Red Pepper, Artichoke, Onion and Goat Cheese Strata

I love making (crustless) quiches. I’ve made a bunch of them over the past few years, with a quite a few varieties – veggie only, veggie and cheese, apple and sausage, etc.

But lately, I’ve been seeing recipes for “strata,” which basically sounded like a crustless quiche with bread cubes on the bottom (although I think with the name, it’s supposed to be in layers). Here’s a spinach and cheese strata recipe from Epicurious, for example.

Finished Red pepper, artichoke, onion, and goat cheese strataThis strata idea sounded interesting, so I made a single layer strata with caramelized onions, red peppers, artichokes, and goat cheese.

Wow, was it good!! The egg-soaked bread is just so delicious, and combined with everything else – I can’t wait to have more of it. Yum.

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Double Dip: Avocado Feta Dip and Spinach Onion Dip

FinalDipsFor two weekends in a row, I’ve made a different delicious dip, so I’m sharing both in one post.

My first dip, the Avocado Feta dip, was inspired by two recipes I’d pinned recently – this Creamy Avocado Yogurt Dip and this Greek Feta Yogurt Dip. My second one, the Spinach Onion Dip, was inspired by this Fresh Spinach Dip recipe.

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Keeping Food Fresh

Just a quick post on a tip I’ve learned recently.

This may be one of those things that every cook knows, but I’m posting it anyway so I can remember it 🙂

FreshFood

A great way to keep a lot of foods fresh is to put a paper towel in the container with the food. I’ve done this with lettuce – the one pictured had been in my fridge over 2 weeks! I’ve done it with cooked onions and mushrooms, with cilantro, etc.

 

Seems obvious, I guess, that the moisture would be the issue with a lot of food, but somehow I didn’t realize there was such a simple remedy.

Naan Thai Pizza

For New Year’s Day, my in-laws treated my husband, me, my sister-in-law, and her boyfriend to a dinner at the lovely Table 45.
This “recipe” is inspired by the amazingly delicious meal that I had there. It’s on the appetizer menu, but was more than enough for me!

The end result isn’t particularly beautiful, but it was delicious!

final product

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Sweet & Sour Turkey Meatballs with Pineapple

I took a class on hors d’oeuvres recently from Judi Strauss, a local chef. She has one-night classes held in the Beachwood Middle School Home Ec room, or at least those are the ones I take. They’ve all been about watching, learning, and eating – no doing involved. Quite low stress, and quite fun! At this last class, Judi gave us some party food advice. The most useful to me was the following, as I never know how much food to make!

  • If you’re serving appetizers before dinner, plan on 5-10 bites per person
  • If you’re serving only appetizers, plan on 15-20 bites per person

Judi made us five delicious hors d’oeuvres. I’ve made two, the spinach puffs and the island meatballs with sweet and sour sauce. I made a version of the latter recently for a New Year’s Eve party. They came out quite well, and seemed pretty popular, so I thought I’d write about them.

The final product, ready to party:

FinalImage

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Beet and Onion Risotto with Goat Cheese

I found this recipe on epicurious when our CSA (Fresh Fork Market) gave us beets and mustard greens. I followed the recipe fairly closely the first time. The second time, I roasted the beets and left out the greens. This time, I went even farther afield, partly inspired by the recipe on the back of the chicken broth box for creamy risotto.

The final delicious results:
The final dish with goat cheese

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