Iron Chef Recipes

I recently participated in a local Iron Chef competition. It was fun, bu difficult and - if I were to participate again - I would probably suggest that the organizers make some changes. But anyway, here are the recipes for the three dishes I created. The secret ingredient was mascarpone cheese.

Fire-Roasted Tomato Mascarpone Soup

1 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 T Butter (unsalted)
½ pounds shallots, finely diced
Two quarts of fire-roasted crushed or whole, peeled tomatoes (Muir Glen)
two bay leaves
1 cup white wine (torrentes)
1 cup mascarpone
salt
pepper
smoked paprika (optional)

Add butter and olive oil to the bottom of your soup pan. Once melted and bubbling, add in shallots and cook until translucent but not browned. Pour in tomatoes and add bay leaves. Cook at a rapid simmer until reduced by about ¼ of the liquid. Add wine. Continue to simmer until you have reduced another ¼ of the liquid. Take off heat, remove bay leaves, and blend until smooth. Stir in mascarpone until the soup has a rich and creamy texture. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you cannot get fire roasted tomatoes, smoked paprika can be used, but you will need to keep tasting to make sure you don’t overpower the flavor of the tomatoes.


Tagliatelle with Hot-Smoked Salmon in Caper, Chive, and Lemon Mascarpone Sauce

1 lb tagliatelle

1 T butter (unsalted)
2 T capers, rough chopped
2 T chives, minced
2 lemons, zest and juice
2 cups mascarpone
1 lb hot-smoked salmon, flaked

2 oz salmon roe (optional)

Cook tagliatelle according to package directions.

Add butter to a large sauté pan on medium heat. Once butter is melted, add capers, chives, and lemon zest. Sizzle for about 60 seconds and then squeeze in lemon juice. Remove pan from heat and stir in mascarpone. It will melt into a sauce from the residual heat of the pan. Place pasta into the pan and toss to coat it with the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, thin it with some of the pasta water. Add in flaked salmon and toss gently. Garnish with salmon roe.

This dish can be served hot or room temperature.


Blueberries with Limoncello Mascarpone Cream

1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Limoncello
1/4 cup orange marmalade, melted and slightly cooled
3 cups blueberries

To make the cream, combine mascarpone cheese, whipping cream, sugar, and 1 tablespoon of limoncello. Beat with mixer until smooth and slightly thickened.

In a small sauce pan, combine marmalade and remaining limoncello. Melt over low heat. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Then add the blueberries and toss to coat.

Spoon limoncello cream into dessert dishes and top with blueberries. You can also serve this like a parfait, adding the blueberries and mascarpone in layers to make a delicious dessert.

Southwest Veggie Soup of Get Wellness

Well, my poor sweetie has the plague, which I could normally cure with my Magic Chicken Noodle Soup of Get Wellness, but he is insisting on sticking to his no meat, no fowl diet. I personally would cave in the face of an ebola-level flu, but he is certainly a better person than I. So I had to improvise. Here is the Southwest Veggie Soup of Get Wellness.

2 Tablespoons olive oil

3 scallions, chopped 

1 bag southwestern style veggies (I think they were Flavor-Pak, but whatever brand, the bag contained corn, black beans, red bell pepper, poblano pepper, and onions)

2 quarts veggie stock

1 large can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes

1 Tablespoon salt

2 Tablespoon Penzy's Adobo Seasoning

8 ounces Amish-style extra thick egg noodles (if you make your own, think parpadelle width and just slightly thicker, so they stand up to being boiled in the soup)

Heat oil in a large soup pan and then add scallions. Once a delicious oniony smell starts to come off (a couple of minutes), throw in the bag of veggies.  Add the stock, tomatoes, salt, and Adobo. Bring to a boil. Add the egg noodles and cook until done (about 15 minutes).

This soup has a touch of heat, due to the poblano, but if you want a greater kick, feel free to add some crushed hot pepper or spicy pepper of your choice, I would not add chili powder, however, as that would change the flavor profile quite a bit.

Not a Winner

Sadly, it has become obvious that I am not going to be a finalist in the Cooking Light recipe contest. As a friend said, maybe my food is too strange to appeal to a majority of the magazines readers. Possibly. I might also have disqualified myself as I forgot to put serving sizes on my entries. Oh well. I still think the recipes are very good, and so, share them here with you!

By the way, feel free to ignore the brand-name ingredients in the recipes. They were required by the rules of the contest.

Asian Pear Crisp

5 Asian pears (about six cups, diced)

juice of half a lemon

1 Tablespoon Chinese five spice

2 Tablespoons fresh ginger, diced

2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour

Topping

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup steel-cut Irish oats

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup Kerrygold butter, melted

2 Tablespoons honey

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Wash the Asian pears. Core them and then dice them into a large dice. Place the pears in a mixing bowl and toss with the juice of half a lemon.

3. Toss the fruit with the Chinese five spice, diced ginger, and flour.

4. Spread the mixture in the bottom of a 9 x 11 (or similar size) baking dish.

5. In a small mixing bowl, combine the two types of oats and the dark brown sugar. Mix well to be sure the ingredients are well incorporated.

6. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter. When butter is just melted, add the honey, stirring until the honey is dissolved.

7. Pour the honey butter mixture into the oat mixture. Mix well.

8. Spread the topping over the pears and then bake for approximately 40 minutes in the 400 degree F oven, until the topping is nicely browned and the pears are tender.

Serves 8

Indian-style Shepherd’s Pie

1 ½ pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 large onion, diced (about 1 cup)

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

1 teaspoon dried fenugreek

1 Tablespoon cumin seed

1 Tablespoon ground coriander

1 Tablespoon sweet curry powder

1 bag Birds Eye Steamfresh mixed vegetables

1 jar Newman’s Own marinara sauce

Topping

½ pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces

½ pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces

3 cloves garlic

½ t. brown mustard seeds

½ cup chopped cilantro

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces, trimming any excess fat.

3. Put onions into a large non-stick skillet on medium heat. Once the onions are just starting to turn translucent, add chicken, garlic, and ginger.

4. Cook until chicken is nearly cooked, at least 15 minutes. Then add fenugreek, cumin, coriander, and sweet curry powder. Mix well, and then add the package of frozen mixed veggies.

5. Cook the chicken and vegetable mixture until the vegetables are thawed and have released a lot of their liquid. Then add one jar of marinara sauce. Stir well. Turn off heat, and let rest while you prepare the potato topping.

6. Put the russet potatoes, sweet potatoes and three cloves garlic into a sauce pan and cover with water. Boil until potatoes are fork tender. Drain water and return potatoes and garlic to the pan for mashing. Mash and then stir in the brown mustard seeds.

7. Transfer the chicken and vegetable mixture into a 9 x 11 baking dish. Top with potato mixture. Put into a 400 degree F oven for about 30 minutes until the chicken and vegetable mixture is hot and bubbly. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped cilantro.

Serves 6-8.

Sweet and Spicy Lentil Sloppy Joes

2 cups dry French green lentils

1 bay leaf

1 T dried savory leaves

2 T olive oil

1 medium onion

3 cloves garlic

1/2 cup diced poblano pepper

½ cup diced sweet green bell pepper

1 t chipotle powder

1 T tomato paste

1 Jar Newman’s Own marinara

1 T rice vinegar

1 T dark brown sugar

Pick through the lentils removing any stones. Place lentils, bay leaf, and savory into a five quart sauce pan and fill pan with water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for about 45 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Drain lentils in a colander and remove the bay leaf. Put the lentils back in the sauce pan and set aside.

Put olive oil in a 12 inch skillet and heat. Dice one medium onion and mince three cloves garlic and put them in the oil. Sauté until onion is translucent. Then add the diced poblano and the green bell pepper. Cook until the peppers just starts to soften and then add the chipotle powder and the tomato paste. Stir and then cook the mixture for about three minutes and add the marinara sauce, the rice vinegar and the brown sugar. Cook until heated through.

Pour the tomato mixture onto the lentils in the sauce pan and stir well. Cook on low heat until mixture is hot. Serve on a whole wheat bun.

Serves 6-8.

Smokey Chickpea Salad

2 cans Bushes Best garbanzo beans (chickpeas)

1 bunch green onions, chopped

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice

1 T honey

1 T smoked paprika

1. Drain and rinse the garbanzo beans and place them in a mixing bowl. Add the chopped green onions and mix gently.

2. Put olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and smoked paprika in a small lidded jar and shake to mix.

3. Pour dressing over the garbanzo beans and toss gentle. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let the salad rest for at least one hour before serving.

Serves 6

Italian White Bean Soup

2 t olive oil

5 links Al Fresco Sweet Italian Style chicken sausage

1 t fennel seed

2 32 ounce cans of fire-roasted whole tomatoes

2 14.5 ounce cans of Bushes Best cannellini beans

1 bunch fresh spinach, washed and chopped.

1. Place 2 teaspoons olive oil in the bottom of soup pan. Remove casings from the chicken sausage and crumble it into the olive oil.

2. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until the sausage is almost completely cooked and then add fennel seed.

3. Pour in the two cans of fire-roasted whole tomatoes. Use your soup spoon to break up the whole tomatoes. Then add the two cans of cannellini beans. Cook soup on medium heat, stirring often, for about 30 minutes, or until it is hot.

4. Just before serving, add in the fresh spinach.

Serves 6

Wild Rice and Blueberry Sausage Muffins

1 cup cooked wild rice

2 Eggland eggs, lightly beaten

3 T olive oil

1 cup low-fat milk

1 ¼ cup whole wheat flour

1 T baking powder

½ t salt

1 cup blueberries

8 links Al Fresco wild blueberry breakfast chicken sausage, diced

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Mix the wild rice, eggs, olive oil, and milk in a medium mixing bowl.

3. Sift flour, baking power, and salt together in a separate bowl.

4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing thoroughly, but just until all the ingredients are blended.

5. Stir the blueberries and the blueberry chicken sausage into the mixture gently.

6. Place muffin liners into a muffin pan and spoon batter into the liners. Fill each liner about ¾ of the way full.

7. Bake in the 425 degree F oven for 15-18 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown.

Makes about 18 muffins. Serves 18.

Curried Bean and Rice Salad

1 small can of Bushes Best black beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups cooked brown rice

¼ cup slivered almonds
1 cup golden raisins
1 bunch green onions, chopped

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice

1 T honey
1 T sweet curry powder
salt and pepper to taste

1. Put beans, brown rice, almonds, raisins, and green onions in a mixing bowl. Stir to mix,

2. Put olive oil, lemon juice, honey and curry powder in a small lidded jar and shake to incorporate.

3. Pour dressing over the bean and rice mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rest for at least one hour before serving.

Serves 4.

Entries Are In

I finally got my entries for the Cooking Light recipe contest in. Here's hoping!

I had to rethink my strategy as they do specify unpublished recipes, and I wasn't sure if I could count any of the recipes on my blog as unpublished.

So, anyway, I submitted seven recipes. If they don't win, I will put them up for you as soon as I know. If they win, you will see me leaping for joy on or around July 7 from wherever you might be standing. I am not sure if I set my recipes up the way they wanted (they wanted paragraph form, but what does that mean? The magazine uses numbers. And how big does the paragraph have to be anyway?) And I forget to put in serving sizes, although I did put in number of servings. Oh well, if I messed it up, I will try again next year.


Anyway, here they are:

Asian Pear Crisp
Indian-style Shepherd's Pie
Sweet and Spicy Lentil Sloppy Joes
Smokey Chickpea Salad
Italian White Bean Soup
Wild Rice and Blueberry Sausage Muffins
Curried Bean and Rice Salad

I have at least one recipe in each of the four categories and used all the sponsor ingredients except Stacy's Pita Chips and Swanson Broth.

Thank You, and Catching Up

Thank you everyone for your kind words and support. It's true that we all mourn the loss of a loved one alone, especially late at night, but you certainly can't get through it without the support of loved ones.

The sadness comes and goes. I will go for long lengths of time and then, at unexpected moments, wham! I will just start bawling. I stopped at the pet store to get Pele a new toy and they had kitten adoptions and I burst out bawling right in the middle of the store. I had a really hard time when I picked up his ashes. And then again, when I put them in a nice cedar box, courtesy of my aunt via a gift to mia madre.

Pele is still depressed. She actually got out of the house the other day, looking for Leo. And she is acting out - lots of plant destruction and dish destruction and under the feet attempted destruction. Plus, she isn't feeling well right now either. Her allergies are as bad as I have ever seen them - lots of sneezing and snot and even eye booger unhappiness. We may be going into the vet to find out how much children's benadryl I can safely give her. And I feel her pain because my allergies are terrible right now too.

Life is slowly getting back to normal. Work is overwhelming and I really need some veg time. I am crispy toast. I did take half a day off for Memorial Day weekend, but that was all spent in the car, so I don't know that it truly counts as relaxation.

I went north for the holiday. I worked at home Friday morning and left at midday. Everything got off to a slow start as I got almost to the Wisconsin border and realized I had forgotten the one thing I needed to bring with me on the kitchen table and had to turn around and go back to get it. But I was still there by 6 pm. It was a wildlife weekend - six bears, a million deer, turkeys, a coyote, one dead albino peacock (don't ask), and Ted Nugent's summer home. I also found a place where I might be able to harvest my own wild rice, if I can find a flat-bottom boat in the fall. I received some very old stained glass windows that I will clean and paint and recaulk and then hang as decoration as well as a gorgeous butcher block. I went to the family rock piles and got several dozen large rocks, so I can start to build flower beds. I made a wild asparagus frittata on Monday morning, and then I drove home.

And when I got home I discovered that someone had dug up my two orange Icelandic poppies. Just those two. None of the other plants were distrubed. Not even the $50 in forest perennials I had sitting in the back because I hadn't had a chance to plant them yet. And I have only one thing to say about the theft of the Icelandic poppies.

Doodz! Heroin. UR doing it wrong.


Wild Asparagus Frittata

olive oil
1 cup wild asparagus, chopped
3 green onions, chopped
1 small zuchinni, sliced
1/4 cup yellow bell pepper, diced
8 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup cheese
1 T Sunny Paris seasoning (from Penzy's)
salt and pepper to taste

Use a cast iron or other oven safe pan for this recipe. It also helps if you have a family member who has incredible skills for hunting the wiley asparagus. Store bought asparagus is good, but wild asparagus is great.

Pre-heat oven to 350.

On the stove top, put about a tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom of the cast iron fry pan and toss in your veggies over medium heat. Let them cook until they are just starting to get soft. In the meantime, crack eggs into a bowl and add the milk. Stir to mix and add some freshly cracked pepper.

Once the veggies are starting to get soft, add in the Sunny Paris seasoning and some salt. Then pour in the egg and milk mixture. Add half of the cheese and give the mixture a good stir. Then, turn the heat on the stove top to low and let the egg mixture cook very slowly. Leave it alone. Don't stir!

When it is close to set, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and stick in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until a butter knife stuck in it comes out clean.

Note: I used colby cheese for this recipe, as it was that or pepper jack and I hate pepper jack. I actually think this would be best with a sharp cheddar or a mild nutty swiss, instead.

Cooking Light Cooking Contest

I got my March issue of Cooking Light and they had the rules listed for the 2008 cooking contest. Now, I was totally going to enter last year, but the purchasing of my new home and my move got in the way. So I am totally stoked for this year. I plan to enter at least one recipe in every category, if not more.

The categories are breakfast and starters; sides and salds, dinner entrees, and desserts. Soups are in there somewhere, just not sure in which specific category. The hard thing about this particular contest is that you have to use products from their sponsors. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't use branded products very often. Still the sponsors offer enough general ingredients that I can certainly use a brand as required without any difficulty. The sponsors are Al Fresco sausage, Birds Eye Frozen Veggies, Swansons broth, Eggland eggs, Annie's dressings and marinades, Nakano rice vinegar, Newman's Own pasta sauces, Kerrygold cheese and butter - there might be a couple more but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

Anyway, the hard part is narrowing things down and then doing the testing and getting the recipe submitted. So, is there anything of mine, dear readers, that you have eaten that I have cooked that sticks out in your mind as, "Hey! Heather should work on perfecting that recipe!"

I know I definitely want to work on the Indian-inspired shepherd's pie (which utilizes the spices and ingredients in aloo gobi and I thought that at least one of my many yummy soups (maybe my Asian style homemade ramen or a curried lentil with chard and spicy peppers) and quite possible my Tuscan hummus made with white beans and aleppo pepper or the Asian bolognese made with ground venison or even my Asian sloppy joes made with green lentils. But anything else?

Curried Wheat Berry Salad

My cousin living in New York has requested the recipe for this favorite cold salad. It's a very free form recipe as I have never actually measured anything, but it will get her close.

16 oz wheat berries
1 small package slivered almonds
1 package of golden raisins
1 bunch scallions
equal parts olive oil and lemon juice
1 T honey
1 T sweet curry powder
salt and pepper

Fill a large pot with water. Bring to a boil and salt the water, then add the wheat berries. Cook them until they are tender and then drain. Put in a large mixing bowl. Add in the almonds and golden raisins. Chop the scallions fine and add to bowl. In a smaller lidded container, mix the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and curry powder. Shake until mixed thoroughly. Pour dressing over the wheat berry mixture and then stir well. The salad is best if it is let to sit a bit, letting the flavors get all happy with each other. Since wheat berries can be hard to find, this is also a good recipe for things like barley or brown rice.

Harvest Fete Follow-Up

My harvest fete was on Saturday and what an interesting Saturday it was! It actually started on Friday, when the plumber came to see why my tub was draining slowly. He water rammed to no avail, and then had to take pipes apart and auger. But eventually he managed to get the problem solved. While he was heading out the door, I noticed my kitchen had started to drain slowly and asked him if that could have been caused by the work on the bathroom, and he said there was no possible way it could be. So, I ran to the store and bought Draino and poured it down to no avail. Still, a slow drain is not a plugged drain and I had other things to worry about.

I woke up early Saturday morning as the dish guys were supposed to be there. I started doing some housework while waiting for them and noticed that my kitchen sink was not draining at all. In fact, it was backing up the most interesting sludge, a bit like the ooze one finds in the saltwater swamps of Maine. So, I actually took the pipes apart and used my baby auger to see if I could fix the problem myself (see, I watched the guy while he was working so I could do it myself in the future!). No beans. Still backed up. I called the plumber, and he happened to be nearby and ran over and had to auger the kitchen line. But, all my draining problems seem to be solved now, although I am $210 broker than I was on Friday.

Of course, while I was on the phone to the plumber, the dish guys showed up - an hour late but finally there and fixed my problem in five minutes, for which I paid them a disgusting amount of money. Bastards.

All in all, my fete went very fine. I had to do some last minute changes on the food, due to ingredient unavailability (what I thought was a venison roast in the freezer turned out to be a freezer burned hunk o salmon - gack!), but everything really came together in the end. About 15 or so folks came out and we all had a good time chatting and eating. We actually ran out of almost everything, which is great, as I don't have enough plastic containers to do leftovers anymore (GladWare, here I come). I did not get to mingle as much as I would have wanted to, as I was behind due to the plumbing disaster, and I can't figure out what happened to all the cds in my cd player and therefore, forgot about the music. My pumpkin turnovers did not work, and so the recipe here is what I would have done instead of what I did.

The food stars of the evening were the wild mushroom French onion dip (to quote one guest, "I can't stop eating this!"), the salad dressing, the potatoes, and what one person called the "vast crock of meat." The pilau was tasty good, and some folks like the turnovers and other folks did not. I stole my bread pudding recipe from the Mennonite cookbook, but forgot to add the sweetener. The texture was great, but my brain went, "Huh?" on the first taste. For the recipe listed here, I actually put in the sweetness I left out. I also made whipped cream from scratch for the first time, adding vanilla and cinnamon to the heavy cream and using my in-kitchen outboard motor to whizbang it all together.

Pele and Leo were incredibly well-behaved, much to my shock and outrage. Leo didn't try to crawl into anyone's plate, which is quite likely a miracle. And Pele had to sit on everyone's lap to be patted and adored.

Anyway, on to recipes!

Herbed Honey

Take 1/2 cup honey and a large handful of fresh herbs of your choice. I used golden sage, thyme, and one spring of rosemary. Wash and then dry herbs. Add herbs and honey to a small pot. Add 1 t lemon juice. Put the heat to the lowest possible flame and let the honey get bubbly good. Turn off heat and let herbs step for at least 1 hour. Heat the honey again to make for easier removal of the herbs. If you are worried about herb flecks in your honey, strain through a fine mesh sieve. Drizzle over brie or other pungent cheese.

Wild Mushroom French Onion Dip

3 shallots, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4.5 ounces dried mushrooms
2 T red wine
2 T olive oil
1 package of low-fat cream cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Rehydrate the mushrooms according to the package directions. Once pliable, chop the mushrooms into small pieces. Reserve the soaking liquid for later use.

Put the olive oil in a pan and add shallots and onions. Cook until the shallots are soft and translucent. Add the mushrooms and the wine as well as about half of the reserved soaking liquid. Cook until most of the liquid is evaporated. Add in the cream cheese and stir. The mixture should be thin enough to dip a chip or cracker into it but not so thin that is runs off the spoon. If it is too thick, add in a bit more of the reserved liquid. Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill overnight.

Braised Fall Flavors Venison

4 pounds venison stew meat (or use beef or lamb, if venison is not available)

Marinade/Braising Liquid:

1 bottle maple syrup and fig dressing
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup apple cider
1 cup pomegranate juice
¼ cup maple syrup
3 T each of dried minced garlic and dried minced onion
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade and set aside. Place meat in roasting pan and then pour marinade over it, just until the meat is barely covered. Let marinade for at least 2 hours. Place the roasting pan with the meat and the marinade in a 350 degree oven and cook for approximately three hours.

Note: I got my maple syrup and fig dressing at Wal-Mart of all horrible places. You can substitute a good balsamic vinaigrette instead, just increase the amount of maple syrup to at least ½ cup. You could also make this a Moroccan style dish by adding cinnamon, cumin, and coriander to the marinade.

Wild Rice and Barley Pilau with Sweet Potatoes and Golden Raisins

8 ounces wild rice
8 ounces barley

Cook wild rice and barley according to the package directions. Set aside. This step can be done up to three days beforehand.

4 medium sweet potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
3 yellow onions, rough chopped
3 T smoked paprika
2 T ground cumin
3 T cinnamon
3 T olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash, peel, and chop sweet potato into bite sized pieces. Rough chop three yellow onions. Put the sweet potatoes and onions on a flat pan like a cookie sheet (use one with edges). Drizzle with olive oil. Mix the spices together and then sprinkle over the top of the onions and sweet potatoes. Mix with your hands until all pieces are evenly coated. Back in a 350 degree oven for about one hour, or until the sweet potatoes are soft and starting to caramelize.

1 cup golden raisins
2 T olive oil
3 T Balti seasoning (from Penzey’s)

Add the wild rice and barley into a large sauce pan and start to heat the mixture, stirring often to prevent sticking. When the mixture gets close to being hot enough to eat, fold in sweet potato/onion mixture and add in about 1 cup of golden raisins. Stir in olive oil and then add Balti seasoning, making sure to mix thoroughly.

Maple Syrup-Pecan Mustard Vinaigrette

1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup olive oil
3 T Terrapin Ridge maple syrup-pecan mustard
1 T maple syrup

Put all ingredients in a container with a tight fighting lid. Mix until emulsified. Serve with a sweet lettuce mix.

Rosemary Roasted Yellow Potatoes

3 pounds baby yellow potatoes
3 T olive oil
3 T dried rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash potatoes and cut into quarters or halves, depending on size. Place in a roasting pan. Mix with olive oil and rosemary. Put into a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour, or until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.

Note: You could also roast these at 400 degrees, which will reduce cooking time and lead to crispy edges.

Curried Pumpkin Dumplings

3 cans solid pack pumpkin
2 large shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. ground coriander
3 T sweet curry mix
3 t of ground chipotle powder

1 package egg roll wrappers

Put pumpkin into a mixing bowl and add remaining ingredients. Mix well. If you don’t like spicy food, leave out the chipotle or add it a bit at a time, tasting after each addition, until it achieves the heat level you desire.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Take an egg roll wrapper and add about 2 T of the pumpkin mixture in the center. Moisten the edges of the wrapper with water and then pinch the sides together to make a triangular shaped packet. Drop the triangular dumplings into the boiling water. Once the dumpling starts to set up, remove from water. Then coat a large fry pan with oil and pan fry the dumpling. Dumplings are done when they are golden brown and delicious. Makes about 30 dumplings.

Autumn Fruits Bread Pudding

6 large eggs
6 cups 1% milk
4-6 cups French bread, at least day old, in 1” square chunks
2 apples, cored and diced
2 pears, cored and diced
2 T vanilla
3 T grated ginger
¼ cup honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Coat the bottom of a 9x13 cake pan with non-stick spray or butter. Put bread in the bottom of the cake pan. Use less bread if you want a very moist bread pudding; use more bread if you like a drier pudding.

Core and dice apples and pears. Put pieces in with the bread pieces, making certain to distribute evenly.

Mix eggs, milk, vanilla, ginger, and honey in a bowl. Pour mixture over the bread and fruit pieces. If any bread pieces are above the liquid, press down to make certain that each piece is covered. Put in the oven and bake for about one and a half hours, or until a knife pushed into the center of the pudding comes out clean. Serve hot or cold.

Note: Using a higher fat content milk will increase the creaminess and richness of the dish.

Sweet and Sour Ginger Chili Pickled Broccoli

I got two huge heads of Romanesco broccoli in my garden box (one in my box and one I took from the share box) and even though I adore cooked broccoli, I needed to do something with much of it as I certainly can't eat two heads by myself. So I chunked it up into rather large spears, blanched it, and then put it in a jar with some of my sweet chili ginger dipping sauce (from The Ginger People), some vinegar, and water, and stuck it in the frig to turn into refrigerator pickles. The brining ingredients are about 1/3 of the container you are using to pickle the broccoli of dipping sauce, 1/2 of the container of vinegar and fill the rest with water. Stir well to mix. I will let them stew in the frig for about three days but they already smell yummy good.

The New and Unusual

I made some new and unusual foods over the weekend, and thought i would share

First, venison steak with mixed vinegar peppers. This is a take on a very traditional Italian dish, normally made with pork chops and those canned, vinegar hot peppers that Italians seem to love so much. I personally hate them. The vinegar hot peppers, not Italians. I usually like Italians.

First, I marinated some venison cull steak (which means old and chewy) in red wine, tarragon vineger, and an Italian season salt mixture for about 4 hours. Then I slowly braised the steak on the stove top. Then I threw in slices from one red pepper, one orange pepper, one ivory pepper, and one hot bannana pepper as well as two shallots and three cloves of garlic. I cooked it slow until everything was done. The only thing that happened was that the steak never really softened much, as it was cull steak, which is closely related to shoe leather. But doing something like this with a piece of chuck steak would probably work really well. The key is to just cook it long and slow.

Second, I made one of my new favorites - roasted radishes. Just take some nice clean radishes, chop them in half if they are big, toss with some olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes. The radishes go all soft and sweet and that sharp raw radish taste goes bye bye..... I used some weird japanese radishes I got in my garden box. They are green on the outside and fuschia on the inside. Makes for an interesting visual side dish.

Potato and Three Onion Soup

2 pounds potatoes
1 large leek
2 large yellow onions
2 tablespoon dried toasted minced onions
1 quart water
1 quart 1% milk (or higher fat content)

Cut root end and woody green part off of the leek, then split the remainder down the middle and wash, making sure there is no grit on the inside of the leek. Cut leek into 1/2 inch slices. Rough chop the yellow onion. Coat the bottom of your soup pot with olive oil and then sweat the leek and onion over low heat until the get translucent and their choice are exuded. Scrub outsides of potatoes until clean, then chunk the potatoes into bite size pieces. Throw into the pot and then cover the whole mixture with about a quart of water. Add in dried minced onions. Cook until the potatoes just start to get tender. Then pour in mlik, and finish cooking until the potatoes are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Also good with some thyme thrown in. Garnish with chopped chives and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese.

A few notes: You can peel the potatoes or not. It's a choice thing. Also, some folks like a creamy potato soup, others like a milk broth with chunks. I am of the latter camp. If you want a smooth soup, do peel the taters and then use an immersion blender to puree the potatoes and broth together. Also, the more fat content in your milk, the creamier it will be.

Update

Well, I am still not feeling good emotionally. And on top of that I work with a fever today and cannot miss work under any circumstances. Anyway, whatever.

Here are two recipes that I made for the new faculty welcome party. I was under the impression that I was making appetizers for about 25 people. It, instead, turned out to be an appetizer potluck. So I made way too much food and can't get reimbursed for any of it. Here goes!

Herbed Honey

Take 1/2 cup honey and a large handful of fresh herbs of your choice. I used golden sage, thyme, and one spring of rosemary. Wash and then herbs. Add herbs and honey to a small pot. Add 1 t lemon juice. Put the heat to the lowest possible flame and let the the honey get bubbly good. Turn off heat and let herbs step for at least 1 hour. Heat the honey again to make for easier removal of the herbs. If you are worried about herb flecks in your honey, strain through a fine mesh sieve. Drizzle over brie or other pungent cheese.

Tuscan White Bean Hummus with Aleppo Pepper (For a Crowd)

4 cans of Italian White Kidney Beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup good fruity olive oil
3 T lemon juice (or more to taste)
3 T dried minced garlic
3 T mixed Italian herbs, dried
2 t Aleppo pepper (or other mild red pepper)

Put the rinsed and drained beans in a large mixing bowl. Mash with a potato masher until no individual beans can be seen. Add in remaining ingredients and then mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon until creamy and smooth. Depending on your beans and your taste, you may want to add additional olive oil or lemon juice. This one tastes better if you can let it sit for a while, so try to make it the day before you really want to eat it.

Quick Stovetop Chicken and Veggie Stew, Manhattan-Style

This is a nice way to use up any leftover tidbits of fresh veggies.

4 chicken leg quarters
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, smushed
1 T olive oil
1 Quart seasoned tomato juice
1 small eggplant, rough chopped
2 small pattypan squas, rough chopped2 medium tomatoes, rough chopped
1 8 oz. container of 'shrooms
1 T. of Italian herb mix
1 T tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

Put olive oil in a large Dutch oven and chicken. Brown on one side and then flip over. Add the onion and the garlic to the pot, and continue browning chicken. Once the chicken is browned, add in the tomato juice. Let cook until the juice just starts to bubble, left up the edges of the chicken to make sure that the juice gets down underneath. Turn the heat down to medium-low, so that everything simmers but doesn't boil over. Then throw in your rough chopped veggies. I listed above the ones I used, but feel free to use whatever makes you happy or whatever you need to use up. Once the veggies start getting soft, add the Italian herbs and the tomato paste. Stir well. Continue simmer until chicken is done. I left mine simmer for about 45 minutes. And served it with a nice crusty bread with butter. It would also go nice with rice or mashed taters.

Indian-Inspired Swiss Chard

In my garden box this last week, which continues to be mostly a disappointment, I received a large bunch of red Swiss Chard. Wanting to do something with it other than plain old steaming, which is what I normally do, I decided to first satuee it and then braise it soft Indian Style.

1 bunch Swiss Chard, washed well and then cut into ribbons
2 T Ghee (use oil if you have no ghee)
1 t of brown mustard seeds
2 T ginger paste
3 ice cubes
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the ghee in a large pan. Once it is hot add in the mustard seeds and cook them until they start to smell fragrant. Add in the ginger paste. Stir like mad! and then toss in the washed Swiss Chard. Cook until the chard edges start to curl and then throw in the ice cubes, cover and let steam until soft and delicious. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This marks the first time I have cooked with ghee. It has a strange nutty flavor to it that will require some getting used to. I am also learning that I really don't like mustard seeds. Except in mustard. Go figure.

Summer Foods Require No Recipe

It's that time of year and the food preparation is easy.

I often believe that the best food is the simplest, with the exception of curry, which is only complicated because it uses a mix of a lot of different spices. Curry isn't hard by any means, but it certainly isn't simple either.

And so, now at the height of summer, when I never really want to cook anyways 'cause it is too damn hot, I simple take the best produce and make it simple. Washed, sliced, maybe a touch of salt, maybe some spices. The most commplicated thing I have done recently involved cleaning and then blanching green beans, seasoning with lemon olive oil, a splash of vingear, and some seasoned salt and then refrigerating for a quick summer salad. Or cherry tomatoes, little balls of fresh mozzarella, a srizzle of basil olive oil, and a splash of vinegar. Yum yum.

Summer Veggie Stew

It was cool enough this weekend to think about eating actual hot food, so I decided to use up a lot of the veggies from my CSA veggie box. Enjoy!

2 zucchinis
3-4 patty pan squash
1 yellow squash
5 small onions or 2 medium onions
3 T Penzy's Bangkok Blend Spice
1 pint seasoned tomato juice
1 package frozen green garbanzo beans or 32 ounces canned (drained and rinsed)

Chunk all the veggies into large pieces and then throw in a pot with some olive oil. Cook until they just start to get color and then throw in the tomato juice. Add the garbazos and then let simmer away until everything is soft and delicious. Serve with brown rice.

Asian Cucumber Salad

I love cucumbers in the summer. Cool and water, with a delicious cruch. Really, not much is better. Except maybe watermelon. So, here is my favorite summer cucumber salad.


two 6-8 inch cucumbers
1/4 cup soy sauce (I use sushi style sauce)
1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1 T sesame oil (optional)
red pepper to taste (optional)

Wash the cucumbers and cut off the ends. Then slice the in half and then slice again to make good bite-sized chunks. Put in a bowl. Mix soy sauce and rice vinegar. Add sesame oil and red pepper is using. Pour over cucumbers and toss well. Let sit for 20 minutes in fridge and then toss again. Let sit for another 20 minutes and then serve. This method ensures that each slice gets a good infusion of dressing but doesn't get mushy. If you need to keep it in the fridge overnight, do the following: cut the cucumbers and mix the dressing. Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and then add water until the cucumbers are just covered. Stir well. Adding the water seems to help keep the cucumbers from getting too mushy while steeping overnight. With this method, make sure to drain well, and then spike the salad with a dash of soy and vinegar just before serving.

Heather Takes on Top Chef

Like most civilian foodies, I am a big fan of the cooking shows Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef. As I watch the shows, I always wander what I would make. So I decided to play along this season.

Playing along with Hell's Kitchen is a bit difficult as there really aren't individual challenges I can respond to. After all, I doubt I have a flounder anywhere in my kitchen, let alone a fresh whole flounder that needs to be skinned and de-roed. Nor do I have a hyper-masculine rugby player screaming at me military style, trying to break my spirit so he can then build it back up again with my desperate need to please the all-powerful authority figure (Gordon Ramsey, you know who you are). However, I can - to some extent - play along with Top Chef.

Now, I am a bit behind schedule, but here goes.

Each episode of Top Chef consists of two major challenges. The first is a 30 minutes or less quickfire challenge, in which the chefs must make some sort of a dish off the top of their heads using a dictated theme or specified ingredient. The second is where they cook a larger entre, also often themed. They just have longer to plan the dish.

In episode 1, they started the show by having to create an amuse bouche (or one-bite appetizer) from the remains of a buffet table. Now, I have no idea of what was on the buffet table, so I can't really play along with this one, but I would be likely to make something that was both salty and sweet at the same time, as those are two flavors that really wake my tongue up. Their second challenge involved making an exotic surf and turf. Unfortunately, the chefs were not allow to select their own surf and turf proteins, because if given free reign, I would have done a landlock surf and turf, using buffalo and freshwater fish. Instead, I decided to play with what the contestants had to pick from and selected buffalo rib eye and abalone. Now taking abalone as my starting point, as an ingredient I never ever use, I have eaten it mostly in Chinese restaurants. And my favorite take on it is steamed with a delicious sauce of Chinese rice wine, ginger, and scallions. Ginger and scallions/green onions are both key ingredients in that dish that is usally so popular and evil in Chinese establishments - Mongolian beef. I would cut the buffalo rib eye into strips, marinate it in ginger, soy, garlic and scallions, with a little ginger ale or cola thrown in. After it had gotten all yummy and full of marinade, I would throw it on a very hot wok and stir fry it so that it was caramelized on the outside and soft and rare in the inside. I would make a sauce with the marinade and then serve it over an abalone fried rice, making certain not to overcook the abalone.

Episode 2 featured a citrus quickfire challenge, which totally made sense as the show is located in Florida this year. I would have made a quick salad of exotic citrus (blood oranges, key limes, pomelos) with garlic oil-cured olives, thinly sliced red onions, and chopped cilantro. Again, a play on the salty-sweet that I like so much and a way to really highlight the interesting variety of citrus that is out there. I served a similar salad at my Sold! BBQ in Attleboro, MA a couple of years ago. It was a huge hit. The second challenge was to create a dish for an upscale BBQ. Now, one thing I notice is that vegetarians also get treated like red-headed stepchildren at BBQs, which is totally stupid as there are many wonderful veggie dishes that can be on the BBQ. And no, I don't mean just veggie kabobs. In my case, I would have made a tandori tofu - extra firm tofu sliced and then soaked in a yogurt and spice mixture. The tandori spice is bright red and when it hits the grill, the sliced tofu would get nice black grill marks, making a beautiful red and black contrast. Then, it could be sliced, to show off the creamy white inside, and then served on a vibrant green banana leaf. A beautiful dish.

The third episode featured a quickfire in which the chefs had to net their own shellfish, clean it and then prepare a shellfish dish. I probably would have kept it fairly simply, as cleaning the shellfish would have taken up a lot of time. Likely I would have made my version of a healthy Rhode island seafood chowder, which involves very crispy turkey bacon and soy creamer. The second challenge involved updating an American classic like frank n'beans, meatloaf and mashed potatoes and making it healthy and low cholesterol. Again, which dish the chef got depending on the order in which they got to pick. I have no idea what kind of dish I would have been reinventing but I think a frank n'beans dish in which the sausage was made from ground chicken and edamame beans and then served with some sort of warm multi-bean and barley salad would have been interesting. Redoing fish and chips would also have been fun, as there are many interesting things you can do in the oven. I might also have jumped at redoing the cabbage roll, as this is something I made on a regular basis. My cabbage rolls are made with a mixture of ground chicken or venison, wild rice, barley, onions and garlic. Once rolled in the cabbage lead, they are then steamed in a vinegar water bath and served with ketchup. To make it a bit nicer for the foodie crowd, I might make a nice sweet tomato salsa to go with the rolls.

Caprese Pasta Salad

Last night, I joined a group of fine females (and one fine male) for a trip to see the Indigo Girls perform at the Ravinia Festival. Now the nice thing about Ravinia is that the lawn seats are cheap and it is a picnic haven. So, everything brought something - some cheese, some wine, a billion or so cookies, hummus, etc etc. My contribution was a delicious caprese pasta salad.

Now a basic caprese salad is fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil - arranged neatly and drizzled with good olive oil. I made my salad by cooking a pound of pasta (I used rotelle) and then cooling in the fridge and then adding 1 pint of grape tomatoes, 1 container of marinated mozzarella balls, some lemon juice (about 1 large lemon), and a bunch of chopped up basil and Italian parsley from my garden. I overcooked the pasta just a touch and I could have chopped the parsley and basil smaller, but I was making it at 11 at night, so sue me. The only thing I might do differently in the future is to chop the mozzarella balls into smaller bits. They were quite salty and, as I hadn't salted the rst of the salad, being smaller would have spread the salty goodness throughout. Still, a good invention and one that will be repeated.

Also, today, I learned a new term. Bed-oaf. I found it hilarious. I hope you do, too.

Recipes?

My local bodega has pork spine for 89 cents a pound. Anyone got any recipes? It's the cheapest animal protein I have found in my area.