chile cheese tart

Tonight I made this recipe my mom gave me a doctored version of from Bon Apetit mag:

Chile Cheese Tart

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 7- to 8-ounce package shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 7-ounce can diced mild green chiles
• 1 purchased frozen 9-inch-diameter deep-dish pie crust (do not thaw)

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 400°F. Heat oil in medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion. Cover and cook until just tender, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Cool briefly.
• Whisk cream and next 4 ingredients in bowl to blend. Mix in cheese, chiles, and onion mixture. Pour filling into frozen crust.
• Bake tart until golden brown and set in center, about 40 minutes.

You can see the delicious results pictured, along with another homemade caesar salad salad (this time with shrimp for adam, oy vey!)

crispy choc chip cookies!

So my mom has this awesome recipe for crispy chocolate cookies. Everything is in these babies: choc chips, corn flakes, oats, light brown sugar, regular sugar, etc etc. Adam's mom is amazing and gave me a kitchen aid mixer and I really wanted to test it out so I figured whats better than cookies?? My first real baking experience on my own, and they taste awesome. The batter is so huge that I froze most of it, so now I have three batches of dough to make more cookies later on. Come visit me and I'll save some for you!

pizza pie

So for dinner we made homemade pizza. Early in the day I made homemade pesto in the food processor (courtesy of YAJ): pine nuts, basil,parmesan cheese. Then when we were ready to make the pizza, we started out with a whole wheat pizza boboli. On half the pizza I spread the pesto and the other half was tomato sauce. Topped it with skim mozzarella cheese and then the roomie placed onion and tomatoes on top. With a greek salad and some wine, we enjoyed a delicious meal!
The entire process was really easy and fun, and I froze some pesto to use next week (yum!).

chicken caesar salad

So for dinner tonight I made homemade chicken caesar salad. For the chicken, I used a barefoot contessa chicken recipe my mom showed me--its a great recipe for basic chicken to top any salad or to even make into chicken salad. I started by roasting 2 chicken breasts. Then I whipped together the ingredients for a homemade low fat dressing (low fat mayo, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, anchovy paste, s&p), washed some lettuce and stuck both into the fridge for later. After roasting the chicken, I waited for it to cool and them removed all the chicken from the bones/skin, and cut the poultry up into pieces. I placed the chicken in the fridge to cool down. After my roomie returned from the gym, he set the table while I prepared the salad and we were ready to go! The meal turned out really well--we both enjoyed.

Oh, I also made banana muffins tonight--pics to come!

second night in buffalo

So after about an hour in Wegman's and a roughly 50+ item grocery shopping list, we finally got back to the apartment and I began my first cooking adventure in my new kitchen. First I blanched green beans and put them in the fridge to dry. I got started on a recipe for garlicky oven baked fries. I thought it was only going to be 15 mins of prep for the potatoes, but it ended up taking a little over a half hour. So needless to say that dinner got started a bit later than we had wanted. I put the potatoes in the oven to bake for 30 minutes and prepared 2 salmon fillets with EVOO and s&p. Stuck the salmon in the fridge, hopped in the shower while my fantastic roommate prepared a delicious salad and looked after the potatoes. Post shower I cooked up the salmon: first over the stove and finished off in the oven. Completed the meal by sauteing up the green beans with soy sauce. The roomie set the table and did the dishes = lucky me (thanks adg).