Christmas day at our house...

Christmas day is here and our family always likes to take the day slow. We usually sleep in, check to see what kind of surprises Santa left with a big cup of coffee to drag us out of bed. And then we sit around the kitchen and visit, listen to music (currently Tom Petty), and cook, prepare, bake, etc... depending on what we have going on and what we are craving. My dad usually gets that look in his eyes and you know that you are in for a kitchen treat.


This morn we decided to counteract all of that sweet that we had yesterday by chopping up some veggies and made Pico De Gallo! One of my mom and my favorites.

These spicy pickled garlic cloves my dad got for Christmas yesterday, and we thought it would be the perfect new ingredient to include in his Pico De Gallo. OH, and it was.

Avocados. Not necessarily in season, but still great to add to this concoction. Only put avocados in what you are consuming or it will all be brown in a couple of days.

Our final result. Delicious, snack to counteract all of the sweet toothing we did and will be continuing today! YUM!

Back to more eating! I hope everyone is enjoying their Holidays!
Merry Christmas!

Pico De Gallo

equal parts:

Green, Yellow, and Red Peppers

Onion

Jalapeno (quantity depending on how spicy you want it)

Tomatoes

Garlic (we did 8 cloves [our bowl was about 2 gallons])

Say Good Bye to Gourmet

I just recently discovered Gourmet magazine, and now Condé Naste is saying it's farewell to this very classy "gourmet" food magazine.


(Picture shown is of the October 2009 issue, unfortunately I couldn't find a good picture of the November issue and I don't have a scanner!)


On this note, I decided that I wanted to reap all of the last benefits I could by picking up their last issue EVER! The November 2009 is their last issue that they are distributing. (I KNOW, NO Holiday Cookies!)


I would definitely recommen this purchase to the foodies out there! They have many great recipes to enjoy our upcoming Thanksgiving!

With Christmas coming, and my newly discovered lack of knowledge... I am challenging myself to get more knowledgeable about the food magazines that are out there. What a great Christmas present for someone who loves food! On my list: Bon Appetit and Suveur. I am currently receiving Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Food Everyday, and Rachael Ray. They are all fantastic, but I did have to make a cut this year. I continued with both of the Marthas, but I did drop Rachael. I did this because Martha Stewart has more "hostess" tips, and I really like the hostess and recipe combo. Any favorites out there??? (They don't have to be food)

Something else...

If anyone has a really good recipe or some advice for me I would love to hear feedback! Try my recipies and let me know what you like, didn't like, changed, if you could follow my directions and actually make something the way it looks in the pictures!

You can email me: ekay_22@hotmail.com

You can post a comment on my blog. You can click on the place where it says "0 Comments" or "4 Comments" and then you can write something in the box and then click the drop down box to Name/URL (URL-which really just means who you email through ex: http://www.hotmail.com/ or http://www.wiktel.com/ or http://www.trjobbing.com/ )
Any one can comment! (email me if you have questions)

Healthy Pasta!

I was brainstorming today about what to eat; as I usually end up doing in the middle of my mug of coffee or on my bus ride between classes. I often find that I rarely have any time during the week to make a meal meal more than a couple of times. So subtracting out the days for left-overs that usually leaves me with at least 3-5 meals where I don't have a lot of time to prepare an extravagant dish.

Lately I have been finding everything that I can whip up quickly is usually not the healthiest for you.... anything prepacked with an expiration date that is longer than three months from now is probably chalk full of preservatives that are unnatural for our bodies.

Pasta is my favorite go-to dish for a quick meal, so I decided to do some research for everyone and find some pasta dishes that are healthy to for your body and quick to make.
(These pictures are not pictures I have taken. They are pictures from the website that the recipe is located on.)

No Bake Mac&Cheese
from: EatingWell

This recipe contains most of the ingredients you would have on hand. I would advise switching the cheese depending on what you liked. I even kick it up a bit by adding some spices and additional veggies like red peppers and some Sriracha sauce! And for those meat lovers, this dish would be very youthful with some chopped up hot dogs or more fancy with some thinly sliced prosciutto.


Prep time: 20mins
Total time: 25mins
Per serving: 412 Calories; 13 g Fat; 7 g Sat; 1 g Mono; 37 mg Cholesterol; 56 g Carbohydrates; 22 g Protein; 7 g Fiber; 640 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium

Athena Pasta Primavera
from: EatingWell

What I like about this recipe is that everything is literally fresh. The recipe is so simple that you could change it depending on what veggies are in season. You could also tailor it to your favorite veggies. It is a very filling dish, but with the nutrients you gain from the veggies and the whole wheat pasta it is a quick and healthy dish to keep handy!


Prep time: 30mins
Total time: 30mins
Per serving: 305 Calories; 6 g Fat; 3 g Sat; 3 g Mono; 13 mg Cholesterol; 51 g Carbohydrates; 10 g Protein; 8 g Fiber; 326 mg Sodium; 236 mg Potassium


Whole-Wheat Pasta with Garlic and Olive Oil
from: MarthaStewart

This is probably the easiest pasta recipe I could find. Once again, like all of the other pasta recipes, this one could be tailored to what you like to have in pasta. Personally if I'm feeling like something a little less sharp I would replace the parsley with basil and I would definitely add some tomatoes. Preferably cherry tomatoes!


Sorry guys, Martha doesn't have the nutritional values nor length of time it would take to make. If I were to guess though:
Prep time: 5mins
Total time: 15mins