Cooking | Lamppostings

November 18, 2014
by Melissa Leave a comment

Tasty Tuesday – Easy, Healthy, Tasty

Lettuce wraps have become one of our favorite, healthy meals. We are having them less now that it hasn’t been over freezing for nearly a week, but they are so easy and fresh, they’ll still be in the rotation for winter meals.

I have made Chinese-style lettuce wraps, Mexican-style lettuce wraps and these, Buffalo chicken wraps. These were so good and the lettuce and goat cheese were a nice balance to the heat of the Buffalo sauce.

Another easy, healthy meal is zucchini boats – you can mix it up with different styles – Italian, cheeseburger, Chinese – so many choices. I made Mexican this time.

I’m always on the lookout for versatile, easy, healthy meal options. Let me know if you have some good ones.

October 14, 2014
by Melissa 2 Comments

Tasty Tuesday – Falafel

When I lived in London, on Sundays after church, my friends and I had a few places that were favorites to go for lunch. Going underneath the Thames through the Greenwich Tunnel to Greenwich for noodles at a noodle house or nachos at the Tex Mex place were near the top of the list. I think the place we went most often, though, was Old Spitalfields Market. When I was living in Bethnal Green, it wasn’t quite as cool and trendy as it is now, but there were definitely great places to go. Old Spitalfields Market was such a great place to browse – they had/have market stalls that feature local artisans and crafts people as well vintage goods and antiques, clothes and a wonderful assortment of really random stuff. My husband and I actually had a couple of local jewelry designers who had a stall at Spitalfields make my wedding ring.

The other great thing about Spitalfields was the great food vendors. Kebabs, curries, noodles, Eastern European and of course, falafel. It was one of my absolute favorites. All that to say, I was craving some falafel recently. So I thought I would give it a go and see if I could make my own. I was a bit intimidated because I thought it was more complicated than it actually is.

It’s super easy! Who knew?

I was originally going to try baking it and I used this recipe as my inspiration. I ended up just frying it in a fry pan using a bit of cooking spray so it wasn’t deep-fried.

Basically, in a food processor, you mix together some garbanzo beans (chick peas), a bit of flour, some spices, fresh herbs, lemon juice and ta da – you have falafel. I made little patties, fried them for a bit and we were ready to go.

I made some cucumber sauce to go with it by blending some cucumber, greek yogurt, dill, lemon juice, salt and pepper. I didn’t actually measure anything for the sauce – just made it to taste.

I served the falafel with pita bread, a cucumber/tomato salad (I used the cucumber sauce as a dressing), lettuce, goat cheese and green onion. Let me tell you, my falafel craving has been satisfied! It was so good, if I do say so myself.

I love how tastes are so tied up with memories and how food can take you back to places you’ve been and even transport you to places you’ve never been to. And I also have to say, as I was thinking back to London, looking at some of my photos, I really miss it. I think it’s good to miss things though – it means that place, that person, that time was good. Right now, I’m where I’m supposed to be, but I am so thankful for my years in London and I can’t wait to take my boys there.

October 7, 2014
by Melissa Leave a comment

Tasty Tuesday – Cauliflower Fried Rice

This is one of my favorite, fairly recent finds. I’ve made it enough times now that I no longer use a recipe and I’ve adapted it so that it’s quick and easy, using whatever I happen to have in my fridge at the time.

To start, I use any suitable vegetables I happen to have on hand – in this case, I used carrots and onions, but you can use bell peppers, zucchini (courgettes), cabbage, celery – pretty much whatever takes your fancy. I put a bit of coconut oil and sesame oil in a wok and get the vegetables softening and caramelizing. While that’s happening I take some cauliflower and put it through the grater option on my food processor – just enough to “rice” it.

Once the vegetables are softened, I add the cauliflower to the wok. Then I start with flavors – again, you can throw in anything you have on hand. I tend to use soy sauce, some fish sauce and sometimes a bit of hoisin sauce if I want it a bit sweeter. Mix it all together, cook over medium high heat until the cauliflower has soaked up all the flavors and become tender and you’re done! Easy peasy!

I served it here with some tilapia. So tasty and good for you.

February 4, 2014
by Melissa Leave a comment

Tasty Tuesday – Anytime S’Mores

I was looking for an easy, yummy dessert the other night and realized I had all the ingredients needed to make s’mores. This was seriously so easy, I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence with a recipe. I used the broiler on my oven to brown the marshmallows. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Mostly I just want to post the photos so that I can look at them again.

So yummy! Of course, campfire s’mores reign supreme and always will, but these were so good.

January 14, 2014
by Melissa 4 Comments

Tasty Tuesday – Ham and Corn Soup

Over the holiday season I stocked up on a couple of hams when they were super cheap – 99 cents a pound? Yes, please. That means that when I cook one up, we’ll pretty much be eating off of it for a week. We had the ham when I first cooked it and then we had breakfast a couple of times and then I made some ham and corn soup. I found this recipe on Pinterest.

I made a few changes to the recipe and wasn’t very careful in following exact measurements. I also used a slow cooker so it was cooking all day long. I think this recipe would be great if you cooked it on the stove in a short amount of time, but I love the depth of flavor that comes from all day cooking. I used onion instead of green pepper. I didn’t use parsley, simply because I didn’t have any and I only used canned corn.

I got a Ninja cooking system for Christmas and I love it. One of my least favorite things about crock pot cooking is having to brown meat or vegetables in a pan on the stove and then transfer it to the crock pot. With the Ninja, I can do it all in one pot. Love it! It also claims on the box that I will rule the kitchen – I’ve always wanted to try out this royalty thing.

I garnished my soup with a bit of shredded cheese, some French fried onions and some green onions. It was so tasty and comforting and satisfying. Yummo!

I served biscuits with the soup and we made homemade butter as a family. It’s so easy. We put some heavy cream in a jar and just shook it until it goes past the whipped cream stage and suddenly, you have butter and buttermilk. I drained the buttermilk, rinsed the butter a bit and added some salt. It was lovely.

On New Year’s Eve, I made the mistake of trying to make butter using only full fat milk. I looked it up on the interwebs and they said you could use regular milk. I shook and shook and shook and we never got any butter. I shook that jar for hours! I also had the worst sore muscle pain I have ever had, it was awful. Nearly crying awful, pain meds not touching it awful. So we’re going to stick with heavy cream from now on when we want to make butter. Of course, as my husband said, we can always just use the stick of butter that is in the fridge.

November 12, 2013
by Melissa 1 Comment

Tasty Tuesday – Coconut Chicken Soup

I tried this recipe last week and it was delightful! It is full of creamy flavor, but still light. My husband and I loved it. Jude thought it was ok and Zane would only have the broth.I used this recipe that I found on Pinterest. I altered it a bit. I didn’t use garlic or chilis – I’m not a big fan of garlic and I wanted to make it tame enough that the boys would eat it. Jude likes spicy stuff in small quantities, but I need to not go crazy with it. I also added some red, yellow and orange diced peppers and some green onion on top to garnish.It was also super simple to make which is always great for midweek meals. I’ll definitely be making this again.What Autumn recipes are you cooking up?

July 23, 2013
by Melissa Leave a comment

Tasty Tuesday – Get Stuffed

I’ve tried two “stuffed” recipes recently that I want to share today.

The first is a Broccoli and Cheese Stuffed Chicken. It was super easy to make and so yummy. I was the biggest fan of it in my family. I love how pretty it was, add melted cheese, and I’m a fan. Apparently my husband isn’t into cheesy things.

The second recipe was Crab Meat Stuffed Sole. I’ve never cooked with sole before, but I found some on sale so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s incredibly delicate and light. Colin and I really liked this recipe, but the boys, who usually love fish, weren’t really into it. I also have to confess that I went to the supermarket with the intention of buying some fresh crab meat, but when I saw the price, I couldn’t justify it and went with canned crab. It was still very tasty.

It’s pretty hot in these here parts and I don’t have air conditioning so cooking isn’t heaps of fun at the moment. I am still trying to be creative and find fun, tasty summer recipes.

Lamppostings

Finding and creating adventures in everyday life.

Category Archives: Cooking