Top 25 Recipes of 2013

As 2013 comes to a close it's time to roundup the tastiest new recipes on Closet Cooking! 2013 was a tasty year indeed on Closet Cooking and these are the most popular new recipes added during the year. This collection of recipes includes many of my favourites and it is a wide range of recipes from decadent dips to tasty sides, hearty mains and quite a few healthy alternatives! I hope that you enjoyed 2013 and I am looking forward to an even tastier year here at Closet Cooking in 2014!

Happy New Year!

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Lasagna Dip

Last week when I made the lasagna stuffed spaghetti squash I tried to keep things nice and light and healthy but I could not help but think about doing something similar only a bit naughtier, a hot melted cheesy lasagna dip! I am a huge fan of dips, especially when they have plenty of hot melted cheese and since lasagna is one of my favourite meals I knew that a lasagna dip was sure to be amazing! The basic idea behind this dip was to use the layers of a lasagna in a dip including a base of cheese and a quick, easy and tasty tomato meat sauce all topped off with plenty of melted mozzarella! My mom always made lasagna with cottage cheese for the cheese layer so I am rather partial to that but ricotta or even cream cheese would also work well. For the tomato based meat sauce I kept things lighter and healthy going with turkey for the meat and I packed the sauce with plenty of flavour! I have to say that this dip is truly spectacular and it really does remind me of lasagna, though it is a lot easier to make and perfect for enjoying while watching the game!

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Lasagna Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Winter squash is in season and one that I do not use nearly often enough is spaghetti squash so when I came across the idea of a lasagna stuffed spaghetti squash I pinned it right away to try later! Lasagna is a layered pasta dish typically containing noodles, a meat sauce and a cheese or bechamel sauce and it is topped with plenty of cheese and baked until golden brown and bubbling. This lasagna stuffed spaghetti squash takes the basic components of lasagna including the meat sauce and the cheese layer and stuffs them into a spaghetti squash, which essentially replaces the noodles, and bakes them until the cheese has melted. Since this dish goes with healthy spaghetti squash instead of noodles I decided to keep things on the lighter side going with ground turkey for the meat and a low fat cottage cheese for the cheese layer. Even though this lasagna stuffed spaghetti squash is designed to be healthier it certainly does not sacrifice anything in the way of flavour! You will definitely not miss the noodles in this tasty lasagna!

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Grilled Jerk Shrimp and Pineapple Skewers

Up next in my summer grilling adventures I head down south to the Caribbean for some grilled Jamaican jerk shrimp using a tasty homemade jerk marinade. Jamaican jerk spice comes in the form of a spice blend a paste or a marinade and its main ingredients are allspice, scotch bonnet peppers, green onions, thyme, nutmeg and garlic. I like to make my own jerk marinate from scratch and although the list of ingredients may be long it is super simple to make and you should have most of the ingredients in your pantry already. This jerk shrimp is as easy to make as marinating the shrimp in the jerk marinade, skewering it and grilling it! Jerk spice is typically on the spicy side so I like to serve it with fresh fruits or salsas, especially in the summer! The only thing that is better than fresh fruit is grilled fresh fruit so why not throw something like pineapple or peaches onto the skewer along with the shrimp for grilling? It is hard to beat grilled meat on a stick for summer entertaining but throw some fruit into the mix and you have to have one of the most perfect appetizers around!

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Jalapeno Popper Corn Fritters

I have been dreaming of making these jalapeno popper inspired corn fritters for a while now and with the fresh local corn finally here it was time to make them! The basic idea is to take a corn fritter and add all of the flavours of jalapeno poppers including plenty of jalapenos, cream cheese, cheddar cheese and bacon. The recipe for these corn fritters could not be easier, you simply mix everything, form patties and fry in oil until golden brown and crispy. Even though these fritters are tasty enough to eat inhale all by themselves I wanted to serve them with a sauce for pouring over them or for dipping them into. For a long time I was not sure exactly what kind of sauce I wanted but when I had the idea for the jalapeno popper dressing I knew that it would be perfect! Two times the jalapeno popper goodness in one meal!

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Zucchini Pizza Crust (with Chipotle BBQ Bacon and Grilled Corn Pizza)

One of my favourite discoveries in the last little while has been the cauliflower pizza crust which is a really nice light and healthier alternative to a regular pizza crust. Ever since then I have been wondering what other things could be used to make pizza crusts and the first thing that came to mind was zucchini! Now that zucchini season is here one of the first things that I used it in was a zucchini crust pizza and over the last few days I have been experimenting with them! All of my zucchini pizza crust tests have been successful and it is easier to work with than cauliflower. More importantly than simply being able to use zucchini in a pizza crust, the zucchini pizza crust is amazingly if not addictively good! I will be using all of that zucchini to make many zucchini pizza crust pizzas this summer!

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Loaded Baked Potato Salad

For summer picnics, get-togethers, bbqs, etc. the main course, often grilled meat, gets all of the focus but it is also important to have a few good tasty sides on hand! The potato salad is a classic summer side that is easy to make and always goes over well! One of my favourite winter side dishes is a loaded baked potato or a baked potato with all the fixins including cheese, bacon, sour cream and green onions but it is too hot to have the oven on in the summer so why not make a loaded baked potato, potato salad? This baked potato salad is as easy to make as boiling the potatoes, I like using new potatoes in the summer, until tender and then mixing them up with the sour cream, cheese, bacon and green onions. You really cannot go wrong with creamy potatoes, cheese and plenty of bacon and this loaded baked potato salad is sure to be the first dish to disappear from your summer get-together!

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Pesto Grilled Shrimp

With summer here it is grilling season and one of my favourite things to grill is meat on a stick! I mean, what's not to like? You have meat, sticks and fire! Mmm... Although I generally think of chicken first when it comes to meat on a stick, you can't go wrong with plump juicy shrimp either! I came across the idea of pesto grilled shrimp on Gina's Skinny Taste a few months ago and I was just itching for summer to arrive so that I could use some fresh basil, fire up the grill and try them out! The recipe could not be easier, you simply make the pesto, marinate the shrimp, skewer is on sticks and grill it and this is good since you will want to be making it every week this summer!

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Crispy Baked Avocado Fries

Up next in my series of baked vegetable 'fries' is avocado fries and given my obsession with avocados I really cannot believe that it has taken me this long to get around to trying them out as fries! Like the other vegetables fries these avocado fries are super simple to make, you pretty much just need to slice up the avocados, dredge them in flour, dip them in egg and panko and then bake them until nice and golden brown and crispy and good! In total they take less than a half an hour to make so you can easily make them whenever you have a craving for fries or avocados! You might be a little surprised to learn that avocados work really well when cooked or baked and they are especially nice in these fries coated with the crispy panko bread crumbs! I served the baked avocado fries with chipotle ranch and basil ranch sauces for dipping.

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Crispy Baked Asparagus Fries

I have really been looking forward to spring and the fresh local asparagus and one of the first things that I wanted to make with it was some crispy baked asparagus fries! Ever since I discovered that you can coat vegetables in panko bread crumbs and bake them that they would become healthy 'fries' I have been doing it with pretty much every vegetable that I can get my hands on. Given that asparagus is already in perfect 'fry' shape it seemed only natural to turn them in fries and it couldn't be easier to do so! You pretty much just need to dredge the asparagus in flour, dip in egg, coat in panko breadcrumbs and bake until crispy. All said and told you can be enjoying these healthy baked asparagus fries in about 20 minutes so you can make them whenever you want. If you are a fan of asparagus, you will definitely enjoy these asparagus fries and they might just be that one new asparagus that you absolutely need to try this spring!

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Baked Avocado Bacon and Eggs

I have been seeing these baked avocado bacon and eggs on pinterest for a while now and I cannot believe that it has taken me so long to make them! Both avocados and bacon are two of my favourite foods and eggs are not far behind so combining them together in one simple dish can only be loads of goodness! The basic idea is to cut an avocado in half, scoop out enough to fit an egg, fill it with the egg and then bake it until the egg is set the way you like. In total it only takes about 15 to 20 minutes and in that time you can cook some bacon up to sprinkle on top. Once baked you can eat it by the spoonful right out of the avocado shell or you can spread it on toast. The warm baked avocado is sublimely good and combined with a runny egg yolk and smokey bacon and you have a breakfast made in heaven! (See below for the runny egg yolk in all of it's glory!)

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Roasted Cauliflower and Mushroom Quinoa Salad in Balsamic Vinaigrette

Two of my recent food obsessions have been quinoa and cauliflower and it was past time for me to use them both in a dish together! Another thing that I have been enjoying lately is whole grain salads where the recipes follows some basic guidelines including starting off with quinoa or a whole grain like farro, a vegetable or two, possibly some beans and/or nuts, a cheese and a dressing. As soon as I had the idea of using quinoa and cauliflower together one of these salads sounded like a great way to go! Of course I had to go with roasted cauliflower since it is so addictively good and I figured that I might as well roast some mushrooms up at the same time. For this salad I decided to omit any beans but I did throw in some walnuts and a balsamic vinaigrette. Which cheese to use was the only real question as there a few good options including feta, blue cheese and the one that I chose, a creamy goat cheese. Goat cheese is a particularly nice option for salad like this because if you add it to the salad while the ingredients are still warm, it starts to melt into the salad spreading it's goodness throughout. This salad goes well either warm or cool and it makes for a nice side or even a light meal. If you want to bulk it up a bit for a meal you can add some chickpeas and serve it on a bed of greens such as kale, spinach or lettuce. I have to say that the roast cauliflower, mushroom and quinoa combo was a nice and tasty one and healthy to boot!

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Guinness Glazed Slow Cooker Corned Beef

With St Patrick's Day coming up I have been planning my menu and the main course almost always has to be corned beef; it's just so easy to make, it's always tasty and there there are so many different ways to make it! A slow cooker or crock-pot makes cooking corned beef a sinch, you simply put the corned beef into the slow cooker in the morning and then at night you pull it out and it's ready to go. Of course you can change things up by changing what else goes into the slow cooker with the corned beef like the liquid that it is cooked in. Sure you could just use water, but why not add some flavour by using another liquid? This year I was dead set to combine another St Pat's Day favourite, Guinness, an Irish stout, with my corned beef and the first step was to cook the corned beef in Guinness in the slow cooker to infuse it with it's flavour throughout the day long slow cooking. I certainly couldn't let all of that Guinness go to waste after the corned beef was done cooking in it, I mean not only was it Guinness but now there was also all of those tasty corned beef juices mixed in! The solution was easy and while I let the corned beef rest before slicing into it I turned the Guinness and corned beef juices into a tasty glaze by adding some brown sugar, grainy mustard and Worcestershire sauce and then simmering to reduce and thicken it into a glaze. Once the glaze was ready, finishing the corned beef is as easy as removing the layer of fat, glazing and then baking until the glaze is a bubbling and caramelizing and good! With this Guinness glazed slow cooker corned beef, this years St Patrick's Day is going to be one of the tastiest yet!

Feel free to throw your veggies into the slow cooker to cook with the corned beef but if you would prefer that they not taste like Guinness you can make them separately, which is the way I went.

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Pepperoni Pizza Casserole

When I know that I am going to have a busy week coming up I like to try to make one or two big meals on the weekend that are guaranteed to leave enough leftovers for a second quick meal during the week and casseroles are a great way to accomplish this. One of my favourite casseroles is a pizza casserole, I mean you really cannot go wrong with an ooey gooey melted cheesy casserole with all of the flavours of a pizza! This pizza casserole is a pasta based casserole with pizza sauce or marinara sauce, a cheese mixture of mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan along with your favourite pizza toppings. I often like a nice simple pepperoni, sausage and olive topping in my pizza casserole but you could use any pizza topping combination that you can think of and don't be afraid to change the pizza sauce up with a different kind of pizza sauce. No matter how you top it, this pizza casserole is going to be tasty!

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Cauliflower Pizza Crust (with BBQ Chicken Pizza)

I have been wanting to try making a pizza with a cauliflower crust ever since I came across the idea on Recipe Girl; I mean what's not to like about a cauliflower crust for a pizza? I actually got a chance to try a cauliflower crust a couple of months ago but I ran into a problem, the crust stuck so badly to the parchment paper that I could't get it off. What bits that I could get off tasted great though so I was determined to get it right! After hours of going through comments on various cauliflower pizza crust recipes the secret seems to be that you need to squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible from the cooked cauliflower before baking it. As sometimes happens this project fell through the cracks and I forgot about it until the holidays when I picked up a silicon baking mat and it practically had the cauliflower crusts name written on it. I tried the recipe again, this time squeezing out the excess liquid and using the silicon baking mat, and the crust came out beautifully and just as tasty as expected! This crust is seriously good! I could easily eat the crust all by itself as a snack or maybe with a dipping sauce not to mention all of the tasty pizza topping options!

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Shrimp Etouffee

It is hard to talk about cajun and creole cuisine without mentioning etouffee and with good reason given how easy it is to make and how tasty it is! Etouffee is a thick stew that is made with a roux that is cooked until deep brown to ensure that it is full of flavour. The meat in etouffee is typically shellfish with crawfish and shrimp being two good choices and it is generally served over rice. The key to a good etouffee is definitely the roux and you want to cook the butter and flour for a good long time until it turns a deep golden brown before adding the veggies. Once the roux is done the rest of the recipe is nice and easy and absolutely worth the effort to make!

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French Onion Soup Dip

With the big game coming up I have been going over my parties menu and reviewing my favourite recipes including the hot caramelized onion dip which I wanted to add but I thought I would do something a little different this time. Although I am totally addicted to hot melted cheese dips, I wanted some variety so I decided to do a room temperature version inspired by the flavours of French onion soup. At the base of French onion soup is of course the caramelized onions and that means spending some time caramelizing the onions. To slowly caramelize the onions at a low temperature can take more than 3 hours but you can also do it at a higher temperature but it requires more hands on time as you have to stir the onions every couple of minutes. When you caramelize the onions at a higher temperature brown bits build up on the bottom of you pan and since you do not want them to burn it is a good idea to deglaze the pan frequently. Though I normally just use water to deglaze the pan this time I used wine and beef stock since they form the broth of French onion soup. Up next is a bit of garlic and thyme to finish off the onions. The base of the dip is made with sour cream and mayonnaise with a hit of lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and gruyere for flavour. French onion soup is typically topped with toast, covered in cheese and then baked until the cheese is all melted and good and I incorporated that aspect into the French onion soup dip by serving it with crostini covered in melted gruyere.

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Roasted Cauliflower and Aged White Cheddar Dip

I have really been into cauliflower lately and in particular I have been enjoying a lot of bowls of the roasted cauliflower and aged white cheddar soup which have been keeping me warm on these cold winter days. With the big game coming up I have had snacks on my mind a lot and one of my favourite snacks for for any kind of party has to be hot melted cheese dips like the spinach and artichoke dip. The other day while I was enjoying a bowl of the roasted cauliflower and aged white cheddar soup I was thinking about dips and I had a crazy idea, why not combine the two ideas and make a hot melted cheesy cauliflower dip? The recipe for the dip is pretty easy, you just need to roast the cauliflower, puree it, mix in the cheese and then bake it until the cheese is all melted, bubbling and golden brown. I have to say that this dip is another reason to love cauliflower!

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Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower

If you are a fan of buffalo chicken wings and you like cauliflower then you just have to try this buffalo roasted cauliflower! Roasted cauliflower has to be one of the most addictive healthy snacks around and it only gets better when coated in buffalo hot sauce! This spicy treat would be a perfect option for a lighter and healthier snack for your party for the big game! Not only does it taste great but it is as easy to make as roasting the cauliflower and tossing it in the buffalo hot sauce so you can be licking your fingers clean in as little as 30 minutes! Just like buffalo chicken wing, this buffalo roasted cauliflower goes great with a tangy blue cheese sauce for dipping and some crunchy celery sticks to help tame the heat!

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Loaded Baked Potato Dip

With the big game coming, I have been testing out some new recipes for the party and not surprisingly one of the first on my list is a cheese dip! I came across the recipe for this loaded baked potato dip on Brown Eyed Baker a while ago and I have been wanting to make it ever since! I mead what is not to like? This dip has all of the ingredients of a loaded baked potato including sour cream, cheese, bacon and green onions and I certainly could not pass up on a loaded baked potato! Of course the one thing that this dip is missing is the potato which is provided in the form of crispy chips for dipping and the combination of the dip and the potato chips is quite amazing! This dip is sure to be a star at my game day party!

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