Quinoa cakes

One of Jas's birthday celebrations this winter was getting a whole group of us together for a Black and White Masquerade Ball.

It was a really cool kind of pop-up style event where we bought our tickets way in advance, knowing only the date and the time.  They emailed us a couple hours before it began to tell us the secret location - Herbst Pavilion at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

It was not just a pop-up party, but it was a pop-up dinner party!  We planned a really fun menu of food we could make ahead of time and would taste good if it wasn't totally hot.  We made grilled shish-kebabs with chicken and veggies, a delicious salad, a charcuterie plate, and personal cheesecakes with raspberry coulis for dessert.  We also tried a fun side dish - quinoa cakes.  They turned out delicious!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups uncooked quinoa
• 3 cups water
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 cup chopped chives
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup goat cheese
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 cup bread crumbs (we crumbled gluten-free bread to make this Jas friendly)
• Water
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil

Directions:
Ahead of time, bring 2 cups uncooked quinoa and 3 cups water to a boil in a kettle, cover.  Turn heat to low, simmer 25-30 minutes, or until water is absorbed.  Remove from heat.  Let cool to room temperature before assembling quinoa cakes.
Combine the room temperature quinoa, eggs, and salt in a large bowl.  Add the chives, onion, cheese, and garlic.  Stir in the bread crumbs, the let sit for a few minutes so they can absorb the moisture.
The mixture should be nice and moist, but able to be formed into patties.  (Add more breadcrumbs if it's too wet, or a little water if it's too dry.)
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Add patties, cover, and cook 7-10 minutes, or until the bottoms are deeply browned.  If they're not browning after 10 minutes, turn up the heat.
Flip the cakes with a spatula and cook the other side for another 7 minutes or so, until golden.
Cool on a wire rack.

Adapted from Epicurious

Blanched vegetables

For those of you who don't know yet, my man eats a lot of vegetables.  And he makes it his goal to drastically increase my vegetable intake - since before him it was pretty much nonexistent.  

This is a BIG bag of broccoli!

Tall Dark and Nerdy now continues his veggie-quest even when he's out of town.  He gets a massive amount of fresh vegetables, more than anyone could possibly eat in a week - in my eyes, at least - shortly before leaving for a work trip.  Then, what he hasn't eaten yet comes home with me.  

When he left last week for South by Southwest there was a MASSIVE (48 ounce) bag of broccoli and a quite large bag of brussel sprouts that came home with me.  On top of that, I had actually bought myself a (much more reasonably sized) bag of broccoli for a recipe I had planned.  I made crock pot broccoli cheese soup and crock pot broccoli beef, and ate broccoli with ranch every afternoon for several days when I wanted a snack, and I still couldn't seem to make it through all that broccoli!

In came Mom to the rescue!  During a phone call I complained to her about the sheer amount of broccoli I was trying to consume and she reminded me of what we always did at home with massive amounts of broccoli:  blanching.  Now, I have blanched broccoli and brussel sprouts in my freezer, ready for whenever I can stand to eat them again!

Ingredients:

• broccoli (or brussel sprouts)
• water
• quart-size freezer bags

Easiest ingredient list ever, right?

So happy TDN opened my eyes to how
delicious these little guys are!

Directions:

Bring water to rapid boil in large pot.  Add broccoli.  Return to boil for 3-4 minutes, stirring a few times.

Remove from heat and strain.

Dump cooked broccoli into COLD water to stop the cooking.

Bag it up and freeze it!

The only thing I did differently for the brussel sprouts was salting the water at the beginning.  Super simple!

My favorite thing about blanching green veggies like these is the beautiful color everything ends up from being boiled and then stopped right at the perfect time.

Parmesan roasted potatoes

I made these tasty, salty, cheesy roasted potatoes to go with my Parmesan crusted chicken last week, and they were the perfect complement.  I also happen to have A LOT of potatoes in my pantry that I keep forgetting about, so this was a great way to use a few up!
The only problem I had with this recipe was that they use the broiler while I was using my oven to bake the chicken.  I had these ready to go in as soon as the chicken came out, and it worked out perfectly so that the chicken was no longer thermo-nuclear hot when I tried to eat it after cooking the potatoes.

Ingredients:

• 2 Russet potatoes
• butter
• Lawry's seasoning salt
• grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Wash potatoes and pierce all over with a fork.  Cook in microwave until soft all the way through - around 8 minutes total (cooking both together) - flipping halfway through.

Cut the potatoes in half, then make slices down to the skin to make small squares.

Season with butter, cheese, and Lawry's, then place on baking sheet under the broiler for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Adapted from Iowa Girl Eats

I brought the green bean casserole!

This was all baby sister.  She loves green bean casserole, and it was a way to make sure she would eat vegetables, so I was all for it!

This is a recipe that anyone can make, and it's so quick that it works for anything.  The combination of creamy sauce, crunchy onions, and crisp veggies makes this dish a holiday staple for more than just my family!

Ingredients:

• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (6 oz.) container French fried onions
• 2 (9 oz.) packages cut green beans, thawed

Directions:

Mix soup and milk together, then add pepper, beans, and 2/3 cup onions in casserole dish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Stir.

Top with remaining onions.

Bake 5 minutes.

My sister really likes the crunchiness of the onions on the top, but you can mix more in with the beans and soup if that's the way you prefer.

Adapted from French's

Dumplings

Holiday's with the German part of the family have three rotating dishes:  strudla, kase knoephla, and dumplings.  In my four years of college, I never seemed to make it home for the right holiday, so hadn't had my favorite, dumplings, for several years.  When my sister decided to spend Christmas here with me, the first decision we made was that dumplings would happen for Christmas dinner.

Ingredients:

That's a lot of dough!

Aunt Ruth's Bread Dough

• 3/4 cup warm (not hot) water
• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 4 cups warm water
• 4 Tablespoons sugar
• 2 Tablespoons salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• Flour (roughly 3/4 of a 5 pound bag)

Other Ingredients

• Potatoes, chopped

3 pots of dumplings!

Directions:

Mix 3/4 cup warm water, yeast, and 1 Tbsp sugar well, let sit.

Mix together 4 cups warm water, sugar, salt, and oil with electric mixer.  Add 4-5 cups flour, mixing constantly.  Add yeast mixture.  Continue adding flour until dough forms a ball.

Knead on floured counter.  Place in greased bowl and cover.  Let rise until it has doubled in size.

Glass lids make not
peeking easy.

Punch down the dough.  Make into balls (about the size of cookie dough balls before baking) and place on baking sheets.  Cover and let rise again.

Cut up potatoes to cover bottom of pot.  Cover potatoes with water.  With stove on high, bring water to boil.  Add layer of dough balls.  Cover.  DON'T PEEK!  They are done when you just start to smell potatoes burning to the bottom of the pan (anywhere from 15-25 minutes).

Smother in gravy and enjoy!

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you cannot peek.  If you take the lid off, they will fall, and now you just have bread.

I used about 3/4 of the dough for the dumplings and made the rest into cinnamon rolls.