I'M BACK!

Yes, I know, you've all been checking the blog daily wondering, where did Annie go? Has she stopped eating? Is she on a hunger strike? No, nothing that exciting. Have been studying for the internal medicine board exams (blech), but kept taking pics of the foods we were making over the last two weeks. Here's a quick sample (and more to come now that I don't have to take another standardized test for ten years):

(1) Pizza with baby tomatoes, fresh basil, asparagus-tomato sauce, mozzarella and garlic. Not much of a recipe to write for that one.

(2) Santosh's Tomato Peach Salad. Bring water to a boil, and drop tomatoes and peaches in for a few seconds until skin splits. Take them out of hot water, put into ice bath, peel, chop up. Combo with feta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper.

(3) Indian cabbage and potatoes.

Heat veggie oil with various Indian spices (mustard seeds, cumin, urad daal = a type of lentil) until the spices start to pop, then turn down heat. Add chopped onions and cubed potatoes (peeled, but not yet cooked) and cook on low heat, turning frequently. Sprinkle with salt, turmeric and chili powder (sparingly). When potatoes are starting to brown, add cabbage. Adjust spices as needed. (These reheated the next day really well).

(4) Cleaning out the Fridge Plus Pesto. This was me panicking because of all the stuff that hadto be eaten before we went out of town for the weekend. Made some pesto with basil and walnuts (see Emily's awesome prior post) andput on toast with melted mozzarella. Cut up fancy cucumbers, fancy carrots, fancy pale green peppers. (Omg we had purple peppers last week. They tasted like... green peppers.) Dip veggies in yogurt / garlic / dill sauce (not pictured because wasn't pretty).

(5) Mac and Cheese with Swiss Chard. YUM. (As evidenced by picture, which I didn't remember to take until we had inhaled the entire dish.) From Bon Appetit, of course.

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, divided

1 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour

3 cups reduced-fat (2%) milk

2 cups (packed) coarsely grated aged Gouda cheese plus 1/2 cup finely grated

2 cups (packed) coarsely grated Edam cheese, divided

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 pounds Swiss chard, stems and center ribs removed

12 ounces elbow macaroni

1 teaspoon cumin seeds (optional)

Preparation:

(1) Melt butter, saute onions, add garlic, then flour, whisk in milk, cook until boil about 5 minutes, add cheese, then add cayenne and nutmeg, season with salt and pepper.

(2) Boil macaroni until al dente while preheating oven to 350. Mix cheese into macaroni.

(3) Blanch chard, chop finely.

(4) Butter 13x9x2 cooking pan; blanch chard, chop finely. Put half of macaroni into dish, then cover in chard, then top with the other half of macaroni. Sprinkle top with cumin seeds. Bake x 40 min until bubbling, let stand x 10 min.