Balsamic Veggie Stir Fry.

Sanders wasn’t a big fan but…I was.

After discovering the magnificence that is New York street vendors, I decided to break out of our Mexican/Italian rut and get a little exotic. Here I will operationally define “exotic” as “anything that is not pasta or tacos.”

So, I basically sauteed onions, red peppers, and eggplant in oil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. After making some brown rice (which takes forever, by the way) I added it to the sautee on low heat along with soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. I didn’t put as much vinegar as soy sauce, but the balsamic was still the dominant flavor. Finally, after roasting corn in the oven, I chopped it off the cob and added it at the very end to keep its original flavor and consistency. The eggplant soaked up much of the juices, which gave them a very salty kick, but the rice maintained a sweeter flavor (perhaps from the balsamic?) that balanced it out. The corn was by far the best part, though. Fresh, crunchy, sweet…in all honesty, we would have been happy with two corn on the cobs for dinner.

That would have saved us a lot of time…

Banana Nut Sheet Cake.

You know you wanna piece a dat. 

No lies, this has been one of the greatest things we’ve ever made. No lies. We got the recipe from a jank-looking website and were kind of nervous but decided to try it out anyway, improvising along the way. We used a little less butter, doubled the banana, added cinnamon, and chopped up some salted peanuts to bake on top—GENIUS. So moist and gooey, so banana-y, but hearty and a little bit savory from the nuts. We’ve been eating heaping pieces for breakfast like banana bread and covering it in Nutella for dessert.

We just really know how to work a banana. If you know what I mean. 

Texas Pasta Bake.

I don’t normally attribute anything good to Texas, but it’s the toast that made this so tasty.

Sanders and I are getting rather creative nowadays. Given the necessity to buy cheap, we’ve been sentenced to days and days (and days) of rice, beans, pasta, and tomato sauce. So, we decided to make a pasta bake; mini-shells, doctored pasta sauce with sauteed vegetables, mozzarella cheese, and the kicker—crispy Texas toast on top. 

In the end, we needed a little more sauce to drown out the sound of our personal trainers yelling at us for so many carbs, but the buttery, crunchy, garlicky, salty, savory (need…more…adjectives…) taste of the toast made it worth every artery-clogging bite.

Try it:

1. Make some pasta (preferably a small, firm type like macaroni or shells as opposed to spaghetti or fetuccini).

2. Bake a few pieces of Texas toast (follow instructions on box) and chop them up while they’re crispy. Keep the oven on.

2. Drown the pasta in pasta sauce (more than normal—baking it will make the pasta suck up the liquid and leave it drier than you’d expect).

3. Put the pasta in a baking dish and cover with mozzarella cheese.

4. Sprinkle the Texas toast on top.

5. Bake the whole thing. No need to put it in for too long, just enough for the cheese to ooze.

Happy eating!

Super Bowl Feast.

GIANTS BEBE. (Yes, we are bandwaggoners.)

The ever humble Sanders will not give herself enough credit to say that this chili/cookie combo was the boooooooooomb. Coming soon with the recipe, this chili was made with black and garbanzo beans, crushed tomatoes, salsa, rice, sauteed onions, peppers, and garlic, and lots of spices. It sat in the crock pot for about 6 hours and made a perfectly hearty dip/chili (dili?) to eat with chips. Not only that, but looking back at what we put in it, it’s kind of healthy! We impress ourselves sometimes.

We can’t get super excited though, considering our dessert was almost pure butter. Basically a sugar cookie pinwheel with Nutella in the middle, these were dense but also moist. They crumbled—that fine crumble that makes you reach for milk, but not before you stuff another piece in your mouth. Don’t judge me, you know you’ve done it too…

I was but a sous chef in this endeavor, but I’m taking half credit by putting it on the blog. Sanders rocked the house. The end.

Pancake Taco?

Sanders’ great idea. This was originally intended to be eaten in taco form, but we are simply too refined here…*cough*

In all reality this was an unexpectedly wonderful combination of flavors:

Pancakes (Vanilla, cinnamon, oats, normal pancake shiz)
Scrambled eggs (Basil, garlic powder, salt, pepper)
Red bell peppers and onions (Thyme, oil)
Topped with mexican blend cheese and drizzled honey (forgot syrup…)

I know what you’re thinking: this is a stretch. That’s what we were thinking too, hunched over the stove with every burner aflame, stirring and tossing and flipping furiously to ensure each element finished at the same time…but there was no turning back. With all this hype, we’re gonna eat it. And even if we don’t like it, damn it, we’re gonna like it.

Turns out it was a beautiful disaster. The basil and thyme gave the eggs and vegetables a slightly sweet, natural taste, which coincided perfectly with the earthy heartiness of the oats and cinnamon in the pancakes. The best part, though, was that the honey was pure sweet and the cheese was pure savory…yet somehow these two flavors conceded rather than clashed. 

So, we ate the reconciled flavor pairing and started the day off right. I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to pull this off again, but at least we’ll always have it in our dreams…….