Last weekend, at the South Lake Tahoe Bridal Show, Annie and I tried the most delish appetizer. It may have been because we hadn’t eaten lunch, but they were so amazingly simple. This weekend, I decided to see if I could make them. I did, and they were impressive and as easy as I thought they’d be. Or at least I thought they were impressive. We didn’t have anyone over, so they’re still sitting in the fridge, waiting to be admired and enjoyed. Anyone wanna come over for dinner?

grape bleu cheese truffles

You will need:

• 2-ish cups of seedless grapes, washed and thoroughly dried (I used red)
• 1/3 cup (?) of bleu cheese – I used a block that had been referred to as “smooth,” but you’re going to food-process it, so it probably doesn’t matter
• 1-2 tablespoons of part-skim ricotta
• chopped almonds
• Salt, pepper, garlic power if you so choose. I didn’t but maybe should have

Fist, if you have almonds that aren’t chopped, give them a few whirls in the food processor (that’s what I did, since I had it out – what? That thing is a bitch to clean). You can try to cut them, but I wouldn’t recommend it. They go EVERYWHERE.

Throw both cheeses and any seasonings you want in the food processor (if your processor has a smaller bowl, go with that option) and blend it up until you can’t see anymore bleu cheese chunks. You want it to be smooth, but still pretty sticky. But mine came out a little “wetter” than I had intended, and it was fine. Mostly, you don’t want to dull down the strongness of the bleu cheese with ricotta, because the grapes will do that well.

When that’s all done, use your right hand to cover a (dry! very, very dry!) grape with cheese mixture (it’s really okay if it’s totally lumpy and uneven) and then use your left hand to cover it with almonds. Repeat! Be sure to not get almond chunks on your right hand or bleu cheese mixture on your left hand so you can avoid club hand. But also because those almonds don’t go as far as it seems like they should and you’ll run out quickly.

TA-DAH!

I took a photo of them, but it came out all blurry and not at all appetizing. But they’re good, swearsies. I wish I had been clever enough to come up with this idea, but I am sure it could be changed around to reflect your tastes, too. Don’t like bleu cheese? (I’m not sure why you wouldn’t unless you’re totally nuts, but whatever) Use feta, or chevre! You could even do this with dried fruit, apple chunks, strawberries, etc…

I just thought it was a fun little easy appetizer that people will ooh and aah over. But then again, I’m pretty easily impressed

Do you live in Reno? Go, have a wonderful date night at Back of the House.

Brad and I both love to cook. In the last few years, the kitchen is where I am really able to get creative. Plus, we love to be in the kitchen together. We make a great team and have made some incredible food together, if I do say so myself. Friday night’s cooking class was no exception.

it's probably worth going JUST for the teacher - she was so much fun

pecorino romano with local honey. (ok no, we didn't actually cook this, but it was too good to not tell you about)

It was all so good, I barely even noticed that we weren’t cooking what the website said we would be. But that’s okay, it gives me a chance to experiment and make my own pasta some other time. And also to recreate this pizza + goat cheese:

caramelized onions, kalamata olive, purple/red/green grapes and pecorino romano pizza

sage and prosciutto wrapped chicken thigh with butternut squash orzo "risotto" with a sage cream sauce

We also had a nice lemon ricotta cheesecake for dessert, but didn’t prepare that one

We also had a somewhat unlimited supply of cabernet, hence the blurry-ish photos.

If you didn’t know based on my tweets last week, or by the fact that I may have ignored every attempt for friends and/or family to contact me, last week was The Great Reno Balloon Race. At my jobby job, part of my recent promotion is that I’m the new media coordinator for the event, so needless to say I was kinda busy. (Oh I also helped launch the website for our company’s new division – it’s been a busy few months). But that’s besides the point.

the point is, edamame hummus.

You guys. I have been wanting to make edamame hummus for some time now, and apparently Friday afternoon, after several 12-14 hour days, halfway through the event, I HAD to make edamame hummus. The recipe is approximate, at best, but I had to share it with you.

• Edamame (duh) – I used a packed of shelled, steam-in-the-bag microwave type (I steamed them for about half of the time suggested)
• Soy sauce – I think I ended up using a total of about 1/4 cup, but go about a tablespoon at a time until you’ve reached desired Umami
• Just a few shakes of chili powder, cumin, coriander and onion powder
• 1 garlic clove chopped, minced or smashed
• 1ish tbsp tahini (this flavor can get overwhelming, so use sparingly)

Food process it while drizzling in your extra virgin olive oil until you reach desired consistency. Food process it FOREVER. It’ll get smooth, but thick and sticky-ish. Enjoy with pita crackers and bring in to share with your coworkers while they marvel at your skills!

Warning: you’ll want to read this all the way through before you start cooking.

Because I’ve received numerous two requests, and because we are just that cool on this Friday night, here’s our recipe for some delicious teriyaki chicken wings with wasabi ranch. This was a very experimental dinner, so measurements are somewhat approximate, and we had to sort of play it by ear when things like burning sauce happened.

brad really did the creating, but the plating was all me

So, courtesy of Brad, the marinade:

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 1/2 tbsp chopped or grated ginger
• 1 big-ish clove of minced/smashed garlic
• 3 to 5 splooshes of your favorite hot sauce (we like Louisiana Hot Sauce)
• 1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 spash of sake or other dry white wine
• 1 pinch of salt

Marinate 2-3 pounds of chicken wings for 40 or so minutes at room temperature. If your wings didn’t come pre-separated, after marinating would be a good time to do so. Separate the wings from the drummets and throw away the tips (or if you separate them beforehand – we forgot to – you can save the tips for a stock).

Line your wings and drummets up on a baking sheet, skin side up, place them in the middle of your oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. Oh, you probably want to have pre-heated your oven about 20 minutes ago. 450 degrees, please!

While your wings do their thing, put your marinade into a small saucepan. I hope you didn’t throw that away! So, put it into a saucepan, let it boil and then turn it down to like … medium high … whatever keeps it at a low boil. Give it a good stir every few minutes. You want to reduce the sauce and thicken it up nicely. At this point, I think we added a few small pours of Yoshida’s teriyaki sauce to thicken/sweeten. The thicker it gets, you’ll want to turn it down and stir it more often, or you might burn it. Like we did.* When the bubbles stop popping right away, are sitting on top of the sauce and it looks nice and shiny/sticky … it’s done. Remove from the heat. Brad needs me to tell you that it will look like bubble wrap. But I don’t like that analogy. But there it is anyway.

When the timer goes off, drizzle some sauce on your wings with a spoon and rotate the pan 180 degrees. Then put your sauce back on the burner (your sauce probably won’t be done yet at this point) and set the timer for another five minutes. After the timer goes off again, pull your baking sheet out, flip all the wings and sauce them again. 20 more minutes on the timer. You still with me? Sauce conservatively – you want them to crisp up nicely, and you’ll use the reserve sauce later.

Total cook time should be about 40 minutes – I’ll let you do the math.

Pull them out of the oven and let them coast on the counter for five or so minutes. Toss your wings with the rest of the sauce.

don't they look tasty?

For the wasabi ranch (which you probably should have made right after you put your wings in the marinade, but who’s counting?), mix one 16-ounce container of sour cream (we used fat free) with almost all of one packet of ranch dressing mix. In a separate little bowl, mix some wasabi powder with just a tiny bit of water, enough to wet it. We used probably a total of one tablespoon of wasabi, but I’m a weener about spice, so you might want more. You could also just buy wasabi paste instead of mixing your own paste to save a step.

We had this with broccoli, which was SUPER good with a little bit of the teriyaki-ish sauce.

Let me know if you decide to try this, what you did differently and how it turned out!!

*In the event that you burn your sauce, too, you should know we added some honey and more Yoshida’s. Hopefully you’re more attentive to your sauce, but at least now you know how to save it!

Last week was amazing. We had a few days of near-70-degree weather. We barbecued. I rode my bike to work. Twice.

it’s not summer yet

But this kind of weather … it being almost warm enough out to wear capris … the sun staying out to play past 7 p.m. … say it with me, SPRING IS HERE!! Just a few short months until it really is summer. I think spring, at least in Reno, is meant to create a longing. Longing for the sun on your face. Longing to be outside more often than you are in. Longing to barbecue and eat dinner outside every night of the week, creating one new meal idea after another.

But then there are those stand-by meals. The old faithful go-to dinners. One you can always trust to fill you up and excite your taste buds. One that’s always impressive to house guests, even though it’s SUPER easy.

tilapia tacos

there IS tilapia underneath all those toppings

serves four

For the tilapia:

• Four tilapia filets [we just get the frozen kind because they're inexpensive and reliable, but if it looks/smells fresh at your meat counter, grab that]
• Limes – at least six or so, buy extra though in case you get a dud or two
• A bunch of cilantro
• EVOO
• S&P

For yummifying your tacos:

• Shredded up green cabbage
• Sour cream [I use fat free]
• Two ripe avocados, sliced
• Pico de gallo  [Brad makes ours at home; it's much better than store-bought]
• Queso fresco [shredded, if you have the patience. We just slice it]
• Small flour tortillas [I've done this with white corn tortillas too, but it's only worth it if you buy them fresh from King's Ranch Market]

To make:

1. If they’re not already, defrost your tilapia some warm water [not hot, or the fish will start to cook]. Marinate for 5-10 minutes in a mixture of lime juice and zest, EVOO, super-finely chopped cilantro and S&P. Don’t marinate for more than 5 on each side or the citric acid will start to cook the fish.
2. Ask your boyfriend to Grill the fish for 4-5 minutes on each side, until it’s pretty flakey. Be careful pulling it off the grill though, it’ll be delicate. You could also cook it in the oven or stove-top, but grilling gives more flavor and you don’t need any additional fat to cook it. Plus, cooking outside leaves the fishy smell outside.
3. Assemble your taco and enjoy!
4. Assemble another taco … and enjoy!

we ate outside, even though it was completely not outside dining weather.

so, is it summer YET?!

So, this last post is not exactly chronological, but I felt it should come last because these were just the most deliciously spectacular meals I’ve had, maybe ever, if not just since becoming pescatarian.

First up was actually Brad’s creation. I had nothing to do with the creation or implementation of this incredible dinner. But I was very involved in eating it.

Now, normally, Brad and I cook pretty much all of our meals together. It’s basically one of our favorite things to do together. And I never really knew how to cook until we started cooking together. I could follow a recipe just fine, but I was never someone that could throw things together to make something yummy. That was not the case here:

mahi mahi, polenta cakes and rosted fennel and tomato, all drizzled with a roasted tomato vinaigrette

So, let me tell you, this here? This is love. Brad’s not really a fan of fish, but he made this incredible dish for me [and he loved it as much as I did] This meal was totally out of his element, too. Although it’s a pretty fancy looking meal, it’s actually a very simple preparation.

mahi mahi

Just a little salt and pepper on each side, and he fried it up in a little bit of olive oil. This piece of fish is actually really funny to me. It was two frozen filets for like $7.99, so we weren’t really expecting too much. Boy, were we wrong. This fish doesn’t need a fancy preparation. We topped it with parmigiano reggiano shavings.

polenta cakes

Polenta is another food we don’t really eat a lot. So, out of experimentation, we just decided to fry them up. Not THE healthiest preparation, we learned, since polenta really soaks up the oil. But it was good either way. Crispy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside.

roasted vegetables

Now, we’ve NEVER even cooked with fennel before. So, come to think of it, I really have no idea where the inspiration for this meal came from. But Brad roasted the tomato an fennel bulb halves with thyme, rosemary and olive oil. Then he took one of the roasted tomatoes and blended it with some red wine vinegar, and s&p to make the vinaigrette.

the salad i had been thinking about for a week

I went to the store and bought a bunch of yummy ingredients for salads, but then I got home and realized I forgot one important thing: lettuce. So after daydreaming about my salad, I finally got to realize my dream:

spinach, avocado, goat cheese and sunflower seeds

no wait, the best part

Doniree was talking last week about how she makes her own salad dressings, and it made me all kinds of happy and I just HAD to tell you guys all about my current favorite kitchen toy:

the herb 'n serve!

I totally got this at our company Christmas party during the gift exchange and I luurve it. It’s just a tiny little battery-operated blender, for making dressings, marinades and sauces and it’s so much fun. It doesn’t really chop anything bigger than say, a small clove of garlic, but that’s enough for making delicious dressings. For this salad, used some store bought pesto sauce, red wine vinegar and a little bit of fat-free sour cream to make a deliciously tangy and creamy vinaigrette for my creative salad.

So, in conclusion? The herb ‘n serve: get it. Mahi Mahi: eat it.

One thing that has surprised me since I’ve cut meat out of my diet is how much I’m not eating eggs. I really like eggs, so I figured I’d be eating more of them now, since they’re sort of like a superfood. [actually, aren't they a superfood? No, they're just the "incredible, edible egg"]

One of my new favorite things is to make a bunch of extra rice whenever we cook rice. Then I can use the leftovers to make fried rice, which is super-delicious and a good use of eggs [oh THERE'S the connection!]. Plus, it’s another one of those things you can just throw in whatever is in the fridge [I'm beginning to notice a trend ...]

fried rice with leftover cooked broccoli, onion, yellow bell pepper, mushroom and peas

Plus, it’s SO easy. Just sweat your onions (green, red, yellow, white, whatever you have) in like 2 tsp of butter or vegetable oil (or sesame oil if you have it). Then gradually add your chopped vegetables in order of how long they need to cook. These went: onion, mushroom, pepper, peas, broccoli. Then add your rice and break up all the chunks. If you think ahead better than I do, it’s a good idea to take the leftover rice out of the fridge like an hour or so before so it’s not too cold. Then add one egg and keep cooking until the egg looks like it’s all scrambled. Lastly, flavor it up with soy sauce, garlic salt, s&p, onion powder, whatever you have around that sounds tasty.

Note: One thing I’ve learned with making this dish is to be careful not to use too much oil. It doesn’t need it, plus it messes up the texture of the egg/rice. You really only need it to cook up the veggies.

So, I am sure this happens at some point to anyone who decides to cut meat out of their diet. [although I have heard that there are people somewhere that might not like cheese, but I'm pretty sure this is a myth] I am of course referring to the realization that you can not simply replace meat in your diet with cheese. Unfortunately.

While it does have some redeeming nutritional qualities, I am aware it’s something that should be used sparingly, as a meal enhancer, rather than simply a meal. [grilled cheese? quesadilla anyone?]

That said, paninis are one of my favorite vehicles for bringing cheese to my mouth. Plus, it’s a super-delicious way to pack a BUNCH of veggies into a one-dish meal. And for others like me, who have very different food preferences than their significant other, it’s a great way for everyone to have what they want in a dinner.

It’s all the bites of cheese while the panini is grilling [which takes all of six minutes] that get me into some trouble. So, if you don’t have a panini press I highly suggest getting one. Ours came from Target [my fave] and was only $20. Or, if you have a big heavy cast iron skillet, you could put that on top of your sandwich in another nonstick pan. But personally, I enjoy the grill marks. You could also use a George Foreman grill, but be careful of ooey-gooey cheese dripping on the downward slope.

paninis! mine on the left, brad's on the right

Brad’s looks much prettier than mine because it’s not stuffed with veggies and his white bread makes for much nicer grill marks. But mine is nice and healthy with its tomato, bell pepper and avocado. Also included: a slice of havarti and one wedge of Laughing Cow Light spreadable cheese [I prefer to have two cheeses in my paninis so both slices of bread can stick. In past paninis, I’ve included mushrooms, caramelized or fresh onions, apple slices, peach slices, roasted peppers, spinach, arugula, etc. Get creative with the veggies in your fridge!

I’ve never done much cooking with quinoa, but I think it’s a fascinating food. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you go pick some up and start experimenting. It’s sorta like rice and sorta like cous cous, but much more talented because it has protein. Which is really good for pesca- and vegetarians alike, because it’s tricky to get protein from places that aren’t super fatty [read: cheese].

So, the base for the following salad actually came from Brad’s mom. We were visiting for his birthday, and she made a really yummy side dish out of:

• cooked quinoa
• blanched green beans
• blanched broccoli
• raw red bell pepper
• raw green onion
• olive oil and balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper

There may have been more to it, but it’s one of those things you can put your own influence on. Don’t like green beans? Use something else, or leave them out altogether.

She had a massive pile leftover, so we got sent home with most of it, which I was thrilled about. I piled a bunch of it on top of some mixed greens the next day for lunch. It was good, but definitely left me feeling like something was missing. It just wasn’t filling enough as a main meal; I was still hungry.

So the following day, I added goat cheese and a smidge more oil/vinegar.

and, voila!

so, i learned after this photo to take the pretty picture before mixing up salads

It’s not the prettiest salad, but it was definitely tasty. And filling. I will be experimenting with quinoa more in the future, particularly as a salad ingredient.

other ways i’ve had quinoa so far:

You can use quinoa anywhere you would normally use rice. I’ve used it in a teriyaki chicken bowl [before I gave up meat, obv.] and just on the side of a main dish, or mixed with cooked veggies. It has a unique nuttiness that plain white rice doesn’t have, similar to whole wheat pasta. And I prefer it to brown rice, because brown rice is so damn hard to cook properly.

so, what quinoa recipes do you have? share plz!

note: this is a vegan dish if you leave the cheese off, or substitute with your own soy cheese variety.

Because really? What’s better than making a whole week about food? [nothing is]

So, I’ve been trying to photograph my meals ever since I decided to go pescatarian. Well, the creative and delicious meals, that is. And be warned, when I say “photograph” I’m referring to the camera in my iPhone. I’m absolutely no photographer. ANYWAY. I’ve decided to present this series to you in chronological order to show my progress, as well as the creativity [I feel] I’ve developed over the last few weeks. And because this is my blog and I’ll do what I want.

my boyfriend is a carnivore

He just … has to have beef in his diet. Which is what has made this diet choice difficult in the past for me. But having a start and end point to my commitment has made it much easier. That way, if 40 days rolls around and I’m tired of not eating meat, I won’t feel bad about adding it back into my diet.

So, at the start of Lent, we went to Costco [which means my bank account totally and completely hated me that day because really? Who can go to Costco and leave without spending less than $150? Not me, that's who] and bought a big four-pack of rib eyes [for Brad] and a big four-pack of stuffed salmon [for me]. Brad hates salmon, so I figured I would be super glad to get to eat it more often. We froze everything into separate baggies for go-to meals. It was good, but there have been two problems so far.

it’s a big ass piece of fish

That, coupled with the fattening stuffing, didn’t really jive with my whole mission to eat healthier. I found myself wasting the leftovers [because lets face it, reheated salmon? blech]. But the bigger problem?

i got tired of salmon. real. quick.

And I’m pretty sure there’s still one more in my freezer. One of the things I’ve learned in my many years of trying to eat healthy is that I need variety. I’ll get bored too quickly and look for something less healthy. Plus, the salmon I bought was already “decorated” in a way, so it’s not like I had many options on how to dress it up. So, mental note: don’t buy specialty main dishes in bulk.

here are the ways i “dressed it up,” while brad ate steak:

stuffed salmon with bell pepper/tomato whole wheat pasta (and wine)

stuffed salmon with mixed grilled veggies (i luurve grilled veggies, and you can use whatever is in the fridge. featured here: bell pepper, onion, asparagus)

stuffed salmon with grilled asparagus (we had gotten asparagus at costco, too ...)

It’s thrilling, I know. But in all reality, something like this stuffed salmon is a nice standby to have for those evenings that I just don’t care, or have the time/energy to put into a nice and interesting dinner. Next time, I do this, I’ll probably opt to have a package of plain, undecorated fish that I can get creative with.