July 2012 – Cremona's Kitchen

Cheesy Zucchini Bake

July 31, 2012 No Comments

While I was studying for the bar, I wanted fast and easy homemade meals. Our freezer was full of ground turkey so I decided to cook it up, mix it together with pasta, cheese, and herbs and turn it into a bake. Matt feel in love with the meal, begging me to remake it. So after making various versions of the pasta bake, I decided it was time for a vegetarian bake.

Our fridge is becoming increasingly more full of fresh veggies from our garden every day so I cut up our multi-colored zucchinis, some basil, green onions, and jalapenos, mix them with some cheese, spinach, and dried herbs. and the cheesy zucchini bake was born!

isn’t this tomato cool! it’s a striped tomato.

recipes, side dishes, vegetarian

Orange Bell Pepper and Basil Bruschetta

July 30, 2012 No Comments

Today was harvest day at the Cremona house. With my handy shears, I plopped tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos, serranos, green beans, and an orange pepper into my basket. When I was done, I looked like I raided a farmer’s market.

I am so proud of my orange bell pepper. Last year only my green peppers grew so I was thrilled when this year turned out to be different. I didn’t want my miracle pepper to go to waste. This pepper needed to be used in a truly fun recipe. Something unique where the flavors of the pepper stood out.

orangie pepper — my orange pepper in its natural habitat.

Matt arrange them like this, claiming they were on a cucumber sled.

This twist on the traditional, tomato-based bruschetta was excellent. The orange pepper makes the bruschetta sweeter and crunchier. Next time I make this I think I’ll use different color bell peppers to see how that mixes up the taste.

recipes, side dishes, vegetarian

Beet Chips

July 29, 2012 2 Comments

My friend Krystal is a member of this vegetable co-op where every Thursday she gets a box full of fresh veggies from a local farm. I am the lucky person who gets extra veggies when her crisper is already filled from the week before. In her box this week were some beets which she gifted to me.

I’ve honestly never had beets before. I certainly had no idea how to prepare them. In fact, my only interaction with the vegetable was through the cartoon Doug. Matt has been craving snack foods a lot lately. Every night he is rummaging through the kitchen looking for something to nibble on. He has always been a fan of chips, and his stash of ketchup chips is running thin.

And that’s how beet chips were born. The creation in this dish caused possibly the most “damage” my hands have ever had to go through in the kitchen. My hands were stained red, and I cut my fingers on the slicer 4 times. There was a real labor of love. While the recipe I followed recommend slicing the beets as thin as possible, Matt and I both liked the thicker pieces. So try some thicker and thinner slices to see where your taste buds land.

recipes, side dishes, vegetarian

Spicy Cucumber and Red Onion Salad

July 20, 2012 1 Comment

Our garden has really started to take off. My orange peppers are slowly turning colors, tomatoes are becoming plump, and I have more hot peppers than I know what to do with! As expected, the cucumbers have taken the lead as the highest producer. And that is ok with me.

curly — apparently growing at massive speeds isn’t enough for my plants. they now are showing off their contortionist skills.

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE cucumbers. I can thank my father for this obsession. Growing up, my father had a small vegetable garden. Every summer, he harvested his cucumbers to make a dill cucumber salad. It has always been one of my favorite dishes. This year, we have so many cucumbers that we’d be eating this salad every day for every meal if we wanted to use up all our cuc’s. So I’ve been making modifications to his salad to spice up our veggie side dishes.

photo(21) — freshly picked cucumber from the garden.

The spicy peppers rival the cucumbers in multiplicity so I added a pepper to our salad. It was a bit too spicy for poor Matt (he’s a bit of a wimp when it comes to heat) so I added less red pepper flakes. I recommend opting for less heat at first and add more to taste.

chicken, main dishes, recipes, slow cooker

Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore

July 8, 2012 1 Comment

The dreaded bar exam is lurking around the corner. In 16 days, I’ll be sitting down in a crowded, stuffy classroom, surrounded by over-stressed, nerve-ridden students waiting to take a two day-12 hour exam that will decide whether or not we are fit to practice law in Minnesota. Sounds great huh? Bring on the fun!

While I wait in anticipation of this joyous event, I have been cramming every single piece of law I can into my over-sized head. It’s gotten to the point that when I have conversations, they consist of me telling someone about a certain area of law. “Hey! So you’re never gonna believe this crazy piece of information! You can use prior inconsistent statements to impeach a witness. AND it can come in as substantive evidence.” Yeah, I know. Crazy. But it’s true!!

So since I can only speak in legal jargon, I’ve decided to stick to crock pot recipes for the next two weeks. Anything that takes more than 20 minutes to cook makes me feel guilty for reading something that isn’t cluttered with italic, Latin phrases. My poor summer fun reading list has been set aside (sorry Jessi Witkins!) And this recipe only calls for ingredients that most people have on hand at all times. No need for a grocery run.

The heat index in Minneapolis has started to decline (we live in house without air conditioning. the last couple days were less than pleasant) so using the crock pot isn’t completely unreasonable. Plus, after a full day of studying, a warm meal sure feels great! And hell, who doesn’t love chicky catch with some long ass rice (much love to my boy Tom Haverford).

main dishes, recipes, vegetarian

Greek Avocado Quinoa

July 4, 2012 3 Comments

I bought quinoa almost a two years ago. I tried to make it and completely failed. Either I cooked it too long, not long enough, or I did it right and couldn’t even recognize it. Either way, I gave up. Put the bag in my cupboard and forgot that I even had it at all. Until earlier this month. People kept pinning all these recipes with quinoa as the staple. It was time to bring my cupboard quinoa out of retirement and try to make something. So I picked some herbs from my garden, threw all the veggies we had in the crisper together, and tossed a dressing. It was delicious. Now I can see what all the fuss was about.