Becoming Foodies
Weeknight
Deconstructed BLT and Eggs
14For my birthday, my sister Jean sent me two books from my Amazon wish list. One was on photography, the other was this cookbook: Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours
Then I found this site french fridays with Dorie, where each week there is a recipe chosen from the book. The idea is that everyone makes that recipe during that week and everyone shares their links on Friday.
I’m happy to report that we’ve made 4 of the 5 September recipes now:
- Corn soup: delicious, and a great use of an over-abundance of CSA corn
- Creamy, cheesy, garlicky rice with spinach: also really tasty, and timed with a big bag of CSA spinach
- Cinnamon-crunch chicken: really flavorful, although I don’t think I really got the ‘crunch’ part right
- Honey-spiced madeleines: we have the pan, but we haven’t made these yet
- Deconstructed BLT and eggs: this was Wednesday’s dinner
Despite a number of ingredients, making the deconstructed BLT and eggs was a relatively quick process.
First, I hard boiled some eggs
While those were boiling, I threw some bacon in a skillet
and sliced some cherry tomatoes (from our CSA)
When the bacon was done cooking, I made some croutons in the leftover bacon fat
I don’t have a picture of this (imagine some oil and vinegar mixed together and you get the idea), but I also threw some white balsamic vinegar and olive oil together to make a quick vinaigrette. Both of those ingredients were purchases from our Paris honeymoon last year (and this is a French cookbook – crazy!)
Then it was time to toss the arugula (CSA) with some chopped sun-dried tomatoes (Trader Joes) and the dressing
Toss in the tomatoes and bacon
then top with the hard boiled eggs
Finally… a little dollop of mayonnaise on each egg half and some salt and pepper
This was really tasty — definitely got that BLT flavor hit with each bite. I think the pepper (and the use of peppery arugula) really made this meal.
Plus, I just made a “deconstructed” dish. How Top Chef!!!
Flank Steak Dinner
0
This was a very quick dinner to prepare. The flank steak was grass fed and brought to us via the Braise RSA. The corn came from a trip to the West Allis farmers market last Saturday. And, the Tomato Tart? Well, that was from Kelley’s work on Sunday night (the tomatoes were from our garden).
Everything was delicious. The corn was super sweet. The meat was nice and beefy. And the tart was refreshing and fruity!
Mushy Joes
0Early last Fall, I finally gave in to one of the America’s Test Kitchen promotional emails and ordered a free trial copy of Cook’s Country magazine. We didn’t end up subscribing to it because we chose to go with the slightly less country-sounding Cook’s Illustrated.
There is one recipe in particular in this particular copy of Cook’s Country (October/November, 2009) that has become a Kitchen Post favorite. It is especially a Mrs Kitchen Post favorite.
Reduced-Fat Sloppy Joes
Or, as I like to call them Mushy Joes
The good people at America’s Test Kitchen were able to reduce the calorie count of a traditional sloppy joe (570 calories) all the way down to 300 calories per Joe. How? Largely by replacing some of the meat with… wait for it… mushrooms!
First off, saute the mushrooms for about 5 minutes in a little bit of vegetable oil.
Then, dump them into your food processor.
Pulse them until they appear crumbled.
Mix the mushroom crumble with some onions and a sauce mixture and simmer.
Finally, add the beef.
And continue cooking until the beef is brown.
Mushy Joe!
Reduced-Fat Sloppy Joes (adapted from Cook’s Country)
serves 4 to 5
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
8-oz pkg of sliced mushrooms
1 small onion, minced
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp cider vinegar
12 oz lean ground beef
Salt & Pepper
hamburger buns
Steps:
- Heat 1 tsp oil over med high heat in large nonstick skillet
- Add mushrooms and cook until browned, about 5 min
- Transfer to food processor and pulse until mushrooms are crumbled
- Heat remaining oil in an empty skillet (one with a cover available)
- Cook onion and crumbled mushrooms, covered, stirring occasionally, about 8-12 minutes
- Stir in chili powder and cook for another 30 seconds
- Add tomato sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire, sugar, water and vinegar
- Simmer over med low heat until vegetables are completely tender and sauce is somewhat thick. 10-15 minutes
- Add the beef and simmer until the beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes
- Season with salt and pepper to taste
- Divide among buns and serve!
Bistro Dinner Salad
3
After dining on several delicious meals from the McDonald family chefs last weekend during our Galveston getaway, it was time for a light homemade dinner. This recipe for Bistro Dinner Salad was featured in a MyRecipes.com article and was both tasty and easy.
File this one under: “will make again”
Slow Cooker Corned Beef for St. Patrick’s Day
0
7:00 am — Cabbage to be added once the meat is cooked.
Creamy Mushroom Soup
2A while back Paul signed up for a sample issue of Cook’s Country magazine, published by Christopher Kimball, the creator of America’s Test Kitchen programming (and king of the bowtie/suspenders look). Since receiving this issue, it has made its way from coffee table to kitchen counter to dining room table several times. Paul diligently made the White Chicken Chili and the mushroom sloppy joes (both receiving rave reviews) before the holidays, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I flipped through and had a hankering for their mushroom soup. After a weekend of birthday celebrations in Green Bay, tonight’s dinner was hearty and welcoming, prepping us for the long week ahead.
As the recipe states, they were looking for a hearty and velvety soup – bearing no resemblance to mushroom soup in a can. After several test runs, their final recipe called for three pounds of mushrooms – THREE POUNDS! That’s enough to get stares from the produce manager at Pic ‘N Save. And at $3.29 a pound, that’s enough to make me question the quantity so this better be worth it. Fortunately, this recipe didn’t have a ton of ingredients that my sweet stock boy didn’t already have on hand at home. So, mushrooms, leeks and half & half were all that I needed on a grocery run. Three pounds…
The first step was cleaning the leeks – a lengthy process due to the sand and dirt that collects between each layer. However a tip provided in the recipe suggested using the salad spinner to soak, drain, and spin. Worked nicely – and I didn’t have to scrub my sink down at the end. I used my trusted Le Creuset dutch oven to cook the butter, mushrooms and leeks together, and then added the next 4 ingredients. To finish the soup, the recipe steps included pureeing. Silly me thought using the food processor would provide a satisfactory puree. Silly me, indeed. The soup was a grainy oatmealy consistency – rather disgusting to look at to be honest. I’m going to eat that? Mushroom soup is already fairly drab. So, after it was all back in the pot I took out my trusted immersion blender (to the rescue!) and was very happy with the outcome. Don’t you agree? The last photo shows the smooth buttery finish.
And… finally, to top off the soup was a tasty homemade piece of sourdough bread. The mother starter was laid to rest after the making of this bread, as it was going to be too time and flour consuming to continue its growth. Perhaps Paul will tell you about it. Perhaps he’s still trying to decide whether or not the two weeks of love and nurture he gave it was worth it. It was a perfect combination with dinner, so I would say it was worth it.
The recipe for this soup (Cook’s Country, Oct/Nov’09, p. 17):
4 T unsalted butter
3 pounds (!) white or cremini mushrooms, broken into small pieces
2 Leeks, white and light parts only, halved lengthwise and chopped
Salt and pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 t chopped fresh thyme
5 c beef broth
1/2 c cooking sherry
1 c half & half (original recipe called for heavy cream, but I subs. w/ H&H)
2 t lemon juice
Chopped chives for garnish
A: Melt butter in large dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until butter is golden brown and has nutty aroma, appx. 3 minutes. Add mushrooms, leeks, 1/2 t salt, and 1/4 t pepper, and cook, covered, until mushrooms release their liquid, appx. 5 minutes. Remove lid and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated, appx. 15 minutes. Remove 2/3 c mushroom mixture, chop fine, and reserve.
B: Add garlic and thyme to pot with remaining mushroom mixture and cook until fragrant, appx. 30 seconds. Stir in broth and sherry and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until mushrooms and leeks are completely tender, appx. 20 minutes.
C: Puree soup in blender (unless you want to go the extra step like I did!) until smooth. Return pureed soup to pot, stir in half & half, lemon juice, and chopped reserved mushrooms and return to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Serve, drizzling individual portions with additional sherry and sprinkling with chives.
P.S. THREE POUNDS? It was worth it!
Indian Monday
0The Menu:
- Salad
- Hummus
- Pita Bread
- Chicken with Indian Rub
The Recipes:
First up, I used this mix as a guide and created a simple Indian Spice Rub from the menagerie of spices pictured below.
Rubbed that on some chicken breasts and mixed up some hummus, following this easy recipe from the Savory Sweet Life blog. It was so quick that the only picture I got was the final product.
That turned out delicious, although maybe a tad too garlicky.
To scoop up the hummus, I decided to try making some homemade pita bread, following the instructions in Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day.
 after about one minute -- the initial puffiness |
 five minutes later - whoa! |
The pita bread turned out GREAT! It was the easiest bread I’ve made so far. I mean, yes, there’s some rolling pin action involved, but there’s no steam in this recipe and the baking time is 5-7 minutes. I actually went ahead and made a second load of pita bread so we’ll have some extras to enjoy with the leftover hummus over the next couple of days.
The final product was a well-balanced, but relatively easy and quick dinner.
Seafood Sunday
1We’ve done the butcher shop for meat before, but we’ve never really purchased seafood from a quality fresh fish shop (a fish monger?). I’ve been meaning to check out Empire Fish for a long time, and I finally did on Saturday. Awesome store really — very friendly staff and a great collection of sea critters. Lots of fresh options and some frozen stuff available too. I may have been a little over-excited though because I left with some scallops, some shrimp and a haddock filet.
All of that led to Seafood Sunday!
Using recipes from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (btw, if you don’t own this cookbook, buy it from Amazon now — at less than $24, it’s a bargain) as a guide, our lunch meal consisted of a little Ginger-Hoisin Shrimp.
On the side, we ate some more of the quinoa, and enjoyed some European Peasant Bread from the Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day book. Overall it was a tasty, speedy, albeit slightly-more-extravagant-than-your-average-noontime-meal lunch.
Then, when it came to dinner time, I put the awesome Saints victory on hold to cook up the rest of the fishy stuff. With only about a single serving each of scallops and haddock, I decided to make both. For the scallops, I pan-seared them with the lemon, shallots and capers recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. For the haddock, I kept it simple. A little salt and pepper followed by a quick dredging in some flour. That’s just basic white rice on the side.
The lemon/caper/shallot combo was a little overpowering. I think we both ended up pushing most of it to the side and focusing on the scallop-ey goodness. As for the haddock, for such a simple preparation, it was quite tasty. I mean, Kelley, who doesn’t really like fish, gave it a favorable review. I believe her words were along the lines of : “I would go to a fish fry if they used this recipe.”
Quinoa
1Quinoa (pronounce keen-wah) is the seed of the Goosefoot plant. It cooks much like a grain and has a fantastic nutty flavor, with a little bit of a crunch (due to its seed nature). It’s also healthy:
The quinoa seed is high in protein, calcium and iron, a relatively good source of vitamin E and several of the B vitamins. It contains an almost perfect balance of all eight essential amino acids needed for tissue development in humans. It is exceptionally high in lysine, cystine and methionine-amino acids typically low in other grains. It is a good complement for legumes, which are often low in methionine and cystine. The protein in quinoa is considered to be a complete protein due to the presence of all 8 essential amino acids.
(from Chet Day’s Health & Beyond)
I owe this new discovery to this post on the kitchn blog, which led to a recipe for Quinoa and Avocado Salad with Dried Fruit, Toasted Almonds, and Lemon-Cumin Vinaigrette at Fine Cooking.
Note: The picture over there looks a little different than the ones at those two links. It’s not just the Polish pottery. Those linked-to photos used red quinoa, but all I could find was the white version.
If you’ve never tried quinoa, I can highly recommend it. Try the recipe here, it’s healthy (containing not only the benefits of quinoa, but also a healthy dose of the good fats in avocado). And it’s delicious.
Next step for us is finding more quinoa recipes to try.
Finally — that fruit you see on the left side of that photo over there? That’s the fruit of the pummelo, another new food we gave a try to. It’s like a grapefruit, but has a really thick, super-spongy membrane around the fruit, and it’s nowhere near as bitter as grapefruit.
Chipotle Bean Burritos – from Cooking Light magazine
0On Tuesday night, we dined at Chipotle. It was ok, but it doesn’t match the flavors of a homemade dinner. Wednesday was bowling night, so I ate a big lunch and Kelley made a grilled cheese dinner that she hasn’t blogged about yet for some reason.
That takes us to Thursday, where we went vegetarian with homemade bean burritos.
The Menu: Chipotle Bean Burritos served with Guacamole and Chips, from Cooking Light Jan/Feb 2010 – also available at myRecipes.com
The Pictures:
The Verdict:
- Overall, a really simple, relatively inexpensive meal that only took about a half hour to prepare
- It’s the easiest part of this meal, and not exactly a ground-breaking recipe, but the guacamole was really good
- The recipe called for 10-inch tortillas, which I’m pretty sure I bought, but I don’t think I really over-stuffed these, so if you want to match the pictures at myRecipes/Cooking Light, I’d suggest getting a bigger tortilla.
