One Third Nerd

Last weekend was cold and gloomy. I was really tired and worn out probably because I was still recovering from my most recent bout of annoying sickness (rhymes with “mingles”) so I stayed in, rested, read, watched football, and spent some time cooking. I really enjoy cooking especially when I have time to experiment and play with my new food processor.

During the NFL playoff games, I decided to make some football-friendly food - french fries! I made Fueled By Popcorn’s Pesto Fries w/ Marinara Dipping Sauce. These were yummy and satisfied my craving for marinara sauce and french fries. Confession: I ate the remaining Muir Glen marinara with a spoon. I used Cooking Light’s Pesto Recipe but omitted the Parmesan cheese. The pesto was so good. RO used it on his pre-party pasta dish, and Steph ate it as a dip on some flatbread a couple of days later.

During the week, we had a couple of super-fast dishes. I made Fueled By Popcorn’s Coconut Eggplant Curry and served it over brown rice. I loved it except for one thing - I put too much curry paste in and it was hotter than Thai hot, it was burn-your-lips-off hot. I am definitely going to make this again with less curry paste.

On soccer night, RO made Cooking Light’s Curried Chickpeas and Black Beans for Steph and me. This is an old quickie favorite. I put mine on top of spinach because I was feeling healthy. This would be good on rice too.

I don’t usually cook on Thursdays but I got home a little early due to the wintery weather in Northern VA so I made an appetizer for dinner - yum. I made Southeast Asian Inspired Char-roasted Eggplant Dip and Pita Chips that I saw on the Food Network’s “Weighing In” Show. I didn’t use the pita chips in the recipe, instead I used packaged naan I found at Whole Foods. I also had to break out the food processor to get the dip the right consistency. This dip was good, probably the best tasting thing I’ve made in a while. It reminded me of the eggplant dip at the Sorrento Grill that I love, only Asian style. The naan was only so-so.

This picture is kinda gross - I swear it was delicious.

I just have to give a big shout-out to bloggers and the Internet in general. Here comes the 1/3 nerdiness. If I were in person, I would say “I love technology” in Kip’s voice from Napoleon Dynamite. It still so amazing to me that all of this information is available to me for free.