Ramen Noodle Salad

Last fall my friend Stephanie and I found a great restaurant in the Bayview area called Cafe Lulu. At Lulu's they serve all kinds of eclectic dishes ranging from Mexican, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern.....with Ramen Noodle Salad on the side of everything!

I remember the first time I ever heard of "Ramen Noodle Salad" because my first thought was "yuck that sounds gross" because I hate(d) Ramen Noodles. But upon trying it, I immediately fell in love. So imagine how happy I was to find a restaurant that served it! But now that I've moved away had to figure out how to satisfy my Ramen Noodle Salad fix.

Which means cooking it myself! So here is a recipe I tried, I'm still tweaking it a bit because it's got a lot of sugar and oil in it but here it is for now. I also want some red cabbage to the recipe but all the cole slaw mixes I find don't have any, I guess I'll have to find it by itself so I can color up my salad! Leave your suggestions in the comments and maybe we'll come up with an extremely flavorful and lower calorie delicious salad!

Ramen Noodle Salad
Ingredients
Dressing:
1/3 cups canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 chicken seasoning from Ramen Noodles

Salad:
1 pkg. cole slaw mix
1 large bunch of green onions (chopped)
1 cup almonds (I prefer whole almonds but you can do chopped or slices)
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 pkg. chicken Ramen Noodles (broken up)

1. Mix up the salad dressing before hand so the flavors can blend together, the longer you let it sit the more flavorful it becomes.
2. Toast the sunflower seeds, the almonds, and the broken Ramen Noodle pieces.
3. Mix all ingredients together and serve.
4. Enjoy it while it lasts because it's so yummy it'll go very quickly!

Fondue Date Night

I absolutely love the Melting Pot and ever since going there I have wanted to make fondue at home. Well wait no more! As an early birthday present my mom bought me a very lovely fondue pot so last night Brandon and I broke it in with a fantastic cheese fondue recipe that he found and tweaked. So this is a Chef Brandon recipe, but it was so so phenomenal I had to share it. The original recipe called for aged Gouda but Brandon decided to substitute it for Munster and Parmesan and it was a great decision. This fondue was so flavorful and tasty and I think that Gouda would’ve been too strong of a flavor. We used potatoes, (cooked) steak, blanched broccoli, tomatoes, and French bread as dippers. We had green apples but forgot about them but green apples are probably one of my favorites for dipping into fondue. We had so much fondue, this recipe would be perfect for four people, but since we had leftovers I made a grilled cheese sandwich the next day! This may be one of the best fondue recipes I’ve ever had you must try this!!!

Caramelized Onion, Bacon, and Cheese Fondue

Caramelized Onions
1 large thinly sliced yellow onion
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
Olive oil

Directions

1. Heat oil over medium low heat in a large sauté pan.

2. Add onions and thyme, season with salt and pepper. Stirring occasionally, cook the onions until they turn golden, 30 – 45 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

Fondue
Six slices of bacon, chopped and cooked until crisp, drain on paper towel
3/4 pound Munster cheese, grated
1/4 pound Parmesan cheese, grated
1-1/2 Tablespoons flour
3/4 cup white wine

Directions:

1. Toss the cheese with the flour in a bowl.

2. Heat the wine slowly in a medium saucepan – do not boil. Add the cheese slowly, allowing it to melt between additions.

3. When the cheese is melted, stir in the bacon and 3/4 onions (reserve some of the onion mixture to garnish the top of the fondue.) If the mixture becomes too heavy to stir, a bit more wine slowly. If the mixture becomes too runny add more flour a 1/4 teaspoon at a time.

4. Transfer the melted cheese mixture to a warm fondue pot, fill with water to heat, and top with remaining onions and serve immediately with the accompaniments.

Serve with potatoes, vegetables, cooked meat, and bread



And now for DESSERT!!!


You can’t make fondue without having dessert fondue! We also made a ½ batch of chocolate fondue, it is so easy and so yummy! I know that milk chocolate seems more desirable but it is way too sweet, semi-sweet chocolate or dark chocolate is what I usually stick with. The basic recipe is just the chocolate and the whipping cream but if you want to doctor it up feel free to add additional yummies like peanut butter or nuts. I have some marshmallow cream I am dying to try with some crushed up graham crackers!


Chocolate Fondue

Ingredients
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup to thin if fondue begins to thicken


Serve with fruits and desserts such as rice crispy treats, brownies, and cheesecake.

Directions

1. Heat whipping cream over medium high heat until cream comes to a low boil.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and add chocolate. Let the chocolate stand in hot cream 3 to 5 minutes to soften, then whisk chocolate together with the cream.

3. Stir in additional add ins and transfer the fondue to a fondue pot or set the mixing bowl on a rack above a small lit candle.

If fondue becomes too thick, stir in reserved cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, to desired consistency.

Peanut Butter Soup

I love soups, I'd eat them every day if I could. But Peanut Butter Soup, well it's in a class of its own. I swear this soup is a cure for a sore throat! It goes down so silky and creamy, it is complete goodness in a bowl, or in my case because I love sipping it out of a cup, holy goodness in a cup. I first used this recipe in a Please-Use-All-Our-Peanut-Butter lab, we made all kinds of recipes with our abundance of peanut butter but the soup is the one that really stuck with me and the students. A lot of people see this and think "Yuck! No way!" But at one point in your life your favorite food was new to you and so you don't know until you try. And even then, I think you should try it twice.

This time I didn't add anything extra because I have a sore throat, already and it's only the first week of school!!!, and I just wanted to sip on it. But in the future I think I will add some wild rice and chicken to this soup. I am so excited that it's finally getting to be fall again and I can make this yummy soup more often!

I think this would be a great soup to throw into a thermos and wow everyone at a cool fall tailgate! Hopefully it's cold later this month when I am off to an ASU vs. WI game so I can wow all of Brandon's friends!

Peanut Butter Soup
Ingredients

2 T butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 T Flour
4 c chicken broth
1 c Peanut Butter
1 c milk
Snipped chives
Chopped peanuts for garnish

Directions

1. Melt butter in medium saucepan. Cook onion until onion is tender, but not browned. Stir in flour and cook about one minute. Whisk in chicken broth, cooking until thickened and bubbly.

2. Remove from heat. Puree mixture with an immersion blender or in batches, in a blender, until smooth.

3. Add the peanut butter and milk, stirring to blend thoroughly (tip-use the immersion blender again to thoroughly blend). Heat through, but do not boil. Garnish with snipped chives and chopped peanuts.


Apparently you can have this soup hot or cold-I've never had it cold but we'll see....

Black Bean Quesadilla

As a freshly graduated college student anxiously awaiting my first paycheck in September, but also someone that likes cooking and munching on yummy food, I was very happy to find an inexpensive but delicious recipe for black bean quesadillas. Plus the beans are a great source of protein so you stay full longer. I didn't have all the ingredients in the original recipe but I had similar things, and surprisingly all of the garnishings, so I modified it and had a deliciously inexpensive dinner! The most costly ingredient of this dinner was the tortillas for $2.15-for eight of them and I'll make breakfast burritos tomorrow so I feel like it was a good spend! I had a lot of left over bean mixture-don't add the cheese until you're ready to cook the quesadilla, and I can't wait to have it again tomorrow!


Black Bean Quesadilla
1 can (15oz) black beans
1 can (14.5oz) diced tomatoes with chiles
1/2 small onion
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 t cumin
4 large tortillas
1 avocado

Directions

1. Mince the onions and rinse the beans thoroughly, slightly mash the beans so that they are broken but still in large chunks. Drain the tomato/chile mixture and set aside.

2. Combine beans, onions, tomatoes, cumin, and cheese in a medium bowl. Place tortillas on a work surface. Spread 1/2 cup filling on half of each tortilla. Fold tortillas in half, pressing gently to flatten.

3. Add quesadilla to pan and cook, turning once, until golden on both sides, 2 to 4 minutes total. Serve the quesadilla with sliced avocado, sour cream, and chips.

Smoked Gouda Quiche

The only word for this quiche is YUM! My mom and my aunt came down to visit me for the Jazzfest in Milwaukee, and so we had a lovely brunch together, complete with White Strawberry Peach Sangria and scones, when they got down here before our amazing fun time began. I've made this quiche without a crust before, and in fact that's the way I found the original recipe and it is delicious, but I wanted to change things up a bit and go with the more traditional route of a crusted quiche. This recipe is very flexible, I originally found this recipe with only onions and spinach, and well we can't have that! So I added some peppers and tomatoes and I changed the cheese, from Munster to smoked Gouda-you know what they say "God is grated, God is Gouda, Bless Wisconsin for cheese fooda." This time I also wanted to add a bit of crunch with bacon, but I've done it before without and the smoked cheese gives it a meaty flavor without needing meat. So feel free to change it up a bit and make it your own!


Smoked Gouda Quiche
Ingredients
1 unbaked pie crust
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 small red pepper, chopped
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
5 eggs, beaten
3 cups shredded smoked Gouda or cheddar cheese
2 slices of cooked bacon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan.

2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, tomato, red pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are soft. Stir in spinach and continue cooking until excess moisture has evaporated.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, bacon, cheese, salt and pepper. Add spinach mixture and stir to blend. Scoop into prepared pie pan over crust.

4. Bake in preheated oven until eggs have set, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

White Strawberry and Peach Sangria

Brandon and I decided to grill out tonight because it's been awhile and I wanted to find something new for us to enjoy and I found a recipe for White Sangria or Sangria Blanco. Meaning it is made with a white wine rather than a red wine. Sangria is basically any dry wine, with some chopped fruit, a sweetener, and some other flavored alcohol such as schnapps. The recipe I found was for strawberry sangria with Pinot Grigio, but since I didn't have all of the ingredients I played around with it and came up with White Strawberry and Peach Sangria. I hope that your versions turn out just as well!

White Strawberry and Peach Sangria
Ingredients

1.5 liters Pinot Grigio
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c peach schnapps
3 c sliced strawberries
2 peaches

Combine all ingredients in a large pitcher and let chill for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours. Enjoy-it is simply glorious, you can't drink just one glass.

Happee Birthday Harry

In honor of Harry Potter's birthday, Brandon and I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo and visited the snakes, don't worry no one fell in and got trapped, and came home and celebrated! We ate an homage to English cooking, party style of course, by having roasted potatoes and hot beef sandwiches while listening to the amazing tunes of the Harry Potter soundtrack.

We had hot Butterbeer and enjoyed licorice wands while we snogged err um snuggled and watched the various adventures of Mr. Potter and friends at Hogswarts. It was a blast! Happy Birthday Harry!!!

Butterbeer
Ingredients

1 cup cream soda
1/2 cup butterscotch ice cream topping
1/2 tablespoon butter


Directions:

1. Combine butterscotch and butter in a small sauce pan on med-low heat, stir until melted.
2. Divide into two glasses and stir and cool for 30 seconds, then slowly mix in club soda. Mixture will fizz quite a bit. Serve and enjoy!!

Warning-this is very very sweet. I think I'll try it with club soda next time.

Greek Quinoa Salad

Quinoa, pronounced keen-wah, is a gluten free grain-like seed and is a complete protein! I first prepared this recipe in my college cooking class-I got my snazzy chef's apron and hat during that class. I really took an interest in Quinoa because my friend has Celiac's Disease and cannot eat gluten products. So purely in her interest I wanted this recipe to be good. What was about to happen to me though, I could never have predicted. My most favorite recipe was right before my eyes and I was still saying "q-eee-no-wah." I absolutely loved this recipe in class, Quinoa was like nothing I had ever had before and you can't go wrong with feta cheese and tomatoes right?

I was wrong. In my college class we focus on sustainability and buying locally and in season so we did not add avocados, and I liked the salad so much that I never included them in the recipe when I made it at home. Until I was student teaching, and we were doing a unit highlighting dietary restrictions and finding recipes for them that were unique and tasty. And thinking of my dear friend, I gave one of the groups Celiac's Disease. The kids really struggled to find something different and not-just-bread-free, and so I suggested they try this recipe. We added avocados this time and it was like an explosion of wonder! The creaminess of the avocados blends so well with the sharp flavors of the feta cheese and the red onion. I will never make it without avocados again and I feel so terrible that I had to go so long without it! This salad is complete Heaven when served warmed but it is also good at room temperature if you have leftovers. With a recipe size this large you will have leftovers, so if it dries out in the refrigerator, add more lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.



Greek Quinoa Salad
Ingredients

1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cup water
3 or 4 Roma tomatoes
1/4 cup red onion (1 small)-be careful this flavor can really over power
3oz fresh spinach
4 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
3 or 4 avocados
4oz container crumbled feta cheese

Directions

1. In a 1-1/2-quart saucepan bring water to boil and add Quinoa, reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed-it will absorb don't worry! Don't forget to stir occasionally while chopping the vegetables.
2. Chop tomatoes into 1/2" pieces or smaller, finely dice red onion, chop spinach leaves and add all three to a large bowl.
3. Slice avocado into small chunks and add to the large bowl. Do the avocado last because it turns brown quickly-but when you add the lemon juice the acid slows the browning process. Combine lemon juice, olive oil, and salt directly on top of the avocados. Stir to combine.
4. Add Quinoa and feta cheese to the bowl and combine completely.

*Note: Rinse quinoa thoroughly before cooking to remove a bitter substance called saponin that coats the seeds-I don't always do this because it's already done by the place I buy it.

Original recipe from Better Homes and Gardens

Homemade Croutons

The first time I had this recipe in my college cooking class, I thought "Homemade croutons, who cares?" But once you have homemade croutons you will understand the wonderfulness ecstasy that is homemade croutons. Every time I make them, about half of them get eaten before we even begin to dish up our salads-so make a lot. You can change the recipe a bit for different occasions: some sage and thyme with Parmesan for Thanksgiving stuffing, or try minced onions with cheddar cheese, or try fresh pressed garlic for the most divine croutons ever! Just play around and see what you get!

Homemade Croutons

Ingredients
1 baguette of French bread
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup grated Gruyere cheese-you must use this cheese-it's so flavorful
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic bread sprinkle

Directions
1. On low heat (burnt butter is terrible) melt butter in a sauce pan. Cut the bread into small cubes about 1 inch or smaller.
2. Add cheese and garlic bread sprinkle to melted butter and stir. Don't leave the cheese in too long or on a too high heat, it will become tough and curdle.
3. In a large pan, pour butter/cheese mixture over the bread cubes spreading the cheese throughout. Bake on low heat, 200⁰, and stir 10 minutes and again. After 20 minutes in the oven, broil for 1 or 2 minutes for lovely golden brown croutons.

And of course you have to try them every time you stir :0)

Pasta Fresca

I love going to Noodles and Company and getting Pasta Fresca. And until now the only reason I had not tried to replicate the recipe at home was because I didn't know how to cook tofu and Noodles and Co does it so perfectly! But after some research and huge huge hopes I found the perfect recipe for the pasta dish and the tofu! Now I realize some of you may not like tofu but as I always say-you don't know until you try! If you're still too leery for tofu, this dish is great with shrimp or chicken marinated in the Fresca Sauce. This recipe was great-I had so many leftovers! I'm so excited to try it again-and it was way cheaper than Noodles! I liked doing this at home because I could add more veggies too!


Pasta Fresca
Tofu-Extra Firm

"Press the tofu"
Drain water from tofu package, put tofu on a large plate wrapped in paper towels, place another plate on top of the tofu or other heavy object, allow tofu to press for about an hour.
Marinate the tofu with your favorite flavors-I’ve found that more flavor is better-I’m still perfecting my marinade for now so I don’t have one to put up here. After marinating for at least an hour, cut the tofu into 3/4" cubes.

Fresca Sauce

Several cloves fresh garlic-I used about 6
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup sweet white wine
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil


Pasta Fresca

2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
3 cups pre-cooked Penne pasta
1 cup cubed Roma tomatoes
3 tbs. diced red onions
2 shakes of kosher salt & cracked pepper
Handfull of baby fresh spinach
Fresca Sauce
Feta cheese as desired

Make the sauce ahead of time so the flavors have time to blend. In a very hot sauté pan (if cooking with tofu allow tofu to brown in oil before adding vegetables) combine all ingredients except for spinach, sauce, and feta cheese. Once onions are translucent add spinach and sauce. Toss to combine, top with feta cheese and serve!