Smoky Deviled Eggs with Greek Yogurt

I love Greek Yogurt, so when I saw this recipe on The Kitchn, I knew I had to try it! I have to say, they turned out okay, not the best, but honestly, it's not because of the recipe its because I substituted regular paprika for smoked paprika, which is probably a no-no. I think that caused things to turn out not as well as I had hoped, but that's okay, they were still decent. I love sun dried tomatoes, so I think I added a bit more.

3.5 stars out of 5.

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Recipe from here.

Smoky Deviled Eggs with Greek Yogurt
makes 12

6 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
1 cup Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1/4 cup oil

Slice the eggs in half and scoop out the yolks into a bowl. Set the whites aside. Smash the yolks with the back of a fork. Add 1/2 cup Greek yogurt and stir until well combined. Add the remaining yogurt 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency. (I like mine very creamy, so I used the whole cup.)

Mix in the sun-dried tomatoes, smoked paprika and salt.

In a small saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Test the oil with a slice of shallot – when it instantly sizzles, it's ready. Add the shallot slices to the pan and cook until they turn golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, remove them from the pan and place on a paper towel. While they're still hot, sprinkle lightly with salt.

Using a small spoon, fill each egg white with a generous amount of filling.

If serving immediately, top each one with a frizzled shallot. Or, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Top with shallots right before serving. Best if eaten within a few hours.

Chicken Enchiladas

Hm. As you can see, I forgot to take a picture of this until someone reminded me near the end. This deliciousness was gobbled up pretty quickly by one of my small groups a few weeks back.

So. Let's get down to business. As you can see, because I stuffed as many enchiladas as I could into this picture, it turned more into a casserole than individual enchiladas, but it was still quite good tasting. I doubled the recipe for us and used two cans of cream of mushroom and simplified things for myself by buying one of those lovely lemon pepper rotisserie chickens from the grocery store. The chicken tasted great...almost like I cooked it myself. LoL. Oh man, yea right. Maybe after a few years, meat is a whole new level of cooking I'm not ready for. Oddly enough, I also misread the recipe and bought corn tortillas too, instead of flour. They worked just fine so long as you heat up a frying pan with no oil or butter or anything, and just heated up the tortillas prior to filling and folding them over so they didn't crack. I also used nonfat milk and everything turned out great so there's some wiggle room for that part. Happy enchilada-ing!

4.5 out of 5 stars!
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Recipe from here.

Prep Time: 15 Min / Cook Time: 30 Min /Ready In: 45 Min

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken breast meat
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
• 6 (12 inch) flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking dish.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and saute the green onion until tender (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the garlic powder, then stir in the green chiles, cream of mushroom soup and sour cream. Mix well. Reserve 3/4 of this sauce and set aside. To the remaining 1/4 of the sauce in the saucepan, add the chicken and 1/2 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese. Stir together.
3. Fill each flour tortilla with the chicken mixture and roll up. Place seam side down in the prepared baking dish.
4. In a small bowl combine the reserved 3/4 of the sauce with the milk. Spoon this mixture over the rolled tortillas and top with the remaining 1/2 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.

Bacon Wrapped Dates

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY, EVERYONE! Let's take a moment to appreciate all those awesome people who've risked their lives for us. And what better way to celebrate their sacrifices then by eating bacon! Wait--is that right?

Oh yes, you read that right. I love these things, customizable to appease just about any picky palate (save the vegetarian/vegan). So easy, so delicious, so quick to make. Who wouldn't love them?! The only thing I would say to the recipe below is the cook time is off. That really depends on what your bacon needs, how thick it is, etc. I would say eye it and decide for yourself. If you're reading this post and remotely interested in making this recipe, most likely, you've eaten enough bacon in your life that you can discern between raw and cooked bacon.

*Please note: the recipe below uses blue cheese as the stuffing, I just left that all out. :D

4.5 out of 5 stars. I took off 0.5 stars because let's face it, it ain't healthy at all.

Extra tips:
-Try using pineapple or another hard fruit for the center.
-For a creamy twist, try stuffing the dates with soft cheese such as cream cheese or feta (just like the recipe below)

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Recipe found here.

Ingredients

• 1 pound sliced bacon, cut in half
• 1 pound pitted dates
• 4 ounces blue cheese

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Slice dates in half, and open them up. Pinch off pieces of blue cheese, and place them into the center of the dates. Close the halves of the dates, and wrap a half-slice of bacon around the outside. Secure each one with a toothpick. Arrange in a baking dish or on a baking sheet with sides to catch any grease.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the bacon is crisp. Turn dates over after the first 20 minutes for even cooking.

Homemade Hummus Recipe

Good grief, I suck at this posting business. It's the pictures of recipes that I want to post that always slow me down. I would love to show you glossy, beautifully posed picture after picture that I've taken, but since I'm too cheap to get a cardreader, it's always an ordeal to upload pictures. So what happens? I upload pictures like once a month and who suffers? You. The nice people who take time out of their busy lives to visit this ridiculous blog. THANK YOU.

So, since we're talking about homemade lovely tahini recipes from the previous post, I thought I would post a homemade hummus recipe straight from one of my favorite foodie websites TheKitchn. (No, I did not take that picture either...sigh). Enjoy and thanks for your patience!!

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Ingredients

1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained
1/2 of a fresh lemon, juiced
1 small clove of garlic, minced finely
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. tahini. Note: if you don't want to buy premade tahini, here is an easy tutorial on how to make your own tahini.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sumac

Tools
A food processor or blender

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients except the sumac.

2. Blend until smooth. If it is a little dry, just add a little more lemon juice or olive oil, a teaspoon at a time, until you have the desired consistency. Add more salt and pepper if you like.

3. Scrape out the hummus in a serving bowl and sprinkle the sumac on top.

4. Serve with raw veggies, or spread on some pita bread.

Other Hummus Variations:

• Try drizzling a little pomegranate molasses on top.

• Add two to three tablespoons of harissa for a little kick.

• Blend in 1 cup of roasted vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, and garlic for a roasted vegetable hummus.

• For olive hummus, fold in 3/4 cup of chopped green or black olives.

• Nutty hummus is good! Try adding some lightly toasted walnuts or pine nuts.

• For a lemony hummus, add 1/4 cup of chopped preserved lemons.

Homemade Tahini Sauce

I love the idea of making my own tahini, especially because that leads to hummus! Enjoy the following recipe and try it for yourself! You could always use it to make your own hummus! Yummy!
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Recipe taken from here.

Tahini

Ingredients

2 cups sesame seeds
1/2 cup olive oil

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place sesame seeds on a rimmed baking sheet and toast sesame seeds for 5-10 minutes, shaking the seeds frequently with a spatula. Do not allow to brown. Cool for 20 minutes.

2. Pour sesame seed into the bowl of a food processor and add the olive oil. Blend until smooth, about 2 minutes. The tahini should be thick, yet pourable. Add more oil and blend again if it's too thick. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Better Beef Lasagna

I am a sucker for great Italian food. If it were up to me, I would eat Italian food every single day. Not necessarily every single meal, but certainly every day. Just imagine---okay, I need to stop because the drooling is affecting the effectiveness of the keyboard keys. Anyway, when we decided to go with an Italian theme, I immediately thought of lasagna because its delicious, wonderful, yummy, scrumptious---oh, crap, drool problem again.

One bad aspect of lasagna, however, is that it's usually loaded with fat and calories because of the beef and sheer excess of cheese used. Another drawback being time. Lasagna is so time consuming to make because there are just so many steps. I felt like this recipe by Elie Krieger, whom I love by the way, appropriately met my biggest concerns.

I made this recipe for a potluck for my small group and was really quite anxious. There's just a tad bit of pressure when you don't normally "cook" (yay baking!), and you're the one in charge of the entree (READ: if you screw up, everyone's screwed). Good times! But everything turned out decently.

Don't be alarmed by the intermediate level difficulty of this recipe, it isn't too bad actually. Or maybe I was just expecting a war and it turned out just fine. It really did take around the time described below to prep and cook. One of the things I don't like the recipe calls for 4 cups of marinara, but when you're in the store...well, I didn't know how much that was and hoped it was around a jar size. In actuality, I ended up running short on sauce and I wonder if that contributed to my lasagna being a little dry. It definitely isn't the dripping, saucy mess that you're used to from lasagna, but this is supposed to be healthier. I bought a nice, organic marinara from Trader Joe's and it tasted beautifully. I was surprised the meat and lasagna tasted pretty well spiced when the recipe doesn't call for extra spices. I did however end up adding a few pinches of dried oregano to the top of the lasagna when I added the last layer of sauce and cheese. It smelled so good when it baked--the drooling started all over again.

All in all, I think this turned out well. I ended up using 95% lean beef because I couldn't find 90% lean and it worked, in fact the beef taste was better for it. I also mixed up portobello and crimini mushrooms because all portobellos was out of my budget range. I think what messed up my version was that I baked it and then stopped to refrigerate it because it was too early. Then I had to rebake it and I think this reheating/double baking dried it out a little bit. It really could have used that extra sauce. I also added more mozzarella and used regular Parmesan instead of Fresh. Yummy! Great recipe, happy eating!


A peek at the lasagna---so ghetto with the foil covering it, ha!

4 stars out of 5 (would have been 4.5 if it wasn't dry)
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Recipe from here.

Recipe courtesy Ellie Krieger

Prep Time:35 min, Cook Time:1 hr 15 min

Level:Intermediate

Serves:6 servings

Ingredients

• 12 ounces whole-wheat lasagna noodles (15 noodles)
• 8 ounces lean ground beef (90 percent lean or higher)
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 8 ounces portobello mushrooms, diced (about 3 large mushroom caps)
• 4 cups good quality store-bought marinara sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) container part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 3 ounces grated part-skim mozzarella cheese (about 2/3 cup)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cook the noodles al dente according to the directions on the package. Drain them well then lay out on waxed paper to prevent them from sticking to each other.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over a medium-high heat. Add the beef and cook until no longer pink, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks, about 3 minutes. Transfer the meat to a plate, discarding any fat remaining in the pan.

Add the oil to the same pan and heat over a medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally until all the liquid has evaporated and they begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Return the meat to the pan. Stir in 2 cups of the tomato sauce and simmer for 2 minutes.

In a medium bowl combine the ricotta cheese, spinach, egg, the salt, the pepper and nutmeg.

Spread 1 cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. Place a layer of lasagna noodles on top, touching but not overlapping. Spread half of the ricotta mixture on top of the noodles. Add another layer of noodles. Top with half the beef-mushroom mixture. Repeat with another layer of noodles, then remaining cheese mixture, more noodles, then remaining beef mixture and finally 1 more layer of noodles. Top the final layer of noodles with the remaining sauce, then sprinkle with the grated cheeses. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for 15 minutes more.

Low Fat Spinach Artichoke Dip

*UPDATED 3/29/10*

Sorry for the ugly picture. I hate using flash, but it was necessary this time around. It looks a lot less runny than the recipe's picture because I used more cream cheese. At least...I think that's why. :)

*END*
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Recipe Song: Dead and Gone, audiobook by Charlaine Harris.

As part of my crazy cooking Thursday last week (I made this, the momofuku cookies from yesterday's post, as well as something else I'll post about later), I made this lovely spinach artichoke dip. Yea, the picture below isn't so appetizing, but I haven't uploaded any of my pictures from my lovely cooking last week, so you'll have to contend with that. Sorry! Muahaha.

Anyway, I had an interesting issue with this recipe. As you notice, it calls for low fat and fat free cream cheese. Well, after going to a few different grocery stores, none of which carries fat free cream cheese, I found out that hey, there's no fat free cream cheese. So I used all 1/3 less fat cream cheese and stupidly, none of those packages comes in a 6 ounce size, which angered me to say the least. It reminded me of the nonsensical way hot dogs and buns are sold. I don't eat cream cheese at home, so I just figured I'd use both blocks of cream cheese, regardless of what the recipe said.

Dang, I'm glad I wasn't baking. Cuz that wouldn't fly if I were.

So, the deal with adding more cream cheese is that I must now in turn add more of other things like sour cream and mozzarella and then---yea, I didn't. I think that was one downfall of the finished product. It was cream cheese taste heavy. So that was unfortunate. However, when it was all heated up thoroughly, it was really quite delicious. The dip is so creamy you'd never know you were missing so much fat, except that there is no unappetizing layer of oil sitting on top.

Another thing, I actually tore up the spinach and pulled all out the stems of every leaf. Huge waste of time. Next time I think I'll lightly chiffonade the spinach so I don't waste so much time hand tearing. This recipe makes a lot, so if there's only a few of you, think about cutting it in half or so.

Overall, delicious. Add some pita, chips, or bread and you're good to go.

4 out of 5 stars.

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Below from here.

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

- makes about 10 servings of about 1/2 cup each -

Adapted from Cooking Light.

Ingredients

10-ounce bag fresh spinach
6 ounces (3/4 block) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
6 ounces (3/4 block) fat-free cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
1 1/2 cups part-skim mozzarella, shredded
1 (14-ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed (not minced)
6 tablespoons shredded parmesan cheese, divided

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Tear spinach into bite-size pieces, removing any thick stems. Rinse in a colander, leaving a little water on the leaves. In a large nonstick skillet or Dutch oven, sauté the spinach over medium heat until wilted. Drain in the colander, pushing a little of the extra water out.

3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheeses with a potato masher. Add sour cream and mash more. Add spinach, mozzarella, artichokes, pepper, garlic, and 2 tablespoons of the parmesan. Stir everything until thoroughly combined.

4. Pour mixture into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan on top. Bake 30 minutes, or until parmesan is melted dip is all bubbly. Remove from oven and give it a minute or two to cool down. Serve with baked tortilla chips to applause.