Beet-liscious Pasta
by colleen

What you need:           

• 1 lb spaghetti or angel hair pasta, cooked according to box directions
• 2 beets roasted and cubed
• Beet greens, cut into ribbon-like strands
• Herb goat cheese
• Toasted pine nuts
• Olive oil
• 1/2 medium red onion, diced
• Lemon juice
• Pepper
• Salt
• Cumin
• Red pepper flakes

What you do:

Roast beets following these directions. This will take about an hour, so plan accordingly. In the warm oven from cooking the beets, toast pine nuts for 2-3 minutes. Watch them carefully so they don't burn. Cook pasta according to package directions.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp olive oil. Add onions and sautee for 3-5 minutes, until they begin to turn clear. Add beet greens to the oil and sautee. They will shrink down quite a bit, so use all that you have. After about 5 minutes, sprinkle with pepper and salt to taste and add a couple of dashes of cumin. Mix to incorporate and add a squirt of lemon juice.

Divide pasta into four bowls and add a scoop of beet green and onion mixture to each. Top with beets, pine nuts and goat cheese. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and dig in!

Serves 4.

Fleece Hats and Scarves

My sister-in-law, Freda, was in town over winter break and she taught me how to make these fleece hats and scarves. They are so, so easy to make and they really can be made with as little or as much sewing as you want. You can even use fabric glue if you don't want to sew at all. I've been having so much fun making these guys. We decided to kick off our Glue Gun Mafia Louisville get-togethers for the new year with this cozy winter craft. Freda is the Art Designer at Sophie's Stress Free Soirees, a premier event planning company in San Francisco, and they have some excellent tutorials up at their website, so, in the interest of not reinventing the wheel, I'm going to send you there. Here is the hat tutorial. And here is the scarf tutorial. Have fun!

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add onions and sauté for three minutes.  Add garlic and green bell pepper and sauté for an additional three minutes.  Next add the turkey meat.  Mix often to ensure meat is cooked thoroughly and sauté for about ten minutes or until meat is cooked through.  Carefully pour fat out of pot (making sure to leave onions, garlic, and turkey in the pot).  Return pot to heat.  Add one bottle of beer, honey, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne to turkey mixture.  Stir to mix and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.  Now it’s time to add the remaining beer, but add to taste.  Simmer for an additional 30 minutes and then add black beans.  Stir to mix and simmer for a final 30 minutes.  Serve in big bowls and garnish with grated Parmesan.

 

Serves 8-10.

Happy Thursday! Well after many hours of research, dozens of emails, and twice as many text messages we finally have our 30th birthday trip planned! Colleen and I are heading to Miami with the original Thursdays girls, Emily and Kate. Since none of us are really Miami kind if girls, we've decided to fully embrace the trip and really get down with the city. It will be kind of like when my friends from home dress up for the Indy 500 and wear cut off jean shorts, fake mullets, and drink exclusively Coors Light. After all, if you can't beat them, then join them, right? In all seriousness, I am pretty excited to lounge by the pool, perhaps strap on a pair of gold heels and go dancing, and explore the enticing world of Cuban food that I've heard so much about.  Then half way through the week, I'm off to Puerto Rico to meet Dave for our very first vacation. Ever since we clicked "confirm" on Orbitz, all I can think about is sunshine, a new bikini, cocktails, and feeling the sand between my toes. Heaven.

 

Until then, I'm going to do my best to embrace the bitter cold and continue to plug away at my New Years resolutions.  This week I'm trying out this recipe that I shot for an article at DailyCandy featuring one of the best Kosher restaurants in town, Jezebel.  Let me just say that I am indeed not Jewish, have no interest in keeping Kosher (or any other regulation on my diet), but would go to this resaurant any day of the week. So in honor of my New Years resolution to try at least one new recipe per week, I'm going for these brisket tacos.

 

Enjoy! 

 

stephania 

 

Brisket Tacos with Apple Jicama Slaw
by Chef Chris Mitchell of Jezebel 

(makes 24)

What you need:           

For the brisket: 

• 3 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tbsp. kosher salt
• ½ tsp. ground cumin 
• ½ tsp. ground fennel seed 
• 1 tbsp. ground black pepper
• 2 lb. first-cut brisket
• 2 cup tomato juice
• 1 orange peel
• 1 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 cup beer

For the slaw: 

• 2 granny smith apples with skin, juliened 
• 1 large jicama, peeled and juliened
• 1 medium red onion, sliced thin
• 3 limes, zested and juiced
• 3 tbsp olive oil

For the salsa: 

• 1 cups cherry tomatoes, rinced
• 1 jalapeno with seeds
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• ½ bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
• ½ bunch basil, roughly chopped
• Zest and juice of 3 limes
• 2 tbsp. olive oil

What you do:

For the brisket: 

In a small mixing bowl, combine first five ingredients. Stir to mix.  Coat brisket with marinade and refrigerate for at least two hours or up to 24 hours. 

Preheat oven to 400° F.  Roast brisket uncovered for 30 minutes.  Reduce heat to 225°F and add tomato juice, orange peel, vinegar, and beer to pan. Cover and continue to cook for about 90 minutes or until meat begins to fall of the bone.

For the slaw: 

Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Stir to mix. Add salt to taste.

For the salsa:

Add ingredients to a food processor.  Pulse together, but leave mixture chunky.  Add salt to taste.

To assemble tacos: 

Lightly toast tortillas.  Add salsa first, then brisket, and top with apple-jicima slaw to each taco. Garnish with cilantro and lime juice. 

 

Simplify your Routine; Easy Day to Date Hair!

 

 By Megan Kramer

This week at Thursdays, we are trying to simplify our lives- which just so happens to go along with one of my New Years resolutions! I have been trying really hard to keep things easy breezy the past few weeks. So far so good, and it’s actually pretty refreshing.

Today I thought I would show you a super simple hairstyle that can go from day to night. I did this on myself and it took me literally 3 minutes. This is the perfect style if you’re going to dinner, happy hour, a big date... anywhere after work. It’s a perfectly acceptable style for work, and then you can head right out. But... I know we all have days when you wear your hair down to work, and by 5:00, it’s looking less than ready for a night out. This style can be done in the ladies room right before you walk out the door, and will make you feel like you got ready, without actually doing much at all.

What you need:             

• comb- for back combing
• small rubber band
• bobby pins
• hair pins
• hair spray

What you do:

For this style you want your bang area to look good, so when you get ready before work, just make sure they look decent (hit them with a little extra heat while you blow dry). Start by back combing the crown a bit. Now gather your hair into a pony. I did mine right in the middle, not too high or low, but you can put it anywhere. Now use a small rubber band, but only wrap it around once (wrap it twice if it’s not a small rubber band). You want it to be loose, but to have something to keep it together so you don’t need 1,000 bobby pins. Be sure you don’t let go of the pony, and start to twist it up. You only need an inch or two from the rubber band to be twisted. Secure the twist with bobby pins, then let the ends (second half of the pony) fall back over the twist. Use more hair pins (or bobby pins if you don’t have them) to tuck the ends under so that it’s almost like a bun. I purposely left mine messy, so don’t worry too much about getting all the ends tucked in. Pull some pieces around your bang area out to frame your face.   Add a little hairspray and leave the office before that creepy guy from accounting sees you looking super fly!

Xo,

Megan