Left-over Fruit Salad

I mentioned before I bought squash at the farmer's market. I bought peaches too and found them when I was making dinner. I also have strawberries which I pushed back in the fridge, frozen blueberries I happened to "borrow" from my friend up the block and a banana. Fruit salad, here we come!

What you'll need:

cutting board
knife
tupperware

Ingredients:
strawberries
peaches
blueberries
banana
(**any fruit you have will work just fine!)


How to:

1. Take your fruit. Cut it up in to bite-sized pieces and put it in to the tupperware. (Don't forget to wash the fruit before you do this



2. Mix it together with a spoon.


3. Put it in the fridge.

4. Eat it whenever you like!

d-o-n-e

What do I do with this ?!

I had a dilemma. I went to the farmer's market over the weekend and bought zucchini/squash. I got it home and was excited to eat but then I thought, "What the $%&^! am I going to do with this?" I was hungry so after surveying the kitchen for some ideas, I remembered I had two lemons from my last grocery store run so I decided to experiment. According to the roommates, this was a success!

Zesty Zucchini (nice alliteration, huh?)

What you'll need:

Sautee pan
Wooden spoon
Knife
Cutting board

Ingredients:

Two medium sized zucchini/squash
1 clove of garlic
2 lemons
1 tbsp olive oil
a palm-ful of water (like you were going to drink out of your hand)

How to:

1. Mince (make tiny pieces) the garlic and slice the zucchini into 1/4in. slices.

2. Add the olive oil to the sautee pan and add the garlic. Turn the stove to MED (5-6) heat. Add in the zucchini.

3. While that heats up, cut one lemon in half. Take one of those halves and slide that in to 1/2in. slices or chunks. Throw that in the sautee pan, peel/rind and all!


4. Wait a little while (I made the next recipe while I waited for these to get goin') and then squeeze the unsliced half of the lemon all over the stuff in the sautee pan.

5. Add the palm-ful of water.

6. Stir this around on and off for 10 minutes or so.

7. After that, the zucchini slices should start to turn colors (darker green) and become floppy. This is good! Cute the next lemon in half and do the same as you did before--slice/chunk half and squeeze the other half.


8. Once the majority of zucchini has become pretty floppy, take the pan off of the heated burner, put in to a bowl or on a plate and eat!


Behind the scenes with zesty zucchini!

Marvelous Meatballs

Meatballs are delicious. Get ready to get your hands a little dirty. I make a ton and freeze them so come exam time, I pop them in some sauce and heat 'em up!

What you'll need

Mixing bowl
1/2 C measuring cup
Cookie sheet

Ingredients (should make about 30)

1 1/2 lb. ground beef
3/4 lb. ground pork
3/4 lb. ground turkey
2 eggs
1 C bread crumbs
2 tbsp italian seasoning
2 pinches salt
2 tbsp parsley
1/4 C milk
2 C finely chopped green pepper
1 medium onion finely chopped
olive oil cooking spray


How to:


Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

1. Put all of the ground meat in to the mixing bowl. Mix these together with your hands.

2. Add the bread crumbs, parsley, salt and italian seasoning. Mix all of these together with your hands.

3. Add the eggs (these hold the meatballs together). Then add the milk (gives the meatball rich flavor).

4. These now may be too wet. If you touch the mixture and it drips or leaves a residue in your hands, add some more bread crumbs (do it in 1/4C increments).

5. Add the peppers and onions next and make sure these are incorporated well with everything else.


6. Olive-oil spray the cookie sheets and begin forming the meat-mixture in to normal meatball-sized balls.

7. Space these out with 3 inches between each. Fit as many as you can.


8. Put these in the oven and let these cook for 30-40 minutes. They should appear brown on top and some fat should have seeped out.

9. Keep up this process until all of the meatballs are cooked.

10. Freeze what you'd like and eat what you want!

Philadelphia French Onion Soup

I have never been a huge fan of french onion soup (mostly because it was overly salted when I had it) but when my best friend/roommate Sam wanted to make some with bread we got at a farmers market over the weekend I was excited to try it out. This is an extremely simple recipe and surprisingly inexpensive. Enjoy!


What You'll Need

Soup Pot
Wooden spoon
Cutting board
Sharp chopping knife

Ingredients
3 Large onions
2 cloves garlic
handful of parsley sprigs (leaves) sort-of chopped
32oz. box of beef broth
1 1/2 C red wine
1 cup mushrooms, finely chopped
3 tbsp salt
bag of shredded swiss cheese
a few slices of sour dough bread
1 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp butter

How To:

1. Slice the onions in to 1/4in. slices so they look like circles and cut those circles in half. Chop up the garlic in to fine pieces (this is called mincing).

2. Put the butter and olive oil in the soup pot. Turn the stove to MED (6-7) and melt the butter. Once it's melted, add the onions and garlic.


3. Sautee these for 10 minutes then add the sprigs of parsley and chopped up mushrooms. Keep sauteeing until the onions turn golden/mahogany brown.

4. After the onions have reached a brown color, add the red wine. Let this sit for one minute.

5. Add the beef stock and bring to a rolling boil. Add the salt.

6. Turn the heat down to LOW-MED (3-4) and let the soup simmer (small boiling) for 25 minutes.


7. While the soup is simmering, cut the slices of sour dough bread in to chunks.

8. Back to the soup. Get ready two-four large mugs/bowls out. After 25 minutes of simmering, ladle the soup in to the mugs.

9. After the soup is in the mugs, distribute the bread chunks over the mugs you are using and immediately add cheese to the top.

Enjoy!




**A few notes: you can toast the sourdough before you put it in if you'd like. I tried this with a bread-bowl but it was unsuccessful. When I figure out how to do it, I'll let you know! Also, remember farmer's markets are an excellent way to find quality food at an extremely discounted price!

Back in Action!

After some pretty intense summer classes and a tough move, Coedibles College Cooking is back with a new and improved kitchen (check out the photo!)! I have a TON of new recipes to share with you all so sit down (quickly), get out the pots/pans and make something delicious for your friends!

Lasagna

This is quite possibly one of my favorite things to make. I love reheating the left-overs and throwing in some zucchini. It can be made twice and one lasagna can be frozen to save for later which is very helpful when exam time comes around. Enjoy!

What you'll need:
Wooden Spoon
Large Mixing Bowl
8x11 or 9x13 baking dish
Tin foil

Ingredients

1 large container of ricotta cheese
1 bag of shredded mozzarella
2 palm-fulls of Italian seasoning
1 egg
2 jars red pasta sauce
1 box of NO-BOIL lasagna noodles (very important)

How to:

Before starting, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the container of ricotta cheese, half of the shredded mozzarella bag, the Italian seasoning and egg. Mix these together until everything is incorporated well.

2. In your baking dish, pour enough pasta sauce in to cover the bottom--you should not be able to see any of the dish.

3. Layer your noodles on top of the pasta, making sure the noodles are completely covered in sauce. How many noodles you need will depend on your dish size.

4. Next, take a scoop of your cheese mixture you made in step 1 and put that on top of your noodles, making sure that this layer is relatively even.

5. Add another layer of noodles on top of the cheese, followed by another layer of pasta sauce. Repeat this process until you near the top of your dish.

6. After your final layer of cheese, put pasta sauce over this layer of cheese, followed by a layer of noodles and then another layer of pasta sauce. This layer of sauce can be thick so as to make the noodles cook thoroughly.

7. Add the remaining mozzarella cheese on top of the pasta sauce in an even layer.

8. Cover the lasagna dish with the tin foil and put your lasagna in the oven. Let it cook for 45 minutes. Remove the cover and put it back in the oven for 5 minutes, allowing the cheese to become bubbly.

Once you take it out of the oven (after 50 minutes), let it sit for 10-15 minutes before you serve it!

Enjoy!

**If you wanted to add spinach, zucchini or eggplant to this, you would include these slices/leaves of vegetables in your pasta sauce layers. You can also add sausage or meat--if this is the case, brown your meat on the stove and add the meat to the pasta sauce layers of the lasagna.

Creamy Mushroom Rotini

Regular spaghetti gets old. plain-old pasta and red sauce. Boringgggg. Here is a recipe that spices any kind of pasta up and is fancy, inexpensive and delicious!

What you'll need:
Pasta boiling pot
Sautee pan/skillet
Small pot (quart sized)
2 Wooden Spoons

Ingredients
3/4 box of rotini pasta (you can use any kind but this is what I recommend!)
1 package of baby portabello mushrooms
3 cups of spinach
1 jar of mushroom alfredo sauce
3 TBS olive oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup white cooking wine or white wine if you are of age to buy it!
1/2 onion, cut into thin, long pieces
2 palm-fulls of italian seasoning

**This will make four servings. Enough for three friends or leftovers for lunch!

How to:
1. Pour contents of alfredo sauce in to small quart-sized pot and set to LOW heat on your stove.
2. In your skillet/sautee pan, put 3 TBS olive oil, garlic and onion in. Move these around with a wooden spoon until the onion becomes limp and translucent.
3. Fill your pasta pot up in between pushing the onions/garlic around and set that to HIGH on the stove and wait for it to boil.
4. Back to the skillet. Your onions should be translucent/clear now. Add the package of mushrooms to the pan and push them around with the wooden spoon until they shrink and become limp.
5. Water boiling yet? If so, add 3/4 of the box of pasta of your choice to the water.
6. Cook the pasta.
7. The mushrooms should be a bit smaller and limper now. Here's where you can add some white wine to the mushrooms. I recommend white cooking wine or your favorite white wine. Add your spinach and push the spinach around with the wooden spoon too. The spinach will begin to shrink (good!) the warmer it gets.
8. Pasta finished cooking? Fish a piece out with a spoon (NOT YOUR HAND) and taste it. If it's chewy enough, drain the pasta.
9. Put the pasta on the plate, followed by two scoops of alfredo sauce and finally a healthy helping of mushroom-spinach deliciousness.

ENJOY!