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.

Earth Hour: Udon Noodles Soup

Over lunch at Tachibana, I wondered if I could make Udon noodles. After looking online, I learned that the recipe was ridiculously simple: flour, water and salt but, the process seemed rather bizarre and involved stepping on the dough.  Of course, I had to try it and Stacy agreed to join in. We chose an epicurious.com recipe for self-stomped noodles.
So...we started! At first, we didn’t think that it would come together; basically, it was just flour and not much water and we wondered how well the dough would stick together without oil or egg  to make it bind. It was very crumbly and at first, I couldn’t get it all to stick together but, with only one additional TBS of water, it quickly became a soft, pliable dough. Amazing! Then came the “stomping”. After a short debate over bag size, we went with the one gallon freezer bag instead of the 25 gallon brining bag. This worked great and Teri arrived in time to aid the stomping efforts. Stomping felt weird but, the dough yielded nicely and the process was very effective and we all talked about stomping our next pie crust.

I tried to roll the dough right after stomping but, it tended to spring back so, we decided to let it rest a few minutes. After that, it rolled out nicely though I did stand up on a low stool to give myself more leverage to get it nice and thin. Next came cutting, the recipe said to fold it like a fan but, we vetoed that as too hard so, we rolled it up but, that made it too hard to get an even cut. In the end ,we just laid it out flat on the cutting board sliced it into ribbons.


Stacy, being far more patient than me, did the slicing. The dough handled very nicely and didn’t stick together and we were able to pile the fresh noodles onto a plate. I covered them with plastic wrap until we were ready to cook them.

Once the amazing broth (that’s another story about how cool seaweed is) was ready, we boiled the noodles for about 5 minutes, drained them, used tongs to put them into bowls and ladled the soup onto them. Yum! Absolutely worth the effort, I can see myself doing this more often!

Warm Chicken Sandwiches with Mushrooms, Spinach and Cheese

We’re not big fans of sandwiches for dinner but, this recipe showed up in the buzz box on epicurious.com and I decided it looked like it was worth a try.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Warm-Chicken-Sandwiches-with-Mushrooms-Spinach-and-Cheese-350964 

 Of course, its not that simple, first, the reviews said it needed to have a little more zip so, like some of the other reviewers, I double the garlic and added a TBS of fresh thyme when I added the garlic.

When I looked at the ciabatta bread at the store, I was, er, underwhelmed.  I considered making my own but, knew that if I didn’t get the bread right, I would have a problem.  Since the recipe said I would be scooping out some of the bread to put the filling in, I chose something called “bowl” bread...never heard of it but, it worked for me, I assume I could have served soup in it or something like that.

When I made the filling, I added the spinach to the chicken and mushroom mixture instead of cooking it separately.  Once that was done, the cheese was grated and the bread had been scooped and spread with mustard, next was the challenge of cramming it all into the bread.  This was surprisingly easy with only a little mess.

Lastly, I wrapped them in foil and baked for 20 minutes while I made the salad.  They came out beautifully and looked just like I thought they would and they tasted great!

making fresh pasta

Last night we had one of my favorite veggie meals, “pasta with asparagus and shiitakes.” Since Jim isn’t such a big fan of “vegetarian night” as we call it, I also made fresh black pepper pasta to make the dish more exciting for him. Making pasta isn’t really any more complicated than any dough recipe. For two people, I generally use about a cup of flour and one egg, a bit of salt and a tablespoon or more of water. I added about 4 tsps of freshly ground pepper to the flour. This can easily be doubled and if we’re hungry, I double it since this is not a whole lot of pasta.


Combine all the dry ingredients on a flat surface or a super big bowl, make a well in the center and put the egg and water in, mix the egg with a fork, incorporating the flour slowly, until you have to use your hands. At this point, the dough will be very dry and incredibly annoying because it just won’t come together. Add water, a teaspoon at a time, until most of the flour is incorporated and the dough is just barely kneadable. If you over do it on the water, just add more flour. Then knead on the counter until you can get a smooth ball, about 5-10 minutes. Put in a large plastic bag and allow to rest for an hour. I like to put mine in the fridge for this because I don’t like to leave food on the counter for too long but, some recipes have you leave it on the counter.

I cut the dough into 4 chunks and use an ancient pasta roller to roll the dough and cut it into noodles but, I suppose if you are strong enough, you can use a rolling pin to roll nice flat sheets and cut the noodles by hand. This takes me about 20 minutes for a 4 person batch of pasta. The dough doesn’t really need to dry, so, I usually roll it right before I am going to cook but, you can do it earlier in the day, put it on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready. I cook it for 3-4 minutes.  Yum!  There is nothing like fresh pasta.

dinner ideas

this week's meal plan:
Chili glazed salmon with orange salsa
Chicken Potpie with Chive Mashed Potato topping the recipe seems rather complicated but, it looks like good comfort food
Shrimp Posole this soup is a favorite of mine cuz it's so easy.  Recipe calls for scallops as well as shrimp but, I only use shrimp which I buy frozen (I always have a bag in the freezer.)  I also add a TBS or two of fresh lime juice to brighten the flavors a bit.
Grilled clams with lemon-ginger butter - this is amazingly simple and tasty
Spicy Turkey Burgers - another fave.  I use a tsp of chopped chipotles in adobo instead of the hot sauce

We're trying a new restaurant in Falls Church, Argia's, this weekend so, I'll have some feedback on that next week.

The Kofte experiment

Yum! We had the Kofte tonight and it came out just the way I had hoped. I made some minor changes to the recipe (of course!) I added garlic to the yogurt sauce and I made this more authentic Muhammara sauce, one with walnuts and bread crumbs but I left the cumin out based on a review of my Middle Eastern cookbooks, which have more authentic (and complicated) recipes and I used panko breadcrumbs - not sure the authentic recipes would include japanese breadcurmbs but, it worked! : -). I opened a bottle of Chateau Musar which is one of the premier wines of Lebanon and I hoped it would compliment the lamb. The first bottled I opened had a damaged cork (wine had actually leaking out around the cork) so, I had to throw it away (I admit, I thought about drinking it anyway because it smelled great!) I opened my last bottle of Musar and I thought it was quite tasty but, Jim really didn’t like it at all, actually, he didn’t like Chateau Musar the first time we tried it but, I didn’t tell him that until after we tried this bottle. He thought it was too musty - so much for aged wine!!! I drank part of his glass too :-). Ahhhh! Happy mouth!

recovering from a month of indulgences

Well, it's been an unhealthy food fest around here so, this week's meals are aiming to be on the healthy side.  Epicurious.com was my go to for this week's menu plan.  Lots of yummy stuff in the buzz box, etc.  Here's the plan:
Mussels with Sherry, Saffron and Paprika.  I'll be adding clams to this for Jim since he doesn't care for mussels
Poblano Albóndigas (meat balls) with Ancho Chile Soup  I'm replacing the ground beef with turkey
Sauteed Tuna with warm olive vinaigrette.  This is a long time favorite of mine. YUM!
Lamb Köfte with Yogurt Sauce and Muhammara.  I  guess lamb's a bit unhealthy but, I love kofte in yogurt
Seared Sea Scallops with Lemongrass Sauce and Basil, Mint and Cilantro Salad
Saffron Linguine with Spicy Shrimp and Vegetables.  This recipe has you toss the linguine with a saffron mixture but that doesn't really work well so, I will probably make real saffron linguine.

Definitely a fishy week, I hope to get my cholesterol under control before I see my Dr....

I also read some interseting recipes by Alex Jamieson, the wife of the supersize me guy.  She wrote a book called "The Great American Detox Diet" about how they "detoxed" him after that month.  Wondering if the book is any good....