Tasty Sandwiches

Last Wednesday, we had delicious vegetarian Florentine burgers from Outpost. They're pre-made burgers with spinach, walnuts, breadcrumbs, cheese, onions, eggs, spices and more. We just heated them on a skillet and served them on buns with some lettuce. I added a bit of tamari sauce to mine.

And, of course, with them, we had homemade sweet potato fries. Delicious! I highly recommend trying Outpost's Florentine burgers. I think they go fast, so get them early in the week!

Then, on Friday, we made chicken Philly sandwiches. We cooked some chicken with spices in a skillet, and in another skillet, sauteed bells peppers, mushrooms and red onion. We combined it on a hoagie roll with a slice of pepper jack cheese and had garden salsa Sunchips (one of my favorites).

I mostly wanted to buy them because of the 100% completely compostable bag they come in. I can't wait to add it to the compost pile!

A Favorite Summer Meal: Shish Kabobs

I absolutely love shish kabobs on the grill when it gets warm. We make them quite often--they're easy and usually pretty healthy.

Today, for dinner, we mixed it up a bit. I had some Wildtree sate sauce I won at a Wildtree party a few months ago that I've been wanting to try. Here's what we did:

-Cut up two chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces, combine with sate sauce, put on kabob skewers.

-Cut up veggies (zucchini, green pepper, yellow pepper, red onion and mushrooms) and pour a marinade over (I made something up using olive, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, ginger powder and a bit of Sriracha). Skewer was well.

-Grill for about 20 minutes.

-For a side, I made plain couscous flavored with curry powder, spicy curry powder, garlic salt and garlic powder, and about 1 teas. olive oil.

We heated up some of the sate sauce to dip the chicken in, too. It's good stuff--a bit spicy and kind of salty for my taste, but still really good!

And tonight was the first time this year we ate at our patio table. I love this time of year!

Super Easy Ravioli

It's always nice to make a super easy meal on a Monday. We didn't do much cooking with this, but the finished product was tasty, so I thought I'd blog about it.



We picked up these garlic and herb ravioli at Outpost a few weeks ago and had some spaghetti sauce--already mixed with sauteed veggies and mixed with spices--in the freezer to use up. We paired it with a side salad and the last of the Italian oil and vinegar dressing we had.



There are so many Rising Moon ravioli flavors I want to try, so watch for more blog posts!

Homemade Yogurt and Hummus

On Monday, we tried making yogurt from scratch and I revived my hummus-making skills.

We learned how to make yogurt at that Indian cooking class. It's a very easy process, it just takes a while for it to be ready to eat. You only need milk (we used the skim we already had) and already-made yogurt for the cultures to work.

Here is pretty much the recipe we used (warning: there is music!). For our first time, I think it turned out pretty well. It tastes just like plain yogurt usually does, but I think it's less bitter than the commercial stuff. A bit of milk burned on the bottom of the pan so there are some brown bits mixed in with the yogurt, but it tastes fine. I think this could be a new thing for us!

On the stove:

The finished product:

I also made hummus from scratch. I used to do it all the time, but stopped for some reason (even though I eat hummus almost every day for lunch). So, since we're on this make-it-from-scratch kick, I decided to try it again. Plus, we had some sun-dried tomatoes to use up.

I used the Betty Crocker recipe as my starting point and then added my own spin:

-1 can chickpeas, drained

-1/4 cup olive oil

-a couple cloves of garlic

-the juice of a half of a lemon

-2 tbs. tahini

-about 3 tbs. sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

-1/2 teas. salt

Combine everything in a food processor. Puree until everything is mixed and smooth. I ended up drizzling a little more olive oil in while the processor was going. Yum!

Green Chili Pork Enchiladas

This meal came about because we had a can of green chili enchilada sauce to use up as well as corn tortillas and ground pork in the freezer. We made up the recipe off the top of our heads, and everything came together really well. The only downside was that the tortillas were pretty brittle and didn't exactly roll up--even with toothpicks, everything came apart. But no matter. Everything tasted really good!

Here is what we did:

-Brown 1 lb. pork with spices like chili powder, cumin, coriander, garlic, etc., and half an onion, half a yellow bell pepper and a jalapeno pepper.

-Scoop a few spoonfuls of the pork mixture into the tortilla, sprinkle with cheese (we used queso fresco), roll up and place in baking dish sprayed with Pam.

-When done rolling all enchiladas, pour can of sauce over everything and top with extra cheese.

-Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Top with avocado slices if desired.

We had a can of spiced black beans for a side. Like I said, they don't look too pretty, but they tasted good!

Indian at the Hindu Temple

At the Indian cooking class Nate and I took last week, one of the teachers told us about the weekly Sunday lunch--for only $5--that is served at the Hindu Temple of Wisconsin. I immediately turned to Nate and said, "We have to go on Sunday!" I was half kidding about going that coming Sunday, but that's just what happened. We combined a motorcycle ride and lunch at the Hindu temple on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

The meal was absolutely wonderful, and there was plenty of food for only $5. We even saw our new friend, the teacher, from the cooking class. He recognized us, and asked if we did any "homework" yet. All the food is homemade and I'm almost positive it's always vegetarian. Each week, they make different food from different regions in India.

The meal on Sunday was an authentic Gujarati meal. It included:
-Poori, an unleavened bread
-Aloo baingan sabji, a curry with eggplant and potatoes
-Gujarati daal, a lentil soup
-Jerra rice, basmati rice with cumin
-Methi gota, fried fenugreek dumplings
-Soji halwa, a sweet dish made with semonlina

Here is the picture I snapped with my phone. Just looking at it makes me want to go eat there again soon!

Remember to Follow Me on Twitter!

If you're on Twitter, and you're not yet following me, you should. :) Find me at @OnMyTableBlog.