parmesan » Living Lou

Parmesan Popcorn

Can you believe that there are only nine short days of Feburary left! Feburary is probably my least favourite month in the year; it’s cold, it’s busy and it’s just not really much fun. It’s one of those months where you have to take the fun into your own hands and make something out of the month. For me this means celebrating a year in some great, hilarious, sad and terrible movies. There were some beautiful movies like Warhorse, highly anticipated, childhood ending films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as well as some wonderful performances like those in My Week with Marilyn, The Artist and The Help. We saw a year of entertaining films like Midnight in Paris and funny ones like Friends with Benefits. As always we had many romcoms, some wonderful like Crazy Stupid Love and others were not so wonderful. Who can forget the amazing laugh-out-loud hilarious film that was Bridesmaids? How about all the action movies, Captain America, Thor and Transformers 3 to name a few. I think all in all 2011 wasn’t too bad for film!

We’ve finally reached the end of our countdown: less than a week to go until The Oscars! This is the final recipe that I will be serving at my party - you can’t have a party celebrating movies without popcorn. This popcorn is on the savory side, topped with butter and Parmesan cheese means it’s a little decadent and so satisfying. I’m always looking for new ways to spice up popcorn since I watch so many movies.

Parmesan Popcorn
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1/2 cup popcorn kernels, popped using your favourite method
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp black pepper

Directions

Toss the popcorn with the melted butter.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and black pepper. Serve.

Who else is planning an Oscar Party? I’d love to hear what’s on your menu!

- Lou

Garlic Parmesan Orzo

Up until a week ago I thought I hated orzo. I had a valid reason though, there was this one time when I had a bad experience. All I’ll say about said experience is plane food. I think it’s pretty self explanatory, but plane food is usually rather revolting, and orzo on a plane might just be the grossest meal I’ve ever had. Shudder. What was it then, you ask, that made me decide to try orzo again? A little something called The Secret Recipe Club. Which is a wonderful take on the idea of a recipe exchange, except it’s all done in secret and revealed on the reveal day, which is today!

This month I was assigned the blog The Jey of Cooking a wonderful, cleverly named blog written by Jey. Not only is she hilarious, as seen in a recent post where she talks about how her love of garlic means that she is most definitely not a vampire, but her blog is chock-full of delicious, simple and healthy recipes. I perused her archives, spending hours going all the way back to her very first post to decide what I wanted to make. I stumbled upon this recipe for Garlic Parmesan Orzo and was completely smitten when I read the list of ingredients, garlic, parmesan and spinach – a winning combination, the only issue, orzo. I conquered my fear and am so glad that I did so, this recipe for garlic parmesan orzo will blow. your. mind. It’s one of my new favourite recipes and I can’t wait to make it again.

Garlic Parmesan Orzo
Recipe source: The Jey of Cooking originally from All Recipes

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked orzo
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 cups spinach, finely chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp milk
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Cook orzo, following the directions on the package.

In a large pan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Add garlic, cooking for 4 minutes, or until tender. Turn off the heat and add the chopped spinach and cook for a minute, allowing to wilt. Next add the Parmesan, orzo, milk, salt and pepper. Allowing the cheese to melt into the orzo.

What I love about this recipe is not only does it taste heavenly but it is also extremely simple to make. After eating this orzo, I can definitely say that I am no longer a hater of all things orzo.

- Lou

Tomato Garlic Parmesan Couscous

The end of summer has really thrown off both my cooking and my blogging! I’ve been busy working, and just enjoying these last few remaining days until – gasp - my senior year of high school! Yes, my last year… oh man, please excuse me while I go hyperventilate. eek!

Whew.

I was in the mood for a quick snack, but something different then say my favourite crunchy snack – granola, or my favourite chocolate snack – brownies, or my favourite, super healthy snack – sweet potatoes. So after about 20 minutes of sifting around the kitchen for something to eat, I finally found it, the one and only couscous. And since we are currently running rather low on food, I didn’t have much choice as to what to use to transform my couscous from boring, to wow!

Tomato Garlic Parmesan Couscous
Ingredients
1 cup couscous
1 1/4 cup water
1 tsp olive oil
1 garlic clove (crushed)
1/8 tsp each of dried thyme, basil and parsley
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese (plus extra for sprinkling)

Directions

Bring water to a boil and add the couscous, return to boil, cover, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

While couscous is sitting, heat olive oil in a pan and add the garlic, cook until fragrant (about 1 minute), add herbs and cook for another minute, then add the tomato paste and stir to combine.

Once the couscous is done cooking, fluff with a fork and add to the pan of garlic, herbs and tomato paste. Mix to combine and add Parmesan cheese. Mix well to make sure all the couscous is covered.

Remove from heat and serve with extra Parmesan cheese!

This makes a great quick snack and would also make the perfect side dish. It takes literally 10 minutes or less to make!

- Lou