Greek orzo salad

Bring this quick and easy pasta salad to your next potluck holiday party, and you will be on everyone's Christmas list this year! It's from Bon Appetit, October 1997

Ingredients:

12 ounces orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup olive oil
1 1/2 cups crumbled seasoned feta cheese (such as basil and tomato; about 6 ounces)
1 cup chopped red bell pepper (my dad can't eat bell pepper, so sometimes I substitute with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers...)
1 cup chopped yellow bell pepper
3/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives
4 green onions, chopped
2 tablespoons drained capers
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted

Preparation:

Cook orzo in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite. Drain. Rinse with cold water; drain well. Transfer to large bowl. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add crumbled feta cheese, chopped bell peppers, Kalamata olives, green onions and capers.

Combine lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, oregano, mustard and cumin in small bowl. Gradually whisk in remaining 1/2 cup olive oil. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Add dressing to orzo mixture and toss to blend. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 6 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Garnish salad with pine nuts; serve.

Roasted Bosc pears with pomegranate glaze

This recipe I found in a Bon Appetit from 2004. It was a gourmet-looking dessert that was very simple and delicious.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup dry red wine, such as Syrah or Zinfandel
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
6 Bosc pears with stems, peeled
Vanilla ice cream
Purchased biscotti

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir wine, pomegranate juice, sugar, cinnamon stick, and orange peel in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes.

Using small melon baller, core pears from bottom of wide end. Trim bottoms flat and stand upright in 8x8x2-inch baking dish. Pour pomegranate-wine sauce over pears. Roast pears until tender when pierced with knife, basting pears with sauce every 20 minutes, about 1 hour. Using spatula, transfer roasted pears to serving platter. Transfer pan juices to small saucepan. Simmer until reduced to 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let sauce and pears stand at room temperature. Rewarm sauce before continuing.)

Spoon glaze over pears. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream and biscotti.

For the meat lovers

My stepmom keeps asking me for my meatloaf recipe, so this post is for her. I have been told by many people who don't like meatloaf that my meatloaf is the most delicious things they have ever tasted. And I do believe it's true. I could eat an entire loaf myself every day of the week forever! My secret is that I cook it in a crockpot.

Ingredients for Erin's famous MEATLOAF:

1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground beef (on the leaner side, 97%)
1 cup of breadcrumbs
2 eggs
2 cups of steamed vegetables and finely chopped (I use carrots, broccoli, chard and/or kale)
1 yellow onion diced
3 garlic cloves run through a garlic press
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
salt & pepper
1 finely chopped tomato
1 can or bottle of tomato sauce (and don't skimp! make it the goodstuff)
1 cup of parmesan cheese

Mix all the ingredients together EXCEPT the tomato sauce. Just add 2 tablespoons of sauce to the mix and reserve the rest for later. Form your loaf after fully mixing. Take the sauce and pour some into the crockpot before you place the loaf into the crockpot. Next move the loaf into the crockpot and pour the rest of the sauce over the loaf. Cook on low heat for about 8 hours. If you are in a time pinch, you can cook it for 1 or 2 hours on high and then switch to low for 2 more hours. But trust me, the low for 8 hours is better! Whip yourself up some mashed potatoes and steam some veggies. Lift the loaf out of the crockpot carefully, trying not to break it, and place on a serving dish to slice up. You can make a gravy out of the liquid left in the crockpot by making a roux first and then adding the liquid over the stove for about 10 minutes. Enjoy!

BEEF EMPANADAS CRIOLLAS:

I also get lots of compliments on my empanadas, so here goes.

Ingredients:

1 pound of 93% lean ground beef
1 cup of sliced green olives
1 cup of chopped boiled eggs
1 cup of chopped boiled potatoes
1/2 cup of raisins
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cube of butter (this recipe is not for the weak-vesseled)
1 yellow onion diced
salt and pepper
1 package of 20 empanada dough for baking, NOT for frying (you can get these at Mexican markets, especially in the Mission in S.F., or you can make your own masa. If you want the recipe for that, just ask me!)

Heat up 1 tablespoon of butter in a large pan over the stove. Add your diced onion and the ground beef. Stir until the onion and beef are cooked. Slice up the rest of the butter and add to the mix in slices. Once melted, add the sugar. Then add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Preheat oven to 375. Take the slices of dough and fill one at a time with about 2 tablespoons of filling and seal the dough.

(With each kind of empanada filling, you are supposed to seal the empanada with a different design so that you can tell them apart when throwing a party and serving several different kinds. So Empanadas Criollas are folded like in my photo. Empanadas Arabes are folded in a triangle. Empanadas Pachamama are folded in yet another way.)

Place the empanadas on oiled cookie sheets and bake for about 20 minutes or until the dough has lightly browned. Let cool, and enjoy!!

Goodbye, Facebook!

It was a difficult decision, but at the behest of my husband, I deactivated my Facebook recently. Every time I go on Facebook and see posts of a new pregnancy announcement, a new preggo belly pic and some newborn of a wife of a friend of Daniel (there have been several this month), I cry. I want to stop crying. I'm tired of it. Losing Facebook is a step towards stopping the crying, I think.

So hurray to not being pregnant! Ugh. Instead I need to check on Daniel's two clearances from Illinois and Pennsylvania that have STILL not come back after a month of waiting. I also needed to get an HIV test last week, after I was told repeatedly that the HIV test was optional. Well, it wasn't! I also spent some time during the home study interview explaining to the social worker some uncomfortable background history with my mom. I kept thinking, this does not mean that I will be a bad parent, and why are we even talking about this? It was so long ago!!! Shouldn't we be talking about how wonderful I am and how I want a baby more than anything in this world and will fly all the way to Ethiopia twice to get it?? Why don't they ask people before they have sex whether THEY have had any history of abuse in their families? Another funny question: Have you ever committed a crime which, at the time you committed it, you were not aware that it was a crime but now know it was a crime, and you may not have ever been convicted for it? What? My head is spinning.

So the home study went okay other than that, and our social worker is getting it written over the next two weeks. So the things we are missing from our dossier are: DANIEL'S CLEARANCES, HIV TEST RESULTS, COMPLETION OF OUR 10TH PARENTING CLASS on December 14th. As soon as those are squared away, we can turn it in, get it approved, and get on a wait list.

On another note, I finished two quilts recently: One for Kate and another for me. I've also been cooking a lot lately and will post some recipes soon.