Lazy “Lasagna” and Lemon Broccolini

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

This meal takes maybe 10-15 minutes of your attention and work, making it a great weeknight choice!

Lazy “Lasagna”
Frozen ravioli of your choice (I used a 4 cheese variety but a meat or veggie filling would be good too)
Your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce (or homemade, but this is supposed to be LAZY)
2-4 cloves garlic, pressed (optional, but that’s no reason to be TOO lazy)
Fresh grated or sliced mozzarella
Fresh grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375.

Pour about half the jar of spaghetti sauce and garlic into a glass baking dish. Arrange still-frozen ravioli on top of the sauce in one layer. Add about half the remaining half of sauce on top (repeat with garlic). Make another layer of ravioli then cover with the rest of the sauce and garlic. Arrange a layer of mozzarella on top of that and then Parmesan to finish it off.

Bake for about 45 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before serving–the cheese will be piping hot!

Lemon Broccolini
1 bunch broccolini, ends trimmed
Juice and zest of 1 large or 2 small lemons
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
EVOO

Steam broccolini for about 5 minutes.

While that’s going, whisk together remaining ingredients in a small serving bowl.

Use tongs to transfer steamed veggies to bowl and toss to coat.

Lemon-Garlic Fettuccine with Roasted Asparagus

Posted on April 23, 2013 by admin

Equal parts EVOO and fresh squeezed lemon juice (I juiced 4 lemons, which was somewhere between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
Zest of 1-2 lemons
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
Your pasta of choice (I used fresh Fettucine)
1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed
More EVOO, salt and pepper
However much pine nuts you want, toasted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss asparagus with EVOO on a rimmed cookie sheet, arrange in a single layer, and season with S & P.

Whisk together the lemon juice, EVOO, garlic, and S & P in a large serving bowl. Stir in the grated cheese and set aside. In a separate small bowl, combine the lemon zest and parsley.

Pop the asparagus into the oven and roast for 20 minutes.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. When rolling, cook your pasta as needed. When ready, remove pasta with tongs into the serving bowl (don’t worry about a little water getting in as that will help bind the sauce to the pasta). Gently toss to coat with lemon sauce, then add the lemon-parsley mixture and toss a bit more.

Remove asparagus and chop into large bite-sized pieces.

Grab a big helping of pasta with the tongs and plop it on a plate. Top with a good amount of asparagus. Sprinkle with pine nuts. Dig in!

Potato & Onion Tart

Posted on February 27, 2013 by admin

I guess I’m into savory tarts right now. Today I made an upside-down potato and onion faux tart, I say faux because there’s no crust other than a crunchy bottom of cheese and potato, but it looks pie-ish enough. Check it out:

Butter + fresh thyme in a cast iron pan, fat slices of onion arranged onto that, cooked for a few minutes over medium-high on the stove. Then a mixture of sliced potatoes, EVOO, salt n pepa, and 3 cheeses go on top of that and the whole kaboodle gets baked for 45 minutes. Let it cool a bit and plop it upside down to serve. I didn’t measure anything and used chèvre instead of feta, but otherwise I followed the recipe! It’s basically a lazy au gratin since you don’t mess with making a bechamel. I think next time it doesn’t need so much cheese and the onion would have caramelized just fine without the brief sauté. Anyhoo: YUMMERS!

Catch Up

Posted on February 25, 2013 by admin

I’m on a Pinterest Rampage this week as I try to catch up with my one-a-day goal by the end of the month. Prior to this post I had done 16 out of 24 so, uhm, yikes!

Martha’s parsnip fries came out very well. Crispy on the outside and almost buttery on the inside. We ate them with corn dogs for lunch–classy!

This Cinnamon Quinoa Bake seems promising. I tasted a little corner of one and it tasted pretty good and had a nice texture. I look forward to nuking for 15 seconds and slathering with almond butter and a drizzle of honey for weekday breakfasts. I used regular soy milk and doubled the vanilla extract, subbed honey for the maple syrup just because we were out of the good stuff.

And lastly, I tried to make these homemade fruit leathers but uh, they died. They were baking at 170 degrees for many hours and I needed to go out so I left Ian in charge, but he’s sick, as mentioned earlier, and he didn’t tend them so well so they became homemade fruit shards of charcoal. Oh well. I’ll try this again some day when I can commit to the task.

Sicky-head Snot Station

Posted on February 24, 2013 by admin

Ian has a cold and it’s been a very, er, productive illness. He’s been going through tissue like nobody’s business! I picked up a handy Pinterest solution for used-tissue disposal the last time I was home sick with a nasty sinus infection. Normally I keep a bag next to the couch and I try to get most of my sick refuse in there, but honestly when I’m sick, I’m not shooting with my “A game.” This little set-up is so simple and can easily move with the sicky-head from bed to couch to bed, and, unlike a plastic grocery bag, you don’t have to engineer a way to keep it propped open each time you settle down somewhere new.

It’s just an empty tissue box fastened to a full tissue box with an elastic headband but it works really well and looks pretty slick:

Sleepy-time yoga and good morning ginger smoothie

Posted on February 24, 2013 by admin

I tried a different set of bedtime stretches last night, this 8 minute yoga routine. It felt nice and I liked that I could do the poses with my sweetie already in bed (the other one I tried takes up basically the whole bed) but I’m not sure I agree with the last pose. It starts as a lay on your back with knees tucked to your chest pose, but then you rock yourself into a sitting position, then back down, repeat for 2 minutes. I may have done it incorrectly because in practice it was a pretty lively action, not the kind of thing you do RIGHT before drifting off to sleep, which is the sequence’s intention. But hey, read the description yourself and give it a whirl.

Then this morning I made this berry beet smoothie, minus the apple and adding a few blackberries. I didn’t make a whole huge batch so I guesstimated on all the quantities. I happened to have a ton of roasted beets in the fridge from yesterday’s beet tart, so I used a couple slices of that instead of raw. The ginger and orange juice cut right through the sweetness of the beets, banana, and strawberries, and it is quite the zesty little pick-me-up. This one will have a spot in my weekday morning smoothie rotation for sure–YUM-YUM!

Beet Tart

Posted on February 24, 2013 by admin

Today I made a yummy thang loosely based on this beet tartine.

I had wanted to attempt the homemade crust but I don’t have a tart pan, and I thought a regular sloped pie pan would be too deep, so I thought hey–puff pastry is good!

The filling is a layer of shallots (caramelized in bacon butter!), roasted sliced beets, a light custard (3/4 cup half & half, 2 eggs, about a teaspoon fresh thyme, S&P), walnuts and chèvre. I baked the crust at 400 for 15 minutes, added the filling, then baked for another 20 minutes at 350. I think it looks pretty great! Can’t wait to dig in:

Update: it was indeed delicious! Paired with a salad of butter lettuce, apple, bacon, and a lemon faux vinaigrette.

Cauliflower Soup and Peasant Bread

Posted on February 18, 2013 by admin

Months apart, I pinned two cauliflower soup recipes, and since I bought two heads of cauli but used just one for the lemon-tahini recipe, I decided to make a soup. One recipe uses roasted cauliflower, aged cheddar, garlic and fresh thyme, while the other uses carrots, a little bay leaf, and lotsa cream, so I made a hybrid version. Shallot, garlic, carrot, thyme, bay leaf, nice and singed roasted cauliflower, veggie broth, a little roux, milk, heavy cream, sharp cheddar, garnished with bacon! Heck yeah! This turned out AMAZING even though it’s really unphotogenic.

I also baked some bread. Yep, me. It was suuuuper easy, which was the whole gist of the original blog and why I pinned it at all, but it did fall a bit when it cooled. No matter–it was absolutely HEAVENLY. The crust was crispy and buttery and the inside spongy and moist. While I was eating it while it was still warm I had a gut-level wonderment that we eat anything that isn’t bread. I mean, look at this motherfucker:

This soup and bread together made for one decadent homemade meal! Pinterest success! Pinter-cess…Princess? Sure, that’s how I felt manga-ing on this feast! 🙂

Date “Jar”

Posted on February 18, 2013 by admin

I’ve seen several “Date Night” jars around Pinterest. It’s a lovely–and very convenient–idea to avoid falling into the same ol’ routine or spending lots of moola on nights out. Whenever you have time, or ideally make time, to have a date with your sweetie, a date jar takes the pressure off deciding what to do so you can skip to the fun stuff. I looked at a lot of them while mining for unique date ideas, and I like this one the most because it has minimal frills and is done neatly.

I’ve been adding date ideas to a list for a couple weeks now and just got around to Joann’s today to buy tongue depressor sticks to put my jar together. I guess I had too many ideas though because after I wrote them all on sticks they didn’t fit in any jars I have. They fit perfectly in a glass, but then the tops didn’t stick out the top so it was difficult to pick a stick without dumping out the whole lot. Kind of negates the “easy to select at random” point of the whole thing. Then I found my wooden renaissance fair mug at the back of the cabinet and voilà! A perfect fit! I still need to color code them, but I’m torn on using stickers or dipping the tips in paint. I have neither so another trip to Joann’s (when they aren’t closing, whoops!) is in my near future.

I’ve divided date ideas into cost categories and as cost goes up, so does the amount of planning or time needed.

Dollar Values:
Free to $20 = green
$20 to $50= yellow
$50 to $100 = orange
Over $100 = red

These are written just as they are on the sticks. Anything in parentheses is written on the back of the stick because I thought more info would be useful. A few are season-specific so I may give those a special marking on the tips so we don’t draw a winter only date in summer and vice versa. But hey for now they’re unmarked.

Green
Living Social / Groupon
S’mores, PJs, Cards
Go out for tea
IMAX & butterfly house
Star gazing (cocoa thermos & blankets)
Build a fort!
Cuddle pit- read to each other
Wii Sports
Bike ride & picnic
Make a “mix tape”
Make bagels, Klezmer music
Make ice cream
Write bucket lists
Candlelight Dinner
Cartoons, popcorn, root beer floats
Fondue Night
Movie marathon (series or theme, remember snacks)
Waterfront arcade
Rollerblading at Alki (weather permitting)
Breakfast for dinner
Living room dance party (move furniture)
Kubota Gardens
Visit a patch, orchard or field (pumpkin, apple or strawberry)
BBC’s Hitchhiker’s Guide **This is what we watched on our first “date”**
YouTube karaoke night
Make donuts
Living room camp out

Yellow
Dinner + a movie out (Ballard)
Dinner + a movie out (out of Ballard)
Dress up and go to “high” tea
Roller skating & pizza
Arboretum kayaking
Ferry to Bainbridge, explore
Laser tag
Comedy club
Boat rental at Green Lake (seasonal)
Ride the dang duck
SAM and Taste
Home Spa Night (massages, candles, baths)
Great Wheel
Tubing (seasonal)
Snowshoeing (seasonal)
Jazz Alley
Tula’s
Rent a tandem bike (weather permitting)
Check out a local brewery
Zoo
Agua Verde & kayak

Orange
Sailing
Check out La Conner
Skagit Valley day trip (tour farms)
Ikea
Restaurant Hop (app, entree, dessert @ 3 places)
See a play or ballet
Leavenworth day trip
Heart o the Hills (Off-season)
Dance classes (4-5 dates)
Hike or snowshoe, The Attic
Mt. Rainier camping (May or October)
Cooking class (check comm. colleges)
Seattle Symphony
Whale Watching
Staple & Fancy

Red
Bed and Breakfast
Massages
Hot air balloon!
Horseback ride!
Amtrak to Portland (weekend)
Wolf Lodge 🙂

A lot of these are specific to me and my sweetie or local stuff, so apologies if the brief description doesn’t make sense. Cheers to quality time with your love!

Lemon infused olive oil and DIY soap dispenser

Posted on February 12, 2013 by admin

It’s super easy to make flavorful infused oils at home!
I made a lemon one today, haven’t tasted it since it’s for a friend, and I already lost more oil than I anticipated during the process. I wanted to use Meyer lemons as I had for the holidays, but finding organic ones has proven difficult! They need to be organic too because you use the peel, and I don’t care how much you scrub, a lot of those chemicals ain’t coming off. It’s not a problem when you just want the juice but oh well. I used our zester and that worked very well–little risk of pith contaminating the batch that way (you can also just peel in strips but you’ve got to be careful).

Then, as a catch up, I made a hand soap dispenser using a glass jar, hot glue gun, and pump from a bottle of Method foaming hand soap. It’s full of the aforementioned DIY foaming soap. It’s very simple and kind of silly but I think it’s cute.