Bacon Fried Rice with Brussels Sprouts

This was kind of stupid good.

I've been meaning to make a bolognese sauce for a few days, but keep getting derailed by other things. We had a bunch of leftover rice from Chinese delivery, and I also had some brussels sprouts and bacon to use up, so...voila.

I cut the bacon into ~1 inch pieces, cooked it in a large pan and drained out most of the fat. In the remainder I quickly sauteed 1 chopped onion, a few brussels sprouts (sliced/shredded) and a couple chopped garlic cloves. Then added in the rice, added a few splashes of soy sauce & sesame oil, black pepper & hot sauce. Then scrambled 2 eggs into the middle and mixed the bacon pieces back in.

I'd make fried rice more often - it's so easy and is a great way to use up leftovers - but I can never seem to cook rice to quite the right texture. Leftover Chinese takeout rice is the best!

Gourmet Star Wars Shortbread Cookies

OK, got pretty bad about posting on the blog. Sadly the CSA veggies kind of became more of a burden this year, as I was just too frigging busy to cook a lot of the time. However as I type this, I am enjoying some pasta with kale-arugula pesto, made and frozen from one of our last deliveries.

So the CSA's over; now it's just time for fun stuff. Christmas cookies. I got Star Wars cookie cutters a couple of years ago and at that time, made "regular" sugar cookies and spent quite a lot of time decorating them. They came out pretty cool (see below) but it was a lot of work!

This year I thought I would forgo the icing and made the dough itself in interesting flavors. I also went for shortbread, since...super simple and delicious! I settled on three flavors to match up with 3 characters:

- Dark Chocolate - Habanero Darth Vaders
- Cranberry - Ginger Stormtroopers
- Matcha Green Tea Yodas

There is also a Boba Fett cookie cutter...I probably could have come up with a fourth flavor, but I didn't think I wanted to make THAT many cookies.

For the basic shortbread dough, I used this for each batch:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups flour

For the Darth Vaders, I got a bar of Ghiradelli 70% cocoa, melted half of it in the microwave and added it to the creamed butter & sugar before adding the flour. I think I added some vanilla too. I probably could have added even more chocolate or maybe some cocoa...the dough didn't taste quite as dark-chocolately as I'd hoped. Before baking, I sprinkled the cookies with habanero sugar (more on that here). The baked cookies didn't taste particularly spicy at all, just a little bit of warmth that kicked in after a couple bites. I'd been cautious because the creme brulee I'd made with the habanero sugar (cut about 50% with regular sugar) was fairly spicy. So, I think if you'd like really spicy cookies you could add some cayenne/chipotle powder to the dough as well. Since I had the other half of the chocolate bar, I decided to melt that, dipped the "helmets" in it, and sprinkled on more habanero sugar. This did add a little more of the dark chocolate & spicy flavors, but they are still fairly tame (at least to my taste).

For the Stormtroopers, I chopped a good handful each of dried cranberries and crystallized ginger, and also added the zest of a lemon to the dough. These are really tasty, probably my favorite flavor of the bunch. Perhaps you can pretend that the cranberries are wounds from the stormtroopers getting shot. Errr...or not. I guess they never did much besides fall over and emit a bit of smoke from the laser hits.

For the Yodas, I added two tablespoons of Matcha (green tea powder) to the flour before adding that to the butter/sugar mixture. Matcha is a pretty expensive ($18 at Whole Foods for a Republic of Tea canister) finely ground high-quality green tea. It's a fairly intense flavor and supposedly has more antioxidants/health benefits than regular green tea. Y'know, to counter the .66 tablespoon of butter in each cookie. So...lovely color to these, and pretty intense green tea flavor. They are definitely a not-too-sweet (I even sprinkled them with some "sanding sugar" before baking) acquired taste of a cookie, but successful I think! Oh, I also added the zest of one lime to the dough for these, but could barely taste it. Could probably do a couple of limes if you want that flavor to be more pronounced.

The basic shortbread recipe I used said to bake these at 325 for 15-20 minutes. I did that with the first batch and they were not done (I also used "air bake" cookie sheets which take longer, I think). I upped the temp to about 335 and then even 350, but they still took at least 20 minutes to get barely brown.

Oh, and pro tip - if you make the dough the day before like I did, remember that shortbread dough turns back into pretty much solid butter when you chill it. Leave plenty of time for it to sit out at room temp before you roll it, and/or be prepared to use your muscles!

These were fun, tasty and different - and definitely MUCH less work than meticulously painting icing on like I did before:

Happy holidays, and may the force be with you!

Roasted Veggie Extravaganza with Black Rice & Spinach

One of the best things I've eaten this year was a meal at Life Alive, a vegetarian restaurant in Lowell, MA (and they have some other locations in MA). We ate there a few months ago on tour. Reading the menu, I was prepared for a healthy but "crunchy hippie" bowl of vegetables. Well, it was...but it was SO good! I'd gotten their signature "Goddess Bowl" which was beets, broccoli, carrots, kale & tofu over brown rice, with a creamy ginger-miso sauce. I also added avocado and a hard-boiled egg, which upped the deliciousness. What I really liked about it was that all the veggies were cut very small, so you didn't feel like you were chewing huge amounts of plant matter.

The last couple weeks of the CSA have brought a lot of lovely fall root vegetables. I thought I would use the Life Alive dish as inspiration and roast a bunch of these, over black rice for some nice color contrast. The result was a tasty rainbow:

Now...lest you think I am delving into a truly healthy vegetarian lifestyle with this dish...nope. I will still happily devour a greasy patty melt & fries at my local diner, or down a whole box of Kraft Mac & Cheese post-gig (made with half a stick of butter and half & half, no less). But sometimes you need to cleanse. And sometimes you just have A LOT OF FREAKING VEGETABLES you have to use up.

So...here are the players:

Sweet potato, golden beets (I'd actually been hoping for red for the nice color contrast, but golden beets are delicious and don't stain everything they touch), orange cauliflower (fun!), turnips and radishes (which I'm not a fan of raw, but I like them roasted).

Pretty golden beets!

This involved more cutting/prep work than I'm usually game for, but...it was a lazy day off. So I cubed everything very small:

Everything got tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper. And I added Penzey's Turkish Blend to the sweet potatoes & cauliflower. I think some Black & Red ended up somewhere too.

I roasted these on separate baking sheets and was able to do everything in "one batch" between the oven and toaster oven. Temp at 400 and I turned it down a bit after the first 15 minutes. The cauliflower & radishes were done in 15 minutes or less; the sweet potatoes & turnips in about 20-25 and the beets took the longest at about 30. I also turned the broiler on for a couple of minutes to get the beets crispier. Let these all cool for a bit as I was thinking the finished dish would be nice at room temp.

The roasted veggies (beets cooked way down!):

Meanwhile I cooked some black rice (also called Forbidden Rice). This has a nice chewy texture and nutty taste, and it apparently has lots of antioxidants & good stuff in it. I also chopped up some fresh spinach leaves and gave them a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

To serve, I put the rice in a bowl and mixed the raw spinach into it, which wilted it a bit. Then I put a couple spoonfuls of each veggie on top, and garnished with some goat cheese and Trader Joe's Goddess dressing thinned with a little lemon juice.

Really, really tasty. Would have been even better with some avocado and/or nuts/seeds, but made a nice healthy dinner with plenty of leftovers.

So there's a huge "FrankenStorm" on the way to our area. When I was at Safeway today I thought the one thing I might need in case I have to be holed up in the house for awhile was...Doritos. So y'know, good thing I'm getting the veggies in too.

Fall Vegetable Curry, Apple Streusel Cake

This curry used up one of the giant sweet potatoes we got yesterday, plus a bunch of kale and the rest of the cubed butternut squash I had in the freezer:

Started by sauteeing onion, garlic and ginger. Added in the squash & sweet potatoes. I have no idea what quantity of spices went in, but I believe I used cumin, coriander, cardamom, two kinds of curry powder, Penzey's tandoori spice, and black pepper. Perhaps overkill...but I thought it could have been even spicier!

Then I added chicken broth to barely cover (you could use vegetable broth or water to keep this vegan), plus about a tablespoon of tomato paste. Cover and cook until vegetables are tender. Then I stemmed & chopped a bunch of kale and added that. After it cooked down a bit I added a can of chickpeas, and a can of coconut milk. I really need to use that more often...it's so good! To finish, plenty of hot sauce and a squeeze of lemon. Fresh cilantro would be nice in this but I didn't have any. Served over brown basmati rice.

For dessert: apple streusel cake! After perusing tons of apple cake recipes and almost making this one from the Washington Post, I decided to go with this one from Joy of Baking - looked pretty simple. I added in a chopped apple to the cake batter, but otherwise followed the recipe. The cake layer didn't rise very much and it was a small amount of batter. Also I thought the streusel needed more butter. But...not bad!

Had this with some Häagen-Dazs Creme Brulee ice cream (also not too shabby, but Ben & Jerry's wins on that flavor).

Kale-Arugula Salad, Mystery Roasted Tubers

I've been doing pretty well lately at using up lots of the CSA veggies at once. A few days ago I made jambalaya from Zatarain's mix, throwing in red onion, green pepper, diced kohlrabi, swiss chard, cherry tomatoes & cilantro.

Tonight's dinner also used several veggies. I made the massaged kale salad again and also added arugula (but no cheese--which I missed--and no dried cranberries). We also got some sort of mystery root vegetable this week - it wasn't labeled on the list. The tubers looked a little like overgrown parsnips but I don't think they were. They were pretty fibrous. I figured whatever they were, they'd be good roasted, so I peeled & cubed them with a couple small turnips, tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper and smoked paprika, and roasted at 400 for about half an hour. Yep, pretty hard to ruin any root vegetable that way!

I also made crispy roasted chicken thighs, mostly following this recipe. Very good...but note to self, I need to buy a spatter screen!

Fall Farm Salad

This may have been the most random salad I've ever made, but it was also one of the tastiest. And everything except for the dressing, pecans and the bread for the croutons was from either our One Straw CSA or from Marker Miller Orchards in VA (we stopped there for cider donuts after a visit to the gloriously kitschy Dinosaur Land).

The rundown:

-Arugula
-Cauliflower
-"Kentucky Black" Apples
-Kohlrabi, cut into small cubes
-Cherry tomatoes
-Red spring onions
-Purple basil
-Bacon (from a local VA farm)
-Homemade croutons
-Pecans

First I cooked the bacon in the oven on a sheet pan. Then tossed the cauliflower florets (cut small), bread cubes & pecans in the bacon drippings and roasted those in the oven (oh yeah!). That was tossed with the rest of the items. Trader Joe's Goddess dressing and...happy local(ish) salad!

We also picked up this at Marker Miller Orchards, it's from Peaks Of Otter Winery:

Hwa! Yeah, that had a bite. Good stuff.

Cajun Shrimp Pasta

I made this to use up some odds & ends: green peppers & garlic from the CSA, garden grape tomatoes, and the heavy cream from last week's creme brulee!

Quantities totally adjustable here depending on what you like and how much you're making. Sausage would be great in this too.

- Shrimp, peeled & tails off (or chicken or other protein)
- Cajun seasoning
- Sliced onion
- Sliced bell peppers
- Chopped garlic
- Chopped tomato
- Heavy cream (I really recommend not omitting this, but if you must...)
- Hot sauce
- Cooked pasta (I used whole wheat linguine)
- Sliced green onions (and/or cilantro) for garnish

Toss the shrimp with cajun seasoning. Sear in a hot pan in a little olive oil until just cooked; remove to a bowl.

Add onion to pan (with more oil if necessary), cook until starting to brown. Add peppers & a little more Cajun seasoning.

Add garlic, stir briefly, then add chopped tomato. Cook just until tomato softens.

Add some of the pasta cooking water to loosen things up (if you have some white wine open, that'd be even better). Add heavy cream and a good dose of hot sauce. Warm just until slightly thickened and add cooked shrimp.

Toss with hot pasta and garnish with sliced green onions (and/or cilantro, parsely, etc).

I drank a watermelon spritzer with this (watermelon juice + club soda). We've had a watermelon from the CSA in the house for oh...probably about a month now. You may think there's something wrong with that. It's just such a commitment once you cut it open! And our fridge space is always at a premium. So I decided to go ahead and juice it today. It was a little mealy so I think juice was the right way to go!

Shrimp, Eggplant & Bok Choy Stir Fry with Black Rice

We ate this before the chocolate - habanero creme brulee, so we could feel somewhat healthy...

- Marinated some shrimp in lime juice + zest, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, a little honey and a bit of cornstarch.
- Cut a small eggplant into cubes, salted/rested/rinsed (really not sure how much difference that makes, especially with farm-fresh eggplant).
- Stir-fried the eggplant, adding a bit of soy sauce.
- Added some sliced bok choy stems, then the leaves.
- Removed the veggies, added a touch more oil, and stir-fried some garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes & scallions for a few seconds.
- Added the shrimp and cooked until pink.
- Added the veggies back in, plus some water & a little more soy.

Served with black rice, which I've been intrigued by and picked up a bag recently:

It's chewy, nutty and apparently has antioxidants & stuff. But so does chocolate, right??

Dark Chocolate - Habanero Crème Brûlée

A few days ago I was gifted a packet of "Habanero Sugar," something I haven't encountered before...

...and a voice from above said..."I bet that would make a bitchin' chocolate crème brûlée."

I listened to that voice.

I got a kitchen torch for my birthday and have only used it once (tried a basic crème brûlée recipe). For this, I used this chocolate crème brûlée recipe, "for two." It filled three small dishes, which was fine 'cause it was pretty damn rich (and the person who gifted me the sugar got some!). I used a 76% cacao chocolate. And I didn't bother straining the mixture.

I tasted the sugar first and it was pretty potent, so I decided to mix it half-and-half with regular sugar. Good move...it was just the right amount of heat and not overwhelming.

Oh my LORD this was good. Uber-chocolately and a nice kick from the habanero.

Patty Melts!

So we've still got some lovely corn and tomatoes from this week (I used some in a re-do of this meal). But we've also got a whole bag of onions. And I recently came across a post on Pioneer Woman's site about patty melts, at which point there was no turning back.

I have a patty melt problem, and I'm not ashamed. I order them pretty much whenever I see them on a menu, and I'll take them over a regular burger anyday. It's a delicious marriage of a burger and grilled cheese, with sauteed onions. Sometimes with thousand island dressing, sometimes not. I think I started ordering them at Plato's Diner in College Park...it was my post-steelband-rehearsal treat. I get one nearly every time we eat at our local Double T Diner in Catonsville, despite the fact that they have a 30-page (or so) menu. Paper Moon also makes a fine one (I keep trying to order something different there because the rest of the food is amazing, but I usually can't resist the Pull of the Patty). One of the best ones I ever had was at in Tyson's Tavern in Baltimore (which I couldn't remember the name of, and rob and I just spent several minutes racking our brains and Yelp until he finally remembered that...and it's closed now!). Anyway...it came on marble rye, accompanied by sweet potato fries, and it was swoon-worthy.

So, yeah...I have a problem. They're delicious. A patty melt may not be the first thing one thinks of for a food blog focusing on dishes with local organic produce, but...gotta use those onions!

For the uninitiated, here's all you do:
- Saute/caramelize some onions
- Make a burger to your liking (I enjoyed Pioneer Woman's suggestion of adding some Worcestershire)
- Sandwich it all with swiss cheese on rye, sourdough or  marble rye (which I used), and grill it in some butter until crispy & oozy.
If you want an actual recipe, check out the Pioneer Woman one...and use as much butter as your conscience will allow (I didn't feel the need to use quite as much as she does).

First time I've ever actually made one, and I was pleased!

My only "complaint" is that I wish the bread was thicker. Safeway didn't have any rye or marble rye that wasn't thin-sliced.

And instead of fries...more roasted pink potatoes!

There, I used some more local organic produce. :-)

Pink Potatoes!

I love vegetable surprises. Yesterday's pickup included a bag of red-skinned potatoes (seems we're getting potatoes every week). Thought I'd make some home fries for breakfast today, and when I sliced them, voila!

Had some regular potatoes too so I mixed them together. Here's an easy way to make home fries/roasted potatoes if you're also making bacon:

Cook your bacon in the oven on a foil-lined sheet pan (about 15 minutes at 400 usually does it). When it's done, remove the bacon to paper towels and toss cubed potatoes onto the pan to coat with the bacon drippings. Season with salt and whatever else you want (at the moment I'm in love with Penzey's Turkish seasoning), put back into the oven and roast until browned & crispy, turning once.


Happy breakfast!

Potato - Cranberry Bean Chowder

We got something new last week: fresh cranberry beans in the shell!

They lose their pretty color when cooked, so I figured I'd throw them into a soup. This was thrown together on a whim - no measurements, no plans...but that's usually what a good soup is! Went something like:

- 3 strips of bacon, diced, cooked in large pot until crispy, reserve bacon
- Chop 1 onion, 1 carrot & 1 celery stalk, saute in bacon drippings
- Chop a few potatoes into small cubes & add to veggies
- Add 1 box of chicken broth & some water to cover
- Add shelled beans
- Simmer until beans & potatoes are cooked (these took only about 20 minutes)
- Puree about a third of the soup in a blender. Add some cream & heat through.
- Add bacon. Season with pepper, chopped basil, dash of hot sauce

Seemed like more of a winter soup, but it was good!

Quick Eggplant Parmesan; Summer Tomato Sauce

Made this one a couple weeks ago...a quick version of eggplant parmesan:

We had half an eggplant which I sliced, dipped in beaten egg and then in a mixture of panko breadcrumbs, garlic powder, salt & pepper (& maybe some other stuff). Laid these on a baking sheet, drizzled with olive oil, and baked for about 20 minutes. We also had onions & garlic from the CSA, so I chopped & sauteed those and added them to store-bought pasta sauce. Spooned this over the slices, topped with mozzarella cheese and put back in the oven just to melt the cheese. Sprinkled with chopped basil.

Not quite the "real thing" (and I'm not sure that there was actually any parmesan involved), but all the tastes are there and it was much easier & lighter than the fried/baked version.

We also started getting tomatoes the last couple weeks, so tonight I chopped up our stash (including some grape tomatoes Amy's been growing in the garden):

And made a simple pasta sauce with onions & garlic (also from One Straw) sauteed in olive oil, plus basil from the garden:

Purple & Green Slaw, Spicy Shredded Beef

Haven't had time to post about this, but we had a feast for a party we threw a couple weeks ago for my birthday. Also involved a Harrison Ford movie marathon to celebrate his 70th! I was also on a mission to use up lots of veggies before we left for another tour, so this slaw happened:

Half a head of purple cabbage, a candy-striped beet (raw, julienned), a chopped Granny Smith Apple, and a couple chopped red spring onions. The dressing was something like a lime vinaigrette, as I recall...olive oil, lime juice, honey & some dijon mustard.



I also made some spicy shredded crockpot beef, mostly following this recipe...which I almost doubled 'cause I got a giant beef roast.

 I was pleased that my hungry friends ate pretty much everything! We did a sort of Chipotle-like spread with rice, black beans, peppers & onions, Amy's homemade salsa, etc.

Everything went deliciously with Air Force One, Cowboys & Aliens, and Empire Strikes Back!

Kohlrabi Chicken Salad

Favorite use of kohlrabi so far! When raw, it has a celery-like crunch and taste, so I thought it would be good in chicken salad:

Recipe(ish):
- 3-4 chicken breasts, cooked & diced (I poached mine)
- half a kolhrabi bulb, peeled & diced small
- couple of green onions, chopped (I used our red spring onions)
- handful of grapes, halved
- handful of chopped pecans
Dressing:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)
- 1 Tbl. dijon mustard
- splash of lime/lemon juice
- salt & pepper

I also added some chopped lemon verbena from our garden; any kind of fresh herbs would be great.

Chicken, Zucchini & Broccoli Stir Fry

I took a rare Thursday off this week and actually got to go to our CSA pickup site! I've never gotten to do that before. OK, it wasn't terribly exciting...the veggies are set out in crates in front of this house; you go check off your name and pick out your stuff:

This week we got red cabbage, kale, peas, zucchini, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, red spring onions & lettuce.

I've saved up the kale & collards from last week and will combine them with this week's kale for the famous kale salad, to take to a wedding potluck. Tonight I made a simple stir fry with the broccoli & zucchini:

I stir-fried those with some sliced onion, removed them from the pan, added a couple of garlic cloves and some cubed chicken breast. When that cooked through I added the veggies back in and splashed in some soy sauce, honey, lime juice & hot pepper flakes, then added some basil & lemon verbena from our garden. Could've been more "saucy," but it was good.

Arugula-Spinach Pesto

I came home late Thursday night after a gig to this alarming refrigerator situation:

Phew! This is most of the full share, because Sharif & Joanna hadn't picked up their half yet. Then, they lost power in the epic storms, so it looks like our fridge will be hosting stuff for awhile! This week we got arugula, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens (I think...they're huge), baby turnips, spinach, chard and lettuce.

I thought pesto would be a good way to deal with the arugula & spinach, and I didn't have many other ingredients on hand (didn't feel like leaving the house in 100 degree weather, plus we didn't even know what businesses in the area have power). I made arugula pesto last year and it was yummy.

So, in a blender I whirred the arugula & spinach leaves, some toasted walnuts, two garlic cloves, some olive oil, and a handful of herbs from our garden (basil & lemon verbena), plus salt & pepper and a splash of lime juice. Took awhile to all get pureed in the blender, but eventually I got some nice bright green goo:

(Nice thing about non-basil pesto is it stays green!)

I cooked some pasta and threw some broccoli florets in the water for the last minute. Then tossed it with about half of the pesto, some parmesan and some shredded mozzarella:

Nice side dish with some parmesan-crusted fish (frozen from Safeway, that ol' standby). Arugula pesto has a good peppery bite and it just tastes very "green."

Greens with Chorizo & Potatoes

This was my breakfast treat after making a 5:30am airport run this morning.

Safeway had tubes of fresh chorizo on sale for $1 last time I was there, so I decided to pick one up. Have never used it before, but thought it would go well with greens. Here's a tip - don't read the ingredients label. While I guess I'm all for truth in nutritional labeling, let's just say "pork" and be done with it. It's sausage, we really don't need to get that specific. Anyway -

First I sauteed a large diced potato until somewhat browned & crispy. While that was cooking, I washed & chopped our bunches of kale and swiss chard. Then I put the potatoes aside and in the same pan, browned half of the tube of chorizo. I was thinking it would cook into separate chunks like fresh Italian sausage does, but it became very "loose." Next I added half a green pepper (chopped) that I had hanging around.

Then I added the chopped greens, and cooked for just a few minutes until they wilted down. Added the browned potatoes, and then fried two eggs over easy to top it with.

The verdict? Yummy. But the chorizo was kind of an odd texture and turned a bit pinkish after adding the greens. I was expecting a nice deep red. Perhaps next time I want to use chorizo I'll look for a more "gourmet" iteration of it. Still, it imparted a nice spicy flavor to the whole dish.

I'm making good progress through our onslaught of greens! Have a fair amount of the greens-potato mixture left, but maybe it'll be good for breakfast tomorrow.

Kohlrabi-Apple Slaw, Pasta with Spinach & Peppers

And the onslaught begins! Finally back from tour and picked up this week's veggies on Thursday - which also included some stuff from last week that lasted OK. In total, I think we got: yellow squash, broccoli, red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, swiss chard, dinosaur kale, half a head of cabbage, purple kohlrabi, spinach and arugula. Four big bags squashed in the fridge.

I don't think I'm going to take photos of each week's take, as I did plenty of that last year. Maybe just the unusual stuff - like purple kohlrabi!

I made a slaw out of this - wasn't too crazy about the kohlrabi stir fry from last year. I peeled & sliced this on a mandoline, then cut the slices into julienne. Did the same with a Granny Smith apple & the stem from the broccoli, and shredded the cabbage. Dressing is mayo, a tiny bit of sour cream, apple cider vinegar, a dab of dijon mustard, maple syrup, salt & pepper. Also threw in some chopped mint leaves from the mint forest that is our garden. This was finally a slaw that I liked!

Next I decided to tackle the spinach. We had two huge bunches of fairly young spinach. It cooked way down when I sauteed it with some bell peppers, garlic, smoked paprika and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Tossed this with some pasta and shredded mozzarella-provolone:

Gotta get back into the swing of things in terms of planning & cooking. It's going to be a busy summer, so...we'll see how this goes. But it's good to eat well again!

Panko-Crusted Salmon with Fresh Corn Saute

Oh hi there, blog. It's been awhile. Been a busy few months, and a fair amount of mac 'n cheese, fried egg sandwiches, Panda Express and other gourmet meals keeping me going. Not having a weekly supply of awesome fresh vegetables has definitely influenced my eating patterns. Safeway's produce just doesn't cut it...I'll pick up a few things every week, but having the CSA veggies provides way more variety, better quality and all that.

But occasionally there's time for a decent meal:

The salmon I've made twice now - it's super-easy and really good (also doesn't taste too "fishy," if you're not a big fish person). It's Ina Garten's recipe: basically, you spread Dijon mustard on the salmon, top it with panko bread crumbs mixed with lemon zest, sear the bottom in a cast iron pan for about 3 minutes, and then put it in the oven for a few minutes. These filets were really thin so the total cooking time was only about 5 minutes. I also broil it for the last minute to brown the crumbs.

The corn saute was the result of 20-cent ears of corn at Safeway:

Plus using up a bunch of other veggies I had in the fridge: asparagus, rainbow chard stems (from the Takoma farmer's market), red onion & halved grape tomatoes.

Went like this: saute the onion in some olive oil til translucent, then add asparagus & chard stems for a few minutes. I added a chopped garlic clove too, and then the corn. After a few minutes, I turned off the heat & added the tomatoes, plus a couple chopped green onions. A couple splashes of cream (doesn't really need it, but it was in the fridge), salt & pepper, a little tabasco, lime juice, and some basil & cilantro from the garden. Yum.

Our CSA starts in a couple weeks, but I'm going to miss the first two weeks of it...booo.

Poached Eggs

A first for me: making poached eggs!

I'm somewhat of an egg fiend - I've gotta have them for breakfast on a day off or it just doesn't feel right. And I will happily eat breakfast for dinner frequently. Fried or scrambled are no problem; I can do hard-boiled too. But I've never attempted poached; it just seemed too tricky (especially to attempt soon after waking up). I really like poached eggs though - I'll frequently order Eggs Benedict when I see it on a menu so I can have them.

Last week when we were visiting our friend Susan, she made poached eggs for us one morning, so I got to see the process in action. It didn't look too intimidating, so I was inspired to give it a try.

I used a huge nonstick saucepan, 'cause I was afraid of the eggs sticking to the bottom. Brought water to a boil in it and then lowered the heat so it was barely bubbling. I added a splash of vinegar to the water, though Susan said she doesn't bother. Cracked an egg in a custard cup, created a whirlpool with a spoon and slipped the egg in. The first one looked OK, so I put a second one in. That one blobbed into the first--uh oh. Then I tried to separate them and they started to look really messy. I was hesitant to add any more to the pan, but there was some more space--so I went for two more. Those seemed to stay in their own space.

While cooking, they really look like a mess in the pan, so I wasn't sure how they would turn out. A couple of them were resting on the bottom of the pan too, but especially with the nonstick I was able to nudge them off. Cooking time's supposed to be 3-4 minutes--these were jumbo eggs, so I did them for about 5. When I spooned each out of the water with a slotted spoon and drained them over a paper towel, they looked pretty decent. So, onto the toast!

Success! Topped with our fancy pink Himalayan salt & Penzey's Black & Red. I guess the lesson is, don't worry about how they look in the water...they'll probably turn out fine!

I'll probably still continue to do fried eggs more often (it's definitely easier), but I can see a future of more poached egg dishes. Thanks for the inspiration, Susan!

Chicken Soup

I picked up a cold a few days ago, on the last leg of tour. It wasn't too terrible, and then I thought I was getting better. Last night, I suddenly developed Lauren Bacall Voice, and have been on the edge of losing it with a nasty cough. So, time for some chicken soup!

I made my own stock (below), and rather than make an enormous pot of soup that would probably get mushy and bleah in a couple of days, I put aside most of the stock and boiled some thinly sliced carrot & celery in the remainder. I'd been thinking about tortellini, but Safeway had these fancy chicken & prosciutto stuffed pasta things, so I threw in a handful of those, with some of the cooked chicken and a pinch of dried dill. Salt to taste, a dash of lemon juice & hot sauce to clear the sinuses. This was good stuff...and now I've got a bunch of leftover shredded chicken and homemade stock.

For the stock, I threw a bunch of stuff into a big pot:

Three chicken leg quarters, 2 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, an onion (quartered but not peeled), some garlic cloves (smashed, not peeled), a bay leaf or two and some peppercorns. Boiled this for about an hour, then removed the chicken and let it cool in the fridge for a bit before skinning & shredding. Added the bones back to the stock and simmered a little while longer, then strained.

It's a bit labor intensive, but...not doing anything else today!

Tandoori Chicken; Palak Paneer

I don't tend to make Indian food very often, as I don't think I'm very good at it. But I recently got some Tandoori seasoning in a Penzey's spice order, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. None of these dishes are particularly "authentic," but they were pretty tasty. At least evidenced by rob eating 2 plates of it.

For the chicken, I basically just followed the recipe on the spice container: made a marinade of 1 cup plain yogurt (Greek-style), 1 Tbl of the Tandoori seasoning, and the juice of half a lime.

I had a package of 6 chicken legs. Most tandoori recipes I looked at said to skin the chicken before marinating, but...after wrassling with the first drumstick and getting covered in raw chicken goo, I decided to forget that. Besides, chicken skin is tasty. Seasoned the chicken with salt, then stuck it in a plastic bag with the marinade, squooshed it up and put it in the fridge for about 4 hours. Then wiped off the excess marinade, put the drumsticks on a wire rack over a sheet pan, drizzled with a little bit of olive oil, ground some black pepper over, and baked at 400 for about 45 minutes. I flipped the pieces halfway through and then broiled the skin side at the end for just a bit.

 I looked at a bunch of recipes for Palak Paneer (or Saag Paneer; not really sure what the difference is). As usual, conglomerated them into my own creation. Though it seems like paneer isn't really too hard to make yourself, I'd read that Queso Fresco is a good substitute, and that was readily available at my local Safeway.

I started by cutting the Queso Fresco into cubes and browning it in a pan with a little butter and oil. Except...it started to melt pretty quickly, so I really didn't brown it. Not sure if the Queso is more melty, but it definitely did not turn a beautiful golden brown like the pics in most of the recipes. In any case, I removed it to a plate. Rest of the recipe went something like:

• Finely chop one onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 jalapeno (with seeds) and a 1-inch piece of ginger (I grated that on a microplane).
• Saute these in a little veg. oil & butter until softened.
• Add about 1 tsp each garam masala, cumin & coriander, plus a little salt. Cook about 1 minute.
• Add a large bag of frozen chopped spinach, thawed. Cook a few minutes.
• Reduce heat and add 1 cup plain Greek yogurt. I also added about 1/2 cup of water as it looked pretty thick. Most recipes tell you to puree the spinach in a food processor at this point, but I didn't bother. I think I added a good bit more salt and some more garam masala at this point.
• Add in the paneer cubes and simmer for a few minutes. I added some chopped cilantro at the end.

 
This made a ton!! Despite it looking like...a pile of green goo (which I think is the point), it was pretty good. Not necessarily Indian-restaurant-good, but...OK for a white girl.

Instead of rice, I served this with Trader Joe's "Teeny Tiny Potatoes" (which we call Screaming Potatoes, because when you take them out of the oven they emit a subtle high-pitched scream...seriously!). I tossed them with olive oil, salt and some more of the Tandoori seasoning. Should have used more of that as they weren't particularly spicy. Put these in the oven with the chicken at about the 20 minute mark.

Now I gotta get through leftovers of this as well as the pasta e fagioli...poor me!