couscous and sprinkle with the almonds.
5. To freeze: Omit the couscous and spinach. Cool the beef to room temperature and divide among freezer containers or bags. Freeze for up to 3 months.

Delicious Pork Chops - easy too!

I found this recipe recently and wanted to try it out. I finally made it tonight, and it is definitely a keeper! It has just a hint of sweetness and apply-ness. Yumm! And even though you do use kind of a lot of syrup, it mostly runs off, so you aren't really eating all that. (I would have taken pictures, but I was busy eating it all, all by myself, immediately!)



Maple Pork Chops


Preheat oven to 350F/175C.

6 thick pork chops
1/2 cup/125 mL chopped onion
1/2 cup/125 mL maple syrup
2 Tbsp/30 mL cider vinegar
2 Tbsp/30 mL Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp/5 mL chili powder
1/2 tsp/2 mL salt
1/4 tsp/1 mL pepper

Place the pork chops in a baking pan or baking dish.Combine the remaining ingredients. Pour over pork chops.Bake for about an hour, until no longer pink inside. (I used not-so-thick cuts, and only needed to cook it about 30 min.)

Sliders

Sorry, no pictures this time! Next time, I'll try to remember to take pictures instead of ravenously devouring these as they come out of the frying pan. Seriously.

Mr. L and I wanted to do dinner at home Sunday, and couldn't come up with recipes for which we were sure of all of the ingredients while we were at the store, so we settled on burgers. Unfortunately, they didn't have any of his preferred type of bun in bun form. :( Not OK! Not to let that deter us, we found the same kind in dinner rolls, and made a plan for sliders.


Yes, we were convinced that it would have been even better with the Big City Slider Station, but we persevered.

Sliders

Ingredients
1/2 onion, chopped (this was heavy on the onion, so feel free to adjust)
1 tsp butter (optional, esp. if you use a nonstick pan)
1lb hamburger (or ground turkey, chicken, etc.)
2-3 tbs catsup
2-3 tbs balsamic vinegar
3-4 tbs Lowery's Seasoning
cheese (we used Munster, and cut each slice into 1/4s, and they were close to the right size)
1 tomato, sliced
potato rolls (cut in half to work as a bun)

Directions
Melt butter over medium heat in a frying pan.
Add onions and saute until clear.
In bowl, combine onion, hamburger, catsup, vinegar and Lawry's.
Make small patties (I was able to get 9 total), and return to frying pan.
Cover with tin foil tent and cook roughly 5 min on each side, or until almost done.
Remove foil and add cheese to tops of sliders, if desired. Finish cooking, 2-3 minutes.
Remove sliders from pan and place on/in rolls. Add a tomato slice to each. Top as desired.

I loved these! They were strong on onion flavor, but were a little different from traditional sliders with onions on top (which I'm not as big a fan of). And Mr. L was right - these rolls were amazing. I had the rest of these for the following dinner and lunch, and now I'm just a little sad that they are gone. :(

The perfect muffin quest continues

OK, the last batch of muffins was really good, but we thought that a little citrus (orange) flavor and maybe a little more exotic of a dried fruit - like cranberry (ok, so not that exotic) would really make them killer. Rather than start experimenting with something I know nothing about (and really, keeping that perfect balance of liquids is elusive to me), I thought I'd try out a couple of recipes that were already supposed to be orangy. Maybe I'd find the perfect muffin recipe, or at the least, I thought I could find a recipe that could be merged with the almost-prefect muffin. Ha!

I tried searching sparkrecipes, since that's where I found the first recipe, and I knew that it would be more likely to produce recipes that were healthy (because, after all, that is really the goal here). Here are the two I tried out. They are the only two recipes that come up when you search sparkrecipes for orange muffin.

First, I tried out the orange cranberry muffin. Just what we ordered, right? Well, first, I must disclaim that I couldn't find fresh or frozen cranberries (no dried, for this recipe!), so I substituted cherries. Mmmm... cherries. I think that they were a good choice. However, this one fails in the orange flavor, and at 164 calories and no bran falls a touch short on ideal nutrition.

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Ingredients
2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

3 Tablespoons melted butter

2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (approx from one orange)

1 cup chopped fresh or frozen cranberries

Directions
Combine dry ingredients.

Make a well in center.

Combine milk, egg and oil, add to dry ingredients.

Mix just til all blended together, don't over mix.

Add orange peel and cranberries.

Mix lightly.

Spoon into muffin pans lined with paper liners or well greased.

Bake at 450 for 18-20 minutes.

Number of Servings: 12

The second was the Orange Bran Flax Muffin. Once again, I had to make a supply-based substitution. I didn't have/couldn't find any wheat bran (and couldn't find my wheat germ until 2 days later), so I just used more oat barn instead. I don't know if this limited the range of flavor in these muffins, but I think it might be worth trying again to find out. To me, these at least look healthier. And they are definitely a more dense muffin (although the above muffins were surprisingly dense/filling too). The raisins were definitely necessary in these to give them a little kick, since (in spite of having two full oranges in them), the orange flavor was hard to find in these guys too. These guys came in at 180 calories, but were pretty much pure fiber, so I can deal with that.

Orange Bran Flax Muffins

Ingredients
1.5 cup oat bran

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup ground flax seed

1 cup wheat bran

1 TBS baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 oranges,cut into 1/8's

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup canola oil

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1.5 cup golden raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.

Line 2 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

In a large bowl,combine oa tbran,flour,flax seed,wheat bran,baking powder and salt.

Set aside.

COMBINE oranges,brown sugar,buttermilk,oil,eggs and baking soda in a food processor.

Mix well.

POUR orange mixture into dry ingredients.

Mix until well blended.

Stir in raisins.

DIVIDE batter evenly among muffin cups.

Bake 18-20 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pans for 5 min. before moving to a cooling rack.

makes 24 muffins

Both were pretty easy to make, although the cherry/cranberry muffins required significantly less clean up. I'm still searching for the perfect combination, but I think that the original Breakfast Muffin Bonanza is far in the lead right now.

Bad baker

I have been a very bad baker. But there was a reason! I have been busy coordinating the Junior League Bargain Bazaar Bake Sale (wow, that's a long title)!

Corn and Potato Chowder

I've been trying to cook more meals at home. The goal has been to make something that I can eat for dinner and take to work for lunch (because I can eat Lean Cuisine every day, but my cooking is definitely better!).

This recipe says it's six servings. I tend to think that it's closer to 3. It's still only 318 calories for a double-serving, so I don't feel guilty.

Corn and Potato Chowder

Ingredients
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 russet potatoes, diced
1 tbsp butter or margarine
2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1 cup skim evaporated milk
1 cup corn (if canned, drained)
pinch salt
pinch pepper(optional - 1 tbsp red pepper flakes)

Directions
Melt butter over med-hi heat in a large pot,
Saute onions for 6-9 min, until clear/cooked through
Add potatoes and broth, bring to boil
Reduce heat to low and simmer partially covered for 15-20 min.
Add evaporated milk, corn, salt pepper (and red pepper), and keep over low for another 5 min. to heat through.

Now, there are no pictures this time, because I wasn't paying attention. First, I burned the sauteing onions. Then I burned the potatoes and broth (by keeping it way too high and boiling off all the broth). But I wasn't ready to admit failure, so I just added more broth and scraped the bottom of the pot. I probably shouldn't have scraped the bottom. My entire apartment smells like that smokey bar-b-cue flavor, and my soup has it too. And the soup looks... ashy. It's got a few giant flecks of charred remains, and the whole thing has a grey tint. but honestly, it still tastes pretty good (once you pick out the giant black charred remains of potatoes).

Gingersnaps

I just realized that I never posted pictures of the completed Christmas gingersnaps! I ended up with 30-some boxes of a dozen cookies each. I found these perfect boxes in the last week before Christmas - they were super cheap, and the perfect measurements (4x4x5).. Yay! So, I wrapped the cookies individually in wax paper, sealed each with a sicker from etsy, and stacked them nicely in their boxes. I was more proud than I ought to have been. :)

Best New Year's Eve EVA!

I got engaged!!! So, it looks like most of my blogging energy will be over on StepfordWedding for at least the next 8 months. I've already been slacking off, but I think it's time to officially withdraw from all the great baking contests and challenges in which I was participating.

Of course, I'll be spending a lot of time on wedding planning, but I'm also trying to pay off my (other than student loan) debt and lose some weight before the wedding. And it'll be easier to accomplish both of these goals if I do a little less baking.