• Home
• Me & Food
• Recipes
• Blogroll!

RSS

Archive for the ‘Matthew’ Category

Living the CSA life

We are trying to maximize our use of the digital camera AND to eat lots of new healthy foods, and so this blog will probably take a food-related spin more often.

We recently joined Full Circle Farm‘s CSA, so we’re trying lots of new fruits and veggies.  The first couple weeks were a little rough and a couple things went to waste, but now we’re working on making a two-week  meal plan everytime we get a box (we get one small box bi-weekly), so that we can ideally eat more fruits as snacks (something we always say we’ll do, and then have a hard time following through) and use up the veggies that we’re not so used to cooking with.

After a week in Portland for work (where I stayed at the super-fun Kennedy School hotel), I was completely tired of eating out.  So we planned a homemade dinner for Saturday night! We spent the afternoon in Kirkland getting the car’s oil and filter changed, buying puppy toys, building a futon, and grocery shopping!  We really over-estimated how long the futon would take to put together, so dinner was SUPER late.  We made a yummy basic roasted chicken, with super crispy yellow fingerling potatoes and simple steamed broccoli.  So delicious! Plus, I used the drippings from the chicken to make a tasty sauce which the potatoes soaked up nicely.  While we waited for the chicken to roast we had an apple and a pear for a snack and a green salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and organic croutons!  Our apple, pear, potatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes all came from the CSA! A few were from Full Circle Farm, a few were from other local NW farms, and the rest were from other organic farms farther away.  So yummy, fresh and healthy!

BONUS: I got to use my new digital oven probe thermometer that Matt got me for Christmas from Williams-Sonoma! Spectacular, and so fancy!! AB would be proud.

To celebrate Obama, puppies (old and young), hope, progress, love, the luck of still having jobs, and life in general…

Let’s try to get back to blogging regularly!

Honey and Soy Sauce make me happy

Chicken:

6 chicken tender strips, pounded flat

1 cup honey

1/4 cup soy

2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp vegetable oil

red pepper flakes

cumin

onion powder

cayenne pepper

– mix honey through pepper and coat chicken in Ziploc bag, store in fridge to marinate for at least 30 minutes

Stuffing:

1 1/2 to 2 cups prepared, plain couscous

1 TB parmesan cheese

3 TB shredded Italian blend cheese

1 egg, beaten

Italian seasoning

salt

pepper

cumin

– mix all together in small bowl and set aside until chicken is ready

Sauce:

2 TB chicken broth

2 TB honey

2 tsp soy sauce

cayenne pepper

cumin

– mix all together and set aside

Preparation:

– preheat oven to 350 degrees

– in lightly buttered/greased casserole, spread a half-inch layer of plain couscous (I made an entire box of instant couscous and used some for stuffing and some for pan, with a little leftover)

– with one piece of chicken, lay flat, top with 1-2 TB of stuffing mixture and roll. repeat with all pieces and place them on top of couscous in casserole

– cover casserole with foil and place in heated oven and bake for 20 minutes

– remove cover and baste with half of reserved sauce

– return to oven for another 10 minutes and repeat basting with rest of sauce

– cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through

Happy Birthday!

I missed it yesterday because we were busy running around, having lunch with Saugata, and coming home to see Andrew, but yesterday, March 21st was SANTANA’S BIRTHDAY!!!

She is such a party puppy!!

Out of curiosity, we researched Freckles’s birthday…approximately October 13, 1994…She will be 14 this year!!! So old!!

Also, Happy Birthday to Dori, whose birthday is the same as Santana!!! Yay!!

…even Brussels sprouts?

So, mostly everyone I’ve talked to about this recipe eventually responds with something along the lines of, "yeah, well, cream and bacon will make anything delicious." Probably fairly true…I am a huge fan of bacon. I really align myself with Homer on this one…Simpson that is…the pig is indeed a "wonderful, magical animal."

That being said, I was really surprised at how wonderful this dish turned out. (I had this dish at a dinner party a little over a year ago, and this was my attempt to replicate it without a specific recipe)

Brussels sprouts are a type of cabbage, which I’m usually not a fan of unless it’s in a really well-made coleslaw. When we bought the pack of B.sprouts at Pike Place, I remembered my mom always being crazy about them, and I remembered that I was generally fairly disgusted by them. I also remembered that I think that disgust was based on smell, cooking method (steamed until super soft), and general childhood fussiness. However, I also remembered that a year ago, I was shocked by how much I loved the dish that Stacey had made for our group dinner.

So, I searched the internet for a recipe…and couldn’t find one. I could find recipes that incorporated one or another part of what I remembered, but couldn’t find the whole thing. So, with a few recipes in the back of my mind, I sort of just made it work. I was scared….it was worth it. It was a delicious side dish (I served it with Sole, aromatic veggies, and orzo, but it would have worked better with a stronger main dish…beef, chicken, pork, even a salmon or something). Sure, it’s not exactly healthy, but B.sprouts are full of nutrients (the darker, more colorful a vegetable, the more nutritious it is), and this is a great way to introduce them into your diet. Just make sure the rest of your meal isn’t full of bacon and cream, and you’ll be fine.

The stuffs you need:
• 1 crate thingy of B.sprouts (probably about 2 cups, before we trimmed them?)
• 4 slices of bacon, cut into small (about 1/2 inch) pieces before cooking
• 1 large shallot, sliced
• 1/4 cup water or chicken stock/broth (obviously the stock/broth will add more flavor than the water)
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup heavy cream (this just depends on how much you want to add)
• A little parmesan cheese & fresh ground black pepper

The cookings you do:
1. First thing’s first…trim the B.sprouts. I’m not sure if we did this completely right, because it seemed like we almost halved the amount of veggie we had left by the time we cooked. I checked a couple websites, cooking blogs, random internet things to find out how to clean and trim, and they all talk about trimming the stem (where it’s harder, dried out) and the outer leaves (any that are loose or damaged or anything and could negatively affect the taste and texture of your food). The further in you get, it seems the leaves just get sweeter and more tender, so I guess over-trimming is better than under-trimming. Anyway, we (mostly Matt) trimmed all the B.sprouts and then cut them in half down the middle of the stem, so we had twice as many pieces, all with a flat side. Rinse and set aside.
2. Delicious thing’s second…cook the bacon. If you’re going to chop or crumble bacon into a dish, it’s always easier to cut it into small pieces before you cook it. If your knife isn’t super sharp, it will be annoying, but you can get around this by either using kitchen shears (if you don’t have a pair of scissors set aside specifically for your kitchen, you really should) or by using slightly frozen bacon (I’d recommend the shears). The chopped bacon can go directly into a cold pan and cooked over medium high heat. It doesn’t need as much attention as bacon slices, but just stir it once in a while, and keep an eye on it. Take it out and drain on paper towels when it’s done to your desired crispness. Then hide the plate of bacon in the microwave or under a larger dish…or anywhere someone like Matt won’t pick at it. 🙂
3. Drain off all but about 1 Tablespoon of the bacon grease and lower the heat to medium/medium low.
4. Slowly cook the shallot in the pan with the bacon grease. You can cook them anywhere from soft and translucent to lightly caramelized. You can also use regular onion for this, but I really love the soft, sweet flavor of shallots.
5. When the shallots are just before where you’d like them to be (they’ll cook a little bit longer), push them out to the sides of the pan, leaving a wide space directly on top of the burner. If your bacon grease is completely gone after cooking the shallots, spray a little cooking spray or add just a tiny bit of oil (or butter!) in the pan so the B.sprouts won’t stick.
6. Place the B.sprouts in the center of the pan with the flat side face down, in one single layer. If your pan isn’t big enough to let them all squeeze in there in one layer, brown them in two layers, then put all of them back in the pan when you add the water/stock/broth later.
7. On medium-ish heat, let the B.sprouts’ flat sides brown (about 4-5 minutes or so, until they get beautifully golden brown). Don’t stir them or move them around, but check one half-way through to make sure they aren’t burning.
8. When they’re browned enough to make you smile, toss them gently together with the shallots (they might fall apart a bit, but that’s not a big deal), and add the water/broth/stock to the pan, stirring just a little to scrape up any yummy bits that have stuck to the bottom. Let this water/broth boil off for a few minutes, until it’s almost completely gone. This finishes cooking the B.sprouts, so if you want them firmer or softer, decrease or increase the liquid accordingly.
9. Add the cream, stirring slowly, and stick by the pan from this point on, because the cream will thicken up quickly and will be pretty nasty if it burns.
10. When your cream has thickened enough so that it’s coating the B.sprouts and is not soupy (if you find it’s too much cream, just decrease the amount you use), add parmesan cheese and black pepper to taste.