The Stir Fry's Alright!

Stir fry's are a great way to get lots of vegetables into your belly and can be made in a variety of ways. To be honest - this isn't my normal stir fry. I usually like to add soy sauce and teriyaki to the veggies. But as I try to steer my family towards more healthy options, I opted for a stir fry that relies on dried herbs and spices for flavor rather than a sodium-filled sauce. This is an adaptation from a garbanzo bean stir fry I found on, you guessed it, allrecipes.com, (SERIOUSLY - I LOVE that site). To cater to my family's likes and dislikes I changed things up a bit. Needless to say, neither Ronnie or Matt were the biggest fans of my healthier-option stir fry - I on the other hand enjoyed it enough to think it was good enough for my blog! So, it just depends on your preferences and if you like the fresher taste of lightly seasoned vegetables over rice, this is your stir fry.

To start out I prep the vegetables, washing a chopping a red onion....

A zucchini....

And some mushrooms...




I open a can of garbanzo beans and rinse them in a colander.

Once all the prep is done, this really is a fast and easy meal to get together. Once olive oil is warm in the wok, I add minced garlic, dried oregano, and dried basil.

After about 5 minutes, I add the onions, zucchini and garbanzo beans to the oil mix. I let this cook until the veggies are starting to soften while stirring every few minutes.

On the left of me I boil some water and add two bags of brown rice. I'm not proud, I have been known to use the rice bags - they are easy and fast!!! I really need to invest in a rice cooker though... I had one, but then returned it because I want one with a timer so I can set it in the morning and have it be ready when I get home... I am still searching for that...

Once the original stir fry veggies are cooked through, I add in the mushrooms, dried cilantro, and a pinch of cayenne pepper for a little kick of flavor.

As the mushrooms start to soften, I add in about 3/4th's of a can of diced tomatoes, undrained.

When the rice is done I drain the bags and return it to the pan, fluffing it with a fork. I plate the rice and then top it with the stir fry mix! Dinner is served!

As I said before, my meat-eating finance and son didn't care that much for the meal - they ate it, but I am pretty sure they want me to try something else next time! I looked at them and said - Welcome to healthy eating suckas!!! LOL - anyway - I enjoyed this meal, and if you want a quick weeknight meal that won't bust your calorie or fat grams for the day - TRY THIS!!! You could do any veggies and play with the herbs and spices yourself! Let me know what you come up with!!!

Feeling a Little South of the Border

If there is one thing my family can agree on when it comes to food, it's that Mexican food is GOOD! Mexican is also one of the easiest food genre's to veggi-fy! Just replace the meat with some veggies or beans (or both) - and you are good to go! This post is no exception. I stumbled upon something similar on (you guessed it) allrecipes.com, and I decided to change things up a bit and try it. To be honest, Matt loved this so much it completely made his crappy day into rainbows and unicorns... LOL! So if that's not enough to convince you to try it - I don't know what is. To start out I chop all my veggie's for the filling: onions, mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini.

The original recipe called for roasting the vegetables, but unless it's the weekend - I absolutely cannot be wasting time to get dinner on the table before 7:00 PM! So, instead of roasting the veggies, I used my wok and stir fried them. Letting some olive oil heat up, I add minced garlic to the oil.

Once the olive oil is hot, I add the vegetables. At this point I also add in some chili powder, cumin powder, and fresh ground pepper to the vegetables. My kitchen starts to smell like awesome-ness at this point!




All while the vegetables are in the wok cooking, I am also boiling water, some butter and milk to make instant mashed potatoes! To be honest, I have never made instant mashed potatoes before! Maybe it was my Dad's persistence that my mom make the real ones every time, but it was just something I never ate or made. If I was making this on the weekend, and actually roasting the vegetables, yeah - I would make real mashed potatoes. But to get dinner on the table quickly - I went for the boxed stuff! These potatoes are ALSO going to be for my enchilada filling!

Now that the veggies and the potatoes are done, I combine them in the wok.

Now it's officially time to start assembling the enchiladas. I used canned enchilada sauce and pour one can onto a big plate. I then dip a tortilla into the sauce on both sides. This is usually a pretty messy process and I always have a towel on my shoulder so I can wipe excess food off my fingers.

I then place the tortilla on a plate and add my vegetable mixture and a bit of shredded cheese.

To be honest, if it wasn't for the enchilada sauce, these would be more like burritos. So really, if enchilada sauce isn't your thing, you could easily just make these into burritos and serve with some salsa and sour cream! But, I AM making enchiladas here - So I assemble my filled tortillas into my 9X13 pan.

Once all the tortillas have been assembled, I pour a second can of enchilada sauce over the tortillas and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes.

When they are ready to come out, I remove the enchiladas from the oven and let them sit at room temperature for about 5 to 10 minutes. I then scoop them out onto a plate and serve with a dollop of sour cream and some sliced black olives. Like I said before - these turned out FANTASTIC! A great and easy dinner for sure! To make a complete meal serve with some guacamole and chips on the side!!! Also - these are filling!!! And they made a PERFECT lunch the next day at work!

As I stated last time, I am making a stir fry - well I actually did and I took pictures - so that will be my next post for sure! Till then - HAPPY COOKING!

Artichokes, Olives, Capers - OH MY!

I have been on this artichoke-kick lately. I love them! I can't get enough of them. And I can't wait till my friend Beth decides to make fresh artichokes with all the dipping sauces just like she did for NYE this past year (are you reading this Beth?)

Any-who. Yesterday evening's dinner consisted of, you guessed it, artichokes. This particular meal has a light taste and is great paired with a salad and garlic bread (our staple "Italian sides" in the Luckey-Meyer home). Another great thing about this vegetarian meal - it is so close to NO PREP it almost hurts. The only items you need the cutting board for are the artichokes and parsley. But don't get me wrong - this is just the way I prepared it - you can buy already quartered artichokes! And I have been known to use dried herbs before! So if you really wanted this to be absolutely NO PREP - then by all means - get on it!

To start out, I bring vegetable broth, butter and flour to a boil and lower the heat, letting it simmer till the mixture has thickened up.

While the base of my sauce is thickening, I start to quarter 2 cans of drained and rinsed artichoke hearts. YUM! Not only are artichokes delicious - I think they are the most attractive produce of the bunch! (I really do have a thing for artichokes - LOL!)

Once the sauce has thickened and my artichokes are quartered, I add the artichokes, about a half-a-cup of lemon juice, garlic, and a little bit of parmesan cheese to the sauce.

Yep - the fettuccine looks good as it boils in my big pot!

I continue to let the sauce cook for about 10 minutes. When I am ready to mix in the pasta, I add some parsley and capers right before the end!

Once the pasta is drained, I pour it back into the large pot and I then add the artichoke sauce. I mix the pasta and sauce together, adding a bit of salt and pepper to taste.

I plate up the pasta, garnish it with some black olives, and DINNER IS SERVED! The briney (is that even a word?) flavors of the capers and olives give the subtle artichoke flavor a nice little "oomph". A prefect pair for anytime!

I told you I would be back with a complete meal! Tonight I am making a stir fry! Let's see if I remember to get out the camera!

allrecipes.com, Will You Marry Me?

So, I don't know what it is... I have been a bit of a slacker in the kitchen. Not so much the actual cooking part, but more like the taking pictures/creating my own food part. The family get-together (almost) two weeks ago was a SUCCESS! We ended up making a Buffalo "Chicken" Pizza, a Veggie Ranch Pizza, the Pizza-Without-The-Red-Sauce, and a meaty pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and onions. But alas... The busy day kept me from taking pictures. Then, just last weekend, we had friends from Columbus stay with us, I made lots of yummy food like a spicy hot Mexican spinach dip and artichoke/eggplant sandwiches, but once again, pictures were not taken.

Maybe it's all the coming and going, maybe it was my son being sick last week (he is MUCH better now - thanks!), but one thing I have been doing - cooking from allrecipes.com and OF COURSE taking pictures of the final product to upload on the site. If I have said it once, I have said it a MILLION times, allrecipes.com is my favorite food site! The recipe database is HUGE and I love the fact that you can upload pictures, rate and review recipes. The reviews are especially handy because you can see what other people have experienced during their attempts to make the recipe.

So, as to not leave my faithful and AWESOME readers waiting any longer, I decided to upload and blog about a few things I have made recently from allrecipes.com. The first recipe I am sharing is the Original Blue Cheese Cole Slaw. For all the meat eaters that read my blog, this recipe was originally paired with a buffalo chicken sandwich (and I thought that sounded really tasty - if it wasn't for the whole vegetarian thing, I would be on that bandwagon!) I served this slaw one Settlers night with jalapeno melts (veggie burgers on sourdough bread with sauteed onions, sliced jalapenos, and pepperjack cheese - a burger that is made quite often at the Luckey-Meyer home). I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out really good! There is only one thing I would caution people about - the next day the blue cheese had taken over the slaw! That is all I could taste at lunch the next day and it was overpowering for my own tastes (which - you know it was strong because I LOVE cheese!) So, my suggestion would be to eat it all the same day!!!

That same Settlers night I also made these Twice-Baked Mashed Potatoes. They are a take on twice-baked potatoes, only instead of putting the potato filling back into the skin, you put it in a baking dish and let it bake with some cheese on top! I did not follow this recipe exactly, as I thought some adjustments were needed to please my particular crowd. Instead of using the green pepper and onion mixture it called for, I used about 5 green onions. I sauteed some garlic with the onion, and of course used fake bacon instead of the real stuff. These turned out better then expected and I will DEFINITELY be making these again and again and again. A bit time consuming, but they do take a little less time than real twice-baked potatoes (because you don't have to stand there stuffing however many individual potatoes), so if I were you, I would give these a try!

Finally, earlier this week I made this Really Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo. I have never attempted a homemade alfredo before, and this one seemed easy enough. Because of my lack of experience with this sort of food, I followed the recipe exactly, only adding some steamed broccoli at the end. Next time (and there will be a next time because this was like one of the easiest dinners ever!) I will cut back on the cream cheese (and by cream cheese, I mean neufchatel of course). Maybe add some more parmesan or try to substitute some with sour cream. I would only do this because the cream cheese was the main flavor in this dish, and that's not really the alfredo flavor I was looking for. Also - another word of caution on leftovers - the next day the sauce had turned clumpy and the taste was almost null. I didn't even finish it to be honest because I felt like I was eating just plain, clumpy noodles.




Next post I will have a complete meal! PROMISE! Till then - Happy Cooking!!!



***Also - QUESTION for all my computer geek friends... So - I am having trouble figuring out how to evenly space my photos, paragraphs and the like on my blog. I am only using the generic posting tools for blogger, but it's funny, because I will evenly space everything on my template, but then when I publish it, everything is all uneven again (as I am sure you have noticed! I promise I am trying to keep a clean blog!!!) HELP!?!?! Anyone?