Lentil Stuffed Tomatoes

Cook up 1/2 cup each of lentils and white rice. The recipe calls for only cooking each for 10 minutes - but I prefer my lentils/rice a bit softer - so cook to the tenderness you want. :)


Saute onions in a couple tablespoons of butter. Add rice/lentils. Season with salt and pepper.


Cut off the tops of 4-6 medium tomatoes and gut the inside - reserving all the parts for later use.



Chop up the tomato guts. Mix with 1 tbs olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic. Place tomatoes in a greased baking dish. Fill tomatoes with lentil/rice mixture, drizzle some of the tomato gut mixture over the top. Put the top of the tomato back on.

Drizzle some more tomato guts over the top of it all. (I like saying "guts" in my cooking entries. Kind of fun)

Bake for about 10-15 minutes at 450.

Yum!

Vegetarian Weekends

I'm trying to eat more veggies and less meat. I'm nowhere near desiring a complete vegetarian lifestyle - but I want to start incorporating "vegetarian days" into my life. For practical reasons - I'm thinking of making Friday/Saturday/Sunday vegetarian days. I typically eat with the house the other days of the week. I'm not always the one cooking and I don't really see everyone else getting excited about vegetarian meals ;-).

So, I'm going to start a list of some vegetarian food that I know I enjoy or that sounds like something I'll enjoy (or at least give a chance!). This will help me with my weekend meal planning and grocery shopping as well. I'm not doing vegan - so eggs, dairy, etc are in. I'm going veg because I think I should eat more plants - not because I think it's wrong to use animals for food. Feel free to give me some your favorite veg recipes.

Here's a list of things I know I like - I'm just throwing them out as I think of them - so breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. :) Trying to think of quick and easy as well as actual meals. Yes, it's a bit of an odd combination.

Tomato Sandwiches.
Eggplant Croquettes
Ratatouille
Pasta Primavera
Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches
Onion Pie
Goat Cheese and Arugula Pizza
Omelets with various vegi-fillings
Yogurt and Granola

Once the farmers' markets start up around here in May I'm planning on heading down early in the a.m. once a week and hopefully scoring some great fresh and organic veggies.

Pasta Primavera

Here's another easy and tasty recipe I made this week.

Ingredients:

A few cups of fresh veggies (I used fresh green beans and asparagus)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup half-and-half
1 Tbs flour
salt and pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

12 oz pasta (I used mini bow-tie)
6-8 plum tomatoes, seeded and cut into pieces

• Cook the pasta, set aside.
• Saute the veggies in the melted butter over medium heat until tender.
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Add half-and-half and flour, bring to a boil, stirring often.
• Let it boil for a couple of minutes, remove from heat
• Stir in Parmesan cheese
• Stir in pasta and tomatoes. Serve hot.

I had some chicken in the fridge I needed to use up - so I grilled that and added it as well. It would've been totally fine without the chicken though.

Moroccan Chicken

I found a recipe for Moroccan Chicken Kabobs tonight and modified it a bit. It was AMAZING. So good!

I didn't feel like firing up the actual grill or skewering the kabobs - so I just seasoned the meat and grilled it on the George Foreman. Super simple and, again, so good!

The recipe is here.

I didn't have cardamom - so I left it out. Also, I'm not a fan of peppers - so I didn't have any of those.

Here is my skewer-less, table top grill version of the prep and cooking :) I used two chicken breasts cut into chunks with the amount of spices listed - I don't know what that is as far as the weight of the chicken - but it was a good , spicy, flavorful, coating on the chicken. :)


The pretty spices all in a bowl. Love the colors!



Mix, and then dump into a big ziplock bag.



Cut a red onion up into some big chunks and dump those into a different ziplock bag. (If you like peppers - they do everything the onion does in the recipe)


Add small pieces of chicken to the bag with the spices. Add salt, pepper, and olive oil to the bag with onions. Shake shake shake. Dump both bags onto a pre-heated Grill. The chicken should be a nice orange/brownish color with all the spices.


Let it cook until the chicken is done and the onions are tender - took about 15 minutes.



This was very spicy and flavorful. I made some rice pilaf to go with it. I was going to do fruit salad as well as something cool and sweet to go with the hot and spicy but I ran out of time to cut up the fruit and didn't want to wait to eat the chicken - the smell was enticing!

March 365 and Reading

spring snow, my birthday month, lots of reading, and finally some warmth










I also updated the 2010 Reading List with the books I've read in March. It seems I've had my nose buried in a book a lot this month!