recipes – Page 3 – Peaceful Reader

Weekly Recipes 3

In my constant search for new and different foods to lay at our table I made this delicious (say the kids) chicken recipe this week:

Grilled Lemongrass Chicken with Ginger Rice
{weeknight gluten free by Kristine Kidd}
*we are not gluten-free; I only used regular ingredients where it specifies gluten-free

Shallot, 2 T, minced
gluten-free tamari, 2 T.
Sugar, 1 1/2 T.
Asian fish sauce, 1 1/2 T.
Lemongrass stalks, 1 fat or 2 thin, peeled and minced, or 2 tsp lemon zest
vegetable oil, 1 T.
Asian chile sauce, 1/2 tsp
kosher salt, 1/2 tsp
skinless, boneless chicken thighs, 1 1/2 pounds

Ginger Rice
Fresh ginger, 1 1/2 T., minced
kosher salt, 1/8 tsp
uncooked brown basmati or jasmine rice, 1 cup
Gluten-free tamari, 2 tsp
chopped green onions for garnish

1. In a bowl, mix the shallot, 2 T. tamari, sugar, fish sauce, lemongrass, oil, chili sauce, and salt. Cut any excess fat from the chidken. Add the chicken to the bowl and toss to coat. Let the chicken marinate while preparing the rice.
2. To make the ginger rice, in a small saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups water, the ginger, and salt to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 30 minutes. Turn off the heat and let stand for at least 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, then mix in the tamari.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the grill for direct-heat cooking over high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and add to the grill rack, cover and cook until springy to the touch and cooked through, about 6 minutes per side.
4. Divide the rice among 4 warmed plates. Top with the chicken, sprinkle green onions, and serve right away.

My normal habit of not reading the recipe all the way through was a problem here-I did not know about the GRILL-I cooked the chicken in my huge cast iron skillet, added marinade in, put the lid on and let it cook/steam to done. Also my kids would balk if I cut green onions over the top so avoided that step altogether. My son said the chicken was wonderful, flavorful, and tender. I made this meal just so he would eat something while the rest of us were out of town for 2 days. Over-mothering, yes, but he weighs next to nothing so I do what I have to to get food into him.

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Plus I made this amazing rhubarb recipe. They are tart and just the perfect size!

How was your week of cooking?

Weekly Recipes 2

This week has been filled with a lot of work and the beginning of my summer. We are working on a Hansen garden project so even though my last day of work was Tuesday I’ve still been at work every day helping to move and replant our raised garden beds. I am so excited for this to be a fully realized project, to have kids snap off vegetables and love them (or at least try them).

It’s also the start of summer break. I always dream that I will find a perfect summer job-make a little extra money working at a book store, restaurant, or bakery but it would need to be short hours and great pay to make it worth my while. I like to get a lot of reading, resting, and cleaning done during break.

Here’s what I made this week to keep us fed:

1. The black bean soup was amazing! We had it twice. Once just as soup and I served it with sour cream, guac, cilantro, and french bread.

The second time we had it with tortillas and rice, drizzling it together to make burritos. I just had it as soup again as I’m opposed to the big fat flour tortilla.

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2. Pork Roast: I am experimenting with meat and I found this at a good price from a good source. I looked at several different recipes and came to the conclusion that I could basically treat it like the pot roast my grandmother made. I used my handy crock pot so it would be ready after I spent the afternoon at the garden. I sautéed onions and garlic, browned the pork on all sides and scooped it into the slow cooker with celery, carrots, a few small yellow potatoes and some vegetable broth. I ate a salad while everyone else seemed to love the roast.

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3. Pork Roast part 2: pulled pork sandwiches for lunch today. I read a Ree Drummond post about pulled pork and went with it. Mine was already cooked so all I needed to do was “pull” it all apart. She advised forks but I gave that up quickly and just used my hands. As a veggie I have to admit it felt fatty. Sesame buns, pickles, sweet potato chips, and a veggie tray made a terrific late summer lunch. It would have made a great picnic except it was freezing outside today. Also Groovy Girl refused to eat them; she says BBQ sauce is disgusting. She, like me, ate the side dishes.

4. Rhubarb sauce: I love rhubarb and visited a friend who has a huge patch in her garden. I brought home a hefty stack of stalks and used at least half to whip up this delicious sauce. It’s now in my refrigerator in glass canning jars. The taste is amazing.

I cleaned my entire kitchen yesterday also and it looks amazing. I reorganized it so I could clear clutter off the counter tops. I love it. This is my plan for the rest of the house. That is my summer job. Unless a book store moves in downtown.

How was your week in the kitchen?

Weekly Update

It’s been a week of quick meals, crazy schedules and yet I’ve managed to create a few recipes to share.

{Janssen’s granola and photo}

I’ve been meaning to make Janssen’s granola recipe for quite awhile now and when the last few clusters of my TJ’s ginger mix landed in my morning yogurt the opportune moment was upon me. It took me 3 days to gather ingredients and find a space of time to make and bake it. It’s delicous! Just because it’s my nature I will play with it next time. This time I did add in some mixed nuts (cashews + pecans) because they were sitting in our nut jar and some chopped dried mango.

Last night I hosted book club and I gave the granola away in little cloth giveaway bags (that I made from white cotton squares). It was a combination Earth Day/May Day gift from me to all my book club friends. Hopefully it brightened their morning yogurt.

I also whipped up a jug of ginger beer this weekend. Jenny from Dinner; A love story introduced me to the Dark and Stormy and ginger beer is a major ingredient. I don’t like the jacked-up expensive price of ginger beer ($10 for 4 bottles) so I thought it would be worth it to make my own. Now I know why it’s not cheap…it’s hard to make. I chopped up two large roots and then squeezed it through my mesh strainer to just barely produce 3 tablespoons. I rinsed cold water through the pulp to eek out 1 more tablespoon. I thought with the added yeast in this Epicurious recipe that it would be fizzy but it is not. It does have ginger flavor though and I will use it. Maybe this weekend I will test run it with a Moscow Mule. I will probably have to add club soda though to give it that extra POP and zing.

I planned to make Dark and Stormys (we’ve had rain + the last time I hosted we had a tornado warning) for book club but I changed plans when I wasn’t happy with my fizz-less mixture. Luckily we had plenty of wine. And delicious food. My favorite was Katinka’s Greek salad.

What I’m reading:

Book club: Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline ( I read this months ago so didn’t have much to contribute)
School: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Groovy Girl: Nest by Esther Ehrlich

Next up: Swamplandia by Karen Russell

It's a new month! I liked August.

I wasn’t even really ready for August to end. For me August could be a double month. I’ve had one major project to accomplish today and it is to clean off our antique blue bench which holds our mail. Right now it is holding a large basket of unread magazines, ~~a stack of books~~ THREE stacks of books, and a mass of mail. Mostly the mail we don’t open.

I easily went through the mail basket and filled up the paper recycling bin. Going through the magazine basket was a lot harder. Old Martha Stewart’s called my name, last year’s Bon Appetit”s beckoned me to the pages within, and a couple of catalogs caught my eye as well. It takes much longer to get things into the recycling bin when you page through everything. It takes even longer when you decide to stop and write about some of what you find.

In an article about Russ and Daughters, a longstanding deli in New York City’s Lower East Side, a few recipes were shared. It doesn’t matter that the MSL is circa Sept. 2012. I’m sure the deli is still there (it is) and these recipes will still be fabulous. Now I need to get myself back to NYC so I can give Russ and Daughters a try.

In the meantime I will satisfy my craving with these two recipes:

{From MSL}

Bagel Pudding with prunes and raisins
serves 6-8

3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1 T. vanilla
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whole milk
4 or 5-day-old bagels, crusts removed and cut into 1/2-in cubes (8 cups)
unsalted butter, for baking dish
3/4 cups halved pitted prunes
3.4 cup seedless raisins
vanilla ice cream, for serving

1. Whisk together eggs, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large bowl until smooth. Whisk in half-and-half and milk. Add bagel cubes, and toss to coat. Let mixture sit, stirring occasionally, until bread absorbs some of the liquid, about 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 325*. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish (2 inches deep). Stir prunes and raisins into bagel mixture, and transfer to baking dish. Bake until top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour (if top browns too quickly, tent with foil). Let cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into squares, and serve with ice cream.

and then this fantastic beet recipe:

Beet-and-Lemon-Shrub
makes 6 1/2 cups

5 cups water, divided
2 T. white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup fresh beet juice (from 1 1/2 lbs of beets) (use a juicer)
1 cup fresh lemon juice (5-6 lemons)

1. Whisk together 3/4 cup water, the vinegar, and sugar until sugar dissolves.
2. Combine remaining water, the beet juice, and lemon juice, and mix well. Stir in vinegar mixture. Refrigerate 48 hours before using.

Use that mix in this:

{From MSL}

Beet-and-Lemon-Shrub Cocktail

6 1/2 cups Beet-and-Lemon Shrub recipe
12 ounces of vodka
ice
24 ounces of seltzer water
12 wedges of pickled green tomato, for garnish

1. Mix together shrub and vodka.
2. Fill 12 8-ozs glasses with ice; add shrub mixture. Top off with seltzer, and garnish with pickled green tomatoes. (I might think to garnish with lemon wedges as an alternative)

What I’m reading other than this pile of magazines is River of Ghosts by Robert F. Gish (father of the ever lovely and talented Annabeth) for my Sept. book club. I’m going to finish it even though he is
w-o-r-d-y.

I’m going to link this to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme even though technically the beautifully long weekend is over. Candace has a peach galette on her site. I’d trade her a piece of my bagel pudding for a sliver of peach galette-we could have a cup of cappuccino and share.

Weekend Cooking; Recipes of the week

{The Kitchn}

I made this wonderful pasta dish: Lemony Ricotta Pasta with basil. I will definitely make this recipe again as it was easy and tasted great. Groovy Girl’s comment, “too cheesy,” didn’t even bother me one bit as I took another bite. I’ve got a lot of basil to use and am going to make a pared down pesto to freeze to use up my bounty.

I did make these healthy (and delicious!) swiss chard rolls. It’s a little like eating a sushi roll and the lemony flavor makes my mouth sing. They were very easy to make and it was my first time cooking with bulgar.

I plan to make this swiss chard risotto this week because I’ve acquired another huge bunch. Candace at Beth Fish Reads suggested risotto. I love risotto so it’s perfect.

I made a blueberry pie as my grocery store had USA blueberries on sale. And my husband LOVES pie. He left for RAGRAI yesterday and I wanted him to leave with a belly full of pie.

I also made him my mother-in-law’s famous chicken salad. It’s so easy (and worth it) to compliment someone on the food they make simply by asking for the recipe. I found myself in Target thinking about making the chicken salad and so I called Phyllis to ask for a run-down of the ingredients. As we were chatting about the recipe she relayed that Kaylee, my 22-year-old step-daughter, had called her and also asked for the recipe recently. That’s how simple it is to compliment someone on their cooking.

{the start of good chicken salad}

Curried Chicken Salad

Combine in a large bowl:

1 1/2 cups cooked (locally sourced or at least organic) chicken*, cut into bite-sized pieces (about 2-3 breasts)
1/2 cups seedless grapes, green or red (I always use red as my preference)
1 can water chestnuts, sliced and drained
1 can mandarin oranges or pineapple, drained (look for low-sugar content)

Mix together 1/2 cup olive oil-based mayonnaise or healthy egg-free substitute, 1/4 tsp kosher salt, and 1 tsp curry powder (I always use extra curry powder). Combine dressing with chicken mixture. I serve this on top of a bed of salad greens. It is delicious and a perfect meal for summer. Thanks Phyllis for all your inspiration!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme hosted by Candace. Click to her link to find many other food-related posts. Have a healthy weekend.

Weekend Cooking.

Busy week. Not enough sleep. Badddd sleep week. Does this happen to you? Sleep has been an issue for me the last few years. I look forward to summer when I can sleep in and have a more relaxed schedule.

{copyright: Eating Well magazine}

I managed to whip up some healthy, happy meals this week including the Southwest Quinoa Cakes from Eating Well magazine. Candace at Beth Fish Reads featured this recipe and I knew when I read her post that I would make these cakes. They were delicious and fun to eat. And the recipe makes a lot! Making these in my very ancient muffin tin made me wish for a new one as I had trouble getting them out of the oiled pan.

Groovy Girl is busy acting in a new play and we are sharing carpool duties with another family. That gives me and husband some alone time (so rare). On Tuesday night I made her a simple dinner and sent her out the door with the other mother leaving me time to pull these cakes out of the oven, plate them up with all the fixings and sat down and ate with my husband. We talked. It was grand. I had leftovers for school lunches too! Win-Win.

{My cakes with two baby peppers}

Saturday I made these Lemon Cookies from Two Peas and their Pod for a Thai dinner we hosted at our church. A local restaurant catered the main entrees and they were amazing. I had three helpings. Someone told me later they thought the cookies were from the restaurant also. I grinned like a three-year-old. I love lemons and will make these again.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking meme. Please click her link to find many other good food posts.

Have a great week. I’m off to bed.

Weekend Cooking; Alice Waters and The Art of Simple Food II

Our holiday break includes two untraditional traditions; a shopping trip to Goodwill to find excellent second hand sweaters, flannels, etc. and an extended trip to Barnes and Noble to use gift cards and explore new books. I had a gift card from last year begging to be used. I love gift cards so much that I tend to hang on to them until the perfect book is found. Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food II is just such a masterpiece that I didn’t mind trading gift card for book. I’ve been a fan of hers for years and am happy to add this book to my collection. I’m sure my mother will want to borrow it as well.

Alice Waters is a chef, author, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, CA. She is an American pioneer of a culinary philosophy of good, fresh ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally. In 1996 she created The Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School; a one-acre garden, a kitchen classroom, and a curriculum to pull everything together. She is also the Vice President of Slow Food International, a nonprofit that celebrates local food traditions and boasts 100,000 members. (adapted from Chez Panisse’s website)

The first thing that drew me in is this list from the inside front cover:

Treasure the farmer, Nurture the soil, plant wherever you are, learn from nature, cultivate your palate, make your own, eat whole foods, share the harvest, teach children the art of simple food. These are all a part of my belief statement as well.

I haven’t cooked anything yet from this book but I’ve read through the herb section and have selected several recipes to try. Most of all it makes me hungry for Spring!

Look at the chapter headings and try not to get hungry for warmer weather…

1. My Kitchen Garden (growing what I love)
2. Fragrant and Beautiful (herbs and herb flowers)
3. Tender Leaves (lettuce and salad greens)
4. Hidden Flavor (garlic, onions, leeks, and scallions)

It is not categorized into seasons as many locavore cookbooks are yet she does have seasonal chapters. The recipe format is also unique as Waters’ writes them as she might to a friend with the ingredients integrated into the recipe not set apart. An example:

Basil Mayonnaise (15)
makes one cup

Pounded basil makes a beautiful green mayonnaise. Serve it with a gilled fish or a tomato salad.

Pick the leaves from
   1/2 bunch of basil (about 1/2 cup lightly packed)
Coarsely chop the leaves and pound them to a paste in a mortar with:
   salt
Add:
   1 egg yolk
1 tsp water
Whisk the yolk, water, and basil together.
Into a cup with a pour spout, measure:
   1 cup olive oil
Very slowly dribble the oil into the egg yolk, whisking constantly. As the egg yolk absorbs oil, the sauce will thicken, lighten in color, and become opaque. This will happen rather quickly. Then you can add the oil a little faster, whisking all the while.
If the sauce is thicker than you like, thin it with a few drops of water. Taste and add more salt, if necessary.

The bonus for this style of recipe is that it forces me to read the ENTIRE recipe to get the ingredients and to look at the recipe as a whole not as just a list of ingredients.

Other interesting recipes:

Rocket (arugula) Pesto, Corn and summer squash soup, Roasted brussels sprouts with sesame seeds and ginger, Lime syrup, Summer squash pizza with marjoram and fresh ricotta.

The last large section in the book is about gardening and that will be read and reread before Spring so I can be ready. I’m sure she has some new tips and strategies that I can use.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekend cooking meme. Click her link to see many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; A few recipes from our week

{source}

“Welcome to the weekend!”, is just what I said on Friday afternoon as I headed out of school. It is exhausting getting back into the swing of school days. Now that it is Sunday afternoon and I still have a bucket-load of work to do I’m trying to reel Friday night back. It’s okay, I’ll get it all done after a little nap.

Our oldest daughter, my step-daughter, Kaylee, spent the week with us in-between her job as a camp counselor in WI and before she heads back for her senior year at Oberlin. I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that she will graduate this year. We did have fun while she was here though and that will have to last us as we won’t see her again in person until Christmas.

The first night she arrived I made an easy taco bar with seasoned rice and black beans as the main ingredients. We had fresh lettuce, chopped tomatoes from the garden, salsa, and some shredded cheese to decorate our flour tortilla shells. This is often my go-to meal on busy week nights. I probably make a variation of this theme at least once a week. I’m glad my kids like rice and it is a perfect meal for self-expression as everyone can design their own taco ideas.

Another night we went to a new local Thai restaurant. It was packed and busy but once our food arrived we were all very happy with the flavors. I had a tofu red curry dish and Kaylee had a coconut chicken noodle dish. I have leftovers to eat today!

We also made fresh Iowa sweet corn one night using this new method my mother-in-law turned me on to through this video:

The corn does come out VERY hot so make sure you have an oven mitt on your hand. I didn’t the first time I did it and I almost dropped the ear of corn getting it to the cutting board. The corn comes out if you help it along and it tastes delicious. I think of all the years of boiling a big pot of water to feed my summertime sweet corn love.

We made my friend Stephanie’s margaritas (recipe is at the end of this long-winded post but well-worth the scroll) last night after we’d spent the day at a downtown festival. Happy hour rushed right into dinner as I sipped and pounded meat at the same time. We had the chicken cutlets from Dinner; A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. This has become Groovy Girl’s all-time favorite meal. She not only ate her cutlet but begged for the rest of her dad’s when he was resting between bites. “Can I have that?” as she pointed at his plate. He raised his eyebrows in a funny way and said, “I’ll split it with you” and she took him up on it. I’m not making this every night yet it is a delight to have her eat heartily and not pick. Find that cutlet recipe at this previous blog post.

She and I biked to the farmer’s market in the morning and we picked up a bag of green beans, a big bunch of beets, and some eggplant. We found a new type of eggplant and had to bring some home. The grower says it will be good in a stir-fry so that will be on the menu for this coming week.

{Aren’t they cute!}

{Beets, of course}

{Japanese eggplant}

Groovy Girl and I carry our own bags to the market (really, where ever we might shop) hardly ever accepting despicable plastic grocery bags. The ones we do pick up on occasion are reused to pick up doggie poo. It kind of annoys me that all these growers hand out plastic bags with every little thing, just like the big box stores. I wish they could be motivated to move beyond the bag-offer a discount-for anyone going bag free. I know not everyone comes prepared yet it seems we are enabling the customer to be lazy. In my utopia plastic bags would be outlawed. Just my little green soap box for today…thank you for listening. I’m sure I’ll feel better now. Do you carry your own shopping bags? If not, this is such an easy thing to change as so many retail places offer their own variety of canvas bags. The ones I carry around in my purse fold into their own little sack, making it easy to take them everywhere. Mine look a little like this example.

We were somewhere this summer (on the East Coast) where they were NOT giving away bags-you had to pay for a bag and I was in heaven. Enjoy the produce photos. Eat healthy this week. Try the cutlets just because Groovy Girl loves them.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekend cooking meme. Click the blog link to view many other food-related posts and join in with one of your own. And now that I’ve typed about food for over an hour I find myself a bit peckish. Roasted beets or leftover Thai?

Weekend Cooking; Desserts {feeding the men}

It has been a crazy week here and some how in the midst of that I made two pretty incredible treats. While we were out of town my mom stayed at our house to dog sit and garden sit and we thank you for that so much! She even had dinner waiting for us on Monday night as we drove in to town. Thank you Mom!

She left us some rhubarb (yes, MORE!) so I made a pie. When College Boy was young he made this blindingly goofy statement to us that he didn’t like pie “never tried it, never will”, which is funny coming out of a 5-year-old’s mouth. And then about middle school he tried it. I don’t know what inspired him to try it but it was while we lived in Arkansas. It is my husband’s favorite dessert-especially rhubarb. I found this wonderful Martha Stewart recipe for rhubarb pie-with a crumb top. I think this might be my forever-go-to-pie. It was that good and pretty easy. I made my own crust.

Then as I cried my eyes out on Wednesday night (see this related post for explanation) I made amazing chocolate chip cookies. I’ve spent time looking for a wonderful recipe and this one just might be it. I found them at The Tender Crumb blog. I didn’t have pastry flour and I did use dark chocolate chunks instead of the chocolate suggested but I loved that this recipe made a large quantity. They were delicious and I was able to pack up a large box for College Boy to take on his road trip and fishing.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Rhubarb, sweet rhubarb

Even though the calendar says June Iowa is experiencing spring weather. I have a light sweater on as I type. Our old brick house stands on a very shady lot and our house is usually cool inside but this cool and rainy weather is throwing our growing season off a bit. While the farmers are unhappy I’m happy to slow down our growing time as there are two spring crops that I adore; asparagus and rhubarb. Asparagus is pretty easy to enjoy plucked straight out of the earth but rhubarb takes some time in the kitchen to bring out its essence.

My mom made me a rhubarb cake a few weeks ago; it was delicious but she didn’t leave me the recipe and I wouldn’t want to repeat anyway but I had several bags of rhubarb from my mom and my friend Janice that needed to be dealt with before we leave on vacation. I know, I know I could have stuck them in the freezer to deal with later but frankly that felt like a cop-out. I do well under pressure.

Two years ago when we had the pleasure of vacationing on The Outer Banks, NC my mother-in-law brought the MOST delicious rhubarb-ginger jam with her for our toasting pleasure. I stumbled upon this jam recipe the other day as I went through my recipe folders. I made it that day adding almond flavoring instead of ginger because I didn’t have any. I made it again Friday night because the first batch was licked clean from its glass container. The recipe is so easy.

Try it:

Rhubarb-Ginger Jam

(makes about 5 cups)

8 cups rhubarb in 1-inch pieces

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup crystallized ginger, chopped

zest of 1 lemon

Combine the ingredients in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over med.-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to medium to medium and cook at least 20 minutes (it may take a little longer) stirring often, until the mixture thickens and mounds on a spoon.

Store in the refrigerator or put in sterilized jars to can.

Changes: I used brown sugar instead of white and I didn’t have crystallized ginger but I did have ginger root so I grated it but used probably only two tablespoons.

And here is my mother-in-law’s notes: “This can be eaten warm as a compote or chilled as a jam. I suggest straight out of the jar with a spoon. It would also make a great topping for ice cream or cake.”

It is just that good. I love it on a good piece of wheat toast or straight out of the jar!

{big fat rhubarb-lemon muffins}

That took care of two bags of rhubarb but I still had one more large bag and I took that and turned it into delicious rhubarb-lemon muffins. Oh, they are so good. Groovy Girl’s comment, “The rhubarb makes them so moist and the lemon makes them tart,” as she gobbled one up for breakfast. I replaced white sugar for brown sugar in the recipe as well.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts. Happy eating!