Lentil soup - Turkish Style

For our honeymoon, my husband and I went to Turkey! It was an amazing trip with an amazing about of good food. One of our favorite dishes was lentil soup.

I have never tasted lentil soup because in my mind it sounded like bean soup. Gross. But in Turkey the lentils are so delicate that they're not a large part of the soup but still add a ton of flavor. I have no idea how they make such good soup but I decided to give it a try.

For the first time pinterest failed me. There were not many lentil soups and to be honest, this isn't the most photogenic of dishes so I can see why.

I did a simple google search and found this recipe from food.com:

1 cup red lentil, washed and cleaned
4 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup mild onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup white potato, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)


Directions:
1 Place the red lentils in a colandar and rinse.
2 Sift through to remove and debris or damaged beans.
3 Place the washed and cleaned lentils into a medium pot with the stock, potatoes, onions and paprika.
4 Bring the pot to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
5 Loosely place a lid on the pot leaving slightly ajar as to allow some evaporation.
6 Cook for 40-40 minutes until the lentils are tender.
7 Add salt and pepper to taste.
8 Place all but 1 cup of the soup into a blender or food processor and blend briefly.
9 Return blended soup to the pot with the reserved cup of soup.
10 Heat through.
11 Makes four servings

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/turkish-red-lentil-soup-140836?oc=linkback

All the reviews were positive so I tried it out. My only issue? No red lentils! I went to Target and Kroger and there were only green lentils. There is a difference between the two but I had no choice as I certainly wasn't going to go to ANOTHER store to find red lentils. Also, I used turkey stock vs veggie stock. Obviously in Turkey they would only use veggie stock but I used what I had.

Rinsed the beans and attempted to look for defects but I guess the organic lentils were checked through before hand.

Cut up some potato and onion

Added everything to the pot with the stock and water and cooked! 

I finally got to use my immersion blender! It was fun to muss up about half the lentils

To be honest, it started to look like a bean soup. So I added an extra cup of stock and two cups of water to have a soup consistency.

Lentil soup! I suggest serving it with lemon and a dab of greek yogurt! It was delicious! 

Quinoa in the Rice Cooker!

There are so many quinoa recipes. Quinoa salads, mac and cheese with quinoa, quinoa muffins and cakes, etc etc. Cooking quinoa is the first step for most of these recipes and considering how horrible I am at cooking rice over the stove, I was not really interested in trying to cook quinoa. I then noticed that many people suggest cooking it in the rice cooker instead. Why not? I mean quinoa is a grain very similar to rice, would it really work in the rice cooker?

I figured I'd try it out. The key seems to be that for every one cup of quinoa, you must add two cups of liquid. I chose to use one cup of turkey stock and one cup of water for one cup of quinoa. Also, it was noted that one cup of uncooked quinoa becomes three cups of cooked quinoa. Since my rice cooker is a three cup cooker, I only used one cup of quinoa.

Uncooked quinoa

Though probably already cleaned, I rinsed it just in case

Just ran it under water in a strainer. Then put it in the rice cooker with a cup of stock and a cup of water

Tada! Worked perfectly! 

Delicious. I also added a couple of cloves of garlic to add flavor. Yum! 

Why eat quinoa? It's a great carb that's delicious and ...

From Fabfitfun.com

Egg in a Turkey Basket with Cheese and Spinach

After the success of the Egg Muffins I had been making them off and on for awhile. But I saw this cute egg cup on Pinterest and thought I would give this version a try. The deli meat essentially holds the full egg together with whatever other ingredients you want to add. I chose spinach and swiss cheese!

Turkey slices in the muffin tin

Simply put the deli meat slices into the muffin tin (I doubled up since we use thin sliced meats). 

Add the other ingredients you would like in your egg in a basket (I used chopped spinach and swiss cheese). Ignore the other muffin tins, I decided to make egg muffins to freeze in the spare muffin tins. 

Then add an egg to each deli meat basket. So good! (FYI: the egg muffins were just egg whites, cheddar and spinach). Pop them into a 400 degree oven for 12 minutes and you're done! 

I topped them with salt, pepper and some parmesan cheese. 

Hm...with easy crusty bread. So perfect together.

I actually cooked them for 13 minutes. I regret this. I love a good runny egg and they were a little over cooked for me. If you like a more set egg yolk (like in this picture), then I would suggest 13 minutes.

I served it with fresh baked Easy Crusty Bread which I made with olives in it! We had an amazing brunch!

I made the spare egg muffins since I wasn't sure how well the egg yolks would freeze (or how safe that was). Have you ever frozen slightly runny egg yolks? Does it turn out OK when you reheat?

Baked Egg Cups From Thesimpledelights.com

12 Eggs

12 thin slices of deli ham (round)

1/2 Cup of your favorite cheese (I used Parmesan)

1/2 Cup diced scallions

Fresh cracked Sea Salt and Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400.  Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  Lay a piece of ham in each hole creating a little ham cup.  Crack one egg into each hole and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake the eggs for about 12 minutes…until the white is firm and the yolk is still nice and runny.

Carefully remove each egg from the muffin tin and top with grated cheese and scallions.  Serve hot!  Yield: 12

Candy Cane Oreos, Joe-Joe's or...HEB Store brand?

The amazing and delicious Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's

I went to Target today and saw Candy Cane Oreos!

I thought...finally! How long has Trader Joe's had this market without competition.

If you have never had the Candy Cane Joe Joe's from Trader Joe's, you have been missing out. These boxes of delicious cookies SELL OUT at a lot of stores. Why are they so good? They have a very rich chocolate cookie and the filling is not only peppermint flavored but also has small pieces of candy cane in it. So good.

They have their own facebook page. People even sell them on ebay!

I was very interested in the Oreo version but the closer I looked at it...it did not look good.

Oreo's version of candy cane oreos

First...what are crunchy sprinkles? And the two color filling reminded me of the candy corn oreos...which were not good.

Then when I went home and got the mail, I found an HEB magazine. Crazy enough, there was an ad for HEB's Candy Cane Oreos!

Looks good!

This I might buy. It looks really good and similar to the Trader Joe's version. ... Or I just might buy the tried and true Trader Joe's Joe-Joe's.

Hint: If you do buy these, do not look at the nutritional information. Eat them, enjoy them and ignore reality.

Strange Oreos: Birthday Cake, Ice Cream & Triple Double Chocolate Mint!

Walking through a big lots the other day and assumed these were the failure group of oreo experiements at kraft.

Have you ever seen or tried these oreo brands?

I asked my friends who worked at Kraft and apparently Birthday Cake Oreo was huge!

Five minute Garlic Feta Dip. Just Three Ingredients!

As always, I'm running late and forgot to make an appetizer for a house visit. How I'm always forgetting one last step or ingredient is crazy but apparently consistent for me. Well, this weekend we went over to our cousin's house and volunteered to bring over something to snack on. I had totally forgotten and looked in to the fridge to see what we could bring. Feta Dip!

I recalled this pin I saw and checked to see if I had everything. It was so simple, I thought for sure I would be OK. So if you have a bunch of feta in your fridge, good oil and garlic you can make the base of this easy dip. After those ingredients the rest is to get fancy!

It asked for 8 oz of feta. two cups was very close to the 8oz I measured on my food scale

I used a ton of garlic, like three cloves. Recipe says to use only one but we love garlic! 

Add feta and oil to the mixer and go at it! I added half the oil in initially and then added more in slowly but ended up using it all! 

That's it! Simple right! The recipe calls for lemon but we thought it was already a bit sour.

I cut up some cucumbers for a light snack

Here's the recipe from SweetPaul.typepad.com

Lemon and feta dip
Serves 4

8oz feta cheese, crumbled
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil+ extra for serving
fresh thyme

Place feta, lemon zest and juice, garlic and olive oil in a blender and blend until smooth.
Spoon into a bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with thyme.
Serve with grilled tomatoes and grilled pita bread drizzled with olive oil, salt and thyme.

So Easy Gingerbread Rice Crispy Treats! Gingerbread Man Melting...

Image from mystore411.com

I found these at the grocery store and instantly thought...how would those taste as a rice crispy treat??? I got a bag of regular mini marshmallows as well, just in case they were horrible.

Just to be sure, I checked out Kellogg's official recipe for this master piece (not the official text):

• 6 cups of rice crispy cereal
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• Half a bag of marshmallows

1. Melt butter
2. Add marshmallows
3. Add cereal 
4. While still warm, dump onto greased or wax papered dish and flatten
5. Wait till cool and then enjoy!

So I obviously half the recipe for each type of marshmallow I was using. And in my forever attempt to get rid of our halloween candy, we stuck in a bunch of our favorite chocolates in them.

hmmm...melted butter

I'm melting!!!

Buahahaha

The wax paper helped to use only half of the pan for each type

Tada! with the added candy

The easiest treat ever

Simple Spinach Tarts!

For Thanksgiving, I was slated to make the appetizers for dinner. I fell in love with this simple recipe for Spinach Tarts. I have never worked with Pillsbury Dough before but it turned out very easy! I'm sure anything cooked with this dough is not good for you but for Thanksgiving all the health concerns go out the window.

The square(ish) of crescent dough pressed into the muffin tin. I'm sure you can guess which ones my husband did and which ones I did...

After you pop open the can of Pillsbury crescent rolls, you carefully mend two triangles of dough into one rectangle of dough. After pressing the dotted crease together, I found it helpful to actually press down on the crease to help it stick together. Then we cut each of the four rectangles into six square(ish) pieces and then put them into the muffin tin. 

Quick cook of the mushrooms

I was a little worried about them rising but they didn't. I'm not sure what is in this delicious dough but it seems to be very easy to work with. We set the muffin tin to the side and cooked the filling of mushroom and spinach with cream cheese. 

Really quick cook of spinach

Added the whole (!) block of cream cheese AND a quarter cup of parmesan cheese

I have also never cooked with cream cheese (beyond the mashed potatoes). It was not very appetizing to see the cheese melt into the pan filled with delicious spinach and mushrooms.

I used the two spoon method in order to stuff all the tarts

Right out of the oven! 

hmmm...yummy

Tips:

1. Chop up all the veggies into small pieces. As you can see, I did not do this and as a result some tarts got a big piece of mushroom and others got none
2. If you're not into cream cheese (we weren't), feel free to add your favorite tomato sauce instead! We made a second batch that was only mushrooms and spinach (finely chopped) and either a spicy tomato sauce or just parmesan cheese. They were a hit! Way more popular than the cream cheese version
3. You could also add herbs to the dough! Add dried rosemary or thyme to the dough to make it more flavorful and rustic! This is a simple recipe that can only be added to!
4. I followed the recipe from Eclecticrecipes.com to a tee and was still a little short on the filling. I would suggest making a little more. And if you have spare, it's delicious!

Mushroom and Spinach Tartlets (from EclecticRecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS:

1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 teapsoon olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms
4 cups chopped fresh spinach
1 (8oz) block cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 350°. Roll out crescent roll dough and press together the diagonal seems. Cut dough into 32 equal squares. Place small dough squares into a mini-muffin pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.

Drizzle a pre-heated skillet with olive oil. Add chopped spinach, mushrooms and garlic. Saute until mushrooms are tender and spinach has wilted. Remove from heat and add cream cheese, Parmesan and basil. Mix well.

Add 1 heaping teaspoon of filling to each crescent roll dough square. Bake at 350° for 15 - 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Tip: For even more flavor, add 1 tablespoon freshly chopped basil and 2 cloves garlic, grated.

Tip: I used a very small muffin tin. Depending on the size of your mini muffin tin, you may choose to cut the dough into 16 instead of 32 squares.

Crockpot Slow Cooker Garlic Mashed Potatoes

As you can tell from my blog, I love to use the crock pot. I registered for this mini crock pot after visiting my friends and they had one for hot dips. But after we did our first party with a hot dip, I started to wonder what I else I could use this crock pot for. Enter mashed potatoes!

From pinterest, I noticed some recipes of crock pot mashed potatoes. I figured it would work in the mini crock as well to make a smaller portion for just me and my husband.

Cut up two medium potatoes and put it in the crock. Add about a quarter cup of chicken stock and couple of pats of butter and a clove of garlic per potato.

  In this pic you can see how tiny my crock pot is.

I was very worried about how little liquid was in the crock but it worked!

After two hours on low, just mash up the potatoes and garlic (or you can remove the garlic if you like). 

I added a small dab of cream cheese and a dollop of light sour cream to the mashed potatoes.

I like my potatoes chunky, so this was perfect for me! If you want a smoother potato, add another half an hour of time. 

Recipe from Budget Savvy Diva (I adapted this to one pound of potatoes): 

• 5 Pounds of Russet Potatoes
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup butter, cut into small cubes chunks
• 1 1/4 cup light  sour cream
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup milk, warmed
• 2 ounces of light cream cheese ( really makes a difference)