Radishes, Butter and Sea Salt

I have never been to France, and I desperately want to go. My main motivation is the food, of course!

I read in Gourmet that a common French snack is radishes served with a lick of soft butter and sea salt. This simple combination seems so elementary, yet it's a perfect trio that showcases the best of each ingredient.

If you use good quality unsalted butter (Plugra's European style butter is great. You can buy it at Whole Foods) and coarse sea salt, the result is heavenly. The peppery radish is tempered by the creamy butter, while the coarse sea salt adds a nice crunchy texture.

If you want to serve this at a dinner party, try these open-face butter and radish sandwiches from Bon Appetite:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Open-Face-Butter-and-Radish-Sandwiches-241634

THE Meatloaf

Today Brad and I made THE meatloaf. This is the best meatloaf I have ever had, and it's our third or fourth time making it.

The recipe is from Gourmet February 08 issue. You can find it here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Meatloaf-241512

Yes, that's prunes in the meatloaf. Trust me, it makes the dish, and yet you don't even taste it.

To accompany the meatloaf I made Gourmet's unstuffed sweet and sour cabbage, which you can find here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Unstuffed-Sweet-and-Sour-Cabbage-350572

I made it without the meat, and with raisins substituting for cranberries.

The finished dish!

Coconut Banana Muffin Disappointment

Brad and I are going to a picnic tomorrow, so I made some coconut banana muffins to take. I followed this recipe from Gourmet magazine:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Banana-Coconut-Muffins-109473

Brad did a taste test and said that they were too dense and a bit dry. It must have had to do with the addition of the dried coconut. My previous banana muffin recipe is much better--it's basically just like this recipe, but without the dried coconut. (See "A (Not Very) Lazy Sunday" post) The result is moist and not too sweet.

But they look so pretty...

A (Not Very) Lazy Sunday

With Brad at work all day on a Sunday, I had a lot of fun in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Yes, I made all of this in one day! (Plus I cleaned the entire house.. um, it's harder than it looks and I now have a greater appreciation for the cleaning Brad does every Sunday)

BACON CARROT SOUP

I made this soup today, and it was delicious! I just kind of threw it together, so there's no recipe, but I listed the ingredients below. I thought this soup was even better than the sweet potato soup in my last post, due to the tasty addition of the bacon and sour cream garnish. Brad's taking this soup to work for lunch tomorrow with a salad.

Ingredients:
-roasted carrots with sage, olive oil, pepper
-homemade chicken stock
-cinnamon
-cumin
-butter
-lemon juice
-garnish with sour cream and bacon




BANANA MUFFINS

We had some bananas bordering on overripe today, so I made a small batch of banana muffins. The recipe is my own, and to be honest, I just made it up on the spot. I'm sure it's not the best banana muffin recipe ever, but the results were really tasty. What makes this recipe unusual is the addition of gluten free flour and the use of evaporated cane juice in place of sugar.

BANANA MUFFINS
-1/2 cup regular flour
-3/4 cup Red Mill gluten free flour mix
-1 stick butter, melted
-1 egg
-dash of salt
-1/2 cup evaporated cane juice (or sugar)
-2 ripe bananas
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line muffin cups. Mix flour, sugar and salt in large bowl. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter, vanilla and egg in medium bowl. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (do not overmix).
Divide batter among prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Sprinkle tops with sugar. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.





FIGGY PIGGY CORNISH HEN

This is a recipe in Gourmet's September 2009 issue. Brad loved it and said that it blew our regular chicken dish (see the Chicken with Mustard Vinaigrette recipe in yesterday's post) out of the water. And we thought that dish was as good as it gets.
The pairing of the bacon and figs is perfect, and the hen was juicy all the way through. It's an organic cornish hen from Whole Foods. They're a little pricey at $10 each, but 1/2 a hen was enough for each of us for a meal.

You can find the full recipe here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Figgy-Piggy-Cornish-Hens-354955

Bacon and sliced garlic are sauteed ahead of time and used for garnish


The hen after it's panfried, right before it goes in the oven




The finished product!


And finally, for breakfast today, I made leftover corn and salmon pancakes. This is definitely a keeper!

Balsamic Sticky Ribs

I made balsamic sticky ribs from Gourmet's recipe, and they were unbelievably amazing, even without the grilling. Here's the recipe:

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2009/07/sticky-balsamic-ribs