Archives for January 2010

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School started back up last week and boy am I exhausted!  That first week always really gets me.  My classes are a tiny bit easier this semester and I’m taking a little less than I did last time, but my schedule is wacky!  The university is now only offering one section of each class so you either figure out a way to get it in or your screwed.  There was one class I couldn’t fit in, so I had to put it off. 

This semester I’ve got Organic Chem, which I am really enjoying!  I’ve also got Culture and Food, which is really neat.  And I’ve got Quantity Foods (Food Service).  I’m still on the fence on this one.  The lecture is okay, a little boring, but the lab is god awful!  I greatly dislike the lab teacher.  She’s about 100 yrs old and one of the rudest people I’ve ever met.  She’s not very nice.  Bah!  For the lab we have to go places and serve food- schools, hospitals, and here at the university.  We also have to put together and host a catered event.  It is SO much work for only 2 credits! 

Anyway, I haven’t had much of a chance to post lately, we also had some craziness going on around the house.  The bottom of our water heater rusted out in the middle of the night and flooded our kitchen, laundry room, and closet!!  So we’ve had to deal with that as well.  Needless to say it was a stressful couple of days and I had to shower at the gym on the way to school!

Hopefully now that the emergency situation is over I can blog a little more regularly. 🙂

I also wanted to share a really really awesome meal!  Vegetarian sloppy joes!  Sounds weird, but super duper yummy!!

Got the recipe from Rachael Ray- love that lady!  Her recipes are getting much healthier lately and they are very easy to modify for any health needs that you may have.

Here’s the recipe– please try it, it’s amazing!  The only thing I would do differently is cut down on the brown sugar- it was really sweet.  I’ll probably cut it down to 1 Tablespoon next time- I think that would be perfect.  I served mine up with a little pickle and mustard and some oven fries!

Here are some pics (sorry for the quality they’re from my phone- my camera is still broken. 🙁 )

I’ve already got a test to study for- gotta get back to work!!

www.sarahsnacks.com

I think these are even better than fried onion rings!  You get all of the taste and crunch of an onion ring without any grease, upset stomach (fried things tend to upset my tummy- anyone else?), or guilt!  That’s right my friends these are some serious guilt-free onion rings!

What’s the secret?  Panko bread crumbs of course!  If you can find whole wheat ones, then that’s even better because you’ll get some extra nutrients in there. (make sure to check out the ingredients on the panko bread crumbs, some of them contain hydrogenated oils :(.  Of course, you want to choose one of the ones that don’t)

It takes a little while to get these ready to go in the oven, but they bake up really quickly.  And they’re well worth the effort!  Here we go!!

Ingredients:

• An onion or two(depending on how many you want to make), sliced into rings  (I like sweet onions best, but you can use whatever you like)
• Whole wheat flour, about 1/2 a cup
• a little milk, about 1/2 cup or so
• 3 egg whites, beaten until foamy (this is important!  If you don’t whip them, then the onion rings won’t turn out!!  It seems weird, but go with it.)
• whole wheat panko bread crumbs, about 2 cups
• salt and pepper
• olive oil mister or cooking spray to spritz on the rings

What to do…

All right, set up a little assembly line in this order: milk, flour, egg whites, bread crumbs.

Dip the ring into the milk, then dredge in the flour.  Then it goes into the egg white foam, then coat in bread crumbs.  (it’s important that you do all of these steps in this order.  the milk helps the flour stick to the onion ring, which helps the egg white stick, which makes the bread crumbs stick.  you get the idea.)

Repeat with the rest of the rings and place them onto a sprayed baking sheet (I usually line with foil for an easier clean up)

Spritz the top of the onion rings with your olive oil spritzer or cooking spray.  Then sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.

Put in a 425 degree oven till they’re nice and brown. 

Enjoy!!

www.sarahsnacks.com

Just something I thought of as I was walking through the grocery store!  All the flavors of my favorite type of pizza with a little twist! (the grilled zucchini which compliments the grilled ratatouille soup that we had to go along with it)

Here’s what you need…

• slices of some nice crusty bread (whatever kind you like)
• sliced tomato
• several basil leaves
• slices of zucchini, grilled on a grill pan (or you can just sautee them if you don’t have one)
• CHEESE!  I used smoked mozzerella, but you can use whatever you want)

Here’s what I did…

Sprayed a little EVOO on one side of one of my slices of bread with my olive oil spritzer (if you don’t have one you can just drizzle a little on your bread

put it sprayed side down onto my grill pan (you could also use a panini press or a george forman grill or you can just make it grilled cheese style if you don’t have any of these)

layer cheese, basil, tomatoes, and grilled zucchini, then more cheese

top with other slice of bread

spritz with a little more EVOO and squish it down

flip it over and squish it down again

ENJOY your delicious sammy!

Grilled Ratatouille Soup
Adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe.

(Print this recipe!)

Ingredients:
1 head garlic
drizzle of EVOO
1 stem fresh rosemary, finely chopped  (you can use dry if you want)
Salt and pepper
1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch planks
1 medium red onion, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch thick planks or rounds
4 roasted red peppers, drained
1 can diced or whole fire-roasted tomatoes (28 ounces)
2 cups vegetable stock

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 425?F.

Cut the head of garlic to expose all of the cloves. Drizzle some EVOO over the cut end to coat the cloves. Press the cut garlic into the rosemary, coating the ends of the cloves completely. Season with salt and pepper, then wrap the garlic head in foil. Roast the garlic for 45 minutes, then let cool.

Mash the cooled roasted garlic into a paste, combining it with the rosemary.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high to high heat.  Using a pastry brush, brush the vegetables with EVOO and season with salt and pepper. Grill in batches until the zucchini, onion and eggplant are cooked and tender, 3-4 minutes on each side per batch.

Coarsely chop the grilled vegetables and roasted red peppers.

In a food processor, in two batches, puree the roasted garlic, grilled vegetables, roasted red pepper and canned fire-roasted tomatoes and stock.

Transfer the pureed vegetables to a soup pot. Heat the soup over medium heat, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

2 new recipes coming up right after this post…stay tuned!!

It was a short day today!  It went by so fast.

It started out with an awesome massage!  :)  I haven’t had a massage in forever and it was great!

Then I went for a really great run on the trails- felt awesome!

Then I got this cool new chair!!  And also a couple of shelves and a few little things for my new desk at the container store.  This chair looks a little weird, but it is seriously SO incredibly comfortable!  My butt will be very happy sitting in this chair for hours on end studying, LOL.

I also ran into the marked real quick and came out with this really cool tea.

SO GOOD!!!!!

Then home to sit in my new chair!  LOL

Dinner recipes coming up next!