Vinegar Smashed Potatoes

This recipe is from our friend Grant. It's a nice change for standard mashed potatoes. This makes enough for three servings.


Vinegar Smashed Potatoes
3 white potatoes, cut into 1" squares
salt
2 tblsp melted butter
3-4 tblsp red wine vinegar
Just cover potatoes with cold water and salt. Bring to boil and cook potatoes until fork tender. Drain potatoes, return to pot, and add melted butter and vinegar. Mash potatoes to mix, but leave them on the chunky side.

Quinoa Salad

Is it just me or do the cooking instructions for grains always make waaaaay too much? This is my favorite thing to do to get rid of some of the leftovers. If you have any ideas about what else to do to use up grains, let me know.

Quinoa Salad

Chopped romaine lettuce

chopped cucumbers

sliced onions

1/4 cup leftover quinoa (mine had peas and banana peppers) or couscous

1 handful sunflower seeds

honey balsamic dressing

Honey Balsamic Dressing

This dressing is super simple and has been a hit in our house.


Honey Balsamic Dressing
1/4 cup wildflower honey
1/2 cup balsamic vineagar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tblsp yellow mustard
salt and pepper to taste
Put all ingredients in a shaker or empty dressing bottle and shake like crazy.

My Favorite New Rice

Since Natty has been groovin' on rice, I've been looking for ways to a) enjoy rice and b) prepare rice without burning it. Rachel Ray made this rice on her show one day and it looked interesting, so I thought I'd steal the method. Turns out it's my new favorite. A nice bonus is that it's super easy to change the spices and veggies to match whatever you're serving it with. 


Yummy Rice
2 tblsp olive oil (or butter)
1/2 cup orzo
1 cup rice (I went with quick cook brown rice)
salt and pepper

1-2 cups veggies depending on how you want to balance the dish. I have used onion, banana pepper, zucchini, broccoli, and peas in different versions.

1 tblsp spices to match your main course. Cumin and crushed red pepper for Mexican, basil, garlic, and oregano for Italian, saffron and paprika for Spanish.
2 1/2 cups stock or broth
Heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add orzo to oil and lightly toast. Add rice, veggies, spice, and season with salt and pepper. Add broth, reduce heat to medium low, and cover. Cook 15 minutes, until rice is tender.

Granola!

This smells like cookies while it's cooking. Dangerous. I didn't add in dried fruit since I wanted to be able to change it up depending on what I was doing with the granola. Future batches will involve experiments with other nuts, peanut butter, maple syrup, etc. If you have any good granola ideas, let me know. It's based on a recipe I found in a Disney magazine.


Granola
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup chopped almonds
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup brown sugar
cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup peanut oil
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup water
1 cup dried fruit
Combine dry ingredients. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Combine until well coated. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake at 300 for 40-50 minutes until lightly browned. Stir occasionally while cooking. Once the granola is cooled, add dried fruit if using and store.

Butternut Squash Risotto with Langostino

I normally don't post recipe variations, but this one was particularly yummy, so I thought I'd throw it out there. 


Here's the base recipe. Then: 

Remove the mushrooms and the thyme.


Substitute champagne for white wine and vegetable stock for chicken stock.


Add 1 1/2 cups butternut squash and 1 1/2 cups langostino (pre-cooked). I also meant to grate some fresh nutmeg over the whole thing once it was done, but I forgot. You might try it though.

Butterscotch Cannolis

The other night, I went to my parents' house for a big Italian dinner. Afterwards, my dad asked where the cannolis were, but there were none. That was about it for me. I couldn't stop thinking about cannolis. Little did I know how ridiculously easy they are to make (provided you buy the shells). I thought I had chocolate chips, but I ended up having every kind of chip but chocolate. I opted for butterscotch and Kevin thought it was better than the regular chocolate chip. These were Natty's first cannolis. I think he approves!


Butterscotch Cannolis
8 oz marscapone cheese
3 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup butterscotch chips
6-8 mini cannoli shells (depending on how much you like in each shell)
Combine cheese, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl with a hand mixer. Stir in butterscotch chips. Cut the corner off a sandwich bag and use it as a piping bag to fill the cannoli shells.