Marinated Mushrooms and Roasted Rutabaga with Smoked Paprika Sauce

June 19, 2015June 18, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Because I mostly eat a plant based diet, I don’t make many marinades. For some reason, I always forget about marinading vegetables and this makes me sad because I love the flavor a good marinade can impart. Plus marinades don’t have to be super complicated and can be made with the things you already have on hand.

Mushrooms were on sale at Jewel the past week so I decided it was time to make a good vegetable marinade. This one would also be really good with eggplant or maybe some jicama. Oooo, jicama would be tasty…. Anyway, this marinade pulls double duty in this recipe because it turns into the sauce at the end of the process. Good for you because it means less work for a super tasty dinner.

Make sure you leave enough time to marinate the mushrooms for at least 12 hours, preferably a full 24. That gives the dish the most intense flavor.

Marinated Mushrooms and Roasted Rutabaga with Smoked Paprika Sauce

For the marinade:

4-5 cups sliced mushrooms, I used cremini but use what you like
1 cup onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp cilantro, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients into a large container or zip lock bag and mix to combine. Put in the fridge to marinade for at least 12 hours, 24 hours if you can.

For the roasted rutabaga:

3 cups rutabaga, cubed (I used a medium-sized rutabaga)
olive oil
Italian seasonings
salt and pepper to taste
1-quart vegetable broth or water
2 tsp smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 400. Place cubed rutabaga onto a large baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with herbs and spices. Toss to coat and roast for 30 minutes rotating halfway through.
Once the rutabaga has finished roasting, heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add in the mushrooms and all the marinade and saute for 5-7 minutes.
Add in the rutabaga and mix to make sure they are covered with the marinade too. Cook for another minute. Pour in the vegetable broth or water and season with extra smoked paprika and salt and pepper.
Stir everything together and bring the broth to a boil. Once it’s boiling lower to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the sauce has thickened it’s ready.

At first glance, it looks like there are a lot of steps and a lot of ingredients, but half of them are for the marinaded mushrooms and that is the easiest part. This meal is good enough on its own but if you want an even heartier meal you can serve it over rice or pasta. You can also use this marinade on chicken or pork and use those instead of the mushrooms. Or use all of the meat and vegetables, it’s all fair game!

DIY Wednesday: Croutons and Breadcrumbs

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Today’s DIY is so easy, it barely counts as a “recipe”. I didn’t even think about it until I was trying to brainstorm ideas for this series because it’s something that I don’t even think about I just do it. You will never have to buy croutons or breadcrumbs again with this handy little trick up your sleeve.

The other great thing about this DIY is that you can customize it to your needs. Whether you need gluten-free, low-carb, egg or dairy free, you can make sure that you get what fits your lifestyle. I will say that making these things with homemade bread works a little better than store bought. Sometimes store bought bread has preservatives and conditioners that prevent the bread from drying out, which is what you need for croutons and bread crumbs. Make sure to read the ingredient list and only buy things that you are comfortable with eating.

One more tip, using older bread is better than using fresh bread. You can use fresh bread you just might have to adjust times on drying out in the oven.

Croutons and Breadcrumbs

bread, a few days old (use gluten-free bread if needed)
Italian seasonings, optional
salt and pepper, optional
olive oil, optional

For Croutons: Preheat oven to 200. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. If you want seasoned croutons, place the cubes into a bowl and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil and then sprinkle with seasonings. Mix until everything is covered. Spread the cubes out onto a large baking sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes, rotating every 10 minutes. The croutons are done when the bread is entirely dried out and crunchy.

For Breadcrumbs: Preheat oven to 200 and cut bread into bite size pieces. Place the chunks into a food processor or blender and pulse until bread is broken up into small crumbs. If you want seasoned breadcrumbs, add in those into the food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Spread out the crumbs onto a large baking sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes, shaking the pan every so often to prevent burning. Once the breadcrumbs are golden brown, they’re done.

Like I said, this is a really simple DIY and can be used anywhere you would use the store bought versions. The croutons can add a nice crunch to your salad and the breadcrumbs make a great binder for my lentil loaf or a nice crunchy topping for casseroles. Enjoy!

Where do you like to use croutons?

What’s Fun and What’s Not Fun

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 / ktbuchs87

This weekend can pretty much be broken down into what was fun and what was not fun. Luckily the fun stuff outweighed the not fun stuff and I enjoyed one of my very few free weekends this summer.

What was not fun:

Taking two cats on a 30-minute bus ride to the vet. It was time for Olaf to get his one-year wellness check-up and update his vaccinations and since Dot hadn’t been to the vet since before we moved to Chicago we decided to take her too. Bad choices all around. Since we don’t have our car we had to ride the bus to the vet. Neither cat was pleased with the loud bus and Olaf yowled as loud as possible for the first 15 or so minutes. Cue me freaking out that we’re bothering all the passengers and would get thrown off the bus. When we finally did get to the vet it was time for Dot to freak out. She would not sit on the table, would NOT let the vet tech take her temperature, hid under the chair in the room, and growled/hissed/scratched at everyone that came near her. The vet did manage to give her the vaccinations and Adam has a nice big scratch to prove show for it. Olaf was just fine and barely even noticed that he was getting an exam. As an extra special bonus, the bus ride back home was packed to the brim with Cubs fans because of course we chose a game day to go to the vet. One bright spot of this whole ordeal was that the bus driver on the way back was super nice to us and made sure that our cats were comfortable and safe. Overall, I never want to do that again and I’m pretty sure Dot is still angry at us for subjecting her to all of that.

Olaf has forgiven all and wants to be held. Now

Poor girl is pooped from her trauma

Trying to get good food pictures with minimal space and light. We have two windows in our apartment and because of the way our apartment is situated, we get very little natural light. This makes taking pictures for my blog slightly difficult. At first I thought it was impossible but I’ve gotten creative and learned how to make what I do have work for me. It does lead to some interesting positions though. Good thing I do yoga!

What was fun:

Going to the farmers market. We finally got to go to our favorite farmers market. Because we have been busy pretty much every weekend since the Green City Market opened up, we haven’t gotten a chance to go. This weekend though we finally made it and it was of course awesome. All the fresh fruit and vegetables make me happy and I could wander around the market all morning if I could. Adam was happy to get his first Donut Vault donut of the season and even more excited that they had his favorite, lemon poppyseed. It’s the only way I can get him to come with me!

He’s trying not to stuff the whole thing in his mouth

Purple asparagus. I’ve seen green asparagus and I’ve seen white asparagus, but I had never seen purple asparagus. While we were at the market we saw these and of course I had to get them because they were purple. Best. Decision. Ever. They were so delicious and simple to prepare. All I did was drizzle them with a little olive oil, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, squeeze a little lemon juice over it all and roast at 400 for 15 minutes. They were a little sweeter than green asparagus and I could have eaten like 5 more bunches. Too bad I discovered them at the end of asapargus season.

I’ll try any purple fruit/vegetable

Fruit crisp. The farmers market pretty much just led to all sorts of good things this weekend. This fruit crisp is proof that you should go to the market more often! I made Adam a strawberry rhubarb crisp with fruit we got from the market. He deemed it delicious and probably would have eaten the whole thing in one sitting. Which is quite the compliment.

Overall, it was a great weekend and I really loved having the free time to do some fun things and spend time with Adam. Here’s to another great week!

What did you do this weekend?

Cilantro-Garlic Pasta with Egg Sauce

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Sometimes when I am coming up with recipes I let things get a little out of hand. I blame The Flavor Bible and The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. These are my go-to cookbooks when I am creating recipes and they are awesome. You look up whatever ingredient you have and find flavors and other ingredients that go well with them. I get a little ingredient happy as I’m looking through the lists and soon I end up with a recipe that has 500 ingredients, not all of which are easy to find.

I have to remind myself to keep it simple. We often think simple recipes that have fewer ingredients can’t be as good as the fancy elaborate recipes. Fancy recipes have their place, but it’s the simple recipes that are the backbone of the food world.

I took it simple with this pasta dish. I was looking for a meal that was light and refreshing but also felt like comfort food. I also didn’t have much food on hand so I had to work with what I had. I remembered seeing a recipe for spaghetti carbonara and wanted to try and make a pasta using the same kind of a sauce. This in no way is spaghetti carbonara, but the egg sauce is made in the same way. With only four ingredients and less than 20 minutes to put together, this makes for a really easy weeknight meal that everyone will love.

Cilantro-Garlic Pasta with Egg Sauce

1 package of pasta like penne or rotini (I used Trader Joes brown rice pasta)
4 large cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
4 large eggs
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package drain and set aside. While pasta is cooking, mince the garlic and chop the cilantro and whisk the eggs.
Once the pasta is cooked and drained, in a medium saucepan, heat a little olive oil over medium high heat. Add the minced garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the pasta into the pan and mix to coat with olive oil and garlic.
Remove the pan from the heat. Pour in the eggs while constantly stirring the pasta. Make sure you keep stirring the pasta or else you will end up with scrambled eggs over pasta instead of a creamy sauce.
Once all the eggs have been whisked in, stir in chopped cilantro and season with salt and pepper.

That’s it! The egg sauce makes this dish feel super comforting and indulgent, but the cilantro helps brighten it up and make it not feel too heavy of a meal. This is also great poor college student food because there are no specialty ingredients and each serving is less than $3.00.

What is your favorite simple meal?

Happy Friday and have a great weekend everyone!

DIY Wednesday: Almond Milk

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 / ktbuchs87

There is no shortage of nut milk tutorials out there. There are so many that I almost thought about skipping it as part of my DIY series. I didn’t think that I could really add much to what you can already find. Then I remembered the first time that I made my own almond milk and I realized that I did have something to add.

I was really excited to make my own almond milk since I always buy it. I thought this would be perfect because I could save money and control all the things that went into my milk. I followed the recipe and all the instructions exactly and poured out a glass and eagerly took a big sip.

And promptly spit it back out.

Instead of the creamy delicious drink I was expecting it tasted like dirty water. Not the most appetizing thing. I tried to figure out what I did wrong. Maybe I used bad almonds? Did it matter that I used an old food processor instead of a fancy Vitamix? Did I not use good water?

I tried again, this time with brand new almonds, a fancy Vitamix, and cold filtered water. I still got dirty water almond milk. I tried tweaking every part of making the almond milk, using less water and more almonds, blending for a long time, anything I could think of to try and make the almond milk work. Then by accident I ran out of the cheesecloth I was using to strain the almond milk and had to use a regular mesh strainer. I thought I would have another bad batch, but I ended up with the creamy and delicious milk I had been looking for.

I tried it this way again and got the same result. By not completely straining out all the blended almond pieces, I was able to recreate the same taste and texture as store bought almond milk. Give this a try and start making your own milk instead of buying. Oh and P.S. you don’t need the fancy Vitamix…but it doesn’t hurt!

Here is my DIY almond milk with a slight tweak in technique.

DIY Almond Milk

You will need a food processor/blender and a regular mesh strainer. You can use a nut milk bag or cheesecloth, but you might end up with the dirty almond water.

1 cup raw almonds
3 cups filtered water
optional: 1 tsp vanilla, 3-4 pitted dates to make it sweeter (I like it plain)

Place soaked almonds into a blender or food processor and pulse a few times to break up the almonds a little.
Add in the 3 cups of water. Blend for a few minutes until the almonds are completely broken down. If you have a high powered blender this will only take a minute. Other blenders and food processors will need a little more time.
Place the mesh strainer over a large bowl and pour the milk over the strainer. You might need to help push the water through the strainer with a spatula. It’s ok if some of the almond pulp makes it through the strainer, in fact, that’s what you want!
Transfer the strained milk into a container and keep in the fridge for up to 4 days. Keep the pulp and dry it out to use for other baking needs.