We’ve been to seafood-boil types of events before — my brother has an awesome crawfish boil almost every spring — but had never previously attempted this cooking technique at home. When we discovered king crab legs on super sale at our local grocery store, we decided to give it a shot. The resulting steamed crab meat was perfectly cooked with a hint of spice and unmistakable Old Bay seasoning, evocative of a day at the beach and seafood fresh from the ocean.
Category: Main Ingredient
Black Beans Surprise
The surprising part of this side dish is how amazing it tastes, especially considering how simple it is to make. Whenever we cook Tex-Mex at home, we struggle a bit with what kind of side dish to serve. This rice is a good one, but it’s a bit complicated and takes a little longer to cook. Same with this salad. Sliced avocado with chips and salsa is an easy favorite, but it gets a little old if we serve it every time. (Although, I love avocado so much that I could eat it every day.) Beans are a staple at most Tex-Mex restaurants, where they are served in a variety of ways: regular beans refried, black beans refried and borracho beans — just to name a few. We like black beans, but had never previously served them solo as a side dish at home. So we researched some recipes online and decided to experiment with our own version, incorporating Tex-Mex ingredients we know and like from other dishes (onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, Cotija cheese and cilantro.) We figured the result would be a pretty basic black bean side dish, but were pleasantly surprised by the rich and complex layers of flavor in the finished product. Move over avocado, there’s a new favorite Tex-Mex sidekick in town. . .
Update: We made these the other night and just happened to have a jalapeno and a couple slices of leftover (cooked) bacon. We sauteed the jalapeno with the onion and crumbled the bacon and added it when we put in the beans. The spice from the jalapeno and the bacon flavor made these beans taste even better!
Turkey Meatloaf
I’ve never been much of a fan of meat in loaf form — it’s a texture thing. But Dan knows me and my palate quirks well and created a meatloaf that I actually really like. He took the standard turkey meatloaf ingredients — ground turkey, milk, bread crumbs, egg and ketchup — and added cheese and Rotel tomatoes to turn bland and boring turkey meatloaf into something much more appetizing and special. The little pockets of melted cheese break up the texture and the Rotel adds a little spice and Tex-Mex flavor. This is not your typical turkey meatloaf, but it still has the comfort food aspect and is as easy to prepare as the more basic variety.
Duck Confit
Time for another Charcutepalooza challenge. This month’s challenge was “stretching” — as in branching out in the kitchen, extending the uses of the meat and lengthening the time that the food can be safely cooked and eaten. The Apprentice challenge was rillettes or confit, while the Charcutiere test was galantine or roulade. Our usual starting point for Charcutepalooza each month is to read Mrs. Wheelbarrow‘s always entertaining and instructive post detailing the challenge — primarily so we can figure out what a lot of these charcuterie terms that we’ve never heard of mean, then to decide which technique we want to try. This month, however, Dan knew right away that he wanted to make duck confit, after having read about it and tasted it in restaurants on occasion. I cannot adequately express my relief that we were not going to attempt the galantine, which The Yummy Mummy eloquently (and terrifyingly) explains: “requires you to flay the skin off the chicken – Spanish inquisition style – in one single piece, debone the whole chicken, make pate out of the forcemeat, fold the forcemeat over the partially-grilled breasts so they are a snug surprise in the middle of the roll, and force all of it back inside the skin – that you just took off the chicken – and poach it in broth.” Wait, what? Is this cooking, or a special episode of American Horror Story?!? Fortunately, duck confit turned out to be one of the easiest — and by far most delicious — Charcutepalooza challenges to date. It was so easy that we actually felt a little like we were cheating. And it was so delectable that we were almost mad at ourselves for never having made it before. (And so good that I actually used the word “delectable.”) Many thanks to Mrs. Wheelbarrow and The Yummy Mummy for creating Charcutepalooza and introducing us to this amazing delicacy that we can (and will!) so easily make at home.
Black Olive-Cucumber Salad
We discovered this salad when we found the barbecued swordfish recipe in Mario Batali’s cookbook, “Simple Italian Food.” While both recipes are indeed simple, with flavors that complement each other nicely, we decided to post them separately since they are both delicious on their own as well. The ingredients for the salad include cucumber, black olives, tomatoes and fresh oregano. The salad dressing ingredients include olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, chives and salt & pepper. (The extra ingredients pictured here are for the barbecue sauce for the swordfish.) If you like olives and cucumbers at all, you’ll love this salad. It’s a great side dish, but might also be good all on its own — add a little leftover grilled shrimp and some feta cheese and you’ve got a meal.
Barbecued Swordfish
One of the biggest challenges in our menu planning is trying to find fish dishes that Dan and I both enjoy. He’ll eat just about any type of fish, prepared in a variety of ways, but I’m picky about fish and usually only like it if it doesn’t taste like fish and has some sort of sauce or salsa to distract me from the fact that it is fish. (I’m easy like that.) We also try to make sure the sauce or other fish disguisers aren’t so unhealthy as to cancel out the health benefits of eating fish in the first place. We found this swordfish recipe in one of Mario Batali’s cookbooks and liked the flavor of the (relatively) simple barbecue sauce that complemented but didn’t overpower the swordfish. An added bonus is that Chef Batali included a recipe for a delicious olive and cucumber salad to accompany the fish and further mask any “too fishy” flavor. The salad was really good as a side dish (post coming soon!), but not necessary as a topping because the swordfish wasn’t fishy at all and had a subtle savory flavor from the barbecue sauce.
Green Rice Pilaf
If you live somewhere that did NOT have record high temperatures all summer and, as a result, the herbs in your garden thrived instead of died, then this is a great use of your end-of-summer herb bounty. The rest of us can get our herbs from the grocery store. We saw Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and cookbook author, prepare this dish on the Today Show, and we were intrigued enough to try it ourselves at home. According to Bittman, there are a lot of herbs that you can use by the handful — similar to green, leafy vegetables. The handfuls of herbs in this rice dish include parsley, cilantro, chives and mint, accompanied by ingredients including basmati rice, grapeseed oil, onion, garlic, chicken stock (or broth) and lemon zest. This combination resulted in a unique, fresh and flavorful take on rice pilaf that we enjoyed very much. Continue reading “Green Rice Pilaf”
Lasagne
Lasagne is one of Dan’s specialty dishes and one of the ultimate comfort foods. With its multiple rich layers of three kinds of cheese, pasta and meaty sauce, lasagne is not the most healthy of our recipes, so we don’t make it for ourselves all that often. But it’s our go-to meal to make for friends and family in need of a little comfort food or to celebrate special occasions. While not particularly complicated, the recipe takes a fair amount of time and effort to prepare — which makes it even more meaningful and satisfying when you’re cooking this dish for loved ones or someone deserving of a special meal. But, lest you think we are completely selfless with 100% pure motivation, this recipe also lends itself very well to incorporating enough extra ingredients to make a small batch for yourself when you’re preparing one for someone else. Win, win!
“Cold-Smoked” Chicken with Black Pepper Vinegar Sauce
Bobby Flay has a new cookbook, “Bobby Flay’s Bar Americain Cookbook,” chock-full of recipes from his New York restaurant Bar Americain. We’ve never been to his restaurant, but we’re big fans of his recipes from his other books. He has a creative, yet no-nonsense and relatively simple approach to cooking that we find easy to adapt to our home cooking and grilling. Although many restaurant-based cookbooks can be quite intimidating, this first recipe we tried from Chef Flay’s book wasn’t difficult at all, and the result was restaurant-quality food at home. The chicken was perfectly roasted with a slightly smoky flavor, and the black pepper vinegar sauce was one of the best sauces for chicken we’ve ever tasted. The sauce is the star of this dish and it is crazy simple to make. It might also be good as a salad dressing. Heck, I could almost drink it, it’s so good.
Continue reading ““Cold-Smoked” Chicken with Black Pepper Vinegar Sauce”
Slow-Cooker Beef Stroganoff
Now that it’s officially Fall and the temps are finally under 100 degrees, it’s time to dust off our slow-cooker and indulge in more comfort food recipes. We found this one in the book “Slowcook” and adapted it after researching some other beef stroganoff recipes online. We love how the flavor turned out — rich and meaty — but the sauce was a little more thin and broth-y than we would prefer. We talked about creative ways to thicken it up next time — saute the mushrooms before adding them to the pot or do something different with the flour — but concluded that the easiest solution is also the most obvious. Next time we make it, we’ll put in less beef broth and that should do the trick. As Homer Simpson would say, “S-M-R-T!” Update: We got a super smart tip from our good friends Paula and Matt — use cream cheese instead of sour cream. Adds more flavor and might help thicken up the sauce. Thanks Guys!