I'm traveling for work this week, so this will be the last post for a bit. (I know, I've been slacking this summer on posting, so you've come to expect a few days between posts. Thought I'd warn you anyway).
When I leave for a trip (FYI-never anywhere exciting), I always try to make a few different dinners for Husband that he can easily pull out of the freezer, reheat, and eat. He has a tiring daily commute and coming home to no wife (especially no wife) and no food has to be depressing. So, I do what I can. :)
Unfortunately for you, I don't measure when I make meatloaf or mashed potatoes, so I have no recipe to provide you with. They are cute. Aren't they?
I love beets! I always have. It wasn't one of those foods I had to grow into, like sour cream. Honestly, I'm quite surprised how many people don't love this vegetable. Compared to most vegetables, I believe they have a much higher natural sugar content. Who doesn't like sweets? I'm not a dietician, so I'm basing this knowledge on two things:
1. My zone-diet friend will not eat these.
2. Jessica Seinfeld, author of Deceptively Delicious, gets away with adding beet puree to many of her desserts.
Unlike zucchini, beets so delicious, you don't have to try to hide their flavor. Add a bit of of vinaigrette and DELISH!
I ROASTED the BEETS according to the Joy of Cooking:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Leaving the rootlets, trim all but 1 inch of the stems, then wash:
1 lb. beets
Place them in an 8x8 baking pan and add 1/2 cup. water. Seal the pan tightly with foil and bake utnil the beets are easily pierced with a thin skewer or knife tip, about 45 mintues for small, 1 hour for medium, and 1 1/4 hours for large beets. Slip off the skins when ready to serve. Leave the beets whole or slice into rounds or wedges.
Vinaigrette
Whisk together and toss with sliced (still warm) beets:
1/4 c. sherry vinegar
1/4 c. oil (typically, vinaigrettes have 2-3 parts oil to vinegar, but I love vinegar, so I use the 1 to 1 ratio)
1 t. dijon mustard
snipped chives
salt and pepper
Not an angle I'd want myself to be photographed at, but I think it makes this chicken (still raw) look pretty good.
They say you can tell how good a cook someone is by the way they roast a chicken. I can count the number of times I've roasted a chicken, and honestly, I've got work to do. On the last occasion, it was several months ago, I followed bad boy Anthony Bourdain's recipe from his Les Halles Cookbook. It was a beauty! The chicken came out of the oven golden and crispy. I took photos, anticipating a glowing review on the blog. We cut into it, and it was still raw. Bourdain cautions against overcooking the bird, but I don't think this was what he had in mind.
So, this week has been a crockpot week. Husband's and my schedules are opposite again, so the crockpot provided a great way to get a hot meal into both of us at different times. The above meal, was a good (and easy) one. It's not exactly roasting a chicken, but the crockpot does provide you with a tender and moist bird when it's through with it. And believe me after several hours, the chicken is not raw. Another plus, a whole chicken provides white meat for me, and dark meat for Husband.
Crockpot Chicken
Place cut up veggies (your choice: onions, carrots, potatoes, celery, etc) in the bottom of a crockpot. Season. Add a tad chicken broth or water (you don't need very much). Place seasoned chicken on top of veggies. Cook on high 4 hours or low 8 hours.
Husband is not a fan of the chicken breast, so I've been trying to incorporate a little dark meat onto the menu. I've discovered, unlike Husband, that I prefer the dry flavorless taste that is the chicken breast. Dark meat is so chicken-y. Here's a couple of meals where I've marinated the chicken thigh, grilled them, and glazed them with the cooked/reduced marinade.
Citrus-Glazed Chicken Thighs. This was a very tasty marinade/glaze. I think I subbed quite a bit of lime juice for part of the orange juice, so there was a mixture of the two citrus flavors.
Green Bean Spinach and Beet Salad. Delicious! I've made this once before, and both times were winners. It's a perfect summer dish, and would be a great salad to take to a BBQ or picnic.
Meal number two: not so tasty. Even the picture is a bit sad. It might have been because I refused to put both honey and brown sugar in the chicken marinade. I love sugar, especially in dessert!, but two sugars in a chicken dish I couldn't do.
If you'd like to try the original recipe, here it is: Balsamic Chicken Drumettes.
Although it received mostly rave reviews, Orzo with Peas, Dill and Pancetta was a little disappointing too.
I think I've mentioned, and I'm sure you'll agree, that using up leftover ingredients can be hit or miss. Last night, all the stars moved into alignment in my leftover universe (refrigerator). It was a delicious salad!
Here were the odd ingredients that I mixed with a few staples to create Thai Lettuce Salad:
lime juice
cashews
ground turkey
cilantro
small bit of lettuce
small bit of green cabbage (I wished I had napa cabbage)
1 carrot
Though I didn't follow any particular recipe, and I did use Lettuce Wraps and Hot and Sour Dressing from Food of the World: Thailand for guidelines and proportions.
Thai Lettuce Salad
serves 2-3
For the Meat:
1/2 T veg oil
1/2 onion, chopped finely
1 carrot, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Thai chile
1/2 lb. ground turkey or pork
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. brown sugar
1/4 t. green curry paste
1 T. cilantro, chopped
Heat oil in wok and stir-fry onion, carrot, garlic, and chile for 30 seconds. Add the ground turkey and stir-fry for 8-10 minutes, until browned and crisp. Stir in the soy sauce, sugar, curry paste, and cilantro, and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Let rest while you make the dressing.
For the Dressing:
Whisk together:
2 T. veg. oil
2 T. rice vinegar
2 T. lime juice
1/2 t. soy sauce
1/2 t. sesame oil
1/4 t. fish sauce
1/4 t. green curry paste
Assemble the Salad:
Toss meat mixture with a salad of lettuce, cabbage, cilantro, cashews, and rice. Toss salad with dressing and serve immediately.
I picked a small bucket of cherries last week. Picking them was quite easy...it took just under one hour for my bucket. Pitting them was not...it took a few hours. It was such a tedious task I divided the time over a few days. Waa waa, I shouldn't cry too much. We've had fresh cherries to eat, and there's some in the freezer for future pies. Husband loves sour cherry pies.
Sour Cherry Muffins with Coconut Struesel tasted great! They, however, were not pretty muffins. I didn't listen to my intuition when assembling. The recipe says to fill the muffin cups to the top. I've made enough muffins to know not to do this. I did it anyway, and I had flat, spread out, spilled over muffins. The coconut struesel topping made the muffins. Delish!
