The Perfect Yams (According to Ken)

After a long work day today, I somehow managed to muster up enough energy to cook a dinner with a main protein with a wine reduction AND five side dishes! Most of it was baked, which gave me time for the stove-top stuff. Part of the inspiration boiled down to clearing out the fridge and pantry, and the other was because of the shipment of our veggie box this morning. Here's a run-down of everything I made: baked salmon, a creamy white wine reduction sauce, 1 baked yam, 1 baked potato, sauteed white mushrooms, sauteed broccoli rabe, and roasted fennel.

Everything was baked except for the rabe and mushroom. The broccoli rabe and fennel were from the box, and those were simple online recipes. The fennel was perfect since I had already planned on baking the 2 types of potatoes from the pantry. To the (very large) yam, I added a pat of butter and 2 tbsp of brown sugar. The potato also got a pat of butter and some of the creamy white wine sauce (sour cream had gone bad). It felt like a feast and I finally got Ken to like yams!

*Picture coming soon.

Linguine & Clams in White Wine Sauce

I was inspired to make this after watching a segment of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on the Food Network. It looked so simple, and after rewinding and rewatching several times, found how true that was. I had to guess on the amounts of some of these, and all turned out delicious.

• 3-4 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 can whole baby clams
• 6 fresh clams* for presentation (I left out)
  
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup half & half (or 1/2 cup cream and 1/2 cup milk)
  
• 1 tbsp butter
• chopped basil
• ground pepper
• 1/2 lb of linguine
  

While cooking the clam sauce, cook the noodles (7 minutes according to instructions). To a pan, add the garlic, then baby clams, (then the fresh clams, ) then white wine, then half & half, and let it all reduce until the liquid is below the top of the mound of baby clams (about 10 minutes). Add the butter, basil, pepper, and mix well, then remove from heat. Remove noodles from water then top with clam mixture. Finally, top with Parmesan cheese.

This dish was so easy and so tasty. I can't wait to make it again.

Flap Meat w/ Chimichurri Sauce

I got the idea for serving chimichurri sauce with flap meat from dining at Gaucho Grill. Their version uses skirt steak. Once gain, I found the recipe from the Food Network. It wasn't the same, though still very tasty. I would add less parsley next time, as the flavor seems to be overpowering. On the side were slices of zucchini and yellow squashes, and super thin slices of sweet potato.

I got this crazy idea to throw the stove-top grill into the oven to cook the squash and meat, since the potato chips were also being baked in the oven, which made this an oven-cooked meal. The only part that had some trouble was the grill not entirely fitting into the oven, so I alternated between bake and broil. The potato went in first for about 10 minutes, then the squash were added with the door partially open for about 5 minutes, then finally the meat on the broil setting for about 10 minutes.

The meat and squash were removed first. While the meat rested, the potato continued to bake and I prepared the chimichurri sauce. Once the sauce was done, the meat was sliced thinly before serving. Yum, yum, yum!

Shellfish Galore!

Lobster Ravioli w/ King Crab Legs (upper left), both purchased from Costco and lightly drizzled in browned butter.

Panfried Croutons Topped w/ Spiced Crab (crab lower left, croutons upper right)
Sorry, will update later.

Clams Provencale (middle). See Mussels Provencale post.

Chinese Squash (lower right). Simply chop, throw into a stir-fry pan with about a tablespoon of cooking oil, cover until the liquids have released (and stirring occasionally), and season to taste.  That's it!  If you pick a young one (this one's courtesy of my dad's back yard), the seeds should be soft enough that there is no need to scoop out and can be consumed.  Ken had never had this before and quite enjoyed it.  I love the tenderness and sweetness of this squash.

Mussels Provencale

Costco had these big 5-pound bags of mussels at about $3/lb, which I'd been eyeballing forever, and finally had the nerve to go for it and buy the thing to have for dinner. Beware--5 pounds of mussels is a WHOLE LOT! Halfway through the cleaning process, I realized that this was going to be way too much (this was before I read that 3 lbs serves 6) and decided to cook just half the bag. Imagine my surprise when we ended up with a GIANT platter (I think 10x15) of it with leftovers to boot. Our only side dishes were an ear of corn each and a loaf of French bread to sop up the mussel juices. I had to add the mussels to the menu for Ken's birthday party the next day while they're still alive (not good when dead!). It was a hit both nights, and I won't be making mussels again for a long while mostly because cleaning was a lot of work! This is another recipe from the shellfish book. Very simple, very tasty.

• 3 lb (1.5 kg) mussels, debearded & well scrubbed
• 3/4 cup(4 fl oz/125 ml) dry white wine
• 1 small yellow onion (I used 2 shallots), chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped, plus 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 fresh parsley stems, plus 1/3 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
• 1 sprig of fresh thyme
• 1-2 bay leaves
  
• 3-4 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• salt & freshly ground pepper

Discard any mussels that do not close to the touch. The trick is to tug on the beard as you're debearding to wake it up and close the shell. If the beard is missing, give the shell a quick squeeze and you'll see the mussel close on its own. Rinse each individually to remove any muddy/sandy bits.

In a saucepan, bring the wine to a boil Add the mussels, onion, coarsely chopped garlic, parsley stems, thyme and bay leaf. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer, shaking the pan periodically, until the mussels open, about 2-4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the mussels to a large bowl. Discard any unopened mussels.

Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth. Reduce the liquid over high heat by half to about 1/2 cup. The mussels and their liquid cooled too quickly for my taste, so I added the lemon juice, olive oil, and minced garlic to the reduced cooking liquid in the pan, added the mussels back in and covered for about a minute to give everything a quick heat before serving. When you're ready to serve, toss in the chopped parsley then transfer to a platter. Serve with crusty French bread to soak up the liquid--you won't regret this.

Thai Shrimp Salad w/ Mint

Ken's stepmom recently gave me a shellfish cookbook (I love shellfish!) from Williams-Sonoma, and I happen to have most of the ingredients to make this dish. The flavors are bright and light, perfect for a hot summer evening. Once all the prep work is done, this takes a few minutes to assemble and makes it a definite keeper. Since it's just the two of us, I halved the following amounts of the original recipe and used 3 shrimps/person.

• 1 1/2 lb medium shrimp, peeled & deveined
• 4-5 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (highly recommend using rather than leaving out)
  
• 1 tbsp peanut oil (don't substitute--makes it taste & smell amazing)
  
• 1 tsp sugar (or 1/4 cup honey)
  
• 1 lemongrass stalk (ends trimmed & tough outer leaves removed), minced, OR 1 tsp grated lemon zest
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled & sliced, then quartered
• 1/3 cup thinly sliced red onion (I used shallots)
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, cut into thin shreds
• 1/2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 fresh jalapeno pepper or serrano chili pepper, seeded & minced
  

The recipe called for the shrimped to be cooked in fish stock or clam juice. I was grilling meat so just threw the shrimp on as well. Otherwise, boiling in plain water is just as good.

In a large bowl, whisk together the lime juice, fish sauce, peanut oil, sugar, lemongrass (or lemon zest), chili pepper, garlic and salt & pepper to taste. Add the shrimp, cucumber, onion, mint and cilantro. Toss well and serve over your favorite salad greens. Serves 6.

9/5 - I also made this for Ken's birthday party and it was a hit as well.

Zucchini Bread

With the abundance of zucchini from the back yard, I had to find another use for them aside from cooking or giving them away, so I thought I'd bake bread. This is a straightforward zucchini bread recipe from the Food Network. The only things I changed were the amounts of sugar, as it seemed like way too much and I usually find non-Chinese baked goods too sweet. I reduced the granulated sugar down to 3/4 cup, and increased the brown sugar to 1/2 cup, which still yielded less than the original total. Ken was quite happy with it and didn't notice the missing sugar. To finish it off, I sprinkled some brown sugar on top after it's just about done baking, and set it on broil for about 5 minutes to give it a nice sugary top crust.

"Hurry Up" Chicken Pot Pie

I almost never watch Paula Deen's cooking show and yet somehow ended up catching an episode on how to make a quick and easy chicken pot pie. With still plenty of Costco chicken breast in the fridge, this was the perfect solution to a quick and easy comfort meal that Ken would love. And love it he did.

The filling too salty so I would substitute the chicken stock with water next time. Instead of just peas, I defrosted a mixture of frozen corn, green beans, peas and carrots, and sauteed it along with more sliced carrots (Hint: use peeled baby carrots) as well as added about 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro. I wasn't sure I'd like the boiled eggs and only used one, cutting it up into smaller pieces. Rather than layers, all the filling ingredients including the wet mixture were combined before topping with the biscuit. In the future, I might also use 1 cup of the biscuit mix because there was more than plenty to soak up the filling. Also, 1 whole stick of butter to top the biscuit mix sounded like too much and half would suffice.

This was easy to make and you could actually cook and cut up the chicken ahead of time. Give it a quick toss on the stove with the carrots to heat it up when you're ready to cook. And look--I've perfected the stuffed squash blossoms!

Chicken Parmesan & Stuffed Squash Blossoms

A few months ago, I planted some zucchini squash and they're now flourishing like crazy. Just about every morning, I'd be greeted by its blossoms, and in the course of about 4 days, I had collected two short of a dozen. Coincidentally, I found a recipe for stuffed blossoms in the "Eating by Color" cook book last week and gathered all the ingredients to make this tonight.
Squash Blossoms

• part-skim ricotta cheese
• finely chopped fresh mozzarella
  
• freshly grated Parmesan
• tempura batter mix
• sparkling/soda water
• squash blossoms
  

Strain the ricotta in a strainer lined with cheesecloth for 2 hours. Depending on how many blossoms you have, I suggest just using half the amount of mozzarella and Parmesan to the ricotta cheese. The original recipe called for 12 blossoms with a cup of ricotta, so you'll have to use your judgment from there. Combine all the cheeses together.

I used tempura batter instead of flour, and my sister suggested using soda water to lighten up the batter even more. Add enough water (cold!) so that the batter is runny after mixing and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Spoon or pipe the cheese mixture into each blossom in equal portions. Holding the blossom by the stem end, coat with the tempura batter and let the excess drip into the bowl before plunging into the fryer, holding tips in first for a few seconds before letting go of the rest. Cook until golden and crisp, about 3-4 minutes. Remove the blossoms, shake and place in a brown paper bag to drain. Season to taste with salt and serve.

The result was not the success I hoped for...too oily although the flavor was good. I got the oil to 375° (the highest possible) and let it drain, yet was left with puddles of oil. It seemed that the tips of the flowers dragged and held in the oil.

The Chicken Parmesan was a success. I used a basic recipe from an online source, and I was pleased with how tender it turned out. I got the chicken breasts on bulk from Costco, which came in these little pouches of two and made storing and separating so convenient. Along with the blossoms, I actually got zucchini squash from the plant (imagine that), enough to line the entire bottom of the casserole dish just below the chicken so as to incorporate more veggies into our meal. The thing I would change next time is to flatten out a chicken and leave a corner or two uncovered by sauce so as to get a bit of crunch. Yum.

*Update: I tried frying the blossoms again, this time without the stuffing, and they turned out great! The trick was to make sure to fry them long enough (about 2-3 minutes on each side) so it's not soaking with oil. The flavor of the blossom is quite wonderful...like a subtler version of the squash in leafy form. Stuffing them made it too nerve-racking for me because I was afraid that the cheese would ooze out and get lost in the oil, which was why I didn't cook them long enough and wasn't successful in the first try. I continue to gather flowers and want to try them in a stir fry.

Chicken & Dumplings Again

Yes, I'd made this dish already but this version was so good yet different that I had to write it down so I would remember how to recreate it.

Last week, I bought a Costco chicken and we had half of it left (mostly because we were tired of eating it just roasted) after we made tacos, so I decided to make chicken & dumplings out of it tonight. I first boiled the whole thing (bones, skin & pulled meat) to extract as much chicken-ness out of it as possible (about 10 minutes), then removed skin, carcass and any other "floaties" hanging around. Use enough water to cover the chicken.

Next, I added about 3/8 tsp salt, 3/8 tsp onion powder, 1 cube vegetable bouillon and about 1/2-2/3 cup each of celery and carrots, and let them cook for about 30 minutes. I happen to have some chopped cilantro left over from our chicken taco meal and didn't want to waste them so tossed them in as well and let the soup reduce some more. The last step is to add the dumplings, which was just the standard procedure according to the directions on the biscuit mix.

The key to the intense flavors of this one was several fold: rich roasted chicken and the cilantro (who would've guessed?). I'm still cooking it right now (almost done) and it's already amazing! No gravy necessary this time.

**Final note: not necessary to add salt because flavors intensified once finished.