Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Bread Crumb Cauliflower

I have yet to really cook again, but I made a side dish to eath with the steak I made the other day. I toasted italian style bread crumbs in about a 1/2 tbs of butter, and added some italian herbs. I cooked fresh cauliflower in boiling water on the stove and then drained it once it was done. I then tossed the cauliflower in the bread crumb mixture and put about 1/4 cup of fontina cheese on top of the cauliflower. I ate this deliciousness with herb crusted steak and mushroom ragout from the other day. So good and a really nice change for cauliflower. The bread crumb mixture added about 4 weight watchers points and the cheese was about 3 but worth every bit of it!
I'm hoping once my schedule is a bit more stable that I will have more time to cook more stuff. I have a bunch of recipes that I can't wait to try out!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

An Introduction and Salad

Welcome to Melissa Squared Cooks. We are still trying to work out the kinks in our posting system, but since I have actually cooked today I thought I would share what I made. But first a little introduction to me. I am Melissa D. I recently graduated with a Bachelors in History. I do love to cook and of course eat. I am currently participating in Weight Watchers and have lost almost 20 lbs. I hope to lose a lot more by the end of this year. I was looking for a blog that catered to single young people and could not find many especially healthy food. I then went on a cookbook search.
I got the cookbook entitled The Little Black Apron: A Single Girl's Guide to Cooking with Style and Grace. So far I have not only enjoyed cooking my first twoish recipes from it, but I have also enjoyed reading the book. As a young single women fresh out of college and working I realized that I needed a book that had recipes for one or two people. I am used to cooking for at least four people and making the transition to cooking and shopping for one person is extremely difficult. I am still having to train myself on how to buy fresh produce and dairy for myself. 
One suggestion I would make if you don't drink that much milk is to buy organic milk as it last about two weeks longer than regular milk for a half gallon even though it costs about twice as much. I have eliminated wasting most of the milk. 
I was going to make the Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Pizza with Fontina Cheese and the Pear Walnut Arugula Salad. However I went to make the pizza dough and found out that the flour that we had in my house was full of worms yuck!!!!! So I switched up my game plan. I made herb crusted steak and mushroom ragout. I didn't know how I was going to eat it as my original meal plan was to have the herb crusted steak and mushroom ragout with the Pear Walnut Arugula Salad and bread crumb cauliflower. I had to go to work so I didn't make the cauliflower and was not really intending to eat when I came home. Yet I was starving so I assembled this lovely salad. 
 It consisted of arugula, about a 1/4 of a pear, Gorgonzola cheese, about 3 oz of the steak, approximately 1/8 of a cup of the mushroom ragout, and a vinaigrette of olive oil and champagne vinegar.  (8 Weightwatcher PointsPlus). So delicious!!!!