Scrumptious…Salad??

Yep, Scrumptious (Souvlaki) Salad! 

If you know anything about Devin, you know that he is a brilliant musician and teacher…and that he strongly dislikes vegetables.  He will eat them when they are placed in front of him, but he would really never voluntarily eat them (unless perhaps he has momentarily lost his mind).  This makes cooking vegetarian meals rather challenging.   I know he will eat a plate of veggies, but I would rather make something that he will also enjoy.

This salad (while it has chicken on it) is one of Devin’s absolute favorite dinners, which is unheard of.  I know my mother-in-law is probably shocked to hear that not only does Devin eat this salad, but he loves it!  It is all about the dressing.  And partially the feta.

So the dressing is definitely the star.  It is delicious.  

Here is the recipe I follow:

Souvlaki Dressing

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp (good) extra virgin olive oil

5 tbsp red wine vinegar

(juice from) 1/2 a lemon

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried oregano

lots of fresh cracked black pepper

I tend to put everything in an old olive (penn mac) container and mix it up.  I leave the dressing on the counter because when you put it in the refrigerator, the olive oil begins to solidify.  I think it is fine for a couple days out on the counter, but I doubt it will last that long.  See the pictures below for assembly:

Oil and Vinegar

Fresh Squeezed Lemon

Dried Thyme and Oregano

Lots of Black Pepper

Shake Shake Shake

Next, I cut two boneless skinless chicken breasts into strips. I put them in a large freezer bag (for easy clean up) and pour about 1/3 of the dressing on them.  Make sure all of the chicken is covered, throw it in the fridge and forget about it (for a few hours or a day).

I put whatever I have on hand in my salad.  For this salad, I had some mixed greens, romaine, cucumber, celery, chickpeas, carrots and kalamata olives.  I think that the must haves for it to be souvlaki are the romaine and olives.

Oh and without question lots of tasty tasty feta.  I used to dislike feta up until about 5 years ago.  Now, I cannot get enough of it.  It is my go to cheese.  Yum!

When ready, preheat the grill or a grill pan for the chicken. 

It is my understanding that a souvlaki salad also must come with pita.  I put the pita in foil and throw it on the grill with the chicken.  It sort of steams it and makes it soft and warm come eating time.  

I let the chicken get nice and browned on the grill (over high heat) until it looks like this:

Note:  If you can see in the corner of the above picture, the salad dressing tends to leak out once you shake it up for the first time to put on the chicken.  I recommend putting the container on a plate to avoid oil getting all over your counter.

It is up to you whether you want to dress the whole salad at once or just pour dressing on each individual salad.  All I know is that Devin likes extra dressing on the side to dip his salad pita into.

Silly Girls!

So Long!

Mmm Pumpkin

A couple things to blog about today.

First off.  I have all of my application material done!  I have to mail in two applications but besides that I am finished!  This is a good and a bad feeling.  Of course it is good that it is done and now it is in their hands to make the next move.  It is bad, because, well, it is done and I cannot take it back.  I am full of second guessing; “what if I shouldn’t have put that” or “I wish I had said this” or “I hope they get what I meant by that”, etc.  But like I said, what’s done is done.  Either they will like what I submitted, or they won’t.  Nothing I can do about it now.  Hopefully my references will also win them over (wink, wink Howard).

I am getting more and more excited for the holidays.  After my last post I was pretty depressed about it, but in talking to my family, I just cannot wait to go home and see everyone!  Also, the Christmas stuff out in the stores (you may say too early, I say exactly right) is helping to put me in the spirit.  I already bought a few gifts (Liv) and I am looking forward to shopping with my Step-mom (and Liv) over Thanksgiving.  There are also a few other things I am looking forward to over Thanksgiving, which I unfortunately cannot share just yet.  Basically it involves chicken wings. 

I have a couple recipes to share.  My facebook status on Friday read “the house smells like pumpkin…and it is not because of a candle.”  That’s right.  More pumpkin!  Sadly, I think it might be the last (aside from making the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars one last time).  I am not at all sick of it, but Devin is.  I don’t think I can get him to eat much more and it is not healthy for me to eat all of it.  So here is quite possibly the last of it (this year).  Nutella Cheesecake Pumpkin Muffins.  Yuuuuup!  Ah---May---Zing!  They are this delicious, moist pumpkin muffin with this incredible delectably sinful nutella/cream cheese combo in the middle.  They are very easy to make, although I messed it up a bit.

1.  Make sure your cream cheese really is room temperature.  Mine was still a little too cold so when I hand mixed it (you should probably use an electric mixer) with the nutella and egg, and it would not become entirely smooth, resulting in little cream cheese balls.  It really wasn’t a big deal taste or texture wise but they are definitely in there. 

Devin has this uncanny way of asking me about a mistake in my cooking/baking without realizing he is asking about a mistake and that it will most likely upset me.  He has a nose for picking out the flaws without knowing that they are flaws.  For example: “are these little cheesecake balls in here.”  And I always have to reply something like “yes it was a mistake, they are not supposed to be there, I know! Gosh!”  Then he doesn’t bring it up again.

2.  The directions say to put 2 tablespoons of pumpkin batter in the bottom of each cupcake, followed by 1 tablespoon of nutella cheesecake topped of with 2 more tablespoons of pumpkin batter.  I think my tablespoon is too big, or I just went a little heavy on the first two tablespoons of pumpkin batter.  It filled the cupcake two much and then I only had enough batter to put 1.25 tablespoons of pumpkin batter on the top of each.  This caused the bottom of the cupcake to be all pumpkin and the nutella to be just under the muffin top.  It still tastes great, don’t get me wrong, but I think I would have preferred the nutella mixture a little bit lower in the muffin.  I have a bad habit of not taking pictures while I am baking.  Sorry about that.  I will try to take more next time.

You can see the cheesecake balls.  Totally supposed to be there.

Devin asked me if I could make a whole muffin out of the nutella cheesecake.  Believe me, I also wish that that was possible.

Sunday night I made a Vegetable Ragu.  I liked it a lot.  Devin said that he would have liked it better if it didn’t have all of the vegetables in it.  I said “Oh you mean like spaghetti” and he said “exactly.”

I halved the recipe.

I started off by cooking some red and yellow onion (what I had in the fridge).  Removed it.

Then I cooked some crimini mushrooms.  This was a suggested addition to the recipe.  I love mushrooms, especially criminis and especially in red sauce.  When I used to go to Jacobis for dinner, I would always order angel hair pasta with red sauce and mushrooms.  Plus when you don’t eat meat, mushrooms add a sort of heartiness to a dish.  Removed it.

Then I cooked a small squash.  Removed it.

And some zucchini. 

Added everything back in.

Plus some grated carrot and a bunch of garlic.

The liquids to be used were a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce and some red wine.  Thank you Dave for buying this delicious wine when you visited and not finishing (and not being able to get it past the TSA).

I also added in some dried basil, parsley and oregano.  I did not have any Italian Seasoning on hand.  Oh and some salt and lots of pepper.  And a little sugar (oh honey honey).

The sauce simmered for about an hour.  Reduced a little bit.  It smelled like my mother-in-laws pizza sauce which had my mouth watering.  I added in some parmesan and then it looked like this:

I made some garlic bread.  I just split open a couple Mancini’s rolls, spread on some softened butter then sprinkled with garlic powder and dried parsley.  

They went into a 450 degree oven for about 5 minutes, or until browned.

Here is the finished ensemble:

Ok, before I go, there are two drinks that I need to discuss with you.

Here is the first:

Ocean Spray Sparkling Cranberry.  This stuff is terrific.  It tastes just like Clearly Canadian.  Did anyone else ever drink Clearly Canadian?  Oh my God, I used to get it all the time.  I loved loved loved the raspberry flavor.  This cranberry sparkling water is delicious!!

Next:

Yeah, Coconut Milk Egg Nog.  I first read a bit about this on a different food blog that I read.  I was very uncertain about it.  I had never had coconut milk before and I couldn’t get past my first sip of coconut water.  This stuff is surprisingly amazing.  It tastes exactly like egg nog and then you are left with a little coconut flavor at the finish.  I think that you should try it.  There is apparently also a Mint Chocolate one that Whole Foods did not have for some reason that I cannot possibly understand.  Maybe next week.  Hopefully next week.

It is not always easy to get a picture of the girls together.

Here is Deeley passed out on the kitty tree:

Here is Janey passed out on me:

So Long!

My Week in Frustration and Food

So first off, I am losing my mind over this whole finish your thesis and find a job in the next few months thing.  It makes me physically ill every second of every day. I also could cry on command; any minute, I am that close to big, sloppy, ugly tears.  Really not cool of me.  I know.  Surprisingly, I also know that everything is going to be fine.   Seriously.  I know that I will get a job and probably an awesome one, and I know that I will finish my thesis in time, and it will probably be great, but that does not help my constant nausea.  Thank God I exercise a bunch (to relieve loads of stress) or I might actually puke.   Life is just so uncertain right now for me and Devin and the girls and it just drives me crazy.  November 1^st caused this.  November 1^st rolled around and it all hit me like a ton of bricks.  I miss October.  Please come back. 

So in terms of jobs, I have to apply for academic positions now.  Right Now. Yesterday.  For jobs that begin next fall.  I finally have all of my documents completed (CV, Cover Letters, Teaching Statement, Research Statement).  I am working on submitting everything over the next couple days.  Hopefully my references will be in too.  There are a few really great jobs.  Really really great.  Dream jobs.  I am hoping (praying) that I get interviews.  People generally like me once they meet me, so hopefully with an interview, I can persuade them into realizing how awesome I am and that I would make a great addition to their department.  I will let you know if/when I get any interviews.  Then by the way, I have to start going on job talks and traveling while trying to write my thesis.  Should be a super few months.

Oh and by the way. The holidays are killing me this year.  I have mentioned that I LOVE CHRISTMAS!  I mean, I am obsessed.  The colors, the smells, the gift giving, the family, the traditions, I could go on for days.  And so, I love Thanksgiving (though it means the end of my pumpkin extravaganza) because it means one month until Christmas, but Oh.My.Goodness not this year!  I wish that Christmas would never come, because that means that I am that much closer to needing to finish.  I hate all of this for making me not want Christmas.  What is my life coming to?  So depressing.  If I try really hard not to think of anything else, I am super excited for Thanksgiving.  I haven’t been home in over 4 months so it is well overdue.  I miss my family and Buffalo.

Go Bills!

Go Sabres!

Please do not worry about me though.  Like I said, I know that everything will be fine. I just thought I would share with you what is going on with that side of my life right now.   It is therapeutic to write it all down.   Like Devin says, “the worst that could happen is we live happily ever after.”

And now onto the food.  I have a few new recipes to share that I tried out this week.  Some really good, some kind of good, some not so good, and some that really pissed me off.  You can ask Devin.  He came home and thought I was really mad at him when in all actuality I was super pissed at the sweet potato crisps (continue reading to find out why).

Burritos – The first of the new recipes were the Spicy Bean and Rice Burritos.  We love Mexican food (see BBQ Seitan Tacos) and so I wanted to try something new.  I probably will not make this again.  It just wasn’t exciting.  The mixture (rice, black beans, garlic, spices, chipotle in adobo) looked kind of gross and surprisingly did not have that much flavor.  There was a little heat, but not anything fun.  The recipe called for 4 dashes of cayenne pepper.  I think they forgot to put “sauce” on the end.  I used my trusty Franks.  And put in some actual cayenne pepper for good measure.  I forgot to buy flour tortillas.  I swear I had them in my hand at Whole Foods.  I do not know how they did not make it into the cart.  So we ended up using a few corn tortillas that I had.  It didn’t work.  I probably would have enjoyed this much more if we had the correct tortillas.  I had one taco and then loaded all the toppings onto some whole grain Scoops.  I liked that better.  So I really shouldn’t put down the burritos all together.  Maybe it was just the shell.  If you try it, let me know.

Soup – Next on the list was not actually a new recipe for me.  I made it once before but a long time ago.  It is honest to god one of the quickest/easiest/tastiest soups to make.  It is Tortellini and Spinach Soup from fresh365.  Veggie broth, garlic, spinach, basil, parmesan, tortellini.  That is it.  Well and some salt and pepper and olive oil.  But it is delicious.  Devin is not a huge fan of tortellini, but I loved it!  It was even better for lunch the next day.  Just a heads up: the tortellini soak up a lot of the broth when they cook in the soup.  You probably want to have more broth than you think you need.  I added some extra veggie broth the next day when I reheated it.

The next meal contained 3.5 recipes that I will share with you.

First, the green beans.  I got this recipe from my mother-in-law.  It is so super easy and it is so much tastier than just steamed green beans. Start by steaming your green beans until they are to your liking.  Then put them into the pan and back on the warm burner (turned off).  This gets all the moisture off the beans.  Add in some red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Done.  Yum.

Next, the reason why I got so pissed.  The Cheesy Sweet Potato Crisps.  I was going to make regular old sweet potato fries but I saw this recipe and decided that it would be fun to do instead.

You start by shredding up a couple sweet potatoes.  Once again I used white sweet potatoes because I couldn’t find orange ones.  I grated them up using my box grater.  Good arm work out.  No wonder my right arm is stronger than the left.  Next I squeezed the bejesus out of the potatoes to get all the starchy liquid out.  They got mixed with some egg whites, some parmesan and some salt and pepper.  I left out the rosemary because I am not a huge fan.  It normally overpowers a dish and I wasn’t in the mood.  I used my cookie scooper to get the potatoes onto the rack that was FULLY AND COMPLETELY SPRAYED WITH NONSTICK COOKING SPRAY. Then I “pressed them as thin as possible” as stated in the recipe directions and put them in the oven.

They looked nice when they came out didn’t they?  Well that was until I tried to get the damn things off of the rack.  They wouldn’t come off.  Over half of each potato crisp stuck to my one good cooling rack.  I was sooooo pissed.  Not only did I spend all this time making these crisps, but I couldn’t even eat most of them because they were stuck to the rack.  I should have taken a picture of it.  AHHH!  I am pissed now just thinking about it.

From the potatoes that I could eat, I am not sure I was crazy about them.  We both questioned the parmesan/sweet potato flavor combo.  I will just stick to making potato pancakes next time (I make amazing potato pancakes thanks to my Gramma.  I will share that recipe next time I make them).

Last but not least, the show stopper.  Crockpot BBQ Beer Chicken!  Yum!  I was all about this chicken.  It was so easy to make in the crockpot, it made the house smell great and it tasted delicious.

I put the chicken in around 11:30 a.m. 

I spiced it up.

Then I added in half of a Magic Hat.  It was all we had.  Probably expired.  I figured citrus would go fine with BBQ.

Next I put in the BBQ sauce.  I used Bone Suckin’ Sauce as recommended because it is thinner.  Sorry no picture.

I flipped the chicken a few times until 7:30 p.m. when I shredded it.

I shredded it right in the crockpot which was a good idea because I didn’t dirty a dish and was a bad idea because it was very hot standing over the pot.

I decided to combine this chicken with the presentation of another dish: BBQ Ranch Shredded Chicken Sliders.  I got potato slider buns.  Very cute.  Toasted them up and melted on some monterey jack. 

Then I piled on the chicken and topped it off with some romaine and some (too much) ranch.  It was sooo tasty!!  We both really really loved them!  I think I should come up with a rating scale.  Something like 0 - 5 spatulas, or ice cold glasses of milk, or chewy pumpkin cookies.  Any requests?  These sammies definitely get 5 pickles!

Speaking of pickles...I decided early in the day that I needed pickles to go with my BBQ.  Not sure pickles even go with BBQ.  I went to the store for the sole purpose of buying this:

If you ask my Gramma about me, she will inevitably tell you the pickle story.  I do in fact have a mild obsession with Dill pickles that started when I was younger.  Here is the story for any of you that have not met my Gram.  When I was little (I don’t know maybe 5), I was allowed to eat anything that was on the bottom shelf of the fridge.  This included a monster jar of pickles that my dad would leave the lid loose on (so I could get into it).  Apparently one morning I woke up extremely early (maybe 5 or 6 a.m.) got myself a pickle and called up my Gram to see what she was up to.  She says that all she could hear was me chomping away on my pickle and not understanding why she wasn't up and eating pickles if I was.  (Note: Gram tells the story way better.  She makes me seem cute and not like a pickle eating brat.)

I think it is a vinegar thing.  I love stuff with vinegar in/on it.

Well that is it for now.  I have a couple more new recipes in store for next week.

P.S. I wish I could throw down a chapter of my thesis like I can a blog entry.

So Long!