Savory Tart | Mucking About In The Kitchen

Roasting, My Default Cooking Method

2013-05-18T10:14:00.000-04:00

In a fit of enthusiasm, I bought broccolini last week ... but I didn't quite know what to do with it when I got home. I decided to pretend it was just a weird version of asparagus and roasted it accordingly.

Easy Roasted Broccolini & Salmon
Serves 2

Ingredients
15± broccolini stems, washed and trimmed
2 4 oz frozen wild-caught sockeye salmon fillets Sockeye, thawed
Olive oil, as needed
Boxed Goodes Allium Salt, as needed (or a similar blend of sea salt, dried onion/shallots/chives)

Directions
Preheat oven to 400F°.

Spread broccolini on large jelly roll pan and toss with olive oil and Allium Salt to taste. Shove to one side of the pan and add the salmon. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a few grinds of Allium Salt.

Roast for approximately 20 minutes or until stems are crisp-tender and tops are slightly browned.

Surprisingly yum for something so simple, but I might toss in lemon juice and zest next time for a little brightness ... When I took the leftovers to work, I garnished them with a generous helping of leftover bruschetta (work parties are the best) and that was simply fantastic.

Not Improv Challenge: Cinnamon & Not Sugar

2013-05-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

When I saw April's Improv Challenge ingredients were cinnamon and sugar, I immediately knew I wanted to do something with that bundle of cinnamon sticks lurking in the back of the spice cabinet. I also knew I wanted to use maple syrup or honey, as refined sugar is something I'm using less and less of. I figured maple syrup would be fine, as participants are allowed to make substitutions due to dietary restrictions, but then I actually read the monthly email ...

You can use cinnamon in any form: ground, whole, extract, baking chips. Sugar
forms: white, powdered, brown, cane juice. I think we will save honey,
maple syrup, and other sweeteners for other challenges.

Erk. As I'd already made my dish and had no time to make another, I give you my Not Improv Challenge recipe, "Breakfast Barley."

I've been toying around with the idea of eating other grains for breakfast ... mostly because I have a cupboard full of random grains, but also because even the most delicious oatmeal gets a little boring after a while. I'd seen recipes for quinoa and barley "rice" puddings, so I guessed what I wanted could be done.

In the end, I went with quick-cooking barley and prepared it mostly by following the directions on the back of the box. Coconut milk for water, of course, because I wanted delicious creaminess and I didn't see why I needed to bring the liquid to boil before adding the barley, so threw them into the pot together.

I think the dish turned out pretty well. Creamy, nutty, slightly sweet, and very filling. (The Husband, however, took one look at it and said "that looks horrible" so ymmv).

Breakfast Barley
Serves 3

Ingredients
1 cup quick-cooking barley [Mother's]
13.6 oz can coconut milk [Thai Kitchen]
Water, as needed
⅛ tsp salt
1-inch cinnamon stick
2 Tbsp flaxmeal [Bob's Red Mill]
1 Tbsp maple syrup
Fresh raspberries, as desired

Directions
Dump the coconut milk into a two-cup measuring cup and whisk it about until the solids are reincorporated. Add enough water to equal 2 cups. Add to saucepan with barley, cinnamon stick, and salt. Bring to boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring regularly to prevent sticking, for 10 minutes or until barley looks creamy, but not all liquid has been absorbed.

Remove saucepan from heat. Stir in maple syrup and flaxmeal. Let sit 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Taste. Add more maple syrup, if desired.

Portion into bowls. Serve topped with raspberries and, if desired, grated cinnamon and more maple syrup.

Healthier Taco Salad

2013-05-04T23:56:00.000-04:00

I made this salad last week when I was craving taco salad in a crispy fried tortilla shell with grilled chicken, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and full-fat sour cream. While I didn't have quite the right ingredients (and am not about to attempt frying tortilla shells at home), my turkey taco salad still came out pretty well and I'd gladly eat it again.

Ingredients: Ground turkey cooked with salt-free taco seasoning over romaine, tomatoes, red cabbage, scallions, black beans, black olives, crushed tortilla chips, lime juice, guacamole, and garlicky salsa.

I had leftover ingredients, so I filled Tostitos Scoops with cooked seasoned ground turkey, black beans, sliced olives, salsa, and havarti cheese then broiled them until melty and delicious.

Deconstructed Chicken Kabobs

2013-05-01T08:28:00.000-04:00

This dish was inspired by The Gracious Pantry's Clean Eating Chicken Kabobs, but I was too lazy to locate my kabob sticks or even assemble quite the same ingredients Tiffany used. Anyway, I think these deconstructed kabobs came out really well and I'm sure the real recipe will be awesome when I finally make it. (If you haven't visited The Gracious Pantry before, I recommend you get yourself over there right away as it's wall-to-wall with fabulous recipes).

Deconstructed Chicken Kabobs

Ingredients
1 lb chicken, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 bunch asparagus, cut into 1½-inch lengths
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch squares
Juice of half a lemon
Zest of half a lemon
2 Tbsp Penzeys Greek seasoning (salt, garlic, lemon, black pepper, oregano, marjoram)
2 Tbsp olive oil

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a big storage bowl and refrigerate all day.

Dump bowl out onto a jelly roll pan and bake at 400F° for about 15 minutes. Flip oven to broil and cook for 10-15 minutes more or until chicken and vegetables are browned.

Foodie Penpal, The First

2013-04-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, I finally decided to stop reading about how fantastic The Lean Green Bean Foodie Penpal program is and actually become a participant. Foodie Penpals is a program where friendly foodies send other foodies food by post. I like pen pals. I like presents. I like food. It seemed like a good idea.

For April, I sent a box full of gluten-free, wheat-free, soy-free vegan yumminess to Kelly of Washington, D.C. (in my excitement, I forgot to take a photo!) and Christine of Sebastopol, California sent me this beautiful assortment of deliciousness:

Garlic rosemary crostini
Pineapple jalapeño jam
Cranberry strawberry jam
Soup mix
Dried strawberries
Falafel mix
Fig cookies
And the little red box held four delicious cake batter truffles -- blueberry (my favorite), red velvet, lemon-ginger, and raspberry

So far, I've eaten all the cake batter truffles and half of the fig cookies. Also, I've found the pineapple jalapeño jam is very good with smoked ham and havarti on toasted crusty bread!

Slow Cooker Barbecue, It's A Thing

2013-04-28T09:21:00.000-04:00

It's not warm enough here yet for picnicking outside, but I've been itching for a picnic ... so I threw one inside with potato salad, pickled beets, and slow cooker barbecue chicken. Yes, barbecue chicken in my slow cooker. Because BHG said I could and BHG Knows All.

There are many other slow cooker barbecue chicken recipes on the Internet, but most of them are all "dump everything in a slow cooker and let it cook for X hours." The BHG recipe, "Chicken Drumsticks with Barbecue Sauce,"calls for broiling the naked drumsticks for 15-20 minutes before popping them in the slow cooker. This step crisps the skin and renders out quite a lot of fat. You could skin the chicken, instead, but BHG's method is easy and works quite well. The skin, what there was left of it after four hours on low, was very thin and had pretty much melted into the meat.

Slow Cooker Red Lentil Soup

2013-04-26T07:49:00.000-04:00

This soup was inspired by a recipe for "Red Lentil Soup" in Michele Scicolone's The Mediterranean Slow Cooker (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). I'd been meaning to try her recipe for weeks, but never had quite the right ingredients on hand. I decided to just go ahead and do the best I could with what I had. And I think I did.

This is delicious soup, subtle and savory, that will fill you up without leaving you feeling filled up. It doesn't need any accompaniment, although a bit of fresh fruit never goes amiss, and is just as good for breakfast as for lunch or dinner. I've mostly been eating it for breakfast as my tummy's been a bit sensitive lately and this lentil soup's a gentle way to start the day.

Slow Cooker Red Lentil Soup
Makes 6 generous servings

Ingredients
1 pound red lentils, rinsed, drained, and picked over
1 large red onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 14.5 oz can Muir Glen fire-roasted adobo-seasoned petit diced tomatoes
3 large garlic cloves, pressed
1 dried bay leaf
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 14 oz can full-fat coconut milk

Directions
Combine all in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until the vegetables are tender (Do the sweet potatoes break up a bit when you stir the pot? You're good). Remove bay leaf. Puree soup with immersion blender. Adjust seasoning as necessary.

If you can't find the adobo-seasoned tomatoes (while I found them at the grocery store, they don't seem to exist on the Muir Glen website) just use a plain can of fire-roasted tomatoes and add a teaspoon or so of adobo seasoning.

I also made "Balsamic Chicken with Capers" from the The Mediterranean Slow Cooker and they were everything chicken from a slow cooker should be -- tender, moist, and richly flavored. And so easy to throw together as it asks for ingredients that are always in my kitchen. I did not remove the skin from the chicken before cooking and it seemed almost to melt into the meat as the fat rendered out during the cooking process. Yum! I will definitely make this recipe again.

Chard-tastic Sausage and Black Bean Stoup

2013-04-22T07:35:00.000-04:00

Trader Joe's was selling ten ounce bags of washed, chopped, and ready-to-cook Kaleidoscope Chard for $1.99 a bag. Of course, I bought two. And then I brought them home and realized there really wasn't room in the fridge for two bags of chard. So I made soup out of one of them. (The other one I keep patting and calling "pretty" ... as if it were a new pet and not something I will be eating soon).

This soup is based on the recipe for "Black Bean Soup with Sausage and Greens" from Beth Hensperger's Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker for Two. I made Hensperger's recipe a few years ago and, while it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped (my own fault), I'd been meaning to revisit it.

When I made the recipe before I remember it came out too thin for my taste, so I threw in a diced sweet potato and some red lentils this time 'round hoping it would help thicken things up. I also used more chard and sausage, while reducing the amount of broth, and threw in a can of tomatoes for extra flavor.

Darlings, it was fabulous. Spicy, creamy, meaty ... fab. I ate it for breakfast. For lunch. For supper. And, yes, for a snack. It's been four days and the soup is gone and no-one helped me eat it. I ate it all, yum.

Chard, Sausage, and Black Bean Soup
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
2 tsp coconut oil
1 large carrot, diced small
1 large onion, diced small
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced small
1 cup red lentils, rinsed, drained, and picked over
10 oz bag Trader Joe's raw washed chopped Swiss chard
12 oz package (5 sausages) Trader Joe's fully-cooked spicy jalapeño chicken sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
15 oz can Trader Joe's refried black beans with jalapeño peppers
15 oz can Muir Glen Organic fire-roasted adobo-seasoned petite diced tomatoes

Directions
Heat oil in a large pot. Add carrot, onion, celery, and sausage and cook, stirring occasionally, until sausage is browned and onion is translucent. Add to slow cooker with chard, sweet potato, refried beans, tomatoes, and broth. Stir to combine. Cook on High for 3 hours. Stir and season to taste.

This is really thick soup -- much more like a stew -- so you might want to add more broth at the end. I like thick bean soups so left it as was.

Figgy Ham Quesdilla & Flatbread

2013-04-20T09:29:00.000-04:00

I made a delicious fig spread for March's Eating the Alphabet Challenge and, while I've found it's great on crackers with little blue cheese, I've been wondering what it would be like in a ham panini -- smoked ham, creamy havarti, peppery arugula, thick crusty bread. Trouble is, I don't have any bread in the house. Nor do I own a panini press.

But I do have tortillas and a skillet ...

Fig Spread & Ham Quesadilla
Serves 1 or 2, depending

Ingredients
2 Tbsp neufchâtel
¼ cup havarti cheese, shredded [Boar's Head Cream Havarti]
2 Tbsp fig spread
2 thin slices black forest ham, sliced into fine ribbons [Boar's Head Lower Sodium]
1 handful arugula
2 8-inch whole wheat tortillas

Directions
Smear one tortilla with fig spread and the other with cream cheese leaving a ½-inch border around the edge.

Sprinkle one tortilla with shredded cheese, arugula, and ham. Cover with remaining tortilla.

Lay the quesadilla in a very hot nonstick skillet. Cook on each side until the tortilla is crisp and golden (about 1 minutes for each side).

Remove from skillet and let sit 1-2 minutes. Cut into 4 wedges and serve with a small green salad dressed with (fig!) balsamic vinegar and olive or flax oil.

You can also make a fancy-pants flatbread "pizza" using most of the same ingredients -- smear fig spread around like you would tomato sauce on a flatbread and top with shredded havarti. Broil just until the cheese is melted and the flatbread is a little brown around the edges. Top with arugula, ham, a drizzle of fig balsamic vinegar and season with fresh ground black pepper. A sprinkling of crumbled blue cheese wouldn't go amiss, either.

This is definitely a knife-and-fork pizza ... or, if you're a barbarian like me, you can roll up the flatbread and eat it like a wrap!

Improv Challenge: Eggs & Bacon

2013-04-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

I admit I really had no idea what to do with April's Improv Challenge ingredients. Eggs and bacon are delish, yes, but how to make them interesting enough for the Improv Challenge without creating some kind of dangerous bacon-enhanced cupcake? Because that's what everyone thinks when they hear "eggs and bacon," right? Cupcakes?

I wandered through Pinterest, looking for savory recipes that served one or two. While I was toying with a recipe for sweet potato hash topped with a lovely soft poached egg, I stumbled across Living Paleo's recipe for "Sweet Potato, Bacon and Egg Salad" and knew I had found The One.

Bacon, Egg, and Sweet Potato Salad
Adapted from Living Paleo's "Sweet Potato, Bacon and Egg Salad"
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into thumbnail-sized cubes
2 large eggs
4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
4 Tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
2 Tbsp finely minced shallot
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions
Hard-cook eggs according to your favorite method -- I put mine (6, because it's just as easy as 2) in a saucepan, cover them with cold water, put the lid on, and let them come to boil. Then I remove them from the stove and let them sit for 10 minutes. Submerge them in a bowl of ice water until cooled, peel, and chop.

Cook bacon according to your favorite method -- I baked mine on a foil-lined jelly roll pan at 400F° for about 20 minutes. I like a really crisp, slightly blackened bacon so ytmv.

Put sweet potato in a saucepan, cover with water, and heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer for about 4 minutes or until easily pierced with a knife.

Combine dill, mayonnaise, lemon juice and zest, and shallot in a medium mixing bowl. Add eggs, sweet potato, and bacon. Stir well. Season with pepper to taste.

The original recipe notes this salad can be eaten warm or cold. As it serves two, I ate half warm for breakfast and the other half cold over a bed of shredded romaine for lunch. While I think lunch's flavors were better for having sat a few hours, I preferred the salad warm. Therefore, I recommend you let it sit and then warm it a little in the microwave before you eat it. (The bacon seemed as crisp at lunch as at breakfast, so no worries about soggy bacon).

Eating the Alphabet: F is for Figgy-Fig-Figs

2013-04-15T08:00:00.001-04:00

I used to buy a yummy fig and ginger jam from Stonewall Kitchen, but stopped as I am the only one in my household who likes figs and it takes me so long to get through a 12.5 oz jar that the jam goes green and fuzzy before I see the bottom. I've pondered making my own jam and, since April's Eating the Alphabet challenge is E and/or F ingredients, I thought now would be as good a time as any to find a recipe.

I wanted a simple recipe with a straight-forward ingredient list. A refrigerator jam, of course, since I have no patience for hot-water baths and canning rigs. And obviously not a lot of jam, since it's just me.

While I looked at many recipes (some rather sophisticated with white wine and such), I ended up modifying a simple Weight Watchers recipe ... and a good thing, too, as it made a really yummy spread! Very figgy, but not too sweet and the lemon keeps it bright. Also very thick and sticky so, if you're like me and seriously uncoordinated in the morning, be careful not to smear it all over your eyeglasses.

Zesty Fig Spread
Modified from Weight Watchers' recipe
Makes about 1 cup of spread (2 tablespoons/serving)

Ingredients
7 oz package dried Mission figs, stems removed [Sunmaid]
1 heaping tsp fresh peeled diced ginger root
2 oz orange juice
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
⅛ tsp table salt

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated by ¾ the amount, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse on medium-high speed until mixture is well combined and smooth.

What can you do with this spread, you ask? Many delicious things! Put it on crackers with a little blue cheese.

Make a flatbread pizza with it.

Or a yummy quesadilla.

Yay for figs! Figgy-fig-figs!

Roasted Salmon & Asparagus

2013-04-13T17:29:00.000-04:00

Since one of my "lifestyle changes" is to eat more wild caught fish of discoverable provenance, I've been buying bags of frozen wild caught Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets -- mainly because it's more convenient and slightly cheaper than fresh. Does frozen wild caught taste as good as fresh wild caught? Not quite, but it's still steps above fresh farmed.

Mind you, frozen or fresh, wild salmon is a lot leaner than the farm-raised stuff and so cooks faster. It seems obvious, but I didn't know and turned my first piece of wild caught salmon into salmon jerky. Ah well, practice makes perfect!

Asparagus and salmon with garlic oil, minced shallot, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Roasted, uncovered, in a 400F° oven for about 10 minutes.

Roast Chicken & Chicken Soup

2013-04-11T10:06:00.002-04:00

Last weekend, I thawed and roasted a beautiful four-pound chicken. Stuffed with thyme, rubbed with olive oil, and dusted with Bell's Seasoning, it roasted on a bed of chopped red cabbage, carrots, celery, onion, sweet and white potatoes. Who needs a roasting rack when you have vegetables? A bed of them elevates the chicken quite nicely and they get to soak up all the yummy chicken juices.

Indeed, the vegetables were phenomenally good and I freely admit I ate all the cabbage and sweet potatoes in one sitting. The chicken, alas, was merely good and while I enjoyed it at dinner with its roasted companions, I was disinclined to pick from the carcass as I processed it for storage.

But that's okay, you know. A merely good chicken can still make a pretty mean soup! We're suffering from a shortage of vegetables (I ate them all) so I made the soup with frozen chopped sweet potatoes, frozen chopped rainbow chard, red onion, garlic, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, carrots, and a scant handful of quick-cooking barley. Ordinarily, I'd have used "traditional" vegetables like peas, carrots, corn, and green beans but needs must. (The Husband loves him some traditional chicken soup, so I don't think it will go over well with him. More soup for me!)

Steak, Tomatoes, and Potatoes

2013-04-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

I was in the mood for steak and potatoes late last week and, happily, had a nice piece of organic grass fed steak in the freezer. I seared the steak in a very hot pan then popped it in a 400F° oven for 10 minutes. Came out perfect!

We ate the steak with sautéed cherry tomatoes and my mom's oven-fried potatoes. They're not really fried, but that's what she called them on the recipe card. They're really awesome potatoes and taste even better then next day with a runny egg.

Mom's Oven-Fried Potatoes

Ingredients
6 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 large onion, chopped into thumbnail-sized pieces
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
Salt & pepper to taste
Smoked paprika
Dried parsley

Directions
Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray 13x9 baking dish. Put potatoes and onions in dish. Liberally season with salt, pepper, and paprika. Toss. Dot with butter. Cover and bake 50 minutes. Uncover and broil 10 minutes longer or until browned and a little crunchy on top.

If you want to use fewer potatoes, that's fine. Just remember the rule of thumb is one tablespoon butter per potato. Also, be very liberal with the seasonings. I'm fond of Bourbon Barrel Foods' Bourbon Smoked Paprika, but Penzeys Smoked Spanish Paprika is also pretty fine.

Unplanned Chicken is Delicious

2013-04-06T16:42:00.000-04:00

My little red car of adorabs, who has faithfully shuttled me to and from work for six years, stopped working Thursday night. A jump got it going, but it was clearly unhappy, so I dropped it off at the dealer. It turned out I just needed a new battery -- they don't last forever, unfortunately -- and little red car of adorabs was ready for pick-up Friday afternoon. This meant I arrived home from work much later than usual and the fantastic chicken recipe I'd planned on trying out now seemed too long and complicated. So I made Cooking Light's "Sautéed Chicken Breasts wth Balsamic Vinegar Pan Sauce" instead and it was delicious.

I pounded the boneless chicken breasts until they were flattish to help them cook more uniformly and substituted organic almond flour for all-purpose flour, but otherwise followed Cooking Light's recipe exactly as written. It was easy and, as I said, delicious. Served over a bed if parslied rice with thyme-y peas and parsley garnish, it looked elegant enough to serve guests. Oh, my darlings, you must try this recipe.

Red Cabbage, I ❤ You

2013-04-04T08:56:00.000-04:00

I've made the Vegetarian Slow Cooker's "Bavarian Red Cabbage (Sauerkraut)" twice now and I am just thoroughly enamored with the dish. Sweet, tart, savory ... yum!

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to tweak the recipe a little bit each time. The first time, I used a red onion instead of yellow and added a tablespoon of ground caraway. The second time, I kept those changes and also reduced the sugar and added a bay leaf.

Bavarian Red Cabbage

Ingredients
1 small head red cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped
1 medium red onion, peeled, diced
1 cup very hot water
2 tsp salt
½ tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp ground caraway
3 Tbsp unsalted butter

Directions
Add all ingredients except butter to the slow cooker insert. Stir. Dot with butter. Cover and cook on High for 3-4 hours or Low for 6-8 hours.

Next time, I'm inclined to try swapping out the white vinegar and sugar for cider vinegar and honey ... I might also throw in some unsweetened dried cranberries or sour cherries.

It's spring and I'm in love with cabbage.

(The peas and carrots dish shown in the above photo was made using Chow's "Herbed Peas and Carrots" recipe. I threw fresh thyme in with the peas and it was really good -- way better than the frozen stuff).

"Traditional" Easter Breakfast

2013-04-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

As an adult, I don't usually bother with the traditional Easter breakfast I ate as a child -- hard-cooked eggs, buttery pumpernickel or rye toast, fresh kielbasa, spicy mustard, horseradish and beets -- as I'm a slugabed who will happily forego food for extra snoozes. This year, however, I picked up a beautiful polish sausage made by Martin Rosol's in New Britain and decided to go for it.

But not on Easter day, because I was too buy making Easter dinner. No, I ate the traditional Easter breakfast as lunch on April Fool's Day. And it was good even if it wasn't quite the same!

(I followed Michigan Cottage Cook's easy instructions for cooking fresh kielbasa and I strongly recommend her methods if you're not sure what to do with fresh Polish sausage).

Happy Easter!

2013-03-30T21:53:00.001-04:00

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays and dyeing Easter eggs must be my favorite tradition. I remember, when I was very small, my mother would let me chose the colors and add the drops of dye to the vinegar. The tiny puddles of dye always looked too little to matter, but then she'd add boiling water from the kettle and ... well, six-year-old me thought it was a kind of magic. As I grew older, I was eventually allowed to take on more egg dyeing responsibilities and, by the time I was in high school, the job was all mine. And I reveled in it, turning out all sorts of weird, festive colors that made my mother sigh a little.

I all grown up now, with no children of my own, yet I still dye eggs. I dye eggs and remember the Easters of my childhood. Olives on my fingers, morsels of spiral ham snuck from the roasting pan when no-one was looking, my grandmother's pirogi and kielbasa. And, of course, the Easter basket! My mother made the best Easter basket -- jellybeans and a chocolate bunny, of course, but also markers and watercolors, coloring books and crayons, bubbles and an awesome cuddly stuffed bunny.

Greek Yogurt, and Pears, and Flax! Oh, my!

2013-03-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought that yoghurt, pears, and flax could be so delicious? I've eaten this delightful mess two days running now and, as I fully expect to eat it again tomorrow, I thought I should post the recipe.

Yogurt with Pears & Flax
Serves 1

Ingredients
1 6 oz cup fat-free Greek yoghurt
1 Anjou pear, peeled, cored, and diced
1 Tbsp whole ground flaxseed meal
1 Tbsp flaxseed oil
Honey, to taste
Ground cinnamon and nutmeg, to taste
Crushed toasted hazelnuts, if desired

Directions
Mound the yogurt in the center of a soup plate. Surround with pear. Top with remaining ingredients. Eat.

It's nutty and tangy, crunchy and sweet. Yum. So good I find myself running my finger 'round the empty bowl, trying to scoop up every last micromorsel.

Sardines, My Fishy Darlings

2013-03-26T08:59:00.000-04:00

Hungry and too lazy to go food shopping, I turned to "Sardines with Sun-Dried Tomato and Capers," a recipe I pinned weeks ago when I decided sardines and mackerel should be my new fishy BFF's as I tried to pack more healthy oils and lean protein into my diet. This has been no hardship as sardines and mackerel are delicious.

Ingredients: Oil-packed sardines, lemon juice, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, sriracha.

I usually buy boneless filleted sardines packed in olive oil and did not realize Wild Planet's "Wild Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil" would be any different as the packaging said "Delicious meaty portions cleaned and scale-free." Therefore, I was quite surprised to see little fishy spines when I started mixed everything together! This made me feel a little squeamish and I at the spread very ... cautiously ... always expecting to crunch down on spiny goodness.

Which never happened. The bones broke up, mixed right in, and tasted no different than the surrounding fish mixture. Or the crunchiness of the crisp bread obscured the crunchy fish bones. Either way, it was all actually quite good and I would happily make it again for lunch.

If I were serving this to other people, however, I think I would probably use good quality oil-packed tuna instead of the sardines. I would also throw in some chopped pitted Niçoise olives and fresh parsley. Indeed, fresh herbs all around would make this a great summer dish.

Celebrating Spring with Strawberries & Blue Cheese

2013-03-24T14:14:00.000-04:00

It really is spring! The calendar says so and nature agrees!

Wanting to celebrate, I made a beautiful “spring” salad of baby arugula, strawberries, crumbled blue cheese, and sliced almonds dressed with white balsamic vinegar and flax seed oil. I used a lovely bit of Boucher Family Farm's Madison Blue in the salad -- it's very creamy with great tang. At the moment, one of my favorite blues.

While I made this salad, I founding myself singing Miriam Makeba's "Love Tastes Like Strawberries." I'd never heard of Makeba until I saw her commemorative Google doodle and now I can't get enough. Good thing my library system has a vast and varied music collection!

Birthday Bakery Crawl

2013-03-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

Took The Husband on a bakery crawl for his birthday, because The Husband loves himself some baked goods and we live in an area full of bakeries we have not visited yet. You would think, considering how much money we spend on baked goods every year, that such a thing could not be true and yet it is.

While I'd plotted a great many bakeries thanks to Yelp and Google Maps, we only visited three before The Husband cried uncle! I have no doubt we'll visit the remainder soon ... a bakery a weekend would probably be the sensible method.

Sensible, schmensible. Visit all the bakeries. Eat all the things.

Cupcakes from Sugarbelle

Chocolate mousse cake from La Petit France

Assorted tarts from Aby's Bakery

Improv Challenge: Peas and Carrots

2013-03-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

For March's Improv Challenge, I was all set to tackle my Mom's split-pea soup recipe. I even bought a ham! But then the weather warmed up just enough to suggest that spring was around the corner ... and I didn't want soup, anymore. Fickle tummy! So I made a delicious salad of many shredded crunchy things ...

Crunchy Chicken Salad
Makes 4 large servings

Ingredients
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 oz Napa cabbage, shredded
4 oz red cabbage, shredded
4 oz sugar snap peas, strings removed, chopped on the diagonal
2 oz bean sprouts
1 red bell pepper (ribs and seeds removed), thinly sliced
1 large carrot, coarsely shredded
4 scallions, thinly sliced
½ cup sliced almonds
1 recipe "Ginger-Sesame Dressing", as needed [or Newman's Own, Maple Grove Farms, Annie's Homegrown Organics, etc]

Directions
Pound the breasts until they are flattish and then marinate in some dressing overnight or until needed.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper or foil, add marinated breasts, and bake at 350F° for 20 minutes or until breasts are cooked through. Set aside, let cool, then shred into small pieces with two forks. (Chicken can be prepared a day or so in advance, if desired).

Toss everything together. Add dressing, as desired, and toss until salad is evenly coated in dressing. Divide between four plates. Garnish with more sliced scallions and almonds, if desired. Eat

To make assembling this salad easier (and faster), I shredded/chopped all of the vegetables in my food processor using the "slicing" plate (my "shredding" plate shreds too fine for salad, imho).

If It's Spring, Then I Must Be Craving Salad

2013-03-19T00:02:00.000-04:00

Regardless of what the weather may be doing, my body knows Spring is upon us. I'm waking up earlier and earlier and experiencing great fits of restlessness. I itch to be outside, in the sun, prepping my garden beds or just watching the birds return from their winter homes. And my craving for salad knows no bounds.

To soothe my craving, I made two salads of baby arugula, shredded carrot, chopped roasted beets, sliced almonds, crumbled blue cheese, chopped egg, and crumbled crisp-cooked bacon. The first, I dressed with flaxseed oil and yummy-on-everything Katz Late Harvest Zinfandel Agrodolce vinegar. It was fab and I felt positively righteous eating it. "Look at me,” I thought, “catering to my cravings like a healthy and sensible person rather than eating too much of something I don't particularly enjoy to make up for ignoring my cravings. Go, me."

And then I dressed the second salad with Cindy's Kitchens' positively addictive Gorgonzola & White Balsamic and felt a smidge less righteous, because I'm still having a hard time getting my brain to forget the "fat = bad food" and "bad food = food guilt" philosophy I let it marinate in over the past three decades.

Why-Isn't-It-Spring-Yet? Comfort Food

2013-03-17T23:34:00.001-04:00

Grey. Cold. Blah. Winter had me craving some serious comfort food last week -- braised cabbage, macaroni and cheese, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and meatloaf with brown gravy. And I fed those cravings. All of them. Took two meals, but they were satisfied.

I can't think of anything I'd rather pair with macaroni and cheese than braised red cabbage. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. I used the Vegetarian Slow Cooker's recipe for "Bavarian Braised Cabbage" and it was so good! And easy! The Husband was disappointed the recipe was meatless and did not eat any ... which was fine by me. I ate the whole pot in a day.

The beautiful macaroni and cheese was by Kraft. Yes. Hearty Four Cheese Kraft Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese Dinner mostly made as the bag directed ... I couldn't read the silver lettering on the bread crumb and cheese powder packets and ended up throwing bread crumbs in when I wanted cheese. This mistake turned out pretty okay as the breadcrumbs helped thicken the sauce. I did tart the macaroni and cheese up with a thick layer of shredded Cabot Seriously Sharp before I put it in the oven and, oh my, the cheesy goodness.

I know, I know. Homely! But comfort doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to be comforting. And delicious. And it was. Enough so that there wasn't any leftovers. I used Coconut & Lime's easy recipe for "Peas & Carrots Meatloaf" and I recommend you give it a try! I would stress grating the carrots finely, as the recipe directs, because I grated mine quite coarsely and they didn't blend well with the other ingredients -- which might be why the meatloaf fell apart, come to think of it.

The gravy's just a basic beef-stock-and-herbs reduction and the potatoes are instant. Yes! Cooked with chicken broth instead of water and tarted up with lashings of heavy cream and melted butter, they're nothing to sneer at.