Cheesy Potatoes and Green Beans

Oh my god you guys, last night I did something awesome.

I was rooting around in my fridge to find something for dinner, and came across a bag of new potatoes and a bag of green beans. What delicious thing could I concoct these ingredients, I asked? I thought back to my dinner on Saturday night at this delicious Eritrean restaurant where we were served an amazing okra in a tomatoey, oniony sauce-- and it dawned on me: I could make a tomato-ey, onion-y, and best of all, CHEESY, stew!

Ingredients
3 new potatoes, washed and cut into bite-sized-ish pieces
1 "bag" of green beans (1 pound? Maybe?)
1 small heirloom tomato
1/2 cup tomato sauce (in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have used this. It had too many of its own spices in it and overwhelmed the flavor of the dish. Try tomato paste, or just a bunch of fresh tomatoes chopped up!)
a little less than 1/2 cup water
1/2 a sweet onion
1 clove of garlic
coriander
cumin
salt & pepper

Do It!

1. Saute chopped garlic with a dash each of the spices until it starts smelling awesome.
   
2. Add the onions and cook for a few more minutes, then add the chopped tomato(es).
   
3. Cook these for a few more minutes, then add the potatoes and cook for (another) few minutes.
   
4. Add water and tomato sauce, stir well, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes or until the potatoes aren't quite hard as rocks anymore.
   
5. Add the chopped green beans, stir and re-cover. Cook everything together for a few more minutes until all the liquid is more or less dissolved.
   
6. Add finely grated sharp cheddar cheese, more salt, and pepper to taste.

Tada! I even had enough leftover for lunch today. This would be an excellent potluck dish and makes for easy and yummy leftovers!

Summer Fruit Crisp

Here's another stellar selection from one of my favorite blogs, smitten kitchen. I've made this one two or three times since I first found the recipe, and have been changing it slightly to fit my tastes each time. These have served me very well as work-day breakfasts--with a little yogurt--and I've added many different types of fruit. Delish!

The ingredients are very variable depending on how much fruit you use. I haven't measured it very exactly, so you'll just have to see what works for you!

Ingredients
For the filling:
6 or 7 very ripe apricots
2 ripe peaches
blueberries
raspberries
3 or so tablespoons of flour
2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar
Honey

For the crumbles
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup flour
a little sugar
a little salt
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
About 1/2 a cup (I think? Maybe more...) warm water-honey mixture
a few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg on top

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350.
Prepping the fruit--specifically the apricots--is the best part of this dish. Just tear them into quarters and plop 'em in a bowl. Tearing fruit! Awesome!


Mix all the "for the filling" ingredients together in a bowl, then transfer to a baking dish. Mix the dry ingredients and spices together in a separate bowl, then add the butter and water-honey mixture until you have a crumbly mixture. Don't over-water! Add the liquids slowly and stop when chunky clusters start to form.

Spread the crumbles evenly over the top of the fruit in the baking dish, then bake for 25-ish minutes. Keep an eye on it once you pass the 20 minute mark; you're looking for bubbling to indicate it's done. If you let it go too long the fruit will bubble up all on the sides and swallow the crumbles. You can eat it hot with ice cream or cold with yogurt. I've been eating it for breakfast and it is perfect that way! Enjoy!

Halibut

That, my friends, was one delicious piece of halibut. I sort of followed this guy's advice, which was very helpful-- but I did some tweaking.

Here's how it happened:


Ingredients
Halibut
Milk
Butter
Seasonings (I just guessed. Mostly thyme I think? That sounded good.)

Preparation
Preheat your oven to 375
Place the (cleaned) halibut in a dish, as shown, with some milk (or soymilk) not quite covering the fish. Throw some spices on there: as I said above, I just guessed about what I thought might go well. I think I ended up with some thyme, basil, salt 'n' pepa (dur) and maybe garlic salt? Maybe. Experiment with other spices! Hooray!

Then, throw a patty of butter on the top. Mmm, butter.


The recipe I was working from suggested cooking this bad boy for 1.5 hours in a 325 degree oven. I think it was closer to 25 minutes at 350 degrees--- but honestly, I don't remember. Sorry! You'll just have to ballpark it.

I think I remember this needing a little salt, so maybe add some extra salt with those spices. Maybe adding paprika or chili flakes or something might also be good. Who knows! The kitchen is for experiments. Rah! (Dinosaur noise)