Still Cooking
It's been over a year since I last wrote about cooking on here. After a conservative, generally uninteresting Fall semester in the kitchen, I've been having a lot more fun lately.
My exploration this semester has been into different grains, larger quantities, and more complicated flavors. (I get most of my recipe ideas from Macheesmo or RealSimple ). Having done lots of potatoes and pasta over the past couple of years, I've moved on to rice, tortillas, and most recently, couscous. Also I'm always trying to learn more interesting breakfasts. It's my favorite meal to cook.
So here's what I've been up to lately:
1) Chicken tacos
I roast some chicken, make a box of just-add-water-and-boil rice pilaf, and reduce a can of black beans and diced tomatoes. Mix the rice, beans and tomatoes together, shred the chicken, add some grated cheddar, and boom. You can mix up the chicken with ground beef, use different grains or veggies - lots of variations to this one.
2) Eggs in an avocado
This turned out pretty average, but it's got a lot of potential once I figure out how to bake eggs.
Cut an avocado in half, remove the seed, and pop an egg in each cavity. Sprinkle paprika and/or chili powder (eggs and avocado are both so... even - they do well with a kick). Bake it.
3) My favorite breakfast
It's really simple. Scrambled eggs with chives, atop a slice of thick sourdough bread. The hard part of this is just cooking the eggs right. I think these were a little overdone.
4) Pinwheel appetizers
My wonderful friends host frequent potlucks at their house, and I like to bring interesting appetizers. For this, I made a spread of cream cheese, olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, and chopped basil. I just spread it on a tortilla, rolled it, and cut it up. It was quite simple really, except I used a knife instead of a food processor.
5) Chicken and couscous
Note the sun-dried tomato and basil in this, too (leftover from #4). Similar to the first one, I roasted chicken, tore it up, minced the red and green things, and made a box of just-add-water-and-boil couscous. It'll last a few solid meals!
