My grandma loved eggplant.

When I say “loved eggplant” I mean that she loved to eat it, cook it, collect tchotchkes that either were or featured eggplants. In fact, I have one of her eggplants, a beautiful covered dish

Anyone who claimed to not like eggplant would get one line, and one line only: You THINK you don’t like eggplant. But, have you tried MY eggplant? Many times, people who thought they didn’t like eggplant, did indeed like hers. She had this amazing recipe for chopped eggplant that I still need to get, or try to recreate.

What’s my point? Well, I think I’ve inherited her love for eggplant. I like it curried. I like it baked, broiled, grilled, chopped and stir-fried, or roasted on a sandwich. I’m really grateful for this love of eggplant because it enabled me to create tonight’s amazing dish.

Something else you should know: I don’t think I knew what a casserole was until I was about 12 and my mom made (for the first time that I vividly remember) the Neapolitan Casserole that I love. I don’t know that I had a tuna casserole until I made it, and I hadn’t even thought to make one until I really started cooking a few years ago. Now though, I adore casseroles. I love using ONE pan and having a delicious meal come out of the oven about an hour later. They don’t photograph well, but most of the time they taste absolutely amazing.

This whole not eating flour thing has made me really miss pasta, and my love for eggplant (and a couple of friends suggestions) reminded me that I could make a lasagna with sliced eggplant instead of noodles. Originally I was going to do a roll-up kind of thing, but I was too hungry and impatient for all that prep. This prep was simple.

I sliced 3/4 of a medium eggplant into thin-ish slices. They were then quickly baked in a 400* oven (about 10 minutes) until softer and lightly browned, and more importantly, I could see the seeds.

Ok, that doesn’t look all that appetizing. To be honest I couldn’t get a decent picture of one piece of it because it was kind of monochromatic, but I assure you, the flavors of the eggplant, the peppers in the sauce, the garlic in the cheese, and the salty mozzarella melded together for a lasagna-type party!

I was in a lovely mood this afternoon even though my school day was exhausting because it was almost 60 degrees and sunny, and the grass is green, and the sun has that warmth to it that only happens in the spring…

Little remnants of winter still remain, the mounds of snow will likely cause fog in the morning, but the fog in my head seems to be lifting. I’m happier more than I’m sad, and wide awake more than I’m tired which is a sure sign of good things to come!

Technorati Tags: cheese, dinner, eggplant, food, Italian, sauce, simple recipe, vegetarian

I’ve been working with OpenSky and EnviCorp to get a deal for you on the EnviTote. Remember that? It’s this amazing thing:

If TEN people agree to buy ONE EnviTote at $19, they will receive $5 shipping and two EnviPals, a smaller insulated reusable grocery bag. They fit conveniently in the EnviTote and look like this:

The deal starts at 9 a.m. Eastern time (so 8 a.m. for us CDT-ers!) and it’s cooperative. If TEN of you agree to purchase EnviTotes at this price with the free EnviPals, you ALL get the deal. If not enough of you agree, then NO ONE gets the deal… so in the words of Nike… Just Do It! You’ll get one EnviTote, 2 EnviPals and shipping for $24!

Technorati Tags: EnviTote, OpenSky

**This is the THIRD time I’m typing out this post after stupid Ecto ate it twice before. Anyone know how to fix this?**

Why am I referring to clouds again? Well, there are a multitude of reasons…but before I get to that, a definition:

[source]

In ordinary, normal, everyday English though, cumulonimbus clouds are those tall pouffy clouds that look like they’re sitting on something in the sky.

Reason #2: I made a fan-freaking-tastic dinner! I started out with something I’ve been thinking about since I made it last: Gina’s raw sushi rolls with cauliflower “rice”. They were just as good as last time, and I filled them with cucumber, avocado, and some shredded crabmeat.

I continued with a delicious spinach salad with a pan-roasted Ahi tuna filet. I bought the most amazing-looking tuna filets at Trader Joe’s yesterday, and I’d been thinking about them all day, so I knew they had to be on the menu. I whipped up a quick salad dressing with:

• 1 Tbsp. dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 tsp. oregano

I shook them together and then set the dressing aside while I pan-roasted the tuna filet in a super-hot skillet with some olive and sesame oil. I over-cooked it slightly, but it was still delicious! While it cooked, I cut up my cucumbers, dressed the salad, and then sliced the tuna. The whole darn thing got sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Reason #3: Lemon Vanilla Cloud Cookies

After last night’s coconut clouds, I knew I had to perfect the recipe. I hesitate to call these meringues because they’re lacking the sugar that standard meringues have, but I’m good with calling them clouds. They sound so happy!

Lemon Vanilla Clouds

Ingredients

5 egg whites, brought to room temperature

2 packets Splenda (or 1/4 c. sugar)

2 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped

Directions

Heat the oven to 200*. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the lemon juice, zest, Splenda, and vanilla, and whip until stiff peaks form. Pipe or spoon onto a clean and dry cookie sheet, then place in the oven until lightly browned and dry (about 2 hours).

Reason #4: There’s a great thing happening on my OpenSky shop tomorrow! OpenSky has been hosting cooperative shopping deals called GroupShops and I’m going to be apart of one from 9 a.m. tomorrow until midnight on Friday. All the details will be revealed tomorrow morning, but what I can tell you is that it involves EnviTotes and will be under $25!

Click here for the special EnviTote GroupShop!

So after a day of feeling above the clouds, and then eating some clouds, it’s time for me to land and go to bed shortly…

Technorati Tags: Baking, dessert, dinner, EnviTote, OpenSky, seafood, simple, simple recipe, sushi, tuna

I came home all excited to make a recent favorite recipe even better! Ok, better isn’t the right word because well, the tomato sauce with butter and onions is hard to bead, but I felt the need to doctor it up and make it a bit heartier.

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions
Adapted from Marcela Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan (it fit just right in a 3-quart) over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

I added to the pot one bag of TJ’s “Melange a Trois” tri-colored peppers, and let it simmer all together, stirring occasionally until the peppers started to fall apart and the onion was just about mush. In a separate pan, I sauteed 2 links of TJ’s Sweet Pesto Chicken Sausage with a chopped up zucchini and about 6 sliced mushrooms. Then, I served the sauce and sausage mixture atop a twice-roasted spaghetti squash half. I roasted a spaghetti squash yesterday, and only used half, so today, I threw the remaining half back in the oven and let it kind of caramelize while the sauce cooked. It added a depth of flavor that was really delicious… I’ll have to start double-roasting it all the time now!

After dinner, for some strange reason, I had the desire to bake. I’m NOT a great baker, as I’ve said many times before, but sometimes I like doing it. It also gives me an excuse to use my stand mixer! Today I felt like meringues. Well, to be honest, I wanted lemon meringue pie, but since I didn’t have the stuff to make lemon curd, I settled for making some coconut meringue cookies.

I looked up a few recipes, and got the general idea of how it’s done, and then decided to just wing it. I needed sugar free, I wanted coconut, I had eggs… so I went for it.

Coconut Cloud Cookies

Makes about 16

Ingredients

5 egg whites, brought to room temperature

4 packets Splenda (feel free to substitute with 1/4 c. sugar)

1/2 c. unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions

Make sure your bowl, beaters, and any surfaces are completely oil free. Pre-heat the oven to 200*. Add the egg whites to a mixer bowl and beat on medium heat until soft peaks form. Add the Splenda (or sugar) slowly, and beat until whites hold firm peaks. Fold in the coconut, and then either pipe or spoon onto a parchment lined (or not) baking pan, and bake until lightly browned, dry and move easily off the pan.

These hit that spot… you know, the “I want something sweet but not that sweet” spot. And they’re crunchy. And not terrible for me!

I got another anonymous question today after tweeting about how yesterday’s post must’ve been boring. It wasn’t so much a question as yet another rude statement about how my blog “used to be great” and now is “boring” and all I do is sell stuff you could get at “bed bath and beyond.” So please, lovely readers, be honest with me… have I gotten boring? Am I stale in my “old age”? What do you want to see more of? Less of?

In a non Bed Bath & Beyond area, there’s an incredibly great deal coming on Wednesday morning from the EnviTote people… they want to hook you up, so if you’ve been wanting an EnviTote but holding off? Wednesday is your day! Trust me… the rest of the info will come tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: Baking, cookies, OpenSky, pasta, simple recipe, twitter, vegetables, vegetarian

Lunch was late (like 3 p.m.) when Adam and I decided to go to a local hot dog stand for some Chicago-style dogs. We had hot dogs from this place as a “midnight snack” at our wedding, and haven’t had them since, so we thought “what the heck” and went for it.

Now, do any of you know what goes on a standard Chicago hot dog? And, more importantly, what doesn’t?

Tonight, I sauteed together some mushrooms, an orange bell pepper, some garlic, and spinach, roasted a spaghetti squash, spiralized some zucchini and started assembling. I wanted to use some of this sauce from Bertolli and FoodBuzz’s Tastemaker Program

The bottom of my large bowl was filled with spiralized zucchini and spaghetti squash, then topped with my mushroom/pepper/spinach mixture, then the whole thing was topped with some of this creamy sauce. While it wasn’t something I’d normally buy, the flavor was very nostalgically tomato. Adam likened it to a gourmet and creamy version of the sauce on Spaghetti-Os. My bowl, while not pretty, was delicious. Thanks Bertolli and FoodBuzz!

Tonight, Adam and I are two of probably 10 people not watching the Oscars, so we’re enjoying cartoon reruns and dark chocolate. Tomorrow’s a busy day, as its the beginning of a new term, so I get to meet 120 new kids tomorrow throughout the day.

Have a great Monday!

Technorati Tags: Chicago dining, dinner, food, fun, vegetables, vegetarian

Maria from ChefMommy with her Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes with 43 votes!

Congratulations Maria! I’ll be sending you an email to get your mailing address so I can get you your prize!

Today’s theme, as the first Cute Food Saturday as a one-year-old entity, for no other reason than deliciousness, is cute chocolates. Some of these are cute because of the mold they were put in, but some are cute for other reasons. Check them out!

Technorati Tags: cute food

I got my first official rude comment. I’ve had some backhanded ones before that I chose not to publish because that wouldn’t have done anyone any good. But today? Today I got a comment telling me that I “shouldn’t” be eating things like dark chocolate and “how is it possible that rice isn’t allowed” on this “newfangled plan” of mine.

I thought about letting it go. I thought about not saying anything, about not giving “Scared Sandy” any sort of recognition at all, and then I thought again. What is it about anonymity and the internet that makes people think they can say whatever they want? I’ve linked to this before, and I’ll do it again:

I’ve seen it on message boards and on other people’s blogs, but I’ve never experienced it firsthand in the comments of my own. The negativity. The rudeness. The inexplicable need to be anonymously terrible to another person. So rather than taking the easy way out and just hitting “delete” on the comment, I took a chance and responded. I defended myself, and explained that I’m not a blogger that reveals each and every thing I eat. And then you all came along. You, my amazing readers, came along with emails and comments too, defending me and my choices, and I’m absolutely blown away and humbled. Thank you all from the bottom of my non-rice-eating heart.

Speaking of chicken, that’s just what I made tonight. It was simply roasted much like I did back in January, and I served it along with some (more) roasted brussels sprouts. Since there’s no recipe, and just a bunch of photos, please enjoy the visual candy. Meat-o-phobes, you might want to stop reading after the pictures of the sprouts!

Thank you again, friends, for confirming why exactly I stay a part of this amazing community. We may all have our differences, but in the end, we have one common bond… and energy vampires and flower cutters be damned! When one dares to try to bring us down, there’s 30 more to pull us back up.

Also, a VERY happy anniversary to my mom and stepdad!! How cute are they??

Technorati Tags: chicken, friends, simple recipe, thank you, vegetables

Then sometimes, there’s something I think is weird the first time I see it, and then it sticks in my brain. It’s like a peanut butter smear that just won’t go away. I ponder, and think, and revisit posts dozens of times… and then I ask the author for specifics about that recipe or combo. And then I think on it some more. And then I find myself in the aisle of the grocery store that happens to have 90% of the ingredients I need, and I decide to go for it.

And you’re thinking now “Whattheheckisshetalkingaboutnow?” Yeah, I can read your mind from here OOOOoooooOOOOHhhhhhhhh….

I’m talking about Gina’s raw cauliflower sushi rice. I saw it months ago when she was in culinary school at 108 Degrees, and it stuck in my head. I know it’s not her recipe per se, but she’s the one I associate with it. I asked her today if there was a recipe or to just go with the ingredients til they taste right, she said to go by taste, and so I went. Mostly because well, with this whole “not eating grains or many carbs” Paleo diet thing, the thing I miss the most is definitely sushi.

In my food processor went a small head of raw cauliflower, which I pulsed until it vaguely resembled rice. Then I transferred it to a bowl and seasoned it with about 1/4 c. rice vinegar, one packet of Splenda (SHAMEFUL ha right), salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder. Then I tried my hand for the first time at rolling my own sushi rolls.

Gina my dear, you are a freaking genius. Absolutely GENIUS! Do you all get the title now?? I ate 2 rolls like the one pictured, then stirred the leftover ingredients together into a salad of sorts with a bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds. I have this feeling that I’ll be buying a lot more cauliflower now, and Adam, I apologize… you do have to sleep in the same room as me…

And I’m finishing my meal off with a piece of this remarkable $1 Polish dark chocolate I get from our ethnic market. It’s better than any non-gourmet dark chocolate I’ve ever had, and better than most gourmet ones too!

I’m making some turkey burgers for Adam and for lunch tomorrow, so my cooking isn’t over yet… and I’m taking the first step of tackling Mount Clothesmore in our second bedroom tomorrow. I’ve been putting it off for 3 years and I just have to DO it. Please reassure me I don’t need the stuff I haven’t worn since I moved??

A couple of reminders for you:

• Don’t forget to vote in the Cuteiversary Contest! Check out the entries on the last Cute Food Saturday post, then vote in the poll on the right hand side of the blog.
• Go shopping! The 50% off sale on the oil and vinegar set only lasts until next Wednesday!
• Enter Ashley’s Blogiversary contest!

Have a great Thursday all!

Technorati Tags: Asian, dinner, friends, fun, sushi, vegetarian

Let’s get to it, shall we?

First of all, a big huge welcome goes out to all my new readers! Thanks for stopping by and reading! Feel free to de-lurk and leave comments so that I may follow your blog as well (if you have one). I don’t bite! Those of you coming over from Peas and Thank You, you’ll find that while my blog isn’t vegetarian or vegan, I usually give modifications to my recipes to make them such. Thanks again for stopping by!

Next, I have another chili recipe for you… see, I have this “thing” with trying to make the perfect pot of chili, and I’m getting there, but I’m not quite there yet. This last recipe was well, meaty. VERY meaty. Like, almost 3 lbs. of meat meaty. But it was delicious (do I ever say that something wasn’t delicious?) and could easily be halved and part of the meat could be cut out.

My recipe is based off this recipe for Paleo Chili found here.

Technorati Tags: Asian, beef, EnviTote, OpenSky, paleo, recipe, red meat, sale, simple recipe, spicy

See, where I went to high school (Niles North, GO VIKINGS!) was an extremely diverse place. When I say extremely, I mean EXTREMELY. There were over 45 languages spoken, and opening the pages of our yearbook was like looking at the United Nations. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have this diversity in my life until I went to college in a very white-bread town.

Anyway, back to why Indian food scared me. There were these groups of Indian boys at my high school… not the put-together, fairly Americanized Indian boys, but recently emigrated and fairly socially awkward Indian boys. These boys, no matter what year they were in school, walked in straight lines across the hallway and frequently reeked of day-old Indian food and lack of deodorant. (I told you this was shameful). I was terrified that if I ate Indian food, I would also smell of this B.O. and old curry… I know, it’s terrible and closed-minded of me, and once I met Adam, he convinced me to “just try it.” Try it I did, and I now LOVE the stuff! I can’t believe I lived my life without chicken tikka, naan, roti, dal… sigh…

More recently, thanks to the lovely Gina and Rose, I’ve been encouraged to try more adventurous dishes like Channa Masala and Baigan Bharta. I’ve recently fallen in love with Gina’s favorite, baigan bharta, and my habit has been getting expensive. I scoured the internet for the most authentic recipe I could find, and found one that fit the bill…and then, in typical Mara form, I mucked with it. What I got was a deliciously spicy, amazingly delicious, decadently creamy dish that will certainly help me save with my eating out bills!

Enough of that… I just love my camera and new editing software so much! There were 9 other photos I chose not to share.

A few things to note: The yogurt is completely and totally optional. I added it because it was my first time making this dish, but next time, I may halve the amount, or omit it altogether. Also, my curry powder was a bit “off”. I think the main reasons are that a) it’s a bit old and b) it’s from Target. I need a more authentic and less sweet-tasting curry powder for the next time I make this. The whole cumin seeds were found in the Mexican spice section for a whopping $0.99 for a fairly large bag. And, most importantly, I don’t stink!

Luckily, by graduation, those Indian boys had discovered deodorant and cologne, and no longer graced my nostrils with the smell of something I hoped I’d never smell like… and now, years later, I can appreciate the labor of love that went into the food that caused that smell, and I feel terribly guilty for ever thinking the way I did!

I’ll share the chili recipe I promised tomorrow… I just had to share this with you tonight! There’s fun OpenSky stuff too! Get excited!

Last but not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZ!!!!!!

Technorati Tags: Indian, vegetables, vegetarian