We've been on a food binge on the blog for the past few weeks. Making me hungry. Let's do a recipe swap. Give your recipe in the comment section or give me a .pdf to upload. Online recipes are good too. Here's a couple of our recent meals:
- Steamed artechokes — an excellent activity food. One of the two kids eats them.
- Marinated grilled pork tenderloin — a great family party dish. Add thyme and garlic to the marinade. Use regular vinegar, instead of rice vinegar. Put the gravy over mashed potatoes.
- I made roasted chicken last night. Inside the bird, add cut up lemons, springs of thyme, garlic, and salt. If you're fancy, make a mash with rosemary, thyme, garlic and salt, and slide it under the skin. On the outside, stick on pads of butter, squish a lemon and add salt/pepper. Cook until the popper pops. It takes a while for the bird to cook, but the prep work is ten minutes.
Apt. 11d 
If your going to roast a chicken, you may as well put some potatoes, carrots and onions underneath it so they get all dripped with chicken fat.
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And be sure to watch homonyms. They should rest 10 minutes before carving.
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Best pasta dish ever — the whole thing cooks up in 15 minutes and can be made completely from the pantry. (Just ignore all her blather about fresh peas from the market. Frozen, I say!)
http://www.wish.ca/food/recipe/299/
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For those who can’t get their family to eat enough fruits:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/fruit-salad-with-honey-dressing-recipe/index.html
Easy and healthy- I skip the toppings for the sake of time
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/saras-secrets/falafel-chickpea-patties-recipe/index.html
Just hearty and delish
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/creamy-spaghetti-and-beans-recipe/index.html
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Vegetarian food? Anyone?
Indian curry with chickpeas and potatoes.
Caramelized tofu. Don’t bitch to me about tofu. This is really good.
Black Beans and Rice
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Corn beef brisket: simmer for 2-4 hours, with an onion. Discard the water, mash the onion with an equal amount of strawberry jam and a third as much Dijon mustard. Smear it over the meat, oven at 350 – 400 for half an hour. Crowd goes wild, generally, and the prep time was maybe ten minutes.
2. Pork ribs – smear with a mix of biryani paste (I use Patak’s, the others I have tried have been too hot for my taste) ketchup brown sugar garlic. Oven at 325 for three hours, then raise the heat to 450 for fifteen minutes, serve.
These can sit in the oven cooking while I have kids at games, and get served when we get back.
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According to Google “mash the onion with an equal amount of strawberry jam” has never been used before in the history of the internet.
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MH – I did actually invent this, it’s remarkably tasty, and I’m kind of tickled to hear that no on else invented it before. If you like garlic, that improves it.
People who like beef tongue (you know who you are) have given me compliments on a similar sauce for tongue. Tongue (“the only thing you can eat which can taste you back”) is something to bring to large potluck gatherings – the (few) people who like it, and rarely get it, are thrilled, and the majority can eat something somebody else brought.
Tongue: boil a beef tongue for 3-4 hours. Take it out of the water it cooked in, put it in cold water and pull the skin off, with the cold water running. Put it back in the cooking water and continue cooking for another half hour or so. Serve sliced, with a sauce. Tongue used to be cheap, lots of it went to sausage, but then a lot of Salvadoreans and Guatemalans moved to the US, their view is it’s a delicacy. Now you have to go to Latin markets to find it, it’s gone from your hot dogs, and it’s north of $4.50 a pound, usually.
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I’ll pass on the tongue. The oldsters used to eat it back home and I couldn’t even look at it in the case.
A sauce of onion, jam and mustard does sound intriguing.
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Here are two pasta dishes that are really great, not very expensive, and quite fast- less than a half hour to make:
Pasta w/ blue cheese and walnuts
10 oz of pasta (shells are recommended though we usually use bow-tie pasta)
1/3-1/2 cup heavy cream
5 oz blue cheese, crumbled (we usually use Stilton, most often from Trader joes. I find that Danish blue doesn’t work as well but others might disagree)
4 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped (also cheap at trader joe’s)
While the pasta is cooking, heat cream w/ blue cheese and parmesan cheese, blending until smooth. Season w/ black pepper, add walnuts and pour over hot cooked pasta. Fast and great!
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Pasta w/ Smoked Salmon and Dill Cream
1lb Pasta (again, any kind will work but we usually use bow-tie
3/4 cup heavy cream
3oz cream cheese
2tsp lemon juice
1 tsp anchovy paste (we usually leave this out, but go by taste here.)
freshly ground black petter
6 oz smoked salmon, thinly sliced. (We usually would be a little container of “salmon ends”, bits cut off other pieces, at the store to use- they work great and are cheap.)
2 tbs fresh chopped dill, or 2 tsp dried dill weed (fresh is much better!)
Dill sprig to garnish.
Cook pasta according to the directions on package. Make sauce by gently heating cream w/ cream cheese, beating until smooth. Season w/ lemon juice anchovy paste, and freshly-ground black paper. Cut smokes salmon into 1/2 inch ribbons and stir into the sauce with the chopped dill. Drain pasta, stir in sauce, and transfer to heated dish. Garnish with dill sprigs.
A very nice meal that, again, takes about a half hour to make.
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both of these are from a great little cook-book called “Perfectly Simple Pasta” by Marilyn Bright. I can’t say for sure how many the recipies are supposed to serve but I think we usually cut them down for two people.
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Much lazier, faster version of roast chicken: preheat oven to 475. Sprinkle surface of chicken with garlic powder, salt, and paprika (other seasonings optional,but not fresh garlic, which will burn). Roast for 20 minutes or until the skin crisps before turning down to 375 and roasting until done, about another hour for a 4-5 pound chicken. No basting: the high heat and crisp skin seal the juices in making everything deliciously succulent. You can do skin-on bone-in chicken pieces at 475 for 35 or so minutes using this method.
Lazy, quick pasta options: make linguine, toss with butter and crushed garlic, salt, pepper, grated parmesan, and optional a)lemon zest or b)frozen peas. Or (in tomato season) dice a couple of large tomatoes, add chopped garlic and a glug og good olive oil, and marinate while the pasta’s cooking. (Optional: add crushed red pepper.) Toss with hot pasta, a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water, and grated parmesan.
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs: preheat the oven to very hot, 450-500. Mash the thighs flat with the bottom of a wine bottle. Quickly sear them on both sides in a cast iron pan, then put them in the hot oven to finish off for 5-10 minutes depending on thickness. Remove the meat from the pan and deglaze with a quarter cup of wine, or the juice of a lemon, or a mixture, and a little oil or butter. (For classic piccata, use a mixture of white wine and lemon and some capers.) Serve over rice. Vary the sauce any way that makes sense to you: dijon mustard, cider, vinegar, apricot jam (but watch out for burning with sugary stuff).
Marinate a big package chicken drumsticks in a mixture of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar and some olive oil overnight. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so. Eat hot the first night and cold thereafter.
Perfect roast potatoes: preheat oven to anywhere between 375 and 475. Toss 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes cut in 1-inch pieces with less than a tablespoon of olive oil. (I use the bottle cap as a measure.) Sprinkle on pepper and/or ground rosemary and/or paprika. DO NOT SALT: you want them to get chewy-crisp outside and soft inside, and salt will make them drain their juices out. Roast till golden-brown and crisp.
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I like this “falafel” from Cooking Light (we don’t always go for the avocado spread):
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1654699
Sausage lentil soup: http://southernfood.about.com/od/beansoups/r/r80530a.htm
Cassoulet (I use real sausage but mine is still pretty close to this one.)
http://www.jewishfood-list.com/recipes/vegn/cass/cassouletveg01.html
Pumpkin risotto with crispy sage – I think this is pretty close to ours:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/pumpkinrisottowithcr_13723.shtml
And my all-purpose roasted vegetables, with ideas:
Slice, relatively thinly, zucchini, red pepper, onion, eggplant, and portobello (or other) mushrooms; toss with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary or oregano or (in a pinch) marjoram.
Roast at somewhere around 425 for somewhere between 45 min and an hour.
Use as: side dish, tossed with pasta, as a sandwich filling mixed with shredded mozarella, or as a quiche. For quiche I use a (gasp) frozen pie shell; layer vegetables in the bottom and grate a few ounces of cheddar over them; mix up 8 eggs with some milk and pour over; sprinkle freshly grated parmesan or romano over the top and bake for 45 min at 375-ish, until eggs are set.
Also my favourite current dish: raisin bread sandwich containing thinly sliced Granny Smith apples paired with grated 10-year cheddar… it’s divine. I do have a tiny bit of butter in there. On that theme also, pita bread with sliced apple and feta inside, toasted in the toaster over. A few walnuts added are delish too.
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Another chicken recipe, which I adopted for frying (er… searing) from an old Gourmet roasting recipe:
Easy Dijon-Tarragon Chicken
Boneless chicken breasts, thighs or tenders
Tarragon
Thyme
Pepper
Dijon (or other) mustard
Olive Oil
Garlic (optional)
Lightly drizzle fry pan/skillet with olive oil (no more than 1 tbsp). Rub both sides of the chicken pieces in the oil. Brush the top of each piece lightly with mustard and sprinkle with tarragon, thyme, and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with chopped or mashed garlic if desired.
Cook on medium heat until bottom sides are lightly browned (4-5 minutes), then turn, rubbing the uncooked side of each piece on the pan and flipping several times in place so the browned sides pick up seasoning. When both sides are browned, turn briefly 1-2 more times so the seasoning on each side is cooked evenly (if the pieces are thick, you may want to cook a few extra minutes with pan lid on).
Total cooking time: est. 12-15 min, depending on thickness. Serve hot or cold (also tastes great sliced over greens, esp. with sliced avocado and Parmesan shavings).
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