Phew! It’s been a while and I have loads of recipes to share with you. And a lot to keep to myself (read: “Coxy’s Kitchen Disasters.”)

I hope ALL my loyal readers (Dad?) enjoyed your holidays and are set for the new year. Or, are at least recovering from overdoing it in every way.

We’ve had a wild month and if it was hectic, we brought it on ourselves. We had a Christmas party over here that was loads of fun. Unfortunately, there are no pix as our hands were literally full the whole time. Luckily Bea had just started walking so every so often I’d see the crowds part and a little 2 footer stagger on through like a tiny drunk looking for her Mama (her nickname for George.)

The party presented me the opportunity to live a lifelong dream of making decorated/frosted sugar cookies for Christmas. Until around 12:45AM the night before the party, as I stood up squeezing Royal Icing onto each of the three dozen cookies when I started hating the cookies. Those cookies were privy to lots of F bombs.

Anyway, I’m a little bummed we didn’t get any pictures as we saw a lot of friends we haven’t seen lately – some in over a year. We sure did appreciate them coming by to see us!

Around the middle of the month, Patsy arrived and we couldn’t have been more thrilled! Having Nana here as another set of ears to listen to the 3 year old soap operas going on between a green alligator finger puppet (named “Toy Store”) and his sister, a golden lab Calico Critter named “Bella” was a HUGE relief for another set of ears. (Mine.)

Maddie finally understood the tree decorating. I still don’t really understand it but I’m glad she does.

And Bea helped too.

Between our party and Christmas, we were invited to a 3 year old “Under the Sea” birthday party. Stay tuned – that will be a separate posting for those of you interested. Amazing work by a talented & extremely pregnant Swedish woman.

Enough about family reminiscing – let me insert this yummy Carmelized Mushroom recipe for you before you’ve fallen asleep for the night!

G doesn’t “do” fungus but Maddie & I do. Since he was working late every night, we threw all mushroom caution to the wind!

This recipe marks my first attempt to use egg replacer. I picked it up at The CO-OP in Santa Monica. It comes in a groovy, totally Brady Bunch looking box.

See?

You can probably get egg replacer at any health food store or maybe even Whole Foods? The kind I got comes in powder form.

Ok. Let’s make the biscuits first!

Here’s what you need for those:

BISCUIT INGREDIENTS
2.5 c all purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 – 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 c chopped fresh chives
3/4 c unsalted butter, cold & cubed
1 large egg (I used egg replacer!)
3/4 c buttermilk, cold

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, black papper & chives.

I spent so much time buying, chopping and photographing my chives…

that I forgot to add them until the end. It worked out fine though.

2. Add butter to dry ingredients. Just look at it!

3. Use your fingers or a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg replacer & buttermilk.

5. Make a small well in the center of the fat and flour mixture.

6. Add the buttermilk mixture.

Use a fork to combine the wet & dry ingredients.

7. Be sure to moisten all the flour bits with the liquid. Your dough will be “shaggy.” No problem!

8. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface & kneed together until well combined. Use a rolling pin or your hands to make your dough about 1.5 inches thick.

9. Use a round 1.5 inch biscuit cutter to cut the biscuits. I didn’t because I didn’t have one. But I did use a flower cookie cutter. Because I did have one. Doesn’t my biscuit look cute?

Place biscuits on a cookie sheet, wrap with plastic & refrigerate until ready to bake.

Here’s what you need for the mushroom mixture:

MUSHROOM MIXTURE INGREDIENTS:
2 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP unsalted butter
1 pound small cremini mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite size chunks
1 medium purple onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 teaspoon dried thyme
2 medium carrots, sliced thin
2 cups diced sweet potatoes (small!)
1.5 cups frozen peas
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups vegetable or mushroom broth (Mushroom broth? They really have that?)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
dash of balsamic vinegar (optional)

1. If you plan to make the whole kit n caboodle, then set the oven to 375 right now!

2. Melt butter into olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Add mushrooms in a single layer in the pan and allow to cook, without disturbing, for about 4 minutes. Add a hearty pinch of salt & black pepper. Toss the mushrooms every once in a while until softened and golden brown.

You’re probably looking at this picture and thinking to yourself, “That doesn’t look like a single layer of mushrooms to me.” I need to use a bigger saucepan next time. So sue me!

Remove mushrooms from pan.

3. Add more olive oil and sautee onions about 4-5 minutes, until soft & translucent.

4. Add garlic & cook for another minute.

5. Add carrots & sweet potatoes and sauté for 5-7 minutes. I actually did 10-12 minutes because I worried I hadn’t chopped them small enough.

6. Add thyme. Return mushrooms to the pan. Turn heat to low and add flour. Toss. Slowly add broth, stirring constantly until thickened. Add peas.

7. Add salt & pepper to taste. Stir in Worchestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Pour mushroom mixture into an 8×8 inch pan. Or whatever you have that comes close. I think I used an 8×11 glass casserole baking dish. Place the biscuits on top of the mushroom mixture.

8. Bake for 20-35 minutes until biscuits are golden brown.

YUM!

These will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days and they get better!

From Joy the Baker.

Please excuse the funkiness of the printable but that’s the only way to insert two recipes on one posting according to my technological prowess.

I was going to go into more about the neighbor who “adopted our cat” and renamed him “Maxwell” despite him sleeping here every night but I think we’re all tired so I’ll sign out here.

Tomorrow check back for the Christmas pix and, more important, the recipe for the EASIEST NO-KNEAD (no need to knead?) rustic bread you’ve ever (or never) made in your life!! If you’ve never made bread before, you only need FOUR ingredients, all of which can be purchased at Ralph’s. So definitely check back tomorrow for that posting! And then call Maddie & ask if she can take a nap tomorrow so I can actually write it. Thank you!

why don’t I put the oven on to 375 for an hour or so?

What was I thinking? My friend posted a recipe for quinoa stuffed squash on my Facebook wall (DANG another plug for Zuckerberg! You haven’t won YET, Zuckerberg!) and, having only multi-colored peppers (on sale at Ralph’s for $1 each!) I decided to stuff some peppers. All I thought about was the lightness, the sweet & the crunch. Not the HEAT.

But I digress… these came out AWESOME!!
After being inspired by my friend’s squash version, I did use a recipe from Christie’s Corner to which I made some changes.

Here’s what you need:

and this:

(I always seem to forget at least one ingredient in the ingredients picture!)

First, pre-heat oven to 375.

INGREDIENTS
2 tbsp oil (canola, olive – whatever you have!)
1 onion (finely chopped)
1-2 stalks celery (finely chopped)
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans, rinsed & drained
1 cup frozen or 2 ears fresh corn (if fresh, cut off cob)
1/2 cup grated carrots (or whatever you can bear grating!)
3/4 c quinoa
1.5 c vegetable broth
1 c grated cheese (swiss/gruyere if you can find it!)

Heat oil in sauce pan on medium-high heat.

Add chopped onions/celery.

Watch 2 year old rearrange silverware drawer with sticky hands.

When onions & celery are soft & translucent, add spices. It will get pasty & dry-ish so have your can of tomatoes ready to dump in! The original recipe said to use a 28 oz can but I didn’t read the directions so I used a 14.5 or whatever those smaller cans are. Do whatever you want! If you go for more tomatoes, it says to drain them first but I wouldn’t.

NOTE: Do NOT cut your corn off the cob onto a FLAT PLATE unless you feel like washing the kitchen floor afterwards.

Who is holding that corn up?

Add black beans, carrots, corn & 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa.

Now, stir it and if it seems to “dry” i.e. there’s no way in $#@@ that quinoa is going to cook (for those who don’t cook quinoa it is a grain that needs water the way rice does so think about that kind of liquid), add 1.5 cups of veggie broth. If yours has a lot of liquid, hold off on the broth! Mine needed liquid so I added the broth.

If you’ve never cooked quinoa, how do you know when it’s done? Easy – it will have these tiny white “threads” coming out of each grain. You can also taste it and I recommend you do taste it! It should have a pleasing crunchiness. Not to be confused with a bad crunchiness, signaling the need for longer cooking time. The threads look like this:

Now, prep your peppers. The author of Christie’s Corner cuts her peppers sideways so they won’t fall over but I just can’t make that radical move. Instead, I cut just the tips off the bottoms of the peppers to make them flat. See, like this?

Don’t go crazy with this! You don’t want holes in the bottom or your filling will come out. But now that I think about it, who cares? It’ll be good and the filling won’t come out b/c it’s standing up anyway.
See how it stands up:

I didn’t tell you this but you should’ve cut the tops off the peppers first. Don’t cut too close to the stem or it’ll fall out of that pretty ring. Or do. It really doesn’t matter!

Scoop out the seeds/innards & throw into the compost! (If you have a yard & want to start composting – let me know!)

Hold onto the cute little tops!

Now add 1 c grated cheese. I can’t recommend the swiss/gruyere combination cheese enough. The gruyere has so much flavor that you don’t need that much which keeps the dish healthier and the swiss keeps it from being too rich/overpowering. Add salt & pepper to taste & stir really well.

EXTRA:
I tasted the filling and didn’t find it spicy enough for my tastebuds but it was plenty spicy for the little monsters. So I separated about 1/3 of the filling into a bowl which I saved for the monsters. To the other 2/3rds (which I intended to stuff the peppers with) I added chopped jar jalapenos. Obviously you can add any kind of heat you like/have! Fresh is great but I am addicted to these hot jalapenos in a jar that I get at Ralph’s. Mezzetta Deli-Sliced HOT Jalapenos. Mmmmmmm…

Now stuff those peppers & put the lids on.

Stand them upright in a baking dish that has been sprayed with cooking oil. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake about 25 minutes. Take out of oven, remove lids & add grated cheese to tops of peppers, put back in for 10-15 minutes.

Take out & serve. These would be good with some crusty bread. Maddie ate hers with a spoon with the pepper rings as a side. YUM I can’t believe how much flavor these have and they are a very light yet satisfying dish for the summer.

As a main course – probably 2 peppers per adult. I had a LOT of extra filling but it’s really good the next day too! Enjoy and please comment on my blog if you make this recipe especially if you altered the recipe at all. Thank you!

Garsh! I’m going crazy with the summer recipes but that’s because I wasn’t eating the healthiest last week.

I call this dish “One-armed” because I had use of only one arm whilst making most of this, what seemed a simple dish. What was my other arm doing, you ask? My other arm was both holding and struggling with/battling, and trying to keep safe a very cranky 10 month old with 4 teeth coming in all on the same day.

Hey, wouldn’t that be a fun “Top Chef” challenge?

“You have 30 minutes to make a pasta dish involving chopped vegetables with a squirming 22 lb baby in one arm. You lose if the baby burns or cuts herself!”

I think I’ll suggest it to the folks at Bravo.

Shall we get down to it? I found this recipe on Vegan Yum Yum. Don’t worry if you’re biased against vegan food – this is so yummy (or should I say Yum Yum Yummy?) and simple that everyone will like it.

First, you need these things:

This recipe makes enough for 4 people. The original recipe was for 1 serving so I adjusted the amounts.
INGREDIENTS:
- dry fettucini noodles (1 box)
- 1 head broccoli OR a 12 oz bag florets
- 1 c sun dried tomatoes in oil
- crushed red pepper flakes
- salt to taste
- 1/2 of a lemon
- olive oil

Get your water boiling in a pot for the pasta.

Chop your broccoli florets pretty small. The original recipe says to chop them the size of a quarter but since they aren’t in the shape of a quarter and I am spatially challenged I just cut them “SMALL.”

Slice tomatoes unless yours are already sliced as mine were. (Thanks, Trader Joe’s!) These are oily buggers so I’m glad I didn’t have to mess with them.

Oh, by the way, I barely took any pictures b/c of the one arm thing. That and my battery keeps falling out of the camera.

Throw pasta into boiling water. Should take about 10-12 minutes. Salt the water to your liking.

When pasta has about 6 minutes remaining, heat wok or skillet to medium high heat. Pour in 2 tablespoons olive oil. When oil is heated, add broccoli florets. Stir constantly to coat florets with oil. Add oil if necessary. After about 2 minutes, add tomatoes and crushed red pepper to your liking. Cook another 2 minutes, stirring.

Drain pasta & add pasta to skillet/wok. Sprinkle juice from half a lemon and combine. Taste and add more crushed pepper, fresh ground black pepper or lemon juice as desired!

Think olive green & sunset yellow kitchen accents. Think bumpy blue water glasses. Think Betty Crocker Cookbook. Imagine all this and you can almost taste the 1950′s wholesome deliciousness. Plus, people old & new tend to like it including one of the pickiest 2 year olds you ever met.

I got this recipe from my brother-in-law, John, and I made a few changes to it mostly because I either forgot to buy an ingredient (when I went to Ralph’s ONLY to buy that ingredient), or because my husband “doesn’t eat fungus” or because I was trying to express my Santa Monica-ness by substituting wheat spaghetti for regular spaghetti. Don’t hate me for it. At least it was Ralph’s brand wheat spaghetti.

You’ll need these:

Oh yeah, and these too:

And, this (can be ground hamburger/turkey/tofu or you can omit this entirely):

Ingredients:
1 small onion chopped
1 green pepper chopped
1 lb ground meat/tofu
1 lb spaghetti – drained (undercook slightly) **I break it in half so my toddler doesn’t have to struggle with it later & so I don’t have to clean the floors after dinner.**
1 7oz jar chopped olives – green w/pimentos (trust me on this)
2 14.5oz cans diced tomatoes (I used the ones with jalapenos for a kick)
1 can tomato paste
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
3/4 lb mild cheese (mozzarella or Mexican blend – really whatever is on hand!)
**If you like it spicy – add crushed red pepper!**

In a large saucepan, saute the onion & green pepper in oil.

When they are soft/translucent, add the ground meat if you go that route.

When meat is cooked through, add spices & Worcestershire sauce. Stir. Add tomatoes, paste, olives.

In a casserole/lasagna dish (large one) ladle thin layer of sauce to coat bottom. Wait, that looks like a THICK layer. Don’t do yours as thick. Do as I say, not as I do.

Spread half the cooked/drained spaghetti evenly.

Top with half the remaining sauce. Cover with half the cheese. Now spread the rest of the spaghetti evenly, topped by the rest of the sauce & the rest of the cheese on top.

Cover with aluminum foil & put in fridge over night. This has to SIT. You think I’m kidding? The first time I made this I didn’t believe it either and baked & served it the same night. It wasn’t as good. But you can make your own decision! My advice: leave it over night (is that one or two words?) – then bake at 350 for 45 mins. the next night for dinner. Remember to take the foil off after 30 mins. You can also sprinkle some fresh parmesan on at that time!

Enjoy!