What happened when Rebecca had to clean her fridge out

What do you do with excess spinach, potato, and eggplant? Make a mushroom, spinach and feta dish along with a potato, pepper and eggplant casserole of course! Oh yeah and while you're at it, throw in them green beans with soy sauce and sesame seeds.

Dish numero uno was the aforementioned spinach, onion and baby bella mushrooms with feta

Ingredients:

At least half a cup of red onion, chopped

1 package of baby bella or regular white mushrooms, quartered

1/2 package of fresh spinach

Garlic or garlic salt

1 tbsp lemon juice

Feta to taste (maybe 1/2 cup or so?)

Directions:

Saute onions in a little bit of olive oil or regular vegetable oil

When onions start going translucent, add mushrooms, lemon juice, and garlic salt, then cover; cook until mushrooms are lightly brown and cooked through, then add spinach. 

Cook spinach until it is soggy and dark green.

Take off heat and sprinkle (generously, if you're like us) with feta cheese on top.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Dish numero dos was a simple green beans in soy sauce with sesame seeds

Ingredients

Predictably, green beans

2 or 3 tbsp of soy sauce

2 tbsp sesame seeds

A little bit of olive or vegetable oil 

Directions: 

Preheat the little bit of oil in your pan

Drop in green beans and saute just for a few seconds in the oil 

Pour in soy sauce and add sesame seeds

Cook for about 7 to 10 minutes but not long enough for green beans to start looking wrinkled; green beans should stay a bright green color and not turn brown (unless you like your green beans more well done)

Dish numero tres, aka the grand finale was an eggplant, potato, and pepper casserole.

Since we are tired and just wanna eat our food, however, here's the recipe taken straight from the source: (and we promise not to be lazy next time)

Ingredients:

2 1 1/4-pound eggplants, thinly sliced crosswise

• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 28-ounce cans Italian-style tomatoes
• 2 large fresh thyme sprigs

• olive oil (for frying)
• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
• 3 green bell peppers, cored, thinly sliced

• 5 tablespoons minced fresh thyme

Our version:

Lemon basil instead of fresh thyme

2 bell peppers

2 potatoes

2 cans of tomoatoes

2 eggplant (smallish ones)

Red onion instead of regular (which came out AWESOME because it made the dish sweeter)

Garlic powder (a LOT of it) instead of fresh garlic

Directions

Place eggplant slices on 2 baking sheets. Lightly salt eggplant on both sides. Let stand 1 hour. Using paper towels, pat eggplant dry, wiping off salt.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes with their juices and thyme sprigs; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture is reduced to 2 1/2 cups, breaking up tomatoes with back of spoon, about 20 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper. Discard thyme sprigs.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Add oil to 2 large skillets to depth of 1/4 inch. Heat over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add eggplant to skillets and cook until golden, adding more oil to skillets as necessary, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to paper towels and drain. Working in batches, add potatoes to skillets, cook until golden, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer potatoes to paper towels. Add green peppers to same skillet; sauté until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to paper towels.

Layer half of eggplant in 15x10x2-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon thyme. Spoon 1/2 cup sauce over. Top with half of potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Top with 1 tablespoon thyme. Spoon 1/2 cup sauce over. Place all pepper slices over. Season with salt and pepper. Top with 1 tablespoon thyme. Spoon 1/2 cup sauce over. Top with remaining eggplant. Top with 1 tablespoon thyme. Spoon 1/2 cup sauce over. Top with remaining potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Top with 1 tablespoon thyme and 1/2 cup sauce.

Bake uncovered until vegetables are tender, about 40 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Our version of the directions:

If you want a smaller amount of casserole, as we did, you won't need to layer the ingredients - you will just plop down one layer of each 

It came out SO super-yummy!

It was a last minute inspiration...

In order to factor in the newest member of the Weisburd family who happens to be a needy cocker spaniel puppy and has to go on walks like all the time, we needed a meal that could be prepped in parts.

For today's summery cooking adventure, we made oven-roasted vegetables, gnocchi with peas in a anchovy-garlic butter sauce, and Sonya's mama's beet and walnut salad.

Oven-roasted vegetables

Ingredients:

Onion

Fennel

Celery

Zucchini

Squash

Sweet potato

Green beans

Parsnips

Red and green peppers

Olive oil

Seasoning: salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano

Directions:

Cut up the above or any other vegetables that are roasting-friendly. Put foil on a large baking sheet and cover in a layer of olive oil. Spread vegetables on baking sheet, season, and drizzle more olive oil on top. Bake at 350 degrees until all vegetables are roasted to your liking (sweet potato should be soft). Tip: separate out the denser vegetables (sweet potato, parsnips, fennel for example) and bake on a separate baking sheet so that the other vegetables can be pulled out earlier when they are finished. 

Gnocchi and peas in anchovy and garlic-butter sauce

Ingredients:

Gnocchi (dry-packed, not frozen)

Oil-packed anchovies (about six of them)

Frozen peas

4 cloves of chopped garlic

4 tbs of butter

Directions:

Boil water. Once at a rolling boil, add gnocchi and cook for about 4 minutes (see packaging directions).

For sauce: melt butter in saucepan, add garlic and anchovies, and press in anchovies until they dissolve into mixture in pan. Add frozen peas (about half a package) and cook until peas are hot. Add cooked gnocchi into sauce and voila! 

Sonya's Mama's Beet Salad

Ingredients:

Six beets (or as many as you want depending on how large a salad you're making)

Half a white onion, finely chopped

Garlic (we used powder but it is recommended to use fresh garlic, finely chopped as well)

Cup of chopped walnuts

Pinch of salt

Mayo (but can substitute for olive oil)

Directions:

We used fresh beets from a farm that had to be boiled for about one hour but we strongly recommend used canned whole beets. Grate beets on largest grate setting. Saute onions in vegetable oil until well browned. Add fresh garlic, salt, sauted onions, chopped walnuts, and a few tablespoons of mayo (more or less to taste). Mix all ingredients together.

Put a bottle of Riesling to it and you're set! If you don't want to stand over a stove for too long, this is the meal for you.