Week 31: Broiling

Let me start out by saying it is wayyy too hot here in Phoenix to keep the oven on 400+ long enough to broil anything even remotely thick or dense.  That's why, for this week's broiling challenge, I chose to do broiled tomatoes.

I sliced the tomatoes in half, then removed the tough center.  The resulting hole was stuffed with goat cheese and smothered with pesto.  I sprinkled on a heavy coating of bread crumbs and broiled the tomatoes in the oven for around 6 minutes.  They were delicious, and grandma and I ate them for lunch next to last night's veggie pasta.  

Week 30: Burgers

For some reason I'm still a week behind with these entries! I'm doing plenty of cooking, just not finding the time to post here.  Last week's challenge (ending July 29th) was burgers.  I've been really impressed with the Real Simple cookbook I got from the library a few weeks ago, so I pulled a delicious looking recipe from there.

I present to you grass fed beef chuck burgers with smoked gouda cheese and a fennel and onion relish:

I thought it was a little lacking in flavor, and my Aunt Maggie blames it for my Grandma's recent loss of appetite.  However, the relish and gouda were tasty, and put together with the potato salad it made for a nice meal.

Week 29: Inspired by a color

This is not one of my proudest posts, which might explain why I am so slow in updating it.  Our challenge was to do a dish "inspired by a color" and had grand aspirations of doing an entirely purple plate with eggplant and red cabbage followed by wine poached pears for dessert.

Instead, I made shrimp pot pie, and it was "sort of white, sort of green" for my color inspiration.  Luckily, it was delicious.  The puffed pastry crust was a little disappointing, but the fennel, leek, and shrimp filling definitely made up for it.

Next week's challenge is burgers, and I'll try to be a little more impressive!

Week 28: Citrus

For our citrus challenge, I did a spicy orange glazed chicken with lemon flavored green beans and plain corn muffins.  The chicken was roasted in the oven and brushed liberally with a sauce of orange marmalade mixed with hot garlic chili sauce.  It was delicious, and even grandma requested extra sauce!

Week 27: BBQ

For this week's assignment of BBQ, it didn't occur to me that I should actually try to use the barbecue grill.  Instead, I made a dish that captures the spirit of BBQ using the slow cooker.  

This was our "5th of July" feast and it consisted of "BBQ" pulled pork sandwiches, baked maple beans, and a spinach pasta salad.

It was absolutely delicious.  The pork spends almost 5 hours in the slow cooker before being shredded and put in a hot oven to crisp up a little.  The pasta salad is one of my favorites, using farfalle pasta and two entire bags of spinach.

Dessert was outside the scope of the challenge, but it was a big hit, so I'll include it here.  I made baked apple dumplings from a recipe I found online.  The secret ingredient is a little bit of Mountain Dew!

 

    

       

They were just right fresh out of oven with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream! 

      

Week 26: Pizza

Another challenge I was looking forward to: Pizza week! I made a pretty tasty pizza that replaces traditional tomato sauce with an avocado spread and topped it with sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, and monterey jack cheese.

I even used a pizza stone for the first time, which really did seem to help crisp up the crust.  Overall this was pretty tasty, next time I'll add steak or chicken.

Week 25: Regional Cuisine

One week too late for my trip home to Alaska we had a "Regional Cooking" themed week. Since I was half traveling and half packing for a big move, I decided to cheat and submit my Grandpa's smoked salmon as my dish.  Last time I was in Alaska in the summer I took several photos of the fish smoking process, and I submitted them as a mini photo journal for this week's challenge.  I also did brought some fresh smoked salmon home, which Grandma and I will definitely be enjoying during cocktail hour!