worth the whisk

woops

Clearly I’ve fallen off the wagon.

I was sick for awhile and then my sister had her baby … and this leads not only to not posting, but to not really trying new things.

Tomorrow night I’m hopefully going to try a Weight Watchers recipe for mediterranean sole.  Of course it includes feta cheese, yum!  I’m hoping to get started on trying new things and posting about them again.

One thing I’m very interested to try this spring is ramps, and I’m determined to try gougeres sometime soon (ever since I read about them in one of Ruth Reichel’s books I’ve been dying to try them, and the feature in last month’s Bon Appetit just made me more interested!)

What have I been doing?

Well, it’s been more than 2 weeks since my last post.  Shortly after my last post, I made baked mac & feta.  It was good.  The recipe calls for 6 eggs, which I found to be a little shocking.  I used 4 eggs and 2 whites. It was still pretty eggy.  I like eggs but I’m not sure I <3 them in this recipe.  We had a lot of leftovers and I’ve been enjoying them reheated with some dried oregano sprinkled on top.  The only other change I made was to use wheat penne and brummel & brown margarine.  French feta, thoug delicious, was a little pricey at my market, so I went for a Bulgarian one at half the price per pound.  It was distinctly more sour but definitely mellowed out once cooked. 

Next time, I think I’ll mix in some chopped up (drained, canned) artichoke hearts, and cut the eggs to 2 whole & 2 whites.

The sourdough breadcrumbs were delicious and perfect for this dish, I left them nice & chunky instead of fine.  I used the extra on pork - I drizzeled the pork with a mix of lemon juice & olive oil, a little lemon-dill shake on spice, and bread crumbs on top.  So good.

One more note about French feta.  For an appetizer, I love to take a baguette and make thin angled slices from it, splash a little olive oil on top of each, and spread them on a baking sheet and toast.  Then I top with a slice of tomato, a slice of feta, and a sprinkle of oregano (and maybe a little more olive oil, esp. if you didn’t put it on the bread) and roast until the feta goes soft.  I LOVE this, and it’s even better at the restaurant I worked at in college, where I got the idea (though theirs is better so clearly I’m missing something).  Anyways, I fell in love with French feta when I picked some up at Marty’s liquors in Newton, MA.  It’s creamier than most Greek feta I’ve had (and world away from the stuff you can buy that isn’t kept in brine).  Marty’s is a great shop not just for wine & beer & feta cheese, but they’ve got all sorts of great party snacks, deli stuff, fancy crackers and chocolates and the like.  Another thing I love there is they have little baguette slices already toasted up with olive oil that saves you prep work & one round in the oven if you want to make my favorite party app!

Baked Ravioli

Made this Martha Stewart Baked Ravioli dish last night.

Variations - I didn’t have an onion so I just put in some dehydrated onion.  Used 2 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes instead of a 28 oz can of whole tomates.

In short - delish.  However, I used thyme (recipe calls for thyme or oregano) and I think next time I will use oregano.  The thyme lent a sort of sweet-ness to the sauce and I think I would prefer oregano (which is probably my fave. herb).  I also don’t think I reduced the sauce enough — reducing until 5 1/2 cups remain?  Yeah … that’s easy to eyeball…. The dish was VERY saucy, the sauce was almost boiling over when it was in the 9x13 pan. 

So next time more reducing, and maybe lower heat - the cheese was still tasty but pretty dark.

With salad & garlic bread, what a treat!  Also, 4 leftover portions.

Chicken Tacos - YUM

We had 3 chicken breasts thawing in the fridge yesterday but no specfic plans to use them.  Midway through the day I realized I was in the mood for tacos.  I read on Martha Stewart about a taco bar which called for poached chicken.  First of all, I’ve never poached chicken.  Second of all, this told you how to poach a whole chicken.  Anyways, it got me thinking so I looked up some simple poaching instructions.

I minced half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic and cooked them for a few minutes in some olive oil to get the flavors going.  I added in a leftover cup of chicken broth, and about 2 cups of warm water.  After it got to simmering I added the chicken, made sure it was covered with liquid (added another half a cup or so), and let it cook (cover on) for 15 minutes.

The chicken didn’t taste like much, unfortunately, but it was very very moist and using a knife and fork I pulled it apart into nice little bits of torn chicken like in the chicken tacos I love at Margaritas.  Since we were lacking in flavor, we mixed a packet of taco seasoning with 3/4 cup of water, put the chicken back in the pan and slowly poured the seasoned water over it - we didn’t use it all but I forgot to see how much we did use.

These were the best tacos we’ve ever made.  Granted I’m not a fan of ground meat, but these had much better flavor, even ground-beef-lover Tim agreed.

Deee-lish.

Product Review - Alexia Oven Fries

Last night we tried the Alexia Olive Oil, Rosemary & Garlic fries.  I’ve been excited to try them - I love the Alexia wheat rolls (tasty, not bad for you, easy to throw in the oven) - and these sounded so good.  Unfortunately, they were pretty dry, and we ended up dipping them in ketchup.  Not sure how to remedy that … cook a little less time, maybe a little spritz of cooking spray halfway through?  It seems a shame to dip them in ketchup … hmmm.  We have more left (a pretty big bag) so maybe I’ll post again soon with some ideas for getting them just right.

Mac & Cheese with Cauliflower

Made this Real Simple recipe last night and I have to say I really didn’t care for it.  I think I also had really high hopes for it which makes it more difficult to live up to them.  It sounds good, right, a somewhat lightened up mac & cheese - healthier with the cauliflower in it (also covered in cheese, yum!).  But I felt like all I could taste was the sour cream (and the onions, though Tim says he didn’t notice the onions at all). 

Liked the fresh bread crumbs, though. I’ve never made them before! It made me fall in love with our food processor, which we had previously used only once, to make gyoza.  I wanted to use it a few weeks ago to make a tzadziki-like dip but then we couldn’t find the blades!  So glad we have all the pieces now - I’m going to find reasons to use it more often.  It’s inspired me to clean off the kitchen counters so I can just have it out all the time.  Luckily we have plenty of outlets!

last night - chicken broccoli and rice in one pan

So one thing I’m looking for in recipes right now is recipes that are pretty simple so I can either pre-prepare ingredients or not spend a lot of time cooking.  We’ve been going to the gym afterwork which means we start dinner a lot later.  Also, I’m looking for recipes that provide easy to reheat leftovers I can take for lunch. 

Last night I made a recipe from this Kraft “Dinner on Hand” book I picked up awhile ago (it’s really more of a book of suggestions of how to mix up some staples in your pantry than an actual cook book but it’s useful at times). 

I sauteed three chicken breasts in a little olive oil, about 10/11 minutes. Broke them up into large chunks (which helped the thick one finish cooking).

Added 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 can of water, and let that come to a boil.  Turned down the heat a little (to medium) and added 2 cups of Minute Rice.  I stirred this all around as best I could so all the rice would at least get wet.  No lid for my big frying pan, so I covered with tin foil and let it go for a couple of minutes.  Meanwhile, I defrosted a bag of frozen broccoli, then added that in and let it sit on medium heat with the tin foil cover for a few minutes, then turned the heat off altogether and let it sit while we ate salads.

Very easy. Also only used one pan, and yielded about 5 portions.

lots of cookin' - catching up

We’ve been trying really hard to cook almost every night (save the weekends) and I’ve been trying to make satisfying healthyish dinners with leftovers I can take for lunch.

One of my faves from last week was this one.

I used mini bowties instead of shells and my walnuts were ground up much smaller (leftover from Christmas cookie time).  Delish, delish, delish.  The nuts made it pretty satisfying and gave you some protein.  Also good as leftover lunch with a little extra parm on top.

NY Times Mac & Cheese

Last night I tried out this recipe http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/dining/042wrex.html?_r=1

With a few slight twists … instead of 12 ounces of sharp and 12 ounces of regular cheddar, I used an 8 oz block of 75% reduced fat sharp cheddar, an 8 oz bag of “seriously sharp” shredded cheddar, and an 8 oz bag of (orange) shredded mild cheddar.  I also used 2% milk and added 12 strips of crumbled bacon (the small strips that come fully cooked).

The top was delicious, since it was just a coating of crusty cheese.  Tim complained that it wasn’t “very cheesey” inside.  The taste of the main casserole didn’t pack the same punch as the top but tasted great and I liked the subtle flavor of the added bacon.

Not sure this will make the regular rotation (it’s still pretty awful for you, even with a few items lightened up) but good for a treat!