Quick and Easy « Eat Love Cook

Posts filed under ‘Quick and Easy’

After a long stretch of feasting on delicious but decidedly not-so-healthy foods like over the Thansgiving holiday, we sometimes crave for a simple, wholesome dish that can carry us in to the next week. Something that is easy to prepare (since we are still lethargic from the afore-mentioned feasting) and can get back some much needed essential nutrients into our bodies. You know, since chocolate and fried breading do not really constitute a well-balanced diet, and you can only go so far with the leftovers you have left from Turkey Day dinner!

An easy dish of Roast Veggies is all we really needed to make this weekend to help cheer us up a little bit – though getting out of bed Monday morning after a nice and easy holiday week was tough no matter what. The colorful vegetables added a little brightness to an otherwise bleak, gray, rainy day.

This dish is easy to put together – chop up whatever vegetables you have left over (we’re partial to carrots, mushrooms, onions and peppers), omit whatever veggies your significant other may not want (wifey hates zucchini, so I will have to find another use for them this week), add in some dried herbs along with salt and pepper, drizzle in some olive oil and throw it in a hot oven. In about 20-30 mins you’ll have a nice fresh side of veggies to go with whatever concoction you’re sure to try this week involving turkey breast and cranberry sauce!

♥ Continue reading Quick and Easy Roast Vegetables

Filed under American, Quick and Easy

Posted on November 30th, 2009 |

1 Comment

Cheddar Dill Cornbread

Now that I have recovered fully from two nights of gorging myself on dishes as varied as green chili fritters and sweet pumpkin pie, with only the traditional turkey being left out from the Thanksgiving celebration, I finally figured I would get back to writing about food rather than just eating it.

Even though there was no Turkey for us this year (replaced by my aunt’s wonderful Indian food, so we didn’t feel too badly) I wanted to have atleast a little hint of the traditional Turkey Day cuisine while watching football, so I made a Cheddar Dill Cornbread as one of the dishes we took to the dinner.

This has become one of wifey’s favorite dishes – and it all started with a random episode of Barefoot Contessa we watched one Saturday afternoon. The steps to put this together were so simple that once we realized that we had all the necessary ingredients needed for the bread, it took us under an hour to get the hot, crumbly, cheesy bread out of the over to warm us on a chilly Saturday evening. Perfect as a pot-luck dish, this bread works as a wonderful sponge to soak up everything from turkey gravy to the bean sauces in mexican dishes.

♥ Continue reading Cheddar Dill Cornbread

Filed under American, Appetizers, Quick and Easy

Posted on November 27th, 2009 |

No Comments

Weekly Smoothie: Double Berry Blast (Raspberry-Blackberry)

I’m notorious for being a late sleeper – I sleep late at night and wake up even later in the morning. Every weekday morning becomes a bitter fight involving multiple alarm clocks, hitting the snooze button a million times, and a pillow being thrown at me by the wife tired of hearing the constantly ringing alarms. Then it is a mad dash to get ready to head to work – and since I’d rather spend a few extra minutes in the morning picking out the perfect tie for my shirt than making breakfast, I used to grab a couple of bananas on the way out.

Then I discovered the perfect, quick way to get a variety of fruits into my system first thing in the morning: smoothies! I pick up whatever fresh berries / fruits look good at the local fruit stand over the weekend and throw them in to the blender with some skim milk and voila – my nutrient-packed, delicious, low-fat breakfast for the work week is ready. I also have bit more of an incentive to wake up now, given the tasty treat that awaits me.

♥ Continue reading Weekly Smoothie: Double Berry Blast (Raspberry-Blackberry)

Filed under American, Beverages, Breakfast, Quick and Easy

Posted on November 21st, 2009 |

No Comments

Meatless Thursday: Veggie Pita Pizzas

I don’t meat on Thursday’s, just a gentle way to practice some restraint in my eating habits I suppose. Which poses a problem while structuring my meals for the day; veggies just lack the protein, and let’s be honest, the sheer deliciousness of a slab of meat! So I have to ensure the meals I prepare for Thursday are creative and tasty enough for me to look forward to eating them without getting tempted to slip in a chicken nugget or two.

Cheese pizza is the ultimate fall-back meal for vegetarians everywhere, my lovely wife included. She will gladly pick up a greasy/oily slice at 3am after a party night – that is the lure of the ubiquitous slice. But given my intense dislike for foods that have been sitting under a heat lamp, and the sheer impracticality of rolling out my own dough every Thursday, I decided to take a healthy shortcut – Whole Wheat Pita Pizza’s! Piled high with fresh veggies and really mozzarella cheese, these beauty’s are a cinch to make, re-heat perfectly in the toaster over, and taste good enough to not even tempt me to throw some pre-cooked chicken on them!

♥ Continue reading Meatless Thursday: Veggie Pita Pizzas

Filed under American, Dinner, Lunch, Quick and Easy

Posted on November 19th, 2009 |

No Comments

What came first? The Egg Curry of course!

There is something very poetic about the first recipe I wanted to post being that of my ammamma’s egg curry: there is nothing more basic in cooking than learning to properly cook eggs, and this also happened to be the very first curry I learnt to make.

My grandmother always used this recipe as a standby to provide us with some good protein in a pinch when meat was not readily available. As simple as it is versatile, the recipe is endlessly customizable: start with a base of deeply browned onions, add water to make it as dry/liquidy as you want before adding the beaten eggs. That’s pretty much it; you can then add your choice of frozen or fresh vegetables to add more flavor/texture or to add substance to the curry if you’re running low on eggs and have an army to feed.

This was an easy portal for me into what was in the beginning for me a bewildering and slightly intimidating world of South Indian curries. I am sure this recipe will take you slowly by the hand and lead you down the road of cooking Indian food – just like my grandparents held my hand and taught me to walk into this wonderful world.

♥ Continue reading What came first? The Egg Curry of course!

Filed under Dinner, Indian - South, Quick and Easy

Posted on November 17th, 2009 |

No Comments