Universal Meat/Veggie Filler(and quiche recipe)

This meat and veggie filler can be added to pasta sauce, quiche, or just popped in a bowl and eaten as you fancy. Essentially you've got a balanced mix of protein and vitamins that can be mass produced and placed in Tupperware to just add at your leisure to whatever you feel like.

Ingredients:
-1lb ground Turkey
-1 package sliced mushrooms
-Couple big hand fulls of Spinach
-1 medium onion diced
-3 Cloves of Garlic minced
-Large handful of fresh Sage
-S&P

1. In a non-stick skillet brown your turkey or at least make sure it is just cooked all the way through. Put the turkey in a bowl or other container off to the side while leaving what little bit of fat is left naturally in the pan to cook your veggies.
2. On medium high heat toss in your mushroom slices and brown those off. To help draw the water out of them go ahead and S&P now. They will shrink down pretty small but if you start smelling burning they have probably gone too far or your heat is too high.
3. Toss in your onions and garlic, you want to get the onions to be reasonably translucent but they don't have to be caramelized. If you find things sticking a lot go ahead and add about a tablespoon of olive oil but not too much more than that if necessary.
4. Re-add your ground turkey and let those flavors all meld for a minute or two.
5. Set your spinach one handful at a time on top of the mess of food in the pan.

This will need to wilt down. If you have a lid, set it on top so the spinach can steam for a minute or two, if not just gently fold it into the mixture until all of your spinach is mixed in.

6. Take your sage leaves and just tear them up into small pieces and toss them in. The tearing action rather than chopping really brings out the flavor better in my opinion.
7. All done! Divi up into your Gladware or saved plastic margarine tubs and add into whatever you want. Want chunky pasta sauce? Just toss in some Ragu or add to rice a roni for a one pot meal.

Quiche Time!

Egg pie. Eat for breakfast or any meal really. This is a good way to get rid of those eggs that have been in the fridge and just past their sell by date.

Ingredients:
- 3 cups of your meat/veggie filler
- 1/4 cup of milk
- 6 eggs
- Non-stick Cooking Spray
- Handful of shredded cheese(optional)
- Store bought pie crust thawed but still cooler than room temp(you will need a pie pan, you can get a disposable foil one in the baking isle of the supermarket)


1. Preheat oven to 350*F and warm up your filler in the microwave or on the stove.

2. Spritz your pan and then line the pie pan with uncooked crust.

3. Spoon in your filler and make sure its evenly spread in the pan but don't pack it down. If your going to add cheese, sprinkling it on top of the filling.

4. Crack your eggs with milk in a bowl and whip them up with a fork like you would getting scrambled eggs ready. Pour this on top of the filler.

5. Gently place your quiche pie into the oven and back for about 45 minutes.
6. Take out of the oven(make sure your eggs all look cooked) and let cool a couple of minutes. If you put cheese in your quiche it will get a little crispy on top but careful not to let it burn.

7. Slice up and enjoy!

Dinner for 2: Jasmine Green Tea Poached Chicken and Sides

Valentines Day is coming up and on a budget and with no kitchen skills it may be hard to come up with something classy to cook for that special someone. Lets try something that just plain sounds fancy but if you have a little bit of time to work on it, its hard to go wrong. On the menu we have Jasmine Green Tea poached chicken, fresh cooked green beans, and jasmine green tea rice. The kicker is that the broth you make for the chicken will get used in everything else for flavor. Check the game play at the end to get an overview of the time it will take.

Ingredients:
Broth-
- 4 tea bags or 1/3 cup of loose leaf Jasmine Green Tea
- About a 3 inch chunk of Ginger, skinned and sliced
- 1 tbs Soy Sauce
- 1 Elephant Clove or 5 regular Cloves of Garlic
- 8 cups of Water

Everything else-
-2 Chicken breasts
-1 handful per person of fresh green beans(not from a can)
-1 cup of rice(not instant)
-Lil Bit-o-Olive Oil


1. If your using frozen chicken breasts start to defrost them. If not lets work on the green beans. Rinse your beans and pinch off both ends of the green beans. Compost the ends but otherwise leave them mostly intact. Looks prettier to keep them whole.

2. Broth time, get 10 cups of water in a big pot and start getting that to a boil while you get the ginger, garlic, and tea ready.
-Carefully skin and slice your ginger. Keep a couple of big slices to put into your rice but otherwise toss the rest in the water pot.


-Slice your garlic, 1/3 of it will stay sliced to put into the rice. Take 1/3 of it and put it in the water and the last 3rd will get used in the green beans so put it aside somewhere.

-Get your tea ready, when the water starts to boil, put the tea bags/infuser into the water and turn heat waaaay down to a simmer.

-Add your soy sauce and let the tea steep for at least 10 minutes. Take out the tea bags when done steeping.

3. Rice time. In another pot just for the rice add one cup of rice and 2 cups of broth and bring that up to a boil.Toss in the last of your ginger and the garlic slices you had set aside earlier.
4. Boiling? Good turn the heat down so the water is just at a simmer. Pop a lid on and forget about the rice for 15 minutes.
5. Pull another half cup of broth and set aside. Get your big pot of broth to a boil and put your chicken in. Cover and let poach in the broth. Depending on the thickness of the chicken your going to want to leave the chicken in the broth for 7-9 minutes on the boil.

If you have pink in your chicken it is not safe to eat. Place it back in the broth for another minute or 2.

6. In a saute pan add a drizzle of olive oil and get that hot. Toss in your green beans and left over garlic. Make sure they don't burn. When the beans start getting bright green toss in your broth you set aside for a quick steam finish. Set on low while you finish your chicken.

7.Take out of the broth and slice all pretty(on a bias).

8. Plate it up! Rice on the plate, green beans, and sliced chicken breast.


PRE-Game:
-Thaw chicken
-Prep vegetables
-Make broth

Kick Off!- Boil broth for rice and chicken.
15 minutes to go- let rice sit
10 minutes left- get chicken in
7 minutes left- heat up saute pan for green beans
5 minutes left- toss green beans
3 minutes left- slice chicken
1 minute left- turn off all heat

Game Over-
-Plate up dinner
-Light candles
-Woo your significant other

Apple Carrot Stoup(Vegan)

Holy goblin shark Batman, it's Elephant Garlic!

Looking for a healthy tasty way to get some vitamins in rather than taking a pill every morning? This is packed full of, well you guessed it, apples and carrots. Just what your momma told you to eat, but this time you'll actually want to finish it off. It may sound like bunny food but this stoup is bomb. BTW stoup= thick soup/thin stew.

Ingredients:
- 4 cups diced carrots
- 2.5 cups diced apples
- 2 large shallots or 1 small onion
- 1 clove elephant garlic or 2 cloves regular garlic
- 2 14.5oz cans of vegetable stock
- 20-25 leaves of fresh sage(optional)
- 2 bay leaves(optional)
- Pinch each of S&P
- Wee bit of olive oil



1. Peel your apples, carrots, onion/shallots, and garlic and.... LETS CHOP! Dice(mini-cube) these as small as you can get without totally mincing them.


2. In your hot pot drizzle a little bit of olive oil and toss in your onions/shallots and garlic. Keep stirring! Turn the heat down to medium after about 2 minutes so you don't burn the food. You don't have to stir as often on a lower heat since the food isn't as likely to stick to the bottom of the pot. You are going to work on caramelizing the onions to bring out the sweetness of them. They should start looking more yellow/brown and start breaking down. ALSO this is when you would want to S&P your food, the salt draws the water out of the onions and helps them caramelize better.



3. Toss in your apples to let them get sweet while the heat draws the sugar out.

4. Work in the carrots and saute them with all the yummy flavors.

5. While these heat up in the pot slice up your sage. This works best if you chiffonade the leaves meaning you roll them up like taquito and slice horizontally so you get these lil spirals of sage. After chiffonading cut across the spirals for a smaller chop on the sage.

6. Pour in your vegetable stock and bring to a boil. QUICK TIP: Avoid being sick! Wash the top of your cans before using the can opener so you don't get dust and other nasty business in your food. Feel free to toss in your sage and a bay leaf at any time once the liquid is added.

7. Let the ingredients sit at a low boil for about 20 minutes. Oh hey! Theres some free time to either watch paint dry or do some dishes so you dont have to do them when you get a food coma after dinner.

8. Once your carrots are squishy take the pot off the heated burner and let the soup cool down for 5-10 minutes.

9. The soup is now safe to blend without the risk of it splashing back out of the blender and making you look like two face. Find the bay leaf and take it out. Do it. I'm not kidding. Your tongue will be sad if you forget this step.

10. Fill your blender about half way and puree the soup. Keep pureeing in this amount until all of the soup in the pot is done. If it is not the consistency you like go ahead and add some water little by little to thin it out but remember the more water you add the more flavor you lose. Feel free to put the puree back on the stove to heat it back up again(in the pot, not the blender).


11. Pour into bowl. Add toast.

12. Ingest soup. Brag to yo momma you ate veggies. Receive praise.

Sweet Potato and Imitation Crab Thai Style Curry Soup

Semi-homemade cooking is only cheating depending on who you are talking to, but this kind of cheating is just oooo sooo delicious. With easy chopping and prepackaged sauces this is just too tasty not to try.

Ingredients:
-1 package/half a pound of imitation crab or lobster meat
-1 large sweet potato
-1 small onion
-3 garlic cloves
-3 cups butternut squash soup
-1 can light coconut milk
-1/2 bottle kikkoman Thai red curry sauce
-small handful of cilantro for garnish



1. In the soup pot mix together the curry sauce, coconut milk, and butternut squash soup and set on high heat while you chop your veggies.

2. Skin and slice up the sweet potato, cube chop the onion, and chop your garlic and add it all to the pot.




3. Let lightly boil/highly simmer(look for bubbles but don't boil over) on medium high heat for 30 minutes. You want to be able to easily stab the sweet potato with a fork and the onions should be a little bit see-through.

4. Stir in your imitation shellfish of choice and let that simmer for 10-15 minutes.

5. Serve in your favorite soup bowl/mug/monkey skull and garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro.

Fishy Sauce Pasta

Looking to add some cheap lean protein into your diet? Try adding white fish to your pasta sauce for an easy healthy lunch/dinner/4am fix. The cool thing about white fish is the lack of "fishy" taste so depending on what you want to add it to it can have as much or as little flavor as you like. Either way I personally find it less scary than adding tofu to a dish for extra protein.

Ingredients:
-Lil bit-o-olive oil(about 3 tablespoons)
-1 fillet of white fish(tilapia, sole, halibut, whatevers cheap)
-1/4 cup chopped onions or shallots
-2 cloves of garlic(chopped)
-1/2 cup of pasta
-1/2 cup tomato pasta sauce(Prego, Clasico, dollar brand-o)



1. Get the water boiling, this should take the longest so start it up first.
2. While the water gets hot chop up your onions(I used shallot) and garlic and get them in a hot skillet with about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Make sure they don't burn but get squishy and aromatic. Your kitchen should smell like these two flavors.
3. Water boiling? Pop the pasta in, let it boil until it is as soft as you like it. I used whole grain wheat penne.
4. Cut your fillet up into about 2 or 3 inch wide chunks and place them in the pan with the onion and garlic. I used Dover Sole, there are different soles but this one was fresh in the seafood counter and cost me about $3.50.
5. After about a minute or two flip the fish and pour sauce on top. Do NOT stir, this will break up the fish and the point is to have nice chunks of fish in the sauce, not to have tuna casserole. Turn down to low heat. If you have a lid, cover it for about 3 minutes while the sauce gets hot and the fish simmers and finishes.


6. Drain pasta and place in dish for consuming.
7. When your fish is a little tough and flaky its safe to eat. If it is totally disintegrating you over cooked it. Still save to eat but not as pleasing. Gently pour your fishy sauce on top of your pasta and chow down.

Spices!
If you know your spice cabinet well this might be a yummy chance to throw in some paprika, Cajun seasoning, Italian seasoning, whatever your taste buds are craving. White fish is really great at absorbing the flavors but don't overdo it. Still have to let the flavors of the sauce work with the flavors you add.

Wine???
For the 21 and older folk you could use a splash of white wine in the pan with the fish before adding the sauce in. Let it cook off a little bit before adding the sauce or you may have a pretty potent lunch.

Super Bowl 46: Hummus(Vegan)

A simple dip with a bite. If you don't have a blender or processor you can smash it up with a big fork. Impress your friends. Practice your Hulk smash.


Ingredients:
-Can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas
-4 cloves of garlic(more or less to taste)
-Paprika
-Salt
-Pepper
-Olive Oil(light drizzle, if you want numbers lets start with 2 tablespoons and add a tablespoon until it gets to the dip thickness you like)
-Whatever you want to dip in it.(tortilla slices, pita chips, toasted bread...)

Equipment:
-Blender/Food Processor
OR
-Bowl and fork/large rock/hands(washed)

1. Chop your garlic, here's a quick lesson:
-cut off both tips of the garlic clove and then give it a good smash with either your hand or with something flat like the side of your knife. This smashing will loosen the skin so you can peel it off nicely. If you don't smash the clove you will sit there for the next god-awful unending minutes of your life picking at it until your nails bleed garlic juice.
-It helps to cut it into little slices in one direction, then little slices in the other direction to get even minced pieces, however feel free to reenact your favorite murder scene and have at it. As long as the pieces are tiny when they go into the mash your golden.
2. HULK SMASH, or pulse button. Blend or mash chickpeas from the can(drained, no one likes juicy drippy hummus)with olive oil and chopped garlic.
3. Your going to want to pretty well dust your mash with paprika(start with about a tablespoon and work up to taste).
4. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and mix up.
5. Scoop into a bowl and serve with anything that you can dip and scoop and munch with. I have cut up tortilla strips and leftover toast bread ends from the pizza bites recipe.