Posts Tagged ‘basil’

Fresh Herbs

Posted: 25th June 2013 by doomthings in The Foodening, Tips & Tricks
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I know fresh herbs are better than their dried counterparts, but I never really appreciated it until we got gobs of oregano, basil, and rosemary from my parent’s garden.  We can’t wait to use them in ALL THE THINGS!  Unfortunately, it takes us a while to use herbs.  Fortunately, storage for later use is easy!!

  1. Pick herbs.
  2. Rinse herbs.
  3. Dry herbs.
  4. Remove leaves from stalk (except for rosemary).
  5. Store flat in gallon freezer bags in the freezer.

Pull out the herbs when you need them; no need to thaw them first!  Use them everywhere!!


Fresh oregano.
Fresh Basil.
Fresh rosemary.
Freezer bags make storage easy!

 

Avocado Spinach Pasta

Posted: 28th March 2013 by doomthings in Dinner, The Foodening
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Normally when I want to eat something with avocados, I exclaim in my husband’s face that I plan to buy them but never have a plan.  So we never buy avocados.  This time I was prepared!  I read up on avocados how to use them for things other than sandwiches and guacamole.  Using them for pasta sauce worked out perfect because I love cream sauce, but it doesn’t love me.

Avacado Spinach Pasta | doomthings

Ingredients:

  • Half a box of pasta
  • 1 ripe avocado, pitted and scooped
  • lemon juice to taste
  • lemon zest
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 2 tbsp olive oil + extra for veggies
  • handful of fresh basil
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • parmesan cheese to taste
  • ground pepper to taste + extra for veggies
  • mushrooms (optional)
  • onions (optional)
  • spinach leaves (optional)

Directions:

  1. Cook pasta according to box directions.
  2. Combine avocado, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, basil, and salt in a food processor until smooth.
  3. Toss sauce with pasta.
  4. Add parmesan cheese and pepper to taste.
  5. Saute mushrooms, onions, and spinach in extra olive oil and ground pepper.
  6. Add veggies to pasta and serve immediately.

This was pretty delicious.  It was quite filling without making it feel like I downed a pound of heavy cream, and it didn’t sit heavy in my stomach.  This was a great idea. +5 intelligence.

 

I’ve heard things about avocados not really lasting more than a day, so we’ll see how my leftovers turn out.

Turkey Strawberry Sandwich with Brie

Posted: 20th March 2013 by doomthings in Lunch, The Foodening
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I mostly wanted to make this sandwich because the picture I found on chindeep.com via Pinterest looked delicious.

Normally, I will try to adapt recipes from what I already have in my house, but all these ingredients sounded so essential that I made an unecessary detour to the grocery store on the way home from work to get them.  The only thing I didn’t have was raspberry jam and fresh jalapeno (see the original recipe).  Fortunately, I had a delicious hot pepper spread that worked nicely.

Turkey Strawberry Brie Sandwich | doomthings

Ingredients (adapted from chindeep.com):

  • Thinly sliced country style bread
  • brie
  • thinly sliced deli turkey
  • fresh basil
  • strawberries
  • hot pepper spread
  • fig and walnut spread (optional)

Directions:

Stack the sandwich parts in this order:

  1. Bottom piece of bread.
  2. Thin slices of brie.
  3. Turkey slices.
  4. Layer of basil.
  5. Sliced strawberries.
  6. Spread the spread(s) on the other slice of bread, and place on top of the strawberry layer of the sandwich.

From here you can do one of two things:  1) Grill the sandwich like a panini or grilled cheese (maybe pre-butter the outsides of the bread; 2) Heat the sandwich in a toaster oven (~350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 5 minutes or until cheese looks gooey).

I did the latter because I didn’t have access to a panini press or stovetop (I had this for lunch at work), but I did manage to find a toaster oven.  I’ve recently preferred to “grill/toast” my sandwiches, including grilled cheese, to reduce my delicious butter intake, and this sandwich did not disappoint.   The first time I made the sandwich, I only used hot pepper spread and not the fig/walnut spread (which we randomly had in our refridgerator).  My husband thought the strawberries made the sandwich a bit too sweet, and suggested a more tart fruit would compliment the turkey better.  That said, he did enjoy the sandwich almost as much as I did.

 

For my second try (this post), the fig and walnut spread added a nice tartness.  My husband liked this much better.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get a post-toasted picture because I didn’t have my camera handy.  -5 intelligence.