recommendation: sneaky mashed potatoes

I feel like I'm living on the edge... I did something sneaky... are you nervous? Ha! You all know me. I'm miss goody two-shoes. You will laugh when you find out what it actually is. Ready? I snuck....cauliflower into my mashed potatoes. HA! SNEAKY, right?

I found this recipe a while back and it was a hit. I didn't tell my husband what I did and asked him how the dinner was and if he liked the potatoes and barely able to contain myself, when he said yes, I basically yelled HA!I-TRICKED-YOU!THERE-IS-CAULIFLOWER-IN.THE.POTATOES!MUUUHAHHA!

This recipe may not be a substitute for thanksgiving day mashed potatoes, a sacred and traditional dish... but it sure does make you feel less guilty when you want some of that creamy starchy goodness on a weeknight.

Here's the problem. I lost the recipe. I checked my recipe binder, pinterest, both email accounts... nothing. I could look up a new recipe but there were too many variations, so... I made up a new one. This is called, 'winging it.'

Items you need: 4 small or 2 big potatoes, 1 head of cauliflower, butter/margarine, ff half and half, salt & pepper to taste.

Fill big pot with water
Cut a few peeled russet potatoes into thirds
Put potatoes in water
Bring water to a boil

After 10 minutes check potatoes. When potatoes are soft enough you can put a fork through them - but NOT soft enough that they are mashable - add chopped up cauliflower. One full head.

Boil until both are mashable (read: soft, mushy, whatever).

Drain water, mash potatoes and cauliflower. Add cheese (I always have cheddar on hand), a little butter or margarine, and some fat free half and half. I also add in garlic salt and pepper to taste. Obviously there is room for adjustments, personal preferences, do whatever tastes right. Next time I might try putting less potato and more cauliflower... you really can't tell much of a difference. Stir and enjoy!

recommendation: no-fry fries

I am not great at making french fries from scratch. They always turn out mushy and I never knew why. I did discover that they need a higher heat at 425 or 450, when I used to cook them at 350 degrees. Well, I stopped making them and started buying them in the frozen section, that Alexia brand makes good fries, but they are always expensive!

Last week I found an article that included Gwyneth Paltrow's version. I love most things Gwyneth - her friendship with Beyonce and Jay-Z, her version of Betty Davis Eyes from Duets, her website GOOP, and the girl can cook. So I decided to try it the next day. I had no idea a simple bowl of cold water could change my fry world. Various sources say that soaking the potatoes in cold water before cooking will remove excess starch.

The recipe as listed on self.com does not list how long to soak the potatoes but I think I left them in more than 5 but less than 10, so lets go with 8 minutes.

Recipe courtesy of My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness by Gwyneth Paltrow

INGREDIENTS
- 2 large russet potatoes (2/3 lb each), peeled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt

PREPARATION
Heat oven to 450°. Cut potatoes in half horizontally; cut each half into 1/3-inch-thick fries and place in a bowl of cold water. Remove from water and dry thoroughly. Toss with oil and sprinkle with salt. Place fries on a cookie sheet. Roast until browned and cooked through, turning occasionally, 25 minutes.

Nutrition: 175 calories per serving, 7 g fat (1 g saturated), 27 g carbs, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein

p.s. that's a veggie burger you see in the background. we've been enjoying this new brand, Lightlife. I don't know if they are better than MorningStar but its nice to have a change and they are less expensive. I buy the Farmer's Market Veggie Burgers.

recommendation: tips for hardboiling an egg

I thought of Julia Child recently. Admittedly, I only know her though Julie & Julia (the movie)... I have none of her cookbooks and I cannot recall any of her TV episodes. But how must she have felt as she pioneered through and mastered basic and expert culinary skills and recipes?

Well that's a lot of thought for such a simple task. All I was doing was boiling my first egg. It was pretty exciting. Until it came to peeling it. I was scared of that, I have no idea why. The smell also got to me. It was for my husband (to put in salads for lunch at work) so he peeled it. I was also terrified that he would peel it open and the yolk would be runny. But overall, mission successful. It got me thinking, what else do I need to know about boiling an egg?

I found this great chart from What's Cooking America:

Egg Size / Degree of Doneness / Time Required:
- Medium / Soft-Cooked yolk / 3 minutes
- Medium / Medium-Cooked yolk / 5 minutes
- Medium / Hard-Cooked yolk / 12 minutes

- Large / Soft-Cooked yolk / 4 to 5 minutes
- Large / Medium-Cooked yolk / 6 minutes
- Large / Hard-Cooked yolk / 17 minutes

- Extra Large / Soft-Cooked yolk / 5 minutes
- Extra Large / Medium-Cooked yolk / 7 to 8 minutes
- Extra Large / Hard-Cooked yolk / 19 minutes

My mom also gave me a great tip - to use slightly older eggs. As this site says, "Extremely fresh eggs are not recommended when making hard-boiled eggs. They are very difficult to peel."

Here are some more tips:
- Bring eggs to room temperature before cooking
- Refrigeration is necessary for hard boiled eggs if they eggs are not to be consumed within a few hours
- Hard-cooked eggs in the shell can be refrigerated up to one week
- 1 large boiled egg has 75 calories and 6.29 g of protein (it says here that the average American needs between 50 to 65 g of protein per day)

I can't believe these things got a whole blog post, I don't know if I'll ever eat one and I hate the smell... but I figured if I learned something while trying this new cooking task, maybe you can too!

recommendation: homemade air freshener

The electrician was due any minute this morning and I realized that something smelled funny in my kitchen... my fridge? My garbage disposal? My trash? I had to think quick and I the only spray I had was for a bathroom and I don't want that in the kitchen. Recently I tried a suggestion from Pinterest for air freshener and it worked out nicely so I did it again this morning and I think it was a great solution!!

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. Take 2 caps of vanilla extract and put in coffee mug that is oven-safe. Put mug in oven for 1 hour. I put my mug on a tray so its easier to get out. After an hour, the extract hardens up in the mug so its kind of pointless to leave it in much longer. It takes about 15 minutes for the scent to start spreading.

Its a great quick fix, apparently realtors do this for open houses! My only other recommendation is to let your Other know you are doing this so they don't come home and think that you are baking a cake... that is disappointing!

Original Pin:

Source: budgetsavvydiva.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

recommendation: make your own taco seasoning

Well geez, if I had known it was this easy, I probably would have been doing this a long time ago. I recently saw a recipe for making your own taco seasoning and my first thoughts were 1. its like a dollar or less for a packet of seasoning. and 2. I buy the low-sodium one, so we're good, right?

And then for dinner tonight, I forgot the store-bought seasoning. So I was forced to make my own. And like I said... if I had know it was this easy...Here you go (original recipe found here):

- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano (I only had ground so used 1/8 tsp)
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper

They are all things most people have in their cupboard anyway! Mix it all together. That's it. Easy peasy, huh? I poached then shredded one chicken breast (.80 lbs) and then heated it with some oil, onions and about 1 TBSP of this mix and then added a little water while it simmered and we made tacos.

ENJOY!

recommendation: what's good at Trader Joe's

Is it raining where you are? Its pouring here and is much needed, we've had a dry summer! Seems like the perfect day to catch up on reading emails & articles that you've been putting off for a rainy day! So I'm going to add one to your list. My grandma sent me this awesome article from Huffington Post, Sweet Finds And Major Disappointments At Trader Joe's. The article is about this couple, Nathan and Sonia and their friends Russ and Sandy, have decided to go through Trader Joe's inventory and rate the products on a 1 - 10 scale with complete reviews, and then blog about it.

Trader Joe's is sometimes similar to Pinterest, it sucks you in with the pretty packaging and prices, but its not always worth it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Trader Joe's fan and think this store is absolutely amazing. I would probably shop there way more often if there wasn't construction going on my route to get there. But one person cannot possibly like every single thing they have in the store so its nice to know in advance about how a product is so that you can decide if you personally will like it.

The site has categories on the lower right so you can check out products by type - Appetizer, Dinner, Condiment, etc. Check out their website, What's Good at Trader Joe's, I think it will prove to be helpful. Enjoy!

recommendation: pasta-less lasagna

In this household, we are carb-friendly. Love them. So when my hubby said these words "lets try to eat less carbs", I was like, uhhhhh, whaaat?!? Whyyyy? How?

And then a day later, this recipe serendipitously popped up in my Pinterest feed: No Noodles About It – The Best Low Carb Lasagna!. So there it was.

To make a good lasagna, you have to put a little time and love into it. Since I don't like to waste resources on Pinterest recipes since they are so hit or miss, I decided to take a major shortcut and make a few changes. So here is my revised recipe. For the original directions, see the recipe from the blog Dashing Dish.

For the Noodles:
5 large Zucchini, cut lengthwise into 1/8 inch strips (I used a cheese slicer) Put zucchini slices in colander and sprinkle with salt so that the vegetable can sweat out the water. Dab down the slices with a paper towel.

For the Meat Sauce:
This is where I cheated! I used a 32 oz jar of Mids Sausage Sauce (and a tiny bit of leftover meatless because I like my pasta with lots of sauce). The original recipe calls for you to make your own meat sauce.

For the Cheese Layer:
1 15oz container light ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Shredded parmesan cheese
1 cup Shredded mozzarella cheese
6-8 leaves of basil, minced

Instructions: 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray, arranging dried out zucchini. Bake slices for 5 minutes, then remove from oven, flip, sprinkle with pepper, and bake 5 more minutes. I left the salt out of this step b/c I had salted the zucchini earlier to sweat out the water. Remove from oven and set slices aside. (Note: I baked 3 cookie sheets of zucchini for this, which made about 3 layers of lasagna). Lower oven to 375 degrees.

2. Insert directions for making your own sauce....or... Open Jar of Sauce.

3. Mix the ricotta, parmesan and minced basil.

4. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray and spread some of the meat sauce in the bottom of the pan. Then put a layer of zucchini slices, followed by a layer of the cheese mixture. If this doesn't spread easily, just sprinkle it. Repeat layers until dish is full... sauce, zucchini, cheese. repeat.

5. Sprinkle mozzarella on top, cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.

6. Remove foil, bake for another 5-10 minutes until the cheese is browned. Remove from oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before slicing. It may be tricky to slice, use a sharp knife and just jiggle it through. You can use a spatula... but the lasagna doesn't really serve in 'pieces'... its quite saucy, but its delicious. Worth trying!

Enjoy, and don't feel too guilty, its low-carb! :)

{Original Pin - No Noodles About It ~The Best Low Carb Lasagna Ever!}

Source: dashingdish.com via Stephanie on Pinterest