Elizabeth Eats like the Good Jew she Isn't

Why, hello! Yes, I do still have a food blog. Unfortunately, dorm life isn't terribly conducive to real cooking. Luckily, I'm home this weekend for Yom Kippur...and what better way to atone for your sins than with copious amounts of noodle kugel!!



The recipe is fairly standard for kugel (egg noodles, eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, butter, cinnamon, raisins), except that I used half brown sugar and half white sugar, some extra cinnamon, and, of course, a hefty topping of Frosted Flakes.



I also made carrot and sweet potato tzimmes with cinnamon, raisins and honey.



Sadly, the challah bread, arguably the prettiest part of the display, is store-bought. Also, I should mention that the Manischewitz was not consumed as a part of this meal, I just thought it was an appropriate addition to the table setting.

Elizabeth Eats Carbs

I have been a deadbeat blogger, I know. But here I have for you not one, but two recipes! Both are filled with delicious carbohydrates and can still sort of, kind of, technically be considered healthy!


Elizabeth Eats Mac n Cheese:



I admit, this looks kind of gross. Normally presentation is as much a part of the project as the cooking itself, but unfortunately, real cheese does not compare at all with Kraft cheese powder in terms of pretty colors. Nevertheless, it tastes lovely and is significantly lacking in the cancerous preservatives of its yellowy counterpart. Inspired by my antipasto plate cheese, the sauce is made primarily with a mix of gouda and fat free ricotta cheese. Depending on whether you're emphasizing taste or health, the recipe is pretty easy to adjust as far as how much to add of each. The gouda is definitely more flavorful, but the ricotta is healthier. Mine had more ricotta, which is why it's whiter than it is yellow. It also has chives, garlic powder, butter, and salt added into it. Oh, and the pasta is whole wheat.




Elizabeth Eats Rice:

I took several in-progress photos of this recipe (which is great, because the end product of this one is also not as pretty as it is tasty). In fact, you know what? I am going to break the rules of food blogging, and not post the picture of the finished product at all. You can get a pretty good idea from the second picture, except that the rice is still white and the spinach is still bright green. Trust me, it's much prettier that way.























The recipe itself is largely improvised. I started throwing vegetables into the skillet (with extra virgin olive oil, of course), in the order of cooking-time (onions first, spinach last, etc.). The seasoning, as always, includes garlic and salt. I believe there is also some oregano and a tiny hint of lemon juice.

Elizabeth Eats Vegetables

Fancy that -- a recipe posted today that I actually made today. This is grilled vegetable polenta with mozzarella and marinara. This recipe was a real gamble, because I've never had or even seen polenta before, so I have no idea what it's supposed to look or taste like. It took much longer to bake than it was supposed to, but it ended up tasting pretty good anyway.
For anyone who doesn't know (including myself until today), polenta is more or less just cornmeal and water (with optional milk and seasoning), which comes out as something between a cracker and a flatbread. Mine is seasoned with basil, garlic, and oregano. Once you've cooked the ingredients on the stovetop, you can (allegedly) just roll it out and stick it in the fridge until it solidifies. However, mine still looked pretty play-doh-y, so I decided to bake it. Once it was solid enough to cut into squares I added the vegetables and mozzarella and stuck it in the toaster oven for a few minutes to get crispy and to let the cheese melt.





Apologies for the sub-par quality pictures. Sadly, I am still camera-less, and these were taken terribly unprofessionally with myphone.

Elizabeth Eats Dip

As the weather gets hotter, I am less and less inclined to use the oven for my culinary creations, which, I recognize, might be a tad less exciting in terms of the progression of photographs, but the food is just as delicious and typically lighter and healthier.



So, here are a couple different dips I made for snacking on a day when I wasn't in the mood to eat a full, meal-sized dinner. The first (left-hand side), is an Italian cheesy tomato dip. It includes tomato puree, feta and parmesan cheese, lemon juice, kalamata olives, and oregano. The second is a sweet and spicy Indian yogurt dip. This one is made with plain yogurt, pureed peaches, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, curry powder, cumin, cinnamon, and onions. You are absolutely right in thinking they don't go together. They don't. But both were tasty, and each had their own type of bread to go with.
Also, because I must give credit where credit is due, both were based on recipes from Women's Health Magazine.

And, if you're still not satisfied, I promise I have two new projects on the way -- one rice dish, and one mac & cheese variation -- as soon as I get the camera situation sorted.

Elizabeth Eats Quickly

This is a recipe I threw together a while ago when I didn't have much time to cook, or to eat for that matter. Also, I was curious to try Philadelphia's new cooking cream. It's basically just sauteed chicken and vegetables with the cream added in a couple minutes before taking it off the stove. I have affectionately entitled it Philadelphia Chickens



It's not nearly as fancy as the other stuff I've been making, and I definitely think I could make a better cooking cream from scratch, but it was healthy and time-efficient.

Elizabeth Eats Still, Really

It's true, I do still eat in spite of the fact that I haven't published a new entry in a whole week. You can blame the holiday weekend, wherein everyone else feeds me so much I couldn't possibly cook additional meals for myself and still call it healthy. On top of that, after holding on for dear life for several months, my digital camera has finally croaked. This, if you ask me, takes about 90% of the fun out of blogging about food.
I do at least have a few pictures on a camera borrowed from my mother. However, they are an incredible pain to upload from that camera, so pictures will be forthcoming. Eventually. One day.
In the meantime, just think tasty thoughts.

Elizabeth Eats Fruit (and cheese)

This particular project was inspired by a recipe for a fruit antipasto plate from Shape Magazine's website, which actually has a surprisingly large selection of recipe ideas (but who will, sadly, not be paying me for my endorsement).



The exciting part of making this was the cheese spreads in the middle. The left-hand one is savory, and the right sweet. They're both ricotta-based, the savory one having been melted together with gouda cheese, and the sweet with cream cheese, cinnamon, honey, and vanilla. I left them in the fridge for a few hours before making the rest, but I imagine it was still 90% luck that they maintained their shape when I tipped them out of their molds (see: small bowls).
As would be expected, the savory one tasted better with the baguette and the sweet one with the fruit, though I did try all combinations. I especially liked the savory one, and my very first thought was that it would make a fabulous sauce for macaroni and cheese. That recipe will likely be forthcoming.



Also, just as a bonus, I made a few miniature pies as well. The ones pictured here are strawberry blueberry crumble, and a smaller rendition of my first pie, peach rhubarb. I haven't tried the rhubarb (it's intended to be a gift), but I liked the crumble a lot. I think I prefer crumble to pie overall.