Avocado Corn Quesadillas

This barely even counts as a recipe, but I love to make quesadillas - they are quick, easy, tasty and involve almost no clean-up. However just using cheese and some kind of meat gets boring quickly. The other day I had some frozen corn and an avocado on hand and I decided to make an avocado-corn quesadilla.

Ingredients:
about 1/3 cup of corn (I used frozen corn but I'm sure fresh would be even yummier)
1 avocado
handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 flour tortilla
olive oil

Directions:
Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Chop up avocado and prepare corn according to package directions. Cook the tortilla until it is brown and crispy on one side. Top half of it with mozzarella cheese. As cheese is starting to melt, add the avocado and corn on top of the cheese. Fold over the half without filling and serve!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

I love baked mac and cheese, and am always trying new recipes to find the perfect one. I think I finally may have found a winner in this one, which is apparently originally from Fannie Farmer.

1 8-oz package of macaroni (I actually used rigatoni, which makes it a bit more like Boston Market's mac and cheese which is my fave ever)
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
dash of salt
dash of pepper
2 cups chedder cheese, shredded (The recipe said to use good quality cheese - I used grocery store brand cheese, because that was what I had available. I can't even imagine how good it would be with really high quality cheese!)
1/2 cup buttered breadcrumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook and drain pasta according to package directions. While
pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Add the flour mixed with salt and pepper, whisk until blended. Pour milk and cream in slowly, stirring constantly. Bring to a boiling point and boil for 2 minutes stirring constantly. Turn heat down, simmer for 10 minutes stirring constantly. Add cheese, simmer until cheese melts. Add pasta to the saucepan and stir until coated. Transfer the pasta to a glass baking dish, top with buttered breadcrumbs. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes until top is golden brown. Delicious!!

Cheese Fondue

OhmsAndFarads had a lot of leftover cheese from an event last weekend, so the roommates decided to do fondue night. We were also going to do chocolate fondue, but ended up stuffing ourselves on cheese and did not get around to the chocolate. :P

We borrowed Elise's recipe for cheese fondue, with some extreme modifications.

Ingredients
Cheese Fondue
4 cups crumbled Gouda cheese
4 cups crumbled Colby jack
1 cup white wine
1 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp corn starch
1 Tbsp brandy
herbs to taste (we used nutmeg, oregano, and pepper)

Dippings
Anything you want! We used celery sticks, sliced cremini mushrooms, sliced bread (cut into squares), and cubed Granny Smiths. Kabob skewers sufficed for dipping utensils.

1. Bring the wine and lime juice to a slow simmer. Over low flame, slowly add the cheese, stirring to keep it from burning.
2. When the cheese has melted, mix the brandy and cornstarch in a small bowl and add until the cheese is thick enough for fondue. Add herbs/seasonings to taste.
3. Remove to fondue setup. We used a can of Sterno fuel gel and propped a pot high enough off it to not burn the cheese instead of going out and buying a fondue set.

Cheesy Pesto Chicken

If you're a pesto freak like me, you're going to love this easy, tasty recipe.

The steps are incredibly simple and the total prep time takes about 10 minutes.
Melt some butter in a bowl (I find about half a stick works well for a pound of chicken).
Dip slices of boneless, skinless chicken breast in the butter and then cover in bread crumbs.
Place the breaded chicken slices in a buttered casserole dish.
Spread pesto on top of the chicken pieces, and top with your favorite cheese (I like fresh mozzarella).



The chicken ready to go in the oven.










Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes for thinly sliced chicken, even more for thicker chicken.
Cut into chicken to make sure it's done before serving, because ovens vary, and its hard to tell from the outside appearance if its fully cooked.


See? Totally simple, and totally delicious! The butter and the pesto keep the chicken nice and moist, and the pesto, cheese, and breading combine to give a delicious flavor!
This dish is really easy to make in large quantities, so its great for having friends over, or if you live alone (like me) to make on the weekend and then eat throughout the week.




Add some vegetables and bread for a very quick, very complete meal!

Simple Bite-Sized Quiche

I had leftover pie crust from the Father's Day spread, so I decided to clean out some stuff in the fridge and make a quiche. It's really very simple. I just estimated everything, so I don't have exact measurements for the ingredients.

Time: 0:45
Serves: 8

Ingredients
Crust from mini cherry tart
1/4 lb ground meat (I used turkey)
equal volume chopped veggies (I used spinach, peas and carrots)
equal volume grated/chopped cheese (I used brie, mozzarella and smoked gouda)
salt, pepper to taste
1 egg
1.5 Tbsp milk

1. Season the meat and brown over medium heat. Stir in the veggies.
2. Preheat oven to 350F.
3. Place pie dough into mini muffin pan. Fill with meat/veggie mixture and cheese.
4. Lightly beat the egg with the milk. Season with salt and pepper. Divide evenly among the quiches.
5. Bake for 20min or until egg mixture is firm and quiche crust is done.

Serve warm.

Multi-cultural mac & cheese

I usually fail miserably when I try to make mac & cheese from scratch, but this time it turned out pretty decently. In the past week, I made a pizza pie and enchiladas. Both times when I went to the grocery store to purchase cheese for these recipes, I noticed that the preshredded cheeses were on sale, and cheaper than the blocks of cheese. Given that I spend way more time cooking (and hence EATING) than I spend working out, I was very excited. Plus this way, I got fancy blends of cheese! Asiago, mozarella, parmesean, cheddar, jack, etc etc etc. Yummy! Anyway, I ended up with leftover "Italian Blend" cheese and "Mexican Blend" cheese.


So I decided to make macaroni and cheese, and I thought I'd try Martha's mac & cheese. Because, after all, Martha is the last word in all things domestic. When I started cooking though, I didn't feel like going through the trouble of making a casserole (mainly because my only baking dish was occupied by the whole-wheat brownies in a previous post). Plus, I had been craving real food (and by that I mean Indian food--the type of stuff I grew up with), but I was too lazy to go to the store to buy vegetables, so I spiced up the original recipe a lot (a LOT--I needed to put in twice as much pasta as I had originally planned to dilute the sauce a little, but I STILL needed to eat it with milk--not that I'm complaining!). I was surprised, though, by how easy it was to make a cheese sauce. I guess this means I'm going to be eating a lot more mac&cheese and get a lot more fat in the future hehe.

INGREDIENTS
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup skim milk
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp oregano
1/2 tsp coriander-cumin powder
1 small green chili
1 1/2 c grated cheese
6 oz dry pasta (I used mini shells)
1/2 c frozen peas (to appease my mom haha)

DIRECTIONS
Heat the milk in the microwave for 1-1/2 minutes (until warm). Melt the butter in a pot (big enough to hold all the cooked pasta and cheese and milk) over medium heat. When the butter bubbles, add the flour. Cook, whisking, for 1 minute.

While whisking, slowly pour in the warm milk. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick, about 10-12 minutes. Be sure it keep stirring to keep the mixture for burning at the bottom!

Remove the pan from heat. Stir in the spices, 1 cup of the cheese, and the peas. Set aside.

While making the cheese sauce, cook pasta fully to whatever done-ness desired. Drain well. Stir pasta into the cheese sauce.

To serve, scoop individual portions onto plates or--my preferred serving dish--bowls, and top with the remaining 1/2 c cheese. Yields ~3-4 servings.