Colorful tortellini

Colorful Tortellini

Serves 4-5

1 lb uncooked tri color cheese tortellini

1 medium tomato

handful of small orange sweet tomatoes

2 shallots

1.5 cups brocolli

3/4 cups pepper strips

1 cup fresh baby spinach

1/4 cup slices pitted black olives

2 tablespoons of pesto

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

salt & pepper

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300F. Slice tomato into medium size pieces/wedges/slices. Whatever works. I picked a handful of small orange tomatoes from our tomato plants in our garden and sliced those in half. Slice the shallots into small rings. Bonus points if you can get 2 shallots for 25 cents!

Place all on non stick baking sheet and cook for about 1 hour.

Meanwhile chop brocolli, peppers into strips and olives. Bake brocolli & peppers in oven with the tomatoes & shallots for about 30 minutes. A separate baking tray is best.

When there is about 15 minutes left for the oven - boil the water and cook tortellini according to package directions. I had a little over a pound and it took about 8 minutes. Drain and put back in the pot still hot with the pesto. Mix in and toss in the fresh spinach. When the veggies are done toss it all together with parmesan, salt and pepper to taste, and some nutritional yeast for added flavor.

Serve warm.

Meals for the Week - August?

I've been far behind on getting our meals for the week posted here. We haven't been falling that behind on actually making the menus though. They're all done up on our chalkboard in the kitchen but I've just been busy or something. Better than bored right?

You can see the wednesday night meal here since I'm so late posting this! Also since most of this is in the past I gotta say we did slip in a salad or two somewhere. I think on Monday, or last Sunday perhaps. This is a bi week for our CSA box but we've still got plenty of peppers.



quick vegetarian weeknight dinner

Here's a very quick meal I put together last night for an easy weeknight shin dig. It's easy and quick because I bought premade frozen stuff from Trader Joes and just use that to make the meal. Cheating eh, yumm YES. Whether you're vegetarian or not this is a hit.

It basically goes like this. Buy chicken-less Mandarin Orange Morsels, 1 cucumber, and a package of tortilla wraps. Cook, combine, and eat. Done.

Bonus points if you can buy 10 tortillas for 36 cents! Thanks Fresh to Frozen!

Cook the 'chicken' in a pan with some oil. This is quick and the hardest part of the meal. It takes 6-8 minutes and you have to stir often. Meanwhile defrost the sauce, then combine at the end with 1 minute or so left.

Slice the cucumbers, fancy style.

Combine, wrap and eat. Done and done. I don't know why I think this is so revolutionary. Tony actually thought up this dish first a long time ago, and I thought it was so creative and amazing I've been just waiting to eat it again to blog about it. It has the sweet orange sauce taste with the crunchy cucumber and a hearty grain wrap all together. Best combination of all homemade wraps with fake chicken made up ever. Slim competition... but it's a winner!



Sweet tea summer

I recently read on a fellow bloggers site that they were bummed summer was over. Over?! I pride myself on being a summer September baby. It's now the middle of August. Summer is not over people! To celebrate the sweet joys of summer I recently received some Sweet Leaf teas to try.

I must say after living in the state of North Carolina for 8 years I came to Richmond with a small liking of iced tea. Very small. I don't know why I thought now would be a good time to start drinking iced tea but I did. Between last summer and this one (present tense) I now officially like iced tea. Sweetened or not. Well mostly a little sweetened really. It was the perfect timing when I got to try these organic teas because I knew I would finally really be into them!

We were semi organic (as usual) the dinner we got these, but our bevs were 100% organic! Love that! We pared organic Sweet Leaf citrus green tea with free leftover Panera sandwiches from work. Summer sandwiches at that, okay just cold sandwiches enjoyed out back. Okay indoors... in front of the TV.

But I seriously loved the citrus one. So so good. Can't wait to buy more. I just found my summer drink! What's your summer gum? How much longer can I celebrate this fact?

Happy summer (for 4 more weeks)!

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*I did received free products from Sweet Leaf Teas but all opinions expressed are all my own.

CSA Box of Veggies this week

Another week fortnight, another box of veggies. This week was full blown summer produce. All of these are my favorite vegetables. Since you have no say in what you get each time it can be nervous opening the box to see what's inside. Although we usually get a sneak preview of a couple items in an email the day before. I certaintly will eat all that we've gotten of course but I have to say, this week holds all my favorites!

Here's what we got:

• green beans
• 2 large red bell peppers
• a large assortment of mixed, small, hot & mild, colorful peppers
• "secret agent" peaches (anyone have a clue to what this means?!)
• tomatoes
• 1 Sugar Baby Watermelon
• yellow squash
• potatoes
• 1 dozen eggs
• goat cheese

Gotta love the fresh, local, organic produce delivered straight to your front door! What could be better?

We made up a new recipe last night called 'squashed potatoes'. It's basically mashed potatoes with mashed, roasted squash. It was seriously good. I haven't googled it (to see if anyone else has) but I'm pretty sure we just invented something amazing.

We also roasted a red pepper and blended it with a tomato, some garlic and red wine vinegar to made a sauce. I could drink it, it's so good! I actually am going to eat it as a soup for lunch leftovers today at work.



Spring Rolls - take 2

After my last post on San Francisco inspired spring rolls we had plenty of rice wrappers left so T. made another dinner out of them. This time of course he did something different. This is spring rolls take 2.

Meatless Thai Spring Rolls

Serves 3 rolls each

1 small onion diced 

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger

1 tablespoon curry powder (or paste)

3/4 cup of diced tomatoes

3/4 cup of coconut milk

2 cups of Boca crumbles (substitute any protein here)

1 small diced cucumber

1 cup of rice Asian noodles

large handful of chopped fresh cilantro

dash of sriracha

lettuce leaves - we used romaine

Saute onion, garlic & ginger for several minutes. Add curry powder & sriracha.  Cook 1-2 minutes. Add the crumbles, coconut milk & tomatoes. Cook on low until thickened. Add cilantro.

Cook rice noodles according to package.

Prepare rice wrappers in warm water until soft. Place a flat piece of lettuce in the middle of the wrapper (this is the key!) then add noodles, cucumber and meatless Thai filling. Wrap it all up chipotle style. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

Turns out that the lettuce around the inside of the spring roll is the secret! This way the ingredients don't poke out and rip the thing to shreds thus needing a fork to eat them.

Another great addition to our vegetarian menu staples!

San Francisco Spring Rolls

As Tony just got back from San Francisco for the AANA conference last week he brought back with him a mental recipe. It's pretty much as good as a souvenir except it's invisible and you can eat it.

Mise en place. 

6 Spring Rolls

Serving size 3 rolls each

1 cucumber sliced thin

1/2 - 1 cup of bean sprouts

1 jalapeno pepper

1-2 carrots sliced very thin or shredded

3/4 cup of chopped pineapple

3/4 cup of cooked Asian noodles (more to nibble on)

handful of basil

large handful of chopped cilantro

1 cup of cooked chicken (we used these) 

6 rice spring roll wrappers 

We got our spring roll wrappers from Whole Foods. There were about 15 -20 wrappers for about $2. Great deal if you ask me. We tried to stop at our local Asian grocery store but they were closed. You just place them in warm water for 20 seconds then they're ready to use. It was my first time using them and it was easy and fun. 

Assemble ingredients in a spring roll and figure out how to rolls it up in one piece without breaking it. 

Then find some great dipping sauce and enjoy! We used a Trader Joes' general tso's and a random Asian salad dressing that I personally enjoyed.

Blogger meet up

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I had the chance to join up with some local bloggers for a blogger meet up Saturday! My first blogger event. Ever! I can say it was a hit. A yummy hit. Borderline food baby. I thankfully restrained myself a little.

We were lucky enough to get half price on the weekend buffet lunch at Kabab Grille in short pump, RVA. It was amazing! Such great food! We had wonderful conversation with the ladies of Virginia is for Bloggers while tasting practically every dish they make. We ate family style (which I love) with a giant plate of rice right by my plate. Might as well have made that my actual plate!

With that many girls who all blog you know the cameras came out before anyone dug into the food. No surprise there.

You can check out all the details on the Virginia is for Bloggers post: http://virginiabloggers.com/2012/08/06/meet-up-recap-kabab-grille/

They had a couple great desserts like this kheer and another great rice pudding dish I want to recreate at home. I was already stuffed but it was a real treat!