Dr. Pepper Carnitas

You would think now that I am the proud owner of a crock pot (only took me a year to decide a) if my kitchen really had room and b) if I would really use it and c) if it was going to be worth the investment) I wouldn’t immediately return to slow cooking things in my oven with a pot.

But I think the oven method gives you a better char than the slow cooker, which can make things a bit mushy if you aren’t careful.

Now that the temperature in DC doesn’t make you wonder if it’d be cooler in Hell, I’m a lot less tentative about turning on my oven for hours at a time. Plus I have a gas stove and don’t pay for gas in my apartment complex, so it’s about the same in costs as turning on the slow cooker.

Shrimp and Orzo Bake

I made this in advance of a week of running. Last Sunday I ran my first ever 5K in DC’s The Color Run. Yesterday, I ran my my first ever 10K at the Marine Corps Marathon. The Color Run was a ton of fun – I ran with my roommate and some other friends and it is not lying when it bills itself as the happiest 5K in the world. Though the washing machine in my apartment complex wasn't quite as happy…

The 10K was more challenging, namely because Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on the entire East Coast. Luckily there wasn't much wind and no rain during my run, but the hour and a half waiting for the race to start in my shorts and tee shirt in 50 degree weather wasn't too fun. However, I finished at my goal time and have stocked up on the necessities (Oreos. I had planned on doing a big cook on Sunday of three different soups, but with massive power outages expected in my area, I didn't want to take non-perishable food and make it perishable. So Oreos, pasta, and plans to eat all the frozen food I can in case of power outages. I'll let you know how it goes).

I wanted to have a dish I could eat throughout the week that would be filling, but not too heavy, would have protein, but wasn’t a cooked chicken breast, and if it could use most of the ingredients I already owned I would consider it a bonus. This one hit all those points – orzo to stick to your bones, shrimp and feta for some protein, onion and garlic because they are a basic necessity of any dish I cook, and white wine because it’s awesome.

I’ve mentioned previously that I tend to stock up when I see a great deal on dried goods, so I always tend to have pasta hanging around as well as canned tomatoes and frozen shrimp. So I only had to buy minimal ingredients to make a dish that will likely last me multiple  meals – so overall, cheap as well!

Is it any wonder I couldn’t wait to share?

Apple Pie Stuffed Apples

I gave you a healthy applesauce recipe, then a completely over the top cake recipe, so it seemed like this recipe would touch on parts on both the healthy and sweet worlds. It’s apple pie, but minus the majority of crust – so a bit healthier?

Also really cool looking. Seriously – look at those babies. Everybody gets their own individual apple pie. I feel like Oprah right now – you get a pie! And you get a pie! And I get two pies!

That’s not how it went?

That’s how it goes in my kitchen at least.

Roasted Apple Spice Cake

Now that you have your homemade applesauce ready, you can make this cake and eat it too. And I do recommend eating it – it is amazingly delicious. Roasting the apples makes it taste like you have little pockets of apple pie hiding inside your cake. Seriously, who doesn’t want that?

You’re going to have to peel the apples anyway and roasting the apple halves gives you time to figure out if you really want to make cream cheese frosting from scratch or not. I won’t tell if you decide to grab the pre-made stuff if you don’t tell about my habit of using Skippy brand peanut butter in recipes that call for “all natural” peanut butter. Deal?

Easiest Apple Sauce

It’s the beginning of Apple Mania!!! Woo!

All right, I think it may be fair to say I may be the only person excited about this because apparently all the other food bloggers were prepared and started bringing out their fall recipes in mid-September and it’s late October and I’m only getting around to it now. But I have good reason – namely, I’ve been apple picking twice this season (up from zero last year) and currently have a boatload of apples I need to use up!

So you all get some apple recipes and I get to clear space off my kitchen table. We both win!

We’re starting with making apple sauce because not only is it delicious and low-effort, it’s an ingredient in Wednesday’s recipe – so if you make it now, you’ll be prepared for cake in a few days!

Easiest Apple Sauce

From Smitten Kitchen

I added a bit of brown sugar to my recipe because I think it tastes delicious. The recipe didn’t include it originally, so if you aren’t a fan or are trying to reduce your sugar intake feel free to omit!

Ingredients:

4 pounds of apples, peeled and cored

4 strips of lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup water

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

Equipment:

Large pot with lid, blender/immersion blender/food processor

Peel, core, and chop apples into large chunks (eighths will work perfectly) and put them along with all the other ingredients into the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cover pot. Cook for approximately 30 minutes or until apples are very soft. Find the lemon peels and remove them, then let cool. Puree using your appliance of choice then enjoy!

Panda Slice and Bake Cookies

I doubt this is news elsewhere in the country, but here in DC our local newscasters went crazy when the National Zoo announced the birth of a new Giant Panda on September 16. I'm not kidding - they were reporting live from the scene. This is hilarious because the Giant Panda enclosure was closed and no one had actually seen a picture of the cub yet, so all the newscasters could say was to go to the webcast on the Smithsonian's website and that they knew absolutely no details about the cub.

[Unfortunately the cub died a week after its birth. I was bummed. So I ate the remainder of these cookies and felt a bit better.]

But clearly the time called for cookies.

Did anyone else make beads when they were younger? These cookies rely on the same technique, namely rolling out logs of dough and squishing them back together to form a pattern - in this case a panda. My panda isn't the pretties panda you'll ever see, but it is pretty darn tasty!

Of course, now I'm wondering how many other animals I can make with the same technique. If anyone experiments, let me know!

Beet Gnocchi

After discovering I liked beets this summer, I knew I had to continue exploring or my palate would never expand beyond “roasted with an egg.” Granted, roasted beets with an egg is delicious (recipe soon to come), but why stop with one good thing?

But then I found so many other delicious recipes to try, I got side tracked from my quest. There were popsicles to make! And meat to cook! And smoothies to make! Who has time to experiment with veggies that stain everything pink with so much else to do? 

But that's when it hit me - since beets stain everything pink, adding them to things makes them pink as well. So when I saw this recipe for beet gnocchi, PINK GNOCCHI, how could I resist? It continues to allow me to avoid making real gnocchi (see also: ricotta gnocchi) and was absolutely beautiful. 

I’m sorry the pictures are so dark – let’s continue to morn the fact that my kitchen only gets good natural light for about an hour a day (that I tend to miss when working) – but I can assure you these are delicious.

Broccoli White Bean Soup

Well, that didn’t take long before I moved away from the meat, meat, chocolate recipe pattern now did it? While I would love to include another meat recipe to give you that stick-to-your-bones warmth that’s starting to feel like a necessity as the cooler air moves in, I can’t do that. But I can offer you a soup that'll make you think it's cream based.

My father always likes to joke about his first time seeing cheese and broccoli soup on a restaurant menu and thinking it was a joke. Because how could cheese be the base of a soup? While this doesn’t reach that level of sublime dairy, it does provide a healthier alternative when you’re craving a thick and hearty soup but don’t want to deal with dairy. Using pureed beans or veggies is a great alternative to thicken up sauces and soups and this one uses cannellini beans to make a really tasty broccoli soup that’s pretty much the easiest thing to make since box cake mixes were invented.

Hope you enjoy!

Broccoli White Bean Soup

From Gen Y Foodie

Surprisingly, this soup freezes and reheats nicely. I get about 5 servings from this recipe and just ladle them into plastic containers to store for later. I also tend to use chicken broth in place of vegetable broth, if only because that’s what I tend to have on hand most frequently, so feel free to do the same if you aren’t a vegetarian. Additionally, I think you could probably add an additional can of cannellini beans if you really like thick creamy soups – just the one tends to get overpowered by the broth.

Ingredients
4 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large head of broccoli (approx. 4 cups) washed and cut into florets
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1 can (15 oz) cannellini beans, rinsed
4 cups low sodium vegetable broth
optional: parmesan cheese

Equipment

Food processor, large pot, whisk

Instructions

This recipe is basically shredding ingredients in the food processor and then adding them to the pot. Don’t bother rinsing or clean the bowl after each ingredient – they’re all ending up in the same place anyway!

Heat pot over medium heat and add olive oil. Shred the garlic gloves and onion in the food processor and add to pot. Saute for 4 -5 minutes. While garlic and onions are cooking, shred the broccoli florets in the food processor and add to onion and garlic mixture. Cook an additional 2-3 minutes. While broccoli mixture is cooking, puree cannellini beans in food processor then add to pot. Season vegetable and bean mixture with salt, pepper, and paprika. Slowly add vegetable broth and whisk ingredients together to combine.

Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for 12-15 minutes until the soup reaches your favorite thickness. Serve with Parmesan cheese and black pepper.

Serves 5-6.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

I've noticed this fall has caused a bit of a weird pattern-shift in my posting pattern. No, not the whole "posting regularly" thing (though that's been a nice shock), rather it's the two meat recipes followed by a chocolate recipe on Friday. Weird huh? But who doesn't like a bit of chocolate to perk them up before the weekend? 

I love cookies and I love cake, so clearly seeing a recipe called “Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake” come across my screen I was going to try it. And I loved it! It’s a bit fluffier than simply taking cookie dough and baking it in bar form – so it’s still obviously cake-y, but retains all the things you love about a cookie. Win-win really.

I could pretend this is healthy – whole wheat flour! – but I think the cup and a half of sugar and cup of butter make that fantasy a bit silly. But really, who’s looking for healthy in a recipe called “Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake”?

In any case, I hope you enjoy!

Pork and Cabbage Dumplings with Homemade Wrappers

When I last posted a Potsticker recipe, I mentioned how afraid I was of pleating and choose to use premade wonton skins to make life easier. I was still afraid when I made these, but I didn’t remember to buy the skins when buying all the other ingredients on a massive grocery shop. So when I realized making homemade wonton wrappers was literally adding water to flour (which I always have on hand), I figured worse came to worse, I could just pinch the edges closed and hope for the best.

I don’t think I’ll be winning any dumpling pleating prizes with these photos, but it was surprisingly fun. I tended to be able to make about 2 nice pleats per dumpling, but it’s not like it affected how good these tasted. This filling recipe is slightly different than the previous one – no ginger and no cornstarch for one, while I added garlic and sugar – but tastes just as good. I also cheated and just used half a bag of coleslaw instead of buying a cabbage. I figured I was already giving myself enough grief with the homemade wrappers – I might as well let someone else chop the cabbage for me.

I’d recommend taking the plunge and trying to make homemade wrappers yourself. It takes some effort, but it’s seriously worth it! These are just as thick and chewy as my favorites from the Chinese takeout place – but for the price of 6 at the restaurant, I got 40 at home!

Barbeque Chicken Sandwiches

Dear actual barbeque eaters of the world,

I’m sorry for misappropriating the word “barbeque” in this recipe. I could claim to simply be following in the steps of a blogger far more influential than I, but it’s no real excuse. There’s no pit in the ground, smoking, pork, or even a carefully measured spice rub – instead there’s just your favorite style of barbeque sauce pulled from the grocery store shelf added over some browned chicken and baked in an oven until it’s falling apart.

But it’s damned tasty.

And now that turning on my stove no longer makes me want to cry, I’m more than happy to have it bubbling away in the oven for an hour. I’m glad I didn’t find this recipe until recently – having to wait through the end of August to try this out would have been torture.

(And so you know – I’ve got another 2 full bottles of commercial barbeque sauce hanging out in my pantry ready for the next go-round. Yes. It’s that good)

Chocolate Peanut Butter, Banana, and Oat Smoothie

Not quite ready to make the switch to eating oatmeal for breakfast every morning? Try it in your smoothie! It sounded weird to me at first, but after my first gulp I was sold. Healthy? Check. Easy to make? Check. Tastes amazing? Check. Easy way to get a half serving of whole grains in the morning? Check.

Now, is this the world’s lowest calorie breakfast? No, sadly peanut butter is higher in calories than I would like to admit. But in one smoothie you get over 25 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, tons of iron and calcium, and it’s low in cholesterol. For me, that’s worth the extra time on the treadmill!

Spanish-Style Meatloaf Cups

If I’ve learned anything from my long association with my sisters, it’s that small things are intrinsically better than large things. Puppies. Kittens. Baby shoes. Tiny meatloaves?

Well, the theory is the same.  I’ve seen these topped with mashed potatoes as a type of “frosting” to continue with the cupcake trend, but I haven’t tried it myself (give that I’m not a huge fan of mashed potatoes, it didn’t seem to make sense).

But seriously – tiny meatloaves! How can you go wrong? Instead of dealing with the traditional slab of meat, you get a cute individual portion. And why go boring when you could have Spanish-style meatloaf – filled with potatoes, onions, smoked paprika, pork, and Manchego?

I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to the loaf pan again.

Beef & Potato Empanadas

It’s not exactly a secret that I like stuffed dishes. One of the tags I use regularly on this blog is “stuffed with good stuff”. There’s just something more fun about biting into something and finding another layer of taste.

So empanadas were clearly sorely missed on this blog – I’d done wontons and “fauxmosas”, but not empanadas? Partially this is because DC is home to some very fine empanada shops and I can buy homemade (and often fresh out of the oven) empanadas pretty much whenever I want and partially it’s because I didn’t own a rolling pin/didn’t want to deal with the amount of mess that would come with making my own empanada dough.

But once the temperature cooled and hanging out in my kitchen seemed less like torture and more fun, I couldn’t resist the lure of meat encased in buttery, flakey pastry without having to put on proper clothing to enjoy. So I gave a basic empanada recipe I shot and found it pretty easy!

Hope you enjoy as well.