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2 stolen recipes and some frozen corn

One of our favorites this year has been Major Grey’s Chicken.  I posted about this earlier…maybe?  I can’t seem to find the post now.  I will link to it if I find it.

It is a delicious, creamy, mango-filled pile of deliciousness.  The recipe we use is stolen from one of Matt’s co-workers, and I usually add some fresh mango to the mix because we have some on hand.  It’s actually usually the mango that inspires us to make this dish, since it’s a failsafe use for the fruit.

We also stole another recipe from a coworker of mine…Kale Pesto!  We’re both wary of dark greens in general, and have had some bad luck with them in the past.  Kale is no exception, and I’ve consistently avoided adding it to my salad in our cafeteria at work.  But I heard rave reviews about this kale pesto—the bitterness is cut with a few handfuls of basil, but the healthy kick of kale is still blended in.

We used a huge package of basil (the kitchen smelled AMAZING!) and a whole bunch of Kale that came in our CSA box.  Matt was in charge of adding everything to the bowl, so I’m not sure of the exact amounts, but garlic, salt and olive oil all went into the mix.

Then….we realized we really need to invest in a food processor soon.  Where will we put it? No idea.  Maybe in our imaginary cupboard with the stand mixer, pressure cooker, waffle iron and rotisserie cooker (this one’s just for Matt). 

Anyway, we got it blended in tiny batches and then mixed all together. Tossed with some tri-color pasta. Yum yum yum.

These two seemed a little mismatched, but I figured the bitter of the kale would pair well with the sweet and creamy of the chicken dish.  What kind of side could make this even more strange?? Some frozen corn, of course!  The only other option in our freezer was cheesy broccoli, which I thought was way too out there.

It was a little all-over-the-place, but still delicious, and Matt has been eating leftovers this week while I’m on the road 🙂

In the spirit of fun fall stuff, here’s our decorated mantle for the season! Very exciting—notice the real life candlesticks…I’m pretty pleased with how grown up these beeswax taper candles make me feel.  Plus, the adorable mini-loaf pan that I turned into a candle holder.

We used that loaf pan a couple weeks ago to make some amazing banana nut bread for a party, and now it’s clean and full of pumpkin spice scented candles!  Spectacular!

   

Also, this is how Santana sits while I cook.  She’s so dainty and genteel, huh?

CSA Veggies Galore

So I am working from home today because I was in a minor accident on the highway that has left me really shaken up (I’ve never been in an accident before!), but physically OK.  Santana is trying to comfort me by climbing into my face every few minutes while I try to answer emails and conduct phone appointments from home.  She’s adorable and really knows just when to be sweet at the point when I need it the most.  Last night (after a morning of vomiting up her breakfast because she ate too fast), I fed her dinner by hand, piece by piece.  She got to practice her tricks (sit, down, shake) and we worked on “leave it”…she was NOT amused.  After we got done she searched around for a bowl full of food, and then she stood over by her bowls and glared at me.  To celebrate her cuteness, a couple pictures:

 

 

 

So, that was more than a couple…but she’s too sweet and adorable and I couldn’t choose! The first one is the day after we got her I think…she was SO tiny! 

To further take my mind off of this morning, here are a couple recipes, inspired by the return of our CSA box last week.

Crockpot Leek and Potato Soup

• 1 large leek, washed and chopped
• 1 lb red potatoes, peeled and chopped
• Minced Garlic
• Dry Thyme
• Chicken Broth
• Cream and shredded cheese to taste

1. Sauté leek and garlic in a bit of olive oil to get it nice and soft and translucent, with little bits of caramelization starting to form.
2. Add to Crockpot with potatoes, thyme and chicken broth to cover.
3. Cook on low for the day (I’d guess at least 4 hours, depending on the size of your potatoes…ours cooked until about 7:30pm, when I got home)
4. Puree or mash to your desired consistency. I left a little bit of potato chunkiness, but pureed it with my stick blender quite a bit.
5. Add a bit of cream to smooth it out and shredded cheese (we used cheddar) depending on your taste.  The cream and cheese could most definitely be left out.

Easy! These heaping bowls of soup were our whole dinner this night, and it was a perfect soup for a rainy and cold evening on the couch. (Again, what is going on with me and the fuzzy pictures lately??)

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We also had some HUGE stalks of asparagus in our box this past week.  Some of them were almost an inch wide at the bottom!  I chopped them up and made them into a quiche!  The recipe I started from had completely different fillings, but quiche is one of those things that you can turn into whatever you want, which is why I love it so much!

Bacon and Asparagus Quiche

• 2 batches of pie crust of your choosing (homemade is obviously best, but Pillsbury works in a pinch)
• 8 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/2 cups half-and-half, cream or milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1 large bunch of monster asparagus, washed and chopped into small pieces
• 5 thick slices of bacon, cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 cups shredded cheese (we used an Italian blend we had in the fridge)

1. Cook bacon pieces over medium heat until they are rendered and crispy.  Drain and set aside.  Sauté the asparagus for just a few minutes in  tiny bit of the reserved bacon drippings (um, YUM) to get them just slightly cooked.  Set aside, with the bacon.
2. Line pie plate with the rolled-out crust.  This recipe has enough for two whole pie plates.  I filled one regular-sized dish and then cut the rest up and made mini-quiche in a muffin tin.
3. Line the pastry with two sheets of foil and bake at 450 for 5-10 minutes.  Remove foil and bake an additional 3-8 minutes, until the crust is a little dry.  The mini-quiche will get brown and dry much faster than the large, so keep your eye on them.
4. Lower the oven temp to 325 degrees. 
5. Mix eggs, dairy and seasoning in a large bowl.
6. In the bottom of the crust(s), evenly distribute bacon, asparagus and cheese.
7. Pour egg mixture into crust.  Here’s a tip….pay attention!  I had a few mini-quiche that didn’t want to come out of the muffin tin because some egg had leaked outside of the crust.  Whoops!
8. Bake until you can put a sharp knife into the center and it comes out clean.  The small ones took about 15-20 minutes.  The large quiche will take 40-45 minutes. 
9. Let rest before digging in.

Since I had a HUGE amount of quiche, we froze a few of the minis and saved the large quiche for weekend lunch and weekday breakfast over the next few days.  We served a couple mini-quiche like this:

 

On the side:

• CSA broccoli steamed with garlic and soy sauce
• Thin spaghetti with an onion, white wine, slightly-creamy sauce and tossed with fresh tomatoes and half a bunch of spinach, chopped small. 

A really satisfying dinner with lots of veggies! Plus, we had a handful of broccoli and about 1 cup of the pasta left which made a really great lunch at work! Thanks to local and organic farmers! YUM! 

Home!

HEY HEY HEY! First things first….get over to Missy’s blog and vote for your favorite salsa recipe in her contest!! I’m #8, in case you have trouble choosing a winner from all the yummy choices! 🙂

One more fair this morning and with a lucky traffic day, I was home around 3:30!! I am EXCITED!  I love being on the road and travelling to new places, but I get so homesick…I wish I could take Matt and Santana along with me whenever I travel! That would be the best!

Green Foodie Arguments

Here is a link to an interesting post that is probably of interest to some of the other foodie bloggers out there.  Anyone into the organic, slow food movement should be familiar with Alice Waters and her restaurant in Berkeley, CA, Chez Panisse. When the roommate and I went to California on a grad school visit/research trip the summer before our senior year, and we made it a point to have lunch at Chez Panisse (dinner was WAY out of our price range). Super delicious and fun to be eating at Alice Waters’ place.  I met her and listened to her speak at The Bale Boone Symposium put on by The Gaines Center at the University of Kentucky in 2005 (I think?).  It was really amazing and wonderful for me at a time when I was still sort of defining who I was as a cook. 

The Jezebel post by Sadie, points to a recent backlash against Waters and her push for organics.  One of the most vociferous, unsurprisingly, is Anthony Bourdain (who I have a bit of a crush on, fyi).  Sadie quotes Bourdain:

Alice Waters annoys the living s%#* out of me. We’re all in the middle of a recession, like we’re all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There’s something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I’m not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I’m a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits.

First of all, he loves to talk about the Khmer Rouge…I have zero statistics or citations to back this up, but I have heard that name come out of his mouth so many times that when I read about Khmer Rouge (even unrelated to Bourdain at all), I hear it in his voice and I picture him ranting. This kind of random association is wonderful…maybe I should choose something to be obscurely connected to.  Whenever you think of Mussolini, you will think of me! Maybe not…

Second, I love Alice Waters, but I have no problem with Bourdain’s ranting…he often goes off on a lot of topics that I don’t agree with, but that is basically his job.  He’s a complainer and a grumper and I think this is why I love him oh so much.  He openly hates on cultures, women, men, children, other chefs, things I would normally be very against  ranting about…but from him, it’s pretty enjoyable.  So I am not bothered by him particularly saying this.  And I don’t think his overall culinary stance eschews the organic, local side of things.  In the essay “The Evildoers,” Bourdain says that you should “try to eat food that comes from somewhere, from somebody,” and I think this applies not only to his signature “Chef’s Tour” mantra of eating the cultural food of wherever you are, but also to the roots of where you get your food…if your veggies, your meat, your dairy comes from somewhere, someone in particular, you are more likely to connect to it and more likely to appreciate and understand its importance.

About the post itself, I have to agree with Sadie…Waters can handle the criticism as someone behind the Green movement and any kind of revolutionary progress needs to be questioned and pulled in different directions as it develops.  Yes, we’re in an economic crisis and a lot of people are having trouble affording the bare basics for their families.  Yes, the cost of organics is often high and going fully green is not necessarily feasible for every family out there.  But I know an increasing amount of people who are not typical of the “elitist” perception that has been tied to organics, especially as I’ve discovered more and more food bloggers who are in super green mode in so many ways.  And I think if more and more people fit local, sustainable, green, organic ways into their lives on a daily basis, at a level that fits their lifestyle and economic means, then it pushes for more and more change towards the positive. 

While the individual families have to make these changes on the small scale, on the larger, more vocal scale, revolutionaries like Waters and critics like Bourdain are necessary to keep pushing ideas forward and honing and refining the ideas that have made it to the mainstream mindset. 

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Ok, that was more rambling than I predicted, but I thought some of the bloggers out there would find this discussion interesting! What are your thoughts on Alice Waters? Anthony Bourdain? Feel free to despise either one, despite my love of them! 🙂

Contest news:

Don’t forget to enter Dori’s Doormat Giveaway, and she has a second one this week for an Always Infinity Gift Pack!

Missy is also having a giveaway for the Always gift bag!

Jackson’s World is not only featuring an adorable pup, but is also having a Spring has Sprung Giveaway! Bring on the spring!

Lucky Taste Buds has a Big S Farms Salsa giveaway! Yum yum yum for Salsa!