Crunchy Wild Rice Salad

Today was Open House Night at my new school and boy am I tired. I could hardly begin to think about we were going to have for dinner, but thankfully for me, Pat made dinner! Even better, he made a new recipe that I had wanted to try, BONUS for the blog! This wild rice dish was delicious and is very healthy for you. I am very excited to bring it to my first day of school for lunch tomorrow. Hopefully I will get into a routine and get better about posting and cooking.

Crunchy Wild Rice Salad
Serves 6

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar (a really nice one, otherwise it can be bitter)
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup wild rice, rinsed well
1 can low-sodium chicken broth (14 oz.) plus enough water to equal 4 cups liquid
3/4 cup chopped celery
3 green onions sliced, white and green parts
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Whisk together olive oil, sherry vinegar, honey, Kosher salt and pepper in a small bowl. Set aside.

Bring rice, chicken broth and water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover and turn down heat to a simmer. Cook rice for 45 minutes (if you want your rice a bit more tender, you can cook it another 5 minutes). Fluff the rice. Let sit for 5 minutes and then drain in a colander.

Carefully mix the sherry vinaigrette with the rice and all the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl. Taste for seasonings. I added a few pinches of sea salt and a few generous turns of fresh ground pepper.

Chill and let the flavors blend. It is best made ahead (either early in the day or the day before).

This recipe and others can be found at www.bunkycooks.com

Green Beans with Red Onions and Feta Dressing

I was so excited, my friend and former coworker got me an amazing new cookbook for my birthday. Not only is it a cookbook, it is a Trader Joe's cookbook! Every ingredient can be found at Trader Joe's. She knows how much I love TJ's and am a frequent visitor, so she had to get the cookbook. Thank you Kari, there are so many recipes that I can't wait to try! You will have to come over for dinner and I will make you a recipe from the book!

 

Green Beans with Red Onions and Feta Dressing

16 oz of fresh (not frozen) green beans, cleaned, stemmed, and steamed

1/2 of a red onion sliced

Dressing:

1/2 cup of plain yogurt

1 T. Lemon Juice

3/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1. Steam the green beans (I bought a bag of green beans, simply stabbed the bag with a fork and cooked it in the microwave for three minutes.)

2. Place the green beans on a serving platter, sprinkle with red onions.

3. Whisk together the dressing, it will be thick due to the feta. 

4. Drizzle the dressing on top of the green beans, enjoy!

Veggie wrap

Another easy meal to use leftover veggies for a veggie wrap. A healthy alternative for lunch and an easy thing to make. Now that school is starting, I am on the hunt for new lunch meals for a change.

 

Veggie Wrap

Whole Wheat Tortilla

Sliced Tomatoes

Lettuce

mustard aioli

Cucumbers

Roasted red and yellow sweet peppers

Taco Pizza!

We love tacos at our house, its an easy go to dinner that we always have on hand. However, with only two people, we always have leftovers. While we love tacos, we can only eat tacos so many days in a row or for lunch leftovers for so long. I decided to come up with something new using our leftovers and using Pat's yummy homemade salsa that he canned this weekend. I made taco pizza, it was delicious!

 

Taco Pizza

1 flatbread pizza dough

Salsa (We used homemade salsa)

Taco meat

Corn-cut off the cob

Cheese-pick your favorite

black olives

chopped cilantro

Top with sour cream and salsa

Top the flatbread pizza with salsa, taco meat, corn, cheese, black olives, chopped cilantro. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Top with sour cream and salsa.

Birthday dinner!

Pat took me to my new favorite restaurant in Minneapolis for my birthday, Bar La Grassa. If you haven't tried it, you must! I had the gnocchi with cauliflower and orange...yum! We also split the beet, avocado, and citrus salad, which was refreshing and also delicious. Pat enjoyed the zucchini pasta with lemon and mint. Everything was delicious, we even split dessert, despite being overly full. We had a hazelnut chocolate cake. This is my terrible attempt to make up for not posting lately. :)  

Snickerdoodle Cookies...YUM!

Okay, truth be told, I didn't get a picture of these yummy cookies because we ate them all too fast. I brought them to our friend's cabin this weekend and I didn't even make it in the door before we were already "testing" them out. I got this recipe from Cabin Cookbook, a cookbook that my mom had at the cabin. Give these a try, you won't be disappointed.


Snickerdoodle Cookies
1 cup soft shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix the shortening, sugar, and eggs. Sift the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt into the shortening mixture. Chill.

Mix 3 T sugar and 3 t cinnamon together in a bowl. Form balls with the dough and roll them in the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes, cookies should be lightly browned, but soft.

Fresh Tomato Pizza and Tomato Salad

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we were out of town at my cabin. We ate a bunch of delicious food while Up North, but I forgot to take pictures and write down the recipes. I did get a lot of new recipes from a cookbook my mom had at the cabin that I am excited to try, so stay tuned. After a long vacation and another cabin trip coming up, we didn't want to go to the grocery store unless absolutely necessary; however, we came home to find that our tomatoes had finally started to turn red! We will be eating tomato dishes galore this week, I can't wait. My wonderful husband made dinner tonight and came up with a delcious combination using our tomatoes, both black krim and beefsteak.

Flatbread Tomato Pizza
minced garlic
chopped basil
*Saute with a little olive oil*
flatbread pizza
crumbled goat cheese
tomatoes
red wine vinegar
*Combine all ingredients on the flatbread pizza. Bake for 15 minutes.

Tomato Salad
Fresh heriloom tomatoes
chopped basil
chopped mint
parmesan cheese
olive oil
balsamic vinegar