Mango Ginger Tofu

Last night we just weren't in the mood for anything and on the verge of getting some take out. Luckily, Ryan dug out some potato and cheddar pierogies from the freezer to save us! He boiled them and then pan fried in a little bit of olive oil. They were served with salt and pepper. However, we totally didn't take a picture, so I decided to post on something we made awhile back. Although the pierogies were very good, I wish we had the ingredients for Mango Ginger Tofu on hand. Oh well...here's our story from another night...

Always the kitchen dilemma...what two things can I combine to make a killer dish? Well, since we had tofu and a mango, we thought it was the perfect time to try another VwaV recipe - Mango Ginger Tofu.

Ok, so we had a few more ingredients too like ginger, jalepeno pepper and a green pepper (instead of the red). We were able to use our new immersion blender to make the sauce, so Ryan was really excited about that.

We also pulled some asparagus out of the fridge and steamed it to serve alongside the Mango Ginger Tofu with brown rice. We'll definitely be making this again. FYI - we halved the recipe and came up with 5 small servings, so be forewarned when making it.

White Pizza and Chianti Salad

Happy Monday! We had a fantastic weekend starting with a wedding of our friends, Kyle and Jessica at the Conservatory. Everything worked out perfectly and it was great to spend time with friends and family.

Luckily the bulk of the snowstorm held off until Saturday, but still provided for difficult driving conditions on Sunday when we went to the Food & Wine Show. This was truly the event for us...we love food and we love wine! We agreed that we need to go to more events like this and the Living Green Expo where healthy gourmet foods are featured rather than fried foods on a stick. We came away with many, many food, beer, and wine samples along with a big list of wines to buy and 4 wine glasses free with our tickets! Not that we really needed more wine glasses, but still...

Below is a pizza we through together using TJ's herb crust, some mozzarella, Parmesan, and gorganzola, along with sliced green apples and spinach. We used a garlic and olive oil sauce. It was so good! I just love gorganzola cheese and green apples.



We served the pizza with a boston lettuce salad also made with gorganzola, green apples and caramelized walnuts. I made a chianti vinaigrette dressing using a wine that a friend brought over.

The salad was fantastic and great for leftovers. We really want to fill ourselves up with salad/veggies in addition to the pizza. We have such a habit of making pizza our only meal item which just isn't the healthiest decision.

Stuffed Mushroom Salad & Split Pea Soup

Little did we know when we first made these stuffed mushrooms that we'd have enough stuffing for many many takes on the dish. The mushrooms are marinated, then stuffed with a breadcrumb mixture, and baked in a dish of sherry and water. We also used the marinade to toss the spinach leaves in before topping them with the stuffed mushrooms. This is just such a light and yummy dish.

Recently, we made a Split Pea Soup recipe from Ina Garten - aka The Barefoot Contessa. All her recipes feed a huge crowd, so we have to remember to scale them down for our needs. This recipe is an easy one to put together because we usually have most of the ingredients on hand.

Today the sun is shining and I didn't need to use the heat in my car, so it's perfect to have the day off. Unfortunately, Ryan had to work, so he doesn't get to enjoy it as much.

Our friends are getting married soon, so we had a joint bachelor/bachelorette party on a party bus Saturday night. We had never been on a party bus before and were really nervous (I know, we're total dorks sometimes!). We had a BLAST though! It was great to reunite with Kyle and Jessica's friends and meet some new friends since we'll be spending a lot of time with everyone before the wedding on Friday.

Cooking Class & Welcome!

Welcome to the new format! I've wanted to make some changes for awhile and finally found a template that I like. I still want to make a few other minor changes, but that will take a little while. Let me know what you think of the new template :)

During my last post, I mentioned our work outing and it was a blast!! We went to Cooks of Crocus Hill and did a cooking class with all 40 people on my work team. We split into groups and tackled the following recipes:

Grilled Prawns with Chipotle Rub and Pineapple Salsa

Crab Cakes with Tomatillo Salsa

Bruschetta

We also made the following, but I guess I didn't get a picture:

Smoked Gouda wrapped in Proscuitto
Grilled Chili Rubbed Skirt Steak Fajitas

Here's what my team was responsible for:

Chiles Rellenos with Goat Cheese Cream Sauce

You can't quite tell from the picture, but they are stuffed with a mixture of mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and cream.

Let me tell you that it is crazy cooking for 40 people. Our dish was quite complicated and took a long time to make. The most time consuming was roasting all the peppers, peeling the skin off and de-seeding them.

We all had a blast! One of my co-workers started off the crazy-ness by starting huge fire in the kitchen, which was quickly put out, but exciting nonetheless. There was a bar set up on the side and we were allowed to drink margaritas and mojitos while snacking on chips and guacamole during our cooking sessions. There was also a lot of time for socializing with other teams, which was fun. I really couldn't imagine choosing a better activity!

Appetizers and Snacks

Yeah, I know, Superbowl is long over, but I'm here to talk about the appetizers I made anyway :)

Ryan and I kept it low-key this year. We wanted to actually watch the game and not have to worry about going anywhere. And, considering the high temp was in the NEGATIVES, I felt totally fine about staying at home.

We have been incredibly busy lately and tried to cram as much work in as possible before the game, totally forgetting about prepping the appetizers. So, here we are in our living room assembling everything on our coffee table while watching the game and commercials. Yes, we have DVR and can pause live TV, but it's tough to do during sports events.

Here are the potstickers we made. These are wonton wrappers stuffed with shredded kale, jicima, carrots, and green onions. We served them with soy sauce and thai chile sauce mixed together.

We also made more spanikopita. The whole Greek dinner was made recently for some of our friends so we still had some raw materials to make more spanikopita. We love these things! I typically use Athenos Sun-Dried Tomato feta cheese and realize that's the best. We used President's Greek Blend this time and it just wasn't as good. (Still very good though!)

The evening before the Superbowl, we went to a friend's house for game night and I brought the Chex Mix. As mentioned a few months back, this is Ryan's mom's recipe and it's a popular one. It's usually only made at Christmas and for camping, but I figured I'd throw together another batch for a casual get-together.

I am so excited to get through the workday as we have a super fun event planned for a work outing tonight. I work for a very large company and we have about 40 recruiters for our various divisions. We are all headed to Cooks of Crocus Hill for a cooking class/team bonding event! I hear there's going to be a competition, so we'll see how it goes. I'll take pictures!