Bacon Wrapped TilapiaTilapia is a favorite around the WellDone household. For a white fish, it’s tasty, it’s inexpensive, and it’s healthy.
It was that last part, the healthy party, that basically forced me to wrap it in bacon.
Wonder ingredient powers activate! Form of:
So, a couple times now you may have noticed me talking about Crepini Cafe‘s crepini, which aren’t quite a crepe and not quite a blini, but they’re filled and they taste good. (You can check out my reviews for Crepini Cafe Greenwich Spinach and Four Cheese and Basil elsewhere on this fine blog.) Well, I also asked to try just some of their crepes by themselves since I figure I’ll probably never own my own crepe cooking device.
(This is due in no small part to the fact that I am cheap and my wife hates crepes.)
Also, the good folks at Alouette sent me some coupons to try their cheese spread. Since I was in an experimentin’ mood this weekend, I thought I would blend them and make a Mexican style crepe using Crepini Cafe crepes instead of tortillas.
How Was It?
REALLY good. Despite the fact the Crepini Cafe crepes have been in my freezer for a while now, when I baked them for a few minutes in a 350 degree oven, they were still pliable and chewy. They also tasted great and they went very well with the Alouette, which had great flavor and complemented the vegetarian topping very well.
Filed under recipes, reviews, vegetarian
There’s a new sensation in my house
I know, we came to this one a little late since grilled pizzas are showing up everywhere, but that’s okay. While I will never be confused as being cutting edge, I do tend to make a mean dish once I finally hop on the culinary bandwagon.
And I have jumped on this bandwagon with both feet.
To begin my initiation, I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some of their regular pizza crust (regular as in note whole grain.) My wife makes a mean pizza crust, but frankly both of us had had long weeks. Thus we made the not-terribly-difficult decision to pay the $3 and let the fine folks at Whole Foods take care of all our crust needs. Plus, Whole Foods pizza crust is pretty darn good.
When I got my crust home, I figured we’d want to have pizza with caramelized onions, so I got them started. Then, I divided the pizza dough into four smaller balls, rolled them out flat, and let them rest.
But what to do about toppings?
A long, long time ago the good folks at Laughing Cow cheese sent me a coupon for a free sample, which, of course, I accepted. Because I am kind of a big dummy, I never actually used the darn thing, but that’s okay since my wife keeps a pretty steady supply in the house. (Sorry for the anecdote, but for FTC purposes, I wanted to say something. I mean I did receive free product, I just never really used it. Silly FTC.) Anway, she loves the stuff and puts it on toast, crackers, tomatoes, etc. Edit: that never happened. It was Alouette and Chavrie that sent me coupons. They’re obviously much better for it. 🙂
I wasn’t even thinking about it at first. As I was trying to figure out how to top my resting crusts, I settled on doing a balsamic/caramelized onion jam and goat cheese pizza. The problem: no goat cheese! But, as stated above, we did have Laughing Cow Swiss cheese.
You know, sometimes it’s okay not to have all the ingredients you wanted…
Filed under recipes, vegetarian
Looking for something spicy, how about
What is Cajun Chickpea Mash? Well, quite frankly it’s one of those dishes that got created one night because I had leftovers and a hungry family. (A hungry family that, as it just so happens, loves chickpeas.)
To make the cajun mash, I basically started off doing exactly what I would have done if this were a jambalya. That meant starting with a trinity (carrots, onions, celery). However, I didn’t want just another rice dish, so I added potatoes, a few dried peppers , a little tomato sauce, and finally, some chickpeas.
All in all, it turned our pretty darn good.
Filed under recipes, vegan, vegetarian
Point of order. Yes, I skipped a night last night. My fault. But I’m back and blogging away, this time with
Let me start off by saying that I despise this dish. Yeah, I know, I should keep it positive, but seriously, bleck. And I mean bleck from the bottom of my heart.
However, my son loves the stuff, which as far as I am concerned, is as good a reason as any for a paternity test.
With that aside, you might be wondering how healthy mac and cheese with tuna fish can be. It’s a fair question. A lot of mac and cheese comes from a box and tuna is pretty high in mercury. Also, unbleached flour isn’t exactly fantastic for kids. Plus, there’s a lot of cream and butter in mac and cheese and that’s not so good. And if you are wondering all that, you have a lot of nerve.
Still, I have solutions to all of these issues.
Filed under Cook With Your Kids
Ready for man food with
So, you’re probably wondering what “Hegan Thursday” is. Well, for the first time today, I was exposed to the term “hegan,” which is a man who has adopted the vegan lifestyle for health reasons. Mrs. WellDone doesn’t care for the term, but I think it’s brilliant since there are far fewer male vegans than female.
Plus, I like hegan since it evokes all sorts of manliness and grunting and all that good stuff. As far as I am concerned, if you’re going to go vegan, intense manliness is just a good a reason as any!! (Second only to perhaps health benefits.)
Anyway, since I’m always devilishly trendy (or not, depending on your definition of trendy), I’m going to do my best to support all the hegans out there with man food done meatless. Like today’s kebobs.
Filed under Hegan Thursday, recipes, vegan
Egg Tostada
Okay, I’m back and it’s #meatlessmonday time!
Yeah, I know it’s been a few weeks and I feel real bad about it, but I shall make it up to vegetarians everywhere I promise. But enough of that for now, on to
I wanted to do something a bit fancier for tonight’s post. For instance, at some point in time I am going to expose my version of Jasper Mirabile’s recipe for green lentil soup (or you know, I might just ask him for it). However, quite frankly, things just didn’t go as planned tonight between forgetting to pack BWD, Jr.’s swimming trunks and the fact I hadn’t eaten much all day. So I gave up on anything fancy and instead whipped up a little Mexican sauce, fried up some eggs and happily went to town.
By the way, I promise you, my food tasted better than that picture. Tonight was all about rush jobs, even with the picture!
Filed under recipes, techniques
Homemade Gyoza
Okay, last one I swear. It’s just having to eat the same thing four days in a row really gets my creativity going. So in this post for Thanksgiving turkey leftovers, we’re going to make
So, I’ve got a rule when it comes to creating turkey day leftovers dishes: escape the traditional Thansgiving flavors. On days four through twenty of Turkey Day leftover eating, the problem isn’t that we don’t love turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc. We all still do! The problem is eating the same thing from November 25th to December 25th is boring!!!
So, we are taking Turkey to the Orient with this recipe. It’s just a simple dumpling recipe using storebought gyoza or wonton wraps. No fuss, no muss. Just a delicious turkey dish completely different than what you’ve been eating!
Filed under recipes, techniques, turkey
Okay, I don’t know about you, but I am about sick of turkey leftovers. Yes, Thanksgiving dinner was great…like four days ago. But now, I want something new and different. Something that in no way tastes like Thanksgiving dinner. Something like
Ah…this recipe takes me back. The first article I ever wrote for BIAO Magazine was a Black Friday special that used Thanksgiving leftovers for a quick, healthy meal you could fix after a long day of Black Friday shopping. With that being said, this is not a revisiting of that recipe. It is a reimagining! I am tooking the same basic concept and using more spices and peppers for a Mexican-inspired flavor since, at this point, I do not want to eat anything that even vaguely reminds me of Turkey Day leftovers.
With that being said, if you have some leftover mashed potatoes, we’ll be using them as an optional thing little extra for the bowl!
Pigs In a Blanket - Veggie Style
I really should be ashamed of doing this, but tonight we’re kicking it old school with
And when I say old school, I’m talking like kindergarten. You want healthy vegetarian cuisine? Not on this Meatless Monday, my friend. Not on this Meatless Monday.
See, a while back I threw a big Christmas bash for some friends. I put together a nice little spread with some spring rolls, some chicken skewers, some nice vegan bread pudding, and some pigs in a blanket. Knowing that there would be some vegetarians in the crowd, I bought both regular hot dogs and some Smart Dogs, which are my favorite brand of non-meat hot dog. I wrapped both the vegetarian and regular dogs in croissants and baked them in the oven according to the croissants’ package directions.
Easy enough.
The thing is…every one seemed to like the food. However, the one thing I couldn’t make fast enough was those pigs in a blanket. Funny thing was, NO ONE fessed up to actually eating them, but somehow they kept disappearing.
So, go ahead, make these little guys for yourself. I won’t tell. I promise.
Filed under Meatless Monday, recipes
