Greek Salad

i do not love salad, but i realize they are important. mostly i don't like lettuce or dressing, which in a lot of cases is 95% of a salad. it's also nice to take a break from "cooking" every once in a while. you know, just put it in a bowl and eat it.

but i do love greek salad. fits the build in being light on the dressing and high on the veggies. and it is one of the few salads at restaurants that typically doesn't have meat in it. here is what is in my greek salad: lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, greek olives, feta cheese. my dressing is 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and salt and pepper, which i modified from here. that recipe really looks good too, but it goes against the whole "salad is good for not cooking" idea.

Linguine with Tomatoes and Tofu

this fresh recipe was a nice light pasta that ryan and i had for dinner. it was a little bland, but that is probably because my basil turned brown since i used it last so i didn't have a lot left over. i really need to start growing my own herbs.

Vegetable Enchiladas

searching for new vegetable enchilada recipe since the modified standby didn't get full marks. this recipe that i made tonight was really delicious. changes i made that worked: didn't put the water in the enchilada sauce, wilted fresh spinach in a frying pan instead of thawing out frozen spinach.

but i do have a problem with it. it used at least 15 unique cooking accessories. sauce pan, frying pan, mixing bowl, spatula, grater, measuring cup sand spoons, baking dish, whisker, etc. that may sound normal to you, but when you don't have a dishwasher, that is a lot of dishes. basically as much time doing dishes as cooking. not cool. which also resulted in decreased desire to make side dishes (rice), so this is all you get.

verdict. i would definitely make this again. if i had a dishwasher.

Pasta Pomodoro

well, i thought one lb. of pasta sounded like a lot, so i only made half of it. but i made all the sauce. so i put them together and then there was too much sauce. that is what i did wrong. other than that, it was great! here's the recipe, courtesy of friend sarah, who makes it way better than i do.

Cobb Salad

ryan is heading into 1L finals. last semester ryan made a lot of emergency burger king runs during finals so i am trying my best to not punish his diet or mine because he is busy. i am trying to find meals where i can cook them and eat them at a normal hour, and then at whatever hour ryan gets home, he can eat it straight out of the fridge or with a little reheating.

for dinner today i made cobb salad. iceburg lettuce and spinach, with a tomato, red onion, avocado, cheddar cheese, and a boiled egg.

Spinach and Potato Frittata

i love a low expectation meal with a happy ending. with the meager ingredients i had on hand today i managed to locate a pretty good recipe. i don't really know what qualifies you to be a frittata, it seemed like the same thing as a quiche. but maybe less egg and no crust? idk. but you could put all sorts of other things in this to make it more interesting like tomatoes or broccoli. or top it with cholula sauce if you are ryan. i also only used 3 eggs instead of 6 because it was what i had, i think it would have been too egg tasting with 6. at the end i also baked it for 10 minutes at 350 to get it a little crispy on top.

Southwestern Baked Rice

normally i am not interested in new recipes unless there is a picture, but these ingredients did not sound risky. they sounded great. and if you look like my picture you will know why the recipe did not have a picture. because it looks like slop. but it is some tasty slop. i cooked up some tofu and some spinach with vinegrette on the side.

Zucchini Fettuccine

i don't actually know what ryan had for dinner tonight, he is still at school. which is why i cooked a girly meal and watched biggest loser and ate frosting out of the can. i have a hard time cooking meals when i am by myself and usually resort to a pbj or something equally unsatisfying. i want to be better.

anyway, i got this recipe from martha stewart everyday food magazine which has a lot of great simple recipes that are mostly geared around meat, but usually one or two vegetarian recipes per issue. for this recipe, you top sliced zucchini with olive oil and salt and pepper and cook at 450 for 15 minutes. cook fettuccine, drain, mix in lemon zest of one lemon, mix in zucchini. serve and top with ricotta cheese. easy, light, delicious. definitely room left over for frosting.

Easter Dinner

holidays are weird for vegetarians. there's still the desire to have the traditional holiday meal, but if you take out the meat, it's just a meal of sides. and for holidays like thanksgiving, there are 15 sides so you don't really notice. but for easter, it's a lonely plate without the ham. i used this recipe for the twice baked potato casserole, cut in half and minus the bacon.

and this is all we ate for easter dinner. but don't worry about us. we ate our weight in starburst jellybeans and peanut butter cups. maybe it was nice to have a lighter holiday meal?