Side Dish Special: Couscous Salad Medley

We're big fans of one-pot dinners.  This was one of them.  Rotisserie chicken + couscous salad medley made for a quick, satisfying meal.  The couscous salad came together by putting the raw couscous in boiling water, and then adding frozen

Couscous salad
Ingredients: 
- 1 1/3 cup Israeli couscous
- frozen broccoli
- frozen kale
- half chopped onion
- half minced cubanelle pepper
- half can of chickpeas
- Salt, pepper, za'atar
- Goat cheese

Steps:
Pour couscous in boiling water.  After a couple of minutes add frozen vegetables.  When couscous is almost ready, add onions and pepper.  Drain.  Stir in chickpeas.  Add spices to taste.  Serve with goat cheese.

Makes your mouth feel mediterranean!!

- D&H

Cheesesteaks!

Last friday, we did something awesome, and wonderful, and magnificent.... we made cheesesteaks.  In the Philly tradition, we used rib-eye steak, onions (we used one half), cheese (we went with American), and a little bit of green pepper.  Sauteed and plopped on a french bread hoagie roll.  The idea and basic recipe came from Fabio Viviani:

PHILADELPHIA CHEESESTEAK

Recipe by Fabio Viviani

Yield: 2 sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 pound rib eye steak (well marbled and sliced as thin as possible)

¼ cup extra light olive oil

1 large onion, diced

¼ pound Provolone cheese, sliced thin

Two rolls of crusty French bread

Method:

Heat up olive oil on a griddle pan over very high heat.

Add onions to pan.

Add sliced steak and cook for a few minutes, just until the pink disappears.

Just before it finishes cooking, top with the cheese.

Slice the rolls open, and place upside down over the meat, building a tent.

Using the bread, scoop the meat and cheese off of the griddle. BE CAREFUL.

Top with the grilled onions.

Slice and serve.

MANGIA!

- D&H

Ad Hoc Pizza

We made PIZZA.  Dough was pillsbury pre-made.  Toppings were chosen from the refrigerator... There was frozen broccoli, frozen kale, roasted red peppers, corned beef hash, cheddar cheese, and the sauce was mushroom pasta sauce.  It actually turned out pretty good, surprisingly.  Surely to be done again with other various toppings from the fridge.

- D&H

Feature Presentation: Hurricane Chili + Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

Hurricane Sandy is on her way, and we're cooking!  

We were aching for something warm in our bellies and found this.  Instead of tomato juice, we used diced tomatoes & a cup of water, and we added some shredded carrots.  Serving this over macaroni made for some tasty dinner bowls.

To add some fun and excitement,

we watched Jackie Chan's martial

arts madness in a fairly silly movie:

- D&H

Feature Presentation: Peanut Chicken Noodle Salad + The Sting (1973)

What we made tonight was based on this recipe,
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/06/cold-rice-noodles-with-peanut-lime-chicken/

...with a few modifications:  We used lemon juice instead of lime juice, a different set of vegetables {arugula, carrots, red cabbage, a tiny bit of white onion}, regular sugar instead of brown sugar, chunky peanut butter instead of creamy and no crushed peanuts at the end, we used fettuccine instead of rice noodles, chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs, grilled on a foreman instead of conventional grill, used white wine vinegar instead of rice vinegar, used dried ginger instead of ginger root, used chili powder instead of cayenne pepper, used crushed red peppers instead of chili peppers, and didn't use a food processor (just stirred really fast by hand ;) ).

Voila!

And for a special treat,

we note that this food goes well

with this classic film from the

con-game genre:

Enjoy!

- D&H

Creamy Lemon Pasta

Back to smitten kitchen for another treat...
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/02/spaghetti-with-lemon-and-olive-oil-al-limone/

We ate this last night with the last of the edamame salad.  The light creamy sauce was really great with angel hair pasta, though we plan to use more lemon juice next time and maybe more salt.  Definitely add more arugula too if you like veggies.


- D&H

Spaghetti with Broccoli Cream Pesto

Tonight we made this recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/10/spaghetti-with-broccoli-cream-pesto/.

'Twas delicioso.. A filling recipe for a cold rainy day.  And good with Israeli salad on the side.

Next time, we could try with more broccoli.  The parmesan garnish MADE it.

We would have posted a picture, but we ate it ;)

- D&H