Quick and Easy Recipes

Yes, I love food. Yes, I love complicated and exotic foods. Yes, I wish I could cook complicated and exotic foods all the time. However, a combination of extreme frugality and lack of time prevents that. When I see recipes with ingredients that I don't regularly buy or could not easily get (note: lack of car for grocery shopping), I basically chuck it. That doesn't mean I eat crap though. Case in point:

Olive Tapenade

Real olive tapenade is made with a mix of nice olives, capers, anchovies, and the like. Ki and I have been wanting to make this for sandwiches, wraps, etc. for a while now (the muffaleta at the Taste of Champaign was our final straw). Unfortunately, kalamata olives are not cheap. But even though we used the everyday manzanilla olive for this recipe, the tapenade was still delicious.

• 1 7 oz. jar of manzanilla olives
• 3 strips of roasted red peppers
  
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 3 fresh basil leaves (from Benjamin, our basil plant)
  
• 1 Tbl. of lemon juice
• 1 Tbl. of olive oil (we found this wasn't really necessary)

Directions: Drain the olive brine and rinse the olives in cold water. Remove excess water. Put it all in the blender and give it a whirl. How smooth or chunky you want it is up to you. To store it just return to the jar of olives. I would really recommend getting a jar of roasted red peppers. In this tapenade they add an extra dimension of flavor, slightly sweet, and a great orange color. In general, though, they are a great ingredient that I can always use in sandwiches, pizzas, and salads.

Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is super simple and very versatile. Ingredients can be swapped, added, or removed to build your own unique salad. This is just one, delicious, example. I don't specify amounts because that is also up to you.

• cooked whole grain rotini pasta- cooled
  
• walnuts- chopped
  
• grapes- cut in half
  
• gruyere cheese (or any cheese that's not too hard, not too soft)- chopped
• chicken- cooked, cooled, and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• balsamic vinegar- drizzle on and taste as you go
• lemon juice- just a bit, you don't want a lemon-y taste
• salt and pepper

Directions: Throw it all together and adjust the dressing and seasonings to taste.
You can play with this recipe, trying new combinations and flavors. Try to keep a pasta, a fruit, a nut, cheese, and maybe some kind of protein. For example, you could use chopped apples instead of grapes, or go for a saltier flavor with olives and tuna instead of grapes and chicken. This is perfect for picnics.