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In my continuing efforts to feel better, I thought soup would be another good choice for lunch. I went with a Real Simple recipe for Minestrone soup, from their "fake it, don't make it" collection. The ingredients are, well, simple: a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, a 14 oz can of white beans, a 14 oz can of kidney beans (I substituted chick peas), a 16 oz bag of frozen cut green beans, a quart of chicken broth, and 5 or so ounces of fresh spinach. You start by bringing the tomatoes to a simmer, then add the beans and broth and return to a simmer, then the green beans and simmer for 3 or so minutes, then add the spinach at the end, mixing until it wilts. A little salt and pepper, plus some Parmesan on top of each bowl and some crusty bread on the side and you're done. Easy, fast, and good for you. My only comment: the recipe says it serves 4, but I think it's at least a 6-serving pot.
This was a meal that I had planned to make earlier this week but didn't due to my cold. I'm kind of glad that I waited until tonight, since it involved my food processor, which is not a tool I pull out very often on weeknights because it's annoying to have to clean it. In any case, this recipe for Sauteed Chicken with Herbed Soba was quite easy to prepare and was another nice light dish with bright flavors.
You begin by making an herbed pesto-like sauce out of fresh parsley, cilantro, ginger, minced garlic, chopped scallions plus a little vegetable oil and rice vinegar. After giving that a whirl in a food processor, you set it aside and turn your attention to the other two components of the dish: soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles), which just need about four minutes in a pot of boiling water before being drained and tossed with the herbed "pesto" and chicken cutlets, which you saute in vegetable oil and season with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper for 4-5 minutes. When the chicken is done, let it rest on a cutting board for a few minutes before slicing it thinly, then plate the dish by putting some of the herbed noodles in a bowl and placing the sliced chicken either on top or alongside the noodles. Mr. Fritz and I both liked this (we're two for two today!) and I really appreciated that it was a different twist on a typical chicken and pasta dish. Cilantro and parsley are inexpensive and easy to come by at the grocery store even in winter (unlike basil) and very little chopping is needed to pull the whole thing together. I will definitely make this again -- it would be nice for a summer picnic, too, as I think you could easily serve it cold.
I have been sick with an awful sore throat since some time late Tuesday night. Despite my best efforts to send it on its way, the darn thing continues to linger, making me grumpy, tired, more or less without appetite and definitely not in any shape to cook. Which has meant that Mr. Fritz has sort of had to fend for himself (and at times both of us) for the past few days. He has done a more than admirable job, even going out into the cold dark night on Wednesday and bringing home wood for the fireplace and a chocolatey mint milkshake to soothe his mopey wife's whims. But I am at the point now where I am trying to rally, and I thought I might get back on track with this ridiculously simple yet wonderfully tasty offering: Creamy Chickpea Soup with Garam Masala and Cilantro. It's a recipe from Pam Anderson and it appears in her latest cookbook, The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great. I first tried this recipe when she published it in USA WEEKEND Magazine a few years ago (I made it for Ms. Hays, actually), and was glad to see that it made the cut for the cookbook, because I always thought it was quite ingenious.
To make it, you toss a can of light coconut milk, two cans of drained chickpeas, half a cup of salsa, a cup of chicken broth, two tablespoons of apple juice concentrate, a teaspoon of ground ginger, a tablespoon and a half of garam masala and a quarter cup of cilantro leaves into a blender and puree until smooth. Then you transfer the puree to a dutch oven, bring to a simmer, partially cover and simmer away for 4 to 5 minutes. Ladle into bowls, top with a dollop of plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt) and some chopped scallions (I skipped them this time) and you're done. The whole thing takes about 10-15 minutes from start to finish and even the cleanup is simple. I served it along with a crusty French bread roll, perfect for dipping into the soup.What you end up with is something that tastes like a cream soup but actually contains no cream whatsoever, a boon for those who are trying to eat a little lighter this time of year. In fact, a one-cup serving has only about 275 calories, but lots of protein, thanks to the beans. Also nice: since you puree the soup at the beginning and not the end of the process, you don't have to worry about transferring hot liquids from the soup pot to the blender. I wish it were this easy to make all my favorited pureed soups! And to my delight, Mr. Fritz really liked it. I was worried that it would be too spicy for him or that he would be disappointed that it didn't have chunks of chicken or some other meat in it. But that wasn't the case at all. As a result, I will definitely make this again for us both.
Mr. Fritz, if you have not already figured, does not enjoy cooking. As much as he enjoys eating what I create, he isn't ever going to putter around in the kitchen with me or discuss culinary techniques. So at times, the kitchen can feel like a lonely place. When I need a cooking companion, I often plug my iPod into a set of speakers that Mr. Fritz has helpfully set up on our kitchen counter and listen to the podcast version of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's weekly radio show, The Splendid Table. I learned about Lynne's show ages ago thanks to my sister, Mrs. Capaldi. She and her husband, Mr. Capaldi, along with my nephew, young Mr. Capaldi, listen to The Splendid Table all the time and insisted that I check it out, which I did, and was delighted by it, but it wasn't always easy or possible for me to tune in when it was live on the air. Then, a couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Lynne at the annual Food Writers Symposium at The Greenbrier in West Virginia, and she was just as warm in person as she is on her show. I was thrilled, then, when she started making the show available as a downloadable podcast, because that meant that I would never have to miss an episode and would be able to listen whenever was convenient for me. Gotta love the information age! The show is great because it is a mix of field reports from foodies about must-visit restaurants, interviews with chefs, food writers and culinary experts, and a segment of Lynne answering readers' questions -- in other words, a great melange of culinary goodness and inspiration, perfect to take in as I go merrily along, cooking in my own kitchen. Plus, the podcasts are both free of cost and free of commercials. Can't ask for more than that! If you haven't listened to The Splendid Table, I recommend checking out the podcast or tuning in to the public radio station in your area to see if they carry her show on their airwaves.
Are you already a fan of Lynne's? Or are there other cooking podcasts you'd recommend? If so, leave a note in the comments!
Tonight's meal had a false start. As in, I prepared it and we started eating it only to realize that it wasn't cooked all the way through, so I tossed it back in the oven for awhile before we tried eating a second time. At that point it was successful, thankfully. I should have realized from reading the recipe that there was no way it was going to work as written. Perhaps if I'd pounded my chicken cutlets until they were much thinner, it would have worked perfectly. In any case, here's how it all unfolded:To make this version of Chicken Parmigiana, you dip chicken cutlets in egg and then in a mixture of bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese, then saute them for 1-2 minutes per side in olive oil before transferring to a baking dish, setting them on a bed of tomato sauce. Top each cutlet with some fresh mozzarella and slide the baking dish under the broiler for 4-5 minutes. It's that last step that failed me. There was no chance that broiling the chicken was going to cook it through in 4-5 minutes, but I played along anyway. In the end, I returned the chicken and the sauce to the oven and baked it at 375 for an additional 20 minutes and then it was perfect. In any case, despite this fairly radical change in preparation, I do plan to make this again because it was very simple to prepare and it tasted great. Next time, however, I plan to skip the broiler step and instead just bake it at 375 for a nice, safe 25 minutes. The sauce will ensure it doesn't dry out and I won't have to worry about whether or not I'm about to poison poor Mr. Fritz. Eek!
Welcome to another installment of "Feeding Mr. Fritz salmon." One might think that by now I would have run out of new ways to cook salmon. Happily, that is not the case! Tonight I tried cooking it en papillote, which is a fancy (er, French) way of saying "in a paper wrapper." Taking my cue from an article by Lucinda Scala-Quinn in the January/February issue of Everyday Food, I took each piece of salmon and set it on a piece or parchment paper. Then I covered the salmon with dill and lemon slices before wrapping it up first in the parchment paper and then in foil. Then I put each packet onto a baking sheet and roasted them at 400 degrees for 12 minutes. When I unwrapped the packets, I found wonderfully tender, nicely fragrant, fully cooked filets, with no mess whatsoever. I served the salmon along with jasmine rice and snow peas that I'd sauteed in olive oil and lemon juice. The whole meal was ready in about 20 minutes. Yay!
On cold, rainy nights like tonight, I am ever more grateful that Mr. Fritz and I adopted this mission to eat in as the rule rather than the exception. Because tonight, instead of having nothing in the house to cook and having to venture out into the world to forage for food, I was able to just walk into my nice warm kitchen and quickly whip up an easy yet comforting meal of roasted chicken with carrots, onions, garlic and (the secret ingredient) prunes served over couscous. It took no time at all to prepare (other than chopping the vegetables) and was inexpensive yet tasted wonderful. Even the clean-up was a snap -- wash the couscous pot, toss out the aluminum foil on which everything roasted. So easy!
To prepare, you chop the onions and carrots into 1/2 inch pieces and quarter the garlic cloves. You mix those together on a baking sheet with some salt and pepper and roast in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes. Then you toss the vegetables with the prunes (quarter them first), add the chicken to the baking sheet as well, and roast for another 20 minutes. Towards the last ten minutes of roasting, make the couscous. Serve the vegetables and chicken over the couscous and, voila, dinner. I used small prunes instead of large ones and I think that if I use that size again, I'll skip the step of quartering them, as they got a little too tough. Also, I might add the chicken to the vegetable mixture at the 5 minute mark and thus cutting the total time the vegetables are in the oven to 25 minutes instead of 30 minutes -- they got a little burnt towards the end. If you use bone-in chicken, you should start the chicken and the vegetables at the same time, only adding the prunes at the midway mark. Finally, I tossed everything in a little olive oil when it was all done roasting because it looked a little dry. In any case, the vegetables were tender and the chicken was perfectly roasted. I think I'll definitely make this again, maybe on a weeknight when I want maximum results for minimum effort.
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