“When I’m in a blue mood I head for the kitchen. I turn the pages of my favorite cookbooks, summoning the prospective joyful noise of a shared meal. I stand over a bubbling soup, close my eyes, and inhale. From the ground up, everything about nourishment steadies my soul.” Barbara Kingsolver – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
After last night’s last minute novel.. whew, that’s a tongue twister!, I feel the need to keep this short and sweet. Luckily I have the perfect photo of a dish that needs no recipe.
Hopefully this inspires you to grab some of your favorite root vegetables (fingerling potatoes, butternut squash, and turnips in our case) from a farmer’s market near you, toss them with some olive oil, chopped rosemary & garlic, and coarse salt & pepper, and roast them at high heat until tender. You won’t be sorry!
As I’m sure those of you with any connection to the food blog world already know, this month’s Daring Bakers challenge was pizza. It was hosted by Rosa over at Rosa’s Yummy Yums and was great because it was really open-ended. I’m really in under the wire here due to a series of complications. Mostly, the recipe specifies that you take the dough out of the fridge exactly two hours before you are going to make the pizza. I’ve had difficulty with those scheduling constraints, so it took me until tonight to get it done.
Now I’ve already mentioned that pizza dough is a regular around here, but this challenge involved a twist. We were required to try tossing the dough just like you’d see at your favorite pizza joint. I quickly learned that this was not my strength. I should have anticipated that the fact that I can’t reliably catch a ball, set of keys, pen, etc. would naturally translate to pizza dough as well. Yep, I could not catch that dough for the life of me. It was particularly soft and sticky and… well, let’s just say I need some more time to work on my technique.
In continuing the trend of trying some dishes outside of our comfort zone, we went for this Indian-influenced chicken dish last week. Jeff, not the biggest fan of Indian cuisine, does love tandoori chicken, so I figured this was a good next step. I really loved this recipe. It was very forgiving and impressed me with its well-rounded, vibrant flavor. I didn’t plan ahead very well so I only marinated the chicken for about an hour but it didn’t seem to suffer. Halved, this recipe made enough for both of us with probably a portion and a half left over. We ate it with rice and store-bought naan. Substitutions/omissions are listed in bold.
As you already know, we love pasta and olives around here. So it should come as no surprise that my pasta sauce of choice is puttanesca. I am not a big fan of jarred pasta sauce, although there is a great puttanesca version at Harris Teeter. But when it’s so easy (and cheap!) to put together your own sauce, why not? I admit that I frequently spend more time than I should in the kitchen on weeknights, but this meal comes together in no more than 15 minutes. It’s almost as good as the puttanesca sauce my father-in-law makes. He’s the only person I’ve met who rivals me in his love of all things olive.
Without cheese…
It’s just so beautiful: shiny, shapely, smooth. It deserved more than an occasional vegetable stir fry or a batch of fried rice, which I’ll admit is the closest I ever get to Asian cooking and I’m not sure anyone would even call those items Asian. Usually to get our fix we visit our local favorite, Bahn’s, which serves the cheapest, freshest, and most delicious Chinese and Vietnamese food. But in an attempt to do justice to my wok, I decided to try this recipe, although I knew I’d have to make some questionable substitutions. Then, of course, I read the accompanying article and the author said they much prefer to use a cast-iron skillet than a wok for more even heat conduction. Bah! But I figured with all those omissions/substitutions, I might as well throw caution to the wind and ignore the skillet suggestion. I was very pleased with the results, though I will say that I’d probably try a different combination of vegetables next time to see if I can incorporate more of our favorites.
For a while, it was soup weather. It sure doesn’t feel like it this week with highs in the 80s every day. But it was cooler last week when I tested a new soup recipe that I thought would be a shoo-in for my lunchbox this winter. It ended up being mildly successful. I used the best canned tomatoes I could get and that took care of the tinny flavor. However, having already mentioned my aversion to white sandwich bread, I used a demi baguette for both the croutons and the binder for the soup. I think the crumb of the bread was a little to large or that I didn’t guess correctly on how much to use, because it ended up being a little, well, bread-y. However, as far as the basic recipe goes, I think it could be better than good with a few more tweaks.
I’ve tried lots and lots of recipes for pot pies before. Veggie, chicken, white-sauced, tomato-sauced, biscuit-topped, pie dough-topped, etc. My favorite is an Ina Garten version with, among other items, fennel, saffron, and butternut squash with a made-from-scratch pastry topping. It is worth the time and effort it takes to pull together, but is definitely a weekend meal.
This was a great shortcut version from Cooking Light. It’s topped with a puff pastry sheet and uses a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables. The herbs gave the lightened white sauce a bigger punch of flavor. I’d imagine you could substitute any of your favorite vegetables for those you aren’t fond of. Enjoy!
I haven’t had corn nearly enough this summer. It’s one of those items that I never eat out of season because it’s just not even the same species. When I saw some fresh local corn was still available last week, I knew I’d use it in this recipe. I made it over the weekend and ate it as a base for a lunch for a few days. I halved the recipe and used the BEST black forest bacon from Whole Foods. I wish I’d pureed a little more than half of it, because it was still a little chunkier than I had imagined it being. However, for a creamed corn without the cream, I’d say it was a real winner. Coincidently, this appeared in the Cooking Light’s “Best of” edition this September as the best grain side dish. I guess there’s a reason it won the title!
6 ears corn
2 cups 1% low-fat milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 slices bacon
1 cup chopped leek
Cut kernels from ears of corn to measure 3 cups. Using the dull side of a knife blade, scrape milk and remaining pulp from cobs into a bowl. Place 1 1/2 cups kernels, low-fat milk, cornstarch, sugar, salt, and pepper in a food processor; process until smooth, scraping sides.
Cook bacon in a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat until crisp, turning once. Remove the bacon from pan, reserving 1 teaspoon drippings in pan; crumble bacon. Add leek to pan, and cook 2 minutes or until tender, stirring constantly. Add pureed corn mixture, remaining 1 1/2 cups corn kernels, and corn milk mixture to pan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 3 minutes or until slightly thick, stirring constantly. Sprinkle with the crumbled bacon just before serving.
From Cooking Light
