It is amazing to me that vegetables I thought I never cared for cooked are proving me wrong when roasted.  Cabbage is another example.  I love cabbage raw.  If you live in the South, coleslaw is a fact of life, and a tasty one at that.  However, cabbage cooked is a fact of life, especially around New Year’s, and a stinky fact of life at that.  Usually cabbage is boiled, or cooked somehow similarly, until completely limp and unappetizing to my palate.  It is something I always avoided.

Then, I saw the Feisty Foodie featured cabbage roasted with bacon on her website.  And I thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if I would like it like that?”  I really enjoy brussel sprouts roasted, and they are supposed to be a type of wild cabbage.  I decided to give roasting cabbage a whirl.  I picked up a head of cabbage at the Farmer’s Market last weekend for $1.  The outer leaves were removed and disposed of, and the cabbage was washed thouroughly.  Then, I cut the cabbage into eighths.  This was done by cutting the cabbage in half and then in quarters.  Then each quarter was cut in half.  Cabbage slices were placed on a foil lined baking sheet.  Each cabbage wedge was brushed with olive oil then sprinkled with fresh ground black pepper and kosher salt.

Cabbage wedges were roasted in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes, turning over mid-way through the process.  When I first pulled them out at the end of the 25 minutes, they were browned, but not that wonderful roasted color.  However, I knew they had been in long enough and didn’t want to overcook them.

But then I flipped them over and there was that lovely roasted look!  Oooohhh la la.  I tried them with a spritz of lemon juice as many of the online recipes I read suggested.  Very tasty.  Next time, I’m going to try a salad dressing I really like instead, or possibly sprinkle the cabbage leaves with a garlic and herb seasoning.

Ingredients:

Cabbage
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper to preference

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Farenheit.
2. Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage, and wash the vegetable well.   After washing, dry off the cabbage.
3. Using a sharp butcher knife, cut off the bottom “knot” of the cabbage where the outer leaves were, being careful not to cut off the full bottom of the cabbage.  You need to keep the cabbage intact.
4. Cut the head of cabbage in half.  Cut the halves in half to create quarters.  You can stop here at this point.  If you prefer, cut each quarter in half to create eighths.
5. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and lay the cabbage wedges out on the baking sheet.
6. Brush each wedge of cabbage with olive oil.
7. Sprinkle each cabbage wedge with kosher salt and black pepper to your preference and needs.
8. Roast wedges at 450 degrees for 25-30 minutes until brown or slightly crispy.

Zucchini is one of the vegetables that I’ve tried in an attempt to find new foods I’m willing to eat.  However, I was never able to find a way to like zucchini.  It went onto my list as a blech vegetable.  Which disappointed me. I felt like if I could find a way to like broccoli that I should be able to find a way to like zucchini.  Seems reasonable right?  Well, it did to me. Then a series of zucchini events happened that had me rethinking the vegetable.

First, I ate out with coworkers one day and someone ordered fried zucchini as an appetizer.  It was suggested I give them a try.  Amazingly, I found them really tasty and ate my fair share of the appetizer.  Then, I ate at one of my favorite chain restaurants in Baton Rouge: Logan’s Roadhouse.  I like their steaks.  On a whim, I ordered the grilled vegetable skewers to see what they were like.  When my meal arrived, I realized I really should have asked what was on the skewer.  First, there were fresh tomatos.  While I eat many a tomato product with gusto, I’m not a fan of wedges (or slices) of fresh tomato.  Then there were mushrooms.  Sorry, mushrooms aren’t anything I’m trying to like.  Those are still on the do  not like, would prefer not to have list.  That left me with red onion and zucchini on the skewer. Since the fried zucchini experience was better than anticipated, I thought I’d try out zucchini grilled.  It was pretty good.  Still very crisp, yet with a nice grilled flavor.  I enjoyed them quite well with the red onion.

I wanted to recreate this at home, but there was one catch to the whole thing.  I don’t own a grill.  I know.  It boggles the mind that I live in South Louisiana and don’t own a grill.  It’s okay.  I don’t cook much seafood either.  There is alot of work to grilling and to cooking seafood.  Both of which I’m not overly adept at doing.  For the amount of food I ruin (and money I waste trying to do so), I am just as content to either what for a family function that involves these or to go to a restaurant to satisfy a craving.  Especially when I have a restaurant like T.J. Ribs in my neck of the woods.

Without a grill, I wasn’ts sure what I was going to do.  Then, I remembered the much loved but little used grill pan with panini press I have in a cabinet.  I love that pan.  It makes great sandwiches.  I just don’t use it too often.  Now while these skewers might not have the that wonderful smoky grilled flavor, in all they tasted pretty darn good.

Bamboo skewers were soaked in water for an hour in preparation.  I’ve read before that you should soak them in water so they don’t burn during the cooking process.  I don’t know if that is only for grilling, but I decided to go ahead and do that for my little skewers.  As you can plainly see, I soaked too many.  Ah well, live and learn.

My skewers were really simple: zucchini & red onion.  That’s it.  Nothing else fancy on them.  I would tell you that it was my minimalist plan to have such skewers as these, but in reality, I couldn’t figure out another vegetable to stick on there.

Each side of the skewers were given a light brushing of olive oil.  Not too heavy. Just enough so that things didn’t stick to the grill pan.

Into the heated pan they went.  I also coated the pan with a light covering of non-stick spray to help ensure that nothing stuck to the grill.  Each side was grilled for about 5 minutes, or until things lookes sufficiently browned, with a slight blackening (i.e. grill marks).

Here they are, grilled and ready to eat.  I didn’t keep the skewers on for the bento box.  I knew I couldn’t fit them into the box like this.  However, the point was more to get a semblance of grilled vegetables.  For me this was enough (because I’m not going out and getting another grill). 

Be the bento everyone!

Cous Cous is a “grain” that I’ve never tried before. I quote the word grain since I’ve read couscous isn’t actually a grain, but extremely tiny pasta. In fact, before I started cooking for myself and learning more about the great world of food, I didn’t even realize cous cous was a grain-like substance you could cook with. I thought couscous was the thing my great grandmother ate. Little did I know, until now as I researched it for this blog post, that what she ate was actually spelled cush cush or couche couche. My great grandmother was Cajun French, and enjoyed this dish of cornmeal cooked and mixed with milk. Though for some reason, I remember her enjoying it with coffee too. But my memory is muddled there. Maybe if my mom stops by and reads this post she’ll make a comment below to clarify anything I’m getting wrong.

Anyhow, back to the regular cous cous. In early 2008, I tried couscous with a not so great outcome. I didn’t really like it all that well. Plus, the sight of it cooked sort of grossed me out. Little white balls that made me imagine this must be what caviar is like (I’ve never had caviar before). I felt like I was eating the eggs of some fish or insect for sure.

Then I discovered, there isn’t just one type of cous cous. Apparently, the one I had picked up and tried was an Israeli form of couscous. This type of cous cous I picked up several months ago at Whole Foods looked completely different. I brought home my little bit of cous cous, placed it in a food storage container, and have looked at it in my pantry ever since.

I was afraid to mess up again, so there it sat waiting for me to grab it to use in a recipe and be fabulous. As the old cliche goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” My need for a grain the other night had me turning to couscous, and the result was beyond fabulous.

I’ve had an idea in my head for 2 months to make black bean burgers and spanish rice for my bento box. Spanish rice is something I adore every time I go to a Mexican restaurant. In fact, I like the whole slate of offerings at a Mexican restaurant: enchiladas, fajitas, burritos, chimichangas, sopapillas. There is a restaurant near work that I frequent a little too often.

I was finally ready to try my hand at my idea this past Sunday. I searched the Internet for a recipe and found one that sounded simple on Recipezaar. I began to prep my ingredients in order to take pictures as I went along. Unfortunately, I realized during prep I had no rice left in the house. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but apparently I used the last of my rice recently. I forgot to pick some more up. I couldn’t leave the house because I had something in the oven. What to do? My eyes fell up on the container of couscous in the pantry. I decided, “What the hell. Let’s give it a try.” I pulled it down from the shelf, adjusted the recipe a bit to accommodate the cooking requirements of couscous, and plunged forward. As the couscous cooked, I began to worry. Would it work? Would I like it? 10 minutes later I had my answer. It was FABULOUS. I loved the way it tasted. It was awesome. And, it took only 10 minutes of cooking time to complete. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that out of a side dish! And it only took 1 dish to cook. I did it all in my rice cooker. I was so happy I had taken pictures to share with all of you.

Spansih-spiced CousCous (modified from a Recipezaar recipe)

Ingredients needed:
1 1/4 cup of cous cous
1/3 cup of plain tomato sauce (plus a bit more if you think it needs it)
3/4 cup of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of butter or margarine
1 1/2 teaspoons of chili powder
3/4 teaspoon of oregano
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cp frozen corn

Grab your rice cooker’s interior pot. Make sure everything is all nice and clean (always a consideration when I’m getting ready to cook, since I don’t use the thing all that often. Sometimes I must wash out a layer of dust.

Pour in the cous cous.

Dump in all your spices.

Add your frozen corn, frozen peas,and butter (cut into smallish squares)

Add in the stock. Note: If you prefer to use chicken stock, I’m sure that would work fine. I prefer the taste of vegetable stock.

Add in the tomato sauce. Stir everything around really well and place your rice cooker’s interior pot into the rice cooker. Close the lid. My rice cooker only has a few options: steam, white rice, and brown rice. I clicked the white rice option and set a timer for 7/8 minutes. I then checked the couscous. It looked pretty good. I then fluffed it all, mixing it around with a fork. After fluffing, I left the lid open allowing the dish to steam for another 2-3 minutes. Once the couscous seemed cooked and tasted fine, I removed it all from the pot.

Deliciousness. I added a handful of shredded cheddar cheese and mixed that in at the end of the cooking time (forgot to take a picture of that!).

If you try this, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and let me know how it turned out for you!

Here it is.  My quick and simple recipe for the quinoa scramble that has been in my bento box this week.  Today’s bento box looks like yesterday’s bento box which looks like Wednesday’s bento box.  Each of them had this scramble in it.  I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.  To start, you need the following ingredients.

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 2 carrots, peeled & diced
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1 sweet bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 large clove of garlic, minced or grated (your preference)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of butter or margarine

If you’re using quinoa you have previously cooked and frozen, place on the counter while you prep your veggies and cook everything to the point that you need the quinoa.  Quinoa defrosts extremely quickly and will most likely be pretty much defrosted and ready to use by time it is needed.  Unless of course the reason it defrosts so quickly for me is because I live in South Louisiana.  Then, you might need to nuke it real quick to break it up.

Heat a large skillet with high sides on medium to medium-high heat.  In the skillet, place the olive oil and the butter.  If you don’t want to use the butter, omit it and double the amount of olive oil used.

Add in your vegetables.  First to go in are the diced carrots.  I cooked these just for a minute or two until I put the rest in to ensure the carrots cooked to a point I like.  I like my carrots cooked all the way through but not mushy.  I like them to keep some of their firm texture.  Next time, I plan to dice them a bit smaller than this (If possible).

Throw in the rest of your veggies.  Cook all of this in the skillet until the vegetables are cooked to a consistency you like.  In this first batch I made, I didn’t use the red onion (which is why you don’t see it in this picture).  Subsequent batches have included red onion, much to my liking.  I highly recommend it.

Once the vegetables are cooked to your liking, move everything to the edges of the skillet.  If the middle of the skillet is still a bit wet with oil as above, then you’re ready for the next step.  If it’s not, then add a tiny bit of butter or non-stick spray to the center of the skillet.

Pour your two eggs into the center of the skillet.  Let it cook for just a few seconds to set slightly.

Once the eggs were set enough, it was time to start the scramble.

Using a spatula, start breaking the egg apart and scrambling it up with all the vegetables.

Scramble in this manner until the eggs are fully cooked through and all vegetables are mixed in with the egg really well.  Turn off the heat to the skillet at this point.

Add in the cup of quinoa.  Mix everthing together.  The remaining heat of the skillet and the veggies should heat up the quinoa nicely if it has been sitting and waiting (or if you took leftover plain quinoa out of the fridge).

Place it all into a favorite bowl and dig in with a spoon.  I know I’m going to enjoy the last of it that I have with the last of the chicken patties today!  Thank goodness I froze half of the quinoa I cooked Tuesday.  I’m ready to eat this next week too!

Happy Friday and be the bento everyone!

When I first started this bento journey in 2007, I knew I’d never make it if I didn’t (1) learn to cook and (2) expand my palate.  Before bento, I was a very limited eater.  I still am in some ways, but have grown to like other things.  This comes from trial and era.  Almost nearly as soon as the blog started, I began to talk about “new-to-me” foods.  These were foods I had tried for the first time or were retrying to see if I could grow to like them.  Quinoa fell into the first category.

I first purchased quinoa in February 2007, just 4 short months after I’d started Not Exactly Bento.  I was looking for a substitute for white rice.  I’m not a huge fan of white rice to begin with, but I live in an area where it’s cuisine often calls on rice to be a part of the dish.  I had heard of people using whole grains as a sub for white rice and was wondering which ones were used.  I knew I didn’t want to use brown rice for a variety of reasons.  Then I ran across a mention of quinoa.  If you want background information on quinoa as a grain, I’m going to refer you to the Ancient Harvest company website.  I have no affiliation with this company.  This is where I first got some of my information quinoa from, since that was the first brand of quinoa I purchased.  I now buy it in bulk.

Quinoa ended up being a big win on the new-to-me food scale.  It was easy to cook.  In fact, it was easier to cook than rice for me.  It also takes very little time to cook, which is a big plus.  It had an easy ratio to remember (1 part quinoa to 2 parts liquid).  It freezes extremely well.  Sometimes, I’ll cook a large batch of quinoa and freeze a portion of it for quick future defrosting and cooking.  Most of all, I liked the way it tasted.  Quinoa has a slightly nutty flavor.  The only thing going against it is that the grains are very small, making it not the greatest substitute for rice sometimes.  Don’t try quinoa thinking you’re getting an exact substitute for rice.  You aren’t.  It is a nice change of pace though.

Cooking quinoa is super simple.  All you need is a bit of quino and liquid to really get things going.  You’ll also need a pot with a nice, tight-fitting lid.  To cook quinoa, you need 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water.  This means 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water.  I normally coook a 1/2 a cup of quinoa at a time for just me.  For my liquid, I like to split it in half between regular water and vegetable stock.  The vegetable stock gives a great flavor to the quinoa and I find I often don’t need to add in extra salt this way.

Most quinoa that is sold at grocery stores have been prewashed for you (or so I have read).  Naturally, quinoa has a bitter-tasting coating on it (saponin).  This bitter coating protects the plant.  I tend to wash my quinoa before use.  Place your quinoa into a strainer with small holes (like a metal mesh strainer) and run water through it until the water runs clear.    Shake out the excess water and dump the wet grain into your pot (as shown below).  There is no need to try to dry the grain after the cleaning process.  Also, there is no real need to reduce the amount of liquid in the ratio (or so I’ve found).

In a pot, place a your quinoa.  In this example I’m giving, I’m using a half a cup of quinoa.  Using the 1:2 ratio, I need a cup of liquid now.

Pour in 1/2 cup of water.

Pour in a 1/2 cup of vegetable stock.  You can flavor this with chicken or beef stock instead.  Just substitute a 1/2 cup of that for the vegetable stock if you so wish.

To cook quinoa, you want to place the heat on medium-high (which is a number 6/7 on my stove’s dial) and bring it to a boil.  Once it begins to boil, immediately throw a top on the pot and reduce the heat to a simmer (a 2 or 3 on my stove).

You want to cook your quinoa until the water is nearly boiled out.  The total cook time for quinoa is normally 15 -20 minutes depending on how much you’re cooking.  Don’t be surprised after you boil it if you find a few dark bits in the quinoa (as seen above).  Quinoa also comes in a red variety, and I find sometimes you get a few of the darker kernels in the mix naturally.

When the water is boiled out, you might find that the grains seem a bit too wet.  To remedy this, you need to fluff and steam the quinoa.  Using a fork, turn the quinoa over in the pot, which is what I’m calling the fluff.  Let this sit on the simmer setting that your pot is already set at for 3-5 minutes, checking to make sure the bottom doesn’t get too brown.  If necessary, stir the grains around one more time.

You’ll notice after about 3-5 minutes the grains look much drier.  They are now ready to eat or use in another recipe.  You can also let the quinoa cool at this point and then package to freeze.

This Photo Friday, I’m sharing with you a way I like to eat quinoa that I’ve dubbed in my head as the Quinoa Scramble.  It is a take on the egg rice my mom  used to make for us when we were kids.

Until then, be the bento everyone!  Have a lovely Tuesday.

Kim and I have been friends for quite some time.  We went to high school together, and visited each other during college (we attended different universities).  We ran the drama club in high school, did silly plays, and generally laughed a hell of a lot.

These days she lives many, many miles away in Maryland.  She’s a busy woman with a husband, preschooler, and baby #2 on the way.  She runs her own business (Passion Parties), keeps her own blog running, networks with other moms, and is a blogger for the DC Metro Moms.  Though she lives way up in Maryland, we keep our friendship going with alot of Internet chatting and mutual blog reading. She’s very different from me.  Much more open to new things, adventurous, and outgoing.  It must be what keeps us friends.  That whole opposites attract thing.

Around five years ago, I visited her in Maryland on my way to a wedding for another friend.  Kim had agreed to accompany me to the wedding.  That way, I was able to visit her in Maryland and not have to drive up to New York state for the wedding alone. In fact, she made the drive with me through the hills of Pennsylvannia (oh my god, do you remember that Kim?), dealt with my fear of said hills, and enjoyed a fun wedding.  I spent a week with her and her husband, laughed more than I had in a long time, had my first experience with Ikea and the Container Store (my personal mecca), and enjoyed some really great meals.  While there, Kim brought me to a restaurant called Jaleo for tapas.  This was way, way before Not Exactly Bento, before I was willing to try new things, before I’d realized everything to which I’d said, “no I don’t like that” in my life.  Kim told me it was great, that I’d love the restaurant.  I didn’t tell her at the time (I don’t think), but I was apprehensive.  Trying new foods, or new things even, wasn’t really on my agenda.  But I was in town to have fun with one of my most favorite friends, so off we went to Jaleo.  Of all the dishes we tried there, the chorizo sausage with garlic mashed potatoes has stuck with me for a long, long time.  It was my favorite dish of the night.  In fact, we may have even ordered a second helping of it, it was that good.

When I returned home to Louisiana after that trip, I searched everywhere for chorizo like we had at that restaurant only to find it must be something to Jaleo.  Chorizo, I came to find, normally is in a casing and falls apart upon cooking.  I was told by a woman I work with that her husband likes to scramble with his eggs.  I didn’t really think this is what I wanted, so I’ve just kept a look out for hard cured chorizo.  I tried to satisfy myself with pan-fried sausage and garlic mashed potatoes, but it just wasn’t the same.

Tonight, I went to Whole Foods the idea of fish and potatoes in my head, I had no real clue exactly what I wanted to cook.  I just knew I had some potatoes from a Farmer’s Market purchase 2 weeks ago I really needed to use.  As well, I was kept thinking I wanted something fairly hearty to eat.  I’ve dealt with a headache today bordering on a migraine.  I think partly due to eating eggplant for nearly two weeks.  Sometimes, I don’t pack my bento boxes as full as I think I should probably be packing them.

I cruised the aisles looking for things that would be tasty to eat and go well in a bento tomorrow.  I had in mind to pick up more of the vegetable gyoza I’d purchased before in the deli area.  As I as walking around the counter looking for the gyoza (they were out!), I saw this: Chorizo!  Hard cured!  It looked like a roll of salami or pepperoni.  When I saw it, I thought of Kim, a wonderful trip, and one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life.  That chorizo was coming home with me NO MATTER WHAT!  At nearly $12 a pound, it isn’t cheap, and well beyond my budget if I were to purchase a whole pound.  But given what flashed through my mind to do with it, I knew only a little was needed.  A quarter pound cost me $3, and the idea was born for…

Chorizo Garlic Mashed Potatoes!  The flavors of the dish I remembered all rolled up into one flavorful bowl.  I had to make it!  I had to eat it!  NOW!  And I cooked it.  And I thought of Kim, and Jaleo, and sighed with tastebud pleasure.  In the hopes the dish came out well, I took pictures along the way.  I was lucky.  It came out great!  Now, here’s how to make them.

My first step was to roast a head of garlic.  I decided that roasted garlic was the way I would add garlic flavoring to this dish.  I’ve wanted to try this technique ever since I read it on the Pioneer Woman’s website.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Using her instructions, I roasted a head of garlic in a toaster oven on 375 degrees for about 30 minutes.  Look how beautiful it is.  I nearly fainted with delight at the lovely smell this produced in my kitchen.  This whole recipe was a delight for my nostrils.  Hopefully, it will be for yours too if you try it.

Besides the garlic and chorizo, you also need some potatoes and a red onion.  While only three are pictured here, I boiled 5 medium sized red potatoes and used one small red onion.  The onion I diced fairly small.

The potatoes were cubed and placed in a large pot of water.  While the potatoes began to boil, I diced the onion and three cloves of the roasted garlic.

I also cut up the round chorizo slices.  The stack pictured above was cut in thirds one way, then in thirds the opposite way, creating small rectangular and triangular pieces. During this prepping process, I continually checked the potatoes.  When they were not quite fork tender, I put these ingredients on to cook.

I heated 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat.  First, the onion went into the skill to cook until translucent.

Once the onions turned translucent, it was time to add the chorizo.  It everything this really pretty yellowish color.  I cooked the chorizo until it was crispy like bacon.  The onions turned a beautiful brown color in this process.  They weren’t burnt tasting.  Maybe this is what people call carmelized?  I don’t really know.  I’ve never caramelized onions before.

When the potatoes were fork tender, I drained them in a strainer and transfered them to a bowl.  This next step is basically making mashed potatoes.  In went a tablespoon of butter and some milk.  Using a hand mixer, I blended the potatoes until smooth, adding more milk as needed.  I think I might have used about a 1/2 cup of milk, maybe a little less.  I just poured until everything looked right.

Once mashed, the cooked chorizo, onions, and roasted garlic were added to the potatoes and mixed well together.

The last step is to transfer the potatoes into a bowl you really like, dig in with a fork, and take a big ol’ bite.  Kim, this bowl is dedicated to you and the fun time we share always, and most especially to a trip on which I remember laughing so hard I nearly needed my inhaler.

Be the bento everyone!

A few days ago, I showed this dinner as a prelude to Bento #191 and alluded to the recipe for the corn & pepper relish that was the side dish.  Using the word recipe for this little concoction is probably false advertising.  There isn’t much effort at all to making this little side dish, something which I found just wonderful.

I think I’ve mentioned recently that I purchased a membership to Sam’s Club this year.  I think the best bargain I’ve found are the sweet peppers they carry.  I purchased this lovely bag of peppers, lots of sweet peppers, for right under $5!  Sweet peppers are expensive, and this is cheap for them.  So I’ve been buying them, and looking for ways to use them in recipes.  Because if there is one thing I’ve discovered while teaching myself to cook is that I may not like green peppers, but I adore these red/yellow/orange sweet peppers.

I mean how can you resists all that pretty color. I certainly can’t. While looking for recipes to use these beauties, I ran across 2 recipes that I wondered if I could combine the ingredients from one and the method from the other. So here goes.

You need three simple ingredients: 1 cup of frozen corn, about 5-6 of the mini peppers (or 1 regular sized pepper) julienned, and 1 to 1 1/2 wedges of the Laughing Cow cheese wedge flavor of your choice. I used the Garlic and Herb variety.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet. Once heated, place your peppers and corn into the skillet and saute, moving them around the pan fairly frequently, for about 5 minutes. I like my peppers kinda crispy. If you like yours a little less crispy, then cook for about a minute or two more.

After things have sauteed for about 5 minutes, throw your Laughing Cow Cheese wedge into the pan. It will melt fairly quickly. Keep things moving around the pan to get all the veggies covered with the cheese. That’s it. That’s the whole of the recipe.

I’m starting to wonder what a mini-Baybel cheddar round with a wee bit of milk and some broccoli might do. Yes, I do wonder about that!

Delicious looking don’t you think? Keep reading for the full recipe.

Here are the ingredients for the kibi filling (don’t worry, we’ll get to the grecian sauce a little later in the post):

The ingredients are: 1 pound of lean ground meat, allspice, cinnamon, salt, pine nuts, diced onion, and 2 tablespoons of butter. Easy peasy.

Place a skillet on your stove on medium heat (#4 on my electric stove). Place the two tablespoons of butter in the pan.

Melt the butter.

Now, you’re ready to add the all the diced onions, minus 1 tablespoon.

Be sure to watch your onions very carefully! I made the mistake of looking away for too long while fixing the grecian sauce. I burnt them. Some onion powder helped fix my problem, but durn!

Once the onions are translucent (pretend they are there, will you?), add your groundmeat.

To the meat add, 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper and pinches of salt, allspice, and cinnamon. This is going to smell soooooo good! Cook the groundmeat until it is coooked throughout.

While the groundmeat cooks, place a small skillet on low heat on another burner. Add the pine nuts to this skillet and brown, but do not burn! Be careful. You don’t want to waste a bunch of expensive pine nuts.

Once the pine nuts are browned, remove from heat and set aside.

The ground meat should be ready about now. Remove from pan and drain.

While draining, place the skillet back on the burner and turn to a very low heat/simmer setting. Wipe the inside of the skillet clean with a towel. You just want to keep the skillet warm while you do the next step.

From all the recipes I read on kibi, I found that it was a very finely ground meat mixture. To get my mixture to be a bit more like the actual recipe, I pulsed it in a food processor a few times.

Process all the meat and return to the strainer. Once all the meat is done, turn the burner off under the skillet you were keeping warm. Place the groundmeat back into the skillet. This will help warm it back up a bit since it cooled during the last step.

Add the toasted pine nuts.

And mix the two together.

Remove to a nice dish and admire your work. YUM!

My dinner consisted of Kibi filling, pita bread wedges, and Grecian sauce.

Want to know how I made the Grecian sauce? Well, just twist my arm why don’t you? Heeehehehee. Okay here goes. This was so simple it was sad.

Grecian sauce ingredients: 1/3 cup of diced cucumber, 1 clove of garlic-crushed, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of onion, and 3/4 cup (or however much you like) strained yogurt. Now, for some confessions. The picture actually shows 2 tablespoons of onion. I decided this seemed too much for my personal tastes, so I halved it. I didn’t want to strain yogurt forever. I just squeezed it through some cheesecloth 1 time. It was still ever-lovin’ awesome to my plebian palate.

Basically, you’re just going to slice and dice your ingredients and mix them all together in a bowl. Be sure to de-seed your cucumber first.

Throw all your ingredients together and mix.

You see those flecks in the sauce. It is a seasoning I decided to add at the last minute: dill weed.

Try it. You’ll probably like it.

I liked it all so much that when I ran out of my pita wedges, I just took some of the kibi filling and the grecian sauce and mixed it together.

Sort of odd looking, but damn it was good!

Nothing. That’s right. I did absolutely nothing constructive this weekend except for a bit of cooking and a bit of paperwork for my job. Otherwise, zip, zilch, zero, nada. I didn’t leave the house except to go four blocks up the street to go get a little food. I haven’t talked to anyone for any length of time. I’ve slept, I’ve surfed the web, and I’ve read lots. In the end, I’m finally starting to feel better! YAY! My new problem is sore muscles from lack of movement. This will be a busy workweek, so that will be quickly taken care of on Monday.

However, today I felt so slothful that I decided I needed to DO something with myself. Plus, I was hungry. One of my medications has a light steroid in it that always makes me feel like I could eat the siding off my house. I decided I would make comfort food for myself today. For me, that turned into mac ‘n cheese, fried chicken, and some steamed veggies. YUM! And since I was feeling the need to play with my camera, I took pictures of some of the process to share. Here we go.

The first thing on the agenda was to make mac ‘n cheese. I love mac ‘n cheese. However, I don’t make it all that much anymore. Today’s mac ‘n cheese is baked in small souffle cups. Why souffle cups you ask? What is a girl who can’t cook without a recipe even doing with bakeware for a complicated dish like souffle. Well, you can credit a good friend of mine with that. He’s a great cook and periodically clears out his kitchen of cookware he seldom uses. A few years ago, I received a large portion of his French White Corning Ware, including 3 souffle cups. I use them to make single servings of mac ‘n cheese.

Here’s my mac ‘n cheese recipe. It’s so simple it’s sad. However, it tastes really close to the kind my great-grandmother used to make. And if that isn’t comfort food, I don’t know what is. First, the ingredients:

• Sharp cheddar cheese – the cheapest off brand you can find, preferably in a block. If you do purchase block cheese, go ahead and shred it.
• Elbow macaroni
• Butter
• Milk

Here’s what I do to make this mac ‘n cheese. First, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. While the oven preheats, boil the macaroni until it is cooked to your preference. Drain the macaroni and place in a bowl with a tablespoon of butter that has been cup into small sections. Now, if it doesn’t look like enough butter for your preferences, put more. This isn’t a real hard-and-fast recipe.

Use a spoon to swirl around the macaroni and butter until the heat from the macaroni melts the butter. Next, throw in some of the cheese you shredded until it looks like enough for your taste buds. Mix it all together.

Spoon the macaroni and cheese mixture into the souffle cups, for individual portions, or into an appropriately sized baking dish for the amount you’ve fixed. In my extended family, we make this stuff in large aluminum cake pans to feed the masses. We love this stuff!

Finally, top with some more shredded cheese…

and bake until brown on the top.

Don’t those look yummy? Let me just confirm for you now…they were yummy!! Or at least the one I ate was yummy. The next thing on my menu for lunch was a bit of steamed veggies: green beans & carrots, my bento staples.

And with that I made fried chicken. I am not the world’s best fried chicken maker. However, this recipe helped me with alot of my troubles. It is by Paula Deen, and I found it on Recipezaar. I love that website. Here’s my fried chicken.

Here are all three elements together on a plate. Whew, this was a satisfying lunch and kicked the craving I had for something filling. Now, to figure out what I’m going to have for bento lunch tomorrow. Fried chicken is sort of hard to pack.

Hope anyone reading this had a great weekend. I’ll “see” you this week with more bento lunches.

Ingredients needed:

• A glass dish to bake in. This dish needs to be deep enough for 2 layers of macaroni and cheese.
• Elbow macaroni, boiled in salted water to your preference. Make enough for the 2 layers and the dish you have chosen. (see I told you this was going to be an odd recipe!)
• A block of Sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (you can use extra sharp if you want to)
• Stick of Butter
• Milk

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• While your oven is heating, boil your macaroni in salted water to your preference.
• While your oven is heating and the macaroni boiling, shred the block of cheese. I don’t buy prepackaged shredded cheese for this because normally I can’t find the type of sharp cheddar I prefer pre-shredded. But feel free to use pre-shredded mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, or whatever your taste buds prefer. A small amount of shredded mozzarella mixed in gives the whole dish a bit smoother/creamier taste. It’s a nice contrast to the sharp.
• When the macaroni is done, drain.
• Grease your baking dish. I normally just use non-stick spray.
• Scoop boiled macaroni into your baking dish. Make sure you have a good layer of macaroni and can’t see the bottom of the dish through the macaroni.
• Cut slices from your stick of butter and place on top of the macaroni. I normally make two rows of butter pats across this first layer of macaroni.
• Next, top macaroni and butter with a thick layer of shredded cheese. You don’t want to be able to see the macaroni through the cheese too well.
• Scoop another layer of macaroni ontop of the cheese, then do the butter pats again.
• Pour some milk over the whole thing. I normally use 2 percent milk. I’d guess I use somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 a cup of milk depending on the size of the dish I’m using. The milk will cook into the noodles and pretty much disapear from the dish. In other words, your mac ‘n cheese shouldn’t be real liquidy. So be careful how much milk you use. If you’re worried about my instructions with this step, feel free to omit the milk. Omitting the milk will make the dish drier though.
• Add your second and last layer of cheese on top.
• Place into your preheated 350 degree oven.
• Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until the top layer of cheese is completely melted. You’ll probably hear the milk bubbling and cooking too.
• Once the cheese is completely melted, turn your oven to broil and brown the top of the cheese to your liking.
• Take out of the oven once browned and set aside for about 5 – 10 minutes to allow it to cool a bit and all the flavors of the dish to settle.

If anyone out there tries this, I hope you enjoy it. The biggest tip I have is that it’s all about the cheese. The cheese you choose makes or breaks this dish. I personally like Cabot Cheese. It’s the one I can find most easily around here. It also tastes much better than Kraft in my humble opinion.

Enjoy!