Mediterranean Couscous Cabbage Rolls

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Did you know Couscous is basically pasta? However it's twice as good for you as pasta is because it's pure grain and water instead of egg, grain, and water like pasta.

"Like macaroni and spaghetti, couscous is made from semolina flour, but rather than mixing the semolina with a prescribed amount of water and/or egg into a dough, couscous is made by rubbing the semolina between moistened hands until the flour combines with just enough water to form hundreds of tiny grains" Link

Quinoa Kale Bites Appetizer

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One of our favorite things about the holidays is reconnecting with friends. Recently we had a couple of friends over for dinner where we served these appetizer bites. They were a huge hit and are so tasty!
We made them about 2-3 inches in diameter and got about 10-12 bites. We topped them with tzatziki sauce and a fresh tomato salsa on the others. They were the perfect vehicle for the toppings.

Both Quinoa and kale are superfoods and they are packed with nutrients. Our guest gobbled them up.

Salmon Black Bean Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

But R, it's winter. Why are you blogging a summer dish in winter? Several reasons:

1. This is what I was craving for lunch
2. It was in the 70's in SC
3. Lastly, most of the ingredients were canned or put up in summer!

Cannellini Bean “Meatballs” with Tomato Sauce

We are constantly on the look out for delicious vegetarian cuisine. While both The Other Williams and I love meat, we do try to have 1-3 vegetarian dinners a week. We like our vegetarian meals to make us feel like we're eating meat.

Texture plays a big part in making a good vegetarian dish great. We added mushrooms to the original recipe to give us a little firmer texture. The meatballs are outstanding and the red pepper really makes these balls pop.

Whenever we make meatballs of any kind we make a full batch and freeze the rest. These bean balls were no different. They froze beautifully. You could certainly freeze them with or without the tomato sauce.

Eggs Baked Over Sautéed Mushrooms, Leeks and Spinach

There is nothing better than eggs. They are almost a complete food, meaning they have just about all the essential nutrients that the body needs.

I have long day-dreamed of owning our own chickens and walking out to the coop to collect farm fresh eggs. I'm also pretty sure that I'm making it into some glamorous, simple job that is really hard work and very dirty. Maybe one day I'll find out for myself. For now, we purchase our delicious eggs from a local farm about 30 minutes up the road.

We cooked this recipe up for a delicious lunch/brunch but it could be used for any meal. It's vegetarian and gluten-free and it's truly delicious! I love that they call for leeks. Leeks are one of my favorite veggies this time of year. We put them in soups and meat pies all winter. When cooked properly, leeks are a beautiful thing.

Everything in this dish is savory and rich, from the butter to the egg yolks to the wine/sherry you really can't go wrong with this combination in my book.

Sweet Potato Hash Egg Bake

Sunday mornings are by far my favorite morning of the week. We spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon in our PJ's. We read and play online and just relax. Almost every Sunday morning I'm also treated to a fabulous brunch made by The Other Williams. Yes, I'm totally spoiled. Sometimes it's bacon and eggs; sometimes its homemade sausage gravy with biscuits but whatever it is it beats the pants off my weekday breakfast of oatmeal or egg white omelet.

This past Sunday we enjoyed a delicious Sweet Potato Hash Egg Bake that The Other Williams just made up on the spot. Isn't she awesome? This is a delicious, healthy breakfast or brunch recipe that is both filling and not too shabby on the calories.

We love a good runny yolk, but you could easily just cook the eggs a little longer. The yolk creates a delicious "sauce" to mix around with the sweet potatoes. Speaking of sweet potatoes, it's really the star of this dish. If you like sweet and savory together definitely give this one a try!

Canning: Turkey Veggie Soup

Turkeys are going on sale every where right now and not being one to miss a good deal we picked up one at the local supermarket last week. We don't normally cook turkey on Thanksgiving because we go over to my in-laws to eat but we like to grab at least one turkey during this time of year to throw in the freezer or to can.

We try to make several meals out of one turkey or chicken for the two of us. This recipe will make convenient grab and go lunches or a super fast dinner.

We paid around $8 for our turkey and here's what we did with it. The Other Williams cooked the turkey in the oven first. We got:

• 2 turkey breast to slice for several sandwiches
• 3 turkey and gravy dinners for 2. One we ate the other 2 went in the freezer
• 4 quarts of turkey veggie soup with turkey broth
• 2 quarts of yummy turkey broth (click here to see how we make chicken/turkey broth)

Butternut Squash Caprese

Fall is right around the corner and the weather here in SC has just been so amazing this week! What I love most about this salad is that it's kind of a "farewell to summer, hello fall" salad. The avocados and tomatoes from the summer garden and the sweet-warmness of the butternut squash is just the perfect expression of this time of year.
 

For such a simple salad, it sure does not disappoint on taste. Everything goes so well together and small mozzarella balls are just the perfect size. There isn't a fancy dressing for this because, simply, it doesn't need one. Just some good olive oil, salt and pepper allows the veggies to shine bright.

As we say goodbye to another summer, I'm looking forward to welcoming my favorite season. This salad was a perfect way to celebrate this in between time of the year!

Haricot Verts & Edamame with Shallot-Soy Vinaigrette

This tasty little side dish really could not be any easier. A while back I blogged about some of our favorite homemade dressings. One of our favorites of the favorites was this Shallot-Soy Vinaigrette. For this dish we just took some frozen hericot verts (or green beans) and some frozen edamame, tossed them with the dressing and tah-dah!

The vinaigrette is delicious as a sauce over chicken or fish also. It's thick and creamy and coats very well. You could add a protein of your choice (like chicken or tofu) to this meal and call it lunch or dinner also. Give it a shot and let us know how it turned out!

Summer Vegetable Crêpes

Did you know you could make your own crepes? What about that you can find them already made in the freezer section of most stores? Lastly, did you know that crepes are not just for dessert?

This delicious recipe uses summer veggies; which if you have a garden you might still be up to your eyeballs with, and a tangy sour cream sauce.  If you purchase the crepes, this is a super quick summer time vegetarian dinner.

We loved the flavors and fell in love with savory crepes! Try it and see why!

Tangy Tomato Garlic Soup

We're fortunate in that our neighbors rock! The people who live on either side of us are just awesome people and we all help each other out. One couple has two very fun dogs and we get to dog sit them when our neighbors go out of town.

Normally our neighbors will bring us a gift home from their trip as a thank you for watching the dogs, like playing with two awesome puppies isn't thanks enough! Recently they went to Athens, GA for a weekend and ate at a really cool restaurant called The Grit Restaurant! Like most of our friends, the neighbors knew a food related gift is always a safe bet with us so they purchased the restaurants cookbook and raved about the food there.

What's special about the cookbook and the restaurant is that it's vegetarian! All the food served and recipes in the cookbook are created for vegetarians by cooks Jessica Greene & Ted Hafer.

We did this tomato soup from the book recently and it was amazing. The apple cider vinegar really gives it a zing! Top with cheese, sour cream, or a buttery crouton and this recipe is golden!

Give this a try and if you're ever in Athens (we'll be taking a trip soon!), stop by The Grit and try their delicious vegetarian cuisine.

Kale Chickpea Pesto on Soba with Asparagus and Peas

We've been trying to incorporate a lot more vegetarian dishes into our diet and this one caught my eye while perusing the TasteSpotting website. At first I was like, "eww, kale..." Then as I looked at the recipe I realized the kale is in a pesto. So then I was all like, "Hmmm, maybe.."

Soba noodles are a staple in our house now. They are buckwheat noodles which means they are also Gluten-Free! Without even trying we scarfed down a vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free dinner!

 
And you know what?

It was awesome!! The textures and flavor were so awesome! We bulked up the veg a little and used a little of the pasta water to get the right consistency in the pesto.

The pesto is so creamy you might think there is cheese in it, but nope, it's the chickpeas and oil! We cut the recipe in half and still had leftover pesto. We're planning to use it in a sandwich for a picnic but it could be used in a variety of ways.

If you're looking for a superfood recipe that tastes amazing, this is it!

Tortellini Skewers with Pesto Dipping Sauce

Here is a really delicious and fast appetizer that you can make way before your guests arrive! I found this idea online and put my own spin on it but you can throw whatever you have on hand on these skewers.

If you're using them for an appetizer before a main course I would stick to 2 skewers per person. You can also use these on a buffet table, in which case I would allow more than 2 per person. These would be great for a kid's birthday, holiday party, or pot luck.

The skewers were so good and the combination of the tortellini, tomato, and pesto made it like a fun pasta salad on a stick. The only thing I would add is a spoon to the dip. That way people can spoon the pesto over the skewers instead of double dipping.

Creamy Garlic Pasta Salad

After spending the afternoon baking the Hummingbird cake with my good friend, RC. I then had to make dinner because The Other Williams was out of town for the weekend. I'm not normally the cook but this recipe was really so easy that even I could pull it off.

This pasta salad would be great for a picnic or camping trip also. It's good warm, room temp, or cold. I added what I had on hand so the veggies are totally interchangeable with whatever you prefer. We use the Creamy Garlic Dressing that I posted about previously and it gives the pasta great flavor and a light creamy sauce.

Salad Nicoise & Rainy Day Cooking

We had planned a bike ride but woke up to a cool southern rainy morning. So instead of hitting the road on our bikes we decided to go ahead and pre-prep some of our meals for the week. This saves us time during the week and makes getting dinner on the table a little faster.

So PJ’s and cooking it was. Whenever both of us are in the kitchen together I like to think that it’s like a well-directed and blocked play. We move as one, gracefully through our kitchen from one activity to the next. However, it’s not quite so graceful and it’s messy, very messy. We’re normally preparing 3-6 dishes or some aspect of those dishes. Cleaning up is my job and there is always a lot of clean up.

Had to share my hydrangeas! Aren't they gorgeous? These are in my dinning room and I love walking in and seeing them. Such a beautiful shade of blue.

For lunch we stopped the madness for a delicious salad that was supposed to be a picnic salad on the bike ride. Even without the ride this salad was amazing!

Last month I talked about Nice, France and it's close proximity to Italy in our Pan Bagnat Post. If you haven't read that one you should! I also talked about exploring this region a little more and this recipe happened to fit the bill very nicely!

Basically this is the French version of the chopped salad. Salad Nicoise (pronounced niˈswaz) has lots of yummy ingredients and is a lot of fun to eat because each bite is a little different. It's also very forgiving, we substituted and added things we had on hand. It was really delicious and worked even on the back porch while listening to rain.

After the cooking and cleaning madness, which really isn’t so bad, we relaxed on the back porch for the rest of the day. The Other Williams playing guitar and me editing photos and surfing pinterest. It never got above 70 degrees, which in the south in June, is pretty much unheard of. Even though a little work was involved overall it was a really relaxing day.

Eggs & Avocado on Toast

We're back from our trip to the amazing state of Colorado! We had such a great time exploring the mountains of the Denver/Boulder area and the weather was great.

Most of our time was spent in the mountains but we did make it to Longmont for a brewery stop! You can't go to Colorado and not do a brewery stop, at least we can't. We ate and drank at Oskar Blue's Home Made Liquids and Solids. We got a beer flight and some killer BBQ off of their smoker, named Midnight Toker! However this was one of the only meals we ate out for.

I made sure to book us a hotel with a kitchen so we started our day with this amazingly healthy and delicious breakfast! I got the idea from a photo I saw in a magazine, then just made it ours. It's looks complicated but it's sooooo not!

The fresh egg can either be fried or poached (as shown) we did it both ways and we preferred it fried. The trick is to not over cook the egg. The yoke makes this amazing sauce over the toast and it's really delicious. This is also a great way to start the day, you're getting protein from the egg, healthy fats from the avocado, and fiber and carbs from the whole wheat toast! Plus it takes 10-15 min to make!

Pan Bagnat

Here in G-Vegas, our downtown offers a free outdoor movie once a week throughout the month of May & Sept. It's a great excuse for a picnic in my opinion. We loaded up this amazing little sammie and a bottle of wine and met a friend out there for a moonlight movie.

This sandwich was a huge hit and one we'll definitely be repeating soon. The flavors are so good! We added some yummy sardines to ours but you could also add good quality can tuna. The dressing seeps into the bread and the affect is pretty delicious!

Pan Bagnat is a classic french tuna sandwich that means "wet bread". Very popular lunch time sandwich that is sold in Nice, France in the markets and cafe's. What's interesting about the town of Nice is that it is around 18 miles from Italy's border, which means there is some Italian mingling going on in their cuisine!

I'm hoping to try a few more recipes from Nice very soon. I really like the Italian/French fusion that this town is known for!

Chicken Chow Mein

There's nothing better than a quick stir-fry on a weekday night. This one is right up there with some of the best we've done. We used Ramen Noodles, yes they kind you used to eat in college, as the base in this dish. You don't need the seasoning packet so just toss it.

Stir-fry's are quick and easy to prepare. They might sound a little complicated but they really couldn't be any easier. Most can be prepared in 20 min or less and the stuff you throw in it is limitless!

This one is topped off with some chicken, crunchy and fresh veggies, and some sweet yet savory sauce. It's a beautiful creation. The lime wedges are important here. We like to serve some citrus with heavy stir-fry's or sauces. It really lightens up the dish and gives it a little something special! Give this quick recipe a try next time take-out is looking like a good idea!