Vegetable noodles Day One Vegetarian Week

Dinner on day one I was craving pasta so we decided that I would make vegetable "noodles".  I had found this recipe on... you guessed it... thefoodinmybeard.com.  His original recipe can be found here Vegetable Noodles.  I did however tweak his recipe adding some yellow squash in addition to all the other veggies, and adding garlic to the sauce.

Here you see almost all of the ingredients that I used in this dish.  I tried to use the freshest ingredients, but in Northern Minnesota this time of year it is difficult to find and pretty expensive.  I am definitely looking forward to summer when I can grow my own herbs.

From left to right we have leeks, basil, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, yellow squash, asparagus in a beautiful Minnesota Wild cup, oregano and carrots.  The two items missing are the garlic, which was an afterthought, and fresh marjoram, which I couldn't find at any of the local stores. 

I started by slicing the squash and zucchini very thin on a mandolin ( one of the best Christmas presents ever).  The thickness/ size of the "noodle" should be similar to fettuccine.

Ooooohhh weeeee check out those noodles.  I had to cut some of the bigger ones in half to keep the size somewhat uniform.  Next I used a peeler for the carrot strips.  I do have a fancy smancy peeler like Dan at thefoodinmybeard.com, but it is still packed away somewhere in the attic.

I like those purdy colors right there.  After this I sliced up the leeks.  Believe it or not this was the first time that I had used leeks in any recipe.  They were very flavorful and cooked up very nice.

They come in bunches of two so I will have to find another recipe for the one that I didn't use.  From what I have read they are similar to onions so knowing me I will find something to do with them.

The last vegetable and most tedious to to slice up was the asparagus.  The difficulty was due to the fact that the asparagus is very thin and small this time of year, so once again this might be better to make in the summer/fall to get better produce.

                                                                        Mid slicing

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my closeup"  Check out those yummy veggies.

Start by heating up a tablespoon of olive oil and add in the leeks and carrots.  Saute them for around 5 min and then add in the asparagus, zucchini and squash.  These three items do not take long to cook, also you don't want your "noodles" to get too soggy.

While you are cooking your noodles start using your multi-tasking abilities and blend up your sauce in your food processor or blender. 

Here we have the fresh basil, oregano, marjoram (if you can find it), 1 handful of julienne sliced sun dried tomatoes, one clove of garlic and 3/4 cup of milk.  If you would like a heavier sauce, which I don't think is necessary and adds calories, you can use a heavy cream.

Before the blending when it still looked pretty.  The end color turns into kind of a swampy color, but don't let that fool you it is very tasty and fresh.

Finally you mix in the sauce with all of your "noodles".  Let this cook for about another 5 min until sauce and noodles are hot.  To plate this lovely dish use a fork and twirl the noodles into a small mountain shape and top with a few oregano and basil leaves.

To our surprise even sans meat this dish was very, very filing.  I guarantee that we will make this dish in the future.

I know I have talked about how non functioning and small my kitchen is, but I thought a visual aid was needed so all can fully understand what I am working with, here you go.

This is mid prep for dinner so please pay no attention to how disheveled the kitchen looks.  These fabulous cabinets used to be two toned 1970's, very fancy.  We decided a temporary fix would be painting them white and with the new floors I think they are very tolerable.

I also wanted to show my method of following a recipe.  Even though I have tons and tons of cook books I still end up with my computer on the butcher block as seen below.

Tune in to the next blog for my major FAIL while making veggie Thai lettuce wraps.  I won't spoil the whole thing, but it involves too much lemon grass.  UGH.

Vegetable Noodles

1 Zucchini
1 Yellow Squash
2 Carrots
1 Leek
8-10 Asparagus spears
1-2 Tablespoons of Olive oil
3/4 cup of skim milk
1 bunch of Basil
1/3 cup of oregano leaves
1/3 cup of marjoram leaves
1 clove garlic ( or more if you love garlic like I do)
1 handful of Sundried tomatoes
salt
pepper

Start with slicing the squash and zucchini on a mandolin see picture of plate above for amount.  Slice up carrot with fancy peeler or juice regular peeler and set aside.  Next cut off all greens on the leek and slice up the white part into small thin strands simliar to the size of angel hair pasta.  Finally slice up the asparagus to whatever size you would like.

We start by heating up the oil in a pan and adding the leeks and carrots, saute for around 5 min or until bendy.  Next add in the squash, zucchini and asparagus once again cook for about 5-8 min, make sure not to over cook and get mushy.  While the "noodles" are cooking start on your easy, but flavorful sauce.  Combine basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic, sundried tomato and milk.  Blend in a food processor until relatively smooth add this to your "noodles" and heat up until it is warmed through.  Plate the food into small swirled mountains of "noodles" and sauce and dress with oregano sprigs and perhaps some basil.  THEN SCARF!!! hahaha. 

Vegetarian Week (Mary Moon, Mary Moon)

So this week Trevor and I decided we would attempt to do all vegetarian meals.  I really wanted to step out of the boring old salads and Bocca burgers (although we did have those once this week) and try some dishes/ meat substitutes that we have never had before.  We started off the week very promising, had one fail and will finish up with delicious.  Truthfully I will always be a carnivore and keep loving a medium rare cheeseburger, but I hope that in the future we can integrate at least one vegetarian meal a week. So here goes nothing.

Ketchup not Catsup!

So for as long as I can remember I have had a love affair with the glorious condiment called Ketchup.  I do believe in every Randall house there is at least 2-4 bottles in the cupboard "just in case".  What if in this great nation we (heaven forbid) somehow went into a ketchup shortage, or some kind of ketchup prohibition.  Trust me I would be bootlegging the crap out of this magical sauce.  I remember putting this on everything when I was younger roast beef, turkey, mixed in with my mashed potatoes and don't even order me french fries if they don't have ketchup.  Recently I have started to branch out and try different versions of this magical tomato concoction, but do not worry I still treasure the traditional right out of the bottle version.

Can you hear that, " AHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

I told y'all I love me some ketchup.  Oooohhhh let's go in for a close up.

WHOA!! Now that's a little too close.  "Oh Ketchup how I love thee, let me count the ways." 


So the first sauce that I will write about is my go to sauce for any burger whether it be turkey, beef, venison, ostrich, buffalo or Elk ( that will be the next post) it is called a Bois Boudran.  I originally saw this sauce on Take Home Chef with Curtis Stone.  I am truly sad that it got cancelled because his recipes were very unique and fresh, plus I was always hoping he would show up at Super One in Cloquet and I could take him home.  Wishful thinking I know! 

The original recipe calls for olive oil in the sauce, but I found that the taste is undetectable and does nothing for the texture.  I also add extra vinegar for more zip and because I love vinegar on just about anything.

Bois Bourdran

1/4 cup sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (or yellow if you are out of Dijon)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons/about 3 g finely chopped fresh tarragon

Start with the 1/4 cup of sherry vinegar, if you don't have that or in my case can't find it unless you are in Minneapolis then you can substitute red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar or my second favorite after sherry, which is tarragon vinegar.  Next whisk in the Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce until completely smooth.  Now for the BEST part add in the ketchup, top with the herbs and stir until completely mixed in. 

Above is before mixing in the herbs completely.  Notice the nice orange color of the sauce, you don't want it any redder than this because you will lose the flavors due to the overpowering ketchup. 

Next we have my new favorite sauce it is a spicy Diablo Ketchup.  The recipe for this sauce is so basic and simple, but tastes phenomenal.  I dip french fries in this sauce, top burgers with it, put it on eggs and even add it to fried crappies.  Basically I take a bowl of ketchup and add siiracha.  That is it folks I told you it was simple.  The wonderful thing about this sauce is you can make it as spicy or as mild as you like.  I myself prefer it with quite a kick.

This is about how much I use.  It's a good count of one, two, three and enough. 

Ingredients
Ketchup
Siiracha

One final sauce that I make is similar to the "fancy sauce" on Step Brothers.  It also resembles the animal sauce aka Animal Style of the In and Out burgers and while I have yet to eat at that fine establishment I came across their delicious recipe while on http://www.seriouseats.com/, which is one of my favorite sites.  I myself skip the sugar and vinegar ( I use a splash of pickle juice instead).  Also I use dill pickle relish or chopped up pickles instead of sweet relish.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of this sauce due to my camera battery dying.  To see what it looks like just close your eyes and picture thousand island dressing and there you go.

Fancy Sauce
1/2 cup of Ketchup
1/4 cup Light Mayo
2 tablespoons of chopped pickles or dill pickle relish
1 tablespoon of pickle juice

Take all ingredients mix together and presto you have it.  I use this sauce on burgers, teriyaki chicken burgers, Rubens and Rachels. 

So once again this has been an ode to you oh wonderful topping that is Ketchup.  You will forever be in my heart and in my refrigerator.  I would attempt to make you homemade, but you are perfect just the way you are.
Love,

Corissa

"Real tomato ketchup Eddie" Clark W. Griswold

Ode to the best Sammich, THE PHILLY CHEESTEAK

I don't think any sandwich could top the Philly Cheesesteak "sammich".  Steak... GOOD.... onion...GOOD... Green Peppers...GOOD... Banana Pepper GOOOOOODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!  Alright, alright I ripped that one off from " Friends", but found it fitting for this post.  The first time I made these out in Minot I had trouble even saying the word Cheesesteak, it just kept coming out as Cheesecake, Philly Cheesecakes hmmmmmmm I might have to copyright that phrase.  Our grill was not working so I had to put my skillet over the burners on the stove top.  This resulted in the smoke detector going off multiple times and our house smelling like fried meat for about 2-3 weeks after this particular cooking experience.  Meeehhhh what can you do?

I am sure the cheesesteaks that I make would have any Philadelphian shaking in their boots. These babies lack cheese wiz and sometimes I add *gasp* red or green bell peppers, but what can I say I am a quint essential Minnesota girl from the land of lard, lefse and lutefisk.  To be truthful I have never cooked with lard or made either lefse nor lutefisk, but I do like to put my own spin on recipes. 

At the time I made these we were house sitting/ dog watching for my parents so I actually had sufficient counter space to work with and an awesome grill right out the deck door.  We had some homemade leftover pizza dough that I had to use up so I made a couple of sub rolls and plopped them into the oven.  I believe I baked them at 425 until they are golden, but don't quite remember due to the fact I made them in August, whoops.  Next time I think I will use store bought or a different roll recipe. The subs turned out a little dense much like the cook, baaahhh dom ching.

Here we have the roll, which kind of looks like a potato.  I contemplated cutting them old school Subway style, but settled for slicing them in half to make them easier to fill.

As you can see I have sliced and diced up our onions and green bell pepper.  I also sliced the Ribeye steak as thin as I could.  This is where a meat slicer would come in mighty handy, but lets face it I have very little room in my horribly tiny kitchen so I will stick to the manual labor on my part.

Ooooohhhhhh can you smell what the Rock is cooking!  I fried up the onions in brummel and brown and a little olive oil to put a somewhat healthy spin on the sammich, but you can also use butter or more olive oil.

Stirring up the yummy goodness.  I cook everything on a cast iron skillet that I found at walmart for around $15.00.  It works great and if it gets too damaged I won't feel too guilty about chucking it.

They are starting to fry up nice, hence the 80's thumbs up.  Please pay no attention to my lack of manicured nails.  If you know me I hardly every do my nails or get them professionally done.  I cook with too much turmeric so I refuse to spend the time or money.

Lots O pictures.

That's a whole bunch of meat.  Every recipe that I have read states that in Philly they cook these until well done.  I tend to follow those directions the beef chops up into smaller pieces that way.

Adding some banana peppers for some extra zip.  These really make the sandwich!!

I tried to do a close up, but it ended up blurry due to the fact I had left my tripod at home, but you get the picture.

I decided to go against my better judgment and try to be creative.  Here I did a blue cheese cream sauce.  Unfortunately I did not have any cream so I combined blue cheese crumbles, skim milk and a little bit of flower.  This sauce ended up overpowering the actual sandwich so next time I will stick with provolone cheese or perhaps even try the traditional cheese whiz, I mean come on what's better than processed cheese in a jar that is shelf stable until 2030?  I will answer that NOTHING.

The end result.  I poured the cheese sauce over the top of the pile of meat, peppers and onions, then divided the pile into two, place the sliced sub rolls on top to warm up and then...we devoured them.

These were  THE MOST AMAZING sandwiches and if I wasn't trying to be somewhat healthy I would probably make them every week.  Well I hope to be blogging more that just every 7 months and am going to try my darndest to make that happen.  I also hope to get better at my photography skills and actually capture how yummy some of these recipes are.  Until next time, you stay classy San Diego.

Saying farewell to the Magic City

We definitely had our fair share of adventures in the windy state of North Dakota, but alas it is time for us to depart.  Even though my heart is breaking having to leave all of the beauty……ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTT just kidding, we’re making like trees and getting the hell out of here, Minnesota here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  All kidding aside Trevor and I made the best out of moving away and I couldn’t think of a better person to live each day with in the armpit of hell.  Below are some pictures of the ghetto 1970’s/ 1980’s (I can’t decide which decade the design scheme is from) duplex that we lived in on the North hill of Minot.

This is the front of the duplex.  Check out the awesome cedar tree landscaping.  The nice part about this duplex was that the units were attached by the garage so we didn’t have a shared common wall.  The shared driveway wasn’t too bad considering our awesome neighbor would snow blow our driveway for us. 

There she is folks 2138 6^th Street NW.

This is the backyard deck that we spent many a Saturday on after our long walks with Charlie boy.  If you are wondering yes there was usually a beverage or two involved and probably a plate of nachos.

Charlie liked to chill in sunshine and since the backyard had a beautiful chain link fence we would often times leave the screen door open for him.

I decided to put his bed out on the deck so he could be more comfortable.  This was after I had closed the screen door with Charlie on the other side, called his name and watched him run full bore into the screen.  I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my cheeks.  Trevor called me a meany devil woman, so I figured pampering C-boy a little would make up for his humiliation.

A glorious view from the deck.  I know everyone is jealous of the beautiful wildlife we were able to see on a relaxing Sunday funday.  Check out the awesome red dumpster.  When the wind was blowing just right we often times got a wiff of the sweet scent of decaying meat/ produce/ rotten pizza, oh what paradise.

This chunk of wood was in the fence when we moved in.  It endured all of the harsh forces nature had to offer and was still there when we departed.  I like to think of it as a present for the new renters.

Now let's stroll on inside so we can get the total picture.  In previous blog post the ghetto 80's kitchen can be viewed towards the end so I will not repost a picture.  Below we have our basement bathroom aka lifestyles of the rich and famous camode.  Please note the metallic flowers on the green wallpaper, it's all so very fancy.  This picture was taken after Trev had taken out the glass and metal sliding shower door that was covered in mildew and mold, DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!! 

You really couldn't see the how ugly fancy the wallpaper was so here is a close-up. 

Now onto the family room.  Nothing says class like wood paneling, cream and brown wallpaper and blue shag carpeting, yeah baby, yeah.  Please excuse the mess this picture was taken while were packing up to move home.  The red fire billow, poker and scooper were there when we moved in as well.

Going up the stairs.







Trev and Charlie relaxing on the couch.

All joking aside we were lucky to get a nice pet friendly place in Minot which was in a great neighborhood and  we did enjoy our time there.  So goodbye fare Minot we won't miss you too much, but we will miss our nightly walks (in summer, spring and fall), the wonderful Barley Pop Bar, Sunday Funday on the deck,  Lord of the Rings and True Blood Marathons, cooking fun and different meals, puzzles, the game of life, being so close to Trev's family and the new friends we made out there.  Even though I complained a lot about North Dakota I would not take back that year and a half because it brought my best friend/ husband and me closer together.  We told each other stories, some of which were told numerous times before, and some were brand new and hilarious.  I loved every minute of being with such a wonderful man and I thank God everyday that I get to live my life with someone so amazing.  Farewell Minot it's not you, it's me.  We can still be friends..... I'll call you.

Corissa's Minot Cuisine to the Extreme

Well if you have read some of my blogs you know I am hard pressed to find exotic and out of the ordinary items in the Magic City of Minot.  So I was a little hesitant to try this next recipe, but fortunately for me I was able to find EVERYTHING, well minus the Thai chilies which I substituted with dried chile peppers.  This recipe comes from, you guessed it folks, my favorite blog thefoodinmybeard.com.  Here is the Thai Chicken Tacos that I copied from him.  I highly recommend following and /or checking out his site daily. 

So my first decision is should I take the easy way out using the store bought red curry paste????...

It looks like it might work, you notice I say might...

Well it would cut a lot of time out of roasting spices, grinding them up and also making my own curry paste out of garlic, lemongrass, shallots and fish oil.

I REFUSE TO TAKE A SHORT CUT YOU SPICY TEMPTRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ooooooooooooooohhhh now that's more like it.  Way to buck self and make this recipe the correct way.  The ghetto 80's cupboards are making their token appearance in at least one picture.  All jokes aside if you have time, roasting your own spices and then grinding them up makes a whole world of difference.  In the lovely Magic City I could not find a spice grinder so I ended up buying a coffee grinder.  If you use this contraption make sure you are never going to use it for coffee beans again, unless you would like curry flavored coffee, although you could pass it off as an exotic blend from over seas to snooty friends.  I roasted all the spices for around 2-3 min make sure when using cardamon seeds that you split them in half and use just the inside teeny weeny seeds.  These are very potent little suckers and the recipe that the food in my beard guy posts does not specify this step for people like me who are not curry savvy.

Now onto the cucumber salsa.  I usually make this ahead of time due to the fact it is somewhat time consuming and also is better after marinading.  I start with mixing the rice vinegar, sugar, lime juice and minced garlic. This salsa truly makes the tacos pop due to the fresh taste of the mint and cilantro combined with the cucumber, tomato, red onion and green pepper .  If you have anyone that has an aversion to cucumber *cough, cough Dad* you could also do some pico de gallo.

Me likey!!

WHOA that's quite a close up, but you can see all of the beautiful colors that make up this lovely little topping.

Well since we are having tacos we should probably have a fun drink to pair them with.  This is my version of the skinny Margarita.

The recipe is as follows 2 shots tequila ( I prefer Jose Quervo), 1 shot of Cointreau ( or if you're like me and want to take the cheap way out Triple Sec) and a good glug of lime juice.  They are yuuuuummmmmmmmy!!  The glass looks so big because I bought a mini bottle of tequila.  Also in front the lovely beverage is my awesome penguin pot holder compliments of my mom.

For a garnish I added mint to mine.  I know it's not traditional, but it looked so pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next we move on to the chicken.  When I make this I don't fry them in oil as the recipe calls for, I boil them in water on medium until cooked through.  I fry the curry paste in oil as the recipe instructs, but instead of high-test coconut milk I use the lite.  I really can't taste too much of a difference and it cuts down quite a few calories.  I then add the half can of water, a few dashes of Worcester, 1/4 cup of light brown sugar and 2 tbsp of molasses ( I don't know if the molasses is necessary, but I skimped on every thing else so I figured what the hay).

 
Sorry for the quality of the picture I was in a hurry and the sauce smelled so good.  After letting it simmer for 20-25 minutes I shredded the chicken and let all the curry goodness soak in.

We also added mashed up avocado and feta cheese, which is best if you buy it in the block and crumble it yourself.  These tacos are what I refer to as a party in your mouth, hey get your mind out of the gutter folks, in other words it was full of spicy curry perfectly paired with the cucumber salsa, crumbled feta and mashed avocado.  I would give this recipe a solid 9 out of ten.

The finished product.  It's a little blurry, but only because I was way to anxious to take a bite out of this sucker!

And after the dishes are almost done it is time to relax.  What's that you say?? I'm watching an Iron Chef America after cooking and scarfing a most excellent dinner, yes I am, game set and match beotches.