Jennevieve's Cooking the Whole Cookbook

Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

2009-09-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

This is a classic style of Vietnamese dish: cooked fish over noodles with oodles of fresh veggies for condiments and Nuoc Cham (Everyday dipping sauce). These dishes are very impressive at dinner parties with all of the color and texture.

From Quick & Easy Vietnamese Cooking.

Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

I make a variation on this dish all the time. Instead of fish, you can substitute in grilled chicken or steak. Just serve your meat on top of a bowl of noodles, garnish with fresh vegetables and finish it off with Nuoc Cham, and you are set for a delicious, healthy meal.

I like to use Tilapia for this sort of recipe. It is a firm, white fleshed fish that soaks up the flavors easily and doesn't fall apart when you cook it.

Cut 1 pound of firm fish fillets of your choice into 2 inch-3inch square pieces. Toss gently with 2 Tablespoons fish sauce, 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 Tablespoon chopped ginger, 1 teas. ground tumeric (adds color more than anything else), and a pinch of salt. Cover and chill to marinate for at least one hour and up to one day.

ACCOMPANIMENTS:
1/2 pound thin rice noodles or angel hair pasta.
3 cups shredded lettuce (I like to use red leaf)
1 cup fresh mint, cilantro, or basil (or a combo)
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped, roasted peanuts
NUOC CHAM dipping sauce

Cook 1/2 lb. of your preferred noodle and divide between 4 bowls.

Prepare all accompaniments before you cook the fish.

NUOC CHAM: (it is a good idea to double this, it goes fast!)
1 T chopped garlic
2 T sugar
1/2 chile-garlic sauce
3 T fish sauce
3 T water
2-3 T freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well to disolve sugar. If you want to be really hard core, mash garlic, sugar, and chile sauce first in a mortar and pestle.

DO NOT skimp on the fish sauce. It smells strong at first, but will mellow.
Transfer to small bowls to serve to each guest alongside their dish or I usually just put it in one larger bowl and let everyone ladle some for themselves.

To cook fish, heat 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a large, heavy skillet or casserole. Heat oil until a bit of garlic sizzles when you add it to the pan. Add drained fish to pan and cook about 3 minutes. Gently turn fish and add chopped green onion and fresh chopped dill to pan. I only had dried dill, and it tasted great. Make sure green onions and dill gets lightly tossed with fish.

To serve, place a few pieces of fish on top of noodles and allow guests to add in their own accompaniments and Nuoc Cham.

Enjoy! This dish is easy to make and will give you a nice taste of Vietnamese cooking.

Cooking the Vietnamese Way

2009-09-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

I never tire of eating Vietnamese cooking. The ingredients are always so fresh, use little added fat, and the frequent combination of chiles, herbs like basil and mint, garlic, and ginger, and peanuts are so delicious and mouth watering. They also have an interesting twist of French colonial history, so it isn't weird to put carrots and tofu on a baguette or eat a puff pastry to start out your meal.

The two main things to know about Vietnamese cooking are:
1) Fish sauce-you can't be afraid of fish sauce (nuoc mam). Yes, it smells like your brother's dirty gym socks that he insisted upon wearing three days in a row. But once you have either cooked with it or combined it with other ingredients, the smell mellows and it adds such an essential part to the flavor and smell of the dishes. Without it, your dishes will only be so-so.

2) Fresh ingredients and patient prepping of foods is key. A lot of the dishes are about delicately sliced vegetables mixed with fresh herbs over rice or noodles with maybe some sort of meat and a little sauce or broth. Substitutions can be made easily, so you don't have to panic if you don't have Thai Basil, you can use regular basil or even cilantro and just move on.

Even though we like to think we are so worldly in our local grocery stores, I still find it hard to find exactly all the ingredients I want at the local Fred Meyer's or Metropolitan Markup (Market). Just under two miles from my house, up on South 38th, is a crazy good, but slightly scruffy looking East Asia Supermarket, or maybe it's called Super East Asian Market, I can't remember. OK, maybe scruffy is a little too nice, really dirty looking would be better, like maybe they actually let the chickens run around in the shop before they butcher them--I like to think of it as the poor man's Uwajimaya. (I love Uwajimaya, but the nearest one is 36 miles up the road in Seattle and is pretty damned expensive.)

But please don't be put off by my filthy description. You can find artichoke tea here and daikon the size of your thigh and super cheap herbs and coconut milk for $1 a can and rice in 50lb sacks and rice sticks and noodles in all shapes and sizes. They also have delicate looking quail eggs, interesting East Asian beers, and plastic Chinese noodle bowls complete with classic red and white designs. I still haven't gotten up the nerve to buy any meat products here, as I prefer to buy organic meats whenever possible, but I've heard from others that the meat is fine. This is where I will be buying most of my ingredients for my foray into Vietnamese cooking.

I am diving into Quick and Easy Vietnamese by Nancy McDermott. I hope you will join me. The food is delicious.

New Cook Book(s)

2009-05-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, how long has it been since I have posted here? I'm embarrassed. But I guess that is the way of the world when you are a blogging newbie. I have a new blog now that covers the whole range of things in my life: arts, the garden, design, do-it-yourself, and, of course, cooking.

House InsideOut

But I am sticking with this blog as well. In fact, I have even found myself a new cookbook to be cooking out of. Actually, I have found two cookbooks; two that are diametrically opposed from each other.

The first one is The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. She, a genius in her own time, yes? These are classic foods, stripped down to the basics. I am sure there are some badly needed basic tips and tricks for me in this book.

The second is Quick & Easy Vietnamese by Nancie McDermott. I originally checked this out from the library and then found so many delicious recipes that I had to go and buy it! I love Vietnamese food and am looking forward to exploring this book thoroughly.

I discovered in my first project, cooking from How To Eat Supper, I got a little bored with the author's tastes. My second mistake was trying to cook all of the variations. I now know that many of these variations in many (ok, not all, but many) cookbooks are basically space fillers. By the results of some of my "variations" I am fairly certain the authors never even tried them themselves. Finally. I am giving myself as much time as I need to finish; no rushed deadlines and stress--who needs it?

So now I have two cookbooks with lots of variation between the two of them and off I go!

Day 46: Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup With Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

2008-11-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, after the last dud, this one is a real winner. However, I wish they would just quit with the obnoxiously long names.

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup with Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

Pho always seemed a little too complicated to make at home, like there was a mystery item, a certain something (like some nasty ingredient I probably didn't want to know about anyways) that gave it the delicious flavor. Happily, I was wrong. About the disgusting ingredient, that is. The secret to the broth is anise, believe it or not, and the ubiquitous fish sauce. You cannot skip these ingredients.

Note: You are going to be cooking your beef by pouring the boiling broth on top of it in the bowl. Your steak (6-8 oz. top round) will need to be sliced extra thin so wrap it and throw it the freezer right now so that in 20 minutes you can slice it more easily.

Turn on your broiler. Set your oven rack 4-6 inches from heat.

Start by spreading foil over a baking sheet. Spread out (all peeled and thin sliced) one onion, 4 cloves garlic, and one 2-3 inch piece of ginger. Add 5 grinds of fresh black pepper and 1 whole star anise, bruised or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds. (I used the anise seeds, it turned out great.) Broil 5 minutes, turning once. Watch carefully! It is good if the onions get a tiny brown. A couple of mine became black and I had to toss them because I think the burnt flavor would permeate everything.

Scrape onion/spice mix into large 6 quart pot. Add 4 14 0z cans of chicken broth. (The authors hate boxed broth. I use it all the time and think it tastes fine.) Also toss in 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons fish sauce.

Bring to a gentle boil, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

While the broth is cooking, cook your 6-8 oz. of rice noodles to your preference. Some cooks prefer to just soak the noodles in hot water. I usually bring the water to a boil with the noodles in the pot and then immediately pull them off the heat and let them soak in the hot water.

While your noodles are cooking, prepare the veggie part of the meal. On a serving platter, arrange cilantro sprigs, fresh Thai or regular basil, thin-sliced jalapenos, a big handful of bean sprouts, and lime wedges.

When your noodles are ready, divide them into 2 large bowls. We had a lot of left over noodles. We could have easily served 4 versus 2.

Slice your steak as thin as you can and divide into the bowls, on top of your noodles. (You could easily substitute chicken for steak.)
Ladle the boiling broth into the bowls and serve immediately. Top with your veggies and serve hoisin sauce and chile sauce at the table.Easy to make and gives such a lovely presentation. Delicious. The jalapenos I used were so spicy our noses and eyes were running. But damn, it hit the spot!

73 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 45: Spring Vegetables and White Beans Scented with Fresh Bay

2008-11-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

The name is deceptive on this one. There are very few vegetables in this and they can be easily had at any time.

Spring Vegetables and White Beans Scented with Fresh Bay

This is one of those few recipes in here where you wonder if they actually really made this. It is under the vegetable main events (A very desperate chapter) but it is more like a soup than anything else and you don't get the idea that it is a stew until the last paragraph when it says "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil...." I thought it was going to be something to serve over rice. Hmm.

Anyways, combine 2 cups of chicken broth with 4 medium carrots (cut into 3" long matchsticks), 8 thin sliced cloves of garlic, and 2 fresh bay leaves, bruised. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until the carrots are cooked to your preference.

Add one can of white beans, 3 cups fresh baby spinach, salt and pepper, and stir to wilt the spinach. Cook, covered, for up to 5 minutes to heat the beans through.Squeeze in some lemon, remove the bay leaves and "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil and sprinklings of grated Parmigiano."BOR-ING.
It wasn't quite soup and it wasn't quite thick enough to serve over rice. The bay was completely over whelming, and it just have been called White Beans with Soggy Carrots in Bay Broth.

Skip this one. A rare lump of coal.

72 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 44: Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken With Rosemary and Whole Garlic Cloves, Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes"

2008-11-12T08:58:00.001-08:00

In every cookbook there exists one or two recipes that look incredibly technical, or just plain intimidating, is inevitably avoided at all costs, and this is one of them.

Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken with Rosemary and Whole Garlic Cloves
Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes"

I have avoided this recipe from the beginning. If I wasn't committed to cooking everything in the book, I probably wouldn't ever have made it. Anything involving a garden variety brick placed on top of a chicken was enough to send me into shock without the idea of butterflying the chicken as well.

In truth, this recipe probably has the fewest ingredients of any of the other recipes and requires dirtying only one, maybe two pans at most.

First, you need a nice organic chicken, butterflied. The annoying thing is that while there are instructions on how to butterfly, there are no diagrams or photos. So you have to wing it and be confident that it will turn out exactly as it should.

I made the butterflying part easy. After picking out my chicken, I had the butcher at the grocery store butterfly it for me. He had a nice big cutting board and it took him less than 15 seconds. Problem one, down.

Problem two, find a brick. Or two bricks if you have a large chicken. So run out into the garden find your least mucky brick and then cover it in foil. The weight of the brick helps press the chicken down on the pan so it will brown and cook faster.
Next, you need to rub salt and pepper all over the chicken and press four sprigs of rosemary into it as well. The authors tell you to tuck the wings back, flat against the breasts, but I could never get the wings to stay put.Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat in the largest, heaviest, non-stick skillet that you have. Place chicken, skin up in the skillet and place your brick on top of your bird. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the underside of your bird is brown.Turn over with tongs and tuck 8+ cloves of unpeeled garlic, lightly smashed around the bird. If you peel the garlic, they will burn. Replace the brick and make sure the chicken is making good contact with the pan. Cook for 12 more minutes until the skin is crisp and brown. The temperature in the thighs should be 170 F. After 12 minutes, my chicken was nowhere near done . The oven was already on to cook garlic bread, so I actually transferred the chicken to a baking sheet and popped it in the oven for another 10 minutes(sans brick) and it came out perfect. The rosemary is really the secret ingredient here. The chicken ends up with a delightful rosemary essence, not over-powering at all.

While the chicken was cooking, I made the Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes". Basically, chop up a head of cauliflower, along with the core and leaves. Layer into a steamer basket, the leaves and core, then half the cauliflower florets, sliced garlic, salt, and the rest of the cauliflower. Steam, covered for 8 minutes. Once soft, puree in a food processor with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

Surprisingly, this was a little more high maintenance than it really needs to be. I make mashed-cauliflower all the time and instead of steaming it and messing up another pan and the food processor, I throw all the ingredients in a pot with 1/2 cup of chicken broth. (add more broth if nec. as it cooks.) Cover, and once everything is nice and soft, add your butter or oil or whatever, and use an immersion blender to mash it all up.

Either way, mashed cauliflower is delicious. I used orange cauliflower and that is its natural color. I also made a green tomato/tomatillo sauce that I served over the cauliflower. And I served our favorite garlic bread on the side as well. Don't forget a bottle of cabernet and you have a feast!71 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 43: North Shore Shrimp Scampi

2008-11-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

The larger the prawns you get your hands on for this recipe, the better.

North Shore Shrimp Scampi

This is easy and fast and tasty. The only thing difficult about this recipe is that you need to marinate the shrimp overnight.

The night before, make your marinade: Combine 1 1/2 pounds of shelled prawns with 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 7+ minced garlic cloves, and 1/4 teas each of salt and pepper. The authors recommend that if you are using frozen prawns you can boil them with lemon juice, but every restaurant I've ever worked in used frozen prawns and as long as they aren't old, they should thaw out fine without any bad effects.

When ready to cook, set a large skillet over medium-high heat. Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter with some salt and pepper. Stir in the shrimp along with the marinade and turn the heat down to medium low. Cook, turning once or twice, until done, about 4 minutes. With your handy tongs, remove prawns and set on serving platter.

The the heat up to medium-high and add 1/4 dry white wine. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat and melt in another tablespoon of butter. Pour onto prawns and drizzle with lemon juice and top with chopped parsley. Nice with plain white rice.

69 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 42: Simple Garden-In-A-Pot Soup

2008-11-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

This recipe probably has the most appropriate name of any recipe in the whole cookbook. I am usually wary of generic sounding vegetable soup, but I am happily wrong about any preconceived ideas about this soup.

Simple Garden-In-A-Pot Soup

This soup is perfect for fall and winter weather. It also has no overwhelming taste, so it would be easy to modify the spices or veggies to suit your mood.

This soup is made in three easy steps.

Start by thin slicing, in the food processor or by hand, 2 medium onions, 2 carrots, top third of 2 celery stalks with their leaves, and six large garlic cloves. Film a large heavy-bottomed pot with oil and heat at medium-low. Add the veggies along with salt and pepper. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring every so often to make sure that nothing burns or sticks to the bottom. This stage puts off the loveliest fragrance.

Raise heat to medium and add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons of dried basil, and 2 teaspoons of paprika. Stir constantly for 3 minutes to allow flavors to meld.

Then add 2 small zucchini, thin sliced, 1 rough chopped portobello mushroom, 1/4 head of green cabbage, thin sliced, a handful of chopped dark greens (spinach is good, I used chard), and 6-8 cups of your preferred chicken or vegetable broth. I used half chicken broth and half mushroom broth.

Now partially cover and let cook for 30 minutes. If you want a stronger broth, you can uncover and cook the soup down a few minutes longer.Serve in large bowls with shredded Asiago on top. Delicious and very good-for-you-tasting.

68 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 41: Scandinavian Flower Eggs with Sweet-Tart Mustard Dill Sauce

2008-11-06T21:20:00.000-08:00

This was a great way to use up all of the potatoes, greens, and eggs that I have been getting in our farm share. This recipe has such a fancy name that I was halfway through before I realized it could have just been called "Fancy Potato Salad".

Scandinavian Flower Eggs with Sweet-Tart Mustard Dill Sauce

If you like eggs, mustard, and potatoes, this recipe is for you. Happily, I love all three so it was win, win, win.

Start by hard-boiling 8 eggs.

While your eggs are cooking, boil one pound of small red potatoes for 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. When cool, peel the potatoes and slice in 1/4" slices.

While the eggs and potatoes are cooking, start on the sauce. In a medium bowl, mix together 1/4 cup plain vinegar (or cider vinegar) with 1 clove of minced garlic and three tablespoons of minced onion. It is nice if you can sit this aside for 10 minutes to mellow while you prepare the rest. Then stir in 2 T of sugar, 3 T canola oil (NOT olive oil, too strong of flavor for this), 1/2 cup dark, grainy mustard, and 1/3 cup of fresh, chopped dill. Then add salt and pepper too taste. At this point, taste for sweet-sour balance. I actually used a little less mustard and another teaspoon of sugar, all said and done. The mustard I had was extremely strong flavored.

Now comes for the grand assembly of the salad.Take your serving platter and spread out 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to form a 9-10" circle.Cover the mayonnaise with your potato slices, overlapping them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and then pile 2-3 cups of thin-sliced lettuce on top of the potatoes, covering them. I used purple potatoes since that is what we had from our farm share and I like how they looked.
Peel and quarter your potatoes lengthwise and arrange on top of lettuce in a sunburst pattern, like a flower. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper, if you desire.

Before serving, zig zag dressing over the top of salad and top with diced, sweet onion and fresh chopped dill. I used a lot of onion and only a tiny bit of dill since there is so much dill in the dressing. Also, you will not need all of the dressing so you can serve the rest of it on the side at table or save it for another salad.

This salad looks lovely, but I have to say, it is a bit awkward to serve. The mustard sauce is delicious. Next time I might just chop everything up and assemble it like a more traditional salad and then I think you can just put a bit of mayo in the dressing instead.
Yum!

67 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 40: Oven-Roasted Chicken Cacciatora

2008-11-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

I must admit, I did not cook this. I had bought all of the ingredients and then I fell ill and since it looked like a fairly easy recipe to make, I convinced my husband Trevor to make it.

Oven-roasted Chicken Cacciatora

This is a easy, one pan dish. It is made with chicken thighs, but you could use chicken breasts if you wanted, just be aware that it will cook faster.

In a roasting pan, spread out 8 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on).

Scatter the following ingredients on top of the chicken:
-1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives
-4 thin slices hard salami, cut into 1 inch squares
-1 large red pepper, roughly chopped
-1 large tomato, coarse chopped
-1 red onion, coarse chopped
-leaves from two 4 inch pieces of rosemary
-10 fresh sage leaves, torn
-4 minced garlic cloves
-1 teas fennel seeds, crushed
-1/4 cup dry red wine
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-salt and pepper

Roast chicken at 400 F for 30 minutes, basting occasionally. Chicken should be 170 F. Usually with any recipe of this type, you would brown the chicken pieces first and then de-glaze the cooked on bits to make the sauce. The authors skip this part to make it easier and less messy, but next time I will probably go ahead and brown them first as I like the look and taste. Alternatively, you can broil the chicken afterwards to brown.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon. This was simple and easy and you can easily adjust the ingredients to what you have on hand. The dish was tasty with the rosemary and olives, so make sure you don't leave those out!

66 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 39: Coriander-Orange-Scented Red Lentil Soup

2008-10-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

I thought it was weird at first, but now I am finding it positively endearing, the use-of-hyphens-in-nearly-every-recipe-title!

Coriander-Orange-Scented Red Lentil Soup

This isn't just orange-scented, it's got all sorts of orange tasting going on as well. And it isn't a bad thing, not at all.

This soup looked interesting because it contains all sorts of my favorite things: cilantro, red lentils, garlic, ginger, yum yum. And it did not disappoint.

This is very easy to make and uses the unique ingredient of cilantro stems.

First, wash a bunch of cilantro. Cut off the bottom 3-4" of stems and chop these fine. Set the rest of the cilantro aside for now.

Next dice up 3 medium onions, setting aside about 1/3 of them.

Film a nice big soup pot with oil over medium to high heat. Stir in your 2/3's of onions along with salt and pepper. Saute until those onions start to brown. Add you cilantro stems, 4 cloves garlic- fine chopped (I used 6), 1/2" chunk of peeled ginger- fine chopped, 2 teas ground coriander, and zest of 1 orange. Stir that in for just about 20 seconds until nice and fragrant and scrape out entire contents of pot onto a plate for now.Back into the now empty pot on the stove, add one 14 oz. can of chicken broth, 2 /2 cups water, 3/4 cups of lentils, and the uncooked onions you set aside. Bring that to a boil, ok, a gentle bubble (I call that a simmer), and cook, partially covered for about 10 minutes, no more.

Add back your cooked onion/cilantro stem mixture with more salt and pepper if you wish and then cover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes. Then add in the juice from the orange you zested plus the juice from 1 lemon and additional orange juice, up to one cup. Cook til warm and bubbly. Serve with some of the cilantro leaves you set aside. I also added a heaping tablespoon of lowfat yogurt to each bowl when I served it.
Melt some parmigiano on some whole grain bread and a fabulous feast you have. The orange wasn't as overwhelming as you might think, but I could definitely taste it as well as smell it. My husband couldn't even put his finger on it at first that it was orange because it is a little unexpected. I also loved how much onion was in the soup.

65 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 38: Chinese-Ginger Scallion Meatballs and Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry

2008-10-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Now don't go thinking that I am obsessed with meatballs just because there are two meatball recipes right in a row. I freely admit that I have cooked nothing from my cookbook project in the last three weeks. Our farm share produce was just not measuring up to what I needed ingredient-wise, so it took a back seat. But now I am on it again and I just happened to make the other meatball recipe.

Chinese-Ginger Scallion Meatballs and Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry

This is a variation on the Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs I made last month and just varies in a few key ingredients.

Start by blending in your food processor 1/2 piece of fresh peeled ginger, 3 whole scallions, 1 T soy sauce, 1 egg yolk, a little sugar, and 1/2 cup dry red wine. Once that is blended, you can either add your meats (1 lb lean ground beef, 1/2 lb ground chicken or turkey) to the processor and pulse 5 times or turn out processor into large bowl and blend your meats by hand. At this point also blend in 3 more chopped scallions and 10 diced water chestnuts. Form your meatballs, ad you should get at least 20 if you make them 1 1/4", but I make mine a little bigger.

Film a saute pan with oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add your meatballs and brown before turning them (about 3 or 4 minutes). Turn them over carefully and add 1/2 diced onion, 1 diced red bell pepper, and 1/2 cup thin-sliced bamboo shoots. Why they don't say add a whole can of bamboo shoots, I have no idea, but that is exactly what I did. Turn heat to medium, cover, and let cook 8-10 minutes, until centers are no longer pink.

Remove meatballs with a slotted spoon and put into your serving dish. Return heat to high and cook down onion-bell pepper sauce, stirring frequently. Once the juices are cooked down, add 1/3 cup rice or white wine and cook down before adding 1 cup chicken broth and 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce.

Like last time I made these, I just added the wine and the broth at the same time and it turned out great. (Especially the part when I added a little corn starch to thicken the sauce that I am sure would send a shudder through the authors' minds.)

Once broth is cooked down by half, pour over meatballs to serve. I served this over brown rice.

Alongside my meatballs, I made Sweet Yams in Ginger-Stick Curry. (I love how much hyphenating there is in this cookbook!)

Some people might call this recipe spicy. I put a whole, diced, jalapeno in it as called for, but I think I should have put 2 jalapenos in it.

Start by peeling 2 large Garnet or Jewel Yams. I prefer sweet potatoes, so I compromised with 2 medium yams and 1 sweet potato. Cut your sweet root veggies of preference in half lengthwise and then cut into 1/4 inch thick half rounds.

Boil yams in fiercely boiling water. (Do they watch Project Runway?) Yes, they use the word fiercely quite frequently when describing boiling water. Cook at a hard bubble for 10 minutes. (I love these descriptions.) I cooked my potatoes for 10 minutes and they came out a little mushy. Yummy, but mushy as you will see in the photo. So I would start testing for doneness around 7 minutes or make your potato chunks a little bigger. Drain your yams and place in your preferred serving dish.

For the curry part, the authors have been extremely explicit about how to prepare the ingredients, that it is a "Chinese cooking" thing and every little bit is important and I completely agree with them. Not only is it fun to slice ginger into little matchsticks, but it actually does taste different on your tongue. I wish more cookbooks had such specifics.

Reuse the same pot you cooked the yams in and generously film it with oil and set over medium-high heat.
Add the following: 1 inch peeled ginger, peeled and sliced into paper-thin matchsticks
4 large garlic cloves, sliced paper-thin
1 jalapeno, sliced very thin
2 whole scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 large shallots, thin sliced
generous sprinkling of salt and pepper
Stir frequently on medium-high for 2 minutes. Cover, and then reduce heat to medium low and cook for an additional 5-8 minutes or until ginger has softened. Stir in a handful of coarse chopped basil (Thai or regular) and stir, uncovered for 30 seconds or less, just to wilt the basil. Spoon sauce over your yams and then give a squeeze of lime over the entire dish. This packs a lot of flavor and tasted pretty damn healthy too.It was a nice compliment to the Ginger Meatballs. Good leftovers too.

64 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 37: Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs with Caramelized Apples

2008-09-26T14:51:00.001-07:00

This recipe makes a lot of meatballs so make sure you have dinner guests or you are going to be able to eat the leftovers the next day.

Scandinavian Spiced Meatballs with Caramelized Apples

This recipe looks complicated at first glance, but meatballs are pretty easy. You blend all of the meatball ingredients in a food processor, shape the little suckers, and then cook them with the sauce ingredients.

Start by blending 1/2 medium onion, 1/3 cup dry red wine, 1 large egg yolk, 1 garlic clove (I used 4), nutmeg, ground ginger, salt, coriander, cumin, and pepper in your food processor. Now the recipe says to add 1 lb lean ground beef and 1/2 lb ground chicken (or turkey) to the processor and pulse 5 times. I just turned out the processor into a large bowl and added the meats and blended with my hands. At this point you also add 3 sliced up large scallions 5 large, diced, pitted prunes.

Many meatball recipes I have done in the past call for 1 tablespoon or so of white rice as a thickener, here they use prunes. And they magically blend in and you can't taste them, so don't worry about those picky eaters--what they don't know won't hurt them!

Shape into 20 plus meatballs. I ended up with a few more since those organic ground meats come pre-packaged and I didn't want to waste any meat. So I had to cook my meatballs in two batches.

Film a saute pan with oil and heat over medium-high. Add the meatballs and brown before turning. (The authors point out that your meatballs should not touch, but I would have to cook mine in 3 or 4 batches and they turned out just fine squeezed in together.) Once they are browned, turn the meatballs and sprinkle with pepper, a bit of bruised caraway seeds, 1/2 of a diced onion and 1 diced apple. (1/4" dice works nice.) Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and cook until middles are no longer pink, about 8 minutes.

Remove meatballs with slotted spoon and place in serving dish. Turn heat to high and boil down the pan juices in the apple mixture. Using a wooden spatula, frequently stir the apples until they are getting nice and brown. Then add 1/2 dry red wine and keep cooking until wine is cooked down. Then add chicken broth and and boil it down by half and then pour sauce over meatballs to serve.

Now, I have to admit, sometimes I don't read things too carefully and I added the wine and the broth at the same time and I let it cook down by half and it turned out delicious anyways.
I served these babies with spicy green beans, and smashed and roasted potatoes. The roasted potato recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's blog. Dish delish! I make these potatoes all the time now.

62 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 36: Hoisin China Noodles with Four Flavors

2008-09-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

The obvious key to any good sauce is usually the high fructose corn syrup present in whatever base you are using. Store bought Hoisin Sauce's number one ingredient? High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Hoisin China Noodles with Four Flavors

We were having a dinner guest so I wanted to make something a little fancier. This comes off very well and it is high maintenance with the prep work and makes a lot of dirty dishes, but the cooking part couldn't be easier.

First you prep the four "flavors"--this are raw ingredients that you serve at table so this part is easy. Prepare 1 and 1/2 cups each: thin-sliced radishes, bean sprouts, peeled, seeded, and diced cucumbers, and thin-sliced spinach leaves. These look very nice if served in their own separate bowls.

Next you need to cook 3/4 pound of Chinese Egg Noodles. Now the recipe calls for the thin noodles, substituting egg spaghetti if nec, but I used the wider noodles because that is what I had and they worked great because they held the sauce so well. When noodles are done, rinse in cold water. It is best if this is all done before you start cooking the pork and sauce. When I cook this again, I will start the noodles before prepping the veggies.

Marinate 1 lb ground pork butt with 3 T dry sherry, chopped garlic, and 1 teas sugar. Set aside for now.

In another small bowl blend 2 T hoisin sauce with 2 T soy sauce and 1/2 teaspoon hot chile paste. (Another thing to admit, I doubled the hoisin and soy sauce and quadrupled the chile paste. You can never have enough hot spicy yummy sauce.) Set this aside as well.

In a large skillet or wok, warm up 3 T canola oil. Add the pork mixture and cook for a few minutes, breaking it into smaller bits and cooking until most of the moisture is gone and the pork is no longer pink. Add 1/2 cup sliced green onions and 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts. (I also add a sliced red pepper since we had one from our farm share.)

Cook for no more than a minute and add in you soy sauce mix. Heat that for another minute and then add 3/4 cup chicken broth and cook, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes over high heat. Add your drained noodles and cook long enough for the sauce to get all over the noodles and to heat them up a little, just a couple of minutes. Serve immediately in a nice large bowl with your four flavors on the side for your guests to select what they want.

Trevor and his friend Tony both liked the dish a lot. At least their plates were empty by the end of dinner! The only thing I might try differently is to add raw carrots to the flavors and actually throw the spinach in with the noodles to wilt them a little.

Very delicious. Drink with cold beer.

61 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 35: Supper Tart of Red Onions, Greens, and Grapes

2008-09-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

The piano tuner is here so I am more than a little distracted by his tinkling of the keys.

Supper Tart of Red Onions, Greens, and Grapes

If you want to impress a crowd, there is nothing like puff pastry to help you out.

This is a lovely and simple tart and it is very fast to make.

Defrost on your counter I package of puff pastry (2 sheets). It will go faster if you take the sheets out of the box and lay them side by side to thaw.

Take 1 light-packed cup of greens of your preference---I used spinach---and tear them into bite-sized pieces. Toss in a bowl with a half cup plus of green grapes, 1 slivered medium red onion, shredded zest of 1/2 lemon, 1 chopped garlic clove, chopped fresh thyme, salt, and pepper.

Once sheets are thawed, lay them side by side, overlapping by 1/4 inch or so on a large baking sheet. Press the overlapping edges to seal and pinch the outside edges to create a rim. I actually rolled my sheets out a little bit to make the tart a little larger. You should end up with a sheet about or larger than 7" x 17".

Fill the tart with your onion and greens mixture and spread it out evenly.

Now the authors say to bake this at 500 degrees on the bottom rack for 15 minutes. I know my oven is extra hot so I put it on the middle rack for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

While it is baking, blend1 cup shredded cheese (they recommend Asiago) and 1/4 cup heavy cream. OK OK I just used half and half and it turned out fine.

Pop the tart out of the oven and spoon your cheese mixture all over the tart. Bake for an additional 6 minutes. Serve warm. YUM!
This is easy and in a pinch you can get away with whatever cheese or veggies you have on hand.

60 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 34: Pan-Crisped Risotto Patties (Variation)

2008-09-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Everything tastes better coated in egg, dipped in breadcrumbs, and fried!

Pan-Crisped Risotto Patties (Variation)

I didn't make any of the cookbooks risottos-I just made some based upon what I had on hand: onion, eggplant, garlic. And it was tasty-but this is not a risotto recipe, it is a pan-crisped risotto recipe.

Start with any risotto leftovers. Wet your hands and then make hamburger-like patties with approximately 1/2 cup of risotto per patty. Dip patties in beaten egg and then toss in breadcrumbs, panko, whatever your prefer.

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add patties and turn heat down to medium. Cook until golden on one side, turn over and cook until the other side is done to your preference. Drain on paper towels if needed and serve with a squeeze of lemon.

I tried this two different ways. Yesterday, I made the patties as directed but I baked them instead of frying them. I finished them by broiling them to turn them brown and they were tasty. Today for breakfast, I took the leftover baked patties and sauteed them as originally directed and they were just as good, maybe a little crispier. Both times I ate them with a dollop of sour cream, extra yum.

59 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 33: Sante Fe Summer Pot with Avocado and Shrimp

2008-09-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I thought I was making gazpacho, but it was really just salsa.

Sante Fe Summer Pot with Avocado and Shrimp

This recipe is masquerading as an entree in the Main Dishes section of the cookbook, but I realize there is no appetizer section for it to really be in. So make this for a first course! We took a few bites of this, realized it was really salsa and went out for dinner instead!

I read that there was cucumber in the recipe and that was the true mistake of my confusion. Gazpacho leaves the salsa realm with olive oil, cucumbers, vinegar, and bread (sometimes blended in, sometimes served on top). We had an AMAZING garlic/yogurt gazpacho in Walla Walla and I did some research and it was a traditional ajo blanco and I will be making that very soon before summer is completely gone.

OK, back to the recipe-- this is really a pico de gallo. The authors also say it has a prep time of 10 minutes. Do they have eight arms? It took me over 20.

Combine 1/4 cup lime juice, 1/2 chopped red onion, 1 minced clove of garlic, and 1/2 a seeded and minced jalapeno with a blend of cumin, ground coriander, and pepper.

Let that mix marinate while you blend 1 and a half pounds of fresh tomatoes with cilantro in a food processor. The authors recommend 1 or 2 sprigs of cilantro, I say use the whole bunch if you are ending up with salsa! Keep it chunky and then add in the onion mixture and blend with just a few pulses.

Turn out into your serving bowl. Fold in 1 small peeled and diced cucumber, 1 diced avocado, and 1 pound cooked, peeled shrimp or prawns. (They said shrimp in the recipe, I used baby shrimp and then realized they probably meant prawns.)

Serve with chips and a few lime wedges.
Maybe the chips were a signal this was really a salsa? This really tasted quite fine, but it was not what we were expecting and so we didn't really enjoy it. Also, the onion was incredibly strong. I might substitute a sweet onion in place of the red.

58 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 32: Curried Cauliflower Cream Soup

2008-09-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Weirdly, we ate a lot of soup while on our road trip so I have had a big soup craving since we got back.

Curried Cauliflower Cream Soup

I have always loved cauliflower soup. It takes flavors nicely and has an interesting texture. This was a little on the simple side, I was surprised to discover, and very easy to make. It doesn't even have cream in it, they use yogurt to thicken it instead.

Start with a simple saute in oil of one chopped medium onion, 5 chopped garlic cloves, and 3 tablespoons of generic curry powder. Cook over medium low for 5 minutes, making sure not to burn it.

Add I large head of chopped cauliflower, 3 potatoes skinned and cubed (I used red), 4 cups chicken broth (I used one box), and enough water to cover the veggies if nec. Bring soup to a boil and cook until the veggies are fork tender. The cookbook says 15 minutes and then let it sit 15 minutes to cool. I guess so the yogurt won't curdle when you add it.

But after 15 minutes, my veggies were still very firm, so I ended up cooking it for half an hour and I had to add a little water as it cooked down. Then I only let it sit for a few minutes before I pureed it with my hand blender.

If you don't have a hand blender and you like to make soup and smoothies, I heavily recommend it! I am not a big fan of buying a million different silly kitchen gadgets, but this little device is a modern miracle. I used to puree soup by zapping it in small batches in my food processor and that was a MESS and took forever. Now I just puree it right in the pot, no mess, easy to clean the hand blender. I bought mine on amazon for $29, a steal!

Ok, back to the soup. It is basically done at this point. Serve with a giant dollop of yogurt and a squeeze of lemon blended in each bowl.

I served this alongside our favorite Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread.

However, I have to admit, I thought this could have used some more interesting spices. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but a little spice, a little pepper, anything could liven it up. I will definitely keep experimenting with this recipe. We love the cauliflower.

57 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 31: Almond Chutney Chicken in Lettuce Roll-Ups

2008-09-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

After an eight day road trip to Montana, Wyoming, and Walla Walla, I am ready to cook!

Almond Chutney Chicken in Lettuce Roll-Ups

After eating A LOT of steak and fries and wine the last week, I tried to pick out a healthier looking recipe.

This is in the spirit of Vietnamese Spring Rolls and is made of a chicken salad served alongside lettuce leaves and a few crispy fillings.

The chicken salad has a secret ingredient-- Major Grey's Chutney. This is a ready-made, mango-based chutney with about a zillion ingredients supposedly invented by a British Officer in India and even the cheap brand I bought from Fred Meyer's tasted pretty good so I will skip any long-winded speech about making your own. Just buy it!

Start with a whole roasted chicken. Another day I might roast my own chicken first, but I was hungry when I was at the grocery store, so I just bought one of the ready-roasted birds. It wasn't organic, so I am sure the authors would be disappointed in me. Pull all of the meat you can from your chicken, discarding the skin and bones. Then shred it or cut it into bite-size pieces.

Combine in a large bowl: 1 diced red onion, 1-2 diced jalapenos, grated zest and juice of one large lemon (or more to taste), one 9 oz. jar of Major Grey's Chutney, 1/2 cup mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Fold in chicken along with 1 cup chopped almonds and a few stalks of chopped celery.

Serve with bibb lettuce leaves, sliced cucumber, fresh cilantro, fresh basil and radishes.
This was very tasty and came together really easily. It would be easy to use substitute. I think jicama or carrots could be a nice addition and I might try it with peanuts instead of almonds.

The only problem was that the lettuce was small and it was a little messy. For lunch today I sliced up the rest of the lettuce and tossed it with the chicken mix and it was delicious.

56 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 30: Pan Browned Scallops on a Bed of Bacon and Brussels Sprouts, Dressing-In-A-Bowl Simple Salad

2008-08-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

No matter how many times I say it, it is always better with bacon.

Pan-Browned Scallops On a Bed of Bacon and Brussels Sprouts
Dressing-In-A-Bowl Simple Salad

Okay, I am distracted while writing this because I am multi-tasking and listening to Barack Obama's nomination speech. I may forever call this Democratic Convention Scallops.

I love bacon. I love brussels sprouts. I love scallops. And luckily, so does Trevor.

Start by trimming your sprouts (about 1 lb) and slicing them in half. Throw in a large, straight-sided pan with 1 cup water, 3 slices chopped bacon, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat and cook until water is almost gone and bacon is giving off its fat. 7 minutes plus.

Lower the heat and add I Tablespoon of oil, 1 medium chopped onion, and fresh chopped tarragon. Don't overstir as you want the sprouts to brown.

When it is all nicely browned, scoop all of the mixture into a bowl on the side, wipe your pan out and heat again over medium-high heat. Add oil and once heated, add the scallops. Season them with salt and pepper and do not touch for a minute or two, letting them brown. Turn over for a minute on the other side, add the sprout mix back in and serve immediately.

Now, I think this cookbook would have you cook the scallops until they are firm, but I believe in flash cooking scallops. Much juicier and a better texture. Also, the tarragon was overkill and with all of the other flavors, you don't really need it.

I served on the side the Dressing-In-A-Bowl Simple Salad which is indeed simple. All it calls for is mixed greens tossed with olive oil, vinegar (half the amount of vinegar to the oil), salt, and pepper. I added shaved Parmigiano-Regianno and beets, carrots, and tomatoes from our farm share.

The salad was refreshing and light. The scallops were delicious. They were so good. This is so easy and will even satisfy picky eaters. (It is the bacon, I am NOT kidding!)

We are leaving tomorrow for our roap trip to Montana, Wyoming, and Walla Walla so we drank one of our nice bottles of wine we have been saving since we will be able to buy more this weekend. If you ever have a chance to drink Waters' Cabernet Sauvignon, don't pass it up.
55 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 29: Lemon-Garlic Roast Salmon on New Potatoes, Butter-steamed Leeks with Fresh Tarragon

2008-08-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

I was dreading buying salmon as it is super-rare/expensive these days, but luckily my dad just went on his annual fishing trip and brought us back a lovely, perfect salmon.

Lemon-Garlic Roast Salmon on New Potatoes
Butter-Steamed Leeks with Fresh Tarragon

I know I will be shot upon saying this, but I am not a huge fan of salmon. I grew up in Bellingham, Washington which means that I grew up eating salmon. And now it is being over-fished and I always have so much guilt about eating it. It is hard to explain--even when we had our wedding reception, the caterer pushed salmon, and I fought against it.

But if I was going to make salmon, this dish is not a bad one to chose.

First, boil a pound or two of new potatoes in lots and lots of water.

Preheat your oven to 400 F.

While the potatoes are boiling, blend 1/2 cup olive oil, 5 garlic cloves, the juice of one large lemon and salt and pepper in the food processor. Place your salmon steaks/fillets in a shallow pan and pour the marinade over them. I put them back in the fridge, but I think it would be more prudent to let it all marinate at room temperature as it will cook quicker.

After 15 minutes or so, drain the potatoes and run them under cold water so you can stop the cooking and handle them. You are supposed to peel them, but this was a huge mess, so I gave up about half way through. Then slice them thin and overlap them in a baking pan. Drip some of the salmon marinade onto the potatoes and throw some capers on to boot. Then place your salmon on the potatoes, cover with the rest of the marinade and some more capers and cook 8-10 minutes.

I would like to point out at this point that it took 25 minutes to cook my salmon. It was a giant fillet and I kept it in the fridge to marinate which was my mistake. Just let it marinate on the counter and it will cook closer to the 10 minutes. Top with fresh chopped parsley.

Note: You can never go wrong with salmon, lemon, garlic, and capers. NEVER.

Meanwhile, I was cooking my Butter-Steamed Leeks with Fresh Tarragon.

Start with 3-6 leeks, depending on size. Trim away the roots and dark green part of the leeks. Slice lengthwise. Rinse well.

Heat up some butter and add your leeks, a sprig of tarragon, and salt and pepper. Brown gently and then add some white wine and chicken broth. Cover and cook 5-10 minutes. Lift the leeks out, add some water, and cook down your sauce until it gets a little syrupy. At the last second, mix in a little cream and barely heat. Pour over your leeks and sprinkle with fresh tarragon.

The leeks finished far quicker than my cold-marinated salmon, but I just threw some foil on the top and they were fine when I served them.

We both thought the tarragon was a little strong on these leeks. I think butter, garlic, salt, and pepper are all you really need here. Next time I will just skip the tarragon.

53 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 28: Oven-Crisped Pork, Peppers, and Greens

2008-08-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

I made a variation of this already with lamb, but I think the pork works best.

Oven-Crisped Pork, Peppers, and Greens
Turkish Almond Sauce
Now if you haven't discovered the joy of cooking with a pork tenderloin, drop everything right NOW and go to the store and buy one! They are inexpensive, easy to prep and cook and take any type of spice, sweetness -or whatever flavor you choose- brilliantly.

All you do is slice up a pork tenderloin, a few peppers (hot and sweet of your choosing), and an onion. Now mix that with a handful or two of mixed greens, plus oil, salt, pepper, garlic, paprika, cumin, coriander, and allspice and toss it on a pre-heated baking sheet and throw it into a HOT 450 degree oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. Stir occasionally.

This is sooooooo easy. The pork comes out very crisp, just like the title says. When I made this with lamb, it was gamey and tasty, but it wasn't crisp. This is also easy to double so that you could serve a crowd.

Key to this recipe is to serve alongside Turkish Almond Sauce. First combine chopped garlic, a few tablespoons fine chopped sweet onion, and two tablespoons white wine vinegar. Set aside to mellow. (I did this step first, then prepared the pork.)

Next, beat 1/4 cup of olive oil into your garlic mix until creamy. Add salt and pepper and then stir in 1 cup of plain yogurt (I used half non-fat/ half regular and it was just fine), 1 cup chopped almonds, and a lot of chopped cilantro. They always say, cilantro is optional, but I disagree! Cilantro is key! And this sauce is delicious and really brings everything together.

I served it with homemade flat bread, corn on the cob slathered in butter, and a cheap Washington Cabernet Sauvignon. Yum yum!

51 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 27: Dark and Moist Gingerbread with Cheesecake Pockets (Variation)

2008-08-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

The original version of this gingerbread was so tasty that I thought to make one of the variations for a party I was going to.

Dark and Moist Gingerbread with Cheesecake Pockets

First, let me say this came out delicious and spicy and soft and moist and disappeared at the party.

However, once again after making one of the variations, I am thinking the authors didn't bother to make their own variation.

You start with the same exact gingerbread batter. Except only pour half the batter into your prepared pan. Then you drop spoonfuls of your cream cheese mixture (cream cheese, one egg, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla extract) onto your batter. Top with the next half of the gingerbread batter and cook.

The reason I think they didn't even bother to cook this is the cheese mixture was so runny with the egg and lemon juice and extract that I couldn't even spoon it out of the bowl. I just poured the thin batter into the pan and it spread everywhere. When I topped it with the gingerbread batter which was much thicker, all of the cheese mix was pushed to the edges.

In the end, I think the cheese part was more trouble than its worth. A bite of the cream cheese means you miss all the yummy flavors in the gingerbread. Next time I will skip the added hassle of the cheese and make the delicious bread naked as it should be.

50 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 26: Roast Fish with Preserved Lemon and Garlic (Varitation)

2008-08-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't cooked much fish out of this cookbook yet, so I made an effort today to get some fish fillets.

Roast Fish with Preserved Lemon and Garlic

This is one of the variation recipes so the instructions are fairly vague. The recipe says to get any preferred fillet, steak, or whole fish so I decided to get Tilapia fillets. I chose U.S. farmed Tilapia because it is a nice simple, white fish that takes flavor well, is inexpensive, and is on the best fish to eat list of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.

Start by pre-heating your oven to 450 and pre-heating your roasting pan with a layer of oil in it at the same time. I am not sure if pre-heating the oil in the pan actually helps. If anything, it just makes it more likely that you will get burned because you will forget that the pan is hot!

While your pan is heating up, blend a quarter of a preseved lemon with olive oil, garlic, and pepper in your food processor. If using a whole fish, like a small trout, you will need to make cuts in the side of the fish. Rub the preserved lemon mix all over the fish and into the slits. For my thin fillets I didn't bother making any slits but made sure they were well covered.

Then, get your heated pan out of the oven and place a generous layer of sliced onoin, cilantro, and oranges in the bottom. This stops your fish from sticking to the bottom of the pan and I think is an extra nice touch. Veggies cooked at the same time and less mess. Lay your fish on top of the onion bed and cook for 8-12 minutes, depending on the type of fish you bought.

When you serve, you have to use 2 spatulas to scoop up the veggies and fish at the sme time and keep it looking nice. Serve with a squeeze of lemon and impress your dinner guests with your pretty presentation. This was a nice, simple way to cook fish and the preserved lemon, as always, added a nice flavor and tartness.

49 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 25: Jerry Traunfeld's Tarragon Chicken Breasts with Buttery Leeks, Wine-Braised Carrots with Fried Sage Leaves, and Rustic Jam Shortbread Tart

2008-08-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have a little more free time this week, so I am making a lot of food to get ahead of myself for when we go on our road trip next week and I don't cook anything....

Jerry Traunfeld's Tarragon Chicken Breasts in Buttery Leeks
Wine-Braised Carrots with Fried Sage Leaves
Rustic Jam Shortbread Tart

I have no idea who Jerry is, they just mention he is a chef, I am not sure from where, but he does know what he is doing!

Disclaimer: I made this with organic chicken thighs because I think they taste delicious and they are about 1/3rd the price of chicken breasts. I skinned them, but left the bone in.

This is a nice, aromatic entree. Thin slice a leek or two and and place in a large skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter and 2 cups of chicken broth. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for about 8-10 minutes, letting the broth cook down a little. Sprinkle your chicken with salt and pepper (they called for 4 boneless, skinless, organic breasts) and place them in the leek mixture, spooning some of the leeks onto them. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer until breasts are done, 10-15 minutes. My bone-in thighs took about 15 minutes.

Transfer your cooked chicken to a plate. I covered mine and set in the oven to keep warm. Then, increase the heat under your leeks and add 2 more tablespoons of butter (mmm, good), some lemon juice, and FRESH, coarse chopped tarragon. Cook until the butter melts or cook down some more if you want a thicker sauce. To serve, pour over your chicken.

There really is something magical about fresh tarragon and butter. I don't use tarragon that often, but it is subtle and works well here because everything else is so mild. I placed a chicken thigh on rice and then poured the sauce on top of both.

The Wine-Braised Carrots with Fried Sage Leaves was a little high maintenance. First you take 16 sage leaves and fry them in oil. (Again, they wanted me to use olive oil, but I ignored them, especially with making the oil this hot!) You are supposed to fry them for less than a minute and drain them on paper towels. I followed this to the letter, but my sage ended up with a very bitter taste. Maybe if you cooked them for 2o seconds, they would have more flavor. Set those aside for now.

Then in the same oil you fried the sage, saute carrots cut on the diagonal with 1/2 onion, minced and 6 chopped fresh sage leaves. Saute for a few minutes and then add 1/2 cup wine and water to cover the carrots. I didn't completely cover the carrots with water. (I am not fond of overly mushy carrots.) Bring to a boil and cover. Cook for 10 minutes or so and then uncover and stir to cover the carrots in the glaze. Transfer to a serving dish and scatter your fried sage leaves over top.

I love anything braised in white wine, but the fried sage really ruined this dish for me. Luckily, once I realized I didn't like the leaves, I was able to pick them out and enjoy the rest of the dish. The leaves add a crunchiness and that weird, bitter taste and clashed with the delicate carrots and onions. I admit, I might have cooked the sage a hair too long, but I think it was an added step to add drama to the dish. The fresh sage, however, added nice flavor. Next time I will skip the frying and add some more fresh sage into the mix. It was also easy to cook this alongside my chicken and adjust the temp to time everything to be done at the same time.

The dessert I made ahead of time. This might be one of the easiest tart recipes I have ever done. My only problem is that they used a 9" tart pan, I only had an 11" tart pan and so my dough was stretched a little thin and the tart nearly over-cooked even though I took it out 5 minutes early.

In a food processor, blend lemon zest and whole almonds until fine. Then add flour, sugar, salt, butter, an egg yolk, and almond extract. Blend until cut-in like "clusters of peas".

Using your hands, spread dough out in a buttered tart pan, making a standing rim as you go. Cook the crust first. I also pierced the crust with a fork-the recipe didn't call for this, but I always do that out of habit.

When the crust is just starting to brown, pull out of the oven, spread 3/4 cup of the jam of your choice over the tart and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes until the jam is warm and bubbly. This is a great way to use up the ends of whatever jam you have in the fridge. I used the FABULOUS raspberry jam my friend Jennifer just jarred, mixed with a last little bit of peach jam. This was tasty and rich. I will either 1 and 1/2 times the recipe for my large tart pan or I will have to accept that I need another kitchen item.

48 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 24: Iced Cantaloupe Soup with Jalapeno and Basil

2008-08-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

It is hard to remember wanting to make a cold soup just a few days ago when today it is drizzly and overcast.

Iced Cantaloupe Soup with Jalapeno and Basil

This is basically the same thing as the Thai Cantaloupe Salad with Chile that I made a few weeks back, only you add ice and puree the whole thing.

This is super easy with no cooking and comes off very sophisticated. The authors recommend using a food processor, but next time I will use a blender because the processor didn't chop up the ice very well.

Blend one chopped up cantaloupe (no seeds or rind, obviously) with 2 cups ice, salt, pepper, sugar, and lime juice. Stir in a little grated lime zest.

I made this ahead of time and put it in a pitcher in the fridge. When ready to serve, you have to stir it a little as it starts to separate. Pour into serving bowls and garnish with diced jalapeno, red onion, and fresh basil.

This is so DELICIOUS! It may sound a little weird, but it is refreshing and has a little zip and the toppings are really essential to make it taste far more complex than it really is. This is one of my favorites so far.

45 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 23: Smothered Broccoli with Peppers, Onions, and Raisins, Greek Pot-Crushed Potatoes

2008-08-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

I have been dreading this recipe because the photo is so ugly in the cookbook. I was given a suggestion to make a meal out of all the recipes that don't seem too appetizing, but I don't think I could emotionally handle all of that at one meal.

Smothered Broccoli with Peppers, Onions, and Raisins
Greek Pot-Crushed Potatoes

Bonus: Karen's mom's Baby Back Ribs

Let's start with the least appetizing of the bunch, the Smothered Broccoli. I am not sure I would call anything "smothered" and expect people to want to eat it, except maybe if it said "Smothered in butter" or "smothered in hot fudge" or something like that. Also, I think of smothered as something slow cooked, but this recipe tells you to cook your onions for only 3 minutes!

This recipe has too much in it. First, you steam your broccoli and then set it aside, on a serving platter, to get cold while you make the rest of it.

Then you saute bell peppers, thin-sliced red onion, fresh rosemary, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper. THEN, add raisins. THEN, add toasted pine nuts when you pour the whole mess over your broccoli. It should be called Cold Broccoli with Way Too Many Ingredients. This seems so wrong to me. Pine nuts and raisins and rosemary and peppers and broccoli? Everything tasted great by itself. If you took a bite of broccoli and it had a bit of red onion, that tasted fine. A little broccoli and a pine nut, interesting, but fine. But all of it together is really not delicious at all. The rosemary over-powers and call me a backwoods simpleton, but broccoli and raisins might not have ever been meant to be on the same plate together.

I might make this again without the pine nuts or raisins. But I would also toss the broccoli in with the saute to heat them up a little before serving.

Whew, raced through that one, now onto the Greek Pot-Crushed Potatoes. These were really tasty. Thin slice red potatoes and boil them until tender (about 8 minutes). Drain them and then use the same pot to saute 8 large garlic cloves with salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, and water. The water is essential so the garlic doesn't burn. Add fresh oregano, cook until fragrant and then add the potatoes back to the pot. Smash the potatoes with your wooden spoon as you blend them into the garlic mixture. Blend in chopped parsley, lemon juice, and thin sliced green onion.

The parsley and lemon were essential here and really rounded out the flavor in the potatoes. This tasted a lot more interesting than plain old mash potatoes and since you didn't peel them and then mashed them gently with your spoon they still have a lot of texture and color. Good side dish for most any meal.

Now the main entree was NOT from the How to Eat Supper, but our friend Karen brought over some tasty ribs to a party and I convinced her to give me the recipe.

Karen's Mom's Baby Back Ribs

2lbs pork baby back ribs
garlic power and/or any type of seasoning you like. I added pepper.
1 container of your favorite BBQ sauce. (1+ cup)

Rub meat with spices and let sit for half an hour to 3 hours.
Cover baking sheet with foil, transfer ribs to sheet-meat side up, and then cover tightly with foil.
Cook for 2 hours at 250 degrees. Check for doneness at 1 1/2 hours. Meat should separate easily from the bone.
Set oven to broil.
Uncover ribs and baste with your sauce.
Broil 5-6 inches from heat, 8 to 10 minutes, or until desired crispiness. Turn and baste a couple times during the process.

YUM!

44 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 22: Filipino-Style Chicken Adobo (Chicken in Tart Garlic Sauce)

2008-08-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have to stop and plug my very neat new kitchen item, a

French Butter Bulb made by my friend Barbara Dunshee. This keeps your butter nice and fresh right on your counter and looks cool to boot!Back to the cookbook! I have turned to this recipe thinking, this looks easy to make!--and then remember it needs to be marinated over night and then I push the recipe aside and look for something else. Well, this time I actually managed to do some planning in advance and made it happen.

Filipino-style Chicken Adobo (Chicken in Tart Garlic Sauce)

I love recipes that call for chicken thighs because they are quick to cook, delicious, and a cheaper cut of chicken when it comes to shopping organic.

This recipe is very simple but requires a few dishes. The day before you want to make this, marinate 8 chicken thighs in a metallic or glass bowl along with 1/4 cup soy sauce, 10 chopped garlic cloves, black pepper, 1 and 1/4 cups cider vinegar, 2 broken up bay leaves, and 1 cup whole canned tomatoes and their juices, breaking up the tomatoes with your hands as you put them in the bowl. Cover that and stick it in the fridge for 18 plus hours.

The next day, turn out your chicken mix into a big pot and bring to a gentle bubble. Cook for 25 minutes or so, until your chicken is 175 degrees. Then remove the chicken so that you can brown it. Keep cooking the sauce to reduce it. The cookbook says to skim the fat, but there was no fat for me to skim. You are going to cook the sauce down by half.

In a big skillet brown your chicken in your preferred oil. Once chicken is brown, turn over, add 2 thin-slice onions and cook the chicken and onions, stirring occasionally so that the chicken doesn't stick.

I served this by also cooking the Working Mother's Barley, which is my favorite.

Scoop some barley into a plate, add a couple pieces of chicken plus lots of onions and top with a generous ladle of the sauce. Delicious! They aren't kidding that this is tart. Very flavorful and tastes like you spent a lot more time making it than you did. The vinegar is seriously mellowed out by the end of cooking. It was even better the next day. The sauce really penetrated into the chicken.

42 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

DAY 21: Asian-style Chopped Salad on Lettuce Spears

2008-08-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Incredibly refreshing, this is easy to make in advance with no cooking required and easy to modify with whatever fresh ingredients are on hand.

Asian-style Chopped Salad on Lettuce Spears

This is very similar to a traditional Vietnamese cold salad. Make a dressing, add it to chopped vegetables and cold noodles and serve on lettuce leaves for eating by hand.

The dressing is similar to nuoc cham, only they don't add lime juice. Combine garlic, red peper flakes, fish sauce (always use the fish sauce, I know it is stinky at first, but it adds so much!), water, vinegar, and sugar in a food processor. At this point, the recipe calls for switching to a slicing blade on your food processor. I don't have a slicing blade, so I dumped the dressing in a smallish bowl and then thin sliced by hand radish and Walla Wall Sweet onion and put it in the dressing to marinate.

In another bowl, combine cooked, drained cellophane rice noodles, shredded napa cabbage, sliced sausage ( I used Portuguese sausage but you can use any type of chorizo or Asian sausage), sliced basil, cilantro, and mint. The authors usually say cilantro optional in their recipes. I am starting to think they don't like cilantro, but I think it is absolutely essential in any Southeast Asian dish.

When you are ready to serve, mix the dressing/radish/onion blend into the salad and add salted peanuts, crushed if you like, and a chopped apple. The apple was a nice, crispy and juicy touch.

To serve, let guests put their desired amount onto lettuce leaves, add a squeeze of lime, roll up, and enjoy!! This is fun since everybody is active and creating their own little "spears". I also added baby corn and scallions to the serving platter. It would also be good with tofu, chicken, or pork. You could even shread the lettuce and just serve it as a big salad. Next time I would save the lime wedges and just put lime juice directly in the dressing.
Ok, this is Trevor and my friend Jennifer. You can barely see our friend Karen's hand. She was over but was eating a special diet this week so she is eating something different, which is why she is so ungenerously cut out of the picture!

41 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

NEW DRINK

2008-08-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

POMEGRANATE PIMM FIZZ

Muddle lime with raspberries and mint. Add 1 part PIMMS and 2 or 3 parts Pomegranate Beverage OR Limeaid. Shake and serve over ice with a lime wedge. YUM!

Day 20: Quintessential Pesto with Linguine and Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread

2008-08-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

I am glad I have been forcing myself to go to the gym as these recipes are not for the dainty!

Quintessential Pesto with Linguine
Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread

Basil is in season and I have been getting it in our farm share so I just keep on with the pesto! A friend just told me a trick the other day, make a double or triple batch of pesto but before adding the cheese, freeze half of it for another day. That was easy to do!

I will spare you the pesto part of the recipe as I covered it just a few posts ago, but the very interesting thing about this recipe is how they cooked their linguine.

Again, they said to start with a pound of linguine. Last time I did this, I had way too much pasta and not enough sauce. So I used a little over half a pound. Boil a gigantic pot of salted water. (Side note: tons of salt in your pasta water is essential. Do not worry about getting too much salt in your diet. The trick here is that the salt makes the water cook at a higher temperature and then your pasta will cook faster and have less chance of getting all gummy.)

When you toss the linguine in the water add 1 or 2 peeled, thin-sliced red potatoes and 1/2 lb or more of 1" slices of green beans. Then your veggies cook right with the pasta and the potatoes are creamy and no extra mess of an additional pan. RESERVE one half cup of pasta water before draining. Toss pasta and veggies with your pesto and add some of that reserved water to spread out the sauce.

This was a revelation for me. Why haven't I ever thought of this before? You can do this with lots of different veggies and then it is ready to toss with whatever sauce or flavorings you prefer.

Lynne's Retro Garlic Bread is a crowd pleaser. Split a baguette down the middle and separate the halves. Put them on a foil-lined baking sheet, face up. My baguette was so long and skinny I had to cut it into several pieces to all fit on the sheet. Set aside for now.

Turn oven to 400. In a saute pan, combine 3 T olive oil, 3 T butter, 1/4 cup water, 5 minced garlic cloves, dried basil and dried oregano, and salt and pepper. Set over VERY LOW heat. I used the olive oil here because the heat is kept medium-low to low the whole time. Gently cook, covered, for 10 minutes. when the garlic is soft, uncover and cook a few minutes more until all of the water is cooked out. Then divide on top of your baguette. Top with 1 cup shredded Asiago or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Cook in oven for 10 to 15 minutes until cheese is nice and bubbly. Serve immediately. Taste of the proverbial heaven.

Luckily I looked very carefully at the recipe before I started as, once again, the authors screwed up their given cooking times. In the book it says, 5 minutes prep, 15 minutes oven. But they forgot after 5 minutes prep, there is 10-12 minutes of stove time and then 15 minutes oven time. But I worked it all out and the pasta was just placed on our plates when I took the bread out of the oven. The bread was so good we ate the whole thing. Oh boy, do I need to get to the gym again tomorrow.....

40 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

DAY 19: Oven Crisped Lamb, Peppers, and Greens (Variation) and Turkish Almond Sauce

2008-08-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

Whew! When your computer gets a virus, it is an excellent opportunity to procrastinate and not work on your cooking blog! Computer is still being worked on by husband, not sure when I will be able to get my photos off of it!

Oven Crisped Lamb, Peppers, and Greens (Variation from Crisped Pork)
Turkish Almond Sauce

After I didn't buy the extremely expensive lamb chops in protest the other night, I realized I had a large, expensive, organic, leg of lamb in the freezer. I bought this from our favorite ranch, THUNDERING HOOVES--(which I will spare you my normal rant, just go to their website!)

The main part of this recipe is easy. Toss your meat with the veggies, spices, and oil and then roast in the oven at 450 degrees, turning occasionally, until nice and crisped. (In truth, I turned it down a hair and cooked it longer, about 35 minutes)

The original recipe calls for Pork Tenderloin, but I have had this leg of lamb for a month now and have been trying to think of something to do with it. If you are using tenderloins, slice them into 1/2 inch thicknesses, if using lamb, cut away the fat and make do. It was hard to cube the leg into equal size pieces and there was a huge amount of fat and membrane to cut off and it made a big mess all over the counter. Pork tenderloins are much easier to work with! It was well worth it, however.

Toss your meat with a mix of hot and sweet sliced peppers, onions, a handful of mixed greens, your seasoning mix, and oil. The seasoning mix is allspice, coriander, cumin, paprika, salt, pepper, and garlic. Definitely a little exotic to the Western palate here, I only wish more American cooking used spices like these.

Now at this point, they, the authors, whom I usually listen with rapt attention to everything they say, tell us to toss with 1/4 cup good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil. In fact nearly every one of their recipes, be it a saute to a roasting to a salad all say use good-tasting, high-quality, extra-virign olive oil. I go on a sharp tangent from this belief.

A) Good olive oil is expensive. Half the time you can't even taste it with how the meal has been cooked.
B) You should NEVER, EVER bring extra-virgin olive oil to a high cooking temperature. It has a very low "smoking point" that makes it taste bad AND has the added danger of releasing carcinogens. Geez.

I usually cook with canola oil that can take a higher temperature. It has the added bonus of being less expensive than the olive oil I only use the extra-virgin olive oil for flavoring things that aren't cooked, like salad dressings, pesto, or adding a drizzle after something is done cooking to add more flavor. OK, I am done with my rant, back to the recipe.

While your meat is cooking, you can assemble the Turkish Almond Sauce.

First mix a minced clove of garlic and a few tablespoons of a minced sweet onion with 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar. Set this aside for 10 minutes. I think this is to mellow out the flavors.

Then you beat in 1/4 cup good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil until the sauce is creamy. (I stuck to this part as the olive oil is not cooked!) Then you add salt, pepper, one cup plain whole-milk yogurt, (I used non-fat and it still tasted fabulous. I think these people want us all to be fat.) a cup of coarse chopped almonds and chopped cilantro. The recipe says the cilantro is optional but I think it is essential. One can never have enough cilantro.

To serve, I made another recipe of the no-cook whole wheat couscous and set some cooked lamb mixture right on top and then a large portion of the almond sauce.

This dinner was excellent. The almond yogurt sauce with the olive oil and cilantro balanced perfectly with the gamy lamb and spicy, roasted veggies. And this time the couscous was good because the meat and the veggies and the sauce mixed in with everything. I will be trying this with pork very soon. if you don't like lamb, I know the pork will be just as good.

38 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 18: Lamb Chops with Crossover Spice Crust, Melted Greens with Ricotta, No-Cook Whole Wheat Couscous

2008-07-31T16:54:00.000-07:00

I can definitely see the grocery prices going UP, UP, UP during this project. To save money on this one, I confess I did NOT get the $5 EACH organic lamb chops and instead substituted the $5 for 4 organic pork chops instead.

Lamb Chops (ok, Pork Chops) with Crossover Spice Crust
Melted Greens with Ricotta variation
No-Cook Whole Wheat CouscousI will key my eye open for when the lamb chops are on sale and then try this again with lamb. But I figured I could get a similar crust with pork and I think the substitute worked out well.

This is a VERY easy recipe for lamb (or pork). Make their recommended Crossover Spice Blend (1 part black pepper to 2 parts ground cumin to 4 parts ground coriander). Combine a couple tablespoons of this with 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt. Rub it on both sides of your chops, saving a little bit of the spice blend on the side.

Heavily film a pan with olive oil. Warm the oil on medium-high and then sear the chops for 3 minutes on each side. Continue cooking at medium for an additional 6-9 minutes, turning occasionally, until they are cooked to your liking. Dust the cooked chops with additional spice and a squeeze of lemon.

This made a very nice crust on the pork and the crossover blend is a nice change from your basic American rubs.

On the side I made my favorite Melted Greens with Kale. Again, this is garlic and dried chile quickly cooked in warm oil and then add your ripped, clean greens and 1/3 cup of broth or water. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes or so, and add more water if you need to. Add salt and pepper to taste at the end. The variation here is to finish the cooked greens with a few tablespoons of ricotta. I thought it was fine, but the small container of ricotta cost $5 and now I have to find something else to do with the rest of it before it goes bad. Trevor's critique was that the variation with bacon was much, much better.

The first time I made the melted greens, the chile gave a spectacular little buzz on the lips and I haven't recreated this in the four times since that I have made it. This time I even added another chile and I still couldn't taste anything but ricotta and kale. Maybe the bacon fat carried the heat a little better.

Finally, I made the No-cook whole wheat couscous. The principle here is that couscous is already cooked. So take 2 cups of whole wheat couscous, mix it with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and drizzle with a 1/2 cup of water. Gently toss to coat and then let it stand a few minutes before adding another 1/2 cup. Repeat the process until 2-3 cups water is absorbed to your liking.

OK, this was easy to make and to fit in with cooking my other items, but it was SOOOOOO boring. Maybe the key is to do this first and then saute some onions and garlic and spices in chicken broth and then add the couscous and heat it up. Room temperature, and without flavorings, it was bland. I poured some of the pork juices on it to flavor it a little. Also, 2 cups is A LOT. I made it will just 1 cup of couscous and it was plenty for our meal and for leftovers the next day.

36 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

DAY 17: The Quintessential Pesto with Risotto

2008-07-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

I decided to take it easy this night and make only ONE dish that required constant vigilance.

The Quintessential Pesto with Risotto

Many people are intimidated by risotto, I know I used to be, because it requires you to stir constantly while you are making the dish. It is fairly easy once you get going, but you need to make sure if you are making any other dishes to make those first! Then give all of your attention to the risotto.

This recipe starts with you making the pesto first. And thankfully, it is your basic pesto. Food process garlic and salt first. Then add your basil, pine nuts and cheeses. Here they recommend Fiore Shado sheep cheese and Parmigiano-reggiano. I couldn't find the sheep cheese even at my fancy grocer, so I just used Parmigiano. Then add your olive oil, making a rough paste. Set this aside.

Now one trick to risotto is make it in the heaviest pan you have so that it won't be as likely to burn. I also keep the heat a little lower than recommended.

Start by heating your oil or butter. Saute the chopped onions for 3 minutes. Then add the garlic and the Arborio rice. Cook for another 3 minutes, stirring frequently. And now the risotto cooking begins. Add some white wine and cook that down. Then you add your chicken broth 1 cup at a time and wait until it cooks down before adding the next cup of broth. If you start with 1 heaping cup of rice, then you will need up to 4 cups of broth.

Do not stop stirring!

Even if it seems fine and you walk away for as little as 30 seconds, you can come back to a stuck and burning pan. There is no trick or fancy cooking here, it is just simple stirring. But it goes fairly quickly and is done in about 20 minutes.

Take the risotto off the heat when it is still a little soupy. It will continue to cook as you let it sit for 3 minutes. Then fold in the pesto and some reserved pine nuts. I added thin sliced basil and shaved Parmigiano on top as a garnish. This was yummy and made a minimal amount of dishes dirty. Always a good thing.

33 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 16: Pan-Crisped Deviled Eggs, Warm White Bean Salad, Rainbow and nut Macaroons

2008-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

When you need to catch up on your cooking blog, just have a big party and it will force you to make a whole bunch of food.

Pan-Crisped Deviled Eggs on French Lettuces
Warm White Bean Salad with Fragrant Garlic and Rosemary
Rainbow Macaroons
Coconut Nut Macaroons

I haven't cooked much in the last few days. We have been building a new deck off our new kitchen and that was keeping us pretty busy and so the solution was to have a big potluck to celebrate the new deck. I wanted to make items that could be easily snacked upon.

We tried the Pan-Crisped Deviled Eggs at the Splendid Table party that inspired me to do this project and let me say these babies do not disappoint. This is a very basic deviled egg recipe--hard cooked eggs stuffed with the yolks mixed with mayo, white wine vinegar, milk, garlic, and mustard--but the twist is that you brown the tops of them by throwing them face down in olive and sauteing them. It is a little nerve-wracking at first because you think they are going to fall apart in the pan and ruin all of your hard work. But if you pack the stuffing well into the eggs they do not fall apart at all. Also, I chilled them for a couple hours before browning them and that seemed to help them stay in one piece. Then you serve them with a sauce you make with half of the yolk stuffing mixed with olive oil, mustard, vinegar, and milk. These disappeared from the buffet table almost instantaneously. Everyone was surprised that they were pan-fried. You are supposed to serve them on lettuces mixed with the dressing but I just put the dressing on the side and guests could put a dollop of it directly on the eggs.

The warm white bean salad was not quite as impressive as the eggs, but it was tasty as well. The salad is extremely simple. Crush five cloves of garlic with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and then chop fine. Saute the garlic in 1/4 cup of olive oil over low heat so you don't burn it. This smells fabulous. I just stood over the stove, inhaling deeply at this point. Stir in the rosemary and then add the white beans. You have to cook this gently because you can smash up the beans pretty easily if you aren't careful. Add some mixed greens and just wilt them before taking off the heat.
The finale of this dish is the topping which you make in adavance. Take one piece of whole-grain bread and pulverize it in the food processor. Toast this in a saute pan, no oil, turning constantly until you have nice cooked bread crumbs. Then mix that with grated parmigiano and black pepper. Spread out on top of beans. Yummy.

I made a double batch of macaroons and made the coconut nut variation--just add chopped almonds--and the rainbow variation--just add food coloring. The nut macaroons were delicious as expected. I used almond extract instead of vanilla which added to the chopped almond taste. But I have to say the rainbow macaroons looked pretty disgusting. I am not sure if the authors actually made this variation or they just thought it was a good idea. Nobody ate any of the weird, colored ones and there were a lot of kids at the party too!

On a side note, my friend Karen showed up with a plate of ribs and stole the show. They were tasty and disappeared as fast as the alcohol.

Refreshing drink: Mix one part Pimm's with two parts lime-ade. Serve over ice with a lime and a sprig of rosemary.32 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 15:Flash Chicken Saute with Cider and Almonds, Green Beans with Preserved Lemon and Black Olives

2008-07-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

Not every meal is destined to be a fabulous meal. Do not assume the cooking times given will work for you!

Flash Chicken Saute with Cider and Almonds
Green Beans with Preserved Lemon and Black Olives

This was one of those meals where I was trying to cook too many things at once and the recipe times given in the cookbook were way off.

Flash Chicken saute is an interesting recipe. First you cook down some chicken broth that you will use later in the sauce. At first it was taking forever to boil down, I turned away for a minute, and when I came back it was practically all gone and the pan was burning. Ok, try number two, and this time I hovered over the pan. After cooking down the broth, you set it aside and wipe down your pan. Then you brown your organic, boneless, skinless, insanely expensive, chicken breasts. This recipe said to brown them, then cook them uncovered for 4 minutes each side. Well I did this and this is where things started to go terribly wrong. After the 10 minutes or so cooking time, when you are supposed to take the meat off the oven, my breasts were completely raw in the middle. I had already started the beans and also some melted greens, so I threw some white wine in the pan and covered it to poach the chicken a little quicker. Maybe they used extremely thin breasts for their cooking, but it ended up taking another 5 minutes to get these gigantic pieces of chicken cooked. And then you aren't even done yet. You put the chicken in the oven, covered to keep it warm and then you have to make the sauce.

Now you have to take cider vinegar, a LOT of cider vinegar (1 cup) and boil it down to 1/4 cup! I don't think they allowed any time for this in the recipe, but it took me a good 7 minutes. Then you added the reserved chicken broth, cook for another 2 minutes, add a little butter, swirl to melt and immediately pour over the chicken. Top with chopped, salted almonds. WHEW!

The recipe said there was 15 minutes stove time, but it ended up being more like 25 minutes, NOT counting re-reducing the chicken broth in the beginning.

This was actually fairly simple and straightforward, if you are cooking it by itself. But I was also trying to time the green beans and the kale with the chicken. I even waited a while before starting them, but they still ended up overcooked.

The green beans are a variation on the yummy beans with lemon, garlic, and parmigiano gremolata I made last week. But instead of those flavorings, you use preserved lemon, cilantro, and olives. Now this is exactly the same combo that we loved so much on the pork tenderloin two weeks ago. But it was way too strong for these green beans. I think the preserved lemon needs something fatty to balance it out. It was just too tart here.

The pot of the melted greens burned, but luckily the greens themselves were okay.

The chicken turned out very good. The cider-broth sauce wasn't as strong as I thought it was going to be and the almonds were a nice touch. I need to make this again but maybe I'll serve it with a salad that I make in advance, to avoid imitating a whirling dervish again.

28 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 14: Cheese-Gilded Linguine with Smoky Tomatoes

2008-07-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

At first this recipe seems like a boring tomato/cheese pasta dish. But the trick is tossing the linguine with the cheese before adding the tomato sauce.

Cheese-Gilded Linguine with Smoky Tomatoes

I have been making some of the more complicated items from How to Eat Supper and I wanted to cook something a little simpler for dinner. Like I said above, at first glance this looks like a fairly straight forward pasta recipe.

Cook up some bacon. Drain bacon on paper towels and pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat. Saute a chopped onion with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes until it starts to brown. I added a dried red chile at this point which is not called for but I think added significantly in the dish. Add 5 minced garlic cloves and cook a minute more before adding 2-3 pounds of chopped tomatoes and the bacon, chopped. You can use canned or fresh tomatoes here, I used canned. Their preferred trick with canned tomatoes is to use whole canned tomatoes and then smash them with your wooden spatula as you put them in the pan.

Cook the sauce until nice and bubbly, 8 minutes or so. I kept it on warm while cooking the linguine. The recipe calls for 1 lb of linguine, but we found the sauce to be on the short side with that much pasta. Next time I might just use 3/4 or even just 1/2 of a package. Mix the cooked pasta with one cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese before tossing with the pasta.

This was a nice simple meal. The whole dried chile I added gave a nice, subtle, and smoky spice and mixing the cheese in first guarantees that the cheese flavor is predominate in the dish. I am going to cook leftovers with meatballs tonight. (Grass fed-organic meat of course!)

One funny side note: The pictures are few and far between in this cookbook. Many of the recipes and more complicated techniques have no picture at all. And I have to admit that it is usually a photo that entices me to make something out of a cookbook. But for this recipe they took the time to show how to toss pasta with cheese! They are nice photos of course, but I just thought it was funny.

26 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 13: Edna Lewis's Sugared Raspberries

2008-07-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

Edna Lewis's Sugared Raspberries

Now this is meant to be a preserving thing without any cooking. Just mix 2 cups raspberries with 2 cups sugar. Use a fork to mash up the berries. It basically looks like freezer jam. Now if you throw it in a jar (without normal canning procedures) and refrigerate, and it is supposed to last for many months for you to eat in the winter.

I admit I only made a half recipe because the raspberries are so amazingly perfect right now, we eat all that come into our lives immediately. My mom used to do this with strawberries when I was a kid (for eating right away--not saving) and I thought it was a waste of fresh tasting strawberries. I feel the same way with raspberries. Maybe it will be a little bit of heaven in January but I don't think I'll find out since I don't have any extra raspberries to spare! Maybe my friend Jenn who grows raspberries will want to try this.

I poured a little over some mango sorbet and it wasn't bad.

25 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 12: Roasted Chicken Breasts with Preserved Lemon, Green Beans w/ Gremolata, and Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

2008-07-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

The preserved lemon is key in the chicken recipe. You CANNOT substitute normal lemons, but it is worth the effort to track down the hard to find preserved ones.

Roasted Chicken Breasts with Preserved Lemon
Green Beans with Lemon, Garlic, and Parmigiano Gremolata
Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

I am starting a new plan of attack with these recipes. Many of the recipes, while so simple at first glance, actually contain items that are quite expensive. So I am looking through the book and trying to cluster all of the recipes that, say, used preserved lemon or fresh basil. This sounds simple enough, but so far I have been mostly just picking items that sounded good for dinner that night. Onto the recipes....

I have been intrigued by this roasted chicken recipe that used preserved lemons since I first opened the cookbook. What were preserved lemons, why hadn't I noticed them before? Turns out they cost almost $7 for just two of them, so that might have had a lot to do with why I hadn't used them before! I keep reading that they are used quite a bit in Moroccan cooking. And the clincher is, they are so easy to make very, very cheaply- they're just salt and lemons! But they take 3 weeks to preserve and I wanted to try my recipe now.

This is one of the most successful dishes I have made so far out of this cookbook. You start with 1/2 -3/4 of a preserved lemon, chop that up in the food processor with olive oil, cilantro, garlic, and cumin seeds. Spread this mixture over bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, sprinkle with lots of pepper, then slow roast for close to an hour at 300 F, basting occaisionally. I didn't even baste until the end because the lemon mixture stayed right on the breasts. The chicken came out so flavorful and juicy, it is hard to describe how juicy. I guess it is the combination of the skin-on, bone-in and the slow roasting that does the trick. And the preserved lemon does not disappoint! It was tangy, it was salty, it was lemony without the pucker face, is all I can say.

The green beans were a really nice match for the chicken because they had lemon and garlic and well. Quick saute the beans in olive oil first and then add a little water and cook, covered for 15 minutes or so. Food process the zest of 1 lemon, a handful of flat-leaf parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Add just half the mix to the cooking beans. Mix the other half with a 1/2 cup of grated parmigiano. When you take the beans off, toss with the remaining lemon/cheese mix. Again, this was easy and tasty and went well with the chicken.

Finally, I wanted to try another salad dressing and the Honey Mustard variation on the basic vinaigrette did not disappoint. I hand whisked up all of the ingredients in a little bowl and tossed just before serving. The secret with this one is that just a little bit of mayo made it nice and creamy.

Hands down this was Trevor's favorite meal so far. I was pretty happy with it too.

24 recipes down in the Splendid Table's How To East Supper.

Day 11: Black Pepper-Honey Steak and Moroccan Chermoula Vinaigrette Dressing

2008-07-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Nothing is better on a hot day than a crisp salad topped with steak, cooked rare and sliced thin.

Black Pepper-Honey Steak
Moroccan Chermoula Vinaigrette

We just started ordering grass-fed beef from a little farm over in Walla Walla (Thundering Hooves) and this cookbook only has one steak recipe, surprisingly, so I wanted to try both steak and recipe at the same time.

This starts with sitting the steak (whatever cut is your preference, I used top sirloin) in a basic marinade of red wine, honey, garlic, and pepper. I let it sit for about 20 minutes while I prepared the dressing and the salad. Dry off the steak before you saute it in olive oil and toss the marinade. (You could probably cook down the marinade for a sauce, but I followed the recipe on this one.) I didn't cook this as long as they recommended as I wanted it to be a little on the rare side and these were pretty thin steaks.

I was worried that with such a quick marinade that I wouldn't taste the honey or wine much. But, happily, I was wrong. The honey gives it a delicately sweet, caramelized effect. You add salt and pepper while cooking as well and I wish I had added a lot more pepper. But over all this was a pretty easy and different way to cook a steak. Again, I think grilling this would have given a better texture and next time I make this I will be sure to try that.

I didn't want a big old steak by itself, so I sliced it on top a simple salad made from all of our farm share odds and ends that were mixed with the Moroccan Chermoula Vinaigrette, one of the many variations on a basic vinaigrette in the cookbook.

The chermoula is very similar to the Argentinian chimichurri sauce I frequently make to cook steak and chicken in, so it was interesting to try the same flavors atop a salad. I love the smell of cilantro, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil. It doesn't get much better than this. They recommended letting the dressing sit 20 minutes before using to mellow out the flavors. That happened just in the natural order of me cooking things and it tasted delicious.

Another weird note, this cookbook always says coriander leaves instead of cilantro. (Yes, yes, I know it is technically the same thing) Is that another mid-west thing?

21 recipes down in How To Cook Supper.

Day 10: Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices, Thai Cantaloupe Salad with Chile, Sally's Coconut Macaroons (chocolate variation)

2008-07-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

These recipes have the longest names, I feel like I am writing a novel just putting the title up!

Chicken Curry with Gentle Spices
Crossover Spice Blend
Thai Cantaloupe Salad with Chile
Sally's Coconut Macaroons (Chocolate Variation)

OK, despite the long-winded, overly descriptive names, these were all supercalifragilisticexpialidocious delicious. The chicken curry is very easy to make and one of the least expensive recipes in the whole book, I think. The idea is to blend up your own curry paste out of fresh ginger, garlic, onion, tomatoes, chiles, and spices. This is not like the bright red mystery curry paste from the grocery store. They recommend their own Crossover Spice Blend as the base, but once I made it, it justed tasted like a simple garam masala, a spice easily obtainable from any asian or middle eastern market. I ended up adding some of my favorite garam masala my sister brought me from Dubai. Then the curry had a lot more punch.

This curry is a yogurt base and you have to cook with whole fat plain yogurt, no trying to go low fat here or it won't work. First, you cook the curry spice blend in oil with onion and then cook it and cook it and cook it until the oil separates from the curry. Now they tell you not to hurry past this step and that it should take about 10 minutes to "break" the sauce. I had to cook it for nearly 15 minutes before it looked like the oil was pooling out separately. And I never was really sure I got it right, a photo in the cookbook might have been helpful in explaining what you are supposed to look for.

This cookbook is short on photos of the actual process and sometimes you need that if you have never made what they are describing. Next, you add about half the yogurt and again, you have to cook it and cook it and cook it until the yogurt nearly cooks away and becomes very thick. Finally, you add the chopped, boneless (organic-preferred of course) chicken thighs and the remaining yogurt and simmer until the chicken is cooked. Then you spoon out the chicken and keep cooking the sauce until the oil separates once again. Pour the sauce over the chicken, garnish with cilantro, and poof! Perfect, delicious, not too spicy curry. This was a crowd pleaser and I want to try it with pork or white fish. Tofu would probably be good too.

I served simple brown rice on the side (cooked the Splendid Table--boiling like pasta---way) along with zucchini quick sauted in chiles and oil.

The curry was pretty high maintenance, easy to make, but you had to stir it the whole time. So when it came to the Cantaloupe salad, I ignored the recommendation of making it right before you served it. Instead, I made it before I started the curry and chilled it in the fridge until we were ready to eat. I tossed it again to re-coat the fruit and I thought it tasted great. It's very simple: cubed cantaloupe, thin sliced basil, fresh chile or jalapeno, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce (key, don't skip this!), and a pinch of sugar, salt, and pepper. Very colorful and exotic looking and the coolness of the cantaloupe was a nice balance to the curry.

For dessert I made Sally's Coconut Macaroons but one of the variations, adding chocolate chips to the batter. Again, these cooked far faster in my oven, 10-12 minutes faster than what the recipe calls for. These were even better than the plain batch I made last week. The chocolate barely melted and wasn't messy like I thought it would be and we ate nearly all of them. It was so easy to just grab another one. These are super easy to make and would be great to take to a party.

Luckily our friend Karen was there to help us eat all of this good, good food.

19 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 9: Tamarind-Glazed Pork Chops and Melted Greens

2008-07-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

The only way I can describe tamarind is to say that it is like a bitter molasses--sour, smoky molasses. I've always enjoyed tamarind-flavored food in restaurants but it has been a couple years since I have used it at home.

Tamarind-Glazed Pork Chops
Melted Greens

This recipe is really a winner. Easy to make, inexpensive ingredients, and a little exotic at the same time. It just requires a little deeper pantry stocking of dried ancho peppers and tamarind concentrate. It was an effort to find the tamarind concentrate at my local uber-gourmet grocer, but it was only $4 and a little goes a very long way, so we will be enjoying these pork chops again soon.

Using thin pork chops is key and it cooks quickly so make sure you plan ahead whatever else you are making. For this dish you blend up the tamarind, a sweet dried chile, garlic, fish sauce (always my secret ingredient in sauces), sugar, dry white wine and a little water.

Sear the pork in a little oil, add marinade in the last few minutes of cooking to get it nice and bubbly and all over the pork, and that is it! I sauted them but I think they might have been tastier off the grill.

I paired it with the normal Melted Greens recipe, no bacon this time, and again, the chile pepper really made the kale stand out. This was a good combo with the garlic and chile in the pork sauce. I added white wine to the kale as well. I've now got a bottle of Hogue Fume Blanc in the fridge that is specifically for cooking since every other recipe in this cookbook uses wine.

I paired this with Otis Kenyon 2005 Matchless Red Wine from Walla Walla. I could drink a whole bottle of that wine by myself, but Trevor likes wine too, so I have to share.

15 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 8: Provencal Tuna Salad

2008-07-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

It's summertime and the salad makings are easy.

Provencal Tuna Salad

This is your basic tuna salad: canned tuna, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, capers, red onion, and fresh dill tossed with olive oil and lemon juice. I had to cheat a little on this one. I thought I had capers, so I substituted the more tried and true white-trash-preferred pickles and it tasted just fine, thank you very much. I only had a couple bits of fresh dill from the farm share so I also added some dried which, honestly, didn't add much flavor at all.

I was on my own for lunch today so I halved the recipe which is easy on this one.

Very easy to make, I couldn't resist throwing in some broccoli and snap peas. I didn't bother eating it on bread or greens, I just ate it right out of the serving bowl. I think presentation would be nice if you spread out some greens and then piled this in the middle with garnishes of red onion rings and larger sprigs of dill.

But I was so hungry, I ate it and forgot to take a picture!

13 recipes down in How to Eat Supper. I think I have been a little lazy this week. We went out to dinner last night and we are going out tomorrow so I feel a big cooking frenzy coming on this weekend. I may need dinner guests...

Day 7: 21st-Century Mac 'N' Cheese

2008-07-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Why do cookbooks insist on so many recipes that are loaded with fat, cholesterol, and calories?

21st Century Mac 'N' Cheese

I had to go to an artist meeting/potluck last night so I thought this would be a good opportunity to make one of the fattier looking recipes. Something to please a crowd, but something you don't want to eat at home all the time.

I had to double this one but it definitely served more than the suggested serving size.

Basically it's lots and lots of full fat cheese mixed with milk (I used nonfat, I'm sure I wasn't supposed to), egg, onions, paprika, and red pepper flakes and then mixed with cooked elbow macaroni and put in a buttered casserole. The finale was mixing a lot of melted butter with crumbled saltines and sprinkling on top before baking for 25 minutes. It was extremely easy to make, but if you double it, mix the ingredients in your food processor in TWO BATCHES or you will make a big mess all over the counter like I did.

The paprika is really key here, it gave a lovely sweet smell. But again, one garlic clove just wouldn't cut it for me, so I quadrupled the garlic, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. I think it could be really good with chipotle or fresh basil thrown in. The gruyere and cream cheese added a nice taste but I went cheap on the cheddar since the gruyere was $8.40 and you couldn't taste it at all.

Why have only one recipe in your entire cookbook that uses saltines? I used 24 and now I have three of those sleeves left over. Anybody want them? Partially hydrogenated oil, yummy!

Needless to say, this was a big hit at the party and I only brought a tiny bit home which I scrambled up for breakfast with a left-over turkey burger. I forgot to bring the Tang beverage that probably would have been a nice retro touch. I think I'll have to make another variation of the simple salad tonight to combat the effects of mac 'n' cheese!

12 recipes down in The Splendid Tables HOW TO EAT SUPPER.

Day 6: Tomato-Cheddar-Packed Turkey Burgers

2008-07-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Do cookbook authors think more about the names of the recipes than the taste of the recipes?

Tomato-Cheddar-Packed Turkey Burgers

Now don't get me wrong, I actually liked this burger quite a bit. However, the whole bit about stuffing the burgers with the cheese was a bit silly. Sure it was fun to bite into the burger and have cheddar cheese squirt out, but the cheddar cheese added a lot to the flavor since without much spice, turkey is pretty bland. So I would have just preferred to put a big slice of cheddar on top and enjoy the cheese the whole meal.

But maybe sometimes it is all about trying to think of the next NEW EXCITING THING! instead of a just saying, you know a nice grilled onion-tomato-packed turkey burger with cheese on top is pretty darn good.

Also, I have to take this moment to complain about the poor quality of hamburger buns out there. I cannot, for the life of me, find a traditional looking hamburger bun that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup as the second or third ingredient. I buy the whole wheat and they are still loaded with the stuff. And in the "healthy" section of the grocery store, there are no hamburger buns. Maybe they figure if you are going to eat a burger, you don't care about your health. And if you do ciabatta or some other hard roll, these delicate burgers would squish out all over the place. Maybe next time, I will just prepare them sans rolls and put garlic bread on the side.

11 recipes down in How To Eat Supper

Day 5: Dressing-In-A-Bowl Supper Salad

2008-07-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

The evening after the 4th of July seemed like a perfect time for a simple salad after all the grilled meats, potato salads, cupcakes, and copious amounts of wine from the night before.

Dressing-In-A-Bowl Supper Salad

This seemed too easy to be something to make out of a cookbook, but this salad has a very nice, simple premise. You start by marinating chopped red onion and garbanzo beans in your salad bowl with vinegar, grainy mustard, and salt and pepper. Let that sit for a half an hour to mellow the onion while prepping the rest of the salad. Pick out your raw veggies, fresh herbs, meat or soy product if desired, and your preferred salad greens. I know there is a lot of discussion that tearing lettuce is better than chopping lettuce, but I like to chop my lettuce greens fairly small. I think it makes the salad look more sophisticated. Finally, add your olive oil and toss everything and serve immediately. I added some shaved parmesan on top and some left over Kalamata olives on the side and we had a simple meal that made us feel incredible healthy compared to the over-eating of the holiday.

I especially like the versatility of this dish because I have a great opportunity to use all those farm share veggies that have been stacking up in the fridge.

10 recipes down in How to Eat Supper.

Day 4: Pork Tenderloin with Black Olives and Orange, Three-pea Toss, and Working Mother's Barley

2008-07-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

Whenever you want to impress dinner guests, pork tenderloin is a sure winner. I cook pork tenderloin frequently and it is nice to have a new recipe for it.

Pork Tenderloin with Black Olives and Orange
Three-Pea Toss
Working Mother's Barley

Since my last dinner pairings didn't go together so well, I decided to try one of the suggested menus listed instead the cover of the cookbook. These turned out very impressive and beautiful on the table together.

I had to double the pork recipe. Even then it was close having only 2 tenderloins for 4 people. There wasn't a single piece left over. The recipe called for stuffing the tenderloin with the garlic and orange zest mixture, then browning it before putting it in the oven. I cut the slits in the pork but only put half of the stuffing in before browning because I was afraid it might all fall out. Then after I browned them, I put the rest of the stuffing in. I was skeptical of all the orange and how it really would go together, but I dutifully followed the recipe. The white wine makes the orange juice sauce extra delicious but you have to watch it very, very carefully and add more liquid (I added wine) during cooking or it can easily burn. There was plenty of sauce for everyone to ladle lots of it all over their pork. The orange and the olives were a sweet and salty delight.

The Three-Pea Toss has few ingredients, but all are important enough that you shouldn't leave out any of them. Next time I would add more mint as most of us at the dinner table could barely taste it in the dish. The almonds were a nice, crunchy addition. I don't own a wok and I am not about to go buy one just for a couple of stir-frys in this cookbook and it worked out just fine in an extra large skillet.

The barley was incredibly easy to make. I cooked it in chicken broth, but then added water as it boiled down so it wouldn't burn. The extra orange/wine sauce from the pork tasted extremely good spooned onto the barley. I will start making barley much more often.

Cost wise, this looks like it is going to end up being an expensive project. The Kalamata olives, for example, were $4.80 and the almonds cost almost $6. I will have to look for another recipe with almonds so they don't go to waste. The barley was the best priced at less than a dollar per pound.

There was absolutely no leftovers from this dinner. Lots and lots of compliments on a relatively simple meal! The meal was rounded out with a Cabernet from Horse Heaven Hills and a puff pastry apple tart.

9 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 3: Pasta with Chopping-board Pesto, Melted Greens, and Gingerbread

2008-07-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

If you take on a cooking project, half the recipes or make sure your husband takes leftovers to work so you don't eat two pieces of gingerbread for breakfast.

Pasta with Chopping-board Pistachio Pesto
Melting Greens with Bacon (variation)
Dark and Moist Gingerbread

Dinner was a garlic fiesta.

I am drawn to this pasta recipe for two major reasons.

First, I like the idea of pesto with pistachios, the flavor is different—saltier, roasted goodness-- and you get more of a crunch than with the traditional pine nuts.

Second, the authors recommend chopping everything together on the board at the same time. This is fun and a little messy because your chopping board gets a little full.

You start by chopping the salt, pepper, and garlic together and the smell is amazing. Then you slowly add ingredients until it is all there, one big sloppy, yummy mish-mash. One point of caution is that you barely cook the sauce so beware of the garlic if you have a breakfast meeting the next day! But we like garlic so I piled it on.

I used less pasta than they recommended (and I used whole wheat pasta because that never hurts) and it still didn’t seem like there was much sauce. But once the flavors were allowed to mingle with the pasta and cheese, it was pretty good.

I paired this with Melting Greens with the bacon variation. Basically, you cook coarsely chopped bacon in a big pot, then add chopped garlic and a dried red chile and then add water or broth and ripped up kale and cook for 10-15 minutes. I added a splash of white wine in the end as well, but that wasn’t in the recipe.

Now, if you are not a kale fan, this recipe will make you one. I already cook something similar like this every week in summer and fall because we get so much kale from our farm share but the added chile was an interesting twist. DO NOT LEAVE OUT THE CHILE! At the end of cooking, you remove the chile, but when we bit into the kale, there was a delightful tangy bit of heat on the tongue that took this recipe to a whole new level. I may never be able to make kale again without throwing in a chile.

The greens were a little strong paired with the pesto pasta. Next time I might just put the pasta with some steamed or roasted veggies on the side. The greens could be good next to a steak or pork chops. We topped off the meal by drinking a bottle of Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon. That really made me think about steak.

I knew I wouldn’t be cooking the next evening because we are going to an art opening so I wanted to squeeze in another recipe so I don’t fall behind in the cookbook.

Dark and Moist Gingerbread

This gingerbread is extremely easy to make and comes out fluffy and moist just like they promised. And it is cooked in a square cake pan instead of a bread pan so it is more like cake. I prefer bread shaped, however, because you can slice it thin and put butter and jam on the slices.

An interesting twist calls for black pepper in the spice mix and it made the flavors a little stronger. This is not a wimpy gingerbread flavor. Instead of serving it with whipped cream, I dusted it with powdered sugar and topped it off with sliced mint and strawberries, yum!

Six recipes down in How to Eat Supper!

DAY 2: Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp and Dumbed-Down Rice

2008-07-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Never trust the cooking and prep times that you are given in a cookbook!

Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp and Dumbed-down Rice

The shrimp calls for either peeled OR un-peeled shrimp. Expect to add 15 minutes to the recipe if you have to peel the pesky little critters. And I prefer to peel my own shrimp because it is 50% cheaper. I just can’t bring myself to spend $17/lb for prepared shrimp.

This recipe also had an interesting step of soaking the shrimp (By the size of them, I would call them prawns, but maybe it is a mid-west thing to call them shrimp.)---anyways, the first step is to soak the shrimp in a brine made of water, sea salt, chile powder, and sugar. I was skeptical, but after draining the bathing beauties, they did have a really pleasant smell and chile powder speckle to them. However, the amount of garlic and ginger in the sauce really overpowers the delicacy of the brine I think, but maybe the brine soak has some other shrimp-plumping power.

The recipe declared these were going to be delicious and they were not lying. A caramelized sauce of sugar, ginger, and garlic over lots of fat, juicy shrimp was spectacular. Overall, it was very easy to make with no special skills. My only complaint was there wasn’t enough sauce for the shrimp. I added a couple tablespoons of water during cooking to stretch it.

I did screw up the timing on the dumbed-down rice. The whole concept is to boil rice in A LOT of water, undercook it a bit, drain it, and let it sit for another 5 minutes before fluffing. But at their 10 minute cook time my long-grained white rice was still pretty crunchy. So the shrimp ended up having to sit for 6 minutes more before the rice was done. And dumbed-down rice is just boring white rice. I like a little more character in my rice. I am still, however, looking forward to the leftovers for lunch.

I also wanted to make the Ripe Tomato Stack with Pine Nuts and Mozzarella but upon getting home from my bike ride to the grocery store, I realized I had no currants. As I want to make everything authentically from the cookbook (at least once), the tomato stacks will have to wait. Instead we had a nice sugar snap pea, tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad on the side.

The biggest issue with this project is the constant grocery list making. We belong to a farm share that I have to pick up today and I will have to see if any of the ingredients we get matches any recipes before I head back to the grocery store.

3 recipes down in The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper.

Day 1: Sally's Coconut Macaroons

2008-07-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Predictably, I start with dessert.

Sally’s Coconut Macaroons.

I have never been super successful with macaroons but when I saw this recipe has only 5 ingredients, I thought, perfect first recipe to jump into.

The first complaint I have about cookbooks, especially cookie recipes in cookbooks, is that they always say the recipe makes 24 or 36 and then you only get 12 or 15 out of them. That is one of the only bits of cooking advice I remember my mother ever giving me, “You’re lucky if you get half of what the recipe says you’ll get.” Now I realize it is most likely because the cookbooks want to make the per-serving calories look a lot less than it really is.

Sally said I could get 30 cookies. I ended up with 17, not counting the two I ate in raw batter. (Excellent batter by the way) So 19 total-which is better than my normal estimates.

My retro Frigidaire Flair oven is too hot so I set it to 300 F instead of 350 F, but the first batch still burned a little even though I took them out at 20 minutes instead of 25.

The second batch was perfect because I took them out at 15 minutes.

(Now if I had made them teaspoon size like the recipe called for, would they have cooked in 10 minutes?)

The second batch was perfectly golden, a nice crust on the outside and gooey and delicious on the inside. I was sad that I made this recipe first until I realized there were 5 more variations I will get to cook. I might even say there are 6 more variations since the main recipe said use vanilla or almond extract and I used vanilla. Now I can try them again with almond. Not a bad start. I am dreading the panna cotta because I have never really enjoyed panna cotta.

Check off one in How to Eat Supper.

Introduction to Cooking the Whole Cookbook

2008-07-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this project for a few months now but wanted to start it after I finished the big mosaic project I was working on.

My inspiration comes from the Julie and Julia memoir my friend Julia (no relation to either Julie or Julia) gave me since she knows how much I love to cook. For those who have not yet come across this memoir, Julie and Julia chronicles a year of Julie Powell cooking EVERY SINGLE RECIPE in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs in one calendar year.

I like the idea of cooking every recipe in a cookbook, of really becoming intimate with one person’s tastes and pursuits, but I don’t like the idea of purposely torturing myself with aspic and goat’s head or what have you. I wanted to enjoy what I was about to do; I wanted to inspire others to cook and give critiques on the recipes. Most cookbooks I own offer little inspiration than a couple of interesting recipes mixed in with a lot of filler. I wanted to cook good food from a good, simple cookbook.

And then The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper by Lynne Rosetto Kaspar and Sally Swift came out. The Splendid Table is a public radio cooking show that I adore and most of the recipes discussed on the show are doable and tasty to boot. My husband and I were invited to a private party in Seattle sponsored by our local public radio station (KUOW) where we got to eat some of the food from the book, hear Lynne herself speak, and as a little added bonus, we also received a signed copy of the book.

I had finally found my cookbook.

So for no special reason than perhaps it hit 92 degrees F today, I decided to turn on the oven this evening and start my quest to cook everything and all of it’s variations in How to Eat Supper. This cookbook doesn’t have half the recipes as the French cooking book has, so a year would be too long to loiter and dilly-dally.

This book has approximately 182 recipes, but there are so many variations I am not sure I made an exact count. I will not know how many there really are until I declare myself finished. ALSO, I want to have a little buffer in case I screw up a recipe and I want to do a do-over. I don’t want to race through these and learn how to make them badly.

So I am giving myself until Thanksgiving. 5 months. That is just a little over one recipe per day, which isn’t the most stressful schedule but will allow me time to cook some of the recipes a couple of times. And for the finale, I will pick my favorite recipes from the cookbook to recreate on Thanksgiving Day, my favorite holiday.