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.

Elizabeth Eats Dessert!

I know. This is meant to be a healthy blog, it's true. But every once in a while it is necessary that one eats some desserts. Particularly desserts with unnecessary amounts of chocolate.

Tonight I made mint-chocolate cupcake brownies, complete with little chopped up mints inside, and mint chocolate drizzle / green cream cheese frosting on top (alternating).



I, along with the rest of the world, have developed a bizarre fascination with cupcakes. You will most likely see several varieties appear on this blog as time goes on. However, while cupcakes take the cake (har har) for pretty, decorative desserts, ultimately I prefer brownies. The texture is much denser and less likely to crumble all over whatever you're wearing. I have a particular affinity for the extra-chewy corner pieces. In this case, decided to take the best of both worlds and create some cute, decorative brownie cakes. Given more time and ingredients (my effort wanes after 9 pm), they would probably have been even more elaborate -- but the frosting is green, so I think I should get some credit for that.

Elizabeth Eats Bread

One thing that I should point out: I love bread. I could go my entire life eating only things made out of bread. And possibly cereal. I've been trying to limit my bread intake of late, considering that a diet of entirely simple carbs is not the greatest. However, tonight's recipe features some very delicious bread that was delivered to me fresh out of the oven by a very helpful Wegmans staff member (yes, I cheated and didn't make the bread myself).

Garlic Tomato Bruschetta (with guest appearances from red pepper, spinach, and shredded italian blend cheese)

Pre-Oven:
The tomatoes, peppers, and spinach I stirred in with some garlic and a smidgen of olive oil before adding it to the baguette slices.











Post-Oven:
In most cases, I sprinkled on a bit of extra cheese while they were still hot.








Oh, and just for kicks (and picky eaters) I also made some regular cheesy garlic bread.

Elizabeth Eats...A Lot of Things (Part II)

So in the absence of any exciting new recipes (this week mostly consisting of other pie and wrap variations), here is part II of the foods inspiring the creation of this blog.


Day 3: Israeli salad wrap with hummus, olives, and spouts.




Technically, the israeli salad (cucumbers, celery, onion, cherry tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, olive oil) alone was its own day, but I found that it was much more interesting as an ingredient than as a recipe unto itself. The wraps were great, and later in the week I made miniatures to bring to a picnic.


Day 4: Whole wheat pasta and steamed spinach with white wine and mushroom sauce.

This was the grand finale of recipe-blog inspiration. I just love making sauces. This is mostly because I like to improvise ingredients as I go along (you'll notice the complete absence of precise measurements in any recipe heretofore) until I decide it tastes good. This is much more difficult to do when makings things like cake. Ultimately the sauce included baby bella mushrooms, white wine, olive oil, caramelized onions, milk, garlic, lemon juice, and flour (in approximate order of quantity, a la nutrition facts).



Here is the finished product, though I don't think this particular image does it justice. As compensation, here also is my dad, attempting to sculpt it into something fancy, as in gourmet restaurants where you get about an ounce of food on your plate, but god damn it, it looks pretty!

Elizabeth Eats...Pizza!

Today's adventure consisted of whole wheat Greek pizza with sauteed spinach and fennel, kalamata olives, organic cherry tomatoes, and ricotta, feta, and parmesan cheese.



Really, this was only prep for my lunch tomorrow, so I only had a tiny sliver of it. Nevertheless, it is delicious, let me tell you. I will never eat plain cereal out of the box again.
Okay, well, that is a lie. But I do feel like I've been missing out by just eating handfuls of whatever crap happens to be nearest me. And this is coming from a relatively healthy eater.

Here are a couple of close-ups of the toppings too, both pre- and post-oven, for your viewing pleasure.

Elizabeth Eats...A Lot of Things (Part I)

So, in lieu of posting my very uncreative cooking projects of the last two days, here is a lovely backlog of the things I have been making prior to the creation of this blog. Some of them I've made repeatedly, which isn't very interesting for blogging about -- but really, the point is to find things to eat that are delicious and also healthy.

Day 1:


These are little pita squares with turkey, spinach, and gouda cheese. The pita is made out of lavash (my ingredient of choice for the week, as you'll see), sliced and toasted. Good for serving at parties, but probably not bringing to parties, because they're really only delicious while still hot.













Day 2:




Improvised panini with toasted lavash, sauteed spinach and mushrooms, and topped with parmesan reggiano cheese sprinkled on top immediately post-toaster. This was really, really delicious. I've lately developed a taste for mushrooms that I never had before. And would you believe it? There are actually several different kinds of mushrooms beyond the distinction of those which are poisonous, those which are edible, and those which will replenish Mario's health points. These ones are baby bella mushrooms, which will also be used in my next recipe, which will begin Part II.

Elizabeth Eats Vegetables (and other things)

This summer, I will cook a new recipe -- often self-invented -- every day. I can't, however, guarantee that I will post every day. In fact, I will almost certainly not. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Most of my recipes will include vegetables, some won't. As an example of this principle, today I made rhubarb peach pie. In case you were curious, New York State officially classified rhubarb as a fruit in 1947.

Here she is, in all her glory. The crust is almost exclusively flour and a whole lot of butter, with minimal water and vanilla extract. The filling is, as you might expect, rhubarb (homegrown and sweetened) and peaches. This is actually just a test pie; I'll be making the real pie tomorrow, along with hopefully another recipe that won't simply be an improved repeat of today's.