Fruit and Tortellini Salad

Greg and I made this a while ago when we were craving foods that remind us of summer. My Mom used to make me a salad like this to take to my summer job as a lifeguard. There is nothing like chilled cheese tortellini with fresh veggies on a sunny 85 degree day! This is another meal with a very lose recipe: tortellini (or ravioli), chopped veggies, salad dressing (optional), parmesan cheese (optional). It takes as long to prepare as the pasta takes to cook & the veggies to be chopped. It is good warm, but best chilled for a few hours.

Our favorite dressing to mix in is Girard's Caesar dressing. But, we were out, and it's $$$, so we tried the Kraft version. For more than a dollar less and 4 more oz., it was a pretty good substitute! Orange and yellow bell peppers were on sale, so we chopped half of each up with two cucumbers (skins removed because they were the waxed kind).

It really satisfied our craving! We'll be making this again, but I want to try adding avocado in. We love the "green gold", but we haven't added it into this before. Maybe some sliced tomatoes would be nice with that, too.

Recipe: Serves 4
1 small bag frozen or fresh cheese tortellini or ravioli
2 - 3C. chopped veggies
2-4 TBS favorite salad dressing
2-4 TBS parmesan cheese

-Cook pasta according to directions on the bag.
-Chop veggies
-Drain the pasta. Add all ingredients. Mix well. Chill for 2ish hours until cool.
-Enjoy!!!

Pancakes

Well, this is another secret Hellman family recipe. I've been a bit busy with school and work (even working some OT), so my posts are behind. This is just a quick little tease =). I have a few actual recipes to post, but those will have to wait until another time.

Orange Teriyaki Chicken Salad

Greg and I have been craving fresh food for a while. I think our bodies are ready for summer! Since the oranges are perfect right now, we took advantage of them. I saw a similar recipe in a fitness magazine. Their protein was fish, and they stir-fried kale to go with it. Greg doesn't really like kale, and I don't really like fish, so we just borrowed the orange teriyaki sauce.

This was a delicious salad, and very filling! I actually couldn't finish mine. I think this would also be really good in a wrap, but maybe leaving out the orange slices. They would have to go on the side.

Recipe: Serves 2

3-4 chicken breast tenders - cut into bite size pieces
1 orange - zested and then sectioned
1 cucumber, sliced
1 bell pepper (though I used half of a yellow and half of a red) - cut into strips
ready to eat spinach
2 tbs teriyaki sauce
zest of one orange
extra virgin olive oil

dressing:
1 tsp vinegar
2 tsp orange juice
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

-Add extra virgin olive oil and teriyaki sauce to a medium hot skillet. Add orange zest and stir until fragrant. Not quite a minute. Add the chicken. Stir often. The liquid will for a sauce. You may need to add a bit of flour at the end to make it all come together. Takes about 5 minutes to cook.

-Whisk together the vinegar, orange juice and olive oil for your dressing.

-Combine all ingredients.

Enjoy!!!

All-American Chocolate Butter Cake Cupcakes

Hmmm, chocolate! This title is a mouth full! The recipe is mildly altered from The Cake Bible, which was gifted from dear family friends a few years ago, Thom and Doug! My Mom let me take the book with me when Greg and I moved to Kentucky.

I've made the cake version of this recipe before, and it's always a hit. The texture and flavor are great. The cupcake version was a bit disappointing, but only because I know how glorious the cake can be. But, all said, they were very good!

The only changes I made were to throw about 1 C. of almond slices into the batter. They didn't add much flavor, so I think I would have been better off using almond extract or amaretto. I really want to try that next time!

Recipe: Serves 12 (Yes, the recipe for this, and all of the cakes, comes in volume and weight!)

Unsweetened cocoa powder 1/2C + 3 TBS OR 2.25 oz
Boiling water 1 liquid C OR 8.25 oz
3 large eggs (room temp)
vanilla 2 1/4 tsp OR 9 grams
sifted cake flour 2 1/4 C + 2 TBS OR 8.25 oz
sugar 1 1/2 C OR 10.5 oz
baking powder 1 TBS OR 5 grams
unsalted butter (softened) 12 TBS OR 8 oz

Preheat oven to 350
-Boil water, whisk in the cocoa. Cool to room temp.
-Combine eggs, 1/4 the cocoa mixture and vanilla
-In a third bowl, sift the remaining ingredients together. Add the butter and remaining cocoa mixture. Gradually add the egg mixture.
-makes 24 cupcakes, bake for 15 minutes
OR
-makes 2 9inch cakes, bake for 25-35 minutes.
-Enjoy!!!

Chicken with Rice and Roasted Veggies

This past Thursday we had Dan and Rebecca over for dinner. I didn't have a recipe in mind, but the plan was to stuff chicken breasts with this wonderful feta "salsa" from Whole Foods, but they were all sold out! So, after browsing the cheese section, Greg and I opted for a mustard ale semi-soft cheese to use instead. Then, as we were checking out, we noticed that sparkling cider was wwwwaaaayyyyy on sale. At this point, dinner really started to come together.

When we got home I flipped open my Flavor Bible and found that oregano and garlic go very well with mustard. Perfect. I knew that I wanted to bread the chicken breasts before baking them, so I added both oregano & garlic to my whole wheat bread crumbs. We also roasted a sweet potato, 2 red skin potatoes, and a few brussel sprouts, and cooked some multi-grain wild rice. YUM! And, a nice side note, this was a no-sodium added meal! The chicken had really good flavor, but was a little dry. Greg thought that I could have added even more of the cheese, since the mustard flavor was very subtle. The herbed bread crumbs were nice and added a good texgure. We just roasted the veggies with olive oil, black pepper and a bit of rosemary. They were scrumptious. Especially the brussel sprouts (though they did not re-heat well the next day). The rice was plain, but it has such a nutty flavor anyway that it didn't need much.

Anyway, we ended up eating at our table, which almost never happens. It was really fun to get out our wine glasses and serving platters, especially a large cabbage leaf bowl that my Mor-mor (maternal grandmother) gave us as wedding gift.


And so, yes, we will be making each of these again. But more cheese next time. I also thought a sauce using the cheese would be good. That way, each person could control the amount of mustard they put with the chicken. Maybe some carmalized onions would be nice to roll up with the cheese as well. Hm...only time will tell how we cook this next!

Recipe: Serves 5

Chicken:
5 chicken breasts, thawed and with a deep pocket cut in.
2 C. bread crumbs
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp oregano
olive oil
mustard ale cheese

-Open up the sliced chicken breasts like they were a book. Lay a few slivers of mustard ale cheese along the whold opening. Roll up tightly from one end. Toothpick closed. Coat in olive oil and then cover in bread crumbs. Place in a 9x13 inch baking pan, about 1 inch apart (i needed to use 2 baking pans). Bake for 35-45 minutes at 420 degrees (baking time depends on how thawed out the chicken is).

Rice:
1 C. whole grain wild rice mixture
2 C. water

-bring water to a boil. Add rice. Cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 30-45 minutes.

Roasted Veggies:

1 medium sweet potato, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 red skin potatoes, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 1/2 C. brussel sprouts, cut trimmed and cut in half
olive oil
black pepper
rosemary

-Combine the sweet potato and red skin potatoes. Toss with olive oil, black pepper & rosemary. Spread onto a greased jelly roll pan. Place in the oven below the chicken when the chicken has 20 minutes to go. Stir after 10 minutes.

-Toss the brussel sprouts with the same seasoning. Place cut side down on a greased baking pan. Place in oven when the chicken has 15 minutes left. Don't over cook!

-Enjoy!!!

New Year, New Food

Well, as everyone knows, it is 2009! A new year! I generally don't like New Year's Resolutions since they don't often come to fruition. But, I've come up with some thoughtful goals for the blog so I can be more active with my posts, but still have time to juggle the rest of my life. So, the goals are:

1. Post at least once a week

2. Posting once a week means cooking something new once a week! (Kind of busy for someone who works full time and goes to school!)

3. Try foods I might not otherwise try

4. Eat more heart healthy (Yes, heart healthy. My 23 year old 115lb self is prehypertensive, and high blood pressure runs on my Dads side of the family).

So, there we have it. Blog goals for 2009.

Here are a few pictures from google that have inspired me:







Well, there are many more pictures, but I'll keep those for later. Maybe I'll even try to re-create some of them!

Cuban Bread

What is Cuban Bread, you may ask? It's more or less the Cuban version of a French of Italian bread. I love these breads for their simplicity. The ingredients are: flour, water, salt, yeast, bit of sweetener. Done. I love the idea of bread being so simple, clean and lovely. A bit like minimalism. Add-ins to bread are wonderful, don't get me wrong. But having such a nice base is refreshing.

I decided this year to bake bread instead of cookies around Christmas. I grew up baking and decorating cookies, and love it! But, I also knew that this year, each of our Christmas hosts would have plenty of cookies and treats, and that Greg and I didn't need batches to ourselves. I also figured that this was the worst week to give out cookies at work, since everyone has had their fill at home. So, in order to satisfy my baking craving, I made bread, which turned out to be equally as dangerous as a fresh batch of cookies.

I found this recipe in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. This is a great book with breads for any baking level. The Cuban Bread is considered a beginners bread. We thought it was appropriate that I bake something more simple, since I've only made a couple yeast breads, each being very simple. Needless to say, I did not change anything from the recipe. The resulting bread had a nice crisp dry crust with a moist soft inside. A bit sweet, but not too much. It made wonderful grilled cheese sandwiches! It reminds me a bit of Great Harvest breads. The only thing I don't like about this bread is that it uses only all purpose flour. Now that I'm comfortable with the recipe, I'll play around with adding whole wheat flour and or wheat germ.

Recipe: Makes two free-form loafs.

5-6 C. flour
2 pkgs dry yeast
1 TBS salt
2 TBS sugar
2 C. hot water

-Place 4 C. flour in a large bowl. Mix in yeast, salt and sugar. Pour in hot water and continue to mix. Slowly add in the remaining 1-2 C. of flour until the dough is no longer sticky (i had to add the full extra 2 C.).

-Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.

- Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and keep in a warm place for ~15 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.

-Punch dough down and cut into two pieces.

-Form into a ball by pulling the dough into the shape of a ball, and "tucking" the excess dough into the ball. Place it excess side down onto parchment paper or cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet. Brush the tops of the bread with water. Make an "X" cut or a square cut in the tops of each loaf.

-Place a pan of cold water in the bottom rack of the oven. Place the bread in the middle and turn on to 400 degrees. Set your timer for 40 minutes. The bread will rise as the oven warms up. The recipe calls for the bread to take 50 minutes to be done, but I think mine took closer to 40. The crust will be golden and if you tap the bottom of the bread it will sound hollow once it is baked all of the way.

-Enjoy!!!