Recipe: Soy and Brown Sugar Salmon

My friend Elizabeth cooked an impromptu dinner for her boyfriend and I last night and it was a real winner. She did a soy and brown sugar marinated salmon, a wild rice medley, and paired it with a very nice Riesling. I threw in a frozen green bean/wax bean/carrot mix that I had and dinner turned out as you can see above. Even better, the marinade for the salmon (the real star on the plate) was incredibly simple.
When marinading, you can either put the salmon filets in a gallon bag or in the oven-safe glass dish you will eventually cook the fish in. That glass dish can then go straight into the oven and then straight into the dishwasher. SIMPLE.

Recipe: Baked Avocado and Egg

After a long and conspicuous absence, Cheap and Easy is back! School got the better of me for a while and to be honest the food wasn't all that interesting. Now that things have evened out the food has improved and I finally have time to keep posting on here.

To kick things off I thought I'd show you the newest thing that I've tried.  I know that looking at this you may be thinking "Warm avocado...is that a...thing?" Let me tell you, spread on some crusty bread this becomes part of a really delicious dinner (or breakfast). You might also be thinking, "Aren't avocados expensive?" Well that depends, if you have an Aldi near you keep an eye on the advertisements, they often sell them for $0.49-0.79 a piece, which is very inexpensive compared to other stores. Other places may also offer decent specials of their own. Some online recipes have topped their baked avocados with bacon, though I prefer it with just some cracked pepper and sriracha (maybe a spoonful of salsa).

Recipe: Summer Quinoa Salad

I'm still here! I am working on getting in the habit of posting more regularly again, so I promise I'll stop failing at that soon.  Until then, this is a great salad that came together in about 20 minutes.  I was having a bottle of wine with my friends Erica and Elizabeth and we decided we wanted some dinner (but didn't want to go out).  They gave me free reign of their pantry and kitchen and after a bit of poking around I threw this together with their help.  What is great about this salad is that it is gluten-free, super healthy, and endlessly interchangeable.  During the fall you could swap in roasted squash and eggplant, in the spring you could add in chopped baby spinach, apple, pecans and raisins.  I wish I had had some fresh parsley or lemon to throw in to give it a tabouli feel but it was perfect the way was. It works great as a main dish, or would be terrific beside a pice of grilled chicken or fish.

Zesty Chicken Rollups

The credit for this recipe goes to my mother.  When I was back at home a few weekends ago she whipped this up and it is a great way to use the grill to keep the house cool in the summer and do something that is a bit out of the norm for dinner.  The secret to keeping the chicken juicy and giving it great flavor is a long marinade in zesty Italian dressing (12ish hours) and the tucked in feta gives is a wonderful little surprise inside.  You could also use a dollop of Boursin or any other type  of cheese that you like, but the feta doesn't melt as easily meaning less could ooze out onto the grill.  The chicken itself is the thin cut variety, if you can't find that you can always pound out your own.

Here's what you need:
Zesty Italian dressing
Thin cut chicken breasts for the number of people you are serving
3 thin asparagus spears per person
Feta cheese
Salt
Pepper
Cooking spray

Marinate the chicken in Zesty Italian for up to 12 hours for the best flavor.  Remove the chicken from the marinade and place on your cutting board, seasoning with salt and pepper.  Remove the woody ends from the asparagus and spray lightly with cooking spray and season with the salt and pepper.  Place them in chicken breast with a slice (if its a block) or crumbles of feta.  Roll up the chicken around the filling and use toothpicks to keep it closed.

Preheat your grill to 400 degrees and cook for 15 minutes, turning every 5 or until the chicken is cooked through.  We served it with grilled corn and some toasted sourdough.

Sweet Substitutions: Chocolate Chip Chickpea Bites

Let's take a break from our regularly scheduled programing, shall we? My sister sent me another post for the Sweet Substitutions section (you can read the first one, here)  This time its Chocolate Chip Chickpea Bites from one of her friends blogs, and from the pictures it looks like something I'm going to have to make myself very soon.  Without further adieu, I'll let her take it away:

Recipe: Lentil Stuffed Mushrooms

I've gotten back on a lentil kick recently, though some popular opinions assert that I never got off of it... but no matter.  I've talked about them a few times (here, here, and here) but this recipe might just take the proverbial cake.  The earthiness of the lentils pairs very nicely with the mushrooms, the ingredients stewed with the lentils add some extra nutrition and color, and the lentils themselves could be prepared several days ahead.  I made a pretty big batch of the lentils here, but if you were only looking to make a few mushrooms the recipe could easily be halved.  I got most of my ingredients at our local ALDI.  If you have one check it out, I've been very surprised by both the prices and the quality of the stuff they have.

You might also notice after reading the recipe that I cook the lentils for a long time, but I have a reason....I sort of like when they form a mush, or I suppose paste sounds better.  After it cools and goes in the fridge it can be spread on bread, dipped with crackers, and used in all sorts of ways (one of which is being stuffed into mushrooms, so it works out pretty well).  With the ease of prep after the lentils are cooked this would be a great item to take to parties, or reduce the recipe and have with a salad for an easy summer or fall dinner.

21+: Blueberry Gin-ger-ade

Happy 4th to all of you in America, and happy Wednesday to the rest of you.  I made this drink last night for some festivities and thought that I would share it with you all.  It got great reviews from my friends and really hit the spot with the heat. Its cool, sweet, and is easy to throw together.  You can even make some of it ahead of time and throw in the ginger ale right before you leave.  This makes about 2 liters of drink but could be halved or doubled pretty easily.