Pasta Primavera and White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Last week I went grocery shopping at my favorite SuperTarget. I came home and realized (after I had started making the dish) that I had left three bags of produce at the store. Needless to say, I was salty and we didn't have this yummy dish that night. But good things are worth the wait, right? This was amazing last night, and I'm glad we waited, because we made a few tweaks that really made it shine.
Pasta Primavera
12 oz short pasta (we used wide egg noodles, but you could use fusilli or rotini)
1/2 lb sugar snap peas, halved
2 carrots, shredded
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, sliced super thin
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 C shredded parmesan cheese
4 oz cream cheese, cut into small cubies

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the pasta. Watch the clock, because you're going to add the sugar snap peas, carrot and bell pepper to the water for the last two minutes of cooking, and you don't want your pasta to already be done when you put the veggies in. You'll get squishy pasta that way. When you go to drain it, reserve 1/2 C of pasta water before you dump it out. Return the pasta and veggies to the pot or a really big bowl.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the oil and add the garlic, cooking until just golden. Don't burn it! Then it'll be gross.
Add the tomatoes, red pepper flakes and a tsp of salt. Cook until the tomatoes wilt, two-ish minutes. Stir in the pasta water and pour over the veggie-pasta mix.
Add the parmesan and cream cheese and toss. Serve immediately while hot!
If you're a cream cheese fiend, you can definitely add more. But don't do too much or it'll coat the pasta too much and overpower the other tasty flavors. Same goes with red pepper flakes.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
For this one, I changed some things up too. It called for a full tablespoon of vanilla, which seemed like way too much to me. So I reduced it by half and added a teaspoon of almond extract to it. I must say, I think the almond flavor makes these cookies, but if you hate almond flavoring, just leave it out! I also thought it called for too many chocolate chips, and not enough cranberries. I'll give you the amounts I used, and you can tweak it, depending on what you like most. Remember, they're just cookies! I wouldn't mess with the flour/egg/soda/salt proportions, but the mix-ins can be played with, as long as you don't overload the dough with too much of them.

1 C butter, room temp or softened in microwave
1 C brown sugar
3/4 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 T vanilla
1 t almond extract
1 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
3 C flour
1 C dried cranberries
1 C white choc. chips

Heat your oven to 350. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until they look fluffy and pale-ish. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, not as large, mix the flour, salt and soda. Add to the butter/egg/sugar mixture a third at a time until it's all combined. Add cranberries, and chocolate chips. Scoop onto greased baking sheets and bake for 9-11 minutes. These cookies don't spread out a whole bunch, so size them pretty close to what you want the finished cookie to be.
These little treats are sweet and tart, soft and crunchy. I would even go so far as to say they were a good breakfast cookie, like my Merm's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are. Oh, what? Those haven't made it to InThreeMinutes yet? Hmm. I'll have to change that! Or maybe I'll keep that one a secret, since they are so amazing.
Enjoy your cookies asap! They will go fast, even though this recipe makes 5 dozen :)

Maple-Ginger Glazed Salmon, Orange Spinach Salad and Toffee-Coffee Tartlets

Today was my Merm's birthday, so we made dinner extra special. The salmon was fresh, the salad was tangy and crisp and the dessert was rich. Oh, and the company was great, too!
Part of this meal almost turned to disaster, but luckily I saved it! More on that later...
This meal comes from... you guessed it! Food Network Magazine. But, there are a few modifications. You'll see!

Oranage Spinach Salad
1 bag spinach, rinsed
1 sliced avocado
2 oranges, segmented
chopped pecans
Dressing:
1/4 C orange juice
1 T honey
1 lime, juiced
1 t dijon mustard
1/2 t salt
3 T olive oil

Whisk the oj, lime juice, honey, mustard and salt. Add the olive oil and continue to whisk. Toss the spinach, pecans, avocado and orange segments in a bowl and drizzle with the dressing.
The original recipe called for watercress instead of spinach and hazelnuts instead of pecans, but I put pecans on EVERYTHING. Those two substitutions made it great and very tasty.

Maple-Ginger Glazed Salmon
For this one, you want to get 4 oz of salmon for every person eating. We had three people, so Evan picked up a 12 oz fillet. The glaze should be enough for up to 3 lbs of salmon, so unless you're feeding an army (which 3 lbs would probably feed, actually), stick with the original proportions.

appropriately sized salmon fillet, skin on
2 t ground coriander
s&p (preferably kosher salt)
1/4 C maple syrup
1 2-inch piece ginger, grated and peeled
1 lemon, juice and zest!
2 t butter

Heat your oven to 425. Put your salmon in a baking dish (glass, metal, whatev) and sprinkle with the coriander, 1 t of salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. Set it aside, and just let it be for 10-15 minutes.
While you're waiting, put the maple syrup, ginger, lemon zest and butter in a small saucepan and put it over medium heat. Let it get a little thick, 5-7 minutes, take it off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
Brush the fish with half of the maple-ginger glaze. Put it in the oven for 12-ish minutes, until it's a bit firm and barely golden on top. Turn the oven to broil and move the rack to the top level in your oven. Brush the fish with the remaining glaze and broil another 2-3 minutes. Check for done-ness and remove from oven. Let it rest for 5 minutes before diving into it.
When you slice it up, the skin should come off fairly easy. Serve it with the skin on, it won't stick to the fish when you pick it up with your fork. I used to be very freaked out about having the skin on when it hit my plate, but it's actually no big deal. It comes off easy and isn't weird at all. Ok, there's my schtick on fish skin.

Toffee-Coffee Tartlets
THIS is the dish I had a little mishap with. The recipe says to boil the cream and coffee grounds, let chill, then whip until stiff peaks form. I whipped that crap for 30 minutes and nothing happened. My hand mixer overheated, and I was schvitzin about ruining Merm's birthday dessert! But I threw it in my ice cream maker and turned it into rich, (almost too) creamy coffee ice cream that I then scooped into the tarts instead. I'm going to include the method the way I did it, but remember you can always try whipping the cream instead!

Filling:
1 1/2 C heavy cream
1/4 C ground coffee
3/4 C caramel topping
2 T butter
1/2 C powdered sugar

Cups:
1 10 oz pack frozen puff pastry shells
1/2 C semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 C toffee bits (I couldn't find any at the store, so I bought Werther's and hit them with a hammer)

Bring the coffee and cream to an almost boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Turn it down to low and let it cook there for 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and strain it through a fine mesh strainer. Set it aside.
Put the caramel topping in another saucepan and bring to a boil, over med-high heat. Reduce to medium and go for 2 more minutes. Take it off the heat and stir in the butter. Carefully and slowly whisk the caramel-butter mixture with the coffee cream mixture. Refrigerate until completely chilled, about an hour.
Bake the pastry shells according to package directions. Once cool, pull out the centers. You won't need these so you can throw them out or find something else to do with them..
To melt the chocolate chips, you can either place them in a glass bowl over a pot of almost boiling water and constantly stir, or you can microwave them VERY carefully, 20 seconds at a time stirring between each time until melted. Either way, don't let the chocolate get over cooked and crumbly. That's bad.
Pour the toffee bits onto a pie plate. Dip the rims of the pastry shells in the chocolate, then in the toffee bits. Set aside.
Once your cream mixture is cold, beat in powdered sugar. Now you can either try to beat the whole thing with a mixer until stiff peaks form, or throw it into your ice cream maker and churn according to how your machine works. Either way, once you have a finished product, spoon it into the shells, drizzle with caramel topping and enjoy!
Really, it doesn't matter how you choose to do it! How can you go wrong with heavy cream, caramel and chocolate??

Kitchen Misadventures...

I think failure is too harsh a word. I definitely feel like one a lot of the time, but when it comes to cooking, I'd like to think that a little exploration and creativity shouldn't be marked as such. That's why I'm going to call this one a misadventure. It makes it sound like some great culinary undertaking was about to happen, if it weren't for a tiny misstep. Yeah, I like it. Look for this as a reoccurring theme here at InThreeMinutes. Misadventuring is just as important as adventuring!

This misadventure is brought to you by the Food Network Magazine and grapefruit. This month's issue had a section called "10 minute desserts". I love desserts AND races against the clock, so I was thrilled to try it out. The dessert I attempted was Grapefruit Brûlée. Here are the instructions given:
Slice a grapefruit in half.
Segment it, but don't take the segments out.
Sprinkle with sugar.
Torch the sugar with a kitchen torch.

Done and done. Guess what I got? A burned grapefruit. The sugar soaked in faster than I could torch it, and so I was left cooking the top of the fruit. I did get a little gummy sugar coating from what sugar did stay on top, but there was too much water in the grapefruit for it to get crunchy.



Nothing lost, nothing gained, right?

Spicy Egg Salad Sandwiches, Quinoa with Greens and Apricot Oat Bars

This was our menu tonight. It was filling without being heavy, healthy yet comforting. And it was quick. I really wasn't feeling it as far as making dinner, so it was nice to have a good meal without having to work too hard for it. Since everyone has different preferences for how... dressed.. they like their egg salad, and we each have our own threshold for spiciness, feel free to tailor this recipe to your liking. As for the salad, throw on whatever veggies you have on hand, whether frozen, raw or cooked.

Spicy Egg Salad Sandwiches
5 eggs, hard boiled
1/4 C mayonnaise
1 dill pickle, diced
S&P to taste
Sriracha or other hot sauce
crunchy, nutty whole grain bread

Cut/mash up the eggs in a bowl. Just make sure there aren't any big pieces hanging out, they don't have to be uniform slices. Add the mayonnaise a little at a time until desired wetness is reached. Toss in the pickles and season until it tastes good. Then, add hot sauce 1/8 tsp at a time and mix thoroughly until it's as hot as you want. Toast your bread and top it!
I'm betting there are some eyes rolling out there, as this isn't even a real recipe. Silence nay-sayers! It's tasty, and good, and easy. And I would make it again and again. So THAT is why it made it to this blog.

Quinoa with Greens
1 C quinoa, rinsed
1 C frozen peas or other veggies
S&P to taste
Salad greens (we like Organic Girl's Good Clean Greens 50/50 mix)
Light vinaigrette, honey mustard or cilantro-lime dressing

Boil quinoa in a large pot of salted water. It should take between 10 and 12 minutes, just like pasta. Drain it using a fine mesh strainer. If you don't have a fine mesh strainer, pour out most the water, put a doubled up layer of paper towels in your colander and then pour the quinoa out of the pot. Put the hot quinoa in a bowl and toss with your veggies, adding salt and pepper. Put in the fridge until it's cool(at least room temp, if not colder).
Plate a serving of greens onto each plate and top with a few heaping spoonfuls of your quinoa/veggie mix. Drizzle with a bit of dressing for flavor (not for swimming in). Yum!

Apricot Oat Bars
I'm not going to lie. I stole this recipe from Giada de Laurentiis. It smells like heaven out of the oven, with its warm cinnamon, crunchy oats and sticky apricot preserves.

Filling:
1 1/4 C apricot preserves
8 dried apricots, chopped

Crust:
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
3/4 t salt
3/4 t baking soda
1 3/4 C oats
1 C chopped walnuts (or pecans!)
1 C butter, melted
1 egg, at room temperature, beaten
1 t vanilla extract

Put your rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.
In a small bowl, mix the jam and the apricots. Set aside.
In a big bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Stir in the oats and nuts. Add the melted butter, egg and vanilla and stir until it's all gooey and mixed together.

Make sure your hands are clean and press half of the crust mixture into the bottom of the baking dish you just greased. Then, spread the filling over the crust leaving a tiny 1/2 inch border around the edge of the pan. Cover the filling with the remaining crust mixture and press it ever so lightly to flatten it out.
Bake about 30 to 35 minutes.
Cool for 1 hour, if you can keep your paws off it that long!

PS. Don't cut into it too soon, or it'll just crumble into a million delicious pieces. It's worth it to wait just a little while so it can be enjoyed in large forkfuls.

Topo Chico

If you haven't ever had sparkling mineral water, do it. Do it now!
It's plain old water with a little tiny bit of carbonation. For me, it satisfies that part of my brain that likes soda, without all the sugar and coloring and flavoring and stuff that makes soda bad for you.
Here's a bit of a warning though: it's not sweet at all. I know since I said it was plain old water with carbonation that kind of implies that it's not sweet, but seriously, your brain will want to tell you it should be sweet. If you can get past that, it's deeelicious.
I'm addicted.
That is all.

Knock off Treats!

So, I love my pre-packaged goodies as much as the next guy. But what I love more than my cheap, partially-hydrogenated, sugary treats is being able to make them at home with *somewhat* wholesome ingredients. The following recipes are by no means healthy, but they are made with regular sugar, regular butter and regular chocolate. They are NOT shelf stable(not just because they get eaten too quickly to find out) and they are NOT cheaper than buying them at the store. But they are delicious and worth the time and effort.
This first treat, Salted Nut-Roll Bars, are the epitome of sweet and salty. They are chewy and a little bit gooey in all the right ways. I always think of these bars when I'm feeling snacky but can't quite nail down what I'm craving. They are incredibly easy.

Salted Nut-Roll Bars
Crust:
1 lb. peanut butter sandwich cookies (if I was on the Food Network I couldn't just say Nutter Butters, but no one's watching here..)
1/2 C butter, melted

Topping:
2 C peanut butter chips
2/3 C light corn syrup (as a side note, I always look for this in the baking aisle and every damn time it's by the maple syrup. I think that's weird.)
4 T butter
1 t vanilla
2 C mini marshmallows
2 C dry roast peanuts
2 C Rice Krispies

Heat your oven to 350 and spray a 9x13 pan.
Dump Nutter Butters in the food processor or blender. Once you have fine crumbs, add that stick of melted butter and turn your machine of choice back on until it kinda clumps together. Press it into the pan and bake for 15 minutes.
Put peanut butter chips, corn syrup, vanilla and the other butter into a saucepan and melt it down until it's smooth. You'll want to stir it often and stick around, it should only take about five minutes.
Spread half of this mixture over the crumb crust you've pulled out of the oven, sprinkle the marshmallows over it, and put it back in the oven for two minutes or so. You just want the marshmallows to get a little puffy up. Don't let them brown or they'll be tough and crunchy!
Toss the peanuts, cereal and remaining peanut mixture together and spoon it over the marshmallow topped crust. Spread it a little with a spatula. It doesn't need to (and will not) look perfect. It's not going to be a uniform looking bar.
Let the bars cool, then dig in! You may need to coat your knife with non-stick spray before cutting in.. Unless you like to live dangerously and lick stuff off your knives. I don't recommend that though....

The second knock off treat I loooove is the Samoa cookie. Now, don't go replacing your girl scouts with this one. This is only to get you by between cookie sales. It's tough to go an entire year without girl scout cookies!
These can be made two ways: you can make them in a sheet like a bar cookie, or individually cut out every little circle and cut another tiny little hole in each of those. I personally don't care what they look like, as long as they taste similar. So here's the bar version (much easier!)

Samoas (or caramel delites)
Cookie:
1/2 C sugar
3/4 C butter, room temp
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
2 C flour
1/4 t salt

Topping:
3 C shredded coconut
12-oz caramels
1/4 t salt
3 T milk
10 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate-chocolate chips work!

Turn your oven on to 350.
Spread the coconut out onto a cookie sheet and bake five minutes at a time until it's toasty brown. Mine only took 10 minutes.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light in color and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla, until just incorporated. Then add the salt and flour a little at a time until it's all blended in. The dough will still be crumby, that's ok. Press it into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake it for 20-25 minutes.
Make your topping by microwaving your caramels and milk and salt until smooth. Dump the toasted coconut in and stir until combined.
After your crust has cooled, spread the coconut caramel mix over it. Make sure you've timed it so the caramel stuff has just come out of the microwave, and is still hot. It's going to be a pain in the ass to spread if it's cool. Even if the cookie crust is hot. It just won't work. Trust me.
After you've assembled it all and it's cooled, melt down your chocolate and drizzle it over the top. If you want chocolately bottoms (like the real deal), dip the bottoms in chocolate after you've cut them all up.
Enjoy!
And if you know any girl scouts.... tell them sorry!