olive oil

Here’s one from the Fish & Seafood chapter, which I haven’t delved into for awhile. 11-4: Calzone with Seafood sounds rather strange on paper, and was in fact strange in reality. If you’re picturing a pizza-like calzone with tomato sauce…think again.

If you’ve come here from a search engine looking for a good seafood calzone recipe (which apparently a lot of you do), here’s the TL;DR–the crust and overall cooking method are decent on this recipe, but be prepared to come up with your own fillings. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the heck this site is, read this.

They’ll mention later that the dough is really what they want you to get out of this recipe–the filling is a variable. Knowing that now (after I followed their suggestions), I would have definitely made some adjustments.

In the mood for more corn after 3-14: Creamy Corn Chowder? It’s still not quite corn season yet, but if you’ve got some frozen corn hanging out in the freezer, you can feel like it’s summer with 2-26: Corn & Wild Rice Salad.

This would be a great recipe to make for a summer BBQ or picnic–it’s healthy, pretty, and as they say above, easy to make. It feels incredibly out of season now (February), but therein lies the magic of the Internet–you might find this in June or July and it’ll be perfect then.

Today (Jan. 16) is my wedding anniversary, so I thought I’d post a recipe that has some relevance to my husband and I. I made this for a 4th of July party that we attended together back in 2009, when we had only just started dating.

We actually had a terrible time at the party, and I remember the salad being a bit strange with my modifications, but everything seems to have worked out in the end. My second attempt at the salad turned out much better, as most things do in life after a bit of thought. 🙂

While I was cooking 4-12: Cheesy Sliced Baked Potatoes, I also was working on this recipe–however be careful with this one: it takes a WHILE to make. 🕰

This recipe takes 2+ hours–most of which is just it baking in the oven. Just an FYI. 🙂

Making 4-8: Roasted Peppers with Dressing arose more out of a need to use up peppers more so than a desire to eat the recipe itself. However, that being said–it wasn’t terrible.

The recipe card uses multi-colored peppers, and I used monochromatic ones. While the taste doesn’t vary much, the more colors you use, the more visually appealing it may be.

First of all, ANY mention of 3-8: Gazpacho must immediately be followed with a reference to this episode of the Simpsons.

“It’s tomato soup served ICE cold!”

Yes, Lisa. Yes it is. 🍅

It was the end of summer and we had a ton of tomatoes. It’s a winning combination. 🏆

If you still have any zucchini or tomatoes lying around from a late summer harvest, this is a great vegetarian recipe with which to use those up. 🍅

Also note the new background: my first entry from my new (hopefully somewhat permanent) kitchen. 🙂

I styled mine in more of a fried zucchini-appetizer way, but the casserole way works too.

My options for cooking have been limited lately, so I’ve been gravitating towards simpler recipes in order to keep it manageable, yet active. You really can’t get much simpler than 2-6: Greek Salad.

This is a great recipe for summer–most of the ingredients are in season and it’s super light. We made it for dinner instead of lunch as suggested, but I’m sure the folks at Simply Delicious won’t mind.

An old favorite that I’d like to share with you today: 4-21: Herb-Roasted Potatoes. 🍃

These are essentially homemade oven fries, and they’re super easy to do. So easy, in fact, that I used to use these as one of my recipes for when I taught elementary & middle school kids to cook in an after-school program a few years ago. If a kindergartener can do it, you can too.

I jumped several sections ahead a few weeks ago when I needed to make a pasta side dish for something (I don’t even remember what at this point). I don’t have this group scanned yet and I procrastinated on scanning the card–oh well. 🌿

We find 12-6: Seasoned Pasta Toss in Book 2, Group 2 (Main Courses), Subgroup 12 (Pasta & Rice). I still have a ton of parsley in my freezer and gluten-free rice pasta in my pantry, and it’s time to clean house.

Too bad it turned out to be less than impressive. It’s my fault, but still.

Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

11-4: Calzone with Seafood

2-26: Corn & Wild Rice Salad

2-37: Chicken-Salami-Rice Salad

4-1: Eggplant, Onion and Tomato Bake

4-8: Roasted Peppers with Dressing

3-8: Gazpacho

13-10: Zucchini Piccata

2-6: Greek Salad

4-21: Herb-Roasted Potatoes

12-6: Seasoned Pasta Toss