What's cookin'?

I've been feeling a bit blog-neglectful these past few months, or at least that I'm not living up to my self-proclaimed "Food Snob" title. Other than Midweek Munchies, my blog has been nearly food-free lately! Why?

~ It's been too hot to cook much of the past few months

~ My kitchen has been a pit, and I didn't want to cook much in such a dirty kitchen

~ I don't have a camera and now that I'm in cookbook-testing mode, I don't want to post complete recipes (so what's the fun?)

All poor excuses, I realize! This morning, I decided to catch you up on the happenings of my kitchen and let you know what I've been cooking!

I finally cleaned the kitchen last weekend and washed all of the scuzzy plastic containers that have been sitting around for, ahem, a month (!), so I was ready to cook this week, finally! Here's what I made:

SLOPPY LENTILS: This is a recipe that I'm planning on including in my cookbook, and has taken several revisions on my part to get "just right." I really, really like it now. :) Ingredients: olive oil, onion, green pepper, garlic, dried Italian seasoning, tomato sauce, water, French green lentils, soy sauce, veggie Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, salt, and ground flaxseed. I'm really liking this recipe a lot -- for someone who doesn't like leftovers much, this seems to get better and better the longer it sits in the fridge! (Well, to a point, obviously.) It's a nice, healthy, quick meal when I get home from work and am so hungry I can't see straight -- cut open a roll and hollow it out, warm up the lentils, scoop some into the roll, add some fruit and a salad, and I'm ready to eat in less than five minutes.

POLENTA: I've made my own polenta a number of times, and find it's a great "go-to" food when I don't feel like cooking much of anything, but it will still taste really great and is culinarily flexible -- you can put just about anything on top of polenta, both sweet and savory, and it will be a success. I don't know what bizarre kind of cornmeal I bought bulk at the co-op, but my polenta isn't "gelling" as much as it usually does, thus it's been a bit tricky trying to pan-fry leftover slices. (They still taste good, but usually fall apart and don't look quite as pretty. Oh well.) Christine came over for dinner last night and I fried up some polenta and topped it with Hoppin' John (explanation next,) and made each of us a big, green salad for the side. Mmmmmm!!! I'm also excited to saute the kale I have in the fridge and top some polenta with kale, cannellini beans, and pasta sauce. Mmm!

HOPPIN' JOHN: I was really, really worried about the Hoppin' John. Why, you ask? Because I've had a food aversion to black-eyed peas for some time now, (had some Hoppin' John over a corn muffin for lunch, then had a migraine, then threw up lunch . . . ew!), so I set out to change my recipe significantly in the hopes of avoiding the food aversion. I started with the recipe I used to really like from the Betty Crocker cookbook, and then did some internet research to see what recipes for "traditional" Hoppin' John looked like. I switched out some of the veggies and spices, but kept the tomatoes, and am loving the new recipe! Ingredients: canola oil, onion, celery, green bell pepper, okra, garlic, salt, crushed red pepper flakes, dried thyme, a bay leaf, a can of diced tomatoes with liquid, a can of black-eyed peas, cilantro, and green onion. Mmm!

That's what's been cookin' at my house. I also tested a peanut butter cookie (for, like the 10th time,) for the cookbook, and I still don't like it. I might just cut that recipe alltogether -- there are enough other desserts in there, I think, to make up for the lack of peanut butter cookies! :)

I am going to be in town for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and all of my friends (but one, I think,) are going out of town, so I hope to do some major recipe testing that weekend. I'll have to do a "big shop" before hand and plan out what will be tested! Perhaps I can borrow a camera from someone for the weekend so I can make some more interesting posts . . . !?! We'll see.