Eggplant Mozzarella

Eggplant Mozzarella (not parmesan)

serves 4

2 eggplants sliced into rounds and grilled

2 cups baby spinach leaves

2 cups real easy tomato sauce mixed together with 1 cup Rao's Marinara sauce

3 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Pour some tomato sauce into the bottom of the baking dish of your choice. Place grilled eggplant on top, covering the dish's surface area. Sprinkle 1/2 the spinach leaves on the eggplant slices and then sprinkle with cheese, salt, and pepper. Pour more sauce on top of the cheese and then repeat layering ingredients until you run out making sure the top layer is cheese.

Bake at 375 for about 40-50 minutes. Enjoy!

Truffle & Herb Mac and Cheese

The last time I made macaroni and cheese was on Valentine's Day. I had tried something new. I normally always just follow Ina Garten's recipe for mac and cheese but that day I tweaked it just a bit by adding white truffle butter to the roux and to the bread crumbs that topped the mac.

It's been a few months and it's time for another dose of mac and cheese! This time I'm going to change it even further. I've been to restaurants where they prepare a herb mac and cheese and it's usually good. I'm going to kick it up another notch, sorry I had to say that, by adding in some herbs and garlic.

Remember a few days back I posted a recipe for potatoes?? Well, I am going to use the greeen garlicky herb oil with the addition of 1 tablespoon chopped basil and add it to the cheese sauce before I add the cooked macaroni. I think it's going to be super delicious!!! Just in case it's not as delicious as I think it sounds, I decided to make two separate mac and cheeses. I made one small ramekin of the herbed mac and cheese and then made a bigger one of the regular truffle mac and cheese that I always make, I know that one would be good. As for you weird people who don't like green foods, I know a couple of you folks, yes you....just omit adding the green garlicky herb oil and your mac and cheese should turn out green-free!

After eating the ramekin of the mac and cheese with the herbs it is safe to say that it's my new favorite. It's a more mature macaroni and cheese, for us adults. The mixture of truffles and garlic gives the dish a fantastic aroma and taste. Serve this meal along with an arugula and tomato salad and it is sure to be a hit!

Here's the recipe...

Truffle & Herb Mac and Cheese

(serves 8 people)

1 pound elbow macaroni

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, separated

2 tablespoons white truffle butter

½ cup flour

1 quart skim milk

Salt and pepper, to taste

8oz shredded sharp Cheddar

12oz shredded gruyere cheese

1 cup green garlicky herb oil (with basil added)

1 ½ cups bread crumbs

Cook the macaroni in boiling water for about 10 minutes until tender but still firm. Drain well and set aside.

In a deep skillet, melt 6 tablespoons butter (5 tbsp unsalted and 1 tbsp truffle butter) over medium heat. Add the flour to make a roux and cook, stirring, to remove any lumps.

Pour in the milk and cook until the mixture is thick and smooth. Season mixture with salt and pepper. Add in the green garlicky herb oil. Off the heat, stir in both cheeses and stir until melted. Add the cooked macaroni and stir until macaroni is well coated.

Melt the remaining butter (1 tbsp unsalted and 1 tbsp truffle butter) and combine with the breadcrumbs, sprinkle on top of macaroni.

Transfer the mixture to a 3-quart baking dish. Preheat the over to 350 degrees. Bake for about 20-30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

Eggs and Cream: Part 2

Remember when I made my french toast and had some leftover egg and cream mixture??? Well I used the extra stuff to make an individual bread pudding. I filled a ramekin up with small pieces of challah, which was also leftover, and sprinkled some mini chocolate chips that I had in the freezer throughout. I poured the egg mixture over the challah and let it soak up overnight.

Now it's morning and I'm super excited to see if this actually will taste like chocolate chip bread pudding! Before baking the bread pudding sprinkle some sugar on the top. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the bread pudding for about 30-45 minutes until the top is golden brown.

I probably will want to pour some syrup over my bread pudding before digging my fork into it so that it's more on the sweet side! I suggest if you want to make a large bread pudding you can follow the recipe below that I got from Epicurious and adapted it to my liking.

French Toast Bread Pudding

• 12 ounces challah or other egg bread with crust, torn into 3/4-inch pieces
• 7 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups skim milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla bean split down the center with seeds scraped out
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated whole nutmeg

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• Warm maple syrup (for serving)

Butter 11x7x2-inch glass baking dish. Place bread in dish. Whisk eggs and next 6 ingredients in medium bowl to blend; pour over bread. Using spatula, lightly press down on bread to moisten completely. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top of bread. Cover with foil and chill overnight.

Place foil-covered dish in cold oven. Set oven at 350°F and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until pudding is puffed and golden brown, about 35 minutes longer.

Spoon pudding onto plates, sprinkle with toasted nuts, and serve with warm maple syrup. Enjoy!

Eggs and Cream: Part 1

I took home a leftover challah from work on Friday and was thinking what I could do with it. I opened up my fridge and saw that I had eggs, milk, and half and half. I also knew I had some vanilla beans in the pantry. I decided I'd make french toast for breakfast!

You'll see in the recipe below that I added splenda into my egg mixture. I like making the egg mixture sweet, not sure why but I do. If you add real sugar or maple syrup, you'll find that your french toast will have a nice caramelized crust. I ended up having leftover egg mixture and I did not let it go to waste. Stay tuned to see what I ended up using it for!!

Vanilla Bean French Toast

(serves 4 people, 3 slices each)

1 cup skim milk

1/2 cup fat free half and half

5 eggs

1/2 of a vanilla bean with seeds scraped out

1/2 cup sweetener (such as sugar, 6 packets splenda, maple syrup, honey)

12 slices of challah bread

Place first 3 ingredients in a large baking dish or bowl. Whisk together. Add vanilla bean scrapings and vanilla bean to the egg mixture, whisk again until well blended. Add sweetener of choice into the mixture and whisk.

Heat a large frying pan on medium heat. Spray non-stick cooking spray on the pan. Dip slices of challah into egg mixture and let sit 10-15 seconds on each side. Transfer wet challah slices into the pan to cook. Cook each side for about 3 minutes until golden brown. Repeat until all challah slices are dipped and cooked. ENJOY!

Cookies and Cream

Two of my favorite ice creams are Haagen Dazs Coffee and Cookies and Cream. The thing is they don't make a coffee cookies and cream! I decided to make my own. I had some chocolate creme Oreo-like cookies from Trader Joes and I crushed them up and mixed them into some softened coffee ice cream. After it was all mixed up I scooped it back up into the pint container and placed it in the freezer to get frozen again. I could have eaten it as is, but I kind of like when the cookies get a little soggy from being immersed in the ice cream, so I waited patiently for a few hours.

The result: An excellent new flavor of ice cream that I think Haagen Dazs should highly consider! What do you think? If you could create your own flavor of ice cream out of pantry items, what would it be?

Green Garlicky Potatoes

Here's a picture of the potatoes before they got cooked.

Green Garlicky Potatoes

2 cups italian parsley

10 garlic cloves

1/2 cup rosemary

1 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 pounds of potatoes (whatever kind you like to use, I used baby yellow dutch potatoes)

Place first five ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until ingredients are chopped and blended well. Pour green garlicky goodness over cut potatoes and mix with your hands to coat potatoes. (you can cut them like I did above, or into fries, or coins, etc.) Make sure they are evenly sized so that the cooking time is the same. Spray baking dish with Pam or olive oil and place potatoes onto pan. Bake at 375 degrees for about 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. Be sure to turn, flip, and shake the potatoes every 10 minutes. you know they are done when they are fork tender and golden brown along the edges.

And the winning marinade is....

Well, there's no winner actually...the past two dinners I had Thursday and tonight, Korean steak and piri piri chicken, are both rated very highly on my yummy meter! I did learn a few things however.

First of all, when cooking with sugary marinades, such as the Korean Marinade My Way, I do not recommend using your grill pan, I'd stick to using a real BBQ. I basically ruined my grill pan, but I guess after having it for 7 years, it's probably time to buy a new one anyways, right??

Second, I'd make both marinades more spicy!! I like spice and once the proteins were cooked I didn't really taste the spice as much as I did when I tasted the marinades pre-cooking.

Thirdly, I highly recommend marinading for at least 1 day before cooking! Especially for the steak!

Fourth, I sliced up the shell steak that was cooked along with the spare ribs in the Korean marinade, and it made a great protein topper for a spinach arugula salad with grape tomatoes and leftover potatoes (recipe to come Monday).

Here's what the dinners looked like: Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the salad!

Marinades

I'm sorry I've been a little MIA the past week or so, between Passover and traveling and trying to get back into the swing of things I'm a little lost. I know some of you are probably sick of seeing that Matzoh Cake staring at you every time you open up Feed Your Sister but today I have some nice marinade recipes to share with you!

Since I'd been traveling I took this afternoon to refill the fridge/freezer and bought some chicken legs and breasts and some beef spare ribs and shell steaks. A long time ago I saw Danny Boome's show, Rescue Chef, make this amazing sounding chicken marinade. I adjusted the recipe a tad.

Spicy Piri Piri Sauce

• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 red peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
• 2-3 chili peppers like Fresno or serrano (depends on how spicy you want it!)
• 1 cup fresh parsley leaves
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• (This made enough to marinade 5 chicken legs, 5 chicken breasts, and 1 shell steak)

In a food processor add lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper, chiles, parsley, paprika, red wine vinegar and oil. Process until it becomes a paste. Season with salt and pepper. Divide meat into resealable plastic bags. Pour marinade into bags and seal. Turn the meat around in the bags to distribute the marinade. Place meat in the refrigerator and let it marinate for at least 1 hour and up to 1 day. Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Remove meat from bags with tongs and drain well. Place on grill or grill pan, skin side down first, and grill for about 15 minutes on each side turning occasionally until cooked through. (You might need to do it in batches if grill is not big enough.)

The other recipe I made was based upon Korean steak sauce. It's usually sweet and contains soy sauce and brown sugar. I made my own spicy version of a Korean marinade. Here's the recipe!

Korean Marinade My Way

1 cup soy sauce

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup mirin (rice wine)

1/2 cup water

1 small onion roughly chopped

2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree. Pour marinade onto steak or chicken and let sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight. Grill meat on the BBQ or grill pan until cooked to your desired taste. Enjoy!!