(* indicates my current favorites)
APPETIZER
DESSERT
EGGS
GRAINS
MEAT
POULTRY
SAUCES
SOUP
VEGETABLES
WORKS IN PROGRESS
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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:
Fried Quinoa
Have you ever had fried rice? Sure, but have you ever had fried quinoa?
Fried quinoa has the same flavors as fried rice, but the quinoa adds a subtle nuttiness. Quinoa also has a unique pop-in-your-mouth texture, which I love. Here's the ingredients list.
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked quinoa (Note: Quinoa cooks just like rice. 2 cups of water for 1 cup of quinoa)
2 eggs
2 handfuls of frozen peas
3 strips bacon
1/2 onion
soy sauce to taste
drizzle of sesame oil to taste
2 garlic cloves
ginger to taste
pepper to taste
handful of chopped green onion
Directions:
Cook the bacon in a skillet, then set aside.
Add the onion, ginger and garlic, and saute in the bacon fat.
Add the cooked quinoa, peas, bacon, green onion, soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil. Make a hole in the middle of the pan and add your scrambled eggs. Let it cook in the middle of the pan, mixing the eggs occasionally so it all cooks.
Mix everything together and serve!
Similar to the fried rice I make, there's nothing set in stone. It's a very flexible dish, and all sorts of veggies and meats can be added. Play around with the recipe and make it your own.
Julia Child's Poulet Saute (Sauteed Chicken)
For lunch today I made Julia Child's Poulet Saute (Sauteed Chicken) with one chicken thigh. The recipe is on page 254 in her cookbook. According to Julia, a true saute has the chicken cooking entirely in butter or oil; the bird never touches liquid until the very end. This gives the bird that nice crunchy brown exterior.
To cook this dish, just put some butter in a pot or casserole dish, turn up the heat to moderately high, and wait until the butter's foaming starts to subside. Next, place a towel-dried chicken thigh (or any other part of the bird) in the butter for a few minutes, then turn. Make sure the chicken browns on both sides and the butter doesn't burn.
Season the chicken with herbs (I used basil, tarragon and thyme), salt and pepper. For the next 15 minutes, turn down the heat to moderate and cover the pot. Baste the chicken 2 or 3 times during this time period and turn occasionally. Make sure the butter doesn't burn.
Remove the chicken. For the sauce, I just added some dry white wine and a bit of beef stock and butter to the pot. I deglazed the pan and poured the sauce over the chicken. Bon appetite!
Note: Of course, this is a condensed version of Julia's recipe. Hers is two and a half pages long. Buy the book if you haven't already, and let me know which recipes you like to make! :)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
...
There's not much to say today except "Mmm.. Leftover meatloaf."
On the menu for later this week: Julia Child's Ratatouille. It sounds like a simple dish, but Julia herself proclaims that it isn't a simple endeavor if you want to get it "right". I'm up for the challenge. Stay tuned!
Monday, August 31, 2009
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:
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:
I made it without the meat, and with raisins substituting for cranberries.
The finished dish!
Making Chicken Stock
After it's cooled, I put it in ziploc bags and store it in the fridge.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Coconut Macaroons with Stevia
I've been eating too much sugar lately, so I decided to find something that would satisfy my sweet cravings but still be sugar free. Enter Stevia. I took the recipe from this website:
http://www.candida-cure-recipes.com/coconut-macaroon-recipe.html
The macaroons had a wonderful texture, but they were too sweet. I didn't even add all the stevia recommended--I used about 3/4 of the amount recommended. Next time, I will cut the amount of stevia in half.
COCONUT MACAROONS WITH STEVIA
3 large egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups dried, unsweetened, fine shredded coconut (the finer the better)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon dried ground stevia leaf (note: original recipe says 1 tsp, but I thought it was too sweet)
optional – ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Whip the egg whites. I whipped them by hand instead of machine because according to Julia Child, you must be able to do it by hand in order to understand the "vagaries of eggs". Don't you love her? My arm got sore, so Brad and I switched off.
Fold in the dry ingredients.
Place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, about a tablespoon for each macaroon. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 325 degrees. (Mine actually took 25 minutes!). Macaroons are done when the tops are golden brown.
Voila!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Julia Child's Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)
Tonight's dinner party was a success! We had so much delicious food, and everyone left with happy bellies and faces despite the horrid heat wave.
Dinner Party Menu:
-Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons
-Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion, and Parmesan Crisps
-Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)
-Bananas Three Ways: Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream, Bananas and Sour Cream, Toasted Coconut Banana Muffins
Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons
See "A Sneak Peak" post for the ingredients. I garnished this with some sour cream and bacon (not shown). This is such a delicious and satisfying soup, and the cinnamon croutons make it even more outstanding.
Parmesan Crisps with Herbes de Provence
Ron and Fran made these crisps, and they were sooooo good!
Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion
Ron and Fran brought this salad. It was the perfect refreshing accompaniment to the chicken.
Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)
Wow. Sure, Julia Child's dishes take a long time to make, but the effort is so worth it. This chicken was so juicy and tender, and the hollandaise sauce that accompanied it was full of flavor. Brad insisted that we must make this dish again. And again. The sauce is a variation on the standard hollandaise sauce because it uses the pan butter drippings and white wine instead of just plain butter.
Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream
I got this recipe from Eric Ripert's blog, and it is so delicious (and unusual!). I omitted the pepper, but everything else was the same. You make the dish in the toaster--how easy is that? (Eric Ripert actually has a whole bunch of dishes on his blog that you make in the toaster oven. )
The man is a culinary genius, and this is just one of his interesting and delicious creations. I highly recommend trying it yourself.
http://aveceric.com/category/recipes
Desert was really 3 banana deserts in one (hence the name "Banana Three Ways"). I also served my sour cream and banana dish (see "$50 a week challenge" post) and toasted coconut banana muffins. I was surprised that the coconut banana muffins actually came out tasting great after a toasting and a dab of butter! We gave some to Ron and Fran to take home, but made them promise to toast them with butter before eating them.
Dinner Party Menu:
-Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons
-Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion, and Parmesan Crisps
-Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)
-Bananas Three Ways: Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream, Bananas and Sour Cream, Toasted Coconut Banana Muffins
Creamy Carrot and Sage Soup with Cinnamon Croutons
See "A Sneak Peak" post for the ingredients. I garnished this with some sour cream and bacon (not shown). This is such a delicious and satisfying soup, and the cinnamon croutons make it even more outstanding.
Parmesan Crisps with Herbes de Provence
Ron and Fran made these crisps, and they were sooooo good!
Tossed Salad with Mushrooms, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion
Ron and Fran brought this salad. It was the perfect refreshing accompaniment to the chicken.
Julia Child's Poulet Saute aux Herbes de Provence (Chicken Sauteed with Herbs and Garlic, Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce)
Wow. Sure, Julia Child's dishes take a long time to make, but the effort is so worth it. This chicken was so juicy and tender, and the hollandaise sauce that accompanied it was full of flavor. Brad insisted that we must make this dish again. And again. The sauce is a variation on the standard hollandaise sauce because it uses the pan butter drippings and white wine instead of just plain butter.
Rosemary and Whiskey Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream
I got this recipe from Eric Ripert's blog, and it is so delicious (and unusual!). I omitted the pepper, but everything else was the same. You make the dish in the toaster--how easy is that? (Eric Ripert actually has a whole bunch of dishes on his blog that you make in the toaster oven. )
The man is a culinary genius, and this is just one of his interesting and delicious creations. I highly recommend trying it yourself.
http://aveceric.com/category/recipes
Desert was really 3 banana deserts in one (hence the name "Banana Three Ways"). I also served my sour cream and banana dish (see "$50 a week challenge" post) and toasted coconut banana muffins. I was surprised that the coconut banana muffins actually came out tasting great after a toasting and a dab of butter! We gave some to Ron and Fran to take home, but made them promise to toast them with butter before eating them.
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