White Cheddar Stuffed Garlic Bread

Hooray for the 50th post!

The inspiration for this side dish comes from one of my first blog posts -- Boomin' Onion Bread. Here's a scaled down version of that cheesy appetizer that will go well with an Italian dinner.

Ingredients:

-Long loaf of French bread
-White cheddar, sliced
-1 TBS Garlic
-1/4 cup of butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350.

Slice the loaf of bread into half inch slices, not cutting all the way through the loaf.

Stuff with slices of white cheddar cheese.

Top with garlic and butter.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Slice and serve.

Delicious!

The white cheddar cheese is a tangy complement to the garlic bread. This is a quick and easy way to dress up a dinner at home.

Mac-And-Cheese Style Cauliflower

Ingredients: 
-1 large head of cauliflower
-2 TBS butter
-3 TBS flour
-2 cups milk
-1 clove garlic
-2 cups grated, extra sharp cheddar
-1/2 cup nutritional yeast
-1 pinch cayenne pepper
-2 egg yolks
-1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs

This recipe was originally published by Vegetarian Times magazine in the January/February 2012 issue. For mine I omitted the nutritional yeast and cut the recipe in half.

Preheat oven to 350 and bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the cauliflower in the water for 5-7 minutes (until tender) Drain, but reserve 1 cup (or in my case half of the cooking liquid).

Set aside the cauliflower.

Melt butter in the same pot, whisk in flour and stir for one minute. Then whisk in milk, garlic and cooking liquid -- cook the mixture for 5-7 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove the pot from heat and add cheese, cayenne and egg yolk, stir.

Add in cauliflower to the cheese mixture and stir.

Spray a baking dish (13x9 for full recipe, 9x9 for half) with cooking spray and then pour the cauliflower cheese mixture into the pan.

At this point I added some extra sharp cheddar on top.

Then add the breadcrumbs and spray the top with more cooking spray.

Bake for 30 minutes. The cheese should be bubbly and the breadcrumbs browned when finished.

I really liked this recipe! The pieces with the breadcrumb topping were especially good. This made a great side dish for my dinner, however, you could easily mix-in a small pasta such as penne or gemelli to make this a more substantive main dish.

Avocado, Cream Cheese and Salsa-Stuffed Puff Pastries

Ingredients:
-1 large sheet puffed pastry, thawed
-1 ripe avocado, halved and mashed (approximately 1 tablespoon of avocado per pastry square)
-1/3 cup cream cheese (approximately 1 teaspoon of cream cheese per pastry square)
-1/3 cup salsa (approximately 1 teaspoon of salsa per pastry square, I used a combination of pineapple salsa and salsa verde)
-salt and pepper, sprinkled to taste
-1 egg, beaten
I found this recipe on Pintrest and the original recipe can be found here, she also offers an option to make this a vegan food.

Preheat the oven to 400 F and spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray.

Flour the counter top and roll out one square of puffed pastry as thin as possible.

Slice into pieces. I used a pizza cutter and was able to make twenty slices. However, I ended up only making  nine pastries so some were used together.

Assemble the filling -- avocado, cream cheese, salsa.

Add the additional pieces of puffed pastry and crimp the edges closed with a fork.

Apply the egg wash to all of the pastries.

I personally wasn't a big fan of the pastries and the received mixed reviews from my family. If I made this again I would mix the salsa verde with a sweeter salsa. The pineapple salsa that we had barely had any sweetness to it and I think the dish needed just a little bit more sweet.

Also, make sure to use a ripe avocado ours wasn't fully ripened and was difficult to mash. 

Scallion and Gruyere Potato Pancakes

Ingredients: 
-2 medium russet potatoes
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp ground pepper
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-1/4 cup scallions, thinly sliced
-1/4 cup gruyere, finely grated

This recipe came from the blog Squirrel Bakes.

Peel and grate potatoes in a strainer. Add salt and pepper and let drain.

Transfer potatoes to a bowl and add cheese and scallions, mix.

Heat oil in skillet and add portions of the flattened out potato mixture.

Cook until both sides are browned.

Serve with sour cream.

These potato pancakes were pretty good, however; ours never got crispy, they were just kind of soggy. The water probably wasn't drained out enough so be careful if you try this recipe. These would be a good substitute for any meal that has french fries or mashed potatoes as a side. 

Broccoli with Lemon-Garlic Crumbs

In honor of Spring finally arriving Weight Watchers provided me with some light, but very tasty recipes a few weeks ago that I finally got around to trying.

Ingredients:
-1 lb uncooked broccoli
-1 tbs butter
-1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
-1/2 cup bread crumbs
-1 tsp lemon zest
-1/4 tsp salt

The first step is to steam to broccoli using a steamer, we used the microwave by placing the broccoli in a large Tupperware container full of water. The broccoli was cooked on high for 30 seconds at a time until it was steamed.

While the broccoli is steaming, melt the butter. Then add in garlic and heat in the butter for about 30 seconds. Then add in the bread crumbs and toast in the butter/garlic. The recipe calls for 2-3 minutes, ours were in for about a minute.


Remove from the heat and add the lemon zest and salt.

Add the crumb mixture to the broccoli.

The crumb mixture on top of the broccoli gave it a nice crunch, but I don't think the lemon flavor was noticeable at all. If you'd like more of a lemony flavor with the broccoli I'd recommend adding some lemon juice to the water used to steam the vegetable.