1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 t roasted almond oil or extra-virgin olive oil
2 T honey
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/8 t. cayenne (This small bit adds quite a kick; I wouldn't want to add any extra)
2 oz. small, whole tender lettuces. (Translated for my kind of cook: Grab a head of butter lettuce from your veggie box, wash and pick off enough for four salads)
1 lg. unpeeled Asian pear, cut into the thinnest possible wedges
2 firm-ripe unpeeled Fuyu persimmons, cut into thin wedges
1/3 cup toasted sliced almonds
1. In a medium bowl, whisk lime juice, oil, honey, salt and cayenne until blended.
2. Mix greens with the fruit, add dressing and toss. Plate.
Makes four salads
Monday, December 3, 2012
Spicy Beef Cross-Rib Roast with Caramelized Clementine Sauce
* I have been asked for this recipe three times, so I thought I better post it to make it easier to share. Enjoy!
** I highly recommend the Sunset Magazine Best Recipes 2010 magazine, if you can get your hands on it. I use it all the time. This recipe comes from it's dog-eared pages.
Serves 6-8
2 1/2 pounds clementines
1-2 t crushed red chile flakes
3 T coarsely chopped fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 t kosher salt
3 T veg. oil
1 boned cross-rib roast or boneless chuck roast tied up as a roast
6 T each soy sauce and sugar
3 T dry sherry
3 green onions, cut into 2 in.match sticks
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Finely shred zest from 2 large clementines; save clementines for another use. In a food processor, whirl zest, chile flakes, ginger, garlic, and salt to mince. Blend in oil. Put meat in 12 x 17 in roasting pan, rub all over with chile mixture, and set fat side up.
2. Roast beef until browned, 20-25 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and cook until an instant read thermometer inserted in thickest part of meat reaches 90 degrees, about 20 minutes.
3. Juice remaining clementines (juice to yield about two cups.) Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Add clementine peels and boil gently 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain; rinse with cool. water. Scrape out and discard pulp and white pith. Cut peels in half, then stack a few at a time and cut into long, thin strips. In a bowl, combine clementine strips, sugar, soy sauce, sherry and 2/3 cup clementine juice.
4. When meat is at 90 degrees, pour juice/soy sauce mixture around it. Cook, stirring sauce occasionally, until meat reaches 130 degrees for med. rare, 30-40 minutes; as pan juices begin to caramelize, stir in a few T clementine juice to prevent scorching.
5. Transfer beef to a cutting board and let it rest, tented loosely with foil, 15 minutes. Pour remaining clementine juice into roasting pan, set pan over high heat, and cook, stirring often, until juices are thickened and shiny, about 7 minutes. Scrape sauce into bowl. 6. Snip twine from roast. Thinly slice meat crosswise. Serve with sauce and onions as a garnish.
*** Serving this last night I used a chuck roast instead of the cross-rib roast. For such a great sauce, I shouldn't have compromised, but it was still really good.
** I highly recommend the Sunset Magazine Best Recipes 2010 magazine, if you can get your hands on it. I use it all the time. This recipe comes from it's dog-eared pages.
Serves 6-8
2 1/2 pounds clementines
1-2 t crushed red chile flakes
3 T coarsely chopped fresh ginger
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 t kosher salt
3 T veg. oil
1 boned cross-rib roast or boneless chuck roast tied up as a roast
6 T each soy sauce and sugar
3 T dry sherry
3 green onions, cut into 2 in.match sticks
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Finely shred zest from 2 large clementines; save clementines for another use. In a food processor, whirl zest, chile flakes, ginger, garlic, and salt to mince. Blend in oil. Put meat in 12 x 17 in roasting pan, rub all over with chile mixture, and set fat side up.
2. Roast beef until browned, 20-25 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and cook until an instant read thermometer inserted in thickest part of meat reaches 90 degrees, about 20 minutes.
3. Juice remaining clementines (juice to yield about two cups.) Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Add clementine peels and boil gently 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain; rinse with cool. water. Scrape out and discard pulp and white pith. Cut peels in half, then stack a few at a time and cut into long, thin strips. In a bowl, combine clementine strips, sugar, soy sauce, sherry and 2/3 cup clementine juice.
4. When meat is at 90 degrees, pour juice/soy sauce mixture around it. Cook, stirring sauce occasionally, until meat reaches 130 degrees for med. rare, 30-40 minutes; as pan juices begin to caramelize, stir in a few T clementine juice to prevent scorching.
5. Transfer beef to a cutting board and let it rest, tented loosely with foil, 15 minutes. Pour remaining clementine juice into roasting pan, set pan over high heat, and cook, stirring often, until juices are thickened and shiny, about 7 minutes. Scrape sauce into bowl. 6. Snip twine from roast. Thinly slice meat crosswise. Serve with sauce and onions as a garnish.
*** Serving this last night I used a chuck roast instead of the cross-rib roast. For such a great sauce, I shouldn't have compromised, but it was still really good.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Butternut Squash with Spinach and Cranberries
1 medium-sized butternut squash, cubed
1/2 lb. fresh spinach
A handful of fresh cranberries
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Use a peeler to remove skin from the squash.
2. Cut in quarters, then chunks.
3. Place on roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, season to taste and bake in preheated oven at 425 degrees for 30 - 45 minutes.
At this point you can store the roasted squash in the frig until you are ready to make the final dish.
4. Toss into cast iron skillet with some finely chopped garlic and sauté for a few minutes, until it begins to soften.
5. Add spinach and continue to saute for another minute or two, until spinach has wilted.
6. Add cranberries and toss, cooking for another minute.
7. Plate and serve.
Colorful, flavorful, simple. Highly recommended.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Vanilla
Thanks to the inspiration of my oldest, I am beginning to think more deeply about making things from scratch. She brought me a cute little blue bottle full of vanilla for my birthday, and I was thrilled. A blue bottle alone would have been a great gift for me, but vanilla to boot? Yumola.
But I haven't begun to use the extract yet for fear that it would be gone with a blink. I comforted myself by starting my own vanilla batch. I took an old beer bottle from an ale I found at Trader Joe's, I scraped off all the labels, and voila! I have my vanilla bottle.
~ my bottle's brief foray into the afternoon light...it is now a prisoner of the dark ~
It is hard to even refer to this as a recipe, but here you go:
Three vanilla beans, cut open carefully so as not to spill one little vanilla bean.
Insert into a bottle.
Cover the beans with vodka.
Close the bottle.
Shove into the dark corner of the cookbook cupboard (or any dark corner will do.)
Wait impatiently for vanilla to happen (approximately 3 months.)
Shake the bottle every now and then.
Enjoy!
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Rehearsal dinner recipes
There were some requests for recipes from the meal at my son and daughter-in-law's rehearsal dinner last week. Here are the links and/or the recipes:
Man-Pleasing Chicken
I cannot say enough about this chicken. It is FANTASTIC. And easy. And has few ingredients. And really delicious. Highly recommended.
Mediterranean Chicken
I love lemon, garlic and olive oil together. So simple, so fragrant, very moist. Yum. Garnish with slices of lemon.
Orzo Salad (with special thanks to the bella Valeri Harper)
Lime Vinaigrette
Cobbler in a Jar
I used the frozen berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries) from Costco. We used the half-pint jars and then topped the cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The link above is one recipe option. We looked at several and I cannot remember which one we used.
Strawberry Lemonade
Beautiful color!
Iced Tea (using Iced Tea Syrup...not sure if this is the recipe used, but it is a good one.)
The hard working kitchen crew made this with mint, and it was fantastic.
We made as much as we could on the day before the rehearsal dinner, and then Carol and her angels took over and did the final steps and delivered a masterpiece. I am grateful beyond words to my dear friend. I can only hope that someday I will be able to serve her so willingly. Carol and Curt, you are my inspiration!
Man-Pleasing Chicken
I cannot say enough about this chicken. It is FANTASTIC. And easy. And has few ingredients. And really delicious. Highly recommended.
Mediterranean Chicken
I love lemon, garlic and olive oil together. So simple, so fragrant, very moist. Yum. Garnish with slices of lemon.
Orzo Salad (with special thanks to the bella Valeri Harper)
1 ½ cups orzo
¾ cup olive oil (divided ¼ cup, ½ cup)
9 oz. frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
½ cup chicken broth
1 large egg yolk
2 T white wine vinegar
1 t Dijon mustard
2 T minced fresh basil
2 oz. prosciutto minced
2 oz parmesan, grated fresh
2 T fresh lemon juice
¼ cup minced fresh parsley leaves
4 scallions minced
In a kettle of boiling salted water, cook orzo 7-8 minutes, or until al dente. Drain in a sieve and refresh under cold water. Drain orzo well and toss it with ¼ cup olive oil in bowl. In a saucepan simmer the artichokes in chicken broth until they are tender, drain well and add them to the orzo.
In a small bowl, whisk together egg yolk, the vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Add ½ cup olive oil in a stream, whisking, until dressing is emulsified. Whisk in the minced basil and pour the dressing over the orzo mixture.
Add prosciutto, parmesan, lemon juice, parsley, scallions and toss.
I could live on this salad. The only thing we changed was to garnish it with peanuts.
Green salad
Romaine lettuce
Greens from Costco
Mini cucumbers
Mini peppers
The general idea with these rolls is to make a standard batch of dough (I used the very basic master recipe), and then make rolls instead of a loaf. Once the rolls have risen, you sprinkle flour over their tops, cut a "x" on the tops, then fill that top with caramelized onions.
We caramelized the onions with the following recipe:
3 T olive oil
2 lg. onions
1 t salt
1 T white vermouth
1 t white wine vinegar
2 T brown sugar
1 t dried thyme or oregano (we used a combination)
4 T water
Heat the oil, add the other ingredients and cook until fully caramelized. The recipe says 25 minutes, but we made such an expanded batch that it took much longer. The fragrance of onions caramelizing is heavenly, especially with the addition of vermouth.
Cobbler in a Jar
I used the frozen berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries) from Costco. We used the half-pint jars and then topped the cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The link above is one recipe option. We looked at several and I cannot remember which one we used.
Strawberry Lemonade
Beautiful color!
Iced Tea (using Iced Tea Syrup...not sure if this is the recipe used, but it is a good one.)
The hard working kitchen crew made this with mint, and it was fantastic.
We made as much as we could on the day before the rehearsal dinner, and then Carol and her angels took over and did the final steps and delivered a masterpiece. I am grateful beyond words to my dear friend. I can only hope that someday I will be able to serve her so willingly. Carol and Curt, you are my inspiration!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The ULTIMATE Cook Book's Granola
I have a lot of cookbooks, but this is the one I use every single week. It is my go-to source for granola and pancakes, salad dressings, soups, fancy meals and simple family fare. They offer great options and variations on their recipes, which means I can make granola even when I don't have a specific ingredient; I can just swap one sweetener for another or use different nuts to get a different flavor. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It's even on Kindle.
A road map for The Ultimate Granola with my own variations
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
(They recommend toasting oats in the oven before mixing with other ingredients. I skip this step.)
2) Mix one item from each of the following two lists in a small saucepan set over medium heat:
Sweetener: 2/3 cups of any of the following
Honey
Maple syrup
Cane syrup
Agave nectar
(I use mostly honey and a little maple syrup; you can also use thawed apple, grape or cranberry juice concentrate, but I haven't tried that)
Oil: 2/3 cups of any of the following
Walnut oil
Almond oil
Canola oil
Safflower oil
Grapeseed oil
The moment the sweetener/oil mixture starts to steam, take the pan off the heat. Stir in:
1 T vanilla extract
As the liquid mixture cools, mix all of the following in a large bowl:
6 cups rolled oats (not quick cook or steel-cut)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 t ground cinnamon
1 t salt
Also add one item from each of the following two lists:
1/2 cup nuts, seeds or coconut
Finely chopped walnut pieces
Finely chopped pecan pieces
Chopped unsalted cashews
Sliced or slivered almonds
Unsalted shelled sunflower seeds
Shredded unsweeted coconut
(I actually use sliced almonds AND coconut)
1/2 cup fortifier
Powdered dry milk
Powdered fat-free dry milk
Powdered fat-free dry whey
(In my latest batch I used 1/2 powdered milk and 1/2 malted milk powder)
Once the dry ingredients are well stirred, add the sort of cooled sweetener/oil mixture.
Grease two large baking sheets, divide oat mixture between the two baking sheets, spreading it to the corners. Place the trays in the top and bottom thirds of the oven and bake for 10 minutes, stirring once.
Reverse the trays and continue cooking until lightly browned and fragrant, about 10 minutes more, tossing and stirring once or twice.
Remove from oven. At this point you may add 1/2 cup dried fruit to each baking sheet.
(I cook this at 300 degrees and for a longer time, watching carefully that it does not burn on the edges. I have been known to get distracted and let the granola burn (not a favorite taste for my family!) so I keep the temp lower to avoid that. My family also really dislikes chewy granola, so I make sure I stir it well and cook it long enough for the entire batch to get crunchy.)
What are you waiting for? Go, buy The Ultimate Cookbook. Click the image above or this link to get to amazon.com!
Monday, March 19, 2012
St. Patrick's Day menu
Irish Soda Bread
This recipe has cheddar cheese and butter and garlic in it. It is FANTASTIC. FYI: I used Kerrygold Cheddar, but I used good ol' American butter. It was the best soda bread I have ever tasted.
Guinness Stew
The best smelling stew...make sure you can stand over the pot for awhile after you pour in the stout. Yumola.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Rehearsal dinner fun ala pinterest
The world of pinterest found me at just the right time in my life: Rehearsal Dinner Time! I have found terrific recipes to try AND cool DIY projects for everything from burlap place holders to colored glass candle holders. I am having way too much fun.
Stay tuned for more brainstorming. Final decisions will most likely come way too close to the date (which is June 28th...our 26th wedding anniversary!)
Stay tuned for more brainstorming. Final decisions will most likely come way too close to the date (which is June 28th...our 26th wedding anniversary!)
Some of my favorite ideas at this point:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)