Eggplant Lasagna

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, why do Mondays get such a bad wrap? I think Tuesdays are the worst. Come this day I’m no longer coming off my weekend high, all sense of starting fresh has worn off and I can’t tell myself the week is almost over because it isn’t. Nothing went right today, nothinngggg.

Now that I’ve unleashed that, I can tell you what I am looking forward to. Dinner. Big surprise right? Lately I’ve been trying to use the food I have to make dinner rather than buy food for a specific recipe. I find that when I do the later, I end up accumulating a lot of ingredients yet feeling like I “don’t have anything to eat”. One of my favorite new ways of finding recipe ideas? Pinterest. I won’t insult you and tell you what it is because I’m sure you’ve heard about it and if you haven’t, and want to know, you’ll click on the link. Follow me if you want but be warned that I mostly pin food and DIY projects I’ll never actually do-myself.

{this is pretty much what you’ll get if you follow me, lotsa food. get in me.}

Anyway, back to the recipe. Well I knew dinner was going to include an eggplant because I bought a gigantic one at TJ’s over the weekend. I chose the big guy because at TJ’s they are per eggplant not by weight so I figured I should get the most for my $, right? After the success of my zucchini lasagna, I thought an eggplant lasagna could be a tasty spin-off.

Obviously you are now wondering why I brought up Pinterest and then dropped it. Well I found a recipe for vegan eggplant lasagna on there and that’s how we got to this cast of ingredients. Am I vegan? No. Not even vegetarian. I love me some meat. But I didn’t have ricotta and those vegan’s have come up with a ricotta alternative using tofu. And why the nutritional yeast? I just really like the stuff. I don’t use it as a substitute for cheese and never will. There was actually COW cheese on the top of this lasagna but that was an afterthought so it didn’t make it in the ingredient shot.

The recipe can be found here. I’m not going to type it because I didn’t change a thing (aside from de/un-veganize it by adding shredded mozzarella to the top).

{pre-oven}

The only thing I would change when making this again would be to add more nutritional yeast to the tofu-ricotta mixture. I needed more “cheese”. But it was delicious all the same.

*Fun fact: I took the above picture at 640 am on my front porch. It was rushed because a neighborhood cat was hissing and howling (do cat’s howl?) at me and it was a bit early for me to be dealing with that ish.

When it rains… it makes the ground wet

Can someone please tell me how people actually find roommates on Craigslist? Since I’ve posted my listing (about 3 weeks ago) I’ve had more responses from humanitarian workers in remote parts of the world that want to wire me money to reserve the room than actual, real interest. I’ve tried scanning my ad to see if there’s anything in there that might yield this result but there’s nothing. I requested that the individual be employed yet have received at least 3 inquiries from people with out jobs that have “some leads”. Please. That may be indeed true for some but I’m leery when the e-mail is being sent on behalf of someone on behalf of someone else who isn’t the same person who signs the e-mail. You are looking for a progressive roommate who likes sunshine and smiles? Keep looking. That’s not even a joke… that was a real e-mail. That is not to say that I’m not progressive and yes, I do like sunshine and smiles but I’m not sure they are in my roommate criteria short-list. Sigh. The search continues…

I was trying to take pictures of the apartment this morning and Griffy managed to make an appearance in just about every one.

Anyway, aside from that on going search, the weekend was a good one. How could it not be? It was long. Friday night we went out for sushi, Saturday we enjoyed some drinks in town with friends and Sunday the man-friend and I had dinner at The Palm. It was a surprise and I can’t wait to go back again. Last night I made dinner for the two of us. I found a recipe for Brazilian Coconut Chicken on allrecipes and I’m still thrilled with how it came out.

Rub 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into 2-inch pieces with this spice mixture. If you don’t like a lot of heat, I suggest reducing the cayenne a bit. Add 1 T olive oil to a pan and bring to medium heat. Add chicken pieces, flip after about 6-8 minutes. Flip. Cook until chicken is no longer pink. Remove pieces of chicken from pan.

To the still hot pan add 1 T minced ginger, 2 cloves garlic (minced) and 1/4 onion (chopped). Add additional olive oil if desired. Cook until onions start to turn translucent (just a few minutes). Empty contents of one 15 oz can of diced tomatoes into pan (drain a bit of the juice out first). If desired, add chopped jalapenos (seeds removed to reduce heat). I used 3 with seeds. Finally, pour one can of lite coconut milk into the pan. Reduce the heat to med-low. Let cook for a few more minutes then add the chicken back in. The sauce will NOT get super thick. That’s okay. You are going to serve it over rice. Preferably Basmati. Or you can use brown rice if you prefer. I used 1 c dry rice and that amounted to 4 servings once cooked. To serve, place 3/4 c rice in bowl (I used pasta bowls). Top with 1/4 chicken and sauce mixture. Enjoy!

Make this meal pronto. It will bring you sunshine and smiles. And perhaps it will send a roommate my way…

No scrambled eggs or bacon, I just have time for you

I’ve been a bad blogger. I’ve ate and made delicious things and didn’t take picture and have neglected to tell you about them in any capacity. Sorry. Kinda. Really I’ve been adjusting to having a school schedule again in the midst of trying to figure out my housing issue (waaah, don’t leave us Christine!). And I’m not gonna kid you, I’ve been a complete basket case to pretty much everyone. Luckily there are still many some willing to put up with me. And make me food when I’m sulking on the couch.

The man-friend, aka Matt, made me this delicious stir-fry. It was a combination of fried pork strips with baby corn, red peppers and spinach served atop rice noodles. My taste buds are still dreaming of this dish.

My friend Laura gave me this HUUUUUGE zucchini from her garden. I know you can’t tell but it was seriously as long as my forearm and crazy wide. I used it for two meals. One of said meals was an incredible zucchini lasagna with chickpea filling. I ate it all. As in the entire lasagna, by myself, in 4 sittings. I cubed the rest of this zucchini monster and cooked them up to serve alongside cauliflower rice and sesame-soy crusted chicken tenders.

Then I came home from work one day and near polished off the entire container of these. Whoever came up with them definitely had me in mind. So thank you.

I hope this brief recap was worth the wait. I’ll get my crap together I promise.

Is anyone else super busy/exhausted this time of year?

Stuff & Things

First things first, I’m loving this song, as creepy as this creature is…

I’m missing vacation something fierce…

Not that it isn’t nice to be home.

But things may be changing a bit around here. Up until now this has pretty much been a food blog with recipes and pictures. Once in awhile I throw in some puppy posts in the mix but again, things are changing.

As you may have gathered from my posts while I was in Florida, I’m back in school. My very intensive graduate program begins in about a week! So on top of working full-time, I’ll be a full-time student. I’m not complaining, just giving you an idea of what’s to come.

Basically, I have a feeling I’ll be doing less creative cooking. For instance, I had a project due this week so “dinner” the other night was a bowl of crispy rice cereal and a beer. Don’t get me wrong, it was completely satisfying. But my point is, there won’t be primarily food posts on the blog. Since I want to continue to blog as much as I can, I hope you don’t mind if I blog more about what I’ve been up to. Essentially I’ll be recapping my shenanigans as I navigate a full-time job, full-time graduate student status, a crazy dog and being broke.

Still with me? Hope so. We’d miss you if you left.

Oh, and I had zucchini for dinner tonight (happy mom?) so don’t worry, I still have taste buds.