teacher by day - chef by night
The other night we went out for wings at a local bar that has a million (ok, maybe like 100+) different beers from around the world. I love going there for wings, but unfortunately it is very close to the college & therefor during the …
I promised you that you would see that goat cheese & the tomatoes again – so here we go! We had a few beautiful looking tomatoes & the goat cheese (which honestly, not sure if I will buy again – it was fun to work …
Rich called me the other day from work & asked if we could have bruschetta as an appetizer when he got home from work. Since I was home all day, making something to be ready as soon as he walked in the door wasn’t a problem. But then I realized that I needed to make Italian for dinner! It was one of those rainy days so off I went to FoodGawker to get inspired 🙂
After looking around online for a bunch of different recipes to try to find “the best” (even though I am not good at following a recipe, I always play too much with the “original” recipe & try to make it my own) – but I finally decided on “Olive Garden’s Bruschetta” from Good Morning America (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=7270885). The bruschetta was ready for Rich when he walked in the door & made it to the kitchen (after greeting the dogs first of course)!
Then I decided to get “adventurous” and found a fun recipe for Goat Cheese stuffed Portabellas with tomatoes (again from the garden) and some bacon (http://www.howto-simplify.com/2010/08/portobello-mushrooms-stuffed-with-goat.html). These ended up not being our favorite – but they did taste exactly like something we would get from a restaurant so they were not a let-down at all!
Finally we were onto the main course. I picked up a bag of the frozen “mixed seafood” while I was at the market ($5 for the bag, not even on sale – I was pretty happy.) To create my Garlic Seafood Pasta I started with some butter & olive oil in the pan and then added an onion (1 small) and garlic (5? cloves – we love garlic). Then I put in some clam juice, chicken stock, & lemon juice. Once I had the flavor I wanted I threw in the (defrosted) seafood & let it all cook for about 5 minutes. Then I tossed in the cooked pasta (oh yeah – I started the pasta before I started my seafood stuff) & served it up. I thought it was great (Rich is not the biggest fan of seafood, but still really liked it).
So – that was my “Italian Inspiration” for that night, just wait to see what I did with the leftover goat cheese the next night……
A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to make something really “fresh” for dinner. So when I went to the market & saw both portabella mushrooms & eggplant on sale – I decided Paninis is was! I found some great inspiration from Panini Happy …
I think that I started my cooking career at a young age thinking that I loved to bake. Now as an adult, I realize that I do love to bake – although I try to avoid it often because I also love to eat my …
I wanted to start off with one of my favorite meals that Rich & I created over the summer. It all started as a normal busy weekend day and by close to dinner-time we were just sitting around doing nothing. I decided that we should have a “date night” and off to Wegmans we went to buy sushi fillings (I already had the rolling mat, nori, wasabi, etc). About $25 later and we were home (I know we could have spent about the same amount going out to sushi – but what is the purpose of loving to cook & create food if we just go out, AND we would not have had nearly as much fun!
I knew we would be very hungry by the time the rolls were finished, so I started off by creating (I love when I have no idea what I am doing and just come up with it on the fly) a starter salad of Asian Lettuce (which happened to be in the fridge that week as I was experimenting with different greens all summer). I then looked at our sushi ingredients and made a dressing of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, & soy sauce. I placed them into some dishes that my parents had received as a wedding present (years ago) and had “re-gifted” to me when I moved out, sprinkled it with sesame seeds & off we went.
Then it was time to create & enjoy our sushi – here is a close up of our creations…. from left to right they are: Tuna Avocado Roll, Smoked Salmon Cucumber Avocado Cream Cheese Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll (homemade “spicy” sauce on top), Crab Avocado Cream Cheese Roll, & Avocado Roll
We were very impressed with our final product. This meal is probably one of my top 5 that was a “wow” show-stopper so far (from the summer) which prompted me to decide to want to start this blog.
Do not come to expect dishes this fancy on a regular basis! This was a fantastic date night, so I say go for it – just do some searches online to figure out what you are doing and then just have fun with some of your favorite sushi flavors!