I am trying very hard to post more instead of agonizing over every post! So this one will be short and sweet, like this salad.
My Aunt L. made this salad one night in Maine. And nobody could believe (a) that it was actually cabbage and actually delicious or (b) that it was so simple to make. It's one of those great recipes that tastes like so much more than it is, with a huge crunch and sweetness and light and depth. Bring it to your next cookout and blow everyone away.
Napa Cabbage Salad
4-5 LBS Napa cabbage sliced into thin strips
5 scallions
2 Pkg Ramen Noodles (discard seasonaings)
1 small pkg slivered almonds
1 Tbs sesame seeds
Dressing
1/2 C vinegar
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C water
1 C sugar
5 tsp soy sauce
Preheat over to 350. Break Ramen noodles into pieces and bake on a cookie sheet until brown. (No time given, but I'd imagine that would be about five minutes, and check frequently.) Add almonds and sesame seeds to the cookie sheet and brown. (Again, likely a matter of minutes.)
Mix everything together and enjoy!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Crockpot Chicken and Tomatoes
9:52 AM 1 Comments chicken, main, slow cooker
I love my slow cooker. Well, technically, that would be slow cookers, plural, because I actually have three of them in different sizes. THAT is how much I love slow-cooking foods.
Slow cookers are never going to be cool. Slow cooking is never going to be the next sous vide or make the cover of Food and Wine. It's always going to conjure up the image of soccer moms and cream of mushroom soup and those Betty Crocker cookbooks at the checkout counter. And it sure as heck doesn't make food that turns out pretty on the plate.
But I ask you this: What is the worst time to be making dinner? Dinnertime! Think about it! You're hungry. You're tired. You just finished a long day of work or a long day with the kids. If you have kids? Well, then you know what kids look like at 5-6 o'clock and it ain't pretty. So now that you've busted your butt all day, it's time to find something to eat, MAKE something to eat, and then clean up all the dishes you made by making something to eat.
This is why people eat corn flakes and pinot grigio for dinner. Sometimes. Some people. *cough*
But imagine this: It's dinnertime and you have dinner, piping hot, already prepared. The dishes from making that dinner are already clean in the dishwasher, like some kind of Harry Potter time-traveling magic. THAT is the awesome power of the slow cooker.
And while you might think that the slow cooker excels at stews (it does) and briskets (that too) and other winter fare, imagine the greatness of the slow cooker on a hot summer day, when you don't want to turn on the oven, stand over the stove, or swat the bugs away from your grill. Sadly, summer recipes are a bit harder to come by for the slow cooker, but, courtesy of one of my favorite bloggers, The Crockpot Lady I found a real winner:
Herb-Roasted Chicken and Tomatoes adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking
Ingredients:
4 pounds chicken, whole or parts, your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons herbes de provence (I didn't have any on hand, so I used thyme, rosemary, and basil)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (I doubled this. We love smoked paprika.)
8 vine-ripened tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine (Shockingly, I didn't have any in the house, so I used 1/4C white balsamic vinegar and 1/4C apple juice. I imagine you could use whatever liquid seems good for your tastes.)
*My additions: I had a 1/2 onion and a large, smashed garlic clove that I put inside the bird for more depth.
The Directions.
Use a 6-quart slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine dry spices and set aside. Wash chicken, remove neck and giblets, and try to cut off as much skin as you can using poultry shears. If the chicken is fully thawed, this is much easier to do. Rub the seasoning mixture on all sides of the bird, inside and out and place into your stoneware. (She put the chicken breast side down, but I didn't and it was fine.)
Wash and cut the stemmy part out of each tomato, and plop on top. Pour the white wine in, and cover the slow cooker. Cook on low for about 7 hours, or on high for 4-5. Carefully remove the bird from the pot, and retain the drippings to make a pot of steamed rice.
Oh my gosh. Oh. My. Gosh. Something about this dish is just magical. The tomatoes stay whole until you cut into them and then they just sort of slump over and sigh, releasing fresh summery goodness all over your perfectly moist, seasoned chicken and to-die-for rice. Or quinoa, in our case, as I had some leftover from Quinoa Disaster Week. Using the liquid from the chicken to make the quinoa resulted in an intensely-flavored, salty, delicious foundation for the silky tomatoes and juicy chicken.
I can't wait to make it again. And I can't wait to use the leftover chicken in quesadillas. Or chicken salad. Or...okay, I might have been picking some out of the pot. It's really just that good. And hey, no bugs, no sweating, and no more cereal for dinner. (Unless you want to. Corn flakes are pretty good over peach ice cream.)
Slow cookers are never going to be cool. Slow cooking is never going to be the next sous vide or make the cover of Food and Wine. It's always going to conjure up the image of soccer moms and cream of mushroom soup and those Betty Crocker cookbooks at the checkout counter. And it sure as heck doesn't make food that turns out pretty on the plate.
But I ask you this: What is the worst time to be making dinner? Dinnertime! Think about it! You're hungry. You're tired. You just finished a long day of work or a long day with the kids. If you have kids? Well, then you know what kids look like at 5-6 o'clock and it ain't pretty. So now that you've busted your butt all day, it's time to find something to eat, MAKE something to eat, and then clean up all the dishes you made by making something to eat.
This is why people eat corn flakes and pinot grigio for dinner. Sometimes. Some people. *cough*
But imagine this: It's dinnertime and you have dinner, piping hot, already prepared. The dishes from making that dinner are already clean in the dishwasher, like some kind of Harry Potter time-traveling magic. THAT is the awesome power of the slow cooker.
And while you might think that the slow cooker excels at stews (it does) and briskets (that too) and other winter fare, imagine the greatness of the slow cooker on a hot summer day, when you don't want to turn on the oven, stand over the stove, or swat the bugs away from your grill. Sadly, summer recipes are a bit harder to come by for the slow cooker, but, courtesy of one of my favorite bloggers, The Crockpot Lady I found a real winner:
Herb-Roasted Chicken and Tomatoes adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking
Ingredients:
4 pounds chicken, whole or parts, your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons herbes de provence (I didn't have any on hand, so I used thyme, rosemary, and basil)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (I doubled this. We love smoked paprika.)
8 vine-ripened tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine (Shockingly, I didn't have any in the house, so I used 1/4C white balsamic vinegar and 1/4C apple juice. I imagine you could use whatever liquid seems good for your tastes.)
*My additions: I had a 1/2 onion and a large, smashed garlic clove that I put inside the bird for more depth.
The Directions.
Use a 6-quart slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine dry spices and set aside. Wash chicken, remove neck and giblets, and try to cut off as much skin as you can using poultry shears. If the chicken is fully thawed, this is much easier to do. Rub the seasoning mixture on all sides of the bird, inside and out and place into your stoneware. (She put the chicken breast side down, but I didn't and it was fine.)
Wash and cut the stemmy part out of each tomato, and plop on top. Pour the white wine in, and cover the slow cooker. Cook on low for about 7 hours, or on high for 4-5. Carefully remove the bird from the pot, and retain the drippings to make a pot of steamed rice.
Oh my gosh. Oh. My. Gosh. Something about this dish is just magical. The tomatoes stay whole until you cut into them and then they just sort of slump over and sigh, releasing fresh summery goodness all over your perfectly moist, seasoned chicken and to-die-for rice. Or quinoa, in our case, as I had some leftover from Quinoa Disaster Week. Using the liquid from the chicken to make the quinoa resulted in an intensely-flavored, salty, delicious foundation for the silky tomatoes and juicy chicken.
I can't wait to make it again. And I can't wait to use the leftover chicken in quesadillas. Or chicken salad. Or...okay, I might have been picking some out of the pot. It's really just that good. And hey, no bugs, no sweating, and no more cereal for dinner. (Unless you want to. Corn flakes are pretty good over peach ice cream.)
Friday, July 16, 2010
Maine Cookbook: Blueberry Muffins
5:36 AM 0 Comments breakfast, cookbook, Maine
Every other year, my entire extended family descends on The Lakeside Cedar Cabins in Ellsworth, ME for a week of relaxation, family bonding, and lots and lots of food. We've been going there since I was 9; some years it was just my family, some years we skipped it completely, some years it was just this aunt or that family friend, but now, it's tradition. We go every other year. Now that "the kids" (i.e., me and my cousin) are grown, we bring our own friends as well. We rent all the cabins for the entire week, because, well.
Let's put this delicately: We're not...shy and retiring people. We're not quiet people. We're Irish. We like to party. And we are a bunch of foodies.
Every cabin is responsible for a meal or a part of a meal, and we all (all 20+ of us) eat together. Menus are discussed months ahead of time; recipes are carefully researched and developed, and everyone always, always goes overboard. You would not believe the incredible meals that come out of those tiny kitchens, cooked in full-day shifts.
Last year, for my mom's 60th birthday, I put together a cookbook of all the Maine recipes from that year. I'm going to be reposting them here, then hopefully expanding with more family recipes.
As the only one with small kids, I generally don't contribute full meals. Last year, the baby was only just a year old -- not really an age that's conducive to full-day cooking. But I did make my famous blueberry muffins for the crowd. I make these muffins nearly every weekend. Sometimes I make them with chocolate chips or dried cranberries or swirls of cinnamon instead of the blueberries. But the base is the easiest I've ever used and always results in a light, fluffy, delicious muffin, even if you sub in half the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour.
Erin's Blueberry Muffins adapted from AllRecipes
1 1/2C all-purpose flour (you can sub up to half this amount with whole wheat)
3/4C white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3C vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3C milk (or more, see directions)
1 tsp vanilla
1C blueberries
Preheat the over to 400 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or prepare with paper liners.
Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together in a large bowl. In a 1-cup measuring cup, add the oil, egg, and enough milk to make 1 cup of liquid. Whisk liquid ingredients together in a small bowl. **I like to do this step in a 2-cup measuring cup and whisk the mixture right in the cup with a fork. This way, you only dirty one bowl!**
Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and blend gently, just stirring enough to moisten the dry ingredients. Fold in the blueberries. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Sprinkle with some extra sugar on top if you're feeing fancy. Bake for 18 minutes at 400 degrees.
Photo credit: Iain M.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The most delicious pizza you'll ever have -- if you're the guy I married
11:47 AM 0 Comments main, pizza, recipes
Last night, I made pizza. Two pizzas, to be exact. And I had to fight my husband for every last slice. After much moaning and groaning and weeping to the angels, he grabbed my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said, "This is the best pizza I have ever had in my life. In my LIFE." I backed away from the crazy man, and he just kept going. "No, seriously, IN MY LIFE."
If you knew how mild-mannered my husband was? You would be in shock, I assure you.
Now, I'm not sure that this pizza beats New York pizza or even New Jersey pizza, but for New Hampshire pizza, it's pretty darn good. I love making pizza at home; it's cheap and fun and easy and you can have a blast with toppings without breaking the bank.
I also love ordering pizza because of the thing where you dial the phone and 20 minutes later someone shows up at your house with dinner. All those food bloggers who say that "You'll never order pizza again!" along with a dough recipe are liars. Liars, I say! Because I don't care how easy your recipe is: You dial the phone. A guy shows up. You have food. And there are no dishes. It doesn't get easier than that!
But when made at home, pizza is immensely satisfying. It is, indeed, easy to make pizza dough. It's easy to make pizza sauce. It's easy to get funky and creative without veering outside of something that's also familiar and comforting. When people ask me what my favorite food is -- with that little hesitant laugh, because who can ever answer that question? -- I answer without missing a beat: Pizza.
I've finally found a dough that I love; I've tried the Joy of Cooking and King Arthur Flour and Smitten Kitchen and even the recipes on the backs of the yeast envelopes. But this recipe is the most consistent, the best-tasting, and -- surprise! -- the quickest. I don't generally like rapid-rising yeast, but it works perfectly in this to give it that nice, crispy bottom.
Whole Wheat Pizza Dough from 1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes
-3/4C all-purpose flour, sifted (I never sift anything. I'm so lazy.)
-1 pkg fast-rising yeast
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/2C very hot water
-2 tsp honey
-1/2C whole wheat flour (I always need almost another 1/2 cup to make the dough come together)
1. Combine all-purpose flour, yeast, and sat in medium bowl; add hot water and honey, stirring until smooth. Mix in enough whole wheat flour to make a soft dough. (Note: I did everything, including the kneading, in my stand mixer with a dough hook.)
2. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth and elastic, 3 to 5 minutes. Cover dough with bowl; let stand 15 minutes before using. Roll out dough on a pan or pizza stone.
Pizza Sauce (my recipe)
-1 6 oz. can tomato paste
-1 6 oz. can water
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1 tsp Italian seasoning
- black pepper to taste
1. Whisk all ingredients together over medium heat. Once the sauce is smooth, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Start with these basics and you won't go wrong, I promise. Top it with bacon, smoked mozzarella, and red peppers. Or buffalo chicken and bleu cheese. Or tomatoes, garlic, and feta. Or fontina and pear.
Or do what I did last night and make someone swoon: Caramelize some sweet onions for a good, long time. Crumble up some nice, local, all-natural sweet Italian sausage and cook through. Top pizza with mozzarella, onions, sausage, and black olives.
And then get ready to fight for your half of the pizza.
If you knew how mild-mannered my husband was? You would be in shock, I assure you.
Now, I'm not sure that this pizza beats New York pizza or even New Jersey pizza, but for New Hampshire pizza, it's pretty darn good. I love making pizza at home; it's cheap and fun and easy and you can have a blast with toppings without breaking the bank.
I also love ordering pizza because of the thing where you dial the phone and 20 minutes later someone shows up at your house with dinner. All those food bloggers who say that "You'll never order pizza again!" along with a dough recipe are liars. Liars, I say! Because I don't care how easy your recipe is: You dial the phone. A guy shows up. You have food. And there are no dishes. It doesn't get easier than that!
But when made at home, pizza is immensely satisfying. It is, indeed, easy to make pizza dough. It's easy to make pizza sauce. It's easy to get funky and creative without veering outside of something that's also familiar and comforting. When people ask me what my favorite food is -- with that little hesitant laugh, because who can ever answer that question? -- I answer without missing a beat: Pizza.
I've finally found a dough that I love; I've tried the Joy of Cooking and King Arthur Flour and Smitten Kitchen and even the recipes on the backs of the yeast envelopes. But this recipe is the most consistent, the best-tasting, and -- surprise! -- the quickest. I don't generally like rapid-rising yeast, but it works perfectly in this to give it that nice, crispy bottom.
Whole Wheat Pizza Dough from 1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes
-3/4C all-purpose flour, sifted (I never sift anything. I'm so lazy.)
-1 pkg fast-rising yeast
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/2C very hot water
-2 tsp honey
-1/2C whole wheat flour (I always need almost another 1/2 cup to make the dough come together)
1. Combine all-purpose flour, yeast, and sat in medium bowl; add hot water and honey, stirring until smooth. Mix in enough whole wheat flour to make a soft dough. (Note: I did everything, including the kneading, in my stand mixer with a dough hook.)
2. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth and elastic, 3 to 5 minutes. Cover dough with bowl; let stand 15 minutes before using. Roll out dough on a pan or pizza stone.
Pizza Sauce (my recipe)
-1 6 oz. can tomato paste
-1 6 oz. can water
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp sugar
-1 tsp Italian seasoning
- black pepper to taste
1. Whisk all ingredients together over medium heat. Once the sauce is smooth, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Start with these basics and you won't go wrong, I promise. Top it with bacon, smoked mozzarella, and red peppers. Or buffalo chicken and bleu cheese. Or tomatoes, garlic, and feta. Or fontina and pear.
Or do what I did last night and make someone swoon: Caramelize some sweet onions for a good, long time. Crumble up some nice, local, all-natural sweet Italian sausage and cook through. Top pizza with mozzarella, onions, sausage, and black olives.
And then get ready to fight for your half of the pizza.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Meal Planning, minus one kid
10:53 AM 0 Comments meal planning, summer
Oldest Daughter is off to the big, bad city next week for a whirlwind vacation with family, so this week's meal planning is going to be super simple. No balancing the desire for creative, non-bland food over the desire to have a peaceful dinner. Beautiful!
I am proud of her, though. Last night we were at my mom's and she didn't like the options for the chicken (plain or BBQ) so she asked me for the recipe for her favorite lemon chicken, and made the sauce herself. Problem-solving instead of complaining! I love it!
So the week ahead looks something like this:
Today: Turkey burgers with Jack cheese and corn on the cob. If I feel inspired, I might make this pavlova with cherries and blueberries. Or cherry pie, but it's 90 degrees out.
Tomorrow: We're going to a big 4th of July/Youngest Daughter's birthday party at my parents' house. I'm bringing deviled eggs, which the kids love. I don't do anything too fancy to them; just a little mayo, dried mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and paprika on the top.
Monday: Pineapple-glazed chicken with jalapeno salsa. I've made this before and we liked it a lot. It's incredibly light and fresh. I keep meaning to make the salsa for other things. I love anything with that sweet/hot combination.
Tuesday: Slow-Cooker Barbecue Beans and Sausage. This is a new one for us. I think D. is going to love it.
Wednesday: Fusilli with Spinach and Asiago Cheese. I haven't made this before, but I'm having a hard time imagining that it'll come out badly.
Thursday: Farmer's market day. I'll make up something from there.
Friday: I am home alone with the toddler, so no fancy food here. We'll probably do pizza.
I will be back later on in the week with verdicts. Happy 4th, everyone!
I am proud of her, though. Last night we were at my mom's and she didn't like the options for the chicken (plain or BBQ) so she asked me for the recipe for her favorite lemon chicken, and made the sauce herself. Problem-solving instead of complaining! I love it!
So the week ahead looks something like this:
Today: Turkey burgers with Jack cheese and corn on the cob. If I feel inspired, I might make this pavlova with cherries and blueberries. Or cherry pie, but it's 90 degrees out.
Tomorrow: We're going to a big 4th of July/Youngest Daughter's birthday party at my parents' house. I'm bringing deviled eggs, which the kids love. I don't do anything too fancy to them; just a little mayo, dried mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and paprika on the top.
Monday: Pineapple-glazed chicken with jalapeno salsa. I've made this before and we liked it a lot. It's incredibly light and fresh. I keep meaning to make the salsa for other things. I love anything with that sweet/hot combination.
Tuesday: Slow-Cooker Barbecue Beans and Sausage. This is a new one for us. I think D. is going to love it.
Wednesday: Fusilli with Spinach and Asiago Cheese. I haven't made this before, but I'm having a hard time imagining that it'll come out badly.
Thursday: Farmer's market day. I'll make up something from there.
Friday: I am home alone with the toddler, so no fancy food here. We'll probably do pizza.
I will be back later on in the week with verdicts. Happy 4th, everyone!
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