Recipe Roundup: Blizzard of 2010 Edition

Mr. Fritz and I have more or less been trapped in our condo since just before the thrilling and unbelievable Blizzard of 2010/Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse series of storms started last Friday. I was one of the many who hit the grocery store in advance of the storm to secure enough food for the two of us to "shelter in place" for as long as necessary. Thankfully, I was able to go last Thursday morning, which meant that the shelves were still full and I didn't have to compromise on what I wanted to purchase. I even used some coupons! Anyway, among the meals I've made so far for my hot husband during this snowbound week:

Friday night: Beef Stew. For this, we had the pleasure of having the lovely Ms. Haley join us. She trudged through the snow in full snowproof regalia (ski jacket, snowboarding pants, boots) and even brought a hostess gift (barbecue sauce from Foster's Market!!), true friend that she is.

Saturday night: Okay, I cannot tell a lie; we ate out! On Saturday, we decided to take a walk through the snow-bombed streets of Arlington and wound up sidling up to the bar at Hard Times for some chili. I am not typically such a heavy meat eater - and Hard Times chili really is pretty much just a big bowl of ground beef with minimal but tasty sauce. This did hit the spot on a snowy day and it was pretty great to not cook. Plus, Hard Times is one of Mr. Fritz's favorite spots, so I was glad to be there with him.

Sunday night: My week of cooking truly commenced at this point. I have been having fun these past few weeks cooking in packets. For several weeks I was stuck on a set of Pam Anderson recipes for Foil Packet Shrimp, Foil Packet Chicken and Foil Packet Salmon (I'll post these recipes at some point in the next few weeks, since they are no longer on USA WEEKEND's web site). There really is nothing easier than making an simple sauce or marinade, tossing it with a protein and a vegetable, sealing the whole mixture into a couple of individual foil packets and roasting on a cookie sheet. But in the past couple of weeks, I've been lured into cooking in parchment paper packages, thanks to, once again, the January-February 2010 issue of Everyday Food.


This recipe for Salmon with Green Beans and Lemon Zest is great. For each person, you settle a 6-ounce piece of salmon on a long stretch of parchment paper, top with trimmed green beans, strips of lemon zest, some capers and a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper, seal up the parchment paper and roast on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for around 15 minutes. It's fun to see the parchment paper swell up as hot air expands it. And the result, taste-wise, cannot be beat. Yum!

Monday night: For this meal, I returned to a recipe I had made before and really liked: Sausage, Mozzarella and Broccoli Rabe with Shells. I didn't see broccoli rabe at the store (and I wasn't about to try to hit another one in that pre-blizzard panic in order to see if I could find it someplace else) so I used plain broccoli instead and increased the boiling time for the broccoli to one minute. The really exciting part of this recipe, for me, was that I used mozzarella that I had made myself a week prior. That's right, I am officially a cheesemaker! I used this kit from cheese guru Ricki Carroll and followed her recipe for 30-Minute Mozzarella to whip up a pound of mozzarella using nothing but a gallon of whole milk, some rennet, some citric acid and a dairy thermometer. I don't have any photos of it, but it's really pretty tasty. The kit can be used to make 30 batches, so I'll see about photographing the next one.

Tuesday night: Another oldie but goodie. Both Mrs. Robertson and Mrs. Glade reminded me recently, and separately, about the awesomeness of Italian Pot Pies, so I decided to use some ground beef that I had earmarked for tacos to instead whip up these beauties. I had to use Vodka Sauce instead of regular tomato sauce and dried dill instead of dried rosemary for the biscuit topping, because that's what I had on hand, but they were still completely delicious. Highly recommended!

Wednesday night: Another parchment package recipe from this month's Everyday food. This time, it was for Chicken with Mango and Ginger. I once told one of my editors that my motto in life was "Give me a mango and I'll make you a meal." I was serious then - I had/have a full slate of both savory and sweet recipes that involve mango - and this recipe will definitely be a great addition to my collection. Same general technique as with the salmon, but this recipe is a mix of chicken, mango, ginger, jalapeno and cilantro with a dash of olive oil. I served both of these parchment recipes over rice.


Odds and Ends: In addition to all of this cooking, I also did a bit of blizzard-related baking. I made The Original Mrs. Glade's Easy Chocolate Cake so that Mr. Fritz would have something to nosh on for breakfast along with his daily banana, and tried my hand at these Lemon Ice Box Cookies as a sweet. (Once again, awful baker that I am, these didn't turn out very well... But I fault myself and not the recipe. I fared better a couple of weeks ago with these Dorie Greenspan Peanut Butter Cookies from a recent issue of Parade.) And I have pretty much stopped buying bread. Now I bake off a loaf of 5-minutes a Day Artisan Bread every few days and use that for Mr. Fritz's lunch. This came in especially handy this week, as it was really nice to have fresh bread in unlimited quantities, instead of watching and worrying as a store-bought loaf slowly diminished with no trip to the store in sight. Good times!

So there you have it, my get-us-through-the-blizzard menu. I was really pleased that my planning pre-grocery trip last Thursday morning paid off. And I still have more meals to make with the stuff I purchased, since it doesn't look like we'll be moving our car from its dedicated spot in the frozen tundra any time soon.

Dinner Tonight: Stir-Fried Honey-Ginger Chicken with Peppers

Hello! I'm sorry I've been lax in posting. Especially since I have not been at all lax in cooking for Mr. Fritz. So, without further ado, let me tell you about what I made tonight: Stir-Fried Honey-Ginger Chicken with Peppers from the January-February 2010 issue of Everyday Food. To be honest, I probably haven't made a true stir-fry since sometime in the 90s. But this issue has a whole set of stir-fry recipes that looked good enough that I couldn't pass them up.


The trick to stir-frying, as the article reminded me, is two-fold. First, make sure that you have all of your ingredients prepped and at hand before you get near your skillet or wok. For that, I employed the set of graduated glass bowls that the lovelies, Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Pantuck, gave me as a gift long ago and for which I continue to be super thankful. Second, make sure the skillet/wok is superhot before you drizzle in that first bit of oil.

After that, everything happens very fast and is very, very simple to execute. You start with that drizzle of oil, then add the chicken and stir fry for three minutes, then set it aside and fill the pan with a mixture of oil, minced ginger and minced garlic. Fry that for 30 seconds before adding the peppers and stirring for another two minutes. Next, add a mixture of soy sauce, honey and rice vinegar and bring to a boil. Then the chicken goes back into the pan and you stir the whole mess for the final three minutes. Serve over hot rice (lately I've been very pleased with the HT Trader's brand of Jasmine Rice from the Teeter - great stuff and comes out perfectly every time) and top with chopped cilantro. Easy and delicious!

This dish also reminds me that I wanted to mention that I have officially fallen back in love with my garlic mincer. I have, for the past few years, been using minced garlic out of a jar. I just thought it was more convenient and always kept a jar in my refrigerator. A couple of months ago, I purchased some real garlic on a whim and pulled out my super handy garlic mincer (a white metal doodad that pushes raw garlic through some tiny holes with the flick of the wrist) and honestly, I have not looked back. Fresh garlic is far superior to the jarred stuff. I also use this funky tan plastic tube to get the skins off of fresh garlic cloves. Pop a clove into the tube, press/roll the tube around and out pops your clove, miraculously unwrapped from its papery skin. Cleanup for both the garlic press and the tubey thingy is a snap. Very satisfying all around!

Treats: Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I told Mr. Fritz that I'd made him some incredible cookies to take in his lunch this week and he took one look at them and said, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Fritz!" Then he took this glamour shot of them to show off their irresistibility:


The recipe is from the October issue of Everyday Food and it is the recipe that finally put this issue over the top for me as an all-time favorite. It's turned out so many great meals, I think it alone was worth the entire year's subscription price...

In any case, as I've noted many times, I am NOT a baker. I'm incredibly bad a baking. But these cookies. Oh my word. They are so delicious I almost don't know what to say. The magazine called them "Crave worthy" and that is no understatement. In fact, I gave one to Ms. Hays today as a parting gift when she stopped by to see me and when she tried the cookie a few hours later, liked it enough to send me the following text message: "I just had a bite of your cookie. Holy crap that's a good cookie!" See what I mean? Definitely worthy of Mr. Fritz's glamour shot treatment. And definitely worthy of your time if you decide to make them. I know I'll definitely turn out another batch before too long.

My one note/tip: the recipe calls for 8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, chopped. I hate chopping chocolate, so I just used my big heavy meat tenderizer and banged on the two 4-ounce chocolate bars while they were still in their wrappers. Worked like a charm!

Recipe Roundup: Incredible, Easy Beef Stew

My mom always made beef stew when I was growing up and it was one of my favorite meals. This, despite the fact that I'm not much of a meat eater. I guess the thing about stew is that it is impossible to resist such a great dish - warm, fragrant, chock full of vegetables, awesome gravy. Yum!

A few weeks ago, Jamie Oliver appeared on Good Morning America and shared his recipe for stew. He structured it so that you could adapt it for chicken, pork, lamb or beef and it looked so easy that I made a note of it to try it when the weather seemed cold enough to warrant a big pot of it. Then, while reading through the December issue of Cooking Light, I saw another recipe for beef stew. I decided to merge the two recipes and come up with my own hybrid, mainly based on Jamie's.

Here's his original recipe:

Jamie Oliver's Basic Stew

Ingredients

2 stalks celery

2 medium onions

2 carrots

Olive oil

1 heaped tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 x 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

3 fresh or dried bay leaves

1 pound diced stewing beef (I kept my pieces pretty big, actually)

2 cups brown ale, Guinness or stout

If using the oven to cook your stew, preheat it to 350°F. Trim the ends off your celery and roughly chop the stalks. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Peel the carrots, slice lengthways, and roughly chop. Put a Dutch oven on a medium heat. Put all the vegetables and your chosen herb into the pan with 2 lugs of olive oil and fry for 10 minutes. Add you meat and flour. Pour in the booze and canned tomatoes. Give it a good stir, then season with a teaspoon of sea salt (less if using table salt) and a few grinds of pepper. Bring to a boil, put the lid on, and either simmer slowly on your cooktop or cook in an oven for the times shown above. Remove the lid for the final half hour of simmering or cooking and add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry. When done, your meat should be tender and delicious. Remove any bay leaves or herb stalks before serving, and taste it to see if it needs a bit more salt and pepper.

I added:
1 4-ounce package of baby portabello mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
half a pound (maybe more), baby gold potatoes, cut into quarters
1 more cup of beer (in my case, oatmeal stout)

And I simmered the stew in a big heavy pot for four hours instead of the three hours Jamie called for. The finished dish, which we shared with Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, was divine. I can't wait to make it again.

Recipe Roundup: Sausage, Mozzarella, and Brocolli Rabe with Shells

We had Sausage, Mozzarella and Broccoli Rabe with Shells, from the November issue of Everyday Food, for dinner on Friday night. And boy was it delicious. I used Italian sausage with basil and garlic instead of regular Italian sausage and really liked the flavors. This was also my first time cooking with broccoli rabe. It's sort of an unwieldy vegetable, but it was a great alternative to spinach, which is what usually ends up going into baked pasta dishes.

The recipe had a few steps to it, since you start off by boiling the pasta and the broccoli rabe in one pot while cooking up the sausage, garlic and tomatoes in another before combining everything and pouring it into a baking dish, topping with fresh mozzarella and Parmesan, and baking for 15 minutes. In other words, don't make this on a night when you're in a hurry. Do make it when you want something warm, gooey, savory and satisfying. It is great!! And even cutting the recipe in half (well, everything but the amount of pasta), we still had enough leftover for lunch on Sunday.


Sausage, Mozzarella, and Broccoli Rabe with Shells
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, November 2009
Serves 4. Prep time: 35 minutes. Total time: 50 minutes

2 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 sprigs thyme
coarse salt and ground pepper
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 links spicy Italian sausage (3/4 pounds total), casings removed
1 Tb. all purpose flour
1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes
1 bunch (about one pound) broccoli rabe, trimmed and coarsely chopped
6 ounces freshly mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup Parmesan

Preheat oven to 400. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium high. Add onion and thyme; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is golden brown, 15 minutes (reduce heat if browning too quickly).

Add garlic and sausage, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, breaking them up with a spoon. Cook sauce until slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Discard thyme.

Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook pasta 4 minutes less than package instructions. Add broccoli rabe to pot and cook 15 seconds. Drain pasta and broccoli rabe and return to pot. Stir in sausage mixture. Transfer to a 3 quart baking dish or divide among 4 16-ounce gratin dishes. Top with mozzarella and parmesan. Bake until cheese has melted and liquid is bubbling, about 15 minutes.

Recipe Roundup: Chicken and Chickpea Soup

I've been so busy the past few days that I haven't had a chance to post. But I have been cooking away. I'll be posting the things we liked. First up:


Chicken and Chickpea Soup. This is a recipe from the December issue of Everyday Food. It's scaled to serve six, so I cut the recipe in half, sort of, and made a few other tweaks.

First, I used boneless chicken breasts instead of the bone-in thighs suggested. This cut the prep time by a lot, since instead of cooking the chicken in a complicated way, I simply added chunks of raw chicken into the pot after I'd sauteed the onions for awhile. I added the spices when I added the chicken, so the chicken ended up being nicely flavorful.

I cut the amount of chicken down to half a pound, cut the amount of broth in half as well, but kept the full amounts of spices, carrots, onions, chickpeas and lemon juice. As a result, the soup was really chock full of vegetables and smelled and tasted delicious. I also really appeciated the garnish of cilantro, garlic and lemon zest - it added a nice finishing touch to the soup and was worth the five minutes it took to mix it up. I'll definitely make this soup again.

Chicken and Chickpea Soup
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, December 2009
Serves: 6. Prep time 15 minutes. Total time 1 hour 15 minutes (I think I made it in about 30 min)

2 tsps. olive oil

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (I used 1/2 pound of boneless chicken breasts)

coarse salt and ground pepper

1 large yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced

3 tsps. minced garlic

3/4 tsp. ground cumin

3/4 tsp. ground coriander

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices

6 cups chicken broth (I used three cups)

1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained

zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 tbs finely chopped fresh cilantro (corriander)

(I skipped this first step, opting to add boneless cut up chicken to the pot along with the garlic and spices in step two) 1. In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high. Season chicken with salt and pepper and cook, skin side down, until skin is browned and crisp, about 6 minutes. Flip chicken and cook until browned, 6 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate.

2. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from pot. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 4 minutes. Add 2 teaspoons of garlic and spices; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in carrots and return chicken to pot. Stir in broth.

3. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a medium simmer, partially cover and cook until chicken is falling off the bone, about 50 minutes. (Again, this took a lot less time - I cooked the chicken fully in step two, so then I just let the soup simmer until the carrots were soft, around 10 minutes)

4. Remove chicken from soup. When cool enough to handle, tear chicken into large pieces, discarding skin and bones. Return meat to pot. Add chickpeas and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. In a small bowl, stir together 1 teaspoon garlic, lemon zest, and cilantro; sprinkle over each soup serving before serving.

Dinner Tonight: Sweet Potato and Chipotle Soup, plus a bonus recipe

Tonight, Mr. Fritz went out with the guys for dinner, so I had a lovely vegetarian-ish meal of Sweet Potato and Chipotle Soup. (The "ish" comes from the chicken stock; everything else about it is vegetarian.) This soup, from the December issue of Everyday Food, has quite a kick to it. I'd never cooked with chilies in adobo sauce before, so I was surprised by how incredibly potent they are. The recipe calls for one-half to one chili. I used one half and made sure to discard the seeds before I added it to the pot.

The recipe also calls for the soup to be blended, and for that I turned to one of my most trusted tools: my immersion blender. I truly think that every kitchen should have one of these; they're small and they are so incredibly handy for blending hot soups, smoothies, even making fresh whipped cream. I think I'm on my third one (they don't last forever, unfortunately, and my first two used rechargeable batteries, which I think just stopped charging. Now I have a plug-in model) and I can't rave about it enough.

I made this soup on Sunday afternoon and have been eating it all week for lunch (and, well, dinner tonight). It turned out velvety smooth and wonderful. It's garnished with a bit of sour cream, which helps to cut the heat from the chilies. I highly recommend it and plan to make it again!


Sweet Potato and Chipotle Soup
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, December 2009
Serves: 8. Prep time: 15 minutes. Total time: 50 minutes
2 Tbs olive oil 1 medium white onion, chopped coarse salt and ground pepper 2 tsps. ground cumin 4 medium sweet potatoes (about 2 pounds total), peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 to 1 whole chipotle chili in adobo, chopped 7 cups of low sodium chicken broth sour cream, for serving
toasted flour tortilla wedges, for serving (optional)

1. In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high. Add onion, season with salt and pepper, and cook until beginning to brown around the edges, about 7 minutes. Add cumin and garlic and cook, stirring until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in sweet potatoes, chile, and broth. Bring to a boil; reduce to a rapid simmer, partially cover, and cook until sweet potatoes can be mashed easily with a spoon, 20 to 25 minutes. (I let mine cook for probably 30 minutes longer than that, because I was busy with other things when the initial simmering window was up.)

2. Let soup cool slightly. Working in batches, transfer soup to a blender and puree until smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids) (Of course, I just used my aforementioned immersion blender for this and pureed the soup in the pot. Less mess!) Return pureed soup to pot over low heat and season with salt and pepper. Top with sour cream or serve with tortilla wedges if desired.

Bonus recipe: Last night I broiled some salmon topped with dill and lemon, and served it alongside Spinach with Nutmeg and Lemon. The spinach recipe is from the October issue of Everyday Food and it was, as far as spinach goes, sublime. I was able to make dinner in all of nine minutes. And it was the best "fast food" that we've probably ever had! Definitely give it a try!

Dinner Tonight: Leek, Bacon and Pea Risotto plus 2 bonus recipes

I think that the first time I made risotto was back in 1999. At the time, it was pretty intimidating. All that stirring! It was the first time I'd made anything on top of the stove that needed so much attention for such a sustained time. But over the past decade I've lost my fear of this creamy rice dish and have made it in many different iterations. Tonight's version, Leek, Bacon and Pea Risotto, comes from the October issue of Everyday Food. It's scaled to make more than you'd need for a single meal, since leftovers go towards a second recipe (which I plan to make tomorrow night).

Tonight, I cut the amount of broth, arborio rice and parmesan cheese in half, left the full recipe amounts of bacon, wine and lemon juice, and increased the amount of peas from 3/4 cup to a full 10 ounce package (because who needs a partial package of frozen peas hanging out in their freezer?). And I definitely have enough left for tomorrow's secondary meal. Mr. Fritz commented a couple of times that he really liked the finished dish, much to my delight.

The key to making risotto without losing your mind is to heat up the broth on a separate burner. That way when you mix it into the risotto a cup at a time, it won't take as long to be absorbed. This cuts down the amount of time you'll find yourself standing at the stove stirring and stirring, which is a very good thing. (And that's a tip I don't think I learned until 2001...) In any case. this was good and I expect I will make it again!

Bonus recipes: Today was a bacon kind of day. For lunch I made Tomato Soup with Cheese and Bacon Toasties. The soup was pretty quick to pull together and the "toasties" were pretty much grilled cheese mini sandwiches with bacon amidst the cheese. Delish!

And I didn't get a chance to post this previously, but Thursday night I made Almond Chicken, adapted from an Everyday Food recipe for Cashew Chicken. It was particularly tasty - they labeled it "Eat Out At Home" and it definitely qualified as a really nice at-home version of Chinese take out. Mr. Fritz loved this - it will definitely make a repeat appearance. I served it with rice and green beans. I forgot about the green beans till I was done with the chicken and so I ended up throwing them into the same skillet and stir frying them with a little bit of soy sauce and rice vinegar. They were great!

Dinner Tonight: Baked Chicken with Onions, Potatoes, Garlic and Thyme

Wow. I wish that you could have been in my kitchen tonight. The meal that I made, Baked Chicken with Onions, Potatoes, Garlic and Thyme from the October issue of Everyday Food, smelled positively sublime while it was roasting. The whole house filled with the scent of lemons and thyme.


And happily, when it came out of the oven, it tasted just as wonderful as I'd hoped - luscious, perfectly tender chicken, lemons that roasted so thoroughly the practically melted, fragrant roasted garlic, caramelized chunks of red onion, and well-cooked hunks of new potatoes. The dish had very little added fat - I used 2 Tb. of olive oil total, since I halved the recipe - and required very little prep or cleanup. I think in total, I used a baking dish, a cutting board, a knife, a measuring spoon, and a little tupperware container to mix the balsamic vinegar with the olive oil before drizzling it over the chicken and vegetables. It's the ideal one-dish meal and it is one I plan to make again and again from here on out. Delish!

Baked Chicken with Onions, Potatoes, Garlic and Thyme
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, October 2009
Serves 4 - Prep time 10 minutes - Total time 1 hour

1 whole chicken (3 to 3 1/2 pounds), cut into 8 pieces and breasts halved crosswise*
1 pound new potatoes, halved (quartered if large)
1 large red onion, cut into eighths
1 head garlic cloves, separated and left unpeeled**
6 sprigs thyme
1 lemon, quartered
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tb balsamic vinegar
coarse salt and ground pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange chicken, potatoes, onion, garlic, thyme and lemon in a 12-by-16 inch roasting pan. Whisk together olive oil and vinegar and drizzle over chicken and vegetables. Toss to combine and season with salt and pepper. Turn chicken skin side up. Roast until chicken is browned and cooked through, about 50 minutes.***

A few notes from my kitchen:

* Since it was me and Mr. Fritz, I subbed boneless/skinless chicken breast, about 1/2 pound total. I'd probably use boneless/skinless again even if I were doing it for more people, because it came out so well without the mess of having to hack up a chicken.

** I peeled my garlic. I didn't want to deal with the skins in the finished dish.

*** My version was done in 40 minutes, probably because it was boneless and skinless. Also, instead of using a roasting pan, I used a small but heavy ceramic baking dish.

Dinner Tonight: Marinated Salmon with Couscous

Tonight I was reminded what a blessing it is to be able to cook. Knowing how to read and execute recipes means that anything is possible in the kitchen. It means that you never have to eat the same thing twice if you choose not to - and it means you can eat the same well-executed dish over and over again if you find a recipe you really love. As I sat down to dinner tonight, I thought about how much we'd probably pay for a similar meal at a restaurant and concluded that it'd cost at least three times as much. So not only do I gain satisfaction from cooking for myself and Mr. Fritz, we also save money without sacrificing quality or taste. I realize that this revelation is nothing new, but it is good to remember why I spend time in the kitchen as well as reflect on what we gain from it.


All that to say, tonight's meal was really good! And super easy. I adapted this recipe from the October 2009 issue of Everyday Food for Marinated Salmon Steaks with Couscous. I chose to use 6 oz salmon filets instead of salmon steaks, and I cut the rest of the recipe in half. Also, I didn't bother to marinate the salmon for 30 minutes as the recipe calls for, because ever since I read this story in the Washington Post about why there's no good reason to let something sit in a marinade, I've pretty much eliminated that resting time from every recipe I use that calls for marinating something. I slathered the salmon on both sides with the marinade, set it in a baking dish and baked it for 13 minutes at 375. And it came out perfectly. The couscous is infused with olive oil and lemon zest, and it's pretty essential for the meal, because the marinade has such a crazy kick to it thanks to the jalapeno pepper included in it. Mr. Fritz and I both liked this a lot, despite the fact that it was spicier than what we usually eat. I also appreciated that it was a new way to serve salmon (since I am always in search of new ways to serve salmon!) and really liked that it had sort of a Middle Eastern flavor to it. I will definitely make this again!

Dinner Last Night: Cubano Sandwiches

I spent the weekend in all-day classes, so I was excited to be able to make a super easy meal last night. Using the pork tenderloin leftover from Thursday night's Spice-Rubbed Pork Loin with Acorn Squash, plus another loaf of freshly baked bread from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book (dough that I had pre-made last Sunday but baked off last night!), along with Swiss cheese, dill pickles, mustard and some thinly-sliced deli ham, these Cubano Sandwiches (also featured in the November issue of Everyday Food) came together in a flash.


My tweaks: I used a regular heavy sauce pan instead of a grill pan, since I don't own a grill pan. And I used my bread instead of hoagie rolls, but the timing for grilling and baking stayed the same. Also, I subbed Vermont cheddar for Swiss on my sandwich, since I prefer cheddar, but put Swiss on Mr. Fritz's. And, I learned last night that Mr. Fritz cannot stand pickles. I appreciate that after 3+ years together, there are still things I don't know about my hot husband. It keeps things interesting!

Cubano Sandwiches
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, November 2009
Serves 4 - Prep Time: 20 Minutes - Total Time: 30 Minutes

3 Tb butter, room temperature, plus more for the pan
4 Portuguese rolls, split
yellow mustard, to taste
1/2 pound thinly sliced deli ham
1 pound Spice-Rubbed Pork Loin, thinly sliced
1/2 pound Swiss cheese, thinly sliced
sliced dill pickles, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425. Butter inside of each roll; spread with mustard. Divide ham, pork and cheese among bottom halves of rolls. Top with pickles, more mustard to taste, and top halves of rolls. Press down firmly on sandwiches.

2. Heat a grill pan and another heavy pan over medium. With a paper towel, lightly coat grill pan with butter. In batches, place sandwiches on grill pan and weight with second pan. Cook until bread is crisp on the outside, about 3 minutes per side; transfer grill pan to over and bake sandwiches until cheese has melted, about 5 minutes. To serve, cut sandwiches in half.

Dinner Tonight: Arugula Salad with Sweet Potatoes and Feta, Spice-Rubbed Pork Loin with Acorn Squash and Homemade Bread

Tonight, we had the great pleasure of having our fun friends Ms. DiNardo and Mr. Fielder over for dinner. Since they are both great cooks, I wanted to make something seasonal and special for our meal. The November issue of Everyday Food had a couple of things that I thought would go well together.


First, a salad of arugula, feta and roasted sweet potatoes with an orange and white wine vinegar vinaigrette. This was incredibly easy to put together: roast one and a half pounds of sweet potatoes tossed with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes, then toss with arugula and feta and dress with a mixture of 1/2 tsp. orange zest, 1 Tb. fresh-squeezed orange juice, 1 tsp. white wine vinegar and 2 Tb. olive oil. And, for a salad with only three main ingredients, was really tasty.


The main course was also very simple: pour a marinade of olive oil, brown sugar, cinnamon, chili poweder and cumin over slices of acorn squash. Sear a 3 pound pork loin, then baste it with that same marinade. Then roast the squash and the pork loin on the same pan in a 425 degree oven for 45 minutes, turning the squash and re-basting the pork every 15 minutes. The squash becomes tender and caramelized and the pork gets a most luscious, flavorful crust.


But the part of the meal I was most proud of was actually the bread. I made bread from scratch! And it was ridiculously simple. I used a cookbook called "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day" and was able to make the bread with just flour, yeast, water and salt using just a bowl, a wooden spoon, and a pizza stone. The authors of the book have created a method that yields a really wet dough that you can pull together in literally just a couple of minutes, that needs no kneading or proofing and that is truly idiot-proof. And the bread! Mr. Fritz cannot get over how great it tasted. It was hearty, salty, airy-yet-substantial and had a great crust. I am so thrilled with the result, I can't wait to try the rest of the recipes in the book! (This time, I used the "boule" recipe) Better yet, the dough (which I made on Sunday) made enough for two loaves. So I'll probably make another loaf on Saturday to use for that evening's meal. Woo hoo!

Dinner Tonight: Chicken, Lemon and Dill with Orzo

Wow. Just when I think I've been bored to death by chicken, a recipe like this one comes along and wins me over yet again. This beauty, featured in a story called "Beyond Lasagna" in the November 09 issue of Everyday Food, is sublime. It's also ridiculously easy. Which means it's definitely a keeper. It combines lots of my favorite things: lemon, dill, feta, and orzo to create a baked pasta dish that is equal parts comfort food and savory delight. Spectacular!


I played with the ratio of ingredients a bit, because the recipe is written to serve six. I more or less cut it in half, but went with ample amounts of lemon juice and dill, in particular, and less feta and parmesan. The end result is sort of risotto-ish, actually, without the fuss and attention needed for real risotto.

Chicken, Lemon and Dill with Orzo
Source: Everyday Food Magazine, November 2009
Serves 6. Prep time: 10 minutes. Total time: 50 minutes

4 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 Tb unsalted butter
1 1/4 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 pound chicken tenderloins, cut into 1-in pieces
1 pound orzo
2 cups crumbled feta (about 4 ounces)
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh dill
2 tsps finely grated lemon zest plus 1 Tb fresh lemon juice
1 c grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a sauce pan, bring broth, 3/4 cup water, butter, salt and pepper to a boil. In a 3-quart baking dish, combine chicken, orzo, feta, dill, lemon zest and lemon juice. Pour broth mixture over chicken mixture and stir once to incorporate. Bake until orzo is tender and cooking liquid is creamy, about 40 minutes. Sprinkle Parmesan on top and let stand about 5 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Dinner Tonight: Mrs. Taylor's Pasta Sauce over Sweet Italian Sausage Tortellini

While my pound cake was in the oven, I decided it might be nice to pull together a little something to simmer on the stove. So I pulled out one of my most beloved cookbooks - one put together and given to me by my old friend Mrs. Taylor of her favorite tried-and-true recipes - and made a pot of from-scratch pasta sauce. I must admit that more often than not, I cheat and use bottled sauce. (I'm partial to Vodka Sauce from the Teeter) even though I was raised by a mother who always always made a fabulous meat sauce from scratch. So tonight, I vowed, I'd return to my from-scratch roots, and, since I wanted to make a meatless sauce tonight, I went with Mrs. Taylor's version. I'm going to serve it over tortellini stuffed with sweet Italian sausage as a concession to my meat-loving husband. It's still simmering away as I type this, and it smells great. Here's to hoping Mr. Fritz likes it! (I think he will... It's seriously awesome...)


Mrs. Taylor's Pasta Sauce

2 cups chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
2-3 Tbs olive oil
3 30-oz cans diced tomatoes
2 6-oz cans tomato paste
2 Tbs. brown sugar
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp ground thyme
2 tsp. salt
2 bay leaves

1 pound fresh mushrooms
olive oil

In a large stock pot, cook onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until tender, but not brown. Add remaining ingredients (except mushrooms) and simmer on low heat for about 2 hours until sauce is thick, stirring occasionally. Saute mushrooms in olive oil; add to sauce. Remove bay leaves before serving.

Dinner Tonight: Chicken with Easy Peanut Sauce

Another night, another oooold recipe that I've finally gotten around to trying. This time, it's Jean Carper's recipe for Chicken with Easy Peanut Sauce. Mr. Fritz and I both liked this a lot, and since it lived up to it's "easy" title, I definitely plan to make it again.

Jean calls for grilling chicken breasts for 7 minutes. We don't have a grill, so I threaded bite-sized pieces of chicken onto four metal skewers and broiled them for around 8 minutes, turning each skewer once mid-way through cooking them. While they were broiling, I made the peanut sauce - you just put peanut butter, garlic, a bit of soy sauce, and some chicken broth into a bowl and nuke it for three minutes.


I plated the chicken with steamed pea pods and basmati rice and served the peanut sauce in a ramekin on the side. It made for a nice looking plate and each element was really good both individually and collectively. And considering there were four components to the meal, cleanup was still pretty quick.

Treats: Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

This afternoon I made these excellent cookies for Mr. Fritz. The recipe is from Real Simple and it's easy enough that even I couldn't screw it up. The hardest part (or rather, the part that takes the longest) is unwrapping all of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. But honestly, the result is worth the effort. My only issue with the recipe: it claims to make 48 cookies. I was able to get 24 out of the first batch of batter I made a few weeks ago and just 18 (albeit pretty big) cookies out of today's batch. Regardless, if you have a bag of mini Reese's leftover from last night's festivities, I definitely recommend giving this recipe a try!

A Perfect Fall Dinner

Welcome, November! The weather had a bit of a chill to it today, which put me in the mood for comfort food. Which was perfect, since we were expecting our spectacular friends Mr. Leamon and Ms. Kuhn over for dinner. I spent the afternoon preparing the meal so that I could fully enjoy spending time with our guests. On the menu: my favorite salad from Foster's Market in Durham, North Carolina, chicken pot pie, and my mom's apple crisp. I made the chicken pot pie and the apple crisp all the way up to the baking stage during the day, then put the pot pie into the oven about 30 minutes before our guests arrived and put the apple crisp into the oven as soon as I pulled the pot pie out. And I presliced all the ingredients for the salad, dousing the avocado and apple slices in lemon juice so that they wouldn't brown, and made the dressing, then assembled the salad just before we were ready to eat it. The meal was delicious - exactly what I had hoped for!

While I'd made the salad (which I first encountered while visiting Mr. and Mrs. Stevens in Raleigh a few years ago) and the pot pie (a Pam Anderson recipe for USA WEEKEND) many times before, this was the first time I'd ever made my mom's apple crisp. Her recipe was a little vague - she didn't specify how many apples to use or how long to leave it in the oven, and when I called to ask her, she said what all great cooks would say: "bake it till it's done." Translated: for a 9x13" pan, use 7-8 apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks and bake it for around 30-40 minutes, or until the apples are nice and tender and the "crisp" is golden brown. Taking a bite of the finished product immediately transported me to my childhood, a very happy time indeed! Thanks, Mom, for the apple crisp and for always being so good to me!!

Avocado, Cucumber, Green Apple, Feta Salad
Source: Foster's Market, by way of Mrs. Stevens

Grated zest and juice of one lime
1 Tbs. white wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves
1 tart apple, peeled, cored and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 cucumber, peeled, halved, seeded and sliced 1/4 inch thick
4 cups watercress, washed and trimmed of tough stems
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 onces feta, thinly sliced

1. stir the lime zest and juice and vinegar together in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until all in incorporated. Stir in the mint.

2. In separate medium bowl combine the apple, avocado, cucumber and watercress. Drizzle with the vinaigrette, season with salt and pepper, and toss gently. Arrange the salad on a platter or individual plates, top with the feta slices, and serve immediately.


Apple Crisp
Source: my sweet, amazing, talented mother

7-8 apples, cored, peeled and roughly chopped into good sized chunks
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup oatmeal (the old fashioned kind, not the quick cooking)
1 stick of butter, melted
1/4 tsp. cinnamon*
1/4 tsp. nutmeg*
1/4 tsp. salt
vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a 9x13" baking dish with the apples. Mix remaining ingredients together and pour mixture over the apples. Bake for 2o-30 minutes or until the apples are nice and soft and cooked through. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

*says Mom: "if you wish, you can use more or less cinnamon and nutmeg."

Enjoy!!

Dinner Tonight: Wayne's Inheritance

There are many great restaurants in Ann Arbor, Mich., but my favorite is Zingerman's Deli. It's quite possibly the greatest place on earth for someone who likes to eat really good food. It's also home to what is probably my favorite sandwich ever, Wayne's Inheritance. Comprised of roasted chicken, cucumber slices, white cheddar and Ranch dressing, it's a pretty simple sandwich to replicate at home, although it never really occurred to me to try until I started cooking for Mr. Fritz. Now I serve it every few weeks. Zingerman's is all about the ingredients - the best of everything. My version comes reasonably close to the original, though.

I use organic chicken breasts which I cut into strips and saute over medium high heat until they're cooked through. I heat up two demi-baguettes (I think I've written about these before - this great crusty bread that's sold frozen and then finished off at home with 10 minutes in the oven), split them open and spread ranch dressing on one side each one and lay out a slice of Vermont white cheddar on the other side of each baguette. I top the cheese with chicken and the chicken with slices of cucumber, then close each sandwich up, cut them in half and serve them warm. The contrast of the hot bread and warm chicken, the melted cheese and the cold dressing and cucumber is sublime. It's the sort of thing I'd never come up with on my own, but in this context, all of the ingredients are perfectly wedded to each other. Yum!

A Tale of Three Peppers

Recently I picked up a pack (not a peck) of peppers at Trader Joe's. It was a three-pack, consisting of one red, one orange and one yellow pepper. I wasn't sure what I was going to use the peppers for, and so they languished for a bit in the crisper. Then I had a revelation: Roasted Red Pepper Sauce. The recipe is an old, long-forgotten favorite of mine. Back in college, I worked for a restaurant called Pastabilities. The restaurant is, sadly, long gone, but I managed to sweet talk one of the cooks into giving me the recipe for both this sauce and a killer pesto as my time there was coming to an end. The thing about it is that it really could not be more simple to make, yet it tastes spectacular. And, so, without further ado, the tale of how my three lowly peppers turned into the best sauce ever:

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
adapted from Pastabilities*
Yield: about 2 cups

Ingredients:
3 red peppers (or a mix of red, yellow and orange)
1/2 of a 10.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes
2-3 Tb heavy cream

Cut the peppers in half, discard stems and seeds, and broil cut side down on a baking sheet until the skins are totally black. Remove peppers from oven and place in either a ziplock bag or a bowl with a tight-fitting lid. Let peppers rest until they are cool enough to handle, then remove blackened skins from each pepper and discard the char.

Place peppers in a blender, add tomatoes and cream, and puree until smooth. From here the sauce can either be saved for another day or heated and served over your favorite pasta. I served it to Mr. Fritz over gnocchi and mixed in some bite-sized pieces of sauteed chicken breast, then dusted the dish with grated Parm. Seriously delish!

* The original recipe called for a 48 oz can of roasted red peppers, a 10.5 oz can of 6-in-1 tomatoes and 8 oz of half-and-half. This would have made enough sauce to feed and army and wouldn't have helped me use up my fresh peppers, so I scaled it down to the recipe you see above. If you need a LOT of RRP sauce, definitely give the larger proportions a try!

Dinner tonight: Pan-Fried Shrimp with Green Curry Cashew Sauce and Sesame Carrot Salad

I cooked a lot this weekend for Mr. Fritz (and will try to post the additional recipes as the week goes along), capping off my time in the kitchen with this excellent meal: Pan-Fried Shrimp with Green Curry Cashew Sauce from the Everyday Food Cookbook. It came together quickly -- the toughest part, really, was cleaning the food processor after the curry prep was finished.


To prepare the curry, you blend roasted, salted cashews with ginger in a food processor until smooth, then add some plain low-fat yogurt (I used Greek yogurt, which may have led to a thicker end result than would have been otherwise), cilantro, curry powder and salt and process some more. Once it's nicely pureed, divide between serving cups and set aside.

The preparation for the shrimp is super easy: heat some olive oil over medium high heat, add shrimp, salt and pepper and pan fry 2-3 minutes per side. Serve with the curry sauce and enjoy! Mr. Fritz and I really liked the the taste of the curry sauce. I was a little wary of it because as a general rule I don't like cashews, but I found that when they were blended with the rest of the ingredients, I couldn't even pick out the flavor of the nuts -- or at least it didn't impact the taste negatively.

I also made a sesame carrot salad to go along with the shrimp and curry. For this, I shredded a few carrots with a peeler, then mixed them with a dressing of rice vinegar, ginger, sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil. The carrot salad (which is paired with the curried shrimp in the cookbook) added a nice light, crispy element to the meal.

I will definitely make this meal again -- I was reminded yet again that it is often so much more satisfying to try a new dish at home than it is to go out to eat and spend tons of cash on something that likely will not be as tasty as what I can whip up in my tiny kitchen. Yay!