Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

I found myself with a huge amount of zucchini and I knew exactly what to do with it: BREAD. Not just any bread, though — 100% whole wheat bread flecked with vibrant zucchini, which is close to my favorite vegetable ever.

Pepperoni Pizza Quiche

This dish comes straight out of my severe pizza addiction and my love of quiches. This is a fail-proof, easy quiche (thanks to a little help from Whole Foods in the crust department) that tastes very much like a pizza. Yum.

Shrimp with Feta and Tomatoes

Another recipe that I loved from our greek cooking class. Shrimp with Feta and Tomatoes — also known as “Shrimp Scorpio”. Love.

Spanikopita Triangles

I did something weird the other day. I actually used one of the groupons that I purchased.

This is big. I have a bad habit of snatching up these deals only to let them wither and expire. Last spring I bought 1 groupon for a cooking class at Eurostoves in Beverly, MA. Foolishly I only bought one, and taking a cooking class solo is just not very fun. Thankfully, I was able to convince my mom to sign up as well (at full price, nonetheless…). I think she thought it would be more like the classes we take each year at Stonewall Kitchen where you sit in a comfy seat and a nice lady cooks, whilst explaining her methods, and then nice people bring you a plate of food and some wine to go with while you learn. This was a liiiiitle different, in that 5 of us were given 12 greek recipes and 2 hours and were told to work it out. I gotta say, I love to cook, but I think i prefer the Stonewall way.

This is one of the recipes we “learned” at this class. I liked that the recipe called to take several layers of filo and stack them up, as opposed to brushing each individual piece with butter, which has always put filo dough in the ‘daunting’ category for me. These make a great appetizer — I made them on the bigger end…you can make them smaller if you have more patience 🙂

Chicken, Mushroom, and Roasted Corn Tostada

These tostadas were a delicious lunch. Think giant nacho chip, which is never a bad thing.

Sweet Blueberry Muffins

My love for Costco is no secret and these muffins are a copycat version of the amazing, gigantic blueberry muffins that they make. When I was young, my mom used to buy these muffins and grill them in a little butter. OHMYGOD it is the best thing ever. The last time I was at Costco, I came dangerously close to purchasing some of these humungous babies — well, a dozen… it is Costco, after all — justifying because we had the kids that weekend. In the end, I decided it wasn’t fair to pass my addiction on to more innocent children, so I passed. When I ran across this copycat recipe, I couldn’t not try it. This time I’m justifying it because they’re much smaller than Costco’s and I had all of these organic blueberries to use up from my CSA box, which makes them health food. Right? 🙂

Fish Naanwiches

You know you’re kinda into food when the first thing you think when you wake up to go to work is pickling red onions for tonight’s fish sandwiches. And then, of course, there is your partner’s reaction to you cooking at 7am on Tuesday morning, which just reifies my mother’s loving – yet kinda mean 😉 – statement about being in a relationship with me… “it takes a special person…”  Yup, it does. And it just so happens that I am with a person of that description, so I am a-ok with it 😀

So….I am pretty certain at this point that I could close my eyes, randomly select something from my newest blog crush Five and Spice, and it would instantly become my new favorite thing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this ahhhmazing egg sandwich, which I am totally indebted to her for.  This fish sandwich is no exception. It sounds humble enough, but the flavor profile is just lovely. I have to say that the 7am pickled onions were the best part — do not skip those! They were technically meant to be made overnight, but this worked just fine, too.  Enjoy!

Bacon, Fig, and Asiago Mac & Cheese

Just when I (and my thighs) thought we were in the clear with comfort food cravings, Boston’s been hit with a swell of gloomy, rainy weather, which, inconveniently, seems to only occur on the weekends. I’m not too disappointed, though — gives me a chance to make this dish which I thought I’d be waiting ’til the fall to try. The verdict: probably the best mac & cheese I’ve ever made or tried. The sweet fig, salty bacon, and buttery breadcrumb topping is ah-mazing. Thighs be damned. 😉

Tabouleh

I can’t believe this is my first time making tabouleh. I have been eating this parsley salad since I was a kid, and I loooove it with sliced red onion and baba ganoush all smooshed together in a pita. SO GOOD. This recipe is easy and authentic — and A LOT cheaper than buying it pre-made in a tub!

Biscuit Souffle Breakfast Casserole

As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make it. I’d like to say because it’s super kid friendly, but really I just love biscuits in any form. (Remember these?) Add eggs and veggie sausage and I’m sold. In terms of the pre-made tubes of biscuits — I like the Trader Joe’s for their respectable ingredient list (all real food).

This casserole is a little like a savory french toast, and it smells heavenly while baking. Enough to wake two sleeping teenagers from their Sunday morning coma, which says a lot.

Shrimp Pizza with Pesto and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Hey, friends — sorry for my little hiatus. I was lucky enough to get away to the Cape for an extra long weekend and have not been in the kitchen much. Cape Cod is seriously one of my favorite parts of living in Massachusetts, and I try to go as often as I can throughout the summer. Next time we go (probably in a few weeks), I promise to remember my camera to share some of the loveliness.

This pizza was pulled together using what random ingredients in the fridge that were waiting for us when we returned home. I’m not sure why we got such major(ly awesome!) air bubbles in the crust, but I love it when that happens. This pizza is somewhat of a go-to, since we always have pesto and cheese in the fridge and shrimp in the freezer. I dolloped some boursin cheese over the top for fun, and omgsoyummy. I used a store-bought dough (picked up a whole wheat dough at Hannaford’s that was actually made wholly of whole wheat and not a blend of whole wheat and white flour, which is actually pretty rare), which was delicious. You can also whip up your own dough if you’re feeling ambitious — I will share a recipe soon for my favorite whole whole wheat pizza dough.