Accordian Potatoes by Food and Wine Magazine

Thursday April 18, 2013 Food and Wine Magazine, Potatoes, side dishes

 

accordianpotatoes2

 

I’ve mentioned before my obsession with potatoes.  In truth, I’ve never met a spud I didn’t like.  So discovering fingerling potatoes as the featured ingredient in this month’s Food and Wine I couldn’t resist giving these little gems a try.

 

I prepped the potatoes as directed, slicing them part-way down the middle and leaving the bottom edge attached.  I have to admit, this prep was a bit precious for my efficiency driven kitchen, but I persevered.    I tossed them, as directed with paprika and olive oil, and put them in the oven.paprika

Here’s where they lost me: Half way through the roasting, the recipe directed me to remove the pan from the oven and  insert a bay leaf into a slit in each of the potatoes.   I rolled my eyes, tossed a handful of bayleaves into the pan, stirred, and continued to roast the cute li’l tubers.

The result:  They were delicious.  Would I make them again?  Yes, but with two caveats:

1.  The slicing is superfluous.  Cutting them in half would be just as effective, but might not look as dramatic.   And the day I insert bay leafs into half-roasted potato slits, well, never mind.

2.  They needed salt, although the recipe did not call for it.

Any favorite potato recipes you’d like to share?

 

Spring Lamb On the Grill

Monday April 15, 2013 easter, grilled food, lamb, lamb recipes, Uncategorized

grilledlambchops

Grilled lamb is a traditional spring feast.

My poor husband was forced to leave our extended family’s Easter Celebration early to fly to Cleveland for a Monday meeting.  This meant that he missed our roast lamb Easter dinner, one of his favorites.  Lucky for him,  I found post-Easter rack of lamb on sale the following week, and he was able to savor the dish in the comfort of his own home without a basketful of in-laws.

Here’s what I did:

1.  Cut rack of lamb into individual chops.

2.  Marinate overnight in 1 TBSP chopped garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 tsp rosemary, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper,1/4 cup red wine.  Turn chops occasionally to make sure they are evenly coated.

lambmarinating

3.  Bring to room temperature by removing from fridge about 2 hrs before cooking, and grill on high heat 3 minutes per side for medium rare.  Let chops rest a few minutes and enjoy.

I served these with Devil-dusted sweet potatoes and a simple arugula salad.   Easter candy for dessert!

beckspotatoes

How to Make Grilled Caesar Salad

Tuesday April 9, 2013 grilled caesar salad, grilled food, salad, salads

grilledcaesarsalad

 

We are big fans of traditional Caesar Salad.  But I thought about a smoky riff on this classic one day last week when spring was in the air and we opted to grill burgers outside.

Some years back, grilled Caesar Salad had its 15 minutes of fame, then it went the way of many other fad foods (remember the ubiquitous sundried tomato?  pesto everything?  blackened redfish? fondue?)  The fact that they went somewhat out of fashion does not in any way diminish their yumminess, but like bell bottoms, they’ve come and gone.

I decided to resurrect the grilled Caesar last week.  This was a purely practical culinary choice; my dishwasher had leaked, flooding my kitchen, and we are still drying out.  As a result,  I am grilling as much as I possibly can, avoiding the use of any bowls, pots, and utensils, and eating off paper plates until we get this mess sorted out.  One silver lining in an otherwise very dark cloud of kitchen woes was this dish….

Grilled Caesar Salad

Serves 4

2 Romaine Hearts, cut in half lengthwise, leaving core intact

3 TBSP oil, separated  (to prevent lettuce and bread from sticking to grill,  need not be Extra Virgin; use any olive/vegetable oil)

4 TBSP good quality bottled Caesar dressing (Cardini’s, Marie’s, or Marzetti’s brands recommended)

4 slices bread (can be rye, semolina, pumpernickel Italian or sturdy white)

1.  Drizzle 2 TBSP oil on plate or tray and lay Romaine hearts in it, uncut side down, rolling to coat.

2.  Slather 1 TBSP dressing on the cut side of each Romaine heart.

3.  Brush bread with remaining 1 TBSP oil.

4.  Place lettuce on hot grill, round sides down, and cook briefly until outer leaves begin to char.  Turn, place dressing side down and cook until grill marks appear on lettuce.  At the same time, grill bread just long enough on each side to toast.  Serve immediately, one heart and a ‘crouton’ toast per person.

 

 

Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms with Meat Sauce

Monday April 8, 2013 Baked Mushrooms, Cheese Panko Topping, Portabella Mushroos
Baked Portabellas with Cheese Panko Topping

Baked Portabellas with Cheese Panko Topping

 

I love mushrooms, many don’t.  I’ve heard the arguments..”they’re a fungus”, “they grow in dirt” – so what?  They’re good for us.  Kids in particular seem to dislike the texture of mushrooms.  I guess this is because they can be meat-like and chewy.  That’s certainly the case with huge, over-sized portabella mushrooms, which is I what I so like about them.

You could make this recipe without meat, but why would you :)

Ingredients:

4 large portabellas, peel off skins and wash very very gently

2 cups of your favorite meat sauce

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup grated cheese

1 tbsp of parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper

Olive oil cooking spray

Directions:

* Break off stems of mushroom and discard, place mushroom in oven-proof dish

* Load up mushroom with meat sauce topping

* In ziploc combine rest of the dry ingredients and shake it all up

* Spoon the breadcrumb cheese mixture onto the mushrooms

* Spray this mixture lightly with olive oil

* Cook at 350 for about 45 minutes.  If the mushrooms are very large they make take longer, but prod with a fork to see that they are cooked through. If it looks like the crumb mixture is burning/drying out then cover the dish with foil.

Enjoy!

NB: It’s easy to make this a gluten-free recipe.  Simply switch out the Panko breadcrumbs for gluten-free rice breadcrumbs.

 

Pheasant Ragu with Noodles

Monday April 1, 2013 Blood Oranges, Braised pheasant, Roast pheasant
Pheasant Ragu with a Blood Orange Salad

Pheasant Ragu with a Blood Orange Salad

A friend who hunts gave my husband a cornucopia of frozen game, including venison minced meat, venison sausages and a pheasant.

When he handed over the pheasant he prefixed the gift with the words that it was likely to be tough and was best “saved for soup”.

Well, you know me, I’m not fond of soups so I rooted around for a slow-cooked recipe that would braise the toughness out of this ol’ bird and render it soft and juicy.

Online, I came across this recipe from www.allrecipes,com, which included mushrooms and olives and was cooked in a slow cooker.

I followed this wine-based recipe but thought..ummm, bit bland, so pepped it up with the addition of carrots and celery and lots more garlic.

Here’s the recipe…

Still, it looked like a soup to me.  I thought it needed some starch, probably noodles laced with butter and black pepper, to raise the game (hah, pun intended) from good to great.

The addition of a blood orange and pistachio salad did just that.

Blood oranges are a welcome fruit at this barren time of year...

Blood oranges are a welcome fruit at this barren time of year…

 

Corned Beef and Cabbage, How Do I Love Thee?

Thursday March 28, 2013 cabbage, corned beef, holiday menus, main dishes, Potatoes

Let me count the ways…

1.  I love the fact that you are truly a one-dish meal.  I put everything in one pot and simmer a few hours.

2.  The leftovers are terrific.  Reuben sandwich anyone?  Corned beef hash?

3.  Everyone in my family likes it.  That is a rare occurrence indeed.

4.  Cleanup is minimal (see #1)

 

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Corned beef, sliced, and served with a dollop of grainy mustard, is pure heaven.

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, and with it the traditional Irish American repast.  But after thoroughly enjoying this one pot dinner, I got to thinking. There’s no reason to  limit this flavorful, crowd-pleasing simple meal to March 17, although I am as guilty the next colleen of doing just that.    Ok, it’s not exactly health food, so I’m not looking at this as a weekly dinner, but once a month or so, absolutely.

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Potatoes and carrots, mashed with butter, milk, salt and pepper.

A few comments on the side dishes…I’m a huge fan of mashed potatoes. And here, you have options. You can go the traditional route, mashing them solo with butter, milk, salt and pepper, serving  the boiled carrots on the side.  Or, you can try something different, as I did, adding texture, color, and lots of vitamin A (i.e. carrots) to the glorious mash.  My kids, not big carrot consumers, gobbled these up, so I took that as a victory.

You can also boil the cabbage in the pot, chop and mash with the potatoes–that, my little leprechauns, is called Colcannon.  I did not take that route.  Having recently discovered the joys of sauteed cabbage, I went the extra mile (and dirtied an extra pan).  But it was worth it.  Something great happens to cabbage when it is cooked in this simple way.

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Cabbage sliced and sauteed in a touch of oil and liberally doused with salt and pepper.

 

Dessert was key lime pie.  Irish, certainly not, but greenish in color and a big hit!

keylimepie

 

 

 

 

 

 

How To Make Almond Shortbread Bars

Monday March 25, 2013 almond shortbread bars, desserts, simple recipes, sweets

I shared the trauma of my kitchen flood last week. As a result, my cooking has been limited; when you have no dishwasher, you tend to be rather careful about dirtying a slew of dishes that you will have to wash by hand. But I can’t go for long without baking, so one-bowl, no mess recipes have been the order of the day. Luckily for me and mine, I found these super simple, utterly delicious almond shortbread bars and away I went…..

almondsquares

Almond Shortbread Bars

Makes 2 dozen

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 egg, separated

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp cinnamon

2 cups sifted flour

2/3 cup sliced almonds

 

Heat oven to 300 degrees.  Grease a 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

  1. Cream butter and sugar together, then add egg yolk, vanilla and cinnamon.
  2. Add sifted flour and blend thoroughly.
  3. Press dough into prepared pan.
  4. Pour unbeaten egg white onto dough and tilt pan to coat.  Dump excess egg white, and sprinkle top with almonds, pressing gently to be sure they stick.
  5. Bake 45-50 minutes until shortbread is lightly browned.
  6. Cut into squares and cool on rack.

almondshortbread

NOTE:  These can also be made in a 10×15 inch jelly roll pan.  Using the larger pan produces a crisper, more traditional shortbread type bar, and stretches the recipe to make a lot more!  These keep up to a week in a sealed container, and can be frozen for months.

Blood Orange Salad – a surefire hit!

Wednesday March 20, 2013 blood orange salad, pistachio, Winter salad

 

Blood oranges are a welcome fruit at this barren time of year...

Blood oranges are a welcome fruit at this barren time of year…

Oranges are a constant throughout the year, but it’s only during the wintertime that we see Blood Oranges.  They are such a cheerful fruit with their bright red flesh and juicy sweetness.

This salad makes the most of their color and their sweetness by pairing the orange with the nuttiness of pea shoots and pistachios.

Aside from looking g-r-e-a-t, this salad worked wonderfully with a meat ragu I served over the weekend.

Ingredients:

Two large blood oranges

2 scallions

Generous handful of pistachio nuts, shelled and roughly crushed

Pea shoots or other nutty/bitter salad greens, for example watercress

Olive oil-based dressing (keep it simple).  I used virgin olive oil, a splash of balsamic and salt and pepper.

Directions:  (Did I say already that this was dead simple…?)

* Peel and de-pith the oranges, slice into rounds

* Roughly crush pistachios and finely slice scallions

* Assemble salad ingredients, and don’t dress until the last minute or pea shoots will turn to a soggy mush.

To serve:

Best served with a meat or fish main course.  The salad cuts through any heavy sauces and holds its own against a game-y meat like pheasant.  I served it with a pheasant ragu, which was first slow-cooked then re-purposed into a delicious ragu sauce.  Yummmm.

 

Traditional Kedgeree or Smoked Haddock and Rice Indian Style

Monday March 18, 2013 Indian food, Kedgeree, salted fish, Smoked Haddock
Have you tried Kedgeree?

Have you tried Kedgeree?

I’ve looked high and low to find smoked haddock, the salty, bright yellow, fish that is the central ingredient for Kedgeree.  After over 10 years living in the U.S., and countless trips to fish merchants, I’d given up on the idea.

But then I started spotting smoked haddock on the menu at a couple of swanky restaurants.  If they could get it readily enough, I figured I just wasn’t looking hard enough.

My favorite butcher in the world, based in Chestnut Hill, is also a keen fisherman and I engaged him on the subject one day.  He rang his supplier in Maine who said that with enough notice he would catch and smoke a batch of haddock just for me.

T’was hugely over-priced ($25 a filet!), but it’s impossible to make kedgeree with any other fish.

So what’s Kedgeree?

It’s a breakfast dish, which originated in India during the days of the Raj, and it’s made up from leftovers and freshened up with a couple of stock pantry ingredients – fresh eggs and cilantro (well, cilantro is a stock item in India…)

And here’s the recipe. (Thanks to www.allrecipes.com)

One recipe called for a sprinkling of crispy onions.  I thought I’d give this a shot, so sliced a yellow onion thinly, sprayed with a little cooking oil and threw in the over at 325 for about 30 mins.  It was worth this extra gesture as it lifts the Kedgeree considerably, adding crunch and another flavor to counter the salty smokiness.

Here’s the overpriced beauties in all their glorious saltiness!

Fresh caught smoked haddock - straight from the sea!

Fresh caught smoked haddock – straight from the sea!

How to Make Chocolate Truffles, So Simple!

Thursday March 14, 2013 chocolate, chocolate recipe, Chocolates, desserts, gifts, homemade gifts, simple recipes, truffles, Uncategorized

 trufflesplated

 

Chocolate Truffles are rather perfect.  They are a stunning dessert, a fabulous gift, and a wonderful pick-me-up if you are having a trying day.  Last week, they were all 3 for me.

My kitchen flooded thanks to a faulty dishwasher and the ensuing cleanup and demolition have been rather traumatic.  As bad luck would have it, this disruption occurred during the birthday week of 2 dear friends, and I was tasked with bringing dessert to the celebration.    Imagine my dismay when my kitchen disaster prevented me from making the coconut layer birthday cake I had planned!  I considered purchasing a cake, which is a perfectly respectable thing to do, but then I happened on this recipe.

We didn’t put a candle in these divine nuggets, but they were festive and special in their own way.

Here’s how to make them:

Simple Chocolate Truffles

Makes about 3 dozen

1 lb best quality bittersweet chocolate (Either use bittersweet Ghirardelli chips or finely chop equivalent)

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

1.  Place chocolate in heatproof bowl.

2.  In small saucepan, bring cream to boil and then pour over chocolate.

3.  Allow to sit 10 minutes, and stir til chocolate is melted.  If it is not completely melted, you can either put in microwave on 30% power at 30 second intervals, or place bowl over pan of simmering water and stir til smooth.

4.  Line square (8×8″) pan with parchment or wax paper and pour truffle mixture in.

trufflesinpan

 

5.  Refrigerate 30-60 minutes until chocolate is firm.  Remove from fridge, unmold, peel off parchment and cut truffles into small squares.

trufflescut

6.  Place cocoa powder on shallow dish and dip truffles in cocoa on all sides to coat.  Enjoy immediately, or store in refrigerator.  These are best served at or near room temperature to experience fully the velvety texture of these delicacies.

trufflesrolling

NOTE:  If you prefer the traditional round truffles, then by all means, roll and shape them accordingly.  I started on that path, but found it to be an unnecessary and time consuming effort.  Hence, I stuck with the squares.

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