I love making lasagna for company. It’s not so easy, but it’s something that can be made ahead of time, making the day-of much easier to handle. This lasagna is a little different and “dressier” than the classic cheese-and-tomato-sauce or meat-and-tomato-sauce kind. Plus, it is a nice filling main dish! We all really enjoyed it, and I’m glad I made the entire box of lasagna noodles and made a little extra of this for the freezer. That’s right, lasagna is a great freezer food!
Category Archives: Dinners
Short Ribs with Apples and Root Veggies
We have a baby foodie in the house! He’s older than 6 months, which means we are thinking about food. And although right now he survives only on breastmilk and single veggies, pretty soon he’ll be sharing family meals with us. Which is why when he was born I had to buy Tyler Florence’s new baby food cookbook Start Fresh. First of all, Tyler Florence is awesome. Second of all, I love people’s takes on what babies should eat. He thinks baby’s first food should be baby carrots (the real kind, not the cut and bleached processed kind). Continue reading
Quinoa Veggie Burgers
I like to stock my freezer with different kinds of veggie burgers. Of course, you can buy these pre-made in the grocery store, but homemade things are just more fun! Not to mention better for you, tastier, and cheaper. But enough of that…you know all this already. This veggie burger (I know, we’ve shared many with you since the summer. One more can’t hurt, though) uses quinoa as the protein and has a much softer (read: mushier) texture than the rest. It’s great on a salad with some roasted or fresh veggies or a homemade hamburger bun with chummus. Continue reading
Palak Paneer
Remember when I made paneer? That was really only so I could make this dinner! A fragrant and spicy spinach dish flavored with garlic, cumin and green chiles. This was a good start for a Syrian cook, spice-wise, since I already have whole cumin in my pantry. So you don’t have to go spice shopping just yet!
I actually couldn’t find green chiles, but poblanos are pretty close, and they sell those at Fairway. Continue reading
Yemenite Soup
I love Yemenite soup. Lucky for me, I live pretty close to David’s and I can order it in any time. But like any foodie, I had to try to make it myself. The first time I tried, it was a major fail. It was too thin, not meaty enough, and I really just wouldn’t share the recipe. Fast forward a few months, and someone told me that the Taste cookbook had a great recipe, and I knew that I needed to find someone with a copy and look at the recipe. And I did. I changed the recipe just a bit, and prepped all the ingredients. Much to my surprise, the soup was SO easy to make! Except for the spice mix, but that was Zeke’s job.
Beef and Broccoli
Want the taste of Chinese food in your very own kitchen? This beef and broccoli dish really tastes like Chinese food! And there’s no MSG. And you can make it with brown rice and not charge $1 extra. I just wish I had a wok, because that would make cooking this dish extra fun. Try it even if you don’t have one. Cast iron works wonders. So do dutch ovens. Continue reading
Salmon in Lemon Broth with Pea Puree
When Stephanie sent me this recipe to try, I giggled. And then I knew I had to make it. Pea puree! I decided to make this on my next day off. It’s a perfect Thursday night dinner, in my opinion, and since I already had all the ingredients, except for the salmon, wouldn’t take much thinking (Yes, you should always have peas in your freezer). Also, good thing I live pretty close to a fish store. If I didn’t, who knows if this would have ended up on the menu. We loved this. The broth was lemony and fresh, and really added a nice flavor to the salmon. The pea puree was just delicious, and oh-so-easy. I love peas. They are delicious in a puree. The salmon was great dipped in the puree. Just a good combination altogether.
Hamburger Buns
So you invited people over for barbecue only to realize you have no hamburger buns in the freezer. Fine, you’ll just run to the store down the block to get some. Uh oh, they’re out, too! Well, now you’re in luck. While usually burger buns and other breads are something you’d think about making in advance, this recipe takes 40 minute. That’s right, in under an hour you can have fresh homemade burger buns. With or without sesame seeds. Without HFCS.
Lentil and Brown Rice Burgers
Everybody loves the Chef at Home (aka Magen David) cookbook. It has bright colors, pretty pictures, and no capitals in the titles! Okay, that’s not why they like it. They like the easy to follow recipes and everyday dishes. I’ve made quite a few recipes from there, but haven’t blogged about them (sorry!). So I decided to make something awesome from there on my day off and share it with you. Now I know we’ve posted quite a few veggie burger recipes lately (fine, two. But that’s a lot!), but I like to make healthy dishes that I can freeze and just heat up when I need a quick lunch, dinner or even snack. And I’m trying to stay away from processed foods, so Morningstar items only a last resort. Continue reading
Potato-Wrapped Fish with Lemon Aioli
Potato-wrapped fish is like fish ‘n’ chips, but combined instead of side-by-side!
I remember seeing a recipe for this in Bon Appetit a while back, complete with instructions on how to wrap the fish, and I put it in the back of my mind. One day, with not much in the kitchen except frozen fish, potatoes, lemons and some greens, I thought of this technique. It’s a great dish to have in store, too; simple ingredients with an easy execution that looks impressive and fancy.
