Ghoulish Peppers say Hello

Hello everyone!

It feels like forever since I’ve written. Though you know what? It probably has been forever!

I’ve just been preoccupied with other things like rating restaurants and such. Which is good, I mean it means I am still writing, however it just means I am not writing and working on my own pride and joy. I’ve been going to restaurants like crazy! All because the new man in my life feels the need to satisfy my belly with good food. Thank heavens that he too is a food enthusiast and finds joy when eating food. Best of all he has a sweet tooth and seems to like the idea of getting fat due to my baked goods! Love it!

Anyway it is my favourite month of the year! The month of Halloween!

Actually I spoke to a woman in line at Starbucks earlier in the month and she said that her five year old daughter said that it was the month of Halloween. She thought it was cute that her daughter said such a thing but  I am pretty sure she thought I was a weirdo for thinking the same thing! Oh well! October rocks!

Now because of this special month I have done all sorts of wonderful things like paint my nails to certain Halloween themes as well as making some Halloween themed suppers!

Tonight was one of those nights!

I made jack-o-lanterns out of bell peppers!

I’ve actually been meaning to buy two pumpkins. One for the beau to do as its been a very long time since having made a jack-o-lantern and the other for myself as I do them annually. Only hard thing about it is carrying them from the grocery store all the way home! Having a car would have made things that much better. Oh well, guess we will be getting our exercise for the day if we buy some pumpkins!

So I ended up making stuffed peppers which I used to strongly dislike when growing up. I remember mom having made rice outside the pepper for my sister and I. Well now I make them inside the pepper!

I got the recipe from Ceara’s Kitchen, a website on the well-being of living and eating in a happy life. The direct link to the recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups (285g) 7 grain rice
• 3 cups (750ml) low sodium vegetable broth
• 2 cups (150g) mushrooms, chopped
• 1 cup (150g) red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 ½ (340ml) cups tomato sauce
• 1 teaspoon herbs de provence
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon paprika powder
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• 1 can kidney beans (275g) rinsed and drained
• 1 can corn kernels (115g), rinsed and drained
• 1 cup (225ml) tomato sauce 
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 ½ teaspoon herbes de provence
• 3 orange bell peppers, deseeded

Instructions:

1. In a medium pot on high heat, combine rice and broth and cook until rice has absorbed broth and is fully cooked.

2. In a medium pan, sauté onions and garlic until fragrant. Add mushrooms and sauté until soft. Add all seasoning and mix until combined. Combine rice with vegetables and pour in tomato sauce, beans, and corn. Mix well and set aside.

3. If you do not have a deep casserole dish or a glass dish wash out your medium pot for the rice and prepare for your bell peppers.

4. Preheat oven to 350ᵒF or 180ᵒC.

5. In the casserole dish, pour tomato sauce and combine with garlic powder, cayenne powder, and herbes de provence. Mix well. Grab your bell peppers and cut out little jack-o-lantern faces with a small paring knife. 

6. Fill each of the peppers with the rice dish and place in the tomato sauce. Cover casserole dish with tin foil and place in oven to cook for approximately fifty-five minutes.

7. Once peppers are cooked, remove tin foil and place the pepper lids on top of the stuffed peppers and on broil for five to ten minutes.

8. Enjoy once browned.

Best of all I had so much leftover rice that I decided to make a burrito! Perfect for breakfast!

I love being able to utilize the right leftovers for another type of meal!

When I make burritos (or just breakfast wraps) I make a scrambled egg but before scrambling it in the pan, I just let it cook on a the flat surface until it’s a pancake. I then place that flat scrambled egg-like pancake onto a wrap, add some sliced marble cheese (as I can’t just have plain cheddar), and top that with the leftover rice.

I do the same tortilla wrap and egg thing with normal breakfast wraps, though I add some sort of leafy green, feta cheese, and sriracha sauce. Also all my scrambled egg pancakes are made without milk and with za’atar. Za’atar is an Arabic spice that I was introduced to by my older sister. She married a Leb and due to his family knows so much about Lebanese and Arabic cuisine! Not that I mind! Love it.

My using of the rice is like Bubble and Squeak but better! Well maybe not as I do not refry everything together, but I do reuse it one way or another!

See! Even this guy agrees! Look at his cute smile!

If any of you give this puppy a go, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Happy eating!

Chicken Tortilla Soup and a Whole Bunch More!

It is a soup sorta day don’t you all think?

Although today wasn’t all that cold. But it still felt like the day to enjoy a Mexican inspired meal.

Today started off with a somewhat cool morning and ended with bright sunshine and warmth. The high of the day was about twenty-two degrees centigrade. Can you believe that tomorrow is said to be twenty-seven?! Yeah, both Friday and Saturday is pretty much bikini weather days! The following day however will end up being thirteen degrees.

Kind of sounds like April in the Netherlands.

Not been to the Netherlands in April? Well around the end of the month right around Koningsdag (King’s Day), we get like three days of really nice and hot weather. It goes up to thirty a lot of the time. Only thing is that the days before that it is like sixteen degrees and the days afterwards it is like nineteen degrees. Both pre and post Koningsdag are rainy days while during it is perfectly wonderful.

That honestly is like it is to be this week. It is even rumoured that we are going to have snow this coming Tuesday!

Speaking of snow and cold, a woman told me something very very interesting today!

“The more berries on a tree, the more severe the winter will be!”

What tree you may ask? Not a mulberry tree, but a Mountain Ash tree!

Apparently the Mountain Ash trees are very much covered right now. So all this talk that it will be an Il Niño type of winter doesn’t seem t actually apply. Or does it? Can one actually tell the forecast for the upcoming winter?

To be or not to be a warm winter, that is the question.

Well back to my soup! Sorry for blabbing on about everything else but the food!

So I made a very simple and quick Chicken Tortilla soup. I’m someone who has made a good few of these soups and thought I would try for this one. I definitely saw why it was a twenty minute soup! I also saw that I am lacking some serious herbs and spices in my kitchen. I mean I have a whole bunch of them but I am missing two of the most critical types of spices!

• Chilli powder
• Red pepper flakes

How do I not have these for a soup such as this one is beyond me!

I got the recipe from Nutritionist in the Kitch, the direct link for the recipe can be found here. I added a few more ingredients that I feel really needs to be in every tortilla soup. I also removed a few ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 breast of chicken (283g), cooked and shredded
• 1 medium yellow onion (150g), chopped
• 1 large bell pepper (175g), chopped
• 1 small jalepeño, sliced and diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 can (398ml) stewed diced tomatoes
• 4 cups (940ml) chicken broth
• 1 can (398ml) red kidney beans
• 1 can (199ml) corn
• 1/3 cup (15g) cilantro, chopped
• ½ avocado, sliced
• 1 lime, quartered and squirted in each bowl (optional)
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 small tortilla, sliced

Instructions:

• In a large deep pot, sauté garlic, onion, bell pepper, and jalepeño in olive oil until soft and fragrant.

• Add stewed tomatoes to vegetables and mix. Add cumin and paprika powder. Mix well before adding chicken broth to the tomato mixture. Bring to a boil and allow to simmer for five minutes.

• Now add shredded chicken, kidney beans, and corn and reduce heat and allow to boil onwards for five minutes.

• While soup is simmering, in a small frying pan heat oil up and fry tortillas until chip-like in consistency.

• Stir through cilantro and ladle into individual bowls.

• Top with three strips of the tortilla chips, top with several cilantro leaves, and top that with three slices of avocado. Now squirt some lime juice into soup if doing that.

• Enjoy!

I love love love this sort of soup. But I love anything with shredded chicken such as a normal chicken soup, an arepa, an epanada, avocado chicken salad, etc. Love it all.

Anyway, I ended up enjoying the soup with a very cool and almost luminescent looking juice! One of the best things about being in North America are having those frozen Minute Maid juices! Like this one!

Almost Glowing juice

And to go with this Limeade I am also enjoying this Limoncello scented hand cream. I now live in a very dry part of the world (however Johannesburg was also very dry), and I am in constant need of creaming my hands. I recently went to Bath & Body Works and bought about three hand creams for just $12. So beside every sink in my apartment (and luckily there’s only three) I have one of these cream bottles to soften your hands up! This is the one I have in my personal washroom.

Limoncello Hand cream

By the way, this Limoncello hand cream smells A MILLION times better than the actual Limoncello liquour. A couple years ago I tried to make a Limoncello cocktail for my little sister and I and well…. it tasted much worse than medicine generally tastes! Blegh!

And before I am done, have you all heard of the amazing story that archaeologists found the another humanoid creature that may change history as we know it? They found it just outside of Johannesburg in a cave! This creature being part Neanderthal and part cro-magnon! While watching the news they said that these humanoids had long hands like ours, however instead of being straight in length like ours, they were longer and curved to be able to climb! How cool is that!

I am just amazed by all that is discovered in this fantastic world we live in.

Anyway I am so sorry for just going on and on like crazy today.

Guess I had just so much to say! Hope you all have a fabulous rest of the day and enjoy your meal!

Happy eating… and learning!

Super Filling Lentil and Wild Rice bowl

Good evening y’all!

Remember how in my last post how I complained about the cold weather? Well would you believe that its shorts and t-shirt weather again? It went from six degrees on Sunday to what should be twenty-seven degrees come the end of the week!

How crazy is that?

Well I sure don’t mind! Though I will hopefully be getting a pair of boots in the mail from JustFab soon. Even if the weather isn’t as cold as it was the other day, it will be colder soon enough and I can rock my taupe wide-calved heeled boots!

Anyway I had the BEST supper tonight! You know when you have just one plate/bowl and you are instantly full? Well the meal for the evening was one of those meals.

I have a love/hate relationship for those types of meals though. Because they are generally so good that you just want more however your body is so full that you can’t have any! How heart breaking is that? My poor stomach is sobbing. And no it isn’t just gas! It wants to eat more!

I got the recipe from A Family Feast, this is the first time I’ve ever visited this place, but with this recipe I will definitely be coming back for more fabulous recipes! The direct link to this recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (200g) wild rice
• 2 cups (500ml) vegetable stock
• 1 cup (400g) orange lentils
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cups (1000ml) water
• 4 green onions, both green and whites, sliced
• 1 medium sized red bell pepper (90g) (I used yellow though), diced
• 1 medium sized zucchini (115g), cubed
• ½ cup (50g) feta, crumbled
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons white vinegar
• ½ teaspoon thyme
• ¼ teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. In a medium sauce pan cook wild rice in vegetable stock (or water) as directed on the package.

2. In a large sauce pan combine lentils, bay leaves, and water and cook until lentils are soft.

3. Once both rice and lentils are cooked, drain and combine in a large bowl.

4. Chop green onions, bell pepper, and zucchini and add to the rice and lentil bowl.

5. Add feta, olive oil, white vinegar, thyme, lemon pepper, and salt and pepper to taste.

6. Mix well and serve!

Love this! It was the perfect amount of heaven.

I absolutely loved this meal! Oh my god! I will be enjoying this for lunch tomorrow too! Can’t wait! Because I’m already too full to have anymore right now.

Anyway, do any of you hate cross contamination when it comes to chopping boards? Because I majored in international hotel and business management, I know all about chopping boards and like things neat and tidy in my kitchen. Especially when it comes to the chopping boards.

I finally got the permanent markers I needed to write on the chopping boards. I’ve been needing those markers for a good long while and only JUST got them. I’m very happy now!

So now I feel organized, content, and my stomach is happy.

I hope you all think about making this dish too and enjoy it as much as I did!

Happy eating

Keeping things Green and Healthy

I feel healthy this week.

Though after watching Carnival Cravings with Anthony Anderson I am craving a twinkie! Or a chocolate bar…. However I have been making vegetarian meals most of this week! And vegetarian food makes me happy.

Just as I am sure beef is making my parents happy.

You know, as they no longer have their picky non-meat-eating daughter living with them!

So this evening I wanted to make a quiche… well a quiche or a chicken pot pie. But I didn’t feel like thawing my chicken out so quiche it was!

I feel like my quiche lacked some egg though. It was very veggie filled but, but was low on egg.

This being odd as I followed the recipe. Which I got from Two Peas & Their Pod, the direct link to the recipe can be found here. If you’ve not visited Two Peas & Their Pod you’d best do so soon! Great site!

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 8 asparagus spears, ends removed and chopped into ¾ an inch
• ½ cup (285g) frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 5 large eggs
• 1 cup (240ml) almond milk
• ½ cup (50g) feta cheese, crumbled
• ¼ cup (56g) shredded mozzarella
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pie crust

Instructions:

1. In a medium frying pan sauté asparagus until soft and set aside with thawed spinach.

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk eggs with milk. Add feta, mozzarella, and salt and pepper until combined.

3. Remove pie crust from refrigerator and place in a lined 9 x 9 baking dish.

4. Place vegetables in the pie crust and pour egg mixture over vegetables and place in oven for forty-five minutes. The crust and egg should be golden-brown by then.

5. Once cooked allow quiche to sit for around five minutes and then enjoy!

I also think I missed out on a bit of salt. Oops.

It did taste good though. Well quiche tastes fabulous with ketchup so of course it tasted good.

My dad introduced me to ketchup with quiche and now I can’t eat quiche without it. I also love paninis and ketchup. Yum!

So my meal filled me right up and I have enough for breakfast tomorrow too!

I almost feel like sending some quiche over to Angola to treat my dad to some of this puppy. But we all know that wouldn’t make it to him in a quick enough fashion to still be edible. Sorry dad! 

Anyway, if you like quiche for supper (or breakfast) and you want to keep it healthy, go for this beauty and definitely enjoy it!

I would have put some paprika powder and red chili flakes in it if I thought of it, but this was still good!

So please enjoy!

Happy eating!

Real Love Comes from the Heart

What is your favourite vegetable that starts out as a flower and turns into something delicious? Can you actually think of vegetables that come from a budding flower?

If not here is the list I found of them from Wikipedia:

• Artichoke
• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Caper
• Cauliflower
• Daylily
• Courgette
• Squash

Am I the only one who hasn’t heard of a Daylily?

Well my two favourite vegetables in that list are definitely broccolini (which I actually like to call broccoletti) and artichokes! Yum artichokes!

I actually recently introduced my nieces to artichokes. During Ramadan we went to a Boston Pizza with their grandmother (siti in Arabic) while Siti didn’t eat anything I had a salad and shared with the monkeys. The youngest really liked the artichokes!

So I am happy about that! She and I can enjoy artichoke together.

Obviously with all this talk of artichoke you can see that tonight’s feature vegetable is definitely artichoke hearts.

I got the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens the direct link to the recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz (114g) spaghetti
• ¼ cup (27.5g) parmesan cheese
• ½ red onion (40g), chopped
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (398ml) crushed tomatoes
• 1 can (398ml) artichokes hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ teaspoon dried basil leaves
• Grated parmesan

Instructions:

1. Cook spaghetti as directed on package until al dente.

2. Once pasta is cooked drain most of the water but set aside a bit of the pasta water to combine with the parmesan cheese.

3. In a medium pan sauté the red onion and garlic in olive oil. Once fragrant add the crushed tomatoes with their juices and the artichoke hearts and mix well. Add salt, pepper, and basil to mixture.

4. Once sauce is cooked, spoon pasta onto plate and place sauce on spaghetti. Sprinkle with parmesan and enjoy!

Real love comes from the heart… the Artichoke heart!

Now although this was a pretty simple supper, it was sooo good. But then artichokes are one of my favourite!

Anyone else a fan of artichokes?

So it is officially September and it seems that the cool air has come as soon as August ended. I swear yesterday was insanely cold. You could feel the instant change from the previous day to yesterday. BRRRR.

I am dreading the cold that comes with Autumn though I do really like that time of year.

I saw this on Facebook and loved it! But there are two additional things that make Autumn the best season.

• Heeled booties
• Vampy lipsticks

Especially the last item!

What do you love about Autumn and do you call it Fall or Autumn?

Anyway I hope you give this simple recipe a go and enjoy it!

Happy eating!

Romano White Bean Vegetable Soup with Quinoa

Can you believe summer is just about over? Today is the last day of August and then it’s September! The month when school starts up again! Feels like the summer went by so quickly!

But that’s alright as I am not going to be going back to school anytime soon. I’ll just work work work my way to better money and a better position in the company!

As its Monday I decided to make it a meatless and delicious one! This recipe is absolutely fabulous! Actually, I think that is my word, you know the one word you use all the time? Well I am pretty sure “fabulous” is my word of choice. My youngest niece constantly says “seriously”, but the way she pronounces it is like the new Oxford Dictionary word “srsly” like all the vowels are knocked out and the acronyms flow together. My oldest niece however uses the word “literally” all the time.

So now you know the word I seem to utilize often!

Anyway I made the best meal ever. It was oddly easy and so delicious. Also super healthy and filling. Honestly just perfect.

I got the recipe from the cooking tab in the New York Times website. Here you can find the direct link to the recipe!

My meal was your basic tomato base soup as most my soups are, but honestly just delicious.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• ½ yellow onion (40g), chopped
• 2 small celery stalks (75g), sliced
• 1 carrot(25g), peeled and sliced
• 1 can (540ml) romano beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (411g) diced tomatoes
• 3 cups (750ml) vegetable stock
• ¼ cup (43g) quinoa
• ¼ cup (5g) parsley, chopped
• ½ Tablespoon dried oregano
• ½ Tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a medium sized pot and sauté onion, celery, and carrot for about five minutes or until semi cooked. Add romano beans and garlic to vegetables and sauté for an additional two minutes.

2. Mix in diced tomatoes and vegetable stock and allow mixture to simmer for about twenty minutes.

3. Then add quinoa, parsley, herbs, and allow quinoa to cook for fifteen minutes with lid on pot.

4. Once quinoa is cooked, remove bay leaf and add salt and pepper as desired.

5. Serve and enjoy!

This is such a wonderful soup. If you like beans and quinoa this is honestly the soup for you!

Though I have something to ask you all… have any of you used shredded bay leaves for any of your dishes? I’ve not ever heard of shredded bay leaves and don’t even know how to add that to a soup or anything. Since I was taught to remove the bay leaves how does one remove shredded bay leaves?

For my soup I just added the leaves to a tea leaf strainer and let the leaves boil along with the metal in the pot. How odd is that right? Does anyone else do that?

Well regardless of how I used the bay leaves, this soup came out very well! I actually keep going back for a spoonful! So tasty!

I hope you all get to trying this. It is fabulous! Plus you will have it finished within a half hour!

So please everyone make this dish! You will love it

Happy eating

Delicious One Pot Rice and Beans with Chicken and Cilantro

Happy Friday everyone!

I’ve had a pretty quiet week this week. From Monday through to Thursday I was completely free. So got up to some things. Took the public transport like a pro yesterday though. Went from one side of the city allllll the way to the other side. Now I know that may not seem all that impressive, but my new city is a HUGE city.

I feel like I have accomplished a lot after going from the one side of my city to the other. But I became much prouder today after having hung up a few things in my kitchen! Anyway we aren’t here to listen to my happy moments, we are here for food!

So for this evening’s meal I made a basic rice and beans dish, except it wasn’t just your normal rice and black beans dish, but a fabulous dish.

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe for a good while and finally got around to it. This recipe comes from the website Cooking Classy while the direct link for this recipe can be found here. Are you still curious to what I’ve cooked up? Well it is a One Pan Cilantro, Lime, and Chicken Rice and Bean dish. How good does Cilantro, Lime, and Chicken sound in a black bean and rice dish? Heavenly!

The recipe I followed was for four portions but I pretty much halved it.

Ingredients:

• 1 breast (283g) of chicken, diced
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2 green onions (10g), sliced (set aside half the chives for later)
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 cup (237ml) vegetable broth
• 1 chili pepper, sliced
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 2 Tablespoons lime juice
• 1 can (250ml) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup (185g) white rice
• ¼ cup (15g) chopped cilantro

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a large skillet for medium-high heat and fry chicken seasoned with salt and pepper for approx. 6 minutes, add the white bits of the green onions and garlic to the chicken and cook for a minute.

2. Sit in broth, green bits of green onion, green chili, lime zest, lime juice, black beans, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring mixture to boil. Add rice and allow to boil fully emerged in broth for a minute. Remove dish from heat while lid is on skillet and allow dish to rest for 5/6 minutes.

3. If rice is not cooked fully, return pan to medium heat and cook and toss for 1 minute to allow rice to absorb excess moisture. Remove from heat, toss in cilantro and let rest uncovered 3 minutes.

4. Top rice and beans with cilantro and green onion. Squirt some lime juice in the bowl before serving.

5. Enjoy

I am so glad that I made this meal. It was so delicious! Lime, cilantro, and green onion is the perfect combo. Absolutely perfect.

Also, have any of you heard of Ma’amoul? It is the most delicious cookie I have ever come to know. My boss likes to purchase them for us to all enjoy at work. However today while I was grocery shopping I thought to buy some for my apartment too. I probably should have been strong but I really couldn’t help myself! Ma’amoul is a shortbread pastry generally filled with dates. This cookie is a traditional Lebanese cookie and is soooo good. I’m not really a date person but these are delightful!

I hope that you get to enjoy both the rice and bean dish and the date ma’amouls! The website Cooking Classy is a great website for fantastic recipes and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Happy eating!

Spaghetti with Fa(LOVE)el

Falafel is a wonderful word. At least when pronounced as a North American. If you say it a certain way it sounds like the word “love” is in it. And I certainly love falafel.

I decided to make pasta with falafel. Yummy!

There isn’t much for something special going on in this dish but I have really missed making food for myself so I had to make a simple little pasta. Plus I need to get to know the electric stove top. Going from a gas stove to an electric one with the snap of ones fingers is a hard adjustment!

It took far too long to get my water boiling actually! And how does one thoroughly clean their electric stovetop? I looked it up but I don’t know what a stove cleaner is! I guess I should thoroughly look at the cleaning aisle at the grocery store…

So this was honestly just your basic pasta and tomato sauce. Though I much prefer homemade sauce than the store bought stuff so here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

• 4 oz (114 g) spaghetti
• ½ teaspoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ cup (75g) yellow onion, chopped
• 1 can (398ml) crushed tomatoes
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon oregano
• ¼ teaspoon basil
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 5 falafel balls, halved
• ¼ teaspoon pepper

Instructions:

1. In a large pot cook spaghetti as directed on box. Once spaghetti is near al dente, prepare sauce.

2. In a small frying pan, heat olive oil to sauté garlic and onion until fragrant.

3. Add can crushed tomatoes to the garlic and mix well. Add herbs and salt to tomato mixture.

4. Once bubbling, allow to simmer for two minutes or until at desired consistency.

5. Add halved falafel and cook until warm. Beware that falafel soften to a mush-like consistency if over cooked in sauce.

6. Plate up and top with pepper.

7. Enjoy

Like I said, my sauce is very basic. But it is fabulous. I quite enjoyed it. It has been a good while since I’ve had falafel. Now I just need to successfully make it from scratch. I tried once and thought it looked too dry and added water. Big big mistake. Never again.

So yeah, that was my dinner for the evening.

Sorry it wasn’t all that impressive.

But I can tell you that I like to snap my spaghetti in half when I make a pasta. Less splatter when turning the noodles on the fork and smaller bites! It is perfect!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the generic recipe and if you make it enjoy the meal!

Happy Meatless Monday all!

Homemade Mac n Cheese with a Spicy Red Twist

Everyone, lets raise a glass to my successful meal today!

Raise your Glass

Officially I’ve been living on my own for two days and a bit. This past Thursday my mom flew back home. Though I really shouldn’t be saying home as Canada should qualify as home to me now. Anyway I’ve now cooked up three suppers and 2/3 were absolutely god awful. Okay, maybe not that bad but bad enough that I couldn’t even post a photo let alone blog about them!

Anyway today was a very successful day! Also a last minute meal decision if I might add. Thank you FoodGawker!

Before I continue, how has everyone been? I feel like it has been such a very long time since writing on here. I mean I know I wrote once while at my sister’s house but other than that? Nada! I almost couldn’t get back into it but then I remembered just how much I like writing. And then there is my pathetic new age love for taking photos of food. My brother-in-law has commented on this a few times even.

So back to food.

What are two things that all North American’s seem to like? From my understanding the first love of all North American’s is definitely Mac & Cheese while the second food love for all is definitely Sriracha. So what can one do with these two food items? Well combine them of course!

The American Staple

I got the recipe from Life as a Strawberry and although I didn’t completely follow the recipe, my outcome was still incredibly fabulous. Not only in looks but also in taste! The original recipe for my meal can be found here if you feel the need to cook it!

Ingredients:

• 4 oz (113g) spaghetti
• 2 Tablespoons butter (salted)
• 2 Tablespoons white flour
• 1 cup (236ml) almond milk
• 1 cup (115g) Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ teaspoon Sriracha, plus 1 teaspoon as garnish
• ½ teaspoon dried cilantro
• Pinch of parsley

Instructions:

1. Cook spaghetti in salted water until al dente. Drain and set aside.

2. In same pot, spoon butter and allow to melt. Spoon in flour and mix continuously to form a roux. Slowly add milk to roux and whisk constantly until smooth.

3. Allow sauce to thicken. Remove from heat one at desired thickness and add cheese. Stir cheese until completely melted. Add salt and pepper and ½ teaspoon of Sriracha sauce and mix well.

4. Add cooked spaghetti to cheese sauce and mix until all spaghetti is coated.

5. Spoon spaghetti into serving bowls and sprinkle with Sriracha, dried cilantro, and a couple of leaves of parsley for a touch of green.

6. Enjoy!

Although parsley wasn’t the herb of choice, it tasted quite good with the spaghetti!

Also, why on earth doesn’t Monterey Jack cheese exist in other continents besides North America? I always read about this cheese when reading North American blogs or food related things and have always wondered what it tasted like. I thought it would be spicy. Boy was I wrong, it’s just sharp.

Delicious though! This cheese really does need to become an international thing!

It would make for a fabulous cheese on an International Cheese platter at some restaurants! Mmm mmmm!

Basically this was an excellent meal and I cannot wait for more deliciously executed meals.

Happy eating y’all!

Homemade Mushroom Stroganoff Heaven

Well hello all! It has been so long since I’ve cooked my own meal, but it’s been even longer since being on here! I honestly miss being in the kitchen! Luckily I got to be in it today!

So, last time I posted something on here I was still in South Africa. That isn’t the case anymore! I’ve since been in the Netherlands for two weeks at the end of May and for the last three or so weeks been in Canada!

If you haven’t noticed yet, well, I travel a lot. It isn’t always traveling even, it is more that I move a lot. Though before it was just part of my dad’s career, now it is for me to search for the place to settle down. Well sort of. I still lust to one day find a man who travels for work and move with him. You know, like mom did with daddy. Lucky lady!

Well now I’m here in Canada, looking for work and a place of my own. Though for the last while I’ve been living with my older sister and her family. Which reminds me:

Happy first day of Ramadan!

For those of you who don’t know what Ramadan is, here is a link containing the information on it. Basically it is a time when you fast for 30 days from sunrise to sunset. Although I do not fast, I respect those who do fast and know how hard it is.

Anyway, today’s dish is pretty great. When I was a kid my mom would make beef stroganoff often. I remember disliking it at first and then as the years went on I started to like it more. Just before I gave up eating beef I did really enjoy it, but now four and a half years later I craved some stroganoff and thought I would make some!

As I am living with my sister and her family we cook large meals to feed all seven of us and as my sisters family doesn’t eat pork and I don’t eat red meat our meals are limited to poultry and fish. Now I am not sure about you, but in my opinion eating chicken all the time can get a bit boring so I brought up the idea of making a beef stew for the kids and everyone else while I would make a vegetarian dish for myself. The idea was great, however everyone else left the house so stew wasn’t made, but I did get to do my stroganoff! Yay.

Gosh how I missed being in the kitchen.

I got the recipe from Amuse Your Bouche, the direct link to the recipe can be found here. This website/blog that I got my recipe from is an amazing place to get recipes. Great options and it makes me so happy to find fantastic food from them.

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (139g) white basmati rice
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup (160g) red onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 ½ cups (150g) mushrooms, sliced
• ¼ cup (60ml) vegetable stock
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• Pinch of black pepper
• 3 Tablespoons plain yoghurt
• 4 Tablespoons chopped parsley
• 6 parsley leaves for garnish

Instructions:

1. Cook rice as directed on package. Once cooked, drain and set aside and begin with the stroganoff.

2. Heat a medium saucepan with olive oil and sauté garlic, onions, and mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are soft and garlic and onions are fragrant. Add vegetable stock to mushrooms and garlic, add smoked paprika powder to the pan and mix. Season with black pepper (and salt if needed).

3. Remove stroganoff from heat and add yoghurt and parsley. Mix well.

4. To serve, spoon some rice into serving dish and pour some sauce into the rice, top some mushrooms on the rice and use a few parsley leaves as a garnish.

This was a great great great dish! Even my mom who is a little ill with a common cold liked it!

Mushroom Stroganoff

If any of you like mushrooms as much as I do, you must try this! It was superb! I even went for seconds! DELICIOUS!

I honestly cannot wait to make this again once I’m on my own. Actually I can’t wait to return to Amuse Your Bouche to find other spectacular meals.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Happy eating!