Tuna Melt

I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of grocery shopping, which has left me with a somewhat random assortment of food. I haven't accumulated a whole lot yet so today I made do with what I had: tuna, bread, and cheese!

Ingredients:

1 slice of bread (your choice; I used whole wheat)

1 can tuna

garlic powder

2-3 Tbs shredded cheese or 2 slices cheese

Toast the bread until it's dark brown; you need it to stand up to the tuna without getting soggy, so leave it in the toaster for a little longer than you would normally. Mix some garlic powder into the tuna and stir. I didn't add any mayonnaise; with the cheese, you don't really need it. Top the piece of toast with the tuna (there's probably enough in one can for two slices if you want more than one) and the cheese. Microwave it for 30 seconds, or until the cheese is melted. Enjoy!

Chicken and Mushrooms

This is very quick and easy and tastes good.

1 T. olive oil
1/4 c. chopped onions
1 pound chicken breast
1 can cream of mushroom soup (use Campbell's Healthy Request; less sodium and fat)
1 to 2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup water or wine if desired

Heat oil in skillet. Either pound out breasts or cut in half horizontally so they are not too thick. When oil is heated, saute onions. Add breasts and brown on both sides. Add salt and pepper if desired. Add mushrooms and saute lightly; then add mushroom and water or wine. Bring to light boil, then lower and cover for 15 to 20  minutes to allow chicken to cook through. Serve over rice.

Coffee Oatmeal

So I've found yet another way to incorporate caffeine into my daily life...

The other day, I was inspired to make oatmeal using freshly brewed coffee instead of hot water or milk. Add about a half cup (or more, depending on whether you like your oatmeal thick or soupy) and add coffee creamer and sugar/Splenda to taste. You don't need to microwave it, just stir after you add coffee to the oats. And there you go! Your whole breakfast in a bowl: tasty, caffeinated oatmeal.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure any of you would actually like this (though I genuinely do!). In part I just want to encourage creativity with oatmeal. It's a terrific vessel for lots of things--fruit, granola, peanut butter...

Also, I've only tried it with instant oats, not regular, but I assume it would still work with the regular kind.

Quick and Easy Italian Noodles and Sausage

This is my stand-by -- I made a big pot last week and I'm still finishing it up. All you need is:

1 box of pasta of your choice (I go for elbows)
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes (even better if you can find one with basil or garlic or something else inside too)
1 package turkey sausage -- Italian
fresh garlic or garlic powder
basil, fresh or dry
oregano

Just boil up the noodles and cook the sausage -- if you get that pre-cooked Costco sausage you may just need to microwave it a little. Slice up the sausage and fry the garlic in olive oil in a big skillet with the garlic and oregano. Add the noodles, the sausage, and the cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, and mix it up over medium-low heat for a while. Nothing too special, but it's really easy to store those ingredients if you're in college, and it's great to use as leftovers for lunches or dinners by yourself.

Berry banana smoothies

I make these once in a while as a snack/dessert. They are great on a hot day! It makes 2 pretty big glasses or 3 smallish ones. The measurements are pretty eyeballed but you can always add more to taste and re-blend.
Combine in a blender:
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 frozen bananas (peel and break up when they are getting too ripe and store in a zip-loc bag)
1/3 package frozen mixed berries
2 packets splenda

Pour in soy milk or orange juice (don't need the splenda if you use OJ) to about cover the ingredients and blend until smooth. If the blender gets stuck add a little more liquid and blend again.

Using orange juice makes it a little sweeter and using soy milk makes it a little creamier.

Greek Yogurt in Potato Salad

I've always wanted to substitute plain, nonfat Greek yogurt for mayonnaise in potato salad and other salads because it would make these types of salads so much healthier. So today I tried it, and it's really good -- in fact, I like it better than mayonnaise. I used it in Michele Maguire's famous potato salad, which is my favorite. Here's the recipe I used:

2.5 lbs potatoes
2 T salad soil
2.5 T. cider vinegar
2 T. finely chopped onions
1 t. salt
1/2 t. dill seed ( very important, has to be the seed, and it is what makes this so good)
3/4 c. mayonnaise but I substituted all the mayo for Greek yogurt

You cook the potatoes, peel them, and then mix all the ingredients besides the potatoes and onions together and pour over and mix up. We're going to have it tonight for Laura's friends.

Brownies

Colleen brought over homemade brownies last week that had peanut butter in them. She made regular brownies, then heated up a cup of peanut butter until it was soft and liquidy. Then she swirled it around in the brownie mixture already in the pan with a knife. They were amazing.

And this really works: to get clean edges, cut the brownies with a PLASTIC KNIFE! And you can cut them while they are still warm. I tried this last week when I made brownies for Greg's going-away party. Worked really well.

Laura's lemon pesto

I've been wanting to try adding lemon to pesto sauce for the last couple weeks--and since our basil plants have grown so big I decided to give it a shot. I didn't measure everything as I was adding it to the blender (sorry) so some of these amounts are approximate.

Ingredients:
Olive oil
1-2 cups fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon
1/4 - 1/2 cup pine nuts
Salt and pepper

Tear up basil leaves into smaller pieces before putting in the blender or food processor. Add a few tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic; blend. Add the zest of the lemon to the mixture. Squeeze the juice of one half of the lemon into the mixture (cut side facing up; that way, the seeds won't fall into the pesto). Add salt and pepper to taste. Add more olive oil as needed for consistency (I think I ended up using about 1/4 cup. Mine was a thicker pesto--and did not make as much--but if you wanted to stretch the recipe or get a thinner consistency you could add more olive oil and some water.). Remove from blender and add pine nuts.

When I made this it only amounted to about a cup of pesto; we spread it over chicken. Enjoy! :)

~Laura