We love a good rice dish — from a simple rice side, to an herbed-up version, to a Louisiana staple. It’s not always easy to find interesting ways to dress up plain rice, but Ina Garten came through for us yet again. This recipe is in her book “Barefoot In Paris,” but as the Barefoot Contessa herself says, the dish is “probably as close to Italian cuisine in flavoring as it is to French…” Rather than Italian or French food, this side dish actually reminded us of Spanish paella. Regardless of its origins, this rice is flavor country, with richness from the saffron, chicken broth and Parmesan, as well as fresh notes from the tomatoes and parsley.
Category: Main Ingredient
Tilapia with Citrus Bagna Cauda
We try not to let the hustle and bustle of the holiday season prevent us from making an effort to cook at least a few healthy meals at home (although apparently we’re perfectly fine with it preventing us from writing blog posts — sorry!) A home-cooked meal provides a sense of normalcy and comfort amidst all the decorating, shopping, wrapping, mailing, baking, etc. etc. of this time of year. But it doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. “Tilapia with Citrus Bagna Cauda” is a fancy name for a pretty simple fish dish. “Bagna cauda” actually refers to a warm dip that is similar to fondue. In this recipe, Giada De Laurentis gave the dip a citrus twist and turned it into a sauce for tilapia. Genius. And easy enough for a busy weeknight, with simple ingredients of butter, olive oil, orange juice, orange and lemon zest, anchovy fillets, garlic, basil and tilapia.
Jalapeno Poppers
Tis the season! Tis a lot of seasons actually: football, holiday, holiday party and — at least around here — jalapeno. We planted jalapeno plants in our garden a little late this year, so only recently harvested the ripened jalapenos. (Just in the knick of time too, before we lost them to our first frost.) We got a pretty decent crop and wanted to do something a little different with them. Continuing our football season theme of trying to make various “bar foods” at home (see, e.g., wings and tater skins), we decided to try jalapeno poppers. We found this recipe on the site allrecipes.com and made a few changes to attempt to make it a teeny bit more healthy. The jalapeno poppers turned out great and were easy to prepare. They took some time start-to-finish, but according to reviewers of the original recipe, they can be assembled in advance (and frozen even), then cooked just prior to serving. We think it’s the filling ingredients that make these poppers so good: cream cheese, cheddar cheese and bacon. We added some chopped up homemade pickled jalapenos for an extra kick (we used this recipe for amazing pickled jalapenos — not too spicy and not too pickly — just right.) If you have access to good-sized jalapenos (little ones would be tricky to work with), we highly recommend these for any upcoming holiday (or football-watching) gatherings.
Cilantro-Chipotle Tilapia
After all the turkey and trimmings from Thanksgiving, how about something light, healthy and simple to prepare? This fish dish is all that, plus it has a nice smoky spice from the chipotle. The recipe only calls for a few ingredients: tilapia fillets, cilantro, canned chipotles in adobo, ground cumin, vegetable oil and salt & pepper. The instructions could not be much easier — puree the ingredients for the sauce, spread the sauce over the fish, then broil the fish for less than 10 minutes.
Roasted Cauliflower with Brown Butter
It’s not too late to try a new side dish for your Thanksgiving meal this year, especially one as easy as this cauliflower. I’m usually not a big fan of cooked cauliflower, but I am a fan of butter and things roasted in butter, which is the key to this side dish. We’re also fans of Michael Ruhlman and found this recipe in his new cookbook, “Ruhlman’s Twenty,” which contains 20 fundamental techniques and 100 recipes. The cauliflower recipe is in the section on roasting, and as Ruhlman states, this cooking method creates “caramel-nutty flavors that are beautifully enhanced by the flavor of the browned butter.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Slow-Cooker Smothered Pork Chops
A little behind-the-scenes info about Foodie Lawyer — we process our photos in Picasa, creating a web album for each post. When uploading the photos for this recipe, Dan accidentally named the folder “Mothered Pork Chops.” Turns out to be a pretty good description of this dish, which tastes like your mom lovingly cooked it all day long. But it’s actually the slow-cooker that does all the work. All you (or your mom) have to do is cook a little bacon, brown some onions along with garlic, brown sugar and thyme, de-glaze with with chicken broth, then add those and the remaining ingredients (more brown sugar, bay leaves and pork chops) to the slow-cooker. The end result is succulent, fork-tender pork smothered (or mothered) with a rich and delicious carmelized onion/bacon gravy. The folks at America’s Test Kitchen come through for us yet again with this excellent recipe from their book “Slow Cooker Revolution.”
Pork & Mushroom Skewers
Skewering meat and grilling it lends a fun, caveman quality to preparing dinner. Or maybe that’s just us. Anyway, we enjoy kebabs (or kabobs, if you prefer) and especially appreciate the versatility of this grilling technique in terms of proteins (including beef and pork) and veggie combinations, as well as marinades and sauces. This recipe from one of our favorite grilling books, “Weber’s Real Grilling,” uses both a marinade and a sauce, but is still quick and easy enough for a weeknight. The bright, fresh flavor of the basil sauce goes well with the grilled pork and mushrooms tossed in an olive oil marinade seasoned with thyme and celery salt.
Shrimp and Peppers
Shrimp can be a very healthy protein easily prepared on a weeknight. We cook shrimp at least a couple times per month and almost always keep a bag of raw frozen shrimp in our freezer. We have lots of favorite ways to prepare shrimp — from pasta dishes, to salads, to simple grilled shrimp — but also appreciate finding new recipes incorporating this versatile protein. We found a shrimp recipe on Epicurious.com and adapted it according to some of the reviewers’ suggestions. (One of the many things we like about the Epicurious site is being able to consult the reviews of people who have cooked each recipe and take the time to share their experience — good or bad.) Reviewers can also rate recipes on Epicurious, and we agree with the ones who gave this dish high marks. The plump roasted shrimp pairs nicely with the spicy sauteed peppers and the whole thing takes less than 30 minutes to prepare.
Sunday Bolognese
This is one of those posts where I should have made sure I had some leftovers to eat, because by the time I finish editing the photos and writing the post and recipe, I know I will be craving this dish in a major way. It’s seriously that good. By far the best bolognese we’ve ever had — in a restaurant or otherwise — if we do say so ourselves (and we do.) There isn’t enough hyperbole in our collective vocabulary to adequately describe how much we love this dish. Although this is not a quick recipe (which is why we call it “Sunday” bolognese), the extra time and multiple steps are well worth the resulting complex layers of flavor. Make some this weekend — you won’t be disappointed!
Potato Skins
As you may be aware, one of us here at Foodie Lawyer is a big fan of football generally and the Pittsburgh Steelers in particular. We even got to see the Steelers play in the Super Bowl last year (note that I said “play,” and not “win.”) For this football season, we thought it would be fun to try out various “football foods” — dishes that are typically served at sports bars — but cook them ourselves at home, hopefully making them slightly more healthy yet just as tasty. Our first endeavor turned out really good, so we decided to tackle (get it?) potato skins next — typically one of the more unhealthy fried favorite sports bar foods. (Fun Fact: according to Wikipedia, the potato skins appetizer was created by T.G.I. Friday’s in 1963.) We baked ours instead of frying them and they turned out great. Not quite as crispy as the restaurant version, but crispy enough with a thin layer of creamy potato. These would be fun to serve at a football-watching party, with various toppings and dipping sauces to create your very own Potato Skins Bar.