Christmas Eve Dinner 2014

We've been making a lot of fantastic meals lately and happily, my fiance has taken an interest in cooking! We decided to push our culinary skills and make a 5-course Christmas Eve dinner. Admittedly, there was a long gap between the main course and dessert because we were stuffed and also pretty tipsy on spiced wine. Here's our menu, links to recipes found online. Most of our dishes came from the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook (2000). We roasted all of the vegetables the day before, which was a really good idea.

Drinks:
Spiced brandy wine (from Martha Stewart)

Appetizers:
Steamed artichokes with garlic butter
Mediterranean baked feta with tomatoes (from Smitten Kitchen)

Main course:

Cuban style sweet potatoes (from Martha Stewart Living, but here's the recipe)

Roasted vegetable pot pie (Martha Stewart's recipe)

Dessert:

Blueberry fool (similar recipe)

Oh, and for Christmas brunch I made Smitten Kitchen's apple cheddar scones, a favorite of mine!

Cold sesame noodle salad

I just made these dudes but I made a few modifications so here I am writing it down. Instead of using 12 oz. of noodles, I just used one whole package of thin spaghetti noodles, which is 16 oz. I also added one package of pressed and cubed (uncooked) tofu.

So I decided to double the amount of sauce to cover the extra noodles and tofu. It worked out just about right! I made the sauce in our Ninja blender, adding a little bit of the hot pasta water to thin it out.

Spinach and artichoke grilled cheese

I may or may not have a Pinterest board dedicated to grilled cheeses, and somewhere lurking in the back of my mind (and the back of my fridge) were the ingredients to this masterpiece.

I recently learned about inside-out grilled cheese and it's safe to say we're entering a new era of deliciousness.

To make this, I spread pesto on one piece of bread and Veganaise on the other. While some butter melted in the pan, I shredded about 2 oz. of mozzarella cheese. I put on bread in the pan and sprinkled on the cheese (leaving about 2 Tbsp behind), some spinach, and chopped artichoke hearts (just a few will do-- I only used one quarter of one because that's all I had left). Added the second piece of bread on top.

After it cooked for a while on low heat, I flipped it over. While the former bottom is still hot, I sprinkled half of the leftover cheese on the bread (again, you don't need much). Then, once the now-bottom is starting to get brown, I flipped it over again and repeated the process (adding more cheese, one more final flip). That was it!

Recent recipes: Eggplant salad, flatbread, quesadillas, and sweet potatoes

Some recent recipes I've enjoyed:

Lunch: Mediterranean eggplant and barley salad from Smitten Kitchen. Ingredient substitutions are easy in this salad, but the eggplant was the best part!

Appetizers: Flatbreads with goat cheese and caramelized onions

Dinner: Black bean and sweet potato quesadillas (my recipe, from a cookbook, was similar to this only it didn't use any onions)

Snack: Baked tofu (marinated in balsamic and soy sauce) with roasted sweet potatoes and topped with halved cherry tomatoes and green onions

And finally, I retried this enchilada recipe veganized. Instead of cheese I used a block of tofu, drained, crumbled, and lightly browned with some cumin and red pepper. It ended up making too much of the filling, so next time I would cut down the corn a bit.

Breakfast (and lunch) tacos

I previously wrote about breakfast tacos here, but ever since a visit to Austin, TX, I've been stepping up my breakfast taco game. I had people over for brunch and people brought their favorite taco fillings, including sauteed peppers and onion, goat cheese, and soyrizo.

As I'm always searching for easy, healthy, and slightly creative breakfast foods, this week I experimented with some more b-fast taco variations. This was my favorite:

First, I started with two small, flour Rosario's tortillas and heated them up in a small ceramic fry pan. Meanwhile, I mixed together one whole egg and one egg white only and a bit of salt and milk (or cream). I also get out my other ingredients: goat cheese, avocado, and salsa.

Once the tortillas were heated on both sides, I sprayed the pan with a little oil and then poured in the eggs while on low heat.

Although you can add the avocado and goat cheese at the end, it was really good when mixed in. So after adding the eggs to the pan, I put in half and avocado, cubed, and then later some crumbles/pieces of goat cheese.

When the eggs were fully cooked I divided them into the two tortillas and topped them with Trader Joe's garlic chipotle salsa. I really liked that salsa and its combination of roasted tomatoes, garlic, and vinegar, but it was pretty watery. I didn't mind; isn't that how salsa is supposed to be?