roasted shrimp

Umb. I'm dumb. Where has this been? I'm sure I own the Ina Garten cookbook that it's in. As in, for the last three years this recipe {or rather this simple 8 minute interaction between a hot oven and four household staples} has been sitting in my kitchen, in painfully close proximity to the freezer which houses an old, colossal and overly ambitions, never ending bag of frozen shrimp.

Le Sigh. Despite the time it took, I'm so glad cute Little Kitchen could bring it to the forefront of my Google Reader so that at least, albeit feeling like an idiot, I could at least come out of the cave I've been living in, begin to enjoy this and make some more room in my freezer. Or maybe not since I'll probably go to Costco for an elephant sized bag later today.

This. Is. So. Good. So versatile. So stinkingfrikinannoyingly simple. Be generous with your oil, salt and pepper and use good olive oil. Eat these babies alone, chopped up on salads, thrown into summer pastas, make little ceviches.

Roasted Shrimp

via The Little Kitchen that Could {to whom the pic belongs} from Ina Garten

{Ingredients}
2 lbs. large shrimp (15-20 count), peeled and deveined with tails left on

3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon coarse kosher or sea salt
1-2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper

1 teaspoon Old Bay blackening seasoning is also good if you have it
{Directions}

If your shrimp were frozen, as mine were, easily thaw them by running them under lukewarm water in a colander or setting them in a bowl of lukewarm water for 5 minutes or so. They are then easy to peel if they aren't already.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with foil. Toss shrimp with olive oil, salt and pepper and spread in one layer.  Roast for 8 minutes or just until pink and cooked through.  Set aside to cool.  Serve warm or at room temperature, on top of salads, mixed in pasta, or even in warmed corn tortillas with some fresh pico de gallo, cilantro, maybe some chopped mango, cabbage, and a little chipotle mayo.

steel cut oats

It has been unseasonably cold (at least in my opinion) the last couple days. Monday's high was only about 58 and it's been in the 40s in the mornings. I wore gloves at my workout this morning! 

Feeling cold and also a little blah with my typical breakfast, I thought something warm sounded lovely alongside my eggs, rather than cold cereal. Perfect time to try steel cut oats. I found that a little bit goes a long way; they are hearty, and they can be creamier yet still have a crunch to them --I like that texture --unlike regular oatmeal.

They do take longer to cook; many recipes call for soaking them first. I found a recipe where it can be done in a larger batch and cooked more quickly in smaller quantities in the morning. You make the amount you want each morning and store the remainder in the refrigerator.

steel cut oats breakfast

adapted from the bitten word and the ny times. pic belongs to the bitten word 

{Ingredients}

water

milk or almond milk

1 cup steel cut oats

wheat bran

flax seeds

honey, agave nectar or sugar

fruit

{Directions}

bring 2 cups water to a boil. pour boiling water over 1 cup steel cut oats into a heat safe (such as glass) storage container. stir and let sit covered overnight. 

In the morning, stir the mixture. Into a large microwave safe bowl, {or you can do this over the stove, but I prefer to get less vessels dirty}  combine 1/3 cup soaked oats, 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup milk or almond milk. I also add 2 teaspoons wheat bran and 2 teaspoons flax seeds.

Microwave a total of about 4 minutes, stirring once or twice.

You want it to come to a boil and ideally simmer for most of this time, but I typically have to stop and stir it initially once or twice to keep it from boiling out of my bowl. {Which is why simmering the mixture stovetop would be better. Especially if you don't have my ridiculously oversized Pottery Barn cereal bowls. But also more effort.}

Once the liquid has lessened and it's looking like oatmeal, you're good. Add more milk for desired creaminess, or to help it cool faster.

As for toppings, I like about a teaspoon of agave nectar, half a banana and some raisins. Though the pic below via here, looks like a great variation I may need to try!

By the way, thanks Liz! I think "Bird's Nests" is a much cuter name than Egg In a Hole!

egg in hole

I love breakfast.

True story. I eat an egg every morning. I usually scramble it in a mug {one egg. one mug. pam spray. scramble with little whisk. 19 seconds zap. more scramble. 15 seconds zap.} but I love ordering eggs over easy with toast when I eat out for breakfast, loving soaking up that runny oak with some good bread, but resigning myself to my inability to make a fried egg well.

Well.
Enter Egg in A Hole.
INGREDIENTS
one egg
one good piece of toasted bread. like 9 grain.
olive oil cooking spray
biscuit cutter
DIRECTIONS
Heat skillet to medium high. Cut a hole in your toast with the biscuit cutter and ready the leftover circle on plate. Spray skillet with cooking spray. Add holed toast and crack egg into hole. Wait 2 minutes and swiftly flip entire unit. After 2-3 minutes, remove to plate. Sprinkle with coarse salt and cracked pepper and enjoy making perfect bites of cooked egg white, runny oak and nutty bread.

sliders

After a long and undoubtedly reader-mourned hiatus, I return to you with a versatile, well loved dish in our house.

The base of these sliders is Sister Shubert's rolls. Discovering that my husband loved these was further affirmation of my theory that I'd married the male version of my best friend, but that's beside the point. All that matters is T. loves the rolls and thus has loved whatever I'm able to fit in them. I've made steak sliders with leftover sliced steak meat, I've made turkey burger sliders with leftover turkey meat {and a really cute 2 inch biscuit cutter} and I've made fajita sliders. You could use black bean veggie burger patties, chicken breast sliders {cue that cute biscuit cutter} or even thickly sliced roast beef or turkey deli meat. The possibilities are endless, but the steak is is the one I make the most often. The pictures are of the turkey burger sliders.

{Steak sliders}

INGREDIENTS

Sister Shubert's Parker House Rolls

sliced steak or other meat of choice

spicy mustard

pesto

provolone cheese

baby spinach leaves

sliced Roma tomatoes

oven or toaster oven with a broiler

pepper

DIRECTIONS

Yield note: {I think there are about 16 rolls in each package. When I make these just for T, I break the frozen biscuit 'disk' in half and only use half at a time. One package should feed two for a main course comfortably and be great for appetizers for 4}

Cook frozen rolls according to package directions. Then turn broiler on. 

Time spend under the broiler will only melt the cheese not warm the meat sufficiently, so if you're using leftover or chilled meat, warm meat separately @ this point.

Half each roll and generously spread pesto on one side and spicy mustard {to your level of spiciness preference} on the other. I put pesto on the top and mustard on the bottom because I like the idea of the meat touching the spicy mustard...

Cover each bottom half with as much meat as you please and top with cheese. Place open faced halves on a cookie sheet under the broiler until the cheese melts. Remove. Sprinkle pepper on melted cheese. Top cheese with a few baby spinach leaves and a slice of Roma tomato {and whatever else you've got going on in the fridge that you think sounds good}

Smash top {pesto covered} half on. I served my turkey "burgers" with roasted new potato "fries."

Happy sliding!

briebruschetta

I bought brie for myself and needed to do something else with it after eating it on bread with chipotle raspberry sauce for two days straight. I also had some sad looking tomatoes, looking on the extra juicy side.

Do all my recipes seem to originate with stories of how I'm trying to get rid of leftovers or clean out the dregs of my pantry and freezer? Evidently.

Brie Bruschetta

{ingredients}

3 cloves garlic

good olive oil

good fresh bread such as ciabatta, 10-12 slices

two ripe tomatoes

4 oz of brie

cracked pepper

italian seasonings

{directions}

In a small ramekin covered with foil, bake 3 finely diced cloves of garlic in about an inch of olive oil for 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Then put the oven on broil and move a rack close to the broiling coil. Under the broiler, toast one side of your bread slices on a baking sheet

Half the tomatoes and generously rub the cut side on the untoasted side of the bread slices. Basically, you want the tomato to soak into the bread. Brush the baked garlic oil on the slices, sprinkle with Italian spices and cracked pepper. Spread on the brie, or place on thin slices, if spreading is difficult.

Broil the slices until cheese is melted and edges of bread begin to look toasted. About 2-3 minutes.

Enjoy!

blackberry fage

Operation Clean Out Freezer and Pantry is in full force.

After the pasta frozen fruit is next on the hit list. I have frozen cranberries, peaches, blackberries and strawberries. Since this stuff isn't in season anyway, now is a great time to start using it!

{blackberry yogurt}
heaping 1/2 c. frozen blackberries
1 c. greek yogurt
2 T. granola (or Grape Nuts - if you're in OCOF&P)
2 t. honey

Heat blackberries in a coffee mug for 1-2 minutes in the microwave until thawed. To thawed berries (and resulting liquid that I kept for sweetness) mix yogurt, granola & honey.

cheesy tomato penne bake

This was a combination of a few recipes from my new The Complete Vegetarian cookbook I found for half off at B&N yesterday. It has TONS of great sauce recipes, pasta recipes, appetizer, stuffed vegetable recipes and a billion different ways of incorporating nuts and beans into recipes. Not that I'm a vegetarian per say, but I like eating nuts, vegetables and beans more than meat, typically, and the typical meat portions are hard to cook for just the two of us.

Anyway, I added ground turkey I had frozen from another dish to this recipe, used a tomato sauce recipe from the book and made a really easy cheese sauce to hold it all together. The cookbook's author, Rose Elliot, used the cheese sauce in a couple of her lasagna dishes, but called for egg to hold her penne bake together. (However, I buy good, expensive eggs to eat for breakfast and quite honestly didn't want to use up my good eggs on a baked pasta dish) I had tons of cheddar cheese I was ready to use up and had been wanting to make my own tomato sauce for a while. Also, as I think about moving, I get frustrated with the crazy assortment of pastas I have stuffed in the back of the pantry. Two separate bags of, half used orzo, two versions of penne and enough spaghetti to feed a village. So this allowed me to get rid of the remainders of a penne bag as well!

cheesy penne pasta bake

{ingredients}

1 cup penne pasta, cooked according to package directions

1/2 c. reserved pasta water

1/4 to 1/2 lb ground turkey, cooked and finely crumbled

tomato sauce:

1 14oz can crushed tomatoes

2 T. olive oil

2 bay leaves

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

cheese sauce:

1 T. butter

1 T. flour

5 - 6 oz milk

1/4 t. cayenne pepper

1/2 t. pepper

3/4 c. cheddar cheese or other sharp cheese

1/4 c. bread crumbs

{directions}

Heat olive oil in large skillet or saucepan with lid. Cook onions covered with one bay leaf, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and stir briefly. Add tomatoes, seasonings and reserved pasta water. Allow to simmer about 25 minutes until visibly reduced. Add salt, pepper and italian seasonings to taste. Remove bay leaf.

Make the cheese sauce. I found a rubber whisk worked better than a metal one had. In pot that you made the pasta in, melt butter on medium heat with second bay leaf until bubbly. Add flour and whisk until smooth and slightly darkened in color. Remove bay leaf. Add about 1/3 of the milk and whisk until smooth. Slowly add the rest of the milk and whisk. Whisk until thickened and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in all but 1/4 cup of the cheese, allowing each addition to melt. Add spices.

In a small baking dish (I used what I think was about a 9 X 5 pyrex) combine pasta, ground turkey, half of the bread crumbs, and all but about a 1/4 of the cheese sauce. Spread the rest of the cheese sauce on top, sprinkle with remaining cheese, remaining bread crumbs and some cracked black pepper. Bake on 350 for about 25 minutes.

{photo belongs to kraft as i'm too lazy to upload mine!}