Chicken Drumsticks glazed with Cranberry Sauce

Ever since my little one was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, I have started restocking my pantry and readjusting my cooking...free of wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts. Little did I know, a lot of sauces and marinades have soy and wheat in them.

Anyway...here is one that fortunately I do not have to modify. And it's perfect for the fall.


Cranberry Sauce Ingredients:
1 bag of fresh cranberries, 1 small apple (diced), 3/4 cup water, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground clovers

Cranberry Sauce Cooking Directions:
1. Mix all the ingredients in a pot and bring to boil.
2. Simmer for 20 minutes and stir often.

Chicken Drumsticks Ingredients:
1/2 cup cranberry sauce, 6 chicken drumsticks, 2 tsp honey, juice from 1/2 lemon

Chicken Drumsticks Cooking Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425F.
2. Mix cranberry sauce with honey and lemon juice.
3. Pour sauce over chicken drumsticks and bake for 40 minutes. Turn drumsticks over at least once during baking.

Seafood Antipasto

This recipe was inspired by a dish I had in a seafod restaurant.  Nomally, I make it with squid but, they didn't have any at the store so, I chose scallops instead.   This is an extremely flexible salad, mix and match as you like. I served with a Cambria Chardonnay because that's what was open but it went quite well.

The quantities are for 2 salads

For the salad dressing:
1 large garlic clove, minced
1TBSP balsamic dresing
1TBSP Red-wine vinegar
1/4 tsp crumbled resemary
1/2 tsp dried basil,
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup olive oil

For the salads
1/2 bulb fennel
Spinach
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Mushrooms, quartered
Provolone wedges - or your favoite cheese, it's chipotle cheddar from the Farmer's Market in the picture
Kalamata Olives
Pepperoncini
Fresh chopped basil

Clams
Shrimp
Octopus

Dressing for shrimp/octopus
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp dried hot pepper flakes

Preparation
Combine salad dressing ingredients
Blanch fennel - 4 minutes

Assemble salads
Combine on each plate
Spinach
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Fennel
Provolone Wedges
Basil

Steam clams
Combine dressing for shrimp and octopus
Toss shrimp and octopus in oil/garlic mixture
Place on perforated grill rack, grill 2-3 minutes per side.
Place seafood on top of salad and dress

Sesame Chicken Salad with Pineapple

So...what to do with the pineapple left over from the other night? Well...let's make a salad fit for summer!

Ingredients: 1/2 medium pineapple (diced), 1/2 orange bell pepper (diced), 1/4 cabbage (shredded), 1 head of lettuce - shredded (my favorite is the hydroponic butter lettuce...but other types would do), 6 pieces boneless skinless chicken thighs, 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons tamari, 2 tablespoons almond butter, 2 tablespoons tahini, 1/4 juice from pineapple, juice from 1 lemon, 1/4 cup sesame oil, 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, salt to taste

1. Cube and cook chicken thighs.
2. In a bowl, mix the vinegar, tamari, almond butter, tahini, pineapple juice, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds together. Add sesame oil and blend well.
3. In a large bowl, combine cabbage, lettuce, pineapple, and bell pepper. Toss with dressing and top with chicken pieces. Sprinkle with remaining sesame seeds and serve.

Alternatively, you can add 1 cup of diced mango as well to the salad. Afterall, this is summer!!

Roasted Pork Loin with stuffed spinach and mushroom

The recipe originally came from Whole Foods and I modified it a slight bit to add some asian flare :)

Ingredients:
1 boneless pork loin, 1 package of baby spinach, 1 king mushroom, 1 glove of garlic (chopped), 2 teaspoon Lee Kum Kee Chinese BBQ (Char Siu) Sauce

1. Split king mushroom in half length wise, then cut into thin slices. Cook in a little bit of olive oil for ~3-5 minutes until tender. Add spinach and chopped garlic and cook until soft.
2. Butterfly the pork loin. Spoon spinach and mushroom mix on top. Roll the pork loin closed and tie with kitchen string at 2-inch intervals.
3. Brush the outside with Chinese BBQ sauce and let sit for 10 minutes.
4. Brown all sides the stuffed pork loin in a pan with olive oil for a few minutes.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 350F for 1hr 20 mins.
6. Cut into thick slices and serve.

Seafood Rice Bake with Pineapple

So...it has been a long while since I cook something interesting (well, I guess that's what happens when you have a baby?). Anyway...so here it is...an improvised version of one of my favorite dishes.

Ingredients: 1/2 pound shrimp (deveined and peeled), 1/4 pound scallop, 4 squid tubes, 1 cup of uncooked jasmine rice, 1 can coconut milk (unsweetened), 1/3 medium fresh pineapple, 1 teaspoon fish sauce, chopped green onions

1. Cut squid tubes into rings.
2. Sautee seafood and chopped green onion in pan.
3. Cut pineapple into chunks and add to seafood sautee; cook for additional 5 minutes.
4. In separate pot, mix coconut milk and rice. Cook in medium heat for 20 minutes and stir often. Lower the heat and cook for additional 10-20 minutes.
5. Mix seafood and rice in casserole. Bake uncovered at 350 F for 30 minutes.
(Alternatively, you can bake in the pineapple shell for more flavor)

Enjoy!

Tuna Nicoisé

Last night, I made one of my favorite summer dishes tuna nicoisé and I managed to remember to take pictures this time! I use this recipe from Epicurious as my base and adjust from there. Earlier in the day, I roasted some small (1-2 inch) potatoes with rosemary and garlic. I roast about 3 or 4 per person. I also boiled the eggs (1 per person). When it’s time to make dinner, I start with the dressing. I like to use a lemon and oil based dressing because it goes better with the wine than a vinegar dressing. In general, for 2 people, I use about 2-3 TBS of lemon juice, a small mashed (with salt in a mortar and pestle) clove of garlic, about ¼ tsp of mashed anchovy, not more than a tsp of dijon mustard, I then slowly whisk in about 4-6 TBS of olive oil until it’s all emulsified, taste for flavor and add herbs and pepper– thyme and basil are nice and rosemary would complement the potatoes. I don’t add salt which is already in the garlic paste and the anchovy. While I am making the dressing, I briefly steam the green beans.


Once this is done, I begin to construct the salad, I like Boston lettuce as a base and I make a bed of this in wide flat pasta bowls. I quarter (or halve, depending on size) the potatoes and eggs and lay them nicely on the lettuce, then I add some halved cherries tomatoes and sprinkle with nicoisé olives (or kalamatas in a pinch), capers, and chopped fresh basil. I put about half of the salad dressing over this. Once this is all nicely laid out, I grill the tuna.

First I make the pepper blend for the crust. I like to use a pepper blend because it’s pretty. I crack it by hand in my mortar and pestle, but, sometimes, for convenience, I just grind regular pepper in the mill. I usually add a bit of lavender flowers to the crust to enhance the flavor of Provence and pick out some nice floral notes in the pinot noir, I’ll be serving. You could also add mustard seeds which go nicely with the dressing and also complement the pinot. I grill the tuna until it’s still pink but, not red in the center. For my 1 inch think steaks, this was just shy of 2 minutes a side. I cook it a bit more than they do in restaurants because, honestly, it’s very hard to get restaurant quality tuna for home, mainly because of the longer journey (good fish restaurants can go straight to the dock) and inconsistent handling along the way. I slice the tuna, lay it over the salad and finish with the rest of the dressing. Pour a big glass of very nice pinot noir and then it’s officially summer! Yum!

Almost Fried Chicken

Those who know me, know that I never ever fry anything (frying being very different from sautéing). In fact, I don’t even know how and generally regarded it as evil.


I recently came across a recipe for Greek marinated fried chicken (kotopoulo tiganto marinato) that peaked my interest. It never occurred to me that you could marinate something before you fried it.

When I read the recipe, I was intrigued to see that they also had instructions to half-fry and then bake the chicken...this was looking more interesting all the time so, I put it on my meal list for last week and we had it for dinner last night. The original recipe can be found here on Epicurious.

I didn’t have enough lemons so, I chose to use a souvlaki marinade made of 1 part red wine vinegar, 1 part red wine, 2 parts olive oil and plenty of garlic, fresh oregano, a crumbled bay leave and salt and pepper.

The recipe says to remove the skin but, I forgot to do that and didn’t realize until after I had marinated the chicken so, I left it on and coated the pieces in flour.

From there, I followed the technique in the recipe except that I could not bring myself to put an inch of oil in the pan so it was probably half an inch. The recipe says you can choose to use a blend of olive and peanut oil but I used all peanut oil since olive oil has a lower smoke point and I felt that would make it harder to fry.

The frying went very well, no smoke, and not much mess. The chicken developed a lovely golden color and looked all crispy (sorry, forgot to take a picture :-(  ). The time required in the oven was much less than indicated in the recipe. I think it was about 25 min in the oven (I’m sure you all know I used a meat thermometer to confirm this). I was amazed to see that it came out just like it was supposed to and you could really taste the marinade. Jim gave an emphatic “GOOD” between (or perhaps during) mouthfuls....which, for Jim, is pretty high praise! Not sure I would do it again because I am still not a fan of fried food but, it was fun and tasty.