Give Me 3

Posted on April 13, 2018 by melsmosaic

Another Trader Joe’s problem while I discovered; scalloped Cracker Trio. Boxes of these were, of course, used as a display on aisle-end and looked far too tempting – had to try.

The box has three flavors – Rosemary, Red Chili and Garlic. The crackers have a nice thickness to them but still are a bit soft. They sort of crumble, but in a nice way. They also almost taste like they might have some butter to them, but per the ingredient list, they do not. Perfect to pair with soups, salads and just to munch on. Recommend giving them a try.

Kale and Garlic = Perfect Match

Posted on September 12, 2015 by melsmosaic

As usual, flipping through food magazines looking for recipes. I now tear out the recipes that look good vs. dog-earring them. I then clip them on the baker’s rack in my kitchen and have to make them. So part of last night’s dinner was Kale Salad with Garlicky Panko from Food & Wine. Hmmm…kale, delicious and garlic, delicious X2.

Ingredients

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1/2 cup panko (Trader Joe’s has great stuff)
Kosher salt & Pepper
1 bunch curly kale (I was lazy and grabbed the bag of stuff from Trader Joe’s — can you tell where I shop?)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (the blocks of stuff from Trader Joe’s are great, and real Feta is from sheep’s milk so lactards can eat it safely)
6 fried eggs (optional) — I threw some shrimp on top vs eggs

Preparation

In a large nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Stir in the panko and cook, stirring, until golden and crisp, 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a plate to cool.
Cut the stems from the kale and tear the leaves into pieces. In a bowl, whisk the vinegar with the remaining 1/2 cup of oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the kale; massage with the dressing using your fingers. Season with salt and pepper and toss. Transfer to a platter, top with the feta, garlic panko and fried eggs, if using, and serve.

I could not stop eating this stuff!!! The slight bit of saltiness from the feta, the garlic in the crispy breadcrumbs. WOW WOW WOW. Try this! You will not be disappointed.

Use It Or Lose It

Posted on January 16, 2015 by melsmosaic

In the past week I’ve been making a bunch of great recipes that of course called for delicious fresh herbs. But, how much did I need to use? Oh, maybe 1-2 tablespoons. And how much did I have to buy? Oh, that entire huge packet at the store. So, these herbs are on their last legs and I have to use them somehow. So, what to do? Pesto! The main ingredients I needed to use were (flat leaf) parsley, chives and basil. Can you tell I shop at Trader Joe’s a lot based on the packaging?

Got those sort of off the stems the threw them in the mini prep then decided what all to put in there. Opted to use lemon olive oil, tons of garlic (of course!), a splash of lemon juice then opted for hazelnuts for a bit of a different taste. Oh, S&P, too of course. I can’t use the cheese because of the lactose intolerance thing, though if I had manchego on hand, I might have tried it.

With all said and done, I had some very tasty green mush. Will be great for pasta or just a veggie dip.

Tomato and Arugula Pasta Sauce

Posted on December 24, 2014 by melsmosaic

Got to enjoy a pasta sauce I hadn’t had for awhile the other night. It has tons of veggies and is super simple to make — Spaghetti with Fresh Tomatoes and Rocket (Arugula) or Spaghetti con Pomodori e Rughetta from The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces by Diane Seed.

Ingredients:

1 lb spaghetti

10 oz red ripe plum tomatoes — I use a lot more

4 cloves garlic

2 oz rocket (arugula) — about 1/3 cup chopped — I used about 2-3 times this much

1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

Salt & Black pepper

Directions:

Skin the tomatoes by first plunging them into boiling water for a few minutes (I have always skipped this step).

Chop finely (I keep them in chunks) and place in a large bowl together with the finely chopped garlic and coarsely chopped rocket (arugula). Add the olive oil and S&P to taste and leave for at least 2 hours.

Post 2-hours:

I was in charge of the sauce…got to enjoy some nice homemade pasta.

Cook the pasta as usual, drain and stir in the sauce.

Strawberry Hullin’

Posted on September 29, 2014 by melsmosaic

Kitchen gadgets can be so much fun! I went to a business lunch and there were door prizes. I never win anything. Most of the giveaways were gift cards, anyway, and as nice as essential cash is (they were Visa cards), I knew I wouldn’t win. Well, suddenly I heard my name. But, I didn’t get a GC. The stars aligned and I won the kitchen gift bag. The rep giving this one away had been to Sur La Table and had a field day. WOW! I was in luck. So, I got all sorts of new toys that I would totally never go buy for myself but loved getting.

The one I’ve played with the most is the Berry Pincher (that’s the formal name I give it). The manufacturer, Chef’n, calls it the StemGem. You can remove the leaves from strawberries and clean all sort of other things.

You just plunge the sharp teeth of this thing right in the top of the berry.

You give it a little twist.

And yank it out. The motion makes the picture a bit fuzzy! Sorry. The website has better pics.

The other great toys I got in my bag were:

A Kuhn Rikon Pepper Mill with Ratchet Handle — so cool with the handle!

A Joseph Joseph Rocker Garlic Masher — SMASH! Great fun, you can also use it to get rid of the odor in your hands.

And the last toy, by the same producer as the strawberry toy, I got the Zipstrip Herb Stripper. I haven’t actually gotten around to using this yet. I needed it the other day and of course was cooking in somebody else’s kitchen when I was looking for it!!

So if you want so new additions to your kitchen, consider checking these out.

New Gazpacho

Posted on August 25, 2014 by melsmosaic

Was looking for something new to make last weekend and had been eyeing this gazpacho recipe for awhile so finally got around to giving it a try. It was Fresh Pea and Garlic Gazpacho from Cooking Light. Pretty simple, as with most gazpacho.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups shelled fresh English peas*
2 1/4 cups ice water
1 1/2 cups chopped peeled English cucumber
1 cup (1/2-inch) French bread cubes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar**what would we do without the ability to research info at our fingertips (see * info below) — I didn’t want to get a bottle of this stuff and found several substitutes, and the one I knew I had was white vinegar (I almost used rice vinegar, though it was rice wine vinegar that was recommended)
2 garlic cloves — MORE!
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
—–
Fresh pea shoots
1 tablespoon small fresh mint leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

Prep:

1) Cook English peas in boiling water 4 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water until cool. Set aside 1/2 cup peas. *I did some research on English peas while in the store(oh, smart phones, how we love you). Long story short, I deduced that they are the same as frozen green peas. Efficiency! You can eliminate this whole step.

2) Combine remaining peas, ice water, cucumber, French bread cubes, 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar, and garlic cloves in a blender; process until smooth. Stir in salt and pepper.

3) Ladle 1 cup soup into each of 6 bowls. Garnish with reserved peas, fresh pea shoots, mint leaves, and 1 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil.
I opted out of the garnishing for a few reasons — there was no mint at the store, I didn’t use the fresh peas, hence has no shoots and finally, I was eating alone so who did I have to impress with decor? I just put my own good stuff in the gazpacho — tomatoes, olives, manchego and grilled chicken. Very nice, refreshing soup. It did seem to be missing something and I still can’t place it. Might be lemon or a bit more salt. But, still a nice twist from the normal gazpacho.

New Snack/’Chip’ Find

Posted on March 4, 2014 by melsmosaic

I was in the deadly Wegman’s the other day roaming through the aisles and an aisle-end product display caught my eye. The main ingredients/flavors were things I like, the nutritional value was good, so I had to give them a try. The product — Lesser Evil’s (love that name) Super 4 Snacks, White Bean, Quinoa, Lentil, Chia, with Kale & Roasted Garlic. And, after visiting their site, I noticed a product I’d tried before that’s addictive, the Chia Crisps.

A serving has 46 pieces — that’s a nice amount to be able to eat! And has 110 calories, 3g fat, 2g monosaturated. There are 18g carbs per serving, with less than 1 of the grams being sugars.

The pieces you eat are light and hollow, the shape of ziti. They just sort of float in your hand, they weigh so little!

Very flavorful. They were a little bit salty, and going back there are 220g of sodium per serving. Overall though, addictive… There are a couple other flavors of them, too — Roasted Red Pepper and Cheesy Nacho. And, on the back of the bag, they nicely note, the product fits into a lot of (positive) categories:

-all natural
-gluten free
-beans are low glycemic
-kosher
-corn free
-good source of fiber
-no MSG
-baked not fried
-not genetically modified
-empty calorie free
-no artificial preservatives, flavors or colors
-no milk hormones

Testing…7,8,9…Fail

Posted on April 21, 2013 by melsmosaic

I was at a horse race yesterday that required tailgating which means bringing/cooking great food. I wanted to make something creative, so during the week starting thinking about some new dish I could make. Out of nowhere I thought of combining these ingredients:

-cauliflower
-prosciutto
-caraway seeds
-shallots
-garlic

I opted to blanch the cauliflower then toast the caraway seeds. Next step was making a mouth-watering aroma spread around my apartment by sauteing the shallots and garlic. After that I added the caraway seeds and the prosciutto that I’d cut into 1/2″ pieces to the pan. Sauteed everything for a few minutes then added the cauliflower and some S&P.

End result, hmmm, not what I was hoping for or expecting. It wasn’t bad, but absolutely nothing to write home about. After tasting and tasting it more, I kept trying to figure out what I was truly hoping for.

I still took it to the tailgate and nobody complained about it, but did not rave about it. And there was more than enough left. There was a large amount of other better stuff to eat (that I also leaned towards).

I was hoping it would taste better today. Not so much. I’m just picking the prosciutto out and enjoying that. If anybody has suggestions, would love them. But, I think this was just a good attempt and trial and error.