I have been REALLY on the hunt for quick meals this semester.  Unfortunately my schedule gives me 3-4 crazy, long days.  Right in a row.  Even my weekend feel rushed because I’m trying to catch-up on everything else that I didn’t do during the week.  Oh you know.  Cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping.  The fun stuff.  Heck I’m a few weeks behind on Private Practice and Desperate Housewives.  Times must be desperate. 

When looking for meal ideas to go to the grocery store, Matt reminded me of this spaghetti and egg dish I made a little while back – it was a great meal that met my time crunch.  Fast.

This dish literally can be made in the time it takes to boil water and cook some pasta.  My kind of meal.

The garlic oil adds such a great flavor to the pasta and the egg makes it nice and creamy – in fact, the egg pieces are my favorite part. 

This pasta dish is a great meal paired with a side salad or even some carrot slices (to speed up prep). 

For a meal that I normally have the ingredients for, this is a great way to have dinner on the table in 15 minutes. 

I love tacos.  Too much probably.  I would eat them every week if I could – or if Matt wouldn’t be opposed. 

Since embracing an essentially meat free diet, I have yet to find the perfect taco replacement.  Meatless crumbles just do not compare to ground beef – and considering their ingredient list – I try not to use them too often. 

Sometimes, I am not the smartest tool in the shed – I have no idea why it took me so long to think of lentils as a replacement for my beloved ground beef.  I love lentil snobby joes.

So I found a recipe and tried it.

I think this is the closest you will get to ground beef tacos.  The flavor was excellent as was the texture.  Matt wasn’t the biggest fan – but I didn’t expect him to be.  Tacos aren’t his favorite and he has food texture issues.  I won’t even tell you what he describes ground beef to be like. 

I topped my tacos (on a flour tortilla) with shredded cheddar cheese, lentils, mixed greens and tomatoes. 

These lentils also make a great taco salad – use leftovers to top a salad and dress with a spoonful of salsa. 

A great taco substitute – and it didn’t take too long to prepare.  A winner in my book. 

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m obsessed with Pinterest.  I have been finding recipes left, right and center that I want to make.  Now.

Like this one

This dish is heavenly.

So creamy and tastes exactly like a spinach and artichoke dip – yet you don’t need the dippers.

As Matt said – this was the perfect merger of spinach and artichoke dip and macaroni and cheese – one does not over power the others.

Agreed completely.

A few weeks ago I had an unexpected and totally fantastic friend stop by for dinner.  I had not planned anything and was very thankful my apartment was at least presentable. 

After examining the contents of my pantry and consulting with my internal cooking memory, I recalled a recipe I had seen a few weeks ago for a homemade tomato soup on Stephanie’s blog.  I knew I had the ingredients for a grilled cheese as well.  Not the most gourmet of meals but we were operating on a fast turnaround time.

Tomato Basil Pesto Soup

Tomato Basil Pesto Soup
Serves 2-3

• 1/2 onion, diced small
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 29oz. can plain tomato sauce (I used a box of Pomi Strained Tomatoes)
• 1 cup milk (at least 1%)
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tbsp basil pesto (I used Classico Basil Pesto)
• salt & pepper, olive oil

1. Sauté the onion in 1/2 tbsp. olive oil for about 5 minutes, adding the minced garlic during the last minute.  Season w/ salt and pepper.
2. Add the tomato sauce and bring to a boil.  Turn down to a simmer, cover and cook 10-15 minutes. 
3. Stir in the milk, H20 and pesto.  Season with additional salt and pepper as necessary.
4. Cover and let simmer to warm for another 5 minutes before serving.

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This was a decent, fast tomato soup.  Next time Matt said he would have added more garlic and perhaps some dried garlic, dried basil and dried parley.  I would also recommend blending the soup once done in the blender or with an immersion blender to make the soup smooth.  The onion and garlic chunks were a little odd.

All in all an decent soup – I will probably make this instead of buying a canned soup because it was a lot cheaper and did not take long at all to make. 

Thanks Stephanie for a great recipe. 

Growing up, a Club Sandwich was probably in my top 3 meals.  Typically I got it whenever we went out to dinner and for my birthday I always requested a turkey club sandwich for my special meal. 

Primarily a vegetarian now, instead of missing one of my favorites, I decided to take matters into my own hand.  With the help of Gardein (disclosure: I was provided with a coupon by Gardein for this meal) I created a Grown Up Chicken Club. 

Not to toot my own horn, but I was pretty impressed with my effort!

This sandwich has so many possibilities…add cheese, instead of bread – serve in lettuce wraps, used sliced avocado instead of avocado mayo…

I really enjoyed this grown up chicken club.  The arugula added a nice kick and the smoky flavor of the “bacon” complemented the avocado mayo nicely. 

That brings me to the avocado mayo…something worth repeating.  Next time I would add a little less olive oil as that was most of what I tasted (could have been a weak flavored avocado).  That recipe has amazing potential – next time I do the Real Food Challenge, I can see the avocado mayo as a great substitute on sandwiches and with tuna. 

I really love the Gardein products (and I’m not saying this because I received a coupon) – they are a great alternative meat product and are the best meat replacement I have tasted. 

For the first few weeks of January, I don’t have my meal plan which means I need to bring my lunch.  As much as I HATE and DREAD enjoy this, it does give me the benefit of being able to try a few new recipes.  One I tried was the Lentil and Black Bean Soup from the December 2011 issue of Runners World. 

According to Runners World…

This vegan stew is thick and superfilling thanks to the beans and lentils. Both are good sources of protein and fiber-rich carbs. "The body absorbs these nutrients slowly, keeping energy and hunger levels on an even keel," says sports nutritionist Monique Ryan, R.D. One cup of lentils contains almost all of your daily need for folate, a B vitamin that’s key for the formation of energy-supplying red blood cells. Chili powder, cumin, and paprika punch up the flavor while providing a dose of anti-inflammatory antioxidants.  Source

I loved this soup.  It was relatively simple and most of the time was just watching the pot cook.  Quite honestly, the lime juice made this soup.

It was extremely hearty and one day I even served it with some Wholly Guacamole.  This soup reheats well and I bet would be fine in the freezer – I will probably make another batch of this soup for the freezer and also to use some more of the red lentils I bought.

Perfect for those cold winter days!

Lemony shrimp pasta with white beans is a favorite in our household – lemon, shrimp, cannellini beans, scallions, garlic and pasta – how can you go wrong? 

I bought the shrimp to make this dish a few weeks ago but something happened and it never made it to our dinner table.  While grocery shopping this week, I made sure to pick up the scallions I needed to complete the meal.  I already had the shrimp, parsley, lemons, pasta, garlic.

I recommend having almost everything prepped and ready to go when you start cooking the garlic and scallions – this dish cooks really fast.

The flavor combination is perfect and very light.  The fresh lemon juice pairs nicely with the garlic and scallions.

Plus it makes for great leftovers.

Tastes as good as it looks – I promise!

For our Mushroom Bolognese recipe a few days ago, I over bought portobello mushrooms and have had 4 in my fridge ever since.  In an effort to use them up, I made the portobello mushroom the star of the show tonight – in the form of a burger. 

Here is the anatomy of a delicious Portobello mushroom burger:

This meal really couldn’t be simpler and did you know

Eat a serving of portobello mushrooms and you’re taking in a rich source of antioxidants, a compound that protects your cells from free-radical damage. Measured for ORAC value, or the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity value, which determines antioxidant levels, the portobello mushroom has more free-radical-fighting power than green beans and carrots. The antioxidants in this mushroom may protect you from a range of medical conditions thought to be rooted in free-radical cellular damage, including cancer and heart disease.
Source

To prepare, I sliced about a quarter of a yellow onion and sautéed it for a few minutes until starting to turn brown.  I then brushed the mushroom with olive oil and set it on a grill pan (pre-heated to medium heat) and cooked it gill side down first for 4 minutes; then flipped to the “cap” side for an additional 4 minutes. 

Next I flipped the “burger” over once again and added the onions and some sliced cheddar cheese to the gill side and let the “burger” cook until the cheese melted.  This almost formed a rounded burger – my goal of the evening. 

Onto a toasted deli flat with some arugula and voila – dinner in just a few minutes. 

Normally I would gravitate towards a real hamburger bun but I really wanted to enjoy the taste of the mushroom which is why I was happy with the deli flat – the bun was more of a vehicle for the mushroom. 

Fortunately I still have 2 more mushrooms – I see another burger in my near future.  This was amazing and did not take long to prepare. 

Take that drive through. 

When creating my grocery list for the week – from New Jersey – it was hard to think about what was in my kitchen.  We had been gone for close to a week and had left the fridge pretty bare (for our standards that is).  I wanted to pick a few meals that I knew we had “essentials” for but would also make enough for both dinner and a lunch or two considering that I don’t have my meal plan for another few weeks and need to go out for lunch bring my lunch. 

Sweet and Sour Crispy Tenders is one of Matt’s favorites and I knew I had the remainders of some Gardein Crispy Tenders in my freezer (I buy a big bag of them at BJs Wholesale Club). 

I like to serve my Sweet and Sour Crispy tenders over brown rice (which I had ready for me in my rice maker when I got home from work). 

This is definitely a crowd pleaser at our dinner table.  You can swap out the Gardein Crispy Tenders for regular chicken nuggets to make this for meat-eaters. 

It really takes very little time to cook – most of the time is spent cutting up the 4 peppers (I used red, orange and yellow).  The sauce is sweet with a hint of ginger and once in a while you get hit with a touch of vinegar. 

I recommend doubling the recipe for leftovers – the sweet and sour crispy tenders is the best part of this meal!

Before Christmas, a friend came over to make cookies and brought a bottle of red wine – we drank about half of it and she left the rest of the bottle.  Not being the biggest fan of red wine, I remembered a recipe that used red wine and decided to cook with it tonight.

Needing to increase my vegetable consumption after this long holiday break, I served my bolognese sauce with both spaghetti and spaghetti squash.

First I cooked the whole squash in the microwave for 2 minutes to soften.  I then sliced off the ends and cut the squash in half length-wise.  I microwaved each half for another 3 minutes and then “shredded” it with a fork.  It was perfectly cooked.

This is a great, simple, fast recipe for a twist on your normal marinara.  I had even cooked some extra lentils over the weekend to add to this dish but I forgot to add them.  Lentils would be a great texture and protein addition.

I read an interesting article today about Organic Milk and a possible shortage – an interesting read for sure.