Red Lentil-Rice Cakes with Simple Tomato Salsa

This recipe was HARD!! It took me a couple attempts to make this recipe. And even with the final attempt, it didn't turn out the best. Oh well, at least I attempted to make something a little more harder. The taste was pretty good, despite the mess I made with it. I ended up only making half of the cakes because I was tired of burning myself and tired of the cakes falling apart. Only about 4 of the cakes actually held their shape, otherwise I have a mess of crumbles, which I will still eat. It took me 2 attempts to make the lentils-I followed the directions for the recipe and the lentils turned into mush. When I made them tonight, I only cooked it for about half the time and they turned out much better. The salsa really makes the cakes taste amazing!

Red Lentil-Rice Cakes with Simple Tomato Salsa (Cooking Light) (6 servings):

*Salsa

3 c finely chopped plum tomatoes (about 6)
1/4 c chopped fresh basil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp capers (I added 3 tsp)
1/4 tsp salt

*Cakes

4 c water, divided
1 c dried small red lentils
1/2 c uncooked basmati rice
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1/2 c finely chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c finely chopped red onion
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 c shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 c dry breadcrumbs
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

To prepare salsa, combine all ingredients; set aside at room temp.

To prepare cakes, bring 3 c water and lentils to boil in med saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 min or until tender. (This is the time I used and I made sure to watch the lentils carefully during the last couple of minutes to make sure they weren't over-done.) Drain and rinse with cold water; drain. Place lentils in large bowl.

Combine remaining 1 c water and rice in pan; bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 18 min or until liquid is absorbed. Cool 10 min. Add rice to lentils.

Heat 1 tsp oil in large skillet over med-high. add bell peppers, onion, fennel seeds and garlic to pan; saute 2 min or until tender. Cool 10 min. Add to lentil mixture. Add mozzarella and remaining ingredients, stirring until well combined. Let stand 10 min.

Wipe skillet clean with paper towels. Heat 2 tsp oil in skillet over med heat. Spoon half of rice mixture by 1/3 cupfuls into pan, spreading to form 6 (3-in) circles; cook 5 min or until lightly browned. Carefully turn cakes over; cook 5 min on other side. Remove cakes from pan. Repeat procedure with remaining 1 tbsp oil and remaining rice mixture. Serve with salsa.

Note: I probably should have added more egg to my mixture because my cakes would not hold together to cook. I also started forming them into flat patties with my hands toward the end and carefully placing them in the skillet. Make sure to cook the patties for the full 4-5 min or they will fall apart when you try to flip them over.




Salsa...






Tender lentils...






Everything all mixed together...






How most of the cakes turned out...






My three best cakes...






Cooking in skillet...






Enjoy!...

Upcoming Recipes

I found several more recipes to try in the next couple weeks. Here's what I will be posting about shortly:

Black-Eyed Pea Soup
Buffalo Chicken Quinoa
Slow-Cooker Five-Spice Pork with Snap Peas
Red Lentil-Rice Cakes with Simple Tomato Salsa
Marshmallow Popcorn

Check back soon!

Smoked Chicken-Banana Pepper Soup

I found this recipe in the book from below. It's taken me a while to actually make it but tonight I decided to. And I made several substitutions. I couldn't find the prechopped celery, onion and bell pepper mix and I was out of celery so I just used one whole white onion and an orange bell pepper. I didn't saute the veggies in the bacon grease before because I didn't want them to turn into mush in the slow cooker. I did still add the bacon grease to the soup after the bacon cooked. I used 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up into bite-size pieces instead of the smoked chicken. For more of a smoky flavor, right before I served the soup, I added about 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika and it worked for the smoky flavor. The recipe calls for 8 plum tomatoes to be put in with the soup to be cooked for the 6 hours but I didn't want the tomatoes to be mush so I added them during the last 10 min of cooking time. I also substituted a cup of quinoa instead of using the rice. And I only cooked the soup for 5 hours instead of the 6. I don't really like how the texture of chicken changes during the time in the slow cooker so I cooked it for less and it did taste a little better. I also added 2 more tbsp of the juice from the banana peppers. All in all, the soup tasted really good. It has a different flavored broth than most soups and I would definitely make it again.

Smoked Chicken-Banana Pepper Soup (8 servings):

4 bacon slices
1 (8 oz) container refrigerated prechopped celery, onion and bell pepper mix (here I used 1 white onion and 1 orange bell pepper)
6 c chicken broth
2 c sliced pickled banana peppers
2 tbsp juice from pickled banana peppers (I used 4 tbsp)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
8 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 lb pulled smoked chicken
1 (14 oz) pkg boil-in-bag white rice (I used 1 c cooked quinoa)
Garnish: Fresh oregano

Cook bacon in large skillet over med-high 5-7 min or until crisp; remove bacon and drain on paper towels, reserving drippings in skillet. Coarsely crumble bacon.

Ad celery mixture to drippings in skillet; cook, stirring constantly, 5 min or until tender. Add chicken broth, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet. Transfer broth mixture to slow cooker. Stir in bacon, peppers and next 7 ingredients (again I didn't stir in the tomatoes at this time). Cover and cook on low 5-6 hours. Stir in rice (and tomatoes if you wish) during last 10 min of cooking time. Cover and cook 10 min or until heated through. Garnish.




Ingredients added...






Tomatoes & Quinoa added...






Enjoy!...

Cookies in Muffin Cups

I found this idea on Pinterest tonight when I found the orzo recipe. The idea came from this blog: www.myfridgefood.blogspot.com It's a good idea, one that I should have thought of! I found some refrigerated cookie dough in my fridge so I used that. I decided to use paper cups as well. I always like to add M&Ms to my cookies so I did that and placed the dough in the cups. I cooked them per the package directions and they turned out pretty well. My only complaint is that the bottoms of the cookies are really greasy. Maybe they will dry out once I take them out of the cups and put them in containers for storage. I still have some leftover dough so maybe if I don't use the muffin cups next time they won't be so greasy.




Cookie dough in the muffin cups...






Fresh from the oven...






Enjoy!...

Parmesan Garlic Orzo

I was perusing around on Pinterest tonight (yes I know I may be slightly obsessed!) and came across this recipe via www.allrecipes.com I've had some left over orzo for a while now that I didn't really know what to do with and this sounded perfect. And I even had all the other ingredients so I knew I had to make it tonight. I made it as a side dish but I think it would also be good to add some chicken in it to make it a main dish. I also added more garlic than the recipe calls for but I love garlic so it tasted fine to me. I'll definitely be making this dish again!

Find the recipe here




All the ingredients...






Garlic & butter...






Everything mixed together...






Enjoy!...

Snickers Popcorn

This recipe didn't turn out the way I thought it would. I found the idea for this on Pinterest and it sounded easy enough. I'm horrible at melting things on the stove...they never melt and they always harden up. And of course I don't have a double broiler, which would make things a whole lot easier. So when they started hardening up after being cooked on the stove, I put some popcorn on a cookie sheet and put the semi-melted chunks of Snickers over the top and put it in the oven for about 5-10 min. That didn't work so great either but I was able to pick up chunks of melted chocolate to make a decent size bowl of Snickers popcorn. And it tasted pretty good too.

I've seen a couple ways to cook this from Pinterest...one is where you melt down the candy bars over a double broiler or another way is to put the chopped candy on top of the popcorn in the oven and they supposedly melt down. Then again, by the time I figured out I couldn't melt them on the stove, my popcorn had gone cold so maybe hot popcorn would have worked best for this idea. Oh well, I was able to still make the best of it and be able to eat it. Next time! :)

Find the recipe here




Cut up Snickers bars...






Enjoy!...

Lemon Trout in Creamy White Wine Sauce

I found this recipe in the book posted below. It sounded good and pretty simple and it was. The flavor was pretty good too. I'm just not sure about the sauce. It tasted fine but it was so thick. And since the fish was cooked in the slow cooker, it fell apart when I tried to scoop it out so it was a little bit of a mess. It looked a little weird-not like how fish normally looks but it tasted good so I guess that's all that matters. I couldn't find trout fillets so I used 3 tilapia fillets instead.

Also, the book made this note: "Trout fillets may overlap in the bottom of the slow cooker, but make sure the edges do not come in direct contact with the sides of the cooker and that they are covered with the sauce so they don't dry out." Not letting the fish touch the sides of the cooker was next to impossible but I tried to overlap them the best I could and I made sure the the sauce completely covered the fish.

Lemon Trout in Creamy White Wine Sauce (4 servings):

1/2 lb trout fillets
1/2 tsp salt, divided
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper, divided
1/4 c butter
1 tsp jarred minced garlic
2 tbsp flour
2/3 c milk
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 tbsp sugar
Garnishes: Lemon slices, chopped fresh parsley, capers

Sprinkle fish with 1/8 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper and arrange in bottom of a slightly greased 4-qt slow cooker.

Melt butter in a small heavy saucepan over med heat. Add garlic and saute 30 seconds. Whisk in flour until smooth. Cook 1 min, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk in milk, wine and zest; cook over med, whisking constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Stir in remaining 3/8 tsp salt, remaining 3/8 tsp pepper and sugar. Pour sauce over fish. Cover and cook on high 2 1/2 hours or just until fish flakes with a fork. Garnish.




Fish...






Sauce being cooked...






Sauce poured over the fish...






Fish is done...






I served mine on some left over couscous...Enjoy!

Slow-Cooked Jambalaya

No idea where or when I bought this book but I decided at the beginning of the week that I needed to use my slow cooker more often so I started looking at my cookbooks. I found this one to have tons of good looking recipes so I decided to start making my grocery list.




Book of recipes...






I found three recipes to make in this week/next week and I have several more book marked to make soon. This is the first recipe I made out of it and it turned out really good. I also have a fish recipe and a chicken soup recipe that I will be posting soon. For some reason, I have been craving good jambalaya lately. I blame girls' night out when I had a really good jambalaya at the Cheesecake Factory. It didn't taste as good as Cheesecake's but it was pretty good. I have lots of leftovers, so I can freeze it.

I didn't use all of the chicken it asked for, since I feel that any jambalaya has way too much chicken. I couldn't find the pkg of prechopped veggies, so I used 1 white onion, chopped; 2 med ribs of celery, chopped; and 1 yellow pepper, chopped. I think when I make this next, I won't add the cooked rice for the last 30 min-i think my rice is too mushy so I may just cook it and serve it with the jambalaya separately. And the next time I make it, I will add some red pepper flakes in the beginning. I've been using the red pepper flakes for my individual servings just to add some heat. Other than that, the dish turned out pretty good!


Jambalaya (8 servings):

2 lb skinned and boned chicken thighs (I used two chicken breasts, cut up)
1 lb smoked sausage, cut into 2-in slices
1 (8 oz) container refrigerated prechopped celery, onion and bell pepper mix
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 c chicken broth
1 tbsp Cajun spice mix
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
3/4 lb extra-large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 3/4 c converted rice
Garnish: Chopped parsley

Combine chicken, sausage, celery mix, tomatoes, garlic, chicken broth, spice mix, thyme and oregano in a 5-qt slow cooker. Cook on low 5 hours.

Add shrimp and rice; increase heat to high and cook for 30 min. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, if desired.




All the ingredients added...






Rice & shrimp added...






Enjoy...

+

Balsamic Roasted Potatoes

I found this recipe on Pinterest via The Lazy Cook. I was trying to empty out my fridge before I went grocery shopping a couple days ago and I found a bag of baby red potatoes in my fridge that needed to be cooked before they went bad. I had seen a couple recipes I had pinned on Pinterest that I wanted to try and when looking through them, I decided to make this one since I had all the ingredients. The original recipe didn't say how much potatoes to use and I think I used too few so the vinegar was a little strong. When I make these again, I'll use about half of what I used for vinegar. Other than that, the potatoes turned out really good, lots of flavor.

Balsamic Roasted Potatoes:

Baby new potatoes (yellow or red)
Minced garlic (I used 3-4 cloves because I love garlic)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp paprika
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
Pinch salt
Pinch pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Wash potatoes and cut in half or quarters, depending on the size. I half-peeled mine only because mine had been sitting in the fridge for a while and I wanted to make sure to cut off the bad parts.

Place potato halves in med bowl. Add herbs and olive oil. Mix with your hands so that all the potatoes are covered.

Coat a med-large oven-proof dish with cooking spray. Place potatoes in pan and spread evenly. Roast for about 25 min, until tender.

Take the potatoes out of the oven, add the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Put potatoes back in the oven for another 5-10 min. Enjoy!




Ready to be baked...






Ready to eat...

Zucchini with Garlic & Ginger

I was at my parents place a couple weeks ago for the weekend. For dinner one night, my dad was going to grill up some steaks. I love veggies so when we were at the grocery store, I had them buy some zucchini and ginger. I wanted to try something new and lately I've been using a lot of ginger and garlic with things. Once we got back to their place, I experimented and came up with a pretty tasty recipe. Some of the garlic and ginger came out crispy and it added a lot of flavor to the zucchini. My mom doesn't normally like cooked zucchini but after trying this, she said she could definitely eat this. You can either put these on the grill in a tinfoil pan, bake them in the oven or grill them on the stove. I'm estimating measurements here but you can add more or less if you like.

Zucchini with Garlic and Ginger

2 med zucchini, sliced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 4-5 in piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
2-3 tbsp olive oil

Place all ingredients in shallow bowl and mix well with your hands. Grill or bake until zucchini is crisp-tender, stirring once in a while during cooking. Enjoy!




Ready to grill..






Ready to eat...

Brown Butter Gnocchi with Sage and Blue Cheese Stuffed Bread

Bear with me...I have a couple other recipes I wanted to share but they are on my other computer..the one that shut down on me and started to smoke! My cousin is hopefully going to be able to save some of those pictures so I can use them later. In the meantime, I have other recipes to share and more to come later this week/early next week.

I made this recipe a couple weeks ago. I found this recipe among my many recipes on my computer (hopefully my cousin can save those as well since I didn't back those up!) and I have no idea where it came from. The recipe originally called for homemade gnocchi but since I have several packages of pre-made gnocchi, I decided to use one of them. I also added some garlic powder to my butter for a little more flavor, instead of salt and pepper. As for the bread, I got the idea on Pinterest. I had a Pillsbury pkg of French bread, so I used that.

The gnocchi turned out amazing and I would definitely make this recipe again. Browning the gnocchi after it cooks is the key to this recipe. It makes the gnocchi have a little crunch on the outside and the result is excellent!

For the bread, I laid down a piece of tinfoil onto a jelly-roll pan and sprayed the pan with cooking spray. After I took the bread out of it's pkg, I cut slits in it, making sure not to cut all the way through to the bottom. I melted about a tbsp of butter and brushed some butter on the dough. My mom had gotten me a big chunk of blue cheese from her co-op by her place and I love the stuff. It spreads like butter and it tastes amazing. I cut off a big chunk of it and crumbled it. I put several chunks into each slit I made into the dough. After, I brushed the bread with some more melted butter.

I baked the bread according to the pkg directions and kept an eye on it as well. The results were really good, although when I make this again, I am going to use a lot more cheese!


Chunk of blue cheese...






Bread dough with butter & blue cheese....






Baked bread...






Gnocchi (4 servings):

Pkg of gnocchi of your choice or flavor
10 tbsp butter, divided
1/2 c thinly sliced fresh sage
1 1/2 tsp finely grated lemon peel
Garlic powder, to taste

Cook 8 tbsp butter (I used unsalted mainly because I didn't have enough salted butter) in med skillet over med-high until butter begins to brown, about 4 min. This proved to be a little challenging since the butter foams as it cooks and it's hard to see if it's browning so use your best judgement here. Add sage and lemon peel. Season with garlic powder or salt and pepper to taste. And yes you have to taste the butter to see if it needs more seasoning. Take the butter off the heat and place in a non-reactive bowl.

Meanwhile, melt the remaining 2 tbsp butter in large skillet; remove from heat. Bring large pot of salted water to boil. Add gnocchi; cook until gnocchi float to surface, then cook 1 min longer. Using slotted spoon, transfer gnocchi to skillet with unseasoned butter (the 2 tbsp of butter). Saute gnocchi over med-low until beginning to brown, stirring occasionally. Once browned, add the seasoned butter to the skillet with the gnocchi and heat through, 2-3 min.

To serve, spoon gnocchi, with the butter, onto plates with some sliced blue cheese bread and enjoy!




Pkg of gnocchi I used...






Zested lemon and chopped sage...






Browning the gnocchi...






Ready to serve...






Enjoy!