Ingredients: flour, yeast, sugar, salt, baking soda, hot dogs
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Having given up any facade of eating healthy, Jill and I chose a delicious, easy, and cheap meal this week: Pretzel Dogs! Pretzel dogs are my favorite food in the whole world (except for potatoes, of course). I had never attempted to make them at home before, so thank goodness Jill is an amazing baker. The dogs turned out so good that we have decided to open up a pretzel dog food truck and sell them on the mall. We should be billionaires soon enough…
There is a famous saying: When life gives you lentils, make lentil soup.
Now, I may be adapting the phrase just a tad…but I like it better this way. One question I am constantly asking myself is “what is better than lentil soup?” Strangely the answer I constantly give is a definitive “NOTHING!”
It even has healing powers.
It was really easy to turn our lentils into delicious soup.
First, dump the leftovers into a pot.
They may look slightly undead, but unlike zombies they make fantastic soup.
Then add tomato paste, one box of chicken broth, cumin (to taste), and salt.
Just in case you were unsure what these things looked like
Once the vegetables are cooked through (they weren’t quite done in our original lentil dish), take out a bit of the soup and blend it together. I’m not sure why you are supposed to do this step – but I promise it is vital to the whole magical process.
Do your thing knockoff magic bullet
Because I am now a culinary genius (though I had to look up how to spell culinary), I thought a little lemon zest and juice would make the soup even more scrumptious (that I know how to spell).
And it did!
In about 20-30 minutes, I had lentil soup! After ladling it into a bowl, I added even more lemon juice (Seriously, is there a thing called lemon soup? If so, I would probably eat it every day). For me, this week included a good Sunday meal and AMAZING leftovers!
After our delicious overdose of carbs and steak last week, we decided to keep this week’s meal a little healthier. So we did the unthinkable and cooked a meal that included vegetables! Right now you are probably about to close the tab and move on to another blog because you don’t believe anything with vegetables could ever taste good, but wait! It was actually tasty, I promise!!
It may look like something that's already been digested, but I promise it tasted good!
Food:Â Beef Wellington in a Red Wine Reduction Sauce
Ingredients: leftover beef wellington, red wine, shallots, beef stock, butter
total time: 10 min
Jill and I got sophisticated this week in honor of the Oscars and made the most delicious meal in the history of our blog: Beef Wellington! That’s right, it’s so fancy I had to capitalize it. For leftovers, I knew I needed to kick it up a notch in order to maintain this snazzy streak we are on. Ergo, I decided to try making a reduction sauce.
Reduction sauces are basically really delicious gravy. My dad always makes them with steak, and he is an amazing cook, so I knew if I was successful I would have something to be proud of. My dad likes to joke about how I don’t like gravy unless you call it a “reduction sauce.” I also don’t like meat loaf unless you call it “meat balls,” or hamburger unless you call it “ground beef,” or yard work unless you call it… nope, there is nothing you can call yard work that will make me like it. Sorry, Dad.
Ingredients: 4 cuts of beef, shallots, mushrooms, crepes, puff pastry, salt, and pepper
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour (30 minutes per part)
I promise we did not steal a picture from Wikepedia, this is OUR food!
Just in case you are unaware, this Sunday was the most important day of the year – OSCARS SUNDAY. Â This Sunday beats all others. Â Thats right, I claim that it is better than Super Bowl Sunday, Easter Sunday, and that rare time when your birthday falls on a Sunday – Sunday. This occasion transcends sports, religion, and birthdays – its all about the movies.
Just in case you were wondering…this is my favorite acceptance speech of all time 🙂
That would be me, except my voice would probably crack more and I would definitely be jumping the entire time!
Ingredients: diced tomatoes, tomato paste, lentils, chick peas, vermicelli, flour, lemon juice, ginger, cinnamon, parsely, beef stock, salt and pepper
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
We got exotic this week, and attempted to make one of Jill’s favorite dished from her study abroad trip to Morocco. We also had a special guest cook: Renee from Renee’s Kitchen! You can read her version of the events over at her blog.
Harira is a yummy tomato based-soup that actually tastes nothing like Spaghetti-O’s. It was surprisingly easy to make and turned out flavorful and filling.
Look, garnishes! We are fancy food photographers now.
Ingredients: 2 cups ricotta, 3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup parmesan, egg yolk, light cream, butter
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ricotta gnocchi are lighter, fluffier, and quicker to cook than traditional potato gnocchi. I highly recommend you don’t tell anyone how surprisingly simple they are to make. This is the kind of dish that sounds really fancy and impressive to people who have never made it. Why ruin the illusion?
I made gnocchi and alfredo sauce for Ted for a Valentine’s Day dinner (we celebrated late). I prefer to cook rather than eat out (and spend money) on Valentine’s day, because it is a fake consumerist holiday invented to take all your money and make you feel bad about yourself.
One of the best thing about leftover chili is that there are 7.35 million different ways to eat the it. Chili is great on nachos, over rice, and (my personal favorite) on hot dogs! Last night, I used a 7-Eleven hot dog instead of making my own. Because 7-Eleven hot dogs are the most amazing hot dogs I have ever tasted. Seriously. Go get one right now. I’ll wait.
I'm getting pretty talented at these fancy photography shots, eh?
I’m not going to lie, our Sunday cooking adventure this week was a pretty epic fail. We tried to make chili and ended up with… warm tomato paste with a little hamburg. Thankfully, Jill’s roommate cooked delicious cheesy potatoes with sauteed cheez-its (SAUTEED CHEEZ-ITS!!) in honor of the Superbowl and we were able to stuff our faces on those instead.
Come Monday, we were faced with the prospect of eating a week’s worth of left-over lumpy tomato goop. So, we took action and decided to attempt to revive this sad, sad dish that once had so much potential. To our astonishment, it worked!
Help Wanted: Blog photographer. Must be able to make giant pots of food look pretty. Paid in left-overs.
Two Girls, Ten Potatoes 