Sushi Roll Edamame Salad
You guys! I'm going through some SERIOUS Oprah withdrawals. It's really bad. Last week I had a crazy dream where I was trying to find a pair of sunglasses and all of a sudden I was in Walmart and Oprah (who was wearing FLIP FLOPS!) handed me a pair. I woke up before I could hear her sweet voice. Sigh. THEN yesterday while I was driving to work, I pulled up at a stop light and a shiny black suburban passed by. OMG it was Oprah driving the car. Well...not really. It was a woman that looked just like her.
While figuring out what to type in this paragraph, I did a google search for "Oprah Vegan" because I remembered the show where she went vegan for a week with all of her staffers and LOOK! that post was a year ago! WHAT WHAT?! I think this means we're destined to meet. Or if not, maybe someone who knows her really well could get her drunk on Moscow Mules and have her call my voicemail? All I want her to say is TRACY SHUTTERBEAN in her voice. It would seriously make my decade.
I wonder if Oprah would like this salad? I'm pretty sure she would. Besides the base of romaine lettuce, there's a bit of brown rice, avocado chunks, cucumber, nori shreds, edamame, carrots & sesame seeds. It's hearty yet light! I bet she'd ask for more green onion miso dressing. Of course she'd ask for more dressing! That dressing IS SO DANG GOOD.
Without further adieu...
SUSHI ROLL EDAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME SAAAAAAAALAD FOR EVERYONE!
Did I tell you that Cooper can do the Oprah voice now? It's glorious.
Potato Feta Gyros
I lived as a vegetarian for 2 1/2 years during my college career; it was the dorm food that sealed the deal. For the first year of my vegetarianism, I was more of a cheese-atarian. I lived in Oregon and it was Tillamook EVERYTHING. My roommate and I ate cheese, pizza, french fries, hummus and stir fry like there was no tomorrow. For a college student, it was all about convenience. Having our own fridge with our OWN food (not managed by parents) was really an exciting thing. That's why I gained a Sophomore 15 (I managed to avoid it Freshman year due to the crappy food). I clearly needed help!
A few months ago during the busy holiday season, I had the opportunity to meet cookbook author/cool mom Pam Anderson & catch up with her daughter Maggy at a fabulous dinner for her latest cookbook, Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals: Recipes and Techniques for Part-Time and Full-Time Vegetarians. Let me tell you, these two are as good as it gets! I know that if they lived closer, Maggy & I would be tied at the hip. Both these fine ladies have a tremendous amount of love to give and their passion for food and helping others is downright contagious!
What I love Pam's new cookbook is that it's vegetarian home cooking in an easily digestible format. Pam covers many cooking basics and gives a tremendous amount of tricks & tips for the aspiring vegetarian cook. She's basically teaching you how to cook without a book! Each recipe has Pam's suggestions to change things up a bit. For example, there's a bran muffin section where she shows you the muffin base and then lists add-ins & extras so you can build your own flavor profile. Her suggestions will keep your brain turning with ideas! I love it. Reading through this book is like having a cool mom teach you how to cook and fend for yourself in a vegetarian world. It would have made my college years as a vegetarian a BREEZE!
As a part time Vegetarian, I fell in love with this Potato Feta Gyro recipe. I made it earlier this week and boy was it incredibly satisfying and simple to execute. The mashed potatoes are flavor packed due to the feta & roasted garlic and the cucumber yogurt sauce is straight up ADDICTIVE. If only I had this recipe in college!
Here's the deal!
I have an extra copy of this book that I want to give one to a lucky reader!
Please leave a comment below and you'll be entered to win!
Giveaway ends on Friday January 13th (ooh creepy!).
****CONTEST ENDED. THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ENTERING!!!!******
Roasted Spaghetti Squash w/ Mushrooms
TEXT MESSAGE BETWEEN HUSBAND & WIFE:
Husband: What's for dinner?
Wife: Spaghetti squash w/ mushrooms
Husband: K. be home in 15.
After texting his wife, husband drives home with the thought of digging into a big bowl of creamy/carb dense spaghetti with mushrooms & a full glass of wine. When husband walks up to the kitchen table, he looks deflated after realizing he's been duped AGAIN with spaghetti squash! Why does his wife always try to pull a fast one? Doesn't she know he's not vegetarian?
Knowing this might be the case, wife plans ahead and makes a small batch of garlic bread to compensate for the lack of carbs. Turns out husband (a carb lover who doesn't love mushrooms) actually enjoys this Roasted Spaghetti Squash with Mushrooms recipe. Wife is satisfied with the dinner she concocted and is happy she is able get a huge bowl of vegetables into her husband's belly. Good wives know that the key to a man's heart is through garlic bread.
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Baked Apples with Savory Stuffing
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without my mom shouting at my brother, "That's NOT FULLY COOKED, you're gonna get sick!" while he's hunched over the refrigerator door, grabbing a spoonful of uncooked stuffing. I can't really blame him for wanting to eat it uncooked; our mom really does make the most incredible sausage & chestnut stuffing.
These baked apples taste just like Thanksgiving except my mom isn't in the background shouting at me for getting into them. The filling of sausage, celery, herbs & onions remind me of her stuffing, but the apples add a nice sweet/tang to round out the flavor. I love how the tops of each apple overflow with crispy golden bread and browned sausage thanks to the teamwork of small dabs of butter and a hot oven. It's like I just faked a Thanksgiving dinner on an average October weeknight. You gotta love that.
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Peppery Chicken Wings
For as long as I can remember I've always been into books. My childhood allowance usually went towards books from the Scholastic book sale at school or food (go figure!). One of the best purchases I made from one of those Scholastic catalogs was a simple cookbook for kids. It was the first cookbook that made me excited about cooking. I'd wake up on the weekend, turn on the toons and make a batch of french toast that my brothers would bribe me for. I worked my way through that little cookbook with recipes for eggs, pasta, and English muffin pizzas but the one thing that impressed me and my whole family most was the roasted chicken thighs.
Every time I roast chicken, I get a vivid flashback. I remember mixing chicken thighs with chopped onion in a metal brownie pan. I drizzled the thighs with olive oil, coated them with rosemary, thyme, salt & pepper and placed them into the oven to roast. What came out of the oven was more than decent; it was exceptional! The sheer alchemy of it all fascinated me and I felt a great sense of accomplishment making a grownup dish on my own. Fast forward twenty something years later and I'm still blown away at how spice coated chicken can be easily transformed by a little oven time. These wings & drumsticks were a hit in my household. Casey's always begging me to make more meat and with the ease of this recipe there's really no excuse not to!
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