Turkey Meatloaf

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Poultry, Recipes

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.

Continue reading “Turkey Meatloaf”

Duck Confit

Posted By under Charcuterie, Main Ingredient, Poultry

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.

Continue reading “Duck Confit”

Black Olive-Cucumber Salad

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Side Dishes, Vegetable

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.

Continue reading “Black Olive-Cucumber Salad”

Barbecued Swordfish

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Recipes, Seafood

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.

Continue reading “Barbecued Swordfish”

Chili Cook Off 2011

Posted By under Reviews

This was our second year to participate in the annual Chili Cook Off networking event sponsored by the AlixPartners consulting firm.  Last year was our first-ever cooking competition, and although we didn’t win or even place, we had a great time and learned a few things.  In addition to learning that we don’t enjoy losing, we discovered that we could use sirloin like we do in our home recipe and that it would be pre-cut for us and supplied with our other requested ingredients on the morning of the Cook Off.  Knowing we could use our preferred cut of meat, we made up our minds last year that we would cook an even better batch of chili this year — good enough to place, or maybe even win…

Continue reading “Chili Cook Off 2011”

Green Rice Pilaf

Posted By under Main Ingredient, Recipes, Rice, Side Dishes

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

Posted By under Main Courses, Main Ingredient, Pasta, Recipes

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!

Continue reading “Lasagne”