What's Cookin' Wednesday: Bruschetta!

So there's a place near me that has a huge selection of wines and beers and I was there Saturday picking up some wine. I thought to myself, hmm... what would go great with a nice red wine? Answer: Bruschetta! So I picked up the ingredients and got to work making it on Sunday. I often make bruschetta when I'm having a party and it usually goes over pretty well. It's pretty simple and makes a great snack even without the party though.

Ingredients:

1/2 of a French baguette
2 large tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 large bunch of basil
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt & freshly group black pepper (to taste)


So first preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Then cut up the baguette into 1/2 thick slices and set aside.

Chop up the tomato, and onion and put in a non-reactive bowl (since we'll be using vinegar, an acid.) All I had was metal bowls so I had to make due with a pound cake bowl. Chop up the basil and add it to the bowl as well, but put some of it aside for later. Add the balsamic vinegar and some salt, stir it so everything gets coated in vinegar and let it chill out for a bit.

Meanwhile, back to the baguette slices. Lightly brush the olive oil on one side and lay out on a baking sheet. (I don't have one of those little brush things so I had to make due with a paper towel. It was kind of a pain.)

Put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.

When they come out spoon the mixture in the bowl onto the bread. Make sure you are just scooping solids though. If you are scooping the liquid from the bottom as well then the bruschetta will come out soggy. (I failed at remembering that this time, and some of them got soggy, but still yummy.)

Put them back in the oven for about 4 minutes and then when they come out sprinkle the basil you set aside from before on top. Not cooking all of the basil makes it look brighter and taste a bit fresher I think.

A few twists of ground pepper and you are ready to go!

I enjoyed the bruschetta with an Iron Stone Cabernet Franc, which is lighter than the other red I had, a Shiraz. I didn't want the wine to overpower the bruschetta, so that's why I chose the Cabernet Franc.

Aside from some soggy pieces as I mentioned before, it was pretty delicious.

I Love India Pale Ales

So as far as beers go I'm a big fan of India Pale Ales (IPA). They are high on the hops which I think gives it a really good flavor. I am currently enjoying a Lagunitas IPA. I was out at a local market that has a huge wine and beer selection and I picked it up there. While I was at the market I also picked up ingredients for bruschetta! I made that today, but I'll save the full details for What's Cookin' Wednesday, so stay tuned!

Online Dinner Reservations

So a friend just sent this link: www.opentable.com

You can use it to make restaurant reservations online! I kind of hate calling places so this is excellent for me. I went ahead and tried it out and it seems to have worked fine. We'll see when I show up. :)

I can't believe that I used to think it was scary that you could do stuff like this from a computer. Now I think it's awesome!

What's Cookin' Wednesday: Strawberry Chocolate Smoothie

So for What's Cookin' Wednesday I decided to switch it up from the entree dishes I'd been showing and do a smoothie! This one was a Strawberry Chocolate Smoothie.

The ingredients:

8 ice cubes
1/2 cup vanilla low fat yogurt
1 cup skim milk
1 cup semi-thawed frozen strawberries
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup
1 tablespoon chocolate-hazelnut spread
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 tablespoon wheat germ

Just put everything in a blender, blend for about a minute until it's smooth and you're all set. (I added an extra little sprinkle of slivered almonds in the glass as a garnish, but it's not really necessary.)

It ends up making enough for 2 large glasses each having 291 calories. (You could omit the chocolate-hazelnut spread and have it be 241 calories a glass.) It makes for a great breakfast or snack and is pretty healthy. The almonds and wheat germ give it a bit of thickness and texture that I enjoy, but if you don't like little bits of almond you may want to blend it a little longer to make sure they are broken down finely. It hadn't added the chocolate-hazelnut spread when I had made this before but I decided to switch it up a bit. I couldn't really distinguish the two chocolate flavors at the end, so in the future I'd probably omit the spread. (I LOVE it with other things though, especially on bagels or in a crepe with bananas... mmm... I need to make crepes again soon).

Anyway, once you get the general proportions down, smoothies are great fun to experiment with. I've tried different fruit combinations, peanut butter, various nuts, ricotta cheese, even leftover coffee. (There was coffee in the pot from the morning once and I used it for frozen mocha inspired smoothie.)

I highly recommend you all give smoothies a try if you haven't already. Be sure to let me know if you come up with any big hits!

What's Cookin' Wednesday - It's not Irish but it's Green!

So I decided to make a green themed meal for St. Patrick's Day, and unfortunately it had mixed results. I started it with a spinach and artichoke dip (not shown), but I accidentally got a bunch of the liquid from the jar of artichokes into it, which gave it a really briny off taste. I'm going to have to give it another try soon though. I got some aged Asiago cheese to go in it which was really yummy and I'd like to get it to work nicely. The rest of the food was awesome, though the picture doesn't do it justice. I will have to remember to be careful how close I take pictures with that camera. On the left is thin-sliced chicken breast with a poultry rub. On the right is spinach and egg angel hair pasta with a basil pesto. Full disclosure, these elements were just store-bought, but I did have a final exam on Tuesday and today, so I didn't have a ton of time.


Today I went out for food and the place was still serving green beer so I figured what the heck, why not? I think it was just Miller Lite underneath the green though, which I'm not really a huge fan of, but oh well.

A while ago a friend showed me a recipe for Beer Cupcakes, which I tried and were delicious! I was tempted to try to come up with a recipe for Green Beer Cupcakes, but again, I didn't have tons of time. I'm still milling it over though and I may try it this weekend. It would be easy to just do the same recipe and add green food coloring, but for one, green beer is typically not made from a dark beer like Guiness (which the recipe calls for) so it's kind of a cop out, and two, it's a chocolate cupcake, and green food coloring might just make it a really gross color. I guess I could just do the icing green, though. Anyway, if anyone has suggestions on what might work for a green beer cupcake let me know and perhaps I'll give it a try.

What's Cookin' Wednesday - Shrimp and Red Pepper in Vodka Sauce

So continuing with my next theme day... Wednesdays shall be "What's Cookin' Wednesdays" where I talk about something exciting I've cooked, or food and drink that I just find yummy or interesting. I figure it'll also motivate me to cook something fun at least once a week, which is always a good thing.

So today I made Shrimp and Red Pepper in Vodka Sauce.

10 oz jumbo shrimp (frozen)
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 jar vodka sauce
12 stalks of asparagus
1 good handful of thin spaghetti (I'm not really sure how much that is, I always sorta just guess... enough for two or three servings)

I cooked the pasta as normal but took it out a bit before it needed to and put it in a pan with the vodka sauce and the red pepper to cook a little more. Cooked the shrimp in boiling water as per the instructions on the bag, then added them to the pasta and stirred. Steamed the asparagus for about 8 minutes over low boiling water.

Not too complicated really, but it turned out decent. I had the idea that rings of the pepper would look neat and be fun, but it turned out that they were hard to cut up while eating. If I did it again I'd probably chop them up more. Some fresh grated Parmesan cheese would have really put it over the top, I wish I would have thought of that at the store.

I paired it with a Chateau Ste. Michelle dry Riesling that I've been wanting to try. I tend to go for reds but I like a good white wine every once in a while. Rieslings are my favorite as far as whites go.

Anyway, it was fun, and now I have leftovers for lunch at school tomorrow. (Yay!)

Shandygaff and Jambalaya

Well, the week is over. Today was a long day and I was glad to come home, have a nice Shandygaff and some jambalaya. I had a bunch of stuff with my research to do. There was a mishap with our newly modified mouse embryonic stem cells. The coating on the plate wasn't right so they weren't growing. The other girls that work with those cells with me were busy and I had stuff to do in the lab with my own project anyway so I did all of it. I have a growth kinetics experiment that I could have started today had I prepped for it yesterday, but I didn't, and now I've missed the window so I'll probably have to wait until like Tuesday or Wednesday. I have an exam next work and two projects to work on as well. Always busy.

Lazy Saturday

Today was kind of a lazy Saturday. I worked on homework some and I want to be able to do something fun tomorrow so I have more work to do still. Minutes ago I learned that I now have stuff to grade as well, ugh.

Aside from homework the one other productive thing I did today was pick up a prescription. When I went out it was raining and I saw a man carrying his umbrella at his side, unopened. Seemed odd he didn't use it.

Less productively but more fun, I had milk and cookies today. The cookies were the premade just-throw-in-the-oven ones, but they were alright.

Ok, I should get back to my homework. Send me productive vibes. ;)

Beef & Chicken Chili

So I had some leftover chicken from yesterday and I brought it to school to eat but I wanted something with it. I decided I was going to go to Wendy's and get chili and mix the chicken in, but that never happened. The idea still sounded good though so I made some chili of my own and it turned out pretty yummy.

It was 1 lb ground beef, 2 chicken breasts, 1 medium onion, 1 serrano pepper, 2 tsp minced garlic, 2 16oz cans of black beans, 2.5 cups of salsa, 2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 2 cups of water, a 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup of bloody mary mix.

I browned up the beef with the onion and the pepper, drained it, added the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. I served it over broken up tortilla chips, sprinkled on a little bit of shredded cheese and added a dollop of sour cream.

It was tasty but I would have liked it to be a little more spicy. I think if I do it again I'd use a different kind of pepper, and/or add some hot chili oil or hot sauce.