****~ (4/5)

This is the second recipe from my friend’s dinner party this past weekend. I want to thank my friend again for sharing her recipes. She made a Spinach and Ham Quiche and we had Butternut Squash Soup for appetizer. The soup was a really good appetizer. It was not a boring butternut squash soup, and to my surprise, it had a blend of different spices. Nice soup to start off the meal.

Level: Medium

Cook Time: 1 hour
Serving: 6 – 8

1 butternut squash
1 acorn squash
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic
1 table spoon minced ginger
1 tea spoon curry powder
2 green apples, corded, peeled and diced
2/3 cup sherry wine
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
3 tablespoon olive oil
5 cups of vegetable stock
salt & black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut the butternut squash and acorn squash in half. Take the seeds out, and put them face down on a roasting pan. Roast in 400F oven for 45 minutes until soft. Scoop out the roasted squash, blend it with 5 cups of vegetable stock.

In a pan on medium heat, add olive oil, and sauté onion, garlic and ginger together until onion is soft. Add curry powder, cayenne pepper, stir and cook for about a minute. Add in apples, and 2/3 cup sherry wine. Simmer the ingredients for 10minutes until the apples are soft. Scoop the ingredients out of the pan into a blender, to purée.

In a separate pot, add the squash and apple purée. Mix, and add salt and black pepper to taste, simmer for 5 minutes and serve.

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****½ (4.5/5)

I made this salad without a recipe, but it was kinda influenced by my meal at the Edge. I really like this salad a lot, and I’ve actually made it for my parents this week and they liked it also. It may seem a little bit weird, but I think everyone who has tried has liked it.

Difficulty: Very Easy
Preparation Time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

Baby Spinach or Baby Lettuce/Spring Mix Salad
Craisins
Couscous
Feta Cheese
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar

1. Clean your baby greens if they aren’t already washed, or if you are paranoid with how clean they are.
2. Boil a cup of water with a little bit of olive oil and salt.
3. Measure out 2/3 cup of couscous (Note: you will have a lot of extra couscous, so adjust the proportion to how much salad you need. Also, different brands have different cooking methods, so follow those instructions!)
4. Once the water is boiling take off the heat, and add the couscous. Stir and then cover. Let stand for 5 minutes. Then fluff with a fork.
5. Fry the couscous in a pan with a little bit of olive oil until browned and toasted. Don’t add too much at once, just have a thin layer and do a couple batches if you need to. Don’t add too much oil also.
6. Make a vinaigrette (olive oil and balsamic vinegar, maybe some lemon)
7. Add baby greens to a salad bowl. Add craisins, and crumbled feta cheese. Add vinaigrette and toss.
8. Sprinkle the couscous on top for some crunch.

Tip: If you want, we added some of the left over Pesto Chicken breast from our Paninis into the salad.

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***** (5/5)

Level: Easy

I made this when we were making fajitas along with the MePlusFood Salsa. I never made guacamole from scratch, so I went on a searched for the recipe on the Food Network website. I decided on Tyler Florence’s Chunky Guacamole. After having such a success at making Tyler’s Chicken with Orange, I knew I can trust his recipe.

This recipe is really easy, but the prep time could take a while. There is a lot of cutting. I first started with dicing the onions and serrano chilies, then I started chopping the cilantro, and mincing the garlic. I purposely left the avocado last because I was afraid of it browning while I chop the rest of the ingredients. I also squeezed the lime juice on top of the avocado as soon as I scooped the flesh out, which I think it helped stop browning the avocado.

You are basically done after you chopped and cut everything, because the only step left is to just mix everything together, and add on salt and pepper to taste. Mash the avocado with a fork, but not too much, you want it to be chunky.

This guacamole was magical. It was fresh, it was creamy and it was REALLY GOOD! We ate it with our fajitas and chips, and it got high praises from everyone.

Make this for your friends at your next party. I’m going to make it again soon!

Note: Adjust the amount of any of the ingredients to your taste. One of my friend cannot eat spicy food, so I used 1 serrano chili instead of 2 listed in the recipe. I also didn’t add the olive oil, because I forgot about it. It still tasted really good.

Tyler Florence
Chunky Guacamole
Recipe as written by Tyler Florence on foodnetwork website:

Cooking time: 15 minutes

4 ripe avocados
3 limes, juiced
1/2 Red onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 serrano chilies
1 big handful fresh cilantro, finely chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and Freshly ground pepper

Halve and pit the avocados. Scoop out the flesh with a tablespoon into a mixing bowl. Mash the avocados with a fork, leaving them somewhat chunky. Add the remaining ingredients, and fold everything together to gently mix. Lay a piece of plastic wrap right on the surface of the guacamole so it doesn’t brown and refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

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***** (5/5)

Level: Super Easy

We made this salsa on the fly while we were cooking ourselves some Fajitas (recipe coming soon). I was pretty proud of this salsa because it was SO TASTY. I will never buy pre-made salsa ever again. Here’s how to make it:

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

3 vine ripened tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion
2 jalapeño peppers, very finely diced
3 green onions
3 limes, juiced
2 gloves of garlic, minced
1 big handful of cilantro
kosher salt & fresh ground pepper

Dice tomatoes, and onion. Finely chop jalapeños, green onions, and cilantro. In a mixing bowl, add in all the ingredients, and mix everything together. Add kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Once all the ingredients are mixed, put a plastic wrap over the bowl and refrigerate for at least 30mins.

Boom! That’s it! Eat it with tortilla chips, tacos, fajitas, nachos, etc. Freshest salsa you’ll ever taste, guaranteed.

Tip: Squeeze out some of the tomato juice in the bowl before you start dicing it. It will give some liquid to the salsa and help all the flavors bind together.

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***** (5/5)

Let the Viviani madness continue! I know I’ve been making a lot of food by this guy in the last little while, I should switch it up soon.. and I will, as soon as I buy another cookbook or go scour the internets for recipes.

The soup du jour, or yester-jour was Sweet Onion and Legumes Soup. First question: Legumes? First thing that comes to my mind are beans, but what kind of beans? I took the suggestion of a fellow fan to use Sugar Snap Peas, Snow Peas, and Baby Limas. For the White Wine, I chose a Sauvignon Blanc which was suggested as the wine to use for beginner cooks. Cooking the soup was a breeze in comparison to other recipes. It seemed that all I had to do was chop vegetables and throw things in a pot, then wait. Super easy.

End product soup I got was served in a bowl on top of a piece of crunchy toasted bread. It.. was.. awesome. I was skeptical because I wasn’t sure that I’d like to have a soggy piece of bread in my soup, but was pleasantly surprised when I tasted it. I like my soups more brothy than stew-like, so I added a little more vegetable broth and water than suggested, which I guess worked out for me. Every spoonful seemed like there was a little something else that hit my taste buds starting with the broth itself, to the legumes/onions, and then the flavour drenched slice of bread.

Overall, a give this recipe a full score because it was super tastey and ultra easy to make. An added bonus for me was that I was skeptical of how much I’d like it since I kind of like my soups to have meat in them, but I didn’t feel like I needed it here. Great soup!

Video!

Fabio Viviani
Carabaccia Fiorentina – Sweet Onion and Legumes Soup

Recipe as written by Fabio Viviani on his Facebook page:

5 tbsp ExtraVirgin Olive Oil
2 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 large Sprig of Basil, roughly chopped
2 lbs medium Onion, finely chopped
4 cup of Vegetable broth
1 cup of White Wine
1/2 lbs mixed fresh Legumes
4 tbsp of grated Parmigiano Reggiano
6 Sliced of toasted very crunchy Bread
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat the Olive Oil in a Pot big enough to fit all the ingredients, add the Celery, Carrots and the Basil and cook for 5 minutes on High. Add the Onion and 1/3 of the Broth and cook on Low heat till the liquid is completely gone ( about 1 hour ). Bring the heat up and add the Wine and reduce it completely, add now the Legumes, and the rest of the broth and simmer until the legumes are tender. Add Salt and pepper to taste. Place the bread in 6 bowl, pour the soup on the bread and sprinkle with the Parmesan.

This recipes and many more are part of the regional cooking of Italy.

Enjoy and Buon Appetito.