Week 3 (Jenni): Veggie Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries

This week's new recipe comes from a book my mom bought for me as a house warming present. Well, and part came from Sandra Lee.

I used my roommates grater for the carrots and zucchini, it was super easy and lots of fun. I'm realizing how much easier a food processor would make things. The recipe indicates that the food processor would have done the job in ~25 seconds. It took me nearly 25 minutes to get everything through my make-shift processor. When I was done though, it looked so yummy. My mixture was a little sticky, I feared stacking the patties on the plate, so I wrapped them each individually. I'm likely going to freeze most of them, to eat later! I cooked up a burger, and topped it with some blue cheese, it was amazing! The sweet potato fries were quick and easy, and very tasty. I used my favorite season-all seasoning to flavor them, and just let them bake for about 30 minutes.

All in all, a totally delicious Sunday evening meal.

Veggie Burgers
4 Tbsp evoo
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 large carrots, grated
2 medium zucchini, grated
1 16-ounce can of garbanzo beans, drained
1 Tbsp crunchy natural peanut butter
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat bread crumbs
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp curry powder*
1 tsp mixed herbs*
1 egg, beaten


Heat 2 Tbsp of oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, and zucchini, and saute about 5 minutes, until softened. Take off heat, and set aside.

Place garbanzo beans, peanut butter, breadcrumbs, parsley, curry powder, mixed herbs, and egg in a food processor.*** Process for about 20 seconds, or until garbanzo beans are broken up and all ingredients combined. Add the onion mixture and process for another 5 seconds - do not overprocess.

Form 8 patties, and place them in the fridge for 30 minutes. To cook, heat 2 Tbsp of evoo in a skillet, and cook about 4 minutes on each side.


*I did not have curry powder, I used some mixture of creole seasoning instead.
**I did not have mixed herbs, persay, so I used a dash each of oregano, dill weed, rosemary, thyme
***I do not have a food processor, so I cycled everything through my immersion blender/chopped apparatus. It was tedious and long. A food processor would have been easier.

Week 1 (Jenni): Farfalle with Zucchini, Yellow Squash, and Mint

I got this recipe from a book that I found on our shelf. I thought it was my roommates cookbook, but she says it's mine. I'm not sure. I decided on a pasta dish, as I needed to "carbo-load" in preparation for the 12 mile run I did on Saturday. I found this recipe and it sounded interesting. It wasn't actually as good as I thought it would be, I think the ratio of pasta-to-vegetables was too heavily weighted toward the pasta. Also, there wasn't much flavor infused into much of the dish. That said, I had leftovers the following day, and they were much better. The mint flavors were much more noticeable. So, perhaps this is a much better prepare-ahead meal.

12 ounces of Farfalle (I used elbows)
1 Tablespoon EVOO
1 Scallion, trimmed (I used about 3 or 4!)
1/2 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 small zucchinis, very thinnly sliced
1 small yellow squash, very thinnly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1 Tablespoon minced fresh mint leaves (I used 2 tbsp)
1 Tablespoon grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano, plus more for topping. (I used more!)

1. Cook pasta, save 1 cup of boiling pasta water before straining.
2. heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add scallion and garlic, cook for 2 minutes. Add zucchini and Squash and cook until just wilted, about 3 minutes.
3. toss pasta with vegetables and stir in basil, mint, cooking water, and cheese.

Obamamuffins

In honor of the changes slated to occur tomorrow morning I've made Obamamuffins!  We're having a viewing party at school, and since I'm semi-famous for my "Yes we cake", I needed to prepare something! I present to you, my own special recipe, however the idea was a joint effort (thanks Mel!)

We Want Change Muffins*

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

3 tablespoons vanilla

2 cups grated zucchini

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

8 ounces crushed pineapple

Topping:

1/3 cup flour

3 tbsp butter, melted

4 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease muffin tins.  Beat eggs until fluffy, add sugar, oil, and vanilla.  Blend well.  Add zucchini.  Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Add to batter and mix well.  Stir in pineapple.  Pour into muffin tins, about half to three-quarters full.  For topping, combine all ingredients in a bowl and sprinkle over the top.  Bake about 20 minutes, and brace yourself for a brand new day!

*admittedly, the concept here is a little more discrete than the half chocolate, half vanilla Obama cake I made, so here's the hidden meaning.  The pineapple is a nod to the Hawaiian background, and the zucchini-pineapple flavor is an attempt to make a muffin that perhaps no one has had before, bringing a new flavor to fix the old problems, pushing the muffin-flavor envelope, if you will.  I'm hopeful they will make breakfast a more pleasant experience.