Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Cherry Tomatoes

I grew up hating tomatoes and still hate ketchup, but recently I've become obsessed with finding dishes to use cherry tomatoes. Here are some previous creations and ideas for the cherry tomato lover in you.

Balsamic Marinated seen with potato salad and garlic green beans

Caprese (mini mozzarella balls, balsamic drizzle, and dried basil) seen with tuna corn salad

Sunburst orange tomatoes with shredded cheese seen with salmon croquettes and salad

Artichoke Tomato Mozzarella Pizza

Avocado Tomato Pizza

See Matt, I do eat tomatoes now.


I think the recipes here are pretty self-explanatory.

Some cooking tips:
  • Pizza is an extremely cheap and easy meal to make. Buy the 50 cents pizza dough packets at Walmart (they are kinda hard to find and may require digging) that you just add water.
  • There are a bazillion ways to make pizza. I use whatever is in the fridge, in these two cases avocado and artichoke were the lucky victims.
  • Balsamic makes everything taste so much better. Just soak tomatoes in about 3 tablespoons vinegar for a few hours or overnight, serve chilled or bake for 20 minutes on 375 degrees.
  • You'd be amazed what I've learned can come from tuna and salmon cans: croquettes, burgers, rangoons, melts, tunacakes, pizza topping, salad topping, and so on. At about $1 a can for albacore, it's worth the splurge.  For making croquettes (my favorite of the bunch), just think meatloaf. Add whatever you have in the fridge (like soy sauce, an egg, any other sauces, ranch, bbq, spices, etc.), mix up in a bowl, form logs/cakes/burgers, roll in breadcrumbs, and lightly fry in a skillet.

Potato Pierogies

This blog is mostly a place to put all the pictures I've collected on my phone the past few years. When I put my heart in to a meal, I tend to want to take pictures of it.

As my first meal on here, I decided it would be perfect to use this recipe I've been saving forever. I found it once upon a time on a website I used to browse www.budget101.com and it was titled Poor Man's Pierogies. Pierogies were my all-time favorite childhood food- they can be purchased at most groceries stores in the freezer section by the brand of Mrs. T's. In case you haven't stumbled upon this pure genius product, it is a pasta dumpling stuffed with mashed potatoes.

This recipe, which I was too lazy to dig out of my self-made cookbook of online printouts, was created by what I thought would go in a lasagna-version of this dish.

As a side note, I am in desperate need of groceries. My refrigerator is completely empty, minus these few ingredients and while I am usually pretty good for making meals out of nothing, this is technically our last existing meal before grocery shopping. So with that said, it is really a poor man's meal.

Ingredients:
lasagna noodles
1 stick of butter
half a bag of potatoes
cream or milk
onion/shallots (dried will do)
salt
cheese
spices

Directions:
You will need two large pots for this meal. In one rapidly boil water and cook noodles according to directions. In another, boil chopped potatoes in water for about 25 minutes til soft with a fork. When done, pour in 3 tablespoons milk, 2 tablespoons butter, a generous amount of salt (why is it that potatoes never taste salty enough?), your favorite spices, and mash. I used Adobo, a salt blend, and parsley. Melt (via microwave for 30 seconds) in a bowl the rest of the butter and about 1 tablespoons each of dried onion or shallot. If you feel up to it, saute in a skillet fresh onions and shallots. Mine sadly went bad and I used dried.




Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large lasagna size pan, spread out half the melted butter mixture. Then one layer of noodles, half the mashed potatoes,  another layer of noodles, the other half of mashed potatoes, another layer of noodles, the rest of the butter, then top with whatever cheeses you've got. Bake for 15 minutes. It came out pretty tasty just not the healthiest of meals and requires alot more salt, even afer adding a bunch. If you have veggies on hand, I'd add some to make the meal feel a bit more nutritious.


Now some stuff about me. I am by no means a chef at all, I have just been a fan of cooking for the past 15 years and while I used to abide by recipes religiously, I have in the past few years deviated from this and become more creative. I think this type of creativity makes the best cooks since you learn to experiment and make your own dishes. With cooking, practice will never make perfect but it definitely helps. Anyways, as a graduate student I find my fridge empty quite often and have to be more creative than I'd like (hello, millions of pinterest recipes I may never get to). So here goes nothing.