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!!!

More Bacon

Do you like bacon?
Of course you do, who doesn't?!

Unless you're vegetarian. But even if you are, deep down, you still like bacon. You just don't know it.

The word of the day was quiche. French, yes?

Well, my bible wanted me to take 3 hours to make this quiche from making the dough and custard. I think not, Julia Child's-esque cooking writer!

So, I popped over to Bi-Lo and bought a pre-made one. 3 bucks for 3 hours? Good trade.

I also bought 9 oz of frozen spinach, peppercorn bacon, and some half and half.

Fry the bacon in the pan, drain the spinach (thoroughly, because it will water if you don't) and put it in after the bacon is finished. I also added in some zucchini, cause I eat zucchini for just about every meal anyway. After you roll out the dough you either made or bought, you layer in bits of bacon with the vegetables. I had an extra tomato and added that in as well.

The egg custard calls for 4 eggs, 1 and1/2 cups of half and half, some dijon mustard, and Worcestershire sauce with a pinch of salt.   

I forgot to add cheese. But that's what the recipe calls for. I added some parmesan on top.

Mom kept adding bacon. Thus, the title.

Pour the custard on top of all the layers and make sure it's all saturated.

The oven should be at 345 and bake for about 45 min. It might look a little watery when it comes out (at least mine did) but just let it sit for a while and it will be fine! 

Serve with a glass of milk and you'll feel like you've died and gone to heaven.

I hope you enjoy and it's pretty much great all day long! What a great breakfast to get you up and going through the day. Especially for my friends in Oberlin. Keep warm, ya'll!

Gumbo turned Jambalaya

I apologize sincerely for being so late!

But!! I'll make up for it by some amazing recipes in the southern style, of course.

Since I'm in school at Oberlin Conservatory up in Oberlin, OH, you can imagine that I'm always craving some good down-home food. A little comfort food, if you will.

I guess that's the ultimate point of Winter Term. Avoid the snow, and stock up on some southern comfort.

Originally, I was going to make gumbo. We had some really good tomato soup from Whole Foods left over and I thought we could make gumbo from it.
But... roux takes forever and you just keep stirring and stirring and it was a little time consuming. So, it turned into jambalaya!! Spicy!

In Oberlin, I'm basically a vegetarian, the options are limitless at school and it's so easy to eat healthy. That's why I put as much meat in this jambalaya as possible.
School is great for vegetarianism, home is where the meat is.

So, this jambalaya has sausage, shrimp, zucchini, bell pepper, okra, saffron rice, and some extra spice for kick.

Sautée the veggies, but leave the okra for last! Once the veggies are about halfway done, add in the sausage. Once the sausage is cooked, you can add that in your base. I also put in a bit of chicken stock for some more flavor.

I put the saffron rice in the rice cooker... Never used it before, so this was a good excuse.

I like tomatoes, sooo I put some more in.

 Also,  I put the rice in as well.

After you do the veggies and sausage, you can put the shrimp in the pan and cook it through until pink.

Shrimp doesn't take much time at all and you want to eat it pretty much right after cook it.
Stir it all up, put it on a low simmer, and serve!

And you know me, I put it on a cracker and that jambalaya was Uh-mazin.

Truly.

Mom and Dad loved this one and I know you will too!
Happy Southern Home Cooking!!!!

Brie- What's not to love?

Need a quick fix?

Like I said, I'm a cheese and cracker girl, but if you want something a little more fancy and a lot more fattening, go for this brie.

Take a puff pastry, or a croissant roll if you're high class like me, place the brie round in the middle and bake until golden brown!

Place a little jam on top (I put a delicious homemade fig jam on it) and serve with a sturdy cracker. You don't want this falling apart, as it's a bit messy.

Melty, gooey goodness.

Enjoy!!

I hope the scale doesn't break when I get on it tomorrow.... :/ but I ate quite healthily for almost a week! So it was time for a little treat.

Treat yourself!

Strawberries, and Pasta, and Goat Cheese, Oh My!

I was feeling particularly feisty this morning, since the last pasta was an epic fail and I had no chance to redeem my good name until today.

And redeem it, I did.

For our first course, ladies and gentlemen, we had a Strawberry and Goat Cheese Tartin.
Oh yes, tartin.

It's the fancy french way of saying, "yummy stuff on a piece of bread."

We had some delicious wheat french bread, which was cut. On it, your put some spreadable goat cheese (soft or hard, whichever you prefer). Then, I put thinly sliced strawberries on top, with a little rasberry balsamic vinegar et voila. A delicious concoction of sweet, tart, and bready goodness.
This was more like a dessert, so if you save it for last, I wouldn't blame you.

It was very delicious.

Next, I saw this recipe in the food bible and really wanted to try it out. It was a recipe for slow- roasted tomatoes. Two problems with that: 1. What do I cook to put them in? 2. I don't have 3 hours to slow-roast tomatoes, so those suckers went in high heat for about 30 minutes and came out to perfection.

Put a little olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, and a little extra love into the oven and pray.
The finished product: a succulent, juicy morsel filled with so much flavor I feel the need to put a warning sign on them.

You can also add some garlic in here, but my mother is allergic, so we must make exceptions.
(Yes, you read that correctly, my mother is allergic to garlic and onions.)

So, while those babies were getting warm in the oven, I put on some pasta, cut up some zucchini and bell pepper, and sauteed them in a large pan with some cooking butter. I threw in a little rosemary as well, just to add flavor for the zucchini.

I also got a deal on some Prosciutto, so I bought some and guess what!? Only 60 calories for 2 slices... I'm in! So, I ripped up some prosciutto and put those on top of our pasta and voila!

So much flavor in one bowl, how can you stand it!? The veggies were delicious and the pasta was my redemption. I would have thrown a little bit more olive oil on top, just to bring all the flavors together, but mom got a little pushy at the end to try it.

Hope you enjoy!! I'm off to the gym to exercise today, so hopefully I'll be fit and ready to face my personal trainer on Monday.
Bon Weekend!