Healthy Fish and Chips?

So while I watch the Lady Bears in the NCAA Championship, I decided to multi-task and write a blog post at the same time (even though I'm fairly certain nobody reads these). I just love to write...and watch my team in championship games.

This past weekend at Central Market, the weekly fish special was cod, so Mark and I decided to try out a "healthier" version of fish and chips. I'm not sure there's really such a thing as healthy fish and chips, but a girl can dream.

I can't say I know exactly what Mark did to the cod to add the "chips," but I noticed it involved Bisquick, hatch chiles, milk, cayenne pepper and eggs. So basically it's fish wrapped in biscuits... and it was delicious.

While Mark was cooking the fish, I prepared whole wheat rice (and by prepared, I mean microwaved for 90 seconds) and a side salad with pineapple, goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. Mark also made a tiny bit of homemade tartar sauce by mixing some mayonnaise and relish.

In other news, we survived 12 tornadoes in the metroplex today. When Mark and I got back to work after lunch, we discovered we were under a tornado warning. In what seemed like no time, we were being sent to a hallway downstairs by the fire marshall. Tornadoes scare me! But this face made it better....

Oh how I love that face. Well, it's back to NCAA basketball for this girl. Hope you all stayed safe during the crazy Texas weather today! SIC' EM BEARS!

M&m

Veggie Heaven

As many people know, I am a huge advocate of fruits and veggies. I probably eat more fruit and vegetables than I do other foods (I also probably eat more chocolate, but that's neither here nor there). So when I found a recipe for vegetable enchiladas on Pinterest, I immediately wanted to make it. I mean, mixing vegetables with my Mexican culture. Hello, win-win.

(The only downside of this dish is that it required so many ingredients, so the grocery shopping bill was a little high this week. However... totally worth it.)

Since this dish was so detailed, I won't walk you through every step and make this post boring. Basically, you start off my chopping... and chopping... and more chopping. This recipe called for poblano peppers, red bell peppers. cauliflower, sweet potato, onion, corn and spinach. So much veg!

After we had chopped, sliced and diced all of our vegetables, we drizzled them on a cookie sheet with grapeseed oil and baked them for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. While the vegetables were cooking, Mark tore up six tortillas into smaller pieces in order to cover the bottom of a baking pan. On top of the tortilla base, we poured a small amount of salsa, cheese and spinach. 

Once the vegetables had finished cooking and crisped toward the edges, we poured one-third of the cooked veggies on top of our first layer. We repeated this three times, creating three separate layers of tortillas, salsa, cheese, spinach and vegetables. We then popped the baking pan back into the oven for another 30 minutes to let the tortillas and cheese cook.

The top layer got the most cheese as you can see. ;) After the dish was finished cooking, we had to let it cool for another 10 minutes. This recipe made a lot of enchilada, and we were only able to finish about 1/4 of the entire dish. I am hoping my mom will come by and get some after her class, but we will see. If anyone would like some, come on by! It was probably one of my favorite meals we've made so far.

I'm sorry this was not the best written post, I am halfway writing, halfway watching the Mavs.

Happy cooking! M&m :)

Back By Popular Demand

Hospitaliano!

A lot has happened since I vowed to start blogging again on our seven month anniversary. Mark and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary last weekend, so I decided I'd attempt to blog a little here and there again.

For our one year anniversary, Mark bought us both iPads... and I have now lost a fiance to Temple Run (a game you can download on the iPad where you run from Monkeys...). The gift was such an amazing surprise though and I have loved getting to use it so far.

Tonight I pulled a recipe from a Healthy Cooking cookbook I bought at Half Price Books awhile back. The dish was a whole wheat pasta dish with tomatoes, asparagus and pesto, which we made with a side salad. It was amazing and hit the spot. I love whole wheat pasta so much more than regular pasta. I will let the picture speak for itself.

The meal was super easy. The whole wheat pasta was cooked in boiling water while Mark sauteed the asparagus and red pepper flakes in extra virgin olive oil. Once the asparagus were crispy, Mark tossed in the halved grape tomatoes, pesto and garlic. After that had cooked for a little while, we drained the pasta, threw all of the ingredients on top and sprinkled a little basil on top and BAM... all done.

While Mark worked on the pasta, I threw together a side salad to serve with the pasta. I had gotten a prepackaged salad mix at Central Market this weekend, so I added the rest of the halved tomatoes that we didn't use with the pasta and threw on some cheddar cheese. I thought Italian dressing would be fitting and it definitely completed the salad.

So hopefully this post will be the start or more blogging for me. It's relaxing for me to be able to write after a long day at work, even if it is on a silly blog about random things.

:)

M&m

In honor of our 7 month anniversary...

I decided to get back on the blogging saddle. Last week we didn't get much quality time with the kitchen, so this week Mark and I vowed to make at least three dinners at my apartment. Last night we made a grilled tilapia with wild rice and broccoli. It was one of the best fish dishes we've made and so delicious.

While in the produce section at Central Market on Sunday (my new favorite place) Mark and I spotted some delicious looking green peppers and inspiration struck as I was instantly reminded of my mom's famous stuffed peppers. The giant bright green guys pretty much sold themselves.

We began the pepper party by cutting the tops off the peps and dicing them so that they could be added to the meat and rice mix later on. I also diced about 1/8 of a yellow onion to add to the mix.

While I was working on the veggies, Mark manned the meat station. In the meat mix, we added brown rice, the remainder of the green peppers and the chopped onions, tomato sauce, taco seasoning and worcestershire sauce.

After the meat had been cooked, we stuffed the peppers and put them in the oven to bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Because Mark and I decided to run before dinner today, I was starving while we waited for the peppers, so I downed quite a few giant Central Market grapes and Mark watched sports...

Finally after 20 minutes of grape-eating, the stuffed peppers were finished!!

Since I had no idea what sides you make with stuffed peppers, I decided to throw the rest of the grapes on Mark's plate as a side (they were so good, they only lasted two days, whoops). With the melted cheese on top, these stuffed peppers were everything we'd been craving and more. It was a perfect meal to ring in seven perfect months of dating.

More to come (maybe) :)

M&m

Rule #71: No Excuses

Okay, I admit it. I've been slacking on the blog front. So I'm (wo)manning up and saying it, I have no excuses.

Except... it is Shark Week. Mark and I have been pretty glued to the Discovery Channel, not going to lie. It's just so educational. So far, Jaws Comes Home has been my favorite find this year, but the week is young.

I mean come on, what's not to love about that?

Anyway, I will also admit that Mark and I didn't do much cooking last week, so any blog posting I would have done wouldn't have involved food. And, let's be honest, the food posts are always the best.

Last night, we got back in the kitchen finally. Since this past weekend was a food fest of sorts, we decided a light dinner was probably our best bet. So we went with salad. Since I am a fruit freak, Mark was nice enough to agree to a chicken salad absolutely covered in fruit. We did throw in some feta cheese also. The result was nothing short of perfect.

I basically just put every kind of fruit in my fridge onto this salad while Mark worked his magic on the George Foreman grill. While Mark manned the grill, I cut up (and ate as a pre-meal snack) lots of strawberries, blueberries and black grapes. (side note: Market Street has the best produce) 

We used the chicken seasoning I have to add flavor to the chicken and, let me tell you, it was some of the best chicken we've had.

Mark snapped a shot of me adding the chicken to our salad.

Of course I had to add in Mark's artistic shot. My boyfriend is such a good photographer.

I promise to take better care of this blog. Nobody likes a slacker. Live every week like it's Shark Week.

M&m

It's Not Delivery, It's Mark and Megan's

I know every post I say that meal is the best, but this may have really been the best. Mark and I have been talking about making homemade pizza for awhile, so we finally busted out the big guns tonight. We bought a whole grain pizza crust at Whole Foods yesterday and just to spice things up a bit, decided to divide the pie in half and make our own creations on each side. Being obsessed with vegetables, I naturally decided to go with a veggie pizza. I may have gone a bit overboard on my veg purchase (as seen below). However, I was able to be more than generous with my toppings.

I cut up green peppers, cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, onions and mushrooms for my veggie pizza. I also used part-skim mozzarella cheese and the leftover mushroom spaghetti sauce from our turkey spaghetti. Mark went with the classic margherita style pizza. He cut fresh mozzarella, basil and tomatoes and put it on top of the spaghetti sauce we used as our base.

All in all, we were more than happy with the results. The crust was much better than either of us expected, and we only ate half of this giant pizza... which means leftovers (aww yeah)!

More posts to come :)

M&m

Lets Put Another Shrimp On the Barbie

Tonight Mark and I got back in the kitchen and created what I believe to be our best dinner yet, shrimp kabobs. As I type this, I have a belly full of kabob.

After work we went to Whole Foods to pick up our ingredients for dinner. I may or may not have fallen prey to every single samp they offered while we were there (it's my weakness, sue me).

We decided to go with shrimp, cherry tomatoes, pineapples, onions, mushrooms, zucchini and squash on our kabobs. 

We also ventured down a path we'd never been before: quinoa. Being the avid food blog reader that I am, I've heard a lot about quinoa and we'd been wanting to try it for awhile, so we decided tonight was the night. It turns out, quinoa is basically just a healthier version of rice.

On a completely unrelated note, I got to play in a softball game last night. My friend Alycia asked me to play for a team she's been on all season. They needed girls to play and I love softball so I said yes. It was fun to be out on the field again. I took the liberty of throwing in this video that Mark so lovingly filmed while I was at bat.

We won our game.

More posts to come :)

M&m