grilled cheese with soyrizo

sorry for our long absence. attendance around here may be sparse for the next few weeks, but after that we'll be home, with plenty of free time, a plethora of ingredients, and a real kitchen, so expect some good posts!
so what have the twins been eating? lots of cheesy sandwiches, apparently. today, i bring you the grilled cheese with soyrizo, and next post rita will show you a delicious tuna melt. (soyrizo= soy chorizo. available at trader joe's. tastes just like the real thing, i promise. but of course you could use real mexican chorizo too).i ate off the floor. i'm classy like that.
cook about 1/4 cup soyrizo in a frying pan for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until it is thoroughly heated. remove from pan and add a small pat of butter/margarine to the pan. top 1 piece bread (always whole wheat at chez twin) with soyrizo and cheddar cheese. top with other piece of bread. grill in pan until bread is nicely browned and cheese is melty, about 3 minutes on each side (you'll need a spatula to flip the sandwich).
i served mine with pineapple salsa (from whole foods, but you could find it at most grocery stores or make your own), and spinach with more pineapple salsa and walnuts on the side.
_lola

Grits with portabello mushrooms, cheese and corn

While I was in Atlanta over spring break (which was awesome, by the way) we were staying in a hotel with free breakfast and I took full advantage. Not only did I have a waffle smothered with syrup every morning, I also stuffed plenty of tea bags, tiny packets of peanut butter, and most importantly, 2 packs of Quaker Instant Grits into my purse while the hotel employees weren't looking.
Lola and I finally got around to using the grits a few nights ago. We mixed them with sauteed portabello mushrooms, grated Cheddar and jack (2 kinds of cheese! getting fancy!), and some frozen white corn.

Delicious! instant grits aren't as good as the real thing, but still yummy and great comfort food.
-Rita

portobello and cheese sandwiches with roasted summer squash

i apologize for the lack of photos of this meal. we were distracted. you'll see why in a second.
this is a very easy meal. so simple that even though our own cooking process turned into a comedy of errors, we still wound up with a delicious dinner.
the plan was this:
Portobello and cheese sandwiches with roasted summer squash for 2
1. slice 1/2 a summer squash. toss in glass baking dish with olive oil, cumin, cayenne, cinnamon, and curry powder. roast in oven for 30 minutes at 500 degrees (but you should do it at 450 for 45 minutes. i was hungry and impatient).
2. saute 1 giant portobello mushroom in earth balance (fake butter. obviously you could use real butter too). slice in half and put 1/2 on bread spread with brown mustard. top with slices of cheddar jack cheese and another piece of bread. grill sandwich in more earth balance. repeat for other sandwich.

before i tell you how it actually went down, i need to give you a little bit of explanation about our kitchen. we have approximately 1 1/2 square feet of counter space, most of which is usually taken up with the teapot, dish towels, various condiments, etc. due to the general lack of space in our room. so when we remove a pan from the oven, we usually put it on top of the stove, which is also crowded with drying dishes, other pots, etc. due to lack of space on the counter.
so here's what happened: I am sauteing the mushroom and suddenly the pan gets really smoky, causing the smoke alarm to go off. after waving my arms around like a madwoman for a few seconds, i take the mushroom out of the pan, and put the pan upside down over the burner. the smoke alarm stops beeping. crisis averted.
we realize all our bread is starting to mold. rita tears off the moldy bits and we are good to go. perhaps by now we should have heeded the signs and given up on this particular cooking venture.
next, i open the oven and see that the squash is done. i take it out and put the pan on top of the stove. note that i placed it gently, and did not drop it. and that's when this happened:

the pan exploded. like legit exploded. glass flew everywhere. i mean, thank goodness neither of us were injured.
point is, you should make this meal. just don't do it at all like we did.
-Lola
p.s. thank you to all readers/commenters/followers. just for being you =)

snacks!

i was sick last weekend, which sucked of course, but i've been so busy lately that it was actually fantastic to have a break. It was also a great excuse to watch trashy movies that turned out to be quite entertaining (valentine's day, cruel intentions, and my new favorite movie, crank, in which jason straithern plays a hit-man named--seriously--chev chelios, who must keep his adrenaline high to slow the poison he's been injected with). i also ate some yummy snacks:cottage cheese with raisins, lots of pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2 a crumbled cinnamon graham cracker.
plain yogurt with pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, annie's cinnamon bunnies, and chocolate chips.
and also way too many chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels (from trader joe's). those things are dangerous.
-Lola

pasta with parsley, edamame, and roasted onions

growing up, i was always very perplexed by the concept of seasons. i remember seeing a commercial for macy's new spring collection or something once, and suddenly having this revelation that somewhere in far away lands, people had completely different wardrobes depending on the time of year. san francisco tends to be foggy most of the time, with the occasional beautiful summer day, or random rainstorm. so moving to new york, with its somewhat extreme weather, has been filled with new discoveries for me. air conditioning! heaters! and, perhaps most exciting, that sunny spring day when you realize that winter is over. it always takes me a few weeks to realize that its not going to snow again for another year. weather doesn't just pop up randomly whenever it feels like it! there's actually a pattern! anyway, the past few weeks have been filled with glorious spring days, appreciated all the more after our long winter. so when my mom emailed me this pasta recipe, rita and i knew it was the perfect spring/summer pasta dish, perhaps something we could bring to a picnic in park (except that i actually ate it in class. oh well).

i forgot to buy garlic, so we left that out, and we added 1/2 an onion, roasted in the oven with olive oil for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees. it was delightfully fresh and springy!
-Lola
p.s. go check out katie's giveaway. because she is awesome and you could win a $50 shopping spree!

quinoa with roasted vegetables and edamame

i made a good lunch for us today. unfortunately, i forgot to take a picture, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like. oh well, c'est la vie.
last week, i suddenly had an intense craving for both quinoa and edamame. which is weird, because delicious as they are, who craves quinoa and edamame? my own cravings typically involve more chocolate than that. anyway, they were both wise purchases that i turned into this delicious dish.
quinoa with roasted vegetables and edamame
*quinoa (1/4 cup dry per person)
*baby carrots
*brussel sprouts
*chopped onion
*olive oil
*salt and pepper
*shelled edamame (1/4 cup per person)

cook quinoa according to package directions (this takes about 20 min usually).
meanwhile, toss baby carrots, chopped onion in olive oil in a glass baking dish. use how ever many veggies you want--we used 1/2 onion, 6 brussel sprouts, and 14 carrots for 2 people. use 1-2 Tablespoons oil, depending on how many veggies you have. oil should be evenly distributed into a light coating on the veggies.
sprinkle veggies with salt and pepper--we used about 1/2 teaspoon of each.
roast in oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, or until veggies are nicely roasted--brown and just starting to get really dark, but not burnt.
mix cooked veggies with quinoa and edamame.
-Lola