Grilling, Loafing, & Ramen

What's been going on, Bubble friends?  We've been enjoying the cooler weather at our house and pulled out the grill twice last week.

I had some spinach I needed to use.  So perfecto.  I sauteed the spinach and mixed it with some light cream cheese.  I butterflied some boneless chicken breast and stuffed them with the spinach/cream cheese mixed.  I was a little paranoid about the cheese oozing out on the grill so I used crazy lots of toothpicks.

Needed a new box of toothpicks afterwards.

The grill flavor with the spinach & cheese mix was terrific.  Oh, and I almost forgot.  We grilled the cauliflower too.  Grill-tastic!

You can never go wrong with cheese.

Grilling round #2 time!  We're big fans of steak night at our house.  We used to go to a local restaurant - two people get an appetizer, salad, & steaks for $30 - but then we realized we could go to Charlie's, do it even cheaper at home, and most importantly be able to wear our pajamas at the same time.

Have you seen these grilled salad recipes floating around lately?  I had some iceberg lettuce leftover from lettuce wraps and decided to throw it on the grill. Spritzed it with olive oil, kosher salt, & pepper.  And boom!  A little wedge salad action to go with my steak.

Hmmm.  Not a lot to look at... 

Yup.  Looks like grilled iceberg lettuce.

I had the lettuce with a little bit of ranch and it was surprisingly good.  The grill adds a nice flavor.  Once you get over eating hot lettuce.

With broccoli and mac & cheese.

Doesn't cooler weather make you want meatloaf?  We decided to give the grill a break and I made a turkey meatloaf.  Turkey meatloaf tends to get soggy on me.  This is one of the better recipes I've found. 

I ate mine with some extra bbq sauce.  Veddy nice.

And I closed out the weekend with a little experiment.  I didn't know what a big deal ramen was until watching The Mind of a Chef with David Chang.  I mixed that with a bibimbap recipe and gotta say, it was pretty to look at and pretty good to eat.

Right before I doused it with sriracha.

Alrighty.  So that's what's been going on at my house.  Lots of cooking!  I'm ready for the cooler weather this upcoming week.  Might just be time for some potato soup! 

Croissausage

Over the weekend, we had some friends over for food & football.  Snack-wise, it doesn't get much easier than this, but it was indeed delightful:

Wrap some sausage in croissant dough.
Bake it.
Cut it.
Aaaaand done.

Sure, it's a glorified pig in a blanket.  But the sausage is better.  The dough is fluffier AND crustier.  So much better than the freezer stuff.  (Not that there's anything wrong with the freezer stuff.)

Do this next weekend.

We had plenty of munchies.  Hung out.  Some folks actually watched the game.  And the puppies had their friend over to do all of the above themselves.

It was exhausting.

Like, steal someone's pillow exhausting.

Or take what you can get.

I love football season!  And basketball is right around the corner?  AND it's October & the leaves should be turning soon?  Well, just about enough to make a girl roast a chicken.

Hmmm.

After these messsages...

I'll be right back!

Guys.  I've been out of town.  Cooking boring things like spaghetti.  (Although tasty!)  And basically doing other uninteresting things like laundry and couching.  BUT I'll be back next week.  I hope with something delightful.   That is my goal, anyways. Until then, have a great rest of the week/weekend!

Cheesy Ground Beef Sliders

Guys!  Football is back!

Anybody that knows me knows that I don't particularly care about football itself.  I mean, it's no basketball.  But I looooove football just the same.  I like to tailgate & cookout.  Hangout with friends.  And have a reason to cook things I want to eat.  Things that I want a bite of but don't necessarily want hanging around the next day.
 
Exhibit A:  Cheesy Ground Beef Sliders

This was so easy that I made it at the same time I was making sausage gravy & biscuits for a brunch I was going to.  Hubs was having his buddies over and - since they couldn't partake of my delish-ious biscuits - I left them an easy treat.

Pic courtesy of The Hubs

If I was trying to get fancy with this, I'd have browned some onions and garlic before adding the beef.  But as I was aiming for a quickie, I browned 2 lbs ground beef, seasoned with salt & pepper.  Added a pack of Lipton's onion soup mix.  And then folded in 16 oz (or whatever the small pack of Velveeta is? 2% though, of course.)  Threw it on some sliced Hawaiian rolls.  Cooked 15 minute foil covered at 350º.  And done.

Or, I think done.  Hubs took it out of the oven & sliced.

For a simple, easy meat & cheese sammie, doesn't get much better than this.  And even better, it's a sign that Fall is heading our way!

Cauliflower Jalapeno Casserole

Last week I picked up a freelance gig.  And I shamefully neglected letting you know about this cauliflower casserole I made!  *Head slap*

Do you get bored with the same old veggie side dishes?  I do.  We eat a lot of steamed and roasted vegetable dishes.  But sometimes you need to sass it up.  I was perusing online and I came upon a yummy cauliflower dish.  It had to be yummy because it had cream and tons of cheese.  Looked like a tasty artery clogger.  BUT it gave me an idea for a healthified version.

Mine LOOKS delightfully unhealthy, right?

Look.  I'm not saying this was diet food.  But it had the all the comfort food qualities without all the guilt.

And a perfect side for steak night.

Warning, this is spicy.  So get ready for a kick!  Also, I eyeballed most of the ingredients so measurements below are a really good guess.  Enjoy!

Cauliflower Jalapeno Casserole

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 oz 1/3 fat cream cheese
• 1head cauliflower
• 1 small can jalapenos, drained
• 1 cup cheddar cheese +

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Steam chopped cauliflower for 6 minutes covered over high heat.
3. Put the flour in a saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk in milk.  Once mixed, stir in cream cheese until it melts. Stir in shredded cheddar until melted and add jalapenos.
4. Once blended, mix in cauliflower until covered.  Sprinkle extra cheddar on top.
5. Bake half an hour at 350º.

Chewing is Good

Guys.  I can't do the juicing right now.  I just cannot.  Look, I want to.  But everything I've read says you can't really keep up your usual exercise routine.  And I take a pretty intense class on Monday/Wednesdays & sometimes Saturday.

Also...  I, errrr well, I just don't like it!  YET.  I need to play with some recipes that I don't have to choke down before I can do it hardcore for a week. 

So I have aspirations!  I'll do some experimenting.  Drink some juice here & there and hopefully get used to the green frothy texture.  I know you're highly invested in this, Bubble friends, so I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Until then, I like to eat the food!  My friend, Tara, and I made brunch for the hubbies last weekend.  Look at this delicious French toast bake she made!

Definitely not part of a juice fast.

I made a caramelized onion & sauteed bell pepper frittata.

I love eggs from my head down to my...  Stomach.

Served with ham, sausage, & fruit salad.  So much cheaper than going out and T's baby got to run around and practice her legs.  If I was on a juice fast, I woulda had to run that through the blender.  Yeeks.

Ladies that Lunch - Jasmine

The ladies and I met in Midtown for lunch this week.  We decided to try Jasmine Thai & Vegetarian restaurant.  I almost went to this place a while back and I think it fell through because we thought it was truly a vegetarian restaurant.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)  It is in fact NOT vegetarian.  They'll even make the vegetarian dishes with meat upon request.

We showed up at at 11am and were the first ones to arrive.  And actually the only ones there the whole time.  The owner waited on us, gave recommendations, cooked, and was just generally a delight.

Jasmine doesn't have a lunch menu so it's not the cheapest venture.  And the dinner menu is ginormous.  We ended up getting several things and sharing so we could get more of a variety of tastes. And thank goodness for this hungry girl, the food came out quickly!

Since we decided to get 2 meat dishes, Natalie & I were interested to try the spring rolls with tofu.  I always want to love tofu but sometimes it's BAD.  Big globby messes.  The scaredy-pants in me doesn't want to risk it in a main dish.  But an appetizer?  Why not, I say.

Tofu spring roll with peanut sauce.

It was really good!  Phew.  The tofu had a nice firm consistency and tasted, well, like a spring roll.  The peanut sauce was much thicker than I'm used too.  More like an actual peanut butter.  But very tasty and went well with the the roll.

Anita kindly shared her steamed dumpling with us.

Featuring pork.

Also good!  Sometimes steamed dumplings can get a little soggy.  But these were just right and whatever that sauce was was good.

Off to a good start!

Our meals quickly followed.  I forgot the name of this dish but it had chicken, cumber, cilantro, green onions, red bell, onions, and lemongrass.

The #8.  Sorry it's blurry.

We thought it would be a warm dish but it came out cool.  Hmmm.  Spooned it on the plate...  What a fantastic surprise!  A perfect summer dish.  Crisp.  Refreshing.  Or as Anita said "Bright".  A tasty treat.

I peer pressured (not that it was hard) for a noodle dish and we got the house pad thai.

Featuring beef, chicken, and shrimp.

Great!  Natalie warned me that the hot sauce we ordered on the side was super hot.  I carefully added a little and it was a KICKER.  The noodles had a nice flavor and texture and with some spiciness, just terrifical.

Jasmine was great.  We split our bill 3 ways and it came to  $15.  Not bad for all that!  I'll definitely go back...  I only have about 50 more items to try.