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.