Portobello Bruschetta

Oh yeah! Another bruschetta recipe. :) They make me so happy. This one is pretty unique and has quite the bite to it. I liked it a lot and it is important to use portobello mushrooms if at all possible. They have a meaty-type taste that works well with these ingredients.

Once again, I found this recipe at allrecipes.com, but I changed some things and made it my own. It's a great website if you know what you are looking for...

I have been interested in arugula lately. It's a bitter leaf, but with the right ingredients, it tastes great! It works well with a salty cheese (like goat cheese or feta cheese) and tomatoes.

Ingredients:
*2 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped (or 3 if you love tomatoes like I do)
*1/2 cup of feta cheese
*1.5 - 2 cups of arugula, chopped (I used baby arugula)
*2 -4 cloves of garlic, minced (depends on how much garlic you like)
*5-8 baby portobello mushrooms, diced (or approx. 2 large portobello mushroom caps, diced)
*approx. 2 tbsp. olive oil
*parmesan cheese
*spices of your choice
*slices of cheese (optional) (either provolone, fontina, swiss, or whatever you like!)
*bread loaf of your choice

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange slices of bread on to a cookie sheet. Drizzle the slices with olive oil and sprinkle them with parmesan cheese. Place in oven until slightly toasted. (approx. 2-3 minutes)
2) Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine tomatoes, feta, arugula, garlic, mushrooms, spices, and a tiny amount of olive oil (just to keep ingreds. moist and together).
3) Put the tomato mixture on the slightly toasted bread slices. Place in oven for another 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is starting to warm up.
4) If interested, take the slices out of the oven and cover with cheese slices. Place back into the oven until the cheese is melted. Enjoy!

Comments:
*This is another excellent appetizer idea or a meal of it's own. It depends on what you like to eat. Paul and I ate this for dinner and it lasted for two meals.

*The ratio of the ingredients is a loose interpretation. I apologize, but it really depends on your taste buds. I simply added the items into the bowl and made sure that there was a perfect ratio of all of the ingredients. Because I love equality in my meals. But perhaps you like more mushrooms and less arugula, etc. It's up to you.

*The original recipe called for fontina cheese slices on top. I couldn't find that and instead used provolone. It was great with the provolone at least! However, as I was eating it, I thought that it could have tasted just as good (and with less calories) without the cheese slices on top. Since I have a probably-unhealthy-obsession-with-cheese-thing going on, I used the cheese slices. But if you don't care for that much cheese, it most likely tastes great without it! Here's a picture of this fabulous meal without the extra cheese:

Bruschetta with Hummus

I am such a picky eater in the summer. I prefer veggies, pesto, basil, and bruschetta. In fact, I love bruschetta so much that I find tons of alternative recipes so that I can eat some type of bruschetta multiple times a week and never get sick of it.

This bruschetta recipe has quickly become my favorite. It combines hummus, which I love to bits IF it is homemade (grocery store hummus is too tangy), feta (we all know by now how much I love cheese), and tomatoes (YUM) in a wonderful combination. Once again, I found it at allrecipes.com

Paul and I eat this as an actual dinner-meal, but it also makes a great appetizer. Choose any type of bread that you like for this bruschetta. I picked up a loaf of spinach-feta bread from a local farmer's market and it really hit the spot. However, I doubt that I will find a loaf of bread like that again, so next time, I will use french bread or perhaps asiago bread....so many delightful choices ahead of me! :)

Ingredients:
*1 can (14 oz) of garbanzo beans, drained
*lemon juice (approx. 2-3 tbsp.)
*minced garlic (approx. 1 tsp.)
*cumin (add until satisfied)
*olive oil (approx. 2 tsp.)
*spreadable butter
*parmesan cheese
*paprika
*3 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
*1/2 cup (approx.) of feta cheese
*oregano, garlic powder/salt, spices of your choice
*shredded mozzarella cheese (optional)
*bread loaf of your choice (ciabatta, french/italian, etc.)

Directions:
1) For the hummus, place the drained garbanzo beans, lemon juice, cumin, garlic, and olive oil into a food processor. Process until well blended. Taste and add ingredients until it tastes just as you like it. (For example, I do not like my hummus to be too lemony, but you might. Perfect the hummus until you are satisfied!)
2) Slice the bread of your choice and spread with butter and parmesan cheese (to your liking). Either place under your broiler or into a preheated (approx. 350 degrees) oven until the bread is golden aka toasted. (approx. 3 minutes)
3) Spread the hummus over the toasted bread slices. Sprinkle with paprika. Top this with the tomatoes, feta cheese, spices, and a very light sprinkling of moz. cheese (optional). Place back into the oven and heat for approx. 3 more minutes or until cheese is melting and tomatoes are warm. Enjoy!

Comments:
*Often, hummus recipes add tahini sauce. I don't like that taste, so I do not add it. However, if you enjoy that taste, simply look up a hummus recipe that uses it. They are EVERYWHERE on the internet. I was excited to find this recipe for a milder tasting hummus. Everyone has different tastes.

*I add a tiny bit of moz. cheese because I really love the taste of melted cheese. It isn't necessary for this recipe, however, if you are trying to cut calories. The feta is the important cheese for this recipe.

Pesto Chicken Florentine

Yay for another pesto recipe! This was a delicious way to combine a typical alfredo-sauce pasta dish with pesto. I've decided pesto can go into almost any meal. :)

This recipe is very good. It combines mainly spinach, pesto, and alfredo pasta to make a fabulous meal. I added tomatoes, onion, and mushrooms because I love my veggies.





Ingredients:
*Olive oil
*2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed/diced
*3-4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
*2-3 cups of spinach leaves
*1 jar of alfredo sauce
*3 tbsp. pesto (see my recipe if interested)
*1 (16oz) pkg of penne pasta
*parmesan cheese
*1/2 sweet onion, diced (optional)
*2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced (optional)
*4-6 mushrooms, sliced (optional)

Directions:
1) Begin cooking pasta according to box instructions.
2) As the pasta is cooking, saute chicken in olive oil until almost done (almost no pink). Take out of the pan and cut into cubes. Add back to pan along with garlic, onion (optional), and mushrooms (optional). Cook until onion is tender and chicken is finished. Add spinach and saute for another minute.
3) Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the alfredo sauce and the pesto sauce. Add as much pesto as desired. (I made my sauce quite green)
4) Drain pasta, put back into its' large pot. Add the chicken/spinach mixture and the alfredo/pesto sauce. Top with tomatoes (optional). Mix. Place on plates and add parmesan as desired. Enjoy!

Comments:
*This recipe is open to creativity. The main part is having a chicken-alfredo pasta with spinach and pesto for some nutrients. Be creative!

*Make sure to add enough garlic. I always use less garlic in my meals b/c if there is too much, I won't eat it. I should have actual amount for this one...mine needed more garlic.

*My onion ended up still being crunchy, but my husband informed me that he LOVED the crunchy onions in this otherwise "soft" meal. So I will continue to add onion for that texture. This is just a head's up about that in case you are not as thrilled about crunchy onions in your pasta as we are!

Goat Cheese Arugula Pizza

I just HAD to add another pizza recipe because this recipe was so good and it used pesto as the sauce, which is such a delicious change of pace from a typical marinara pizza sauce.

I found this recipe at allrecipes.com, but I added some things to it that I think made it better. One thing: arugula is a bitter leaf, and at the last minute, I chickened out and used half arugula and half spinach. This tasted wonderfully, but the bitterness of arugula leaves actually blends perfectly with goat cheese, so if you are okay with it, I highly recommend using arugula. That's what I will be doing in the future.

What I love: The fresh veggies, pesto, and goat cheese made the most heavenly combination. YUM!

Ingredients:
*Pizza crust (your choice: I use Jiffy)
*6-8 tbsp. pesto (see my recipe if interested)
*3 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
*5-7 oz. goat cheese, big globs of it
*1 cup of arugula leaves, chopped (or spinach, or mixture, etc.)
*4-6 mushrooms, diced
*1-2 cloves garlic, crushed or diced
*1/4 - 1/2 cup of mozzarella shredded cheese, optional
*parmesan, optional

Directions:
1) Make Pizza crust according to directions.
2) Add pesto sauce and cover bottom of pizza crust.
3) Add the toppings: tomatoes, goat cheese, mushrooms, garlic, moz. cheese (optional) and parmesan (optional)
4) Bake pizza according to directions on the box, but take it out 1-2 minutes before it is done. Add the arugula. Bake until complete.
5) Enjoy!

Comments:
*The bigger the globs of goat cheese, the better tasting the pizza! I actually tried to slice the goat cheese, which is difficult due to its' soft texture, but the resulting globs were big and I put those on the pizza. The goat cheese globs mix so well with the arugula and pesto tastes....

*I added a tiny amount of moz. cheese to make my pizza have that melted-cheese look. If you don't care about appearances, then you probably don't need the moz. cheese added.

*Add the arugula later in the pizza process to avoid a burned-arugula taste.

*Here's another picture of heavenly pizza!

Pesto!

I finally have time to post some meals that I eat in the summer. My apologies for waiting so long to post again, but my husband and I have tons of adventures and activities planned for our summers off (teachers rock!) and it's hard to find time to sit still long enough to post recipes.

Anywho, for those that know me, I am obsessed with basil. I love it so much. So I might have gone a "bit" crazy this year and planted 8 plants of basil...okay, actually 10 or 12. Suddenly I find myself with tons and tons of basil so I decided to make my first ever batch of pesto.

I have always enjoyed the taste of pesto, but I cringe at the price of a small jar of pesto at the store. Homemade tastes better and is WAY cheaper! All of the ingredients for pesto should already be in the cupboards of anyone who bakes and cooks. All you need in addition to common ingredients is basil and pine nuts. When I went to the store, I almost decided against making pesto when I noticed that 4 ounces of pine nuts cost 4 bucks! But then I realized that you get a huge quantity of pesto (see picture above) from only 2 ounces of pesto, so it ended up costing me 2 dollars for a huge dish of homemade deliciousness. If you do not have enough basil growing in your garden for this recipe, simply go to your local greenhouse and buy more basil. Around Milwaukee, basil plants cost between 1 and 3 dollars. No biggie. Do NOT buy basil from the grocery store produce aisle! The stores around me, at least, have terrible tasting basil leaves that are majorly overpriced. It's way better to just buy another plant.

Enough jabbering from me. I promise to post plenty of recipes that use pesto. We have eaten four meals this week that used only part of this container of pesto, and I just made another batch and put it in the freezer. It stays good in the fridge for 2-ish weeks and for 4-ish months if you freeze it.

Ingredients:
*3/4 cup olive oil
*3 cups of basil (can include some stems...I just cut of the top third of each basil plant and put it right in the  food processor)
*1/2 cup of parmesan
*4 garlic cloves
*1/4 cup (2 oz.) pine nuts
*1 tsp. lemon juice


Directions:
1) Place all of the ingredients in a food processor. Blend to perfection. Taste and add additional items if necessary. Enjoy!

Comments:
*If you put it in the freezer, add a little layer of olive oil before putting on the cover. I don't remember why, but it had something to do with helping keep it fresh longer (I read it somewhere)