Black Bean Quesadillas

One of my family's favorite quick meals is a good quesadilla. Even Mr. Picky will eat them. As long as they're cheese. And not any of those "weird" cheeses. Monterey Jack, Colby, or other similar mild melty cheeses. Luckily, it's pretty east to customize quesadillas.

Anyways, this summer, living in a new town, we started with a new CSA. And through that CSA, I discovered shishito peppers. They are delicious, mild, and the name is fun to say. And they are fantastic in this quick and healthy quesadilla recipe!

Eggplant Parmesan Pasta

There are a lot of vegetables that I think get overlooked. Eggplant, for me, used to be one of them. Sure, they're pretty, what with their shiny purpleness and all, but they also can be intimidating. But this dish, this one, is a game changer for eggplant. I'm telling you, when I make this, it gets actual cheers from my family. Cheers, I tell you! Also, as with many of my favorite recipes, it's really easy, quick to put together, and gets some good healthy stuff into your hungry mouths.

Korean-Style Quick Beef and Veg

So, I promised to get back to blogging recipes. And as much as I love cooking and eating and all things food related, this is ending up being a much more difficult task for me than it has any right to be. So, be gentle on me as I slog through this.

You see, it's been a crazy few years for me. Growing kids with increasingly hectic schedules, family members dealing with life-threatening issues, job changes, and to top it all off, a move. Don't get me wrong, things aren't dire or anything. In fact, they're quite good, knock on wood. But it just makes for the type of situation where here it's coming around to the end of 2017 already and I still haven't sent out last year's Christmas cards with our change of address. THAT kind of crazy.

The other thing that I find complicating is my own sense of perfectionism. I have a difficult time doing things if I don't feel like I can do them the way I think they should be done. I like to show you pictures of all the steps of the recipes I make. I like to have a lighthearted banter in the way I write. I like the food to be easy to make and also delicious. Most of the times, those are not a problem, but right now, the first of those is giving me stress. In the house we moved to, the kitchen is really great, in terms of functionality and usability, and while it needs some renovation, that's probably about 5 years or so down the road at this point. But it's in the center of the house. And while our kitchen has always been the figurative center of our home, it wasn't the literal center before. Which may not seem like it's a big deal, or something that would affect my blogging, but...

...There's no natural light in my kitchen. Which suuuuuuuuuucks for taking pictures. Typical house lighting makes for weird shadows and altered coloring, and I'm not yet really great at photo editing. So I either have to skip all the pictures (Nooooooo! But maybe work with fewer...), take food I want to shoot to other rooms that have natural light (awkward, but yes), deal with shoddy pictures (ugh, hopefully not too often), learn how to preform miracles in photoshop (working on it), get a lightbox or other tools to enable better pictures (on my Christmas list), or just deal with that the pictures kind of are what they are and still forge ahead with the blogging while looking for ways to improve the photographic situation.

So, that's what I'm doing. Like I said, be gentle with me.

And now, back to the food!

CSA Summer Weeks 5 and 6: Bacon, Kale, and Potato Comfort Dinner

Wow, computer issues have plagued me, and between that, the kids going back to school, and me starting a new job, I feel like I've totally neglect the blog for the last couple of weeks.  Yikes.

So, it's time to jump back in, full speed ahead!

I have 2 weeks of CSA shares that I'm back-logged on, but luckily, the recipe I have for you today uses things included in both of them.

Week 5 brought tomatoes, more ground cherries, potatoes, garlic, hot and sweet peppers, spinach, a leek, and kale.

Asian Inspired Lemon Cucumber and Tomato Salad

The lemon cucumbers is my garden are going absolutely bonkers this year, and I'm hearing from fellow lem-cuke lovers that they are finding the same thing.  Personally, I could eat these babies raw all day long, but it seemed like people were looking for something more to do with them.  And so, I give to you, this Asian Inspired Lemon Cucumber and Tomato Salad!

CSA Share - Summer Week 1 and Asian Pesto

It's finally summer season for our CSA!  Unlike spring and fall, where we get shares every week, we opt to go every other week through the summer.  With my own garden going so well, and my addiction to farmers' markets, it seems to be the right choice for us.  Although the way my kids are eating and growing lately, next year may be the year we go to weekly summer pick-ups.  So this is our first week of summer shares, but it's the farm's second summer share...for the sake of my sanity, I'm just going to number them on my own.  So, share number one:

We've got romaine lettuce, snap peas, bok choy, zucchini, summer squash, komatsuna, green onions, garlic scapes, and Tokyo Bekana, which is totally new to me!  It's an Asian green, that tastes very similar to cauliflower to me.

Spring (Grilled) Chicken

Sometimes, fate works in mysterious ways.

And sometimes, fate does its work in unusual places, like, say, at Binny's Beverage Depot.

Maybe I should explain.  Give a little background.  You see, the hubs and I have had a lot of fun visiting local distilleries, but obviously, we can't buy everything at every distillery.  Sometimes there are gems that we leave there for another visit.  And sometimes, the flavors of some of those spirits left behind stick in my head.  Haunt me, if you will, in a good way.  This is the story of one of those.

One of the distilleries that we have recently visited is Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks, Michigan.  They make some fantastic whiskeys, gins, rums, and other spirits.  We walked out with a bottle of their Ravenswood Rye Whiskey, which my husband really enjoyed.  But the drink that stuck in my head was their Humdinger Jalapeno Spirit.  It had really surprised me!  I'm usually pretty sensitive to spicy, and tend to prefer things on the mild side, which jalapeno is usually not.  The Humdinger had all the clean, fresh flavor of a jalapeno, but somehow avoided the burn that I usually dread.  It sounds cheesy, but after that day, I continued to play back the flavor in my head, imagining the possibilities.

Melted Legumes - Red Lentil Pasta

Some people love shopping for clothing, and can spend hours staring at shoes and purses.  Me?  I'm like that shopping for food.  I'm pretty much a perimeter shopper at the grocery store, but if you find me in an aisle, it's probably the international foods aisle, searching for inspiration.  Red lentils are in that aisle, and they always catch my eye with their fiery orange color.  They are quick to cook, and easy to use in soups.  But, in a surprising twist, they also can make a delicious, velvety pasta sauce.

This recipe is meatless, and can easily be vegan, if you use vegetable broth.  It's hearty and satisfying, and most likely different than any pasta sauce you've tried.  If you wanted to meat it up a bit, it would go well with either chicken or maybe Italian sausage either cooked into it or on the side.

So, first, chop up an onion and a few cloves of garlic.  Saute them in a medium to large pot with a little olive oil.  Measure out 3/4 cup of red lentils.  Take a cup each of water and broth.  I used chicken, but vegetable broth works well too, and like I said before, keeps it vegan.  Combine that all in the pot and bring it to a boil.  You might want to add in some spice, if you'd like.  Red pepper flakes are good with this, but this time I went a little crazy and used curry powder for the heat.  As each member of my family walked in the door when I was cooking this, every single one of them asked, "What smells so good?".  Love it!

Tuna Noodle Casserole

You know how much I love to revamp comfort food...so here's another good one: tuna noodle casserole.

Typically made with condensed soup and canned peas and mushrooms, making it from scratch ups the deliciousness a thousand times over without taking away from that "hug on a plate" comfort that this creamy casserole brings.

Souper Douper: Pasta e Fagioli

What makes soup good?  I'm sure it differs for everyone, but I have some high soup standards.  It should be warming, comforting, and tasty.  Good soups have layers of flavor and texture.  It can be hard to get that done quickly.  This Italian bean soup recipe manages to layer the flavor without taking hours of simmering.

I based it on a Giada De Laurentiis recipe for pasta e fagioli.  It's a great lunchtime soup, terrific with a slice of warm bread and a salad.  My kids like to dip, so the bread is a must around here, and Costco carries a great natural frozen french bread that can be in and out of the oven in the time it takes to make a pot of this pasta e fagioli.

There's a Leek in my Stroganoff!

So, you know how much I like to share quick, easy, yummy dinners that my family enjoys, right?  I kind of look at this blog as a small part of my legacy...a sort of recipe memoir online that my kids will be able to reference when they're grown up and on their own and craving a taste of home.

On that note, this recipe is one that pops up for dinner probably every other week.  It takes less than a half hour, and if I set my rice cooker and have a teeny bit of prep work done, I can cut that down to under 20!  And it's the kind of dinner that wraps you up like a warm, comforting blanket of creamy deliciousness and soothes all that ails you.

I'm just going to jump right into the recipe.  The original recipe is from Jamie Oliver, which is just icing on the cake for me, since I have a minor chef crush on him.

Cook it Once, Cook it Twice, Cooking Chicken Soup...

Okay, so, if you read the last post, you now have a pretty good recipe for a roasted chicken.  If your house is anything like mine, when you're done with it, you might not have much left except for the bones.  You could throw them away, or you could use them to make even more yumminess by making some chicken stock.

My apologies in advance, but I don't have pictures for the stock part.  It's something that I generally throw together without even really thinking about it, much less about taking pictures to blog.  I'll have photos of the good stuff, I promise.  You'll have to use your imagination on the stock for now.

Really quick, for those of you wondering about the difference between stock and broth, from what I understand, broth is made with scraps and meat as well as bones, whereas stock is usually more just the bones.  This means broth is usually a little richer and deeper in flavor.  Lesson of the day.

Cinnamix and Cinnaminis - Reinventing "Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle"

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I'm not big on processed food.  But you also probably realize that I take everything in a balance.  Sometimes, there are the rare processed foods that I use because either there are no good natural substitutes for and I can't live without them, or there are better options but they are amazingly time-consuming and high-effort.

Then, sometimes, that food gets discontinued, and my hand is forced.

What this all about?  Cinnamon rolls.  You see, Pampered Chef had this wonderful little "spice mix" called Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle.  And on the label of this spice mix was a recipe for Easy Cinnamon Rolls.  And that recipe delivered what it promised in its name.  They were easy, they were cinnamony, and they were great for a breakfast treat.  I'd whip some up maybe a couple of times a month, easy enough to do on school mornings, and they were always a big hit.

Pot Roast and Beyond

You readers know how much I love my grass-fed beef.  I mean, I don't have 2 extra freezers in my house just for ice cream...although that would be pretty awesome too!  And one of the easiest, most delicious ways to cook up that beef is a good old fashioned pot roast.

Easiest thing in the world.  Peel and quarter a few onions, cut some potatoes into large pieces, peel some carrots and cut them into large pieces, put a beef roast in the crock pot, toss the veg around it, sprinkle it with salt and pepper or whatever seasonings you like, pour a half cup of water over it all, cover and cook for 4-6 hours on high, 8-10 on low.  Bam.  Pot roast.

As much as I love pot roast, I've come to love it even more for the leftovers.  Because...pasta.

Cornmeal Waffles

My family is big on breakfast.  For little Mr. Picky, it's probably the only meal all day that I can be sure he will eat really well, so I try to make it a good one.  Pancakes and waffles are always a hit.

Waffles used to intimidate me.  Like, a lot.  But some recipes, like Cooking Light's Bacon Maple Waffles would be so irresistible that I would overcome that hesitation.  Then I found Mollie Katzen's recipe for Amazing Overnight Waffles, and waffles became a regular occurrence.  It creates the most perfect waffles: tangy, crisp, delicious.  But the fact is that I don't always have my act together enough to remember or think to prep batter the night before.

Enter a Better Homes and Gardens breakfast magazine, and their recipe for Cornmeal Buttermilk Waffles.  Quick, easy, made of things that I usually have on hand (except the buttermilk...we'll get to that!), and just different enough to be interesting.

Here's what you do:  Get your waffle maker prepped.  For me, that means spraying it down with coconut oil and plugging it in to heat.  You want it to be nice and hot when those first waffles go in, so it doesn't turn into a sticky mess.  I have a 4-square Belgian Krups that we've had since we got married.  It's got dings and smudges and it has a wonky leg that I have to keep re-supergluing, and there are probably fancier machines on the market, but with some things, I'm just a "stick to what works" kind of gal.

Paprika and Pierogi: Hungarian Chicken Stew

Baby, it's cold outside.  Really, really cold.  Which makes it stew weather.

Stews are great.  They are warm and filling, like a cozy blanket for your insides.  I love curling up with a bowl of savory goodness and watching the snow fall from the comfort of my warm kitchen.

This chicken stew is one of the favorites around my house, as far as stews go.  Probably because of the pierogi.  I mean, you can't go wrong with a good pierogi.  They're potatoes wrapped in pasta...I could practically live in them and die of carb happiness.  I'm not going to lie to you here, homemade pierogi are amazing.  I used to work as a teacher in an area in the city that had a large concentration of Polish immigrants, and I have tasted some fantastic pierogi.  Thank goodness for cultures that like to feed the people who teach their children!  However, also from personal experience, making homemade pierogi is not the easiest process.  And, as much as I like spending all day in the kitchen, I also like meals that you can get on the table in a decent amount of time on busy days.  Fortunately, there are a lot of good natural brands of pierogi in the freezers of grocery stores these days.  Not quite as good as homemade, but still pretty darn delicious.  Peter and Pat's pierogi are the ones I've been using lately, after discovering them at a Sam's Club exhibit thing.  For this recipe, I would go with either onion or cheddar pierogi.

Okay, I got a bit ahead of myself there.  Let's get to the stew.

Takin' Care of Business

Please tell me that I'm not the only crazy person with a huge stack (okay, let's be honest, stacks) of recipes clipped out of magazines and papers and such.  Mine have gotten out of control.  So, after having a long weekend and seeing as how the first snow fell here yesterday, I'm ready to dig in and start trying some of them in hopes of thinning out or *gasp* organizing the mass.

Here's what I'm hoping to try this week:

Tuscan Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup

Cold weather is on its way.  I mean, unless you live somewhere near the equator, where it's pretty warm all year.  Or if you're reading this in spring, for some reason.  Or if you've totally bought into global warming so much that you don't think it gets cold anymore.  Or if you're somewhere like Australia, where the seasons are opposite ours here in the American Midwest.  Here, cold weather is on the way.

You need to have some soup recipes in your back pocket.  Soup is amazing.  It can be warm and soothing, and while you can spend a whole day (or more!) on building flavors, there are some great soups that you can make in that 30-minute time frame that everyone's so enamored with.

Cindrella's Revenge Part 2: Sweet, Delicious, Muffiny Delight

So, I've throw down my own gauntlet.  A week's worth of pumpkin posts.  One each day, for a week.  And honestly, I'm not sure how it's going to happen, but I do my best to always follow through with what I say I'll do.

It'll take more than pumpkin posts during a busy week to break me.  You guys are totally worth it.

So, today's post is a heartwarmer for me.  Pumpkin muffins.  I love muffins, I love pumpkin...I adore these.  So do my kids.  And my husband.  And pretty much anyone who's tried them.  I've taught this recipe to my daughter's girl scout troop, and it was a big hit.  So, basically, this recipe is easy enough to make with a group of 15 seven-year-olds.  Who all...want...to help.

The Best Things You Probably Aren't Eating Yet: Garlic Scapes

Behold the garlic scape.  Small yet mighty, beautiful but with a bite, simple in look but intense in flavor.  Garlic scapes and I were introduced through my CSA the first year we joined it, and I fell in love at first taste.