Zucchini, baby

Happy fourth of July! Oh wait, that was a couple of weeks ago. No matter. I still made an awesome pasta salad that I will finally share. Where have I been, you ask? One family vacation, a business trip, two moderate plague-like illnesses, and taking my SPHR exam. All of a sudden, it’s two months later. Geez.

Anyway, there is an Italian restaurant around the corner from my house that serves an amazing cold pasta salad with a tomato based dressing. I decided to try and replicate it at home using french dressing. As a side note, I used the basil puree you find in tubes in the produce section of the grocery store. You can substitute this with fresh basil, but don’t used dried. The texture and flavor is important to offset the sweetness of the french dressing. Enjoy!

Tangy Pasta Salad (Recipe)

Banana bread! It’s one of my favorite quick breads. I am vehemently opposed to banana bread with nuts… The textural variation throws the experience off for me. I’ve tried many recipes over the years for banana bread and this recipe has evolved since I first found it in a cookbook about brunch recipes. I wanted to switch things up a bit by using sugar to line the pan instead of flour. It caramelizes while the bread bakes and creates an amazing sugary crunch on the outside of the bread. I thought it was one of my better adds to a recipe. Then my sister told me when I made this bread that Martha Stewart has a banana bread recipe where she coats the pan with sugar. Damn it! I thought I was being creative. Foiled by Martha Stewart…

Banana Bread (Recipe)

It’s zucchini time, baby! Took me long enough to post a zucchini recipe, right? This recipe was thought up in about five minutes because I needed to clean out the fridge. I used a hard cheese called Vintage Grand Ewe because Whole Foods was giving out samples. Any hard cheese will work though.

Roasted Zucchini (Recipe)

I made muffins for breakfast.  Shocking, I know.  Trust me when I say this muffin pattern is a newly acquired passion of mine; although I have not idea why I didn’t discover it sooner.  I have also recently discovered Pintrest.  I found a recipe via Pintrest for bacon and cheese breakfast muffins.  I’m a sucker for good breakfast food, so I was all about trying that recipe.  It was fantastic!  Today I wanted breakfast muffins again, but I wanted to give the recipe a little twist, so I substituted turkey sausage and skim milk (to hopefully lighten it up a bit), amped up the garlic, and included smoked gouda cheese to keep it smoky.  Voilà!  Cheesy sausage muffins were a hit with the husband and the toddler.  This is an important culinary rule of thumb…  make the original recipe at least once as it as written, then add your twists on later attempts.  That way if it flubs, it’s easier to figure out why.

Cheesy Sausage Muffins (Recipe)

So let me preface by admitting this took place on Thursday, but I am just now getting around to blogging about it.  My apologies.  Here’s the quandary: I got home earlier than expected from work and had no plan for dinner.  My freezer and pantry are stuffed, and I’m fighting the urge to ask my husband to get take-out so I can spend the evening eating fast food and forcing my husband to watch one of the many Real Housewives episodes on our DVR.  Surprisingly enough, my conscience won, and a Chicken Alfredo Bake was born!

Chicken Alfredo Bake (Recipe)

Ok, two consecutive posts about non-traditional savory muffins. It may sound strange that I have adapted multiple meals into muffins cups, but I ask you to remember these three things: miniature food is adorable, portion control, and tiny toddler hands.  I am all about lightening meals by substituting ground turkey or chicken for beef.  Where I tend to make my mistake is in volume.  Our family has about 2.25 people, but I usually make enough food to feed four to six, and as you know, leftovers are not my thing.  Muffins are the perfect single serving portion and make it way easier for freezing and reheating in a couple weeks when I am ready to eat it again.  Second, I have a toddler.  She eats everything with her hands.  The smaller it is, the better… enough said.  I like to serve these meaty nuggets with a mustard tomato sauce courtesy of my mother-in-law.

Turkey Meatloaf Muffins (Recipe)

Leftovers!  Usually they go bad in the fridge and get thrown out a few weeks later when we have to make room for more leftovers.  My husband hates waste.  He takes it personally any time he has to make a trip out to our composter with spoiled food.  It is, however, how we acquired our new pet… compost mouse.

Anyway, I am usually not a fan of leftovers.  I am extremely picky about my food and usually after I eat it once, I don’t want it again for a while.  Today I was feeling creative though, so I reinvented last night’s leftovers for tonight’s dinner.  My spaghetti and meatballs with white sauce became….  Spaghetti Muffins!!!!  With a few ingredient additions and paired with a green salad it actually passed for a decent variation on last night’s meal.

Spaghetti Muffins (Recipe)

My very first blog.  How exciting!  I thought about creating some masterful culinary wonder that no one has ever thought of.  But I worked all day.  So unfortunately, this is what I had the energy to make.  Perhaps an audience will spur me to create something fancier down the road… but I doubt it.  I like easy food.  And if I can make it fast, somewhat healthful, and my toddler eats it, then I have succeeded.  So here it is, Garlic White Sauce.  I paired it with spaghetti and roasted garlic chicken meatballs.  It was garlic-tastic!   Enjoy!

Garlic White Sauce (Recipe)