artichokes and latkes

Don’t worry, they weren’t served together!

First up, latkes with homemade applesauce and dill yogurt sauce. I swear we don’t eat potatoes every week, but Luigi had never had latkes so I figured we should at least do it once. They were essentially fried (we don’t have a real fryer, but ya know, lot’s of oil and such) and they were delicious paired with the cool sauces. The only pitfall was the smell that lingered for the entire day following.

Next came artichokes by Luigi – sauteed with onions and served with grilled lemon chicken. I was surprised when I went recipe hunting to find so many artichoke recipes based on jarred artichokes, but as I continue to learn, cooking methods over here compared to the U.S. are often quite different. We went with fresh artichokes and although they take quite a while to cook, it was fun to learn about a vegetable that I knew so little about!

 

colcannon pie

Even though St. Patrick’s Day isn’t really a thing here, I felt as though we had to celebrate at least a little. The Saturday before, my head was spinning with recipes – Guinness cupcakes! Soda bread! Potatoes! Cabbage! Meat? But I quickly decided that since it was on a Tuesday, a giant meal wasn’t going to happen and it was best to stick to something simpler.

I settled on colcannon pie, also known as fancy baked mashed potatoes! Add to that some Guinness, bread and cheese, Flogging Molly and a post-dinner visit to the Irish pub for another Guinness and some live Irish music, and it all came together for a perfect little celebration!

strata!

I am quite sick of cold season vegetables – broccoli, kale, squash, cauliflower, spinach, enough! Wait, I will always love kale, I’m sorry kale! But still, I’m becoming anxious for new flavors as Spring teases us with it’s arrival! So now that we have beautiful and equally delicious peppers in the store means that I’m using peppers every chance I get. So this week, with a pile of dry bread sitting in the bread bin, I decided to try out a red pepper and goat cheese strata. 

It needed a little more egg to keep the peppers, onions and cheese together on top but otherwise, it was great and I look forward to trying it out again for a spring time brunch in the following months.

 

 

coconut rice

Still behind on posting but I’ll push ahead!

Being on a lime kick last week led to another fun dish for dinner. We had savory coconut rice based on a recipe from budget bytes, a site that was recommended to me by my sister and I have come to love for new ideas!

We added sauteed onions and bell peppers and garnished it with peanuts and lime. Overall, the rice was a bit rich and I think that I will stick to sweet coconut rice with fresh fruit as a dessert in the future, but it was a nice new way to use the coconut milk we had in the cupboard.

And as I continue my battle with breads, for Sunday morning breakfast I made cinnamon raisin beer bread!

fajitas

Goodness, I have fallen a bit behind on posting – time to catch you all up! Two weeks ago . . . fajita night!

Okay, okay, it’s not that fajitas are a wildly different meal compared to our usual rice-veggie-protein routine, but over here, Mexican food (Tex-Mex technically but that phrase doesn’t ring as nicely to me) is extremely difficult to find the ingredients for. So two weeks back, finding fajita fixings was my main goal.

Some of the difficult items on my list were: tortillas (not piadina), cayenne pepper, avocado, limes, good organic bell pepper (difficult this time of year), Corona beer, and although I had to visit 4+ grocery stores to find it all, I managed to find almost everything and we enjoyed a spicy fajita meal come that Friday!

bbq chicken

I’ll admit, I did not actually make the barbeque sauce, but I really, really like bbq sauce so when we found it in the grocery store’s ethnic food area (yuuup, it’s considered ethnic), I figured, why not enjoy something different on our Sunday night in? So, we smothered some chicken in the sauce and stuck it in the oven, we roasted some potatoes, and the result, paired with a nice beer from EnkiAle, made for some fun pub-like grub at home!

Following taglietelle con carciofi (artichokes) by Luigi on Friday night, I whipped up ginger lemon scones for a San Valentino breakfast with eggs and mimosas! It was my first time making scones and they were a success, however, I don’t think that you can go wrong with all that cream a butter!

We have been eating well these days, although the winter foods are beginning to bore me a bit. Because of this, for the coming week I haven’t quite decided what to make for our new recipe. With the schools closed for the week, my work schedule is much lighter leaving more time to cook . . . suggestions anybody? 

french onion soup and kale quinoa bowls

Two new dishes last week! First up, Luigi made french onion soup complete with toasted bread and melty fontina cheese baked all together in the oven. It was rich but delicious and a nice way to kick off the snowy week to come.

Then from my side of the table came a super fast kale and quinoa bowl which will now be my go to cozy winter dish! Quinoa, steamed kale mixed with goat cheese, shallots, lemon and pine nuts – it took about 20 minutes and was a great hearty meal in just one bowl!

potato gratin

Potatoes and cheese just work together, ya know? So, to take a break from our rosemary breakfast potatoes, we decided to try out a simple gratin in order to get our monthly potato fix. The recipe was a bit bland; it needed some spices besides the pepper and salt it called for, and also, more cheese! It only called for cheese on top, which wasn’t quite enough for the flavor and also because the potatoes fell apart into a big potato mess when we tried to serve it.

Therefore . . . no picture . . . instead, also new this week, cinnamon apple muffins with eggs for Sunday morning brunch!

 

cauliflower fritters

This week in our quest for new recipes: Cauliflower fritters

Nothing too fancy – steamed then chopped cauliflower mixed with egg, flour, cornstarch, salt, pepper and oregano, and then fried on the stove for about 5 minutes per side. We enjoyed them with spicy black beans. The flavors of the dishes weren’t perfect together. Instead we imagine the fritters would have gone nicely more as an appetizer with a yogurt sauce, and the black beans would have been more fun for a southwest themed dinner with rice, avocado, and fresh salsa. But they left us full, happy, and we made enough to enjoy them as leftovers the next day, always a plus!

 

welcome to a new year

Somehow January is already more than half way over, but I can still wish you all a happy new year! And in light of newness and looking forward to 2015, I decided it was time for a new look and one food themed resolution. The resolution put simply: we will make one new dish each week.

The details: the dish cannot be a version of something we always make with just a tweak; for example our vegetable and rice stir fry with different vegetables or Luigi’s wonderful piadina but with different fillings. Instead, the dish has to be something different and more interesting, using seasonal produce as much as possible and it also counts if it is a new attempt to a previously failed recipe.

So far we have stuck to it. We’ve had cheesy baked cabbage by Luigi, homemade margherita pizza with rucola, butternut squash lasagne, and for a breakfast take on our plan: beer bread and almond raisin granola.

And to start off the third full week of January right, tonight we are making cauliflower fritters with black beans.

With this new plan, my posts will become simpler – time doesn’t allow lengthy posts even once a week, and honestly, aren’t we all a little overwhelmed with the millions of food blogs out there? I will instead use this as a way to share my little food stories with my friends and family both near and far.

So welcome to a new take on my eating dilemmas and happy 2015!