Southern Crab- Crab cake, that is!

Hey Y'all!
It's been a while! I've been MIA for a couple of months (maybe more than that) but I'm back!

Got inspired by seafood while I was in Europe on the coast of the Mediterranean, so I thought I would make a dinner that involved some of the delicious fish we ate.

Well.. not exactly fish, but crab. I had some excellent crab.

Crab cakes. To be exact.

So, this recipe is Ms. Paula Deen's recipe, but I used some lighter options with the oil and light mayonnaise. Here's the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/crab-cakes-recipe/index.html

So, minus the onions and garlic (mommy allergies) I threw it all together, put the flour on (maybe a bit too much, be cautious), and made some linguine to go with it!

Yum! Mix it all together and it looked so good! It was a little bit watery, but that didn't make a big difference.

I floured the patties (some of them a bit too much, but I didn't mind) and then put in some light oil and laid them in. Lightly fried and place them on some linguine! I put just a touch of oil on the pasta, you can put some sauce on it, but I was hungry!!! Can you blame me?

Of course, I put some avacado on it... Duh. Look how fresh it looks! Delicious.

Hope yall are having a good week and I will see you next time!

Plates, and Flatware, and Dishes, Oh My!

Tonight was "Pasta Night" take two. My darling aunt disproved of my dining wear (which consisted of tupperware) and was gracious enough to provide for my displaced Southern Table, here in Ohio.

NEW PLATES, YAY!!!


So, I had to use all the pasta I had left over from the other night, and Spring Break is fast approaching. What to do, what to do... COOK. My good friend, Eric, came over to help me cook and eat the rest of my food! He's a great slicer. You need a zucchini sliced, Eric can do it.

Of course, my slow roasted tomatoes made an appearance.

And my favs, zuccs!! 

So, I put the tomatoes in first, two hours at 320 degrees or if you want to cut down the time a bit, put it in at a higher temp. Just keep an eye on them. Once they start shriveling or getting blackened, they are perfect!

Eric cut up my zucchini for me and then we sauteed them with some butter and oil (Paula Deen inspired) and then I had some turkey meat left over and we heated that up in the skillet a bit.

Delicious!

We made the pasta and then threw it all together. Simple and Easy!

The beautiful new bowls and flatware!

Oooh, Ahhhh!

Yum. I added Parmesan on top and if I there had been any tomato sauce I would have added that too, but it was delicious as is.

Eric seemed to like it...

And I loved it.

Thanks Aunt Lisa for my new bowls and plates!! I love them! I can't wait to keep using them more often for when I (hopefully) get the apartment next year. See you guys soon!
Happy Spring and St. Patrick's Day!

Enjoy!

The Good Old College Try

Hello der!

Sorry it's been so long! Can you believe it's already March?! I have Spring Break soon! And then Summer!!!

But before that can happen, I need to get some good college cookin in.

Today, my girls (Meryl, the amazon, and Dani, the skinny) and I made dinner and some sweets! It's been a long week and we needed to wind down.

So, I made some pasta with asparagus and turkey.

I cooked the pasta according to the box and then boiled the asparagus for 4 minutes with some herbs and olive oil. Easy enough!

I bough some turkey and just ripped it and mixed, et voila!

Easy pasta for any day. And it takes a whole 10 minutes to make.

Delish!!               (Dani on the left and Meryl on the right)

While I was slaving over a hot stove, the girls were baking up some brownie goodness.

They made these brownies, but not just any kind of brownies. EPIC BROWNIES.

Cookie dough, covered with oreos, covered with brownie mix. Cook at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until not mushy.

This all makes for three very happy college girls.

Yum from Ohio in South Kitchen!!!

Enjoy :)

-Lex

Southern Farewell

I feel like I haven't been faithful enough to my southern roots. Probably because everything southern involves being fried, copious amounts of butter, or beer. But this is an alternative to all three and I had a lot of okra left over.


One of my favorite things in the world: fried okra.


Ok, but we're avoiding fried, sooo I tried oven baked.

Yes, and oven-baked okra. And don't worry, they were just as delicious and a lot less guilty.

So, for okra! Cut off the ends and make little slices. Then, in a large bowl you'll combine one egg with 1/2 cup of buttermilk. Listen, I used whole milk and that turned out just fine, but if you want authentic, use the buttermilk.
Now, put your okra in the mixture and let them soak for 3 minutes.
After that, you take another bowl and combine 1 and 1/2 cups of cornmeal, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, and pepper. You'll put your soaked okra into that mixture and then ...mix!

Grease a pan (or use parchment paper) and put your okra out. Cook at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes!!

Yum!! 

You'll want to flip them about half way through.

Of course, that's not all I made.

I had some beef left over and also some turkey meat, so I made a pasta-less lasagna.

Grease a casserole pan, then layer some zucchini slices on the bottom. Then I sprinkled my cooked beef on top of that and then a cheese mixture of ricotta cheese, cream cheese, and shaved cheese. More zucchini after that and then a little cheese to top it off!

It was delicious!

350 for 30 minutes!!

Easy and breezy for someone with a lot of leftovers.

I also made some more gougeres (first post) and viola!

I'm leaving to go back to school this week, so my next posts will be few and far between, but I am planning on an Oscar party and my friends birthday party! So I'll be cooking soon and I'll make sure to share it with you.

Enjoy!!!

Headin' up North, North Carolina that is.

Oh, you thought this blog was just about food? 

OH HO HO, no, my friend. 

Well, technically it is, but I went up to North Kakalaki and decided to share my adventures through the wonderful medium of film. Or digital art, as it were.

The point of our adventure was to see the opera (Oh yeah, I'm an opera student at Oberlin fyi) Madama Butterfly at Carolina Opera. We got the tickets at a silent auction and I really enjoyed it. The tenor was quite good, but the soprano was a little underwhelming. Consul was AWESOME. And the rest was meh. But the production was quite an interesting interpretation. The costuming was not my favorite and some of the symbolism was a little too abrupt, but eventually cohesive and the child was ahdorable.

 Cool building.

Welcome to Charlotte.

We pretty much walked over this street looking for ice cream or some kind of dessert and it took us two hours and four cops later to find it. Sigh. No one understands the importance of dessert like we do.

Church downtown. Very cool.

Modern Art museum building.

So, before we went to the opera, we ate at the oh so appropriately named "aria" grill. I had a delicious salad and then a gnocchi with white truffle oil, asparagus, and pear shavings.

So. Good. It made me want to make gnocchi. Which I will eventually do... someday.

Mom and I at the opera.

What a lovely evening! Good food, good wine, good opera!

Till next time, lovelies!

Enjoy!

Best Pasta Dinner Ever??

Well....

This dish certainly made my father happy. I think he said this was his favorite dish so far about 13 times..

Stuffed. Shells.

There... I said it. Stuffed Shells.. but.. with a few modifications, as always.

Boil your shells for about 6-7 minutes, not too done, cause you'll bake them for 30 min later...

Tomato sauce... pretty simple.

For the stuffing! 1 pound bag of spinach, a zucchini cut lengthwise, 16 ounces of ricotta cheese (though I used mascarpone, molto bene) 1 and 1/2 cups of mozzarella, and parmesan.

Wilt the spinach in a pan with olive oil. Chop it roughly and drain. Then sauté the cut zucchini and add that to the spinach. Add the cheese and mix it all together. Then, stuff away!

Put your stuffed shells on a layer of your tomato sauce and then cover them with another layer of sauce.

Then 30 min in the oven at 350 covered with a tin foil. (Read foal)

(This is southern table after all)

Mom made meatballs for a little protein! The key to a good meatball is breadcrumbs. Keeps them moist!

And there you have it! I fully loaded, delicious meal. Easily a vegetarian option and perfect for a group to make. It's a lot of fun to stuff the shells. This meal is super easy and only 331 calories!!

You heard me! 331 calories!

Guess that kind of makes up for all those cupcakes we made!

Enjoy!!!!

Cupcakes Galore!

Forgive my absence!!!

But I made cupcakes to make up for it.

There isn't some fancy recipe here. I was craving cupcakes and it was raining so hard so I couldn't go to Gigi's, the best cupcake shop ever, so I made some myself. Straight out of a box. And soooo delicious.

 Dad came and "helped."

To spice things up, I added a few white chocolate chips in the middle. To be honest, this did nothing to add to the cupcake... So... it's up to you. Maybe I added too few? Not sure, but it's still a good cupcake. Very soft and moist. Yum.

Cream cheese frosting along with some raspberries... how can you go wrong?

I also made a chocolate and peanut butter cupcake.
Because there is SO much batter.

And then I took the majority of the cupcakes over to the neighbors kids. I apologized in advance for the sugar high.

These will definitely be made when I get back in Oberlin. Valentine's cupcakes!!!

Enjoy!!!