Tuna Melt & Fries

It was just me for dinner tonight, and it's slim pickings in my fridge this week. I'm not really a huge fan of tuna salad, but it's cheap and easy to throw together. I used some leftover tuna salad from Tuesday night, and made a tuna melt. To make my meal a little more fun, I made some homemade French fries.

For my tuna salad, I mixed a can of tuna in oil with diced green bell pepper, a little mayo, a little Dijon, and some ground black pepper. I've almost given up dairy (haven't dropped butter yet, and still indulge in cheese occasionally), but I'm doing a pretty good job. For this tuna melt, I used two Veggie Cheddar slices. It doesn't melt as well as real cheese, but it's not a bad substitute, in my opinion.

I sliced up a russet potato for my French fries, tossed them in olive oil, garlic powder, and Frank's red hot sauce. Baked for 15 minutes or so, and then broiled for a few minutes at the end to make them crispy. In other news, I've been on potato overload this week, and I think after this week, I'm going to have to avoid white potatoes for a couple weeks. Note to self: Don't buy a giant bag of potatoes.

No BS Cookie Dough

Some friends of B and I's hosted a dinner last night, and while I was in the kitchen watching the wife through together an impromptu tziki sauce (yum), I noticed a funny little note taped to the inside of her cupboard. For her (now) husband's birthday she had given him a batch of homemade cookies every month for a year, with little month pull tabs to count off every time the batch was made.

And that made me think... I love cookies and wish that I had a good go to recipe that was simple and didn't require a lot of ingredients, so that whenever the mood struck me I could just whip up a batch.

This morning I set off to my local coffee shop, which has the best vegan cookies I've ever had (ok, the only vegan cookies I've ever had), and while I didn't get one (they also have the best breakfast burritos I've ever had, and those always win out) it got me to thinking what I would want my go to cookie dough to taste like. And then I remembered a time that I made honey based cookies instead of brown sugar based cookies. And then I was sold on my go to cookie dough.

I'm not a big fan of brown sugar. I think that it is a really over powering flavor, and also I hate that it dries out so fast and makes it had for me to keep a stock pile for on the fly cooking. So here's a new recipe for cookie dough for you all to try.

Please note that when your reading the recipe I've included measurements of everything because... we'll baking is a science... but I didn't exactly follow all of them. As our cooking together experience goes on you'll learn a few things about my measuring techniques, especially that I don't like to measure some ingredients (like extracts, spices, anything especially tasty, ect). So I'll include all measurements for those of you that like to stick by the rules, but will also indicate when I think you should just pour till it feels good, for those of you that like to blaze your own path.

No BS Cookie Dough

2 1/2 c. Flour

2 Eggs

1 tsp or till it feels good Vanilla Extract

1 c. White Sugar

2 tbs Honey ( I used clover, but bet any would be good)

1 1/4 c. Butter (I used salted, as this is what I had. But if I had used unsalted I may have added 3/4 tsp Salt)

6 0z or till it feels good Your choice of Mix Ins ( I used M&Ms to beat a craving, but you could use just about anything, as the cookies have a very soft taste and wouldn't overpower nuts, fruit, chips, ect)

Preheat oven to 380. Cream together butter, sugar and honey. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Add the flour and baking soda. Mix in your mix ins.

Place teaspoon sized balls of dough about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart (these cookies don't spread much, so don't be too worried about it). Bake for 10 minutes, rotating 1/2 way through.

Yields about 50 small cookies.

Reboot

There are those in this Internet world that don't believe that cheese makes everything better.

To those I say, please leave this blog. Please leave now.

Carrie is right to say that we've been away for too long, cooking but not blogging. Cooking glorious things and then scarffing them down before we could take a picture. But that's all about to change.

I've got pretty lofty plans for Christmas for the fam this year, and they include a pretty little book with a whole bunch of glossy pictures of food that would make your mouth water. And it turns out that it's already August, so... I should probably get started on that.

So here we go. Let's get to cooking.

Stuffed Squash Blossoms

My friend Katy is visiting for the week, and I took her to the Sunday farmer's market where we found squash blossoms! We picked some up to experiment with and made it to go along with last night's dinner. We stuffed the blossoms with either goat cheese or an herbed havarti and for a few of them I added a little bit of prosciutto. Then we dipped them in an egg wash and rolled them in corn meal and fried them each blossom in a inch or so of olive oil for about 15-30 seconds, each blossom. They turned out delicious! The corn meal gave it a nice crispy crust but then it was soft inside, and the goat cheese ones were especially, deliciously gooey. The blossoms were a little more than I would spend on a regular basis, but definitely an interesting curveball to throw at a (small) dinner party.

Coconut Milk-Chile Corn on the Cob

A couple weeks ago I made coconut scones, and then I had all this leftover coconut milk. So of course, I went straight to FoodGawker, as I always do, and found this recipe for corn on the cob cooked in coconut milk seasoned with chili powder. Done. I love corn on the cob, and it's summertime so it's delicious right now. I picked up a package of already husked corn from Trader Joe's, marinated the corn for about an hour in about a can of light coconut milk, some heavy dashes of chili powder, a little salt, a little black pepper, then popped it in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. It was a hit with me and my roommates. So if you're getting a little bored with your boiled corn on the cob or grilled corn on the cob, I highly recommend this recipe.

Food Find: JaxKitchen

I do still exist, and Sarah Michelle does too. And sometimes I even cook. And I she sometimes does too. But I didn't make the items in this picture above. That's a Snack Slate from JaxKitchen, where I ate a few weeks ago with my friend Vanessa. This was the most delicious little board of food ever. And dinner was pretty good too, but the Snack Slate was probably my favorite part of our meal. I'm hoping I'll make it back to blogging recipes and my cooking adventures soon. JaxKitchen is a local Tucson restaurant, and it's also got a sister restaurant called The Abbey, which has delicious corn hush puppies with a pepper jelly.

Carrie: ICBC Thanksgiving

For this week's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge, Lauren chose Thanksgiving leftovers. However, I didn't have any Thanksgiving leftovers, and it would have been weird anyway because my family chose an untraditional Thanksgiving dinner of seafood, egg rolls and assorted vegetables. But! As it turned out, I found this turkey meatball recipe with cranberry sauce that I wanted to make because I needed to review these fusion brands appetizer spoons for work (Kitchenware News & Housewares Review), and it sounded like a good recipe. The thought behind it is good, but I thought the turkey meatballs were too dry and I didn't like the cranberry sauce. Oh well. The appetizer spoons were cute.

Herbed Turkey Meatballs with Cranberry Sauce (adapted from Pink Parsley)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped (I didn't use any celery since I didn't have any)
1 lb ground turkey
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 egg (Pink Parsley suggest subbing 1/4 cup pumpkin puree for the egg)
2 Tbsp fresh oregano, minced (I used dried)
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, minced (I used dried)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2/3 cup orange juice
1 shallot minced (I didn't have any shallots)
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and lightly oil a baking sheet.

In a small skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and cook until softened about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl combine the celery and onion, turkey, bread crumbs, egg, oregano, poultry seasoning, parsley, salt and pepper. Gently incorporate with your hands. Form the mixture into meatballs and drop onto your cookie sheet.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until cooked through.

Prepare the cranberry sauce while the meatballs are in the oven. Combine orange juice, shallots, cranberries, and sugar in a medium skillet. Cook over medium heat until the cranberries pop and the mixture begins to thicken.

Serve the meatballs with the cranberry sauce.