Apple Crisp with Oatmeal Crumb Topping

Another test run for the Thanksgiving feast – apple crisp! We had a friendsgiving on Monday and I brought the apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. Classic and American.

The entire meal was incredible. Michaela and Laura outdid themselves: roasted turkey chicken, homemade cranberry sauce, butternut squash soup, green beans, sweet potato gratin, kale salad, gravy, on and on… I didn’t eat breakfast until 10:30 am the next morning.

Apple Crisp with Oatmeal Crumb Topping

3 apples (2 gala, 1 granny smith), sliced thinly
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oats
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
dash of salt
4 tablespoons cold butter

vanilla ice cream (optional – but not really)

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine apple slices through lemon juice and toss to coat. Dump into non-stick cake/pie pan or 8x8 baking dish. In the same bowl, combine remaining ingredients and crumble together with your hands until mixture forms a cohesive crumbly mixture. Pat crumble on top of apple slices and bake for about 50 minutes, or until browned on top and bubbly. Let cool for at least 15 minutes and serve with vanilla ice cream!!

Balsamic Roasted Fall Vegetables & Green Bean Quinoa Salad

My roommate and I have a great thing going: she buys vegetables, and I cook them. This weekend she loaded up at a local (super cheap!) fruit stand in the south bay. I used this opportunity as a test run for possible Thanksgiving recipes, since I’m helping my aunt cook for 17 this year! I found this recipe on Shutterbean, and I agree that fresh cranberries in this recipe would have been amazing, but dried work just fine!

My roommate looooved this. Adding honey goat cheese would make just about anything edible, but the vegetables were glorious on their own. Didn’t think you could get super excited about roasted vegetables? Think again.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash & Cranberries

serves 8 as a side dish

1 1b. Brussels sprouts, trimmed & halved
1 medium butternut squash peeled & cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup fresh cranberries (or dried – added on at the end)
1 apple, cut into 1/2 pieces
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 400F. Spread the Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, cranberries, apple, & onions on a large rimmed baking sheet. In a small bowl mix oil, vinegar, and curry powder together. Drizzle over the vegetable mixture and toss to evenly coat. Sprinkle brown sugar over the vegetables and place baking sheet in the oven. Roast for 20 minutes, gently stir and continue to roast for 20-25 minutes longer, or until vegetables are tender and nicely browned.

Green Bean Quinoa Salad with Greek Dressing

1/2 cup mixed quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth or water
1 pound green beans, trimmed, halved
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon red or white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
feta or goat cheese, crumbled

In a medium, add broth or water and quinoa and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or until cooked and liquid evaporates. In a large skillet, add 1 cup water and green beans. Bring to a boil and cook 3-5 minutes or until tender. Move to ice bath to stop the beans from cooking. Mix remaining ingredients together in a medium bowl and toss in beans and quinoa.

Spicy, Nutty Shrimp Lettuce Wraps

10 days of modified Paleo have resulted in a number of interesting meals and potentially the loss of a pound or two. I, too, doubted my survival without sweet or cheese or Wheat Thins, but I have been just fine. Maybe a little low on energy around the middle of the day, when I’m hungry – but how many apples or almonds can a girl eat in a day? I’m confident I’ve surpassed the appropriate amount. Dinners have remained exciting and creative. Check out some highlights:

~ Frozen chocolate, almond, banana “bark”
(3 blocks unsweetened chocolate, 2 packets stevia, 1 banana, 1 tablespoon almond butter, 1 tablespoon mixed nuts, sea salt)

~ Coconut breaded fish with kim chi, sweet potato puree and zucchini sticks

~ Asian fish “tacos”
(Baked cayenne/ginger/curry seasoned tilapia with roasted onion, bell pepper, green onions, mung bean sprouts and plain yogurt in lettuce leaves)

~ Spicy, nutty shrimp lettuce wraps

Spicy, Nutty Shrimp Lettuce Wraps

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound shrimp
dash cayenne, ground ginger, salt and pepper
4 green onions
4 large lettuce leaves
mung bean sprouts
1/4 bell pepper, sliced

2 tablespoons almond butter
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a medium skillet. Season the shrimp with spices and add to pan with the green onions. Flip the shrimp once and remove from pan once cooked through. Leave green onions for a few minutes longer to soften. Mix almond butter through salt and pepper together in a small bowl and toss in shrimp to coat. Assemble lettuce wraps with shrimp, green onions, bell pepper and bean sprouts.

Reinvented Reese’s Cup

I’ve always loved a food challenge that promotes healthy eating and creative cooking. Paleo is a frontier I had yet to venture. Last Monday my coworker told me she was attempting to go Paleo for the next month to get in shape for a wedding she’s in this December. Food challenges are always easier with a partner, so I told her I was in too. This won’t be forever, but it’s fun for now!

For some background, the Paleo or “caveman” diet is based on foods that humans were eating 10,000 years ago – food that can be found in nature and wasn’t a product of farming or processing – and can be eaten raw or (cooked over a fire?) This eliminates grains (wheat, barley, quinoa, ALL of them), dairy, sweets (real or fake sugar), beans or soy, potatoes…This leaves us with vegetables, fruits, nuts (but not peanuts), meat, fish and eggs. Now, in order to make this diet sustainable for myself, I had to do a little customization. In my version of this diet I am including corn, some beans, sweet potatoes, plain yogurt, and, on occasion, brown rice (mostly in the form of rice cakes) and I am excluding red meat. The good news: wine is allowed. I am already on day 7, and it has been surprisingly easy to follow “my rules.” My vegetable and fruit intake was already super high to start with, but the creative part comes in when you have to swap out tortillas, pasta, bread and other “vehicles” for food and sauces that I’m used to. However, most sandwiches can be made into salads, most pastas can be replaced with thinly sliced vegetables like zucchini or spaghetti squash, and what can’t be mixed into eggs?

Creating Paleo “sweets” was an interesting challenge. But I was determined. Sorry I’m not sorry I need a chocolate fix once in a while. The reinvented Reese’s cup:

The difference between mine and Reese’s: mine is packed with fiber, antioxidants, no sugar and low in calories, while the other will spike your blood sugar, tax your liver to process and provide no fiber with tons of calories. Okay, and they might taste a LITTLE different. One version was made with spiced pumpkin puree, the other with almond butter.

Reinvented Reese’s
Makes 4 small cups

2 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
1-2 stevia extract packets (for desired sweetness)

4 tablespoons almond butter
OR
4 tablespoons pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dashes of pumpkin pie spice

Melt chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave, then stir in stevia packet. Prepare muffin tin with 4 paper muffin cups. Pour enough chocolate into muffin cups to cover the bottom, then spoon 1 tablespoon almond butter or pumpkin mixture into each cup. Cover mixture with remaining chocolate. Place muffin tin in the freezer to harden.

Zucchini & Goat Cheese Quesadillas with Balsamic Yogurt

When I think back on my Sunday, everything I did revolved around food. I hit the farmers market bright and early with my friend Amy. Though I only ended up with kale (obvi), a pepper and some oranges, I got my fill of samples. Let’s face it, that’s 97% of the reason anyone goes to farmers markets.

I made an early lunch – the only reason I did everything early today was that sneaky time change. I had a sneaking suspicion I would be eating again before dinner so I made it light, kale chips and spinach, pear, goat cheese salad. Sure enough, I went to a neighbors for a cookout on his roof (love rooftops!). Later, I met a friend for some hun-cal fro-yo.

And now I’ve just spent the last few hours in the kitchen preparing the next few days worth of breakfast smoothies, chicken salad lunches and a roasted vegetable quesadilla for dinner. What will I be re-reading before bed? Food Rules by Michael Pollan. Yeah, I guess you could call food my hobby.

Zucchini & Goat Cheese Quesadillas

1 wheat tortilla
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 zucchini, diced
2 tablespoons diced red onion
1 ounce goat cheese
1 ounce grated mozzarella/fontina/other melty cheese
handful spinach leaves
drizzle balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

In a skillet, sauté onions and zucchini until tender. Remove from pan and replace with tortilla. Layer cheese, vegetables, spinach and drizzle of balsamic vinegar and cook over medium heat. In a small bowl, mix yogurt and balsamic. Cut quesadilla in thirds and top with balsamic yogurt.

Chocolate Chip Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

I <3 rooftops. I spent most of my Saturday up on mine, finishing my book and getting some sun.

It was there that my extreme suggestibility – after reading about the main character taking her rosemary garlic knots out of the oven - gave me the idea to make rosemary…shortbread cookies? Who knows where my mind gets these ideas.

Shortbread cookies are very simple cookies with endless possibilities. Next time, I might swap the chocolate for parmesan to make savory cookies.

The only hard part was cutting the cookies into uniform shapes. As you can see, that didn’t happen. *I used Melissa d’Arabian’s recipe for these cookies, which is unfortunate because I find her incredibly annoying. I was able to get over it. Bravo chica, I like your cookies.

Chocolate Chip Rosemary Shortbread

1 stick butter (room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary (I used fresh)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips (I chopped regular chocolate chips)

In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter until fluffy. Add in flour, salt and rosemary a fourth cup at a time. Stir in chocolate chips and wrap up dough in wax paper and chill for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300 and have cookie sheet chilling in the fridge. Roll out dough and slice into rectangles. Place cookies on an ungreased, chilled cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes, or until lightly brown. Cool completely on rack.