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Archive for the ‘recipe’ Category
Thursday, January 31st, 2013
My newest adventure is actually grabbing a recipe from one of the bazillion newsletters I get each day and cooking something from it for dinner that night. One night in and I’m already improvising of course. I never follow recipes! The first recipe was from the Epicurious newsletter: Rigatoni with Spicy Calabrese-Style Pork Ragù
The first thing I changed about this recipe is the simmer-for-4-hours bit. I didn’t have 4 hours. The second thing was I only had a pound of sausage and no ground pork. I did say “inspiration” right? Oh, and no carrots. I food-processed the onion, celery, garlic and chili flakes. Meanwhile I browned the sausage until it was almost cooked through. I took out the sausage and put the pureed veggies into the pan and cooked all the liquid off of those until the edges started getting toasty.
Then I added the sausage back in, tossed it with the puree and added 2 cans of tomatoes that I pureed in the food processor and one can diced. I like some chunks in my sauce sometimes. I put that on low and let it simmer until it was thick.
I didn’t have any rigatoni…seriously, I didn’t go to the store for this one! I ran with what I had! I had farfalle so I cooked that until it was 1 minute from done then I put the pasta in the pan with the sauce and let it cook the last minute in the sauce.
I learned that trick from Molto Mario years ago! It’s the only way to have pasta. It integrates all the flavors and keeps the pasta from becoming a clump under the sauce.
In the end it only took about 45 minutes for the whole process. I’m sure it would have been far richer and wonderful with 4 hours of simmering and more pork. I’ll try that sometime. This was a lot like a typical go-to pasta dish I make a lot without a recipe but the trick I liked was food-processoring the veg. It integrated the flavors into the meat and tomatoes much more quickly I think.
I thought I’d do a second day of newsletter recipes tonight but all the newsletters were Superbowl themed and I was not interested in quesadillas or chili so the next adventure will have to wait until next week when “ball” season is done.
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, food, italian, pasta, pork, recipe, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
We had a bit of a hectic schedule. It was the first day back to school for my son after the winter break. I was back to work at his school as well after not working for 3 ½ months since my husband’s motorcycle accident and I stayed home as a 24-7 nurse. I raced home from the day at school, prepped the chicken, tossed it in the marinade then put it in the fridge so we could head out to my son’s drum lessons.
We ran back into the house at 5:30 and I got started. I was planning on barbecuing but it was cold out and I didn’t want to spend time outside! So I grabbed my cast iron skillet and turned on the oven.
Chicken:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
2 cups white wine
1 red onion, sliced
1 T whole grain mustard
1 lemon, sliced
Couscous:
2 cups israeli couscous
2 cups chicken stock
parsley
½ cup pine nuts
Put all the ingredients into a ziploc and marinate for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 400?.
Remove from marinade (reserve it for later in the recipe), salt, and sear skin side down in a hot (preferably cast iron) pan until skin is brown and crispy. Turn the chicken over. Top with the red onions from the marinade. Put in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
Meanwhile, put 2 cups of israeli couscous in a pot with 2 cups chicken stock and ½ a cup of the marinade liquid. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes until tender. Stir in toasted pine nuts and chopped parsley.
The timing should work out perfectly if you let your chicken rest for about 5 minutes. Serve the chicken atop the couscous and enjoy!!
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | No Comments »
Friday, December 14th, 2012
1 lb Sablefish fillets
1 egg + water (make an eggwash)
1 cup crushed pecans (I zapped them in the food processor)
sprinkle of cayenne
1 lb kohlrabi with greens
3 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of one lemon
2T butter
This dish has three elements: Kohlrabi puree (think mashed potatoes), kohlrabi greens and the nut-crusted fish. Multi-tasking is important on this one!
Part 1:
Peel and dice kohlrabi and boil in salted water until softened. Puree with 2T butter and salt to taste.
Part 2:
Roughly chop greens and saute with 3 cloves garlic. When cooked to perfection, add lemon juice off the heat.
Part 3:
Sprinkle fish with cayenne and salt.
Dip one side, the cayenne-salt side, of the fish in egg wash. Press that side of the fish into the pecan pieces until they cover the fillet. Place in hot pan with olive oil on medium-high heat until pecans form a nice crust. Flip it over before the nuts burn, reduce heat to medium and cook the fish the rest of the way through.
To serve, put a blob of kohlrabi puree, a pile of kohlrabi greens and the fillets of fish on top. Sprinkle with an interesting finishing salt.
Posted in amateur, dinner, food, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Monday, September 17th, 2012
I’ve been remiss in my updates. Truth is, the novelty of campsite-cooking in my garage has worn off. I’m still hanging in there. The kitchen is really coming together. But I’m so ready for it to be done!!!
 Getting close! The cabinets and counters are all in. Sinks, back splashes, window sills, tile back splashes, all in…crown molding is going in today. It’s just taking weeks longer than we planned. Yes, I know, remodels always do but this is MY KITCHEN!!
So, a few things that have come out of the garage in the last few weeks:
 Acme pain epi, gravlax, cuke and tomato  Mis en place for chicken basil chow mein.  El Salchichero smoked prosciutto and canteloupe (from my dad). A touch of black pepper.  Fish Soup
( Basic soup recipe here)
 Cucumber soda, gin and lime This drink helps me cope with the stress of the kitchen ;-)
 Cod Cakes: Poaching cod in white wine and garlic.  Cod Cakes: Frying up in olive oil  Cod Cakes served atop Caesar Salad The cod cakes were similar to this recipe minus the potatoes. I used eggs as a binder and I think they worked better. They definitely kept their shape better than the potato-butter-based ones.
 Broiled proscuitto-wrapped figs One day in the very near future I will be posting pictures of my completed kitchen. Soon….SOON!!! ARGHHH!!!!
Posted in amateur, dinner, fish soup, food, oitg, photos, recipe, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 7th, 2012
My dad brought me tomatoes. He seriously grows the sweetest tomatoes I have ever had. When summer starts I begin dreaming of the tomatoes and waiting for them to ripen. I remember how sweet they are and then I get one and I taste it and it’s even sweeter. It’s like my brain can’t contain the awesomeness of these tomatoes from year to year.
He also brought Armenian cucumbers and basil. GAZPACHO TIME!
All I put in gazpacho when it’s with these amazing tomatoes is a couple of garlic cloves, a ton of basil and salt. I used the blender for this one since it’s so juicy. I garnished with a drizzle of chili oil and cucumbers and this time a borage flower because our plant is blooming and they look so pretty!
Then I made inside-out gazpacho. It’s a modified white gazpacho but I didn’t have any bread that would work in it so I just used about 2 cups of almonds, 4 or 5 cucumbers, a handful of parsley and more basil, garlic, a bit of water to thin it out and a dash of cayenne. I used the food processor for this since there was very little liquid. My blender just whirrrrrrrs and does nothing without lots of liquid. It turned out more like dip than soup. The texture was a bit grainy from the almonds (I only had whole almonds…also from my dad!…No blanched or sliced ones). But the flavor was nice. I topped it with tomatoes for color and served with crostini since it was dip-like anyway!
I’m getting paint in my kitchen today. Soon there will be cabinets.
Posted in amateur, dinner, flavor, food, gardening, gazpacho, oitg, organic, photos, recipe, salt, santa cruz, seasonal menu, self pleasuring, tomatoes | No Comments »
Friday, May 25th, 2012
This is an easy and pretty healthy dish. It’s perfect for summer days. Next time I make it I’ll take a picture!
1 lb petrale sole (or any white fish)
1 cup cornmeal
Salt and pepper the fish fillets, dredge in cornmeal and pan fry in olive oil.
3 grapefruit: 2 sectioned, 1 juiced
1/2 small red onion, diced (I used a 1/4 of a huge one!)
1 avocado, cubed
1/2 japanese or english cucumber, diced
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
~1t sriracha (more or less to your heat tolerance)
Take the juice from the grapefruit and put it in a sauce pan with the diced onion. Cook on medium/low until the onion is soft. Stir in the sriracha.
Mix all those things together. By cooking the onion with the grapefruit it mellows out the onion and adding the juice and onion to everything while it’s warm brings the flavors together immediately rather than having the salsa have to sit overnight to integrate.
Spoon the salsa over the fish and serve.
Posted in avocado, dinner, flavor, food, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring, sole | No Comments »
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
I am sick of all the energy-protein-insta-food bars being sweet! Clif Bar used to have a curry-cashew Mojo bar and they stopped making it. I was sad. I decided to try to make something like it myself.
Preheat oven to 350°.
All the measurements are by weight:
4oz barley flakes
4oz wheat flakes
Toast on a 1/2 cookie sheet for 15 minutes.
While toasting mix together:
4oz pecans, chopped
4oz curried cashews, chopped (my natural food store had these in bulk, they’re awesome!)
3oz pistachios, chopped
Over medium heat, melt together:
7 3/4 oz brown rice syrup
2oz butter
1t salt
When things are toasted and melted, mix everything together and press it all into a 9×9 inch baking dish.
Lower the oven temp to 300° and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Let cool completely and cut into bars.
So good! I also bought pretzels to go in the bars but forgot about them. If you can’t get curried cashews, you could just put regular cashews and add curry spices to the syrup-butter mixture.
Posted in amateur, recipe | No Comments »
Monday, April 9th, 2012
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a braising kick. Maybe it’s because my Le Creuset French Oven doesn’t fit in my cabinet so it’s always staring at me from the stove top, beckoning to be filled with something yummy.
I didn’t have hours to let something braise so I cut up a chicken. I dug through the fridge and found enough to make a meal.
Cut the chicken into 8 pieces. I left the bones in the breast pieces. Brown chicken in a large, heavy, (oven-ready and lidded pot, like a dutch or french oven). Remove and set aside.
Add 1/2 c. mirin and and onion sliced into 1/2 moons, scrape up brown bits from the chicken to get all the flavor.
Let onion soften.
Add:
2 c. chicken stock
1/4 c. mirin
1 c peanut butter
3 chopped garlic cloves
2T honey
Bring to boil.
Add chicken back to pot.
Cover and bake at 325 for 45 min.
Remove chicken and reduce the sauce by about half. Stir in arugula off the heat, the sauce is plenty hot to wilt the greens. Stir in juice of 2 limes.
Serve over rice.
I was in a huge hurry plating and eating this though so no pictures this time! I’ll have to photograph it next time I make it which I’ll have to do pretty soon since my son LOVED the peanut sauce.
Posted in amateur, arugula, chicken, dinner, flavor, food, recipe, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
I made this soup a couple of month ago for a Soup Night gathering at my house. I had vegetarian friends coming so I simmered veggies in water all morning to make really flavorful stock for the soup. I had some dried cranberry beans from the farmers market in the pantry just screaming to be used. I had also seen a cranberry bean soup recipe in Eric Ripert’s A Return to Cooking that ultimately inspired this one.
Today I’m taking soup to friends who just had a baby last week and they’re vegan. I thought this would be good to take them since it’s packed with protein and it’s freezable. But when I came onto the site to find my recipe, I hadn’t ever posted it! Hopefully I got all the ingredients right and this will be just as tasty as last time.
—–
Soak 3 cups dried cranberry beans for at least 4 hours.
Sweat until soft:
1 onion, diced
1 fennel bulb, diced
2 medium leeks, chopped
Add:
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Cook on medium-low with the lid on for about 15 minutes (don’t let it brown, just soften)
Add 3 cups cranberry beans and 6 cups stock. I have used homemade veggie stock both times I’ve made this since it’s been for vegetarian or vegan friends but chicken stock would work just as well.
Bring it to a simmer and let it simmer for at least 2 hours or until the beans are soft.
Puree it all up into a lovely, creamy (without cream) soup.
Finish with a dollop of parsley-lemon puree and a drizzle of lemon oil and some crusty french bread.
Posted in amateur, flavor, food, leeks, organic, recipe, recipes, self pleasuring | No Comments »
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
My CSA farm this year is Fogline Farm. We went there last year for an Outstanding in the Field dinner, had the honor of sitting with the farmers at dinner and decided we’d join their CSA next. I’ve been hopping from farm to farm each year, trying out all the variety in our county. One of the beautiful things about Fogline is they also raise Berkshire pigs. The CSA hasn’t started up yet but they are at the farmers’ market with beautiful cuts of pork. This week I picked up a nice 2lb-ish pork shoulder and tried cooking that for the first time. Man, did it work out. It was so amazingly good….and easy.
The only thing you need is time. This cooked for about 3 1/2 hours.
First, generously salt and brown the pork, on both sides over high heat, in a heavy bottomed pan that has a cover and can go in the oven.
Remove the pork and add a sliced onion, a good amount of herbs…I, of course, used marjoram and thyme…6 roughly chopped cloves of garlic. Stir that around a bit but it doesn’t need to soften or anything.
Put the pork back in atop the onion mixture.
Add 2 cups red wine (something good enough to drink, this will be your sauce too) and 2 cups chicken stock.
Cover and put in a 350° oven for 3 hours or more. I checked the meat at 2 1/2 hours, added a touch more wine and stock and turned the meat over. Then let it roast another hour.
After the pork is to a fall-apart tender stage, take it out of the pan and cover it with foil.
Carefully strain the liquid out of the pan into a saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce it to almost half. Stir in fresh parsley.
I put this over israeli couscous…I wanted orzo but didn’t have any…and I do think it’s disturbing to serve pork over israeli couscous–so sorry. It’s what I had!
Anyway, choose your grain or starch you prefer. Spoon some of the wine reduction over it. Shred the pork and put that on top.
Serve with either the wine you braised the pork in or another good, hearty, rustic wine.
- 2 – 2 1/2 lb pork shoulder
- 1 onion, sliced
- 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- handful of herbs
- 2 cups red wine
- 2 cups chicken stock
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 3 hour(s) 30 minute(s)
Tags: pork
Posted in amateur, dinner, farmers market, flavor, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | No Comments »
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