Whip It Up! Favorite Chef Edition

This week's WIU "assignment" was a tough one-- so I went with the chef whose recipes I find myself making most frequently. They're generally easy, tasty, and impressive despite the short time it takes to make (most of) them. Also, I am not sure whether she qualifies as an actual chef, but I do know (from her Chefography, yeah shut up) that Giada De Laurentiis does have actual culinary training (unlike, ahem, Sandra Lee), so I'll just call her a chef for brevity's sake.

We had some salmon on hand, so I settled on her recipe for salmon baked in foil.

Ingredients

4 (5 ounces each) salmon fillets

2 teaspoons olive oil plus 2 tablespoons
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tomatoes, chopped, or 1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes, drained
2 chopped shallots
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Method

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Sprinkle salmon with 2 teaspoons olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir the tomatoes, shallots, 2 tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend.

Place a salmon fillet, oiled side down, atop a sheet of foil. Wrap the ends of the foil to form a spiral shape. Spoon the tomato mixture over the salmon. Fold the sides of the foil over the fish and tomato mixture, covering completely; seal the packets closed. Place the foil packet on a heavy large baking sheet. Repeat until all of the salmon have been individually wrapped in foil and placed on the baking sheet. Bake until the salmon is just cooked through, about 25 minutes. Using a large metal spatula, transfer the foil packets to plates and serve.

I served it with an orzo salad from Cooking Light, which was sort of meh but will improve with some doctoring.

Was the recipe easy to follow?
Oh yes. This is one of her simpler dishes-- and handily involved only dried herbs and other things I had on hand. Super, super easy to put together ahead of time and then just pop into the oven. GP was not thrilled with a 400 degree oven on an 85 degree day, but he didn't have to make dinner, so he was quiet about it.

Did the dish taste good?
Yup. I am used to a lighter, lemonier salmon, so this was a fun departure. I feel like this would be a really good and cozy dish, especially in the winter.

Would you make it again?
Certainly. Maybe when it has cooled off a bit, and I am getting fewer glares when I turn on the oven...

Soundtrack

With exactly two months until Wedding Day, we have yet to choose a first dance song. While GP is not in most ways a "music person," he does have the occasional opinion, and I am all about the music and lyrics. This does not mean, however, that either of us has any idea what song will be the soundtrack to our first official husband-and-wife dance. I've been mulling this over for months and months...and here are the finalists, in no particular order:

Forever and a Day (Always) - Jewel
I Only Have Eyes for You - Jamie Cullum
You Are the Best Thing - Ray LaMontagne
God Only Knows - Joss Stone
All the Things You Are - Ella Fitzgerald
It Had to Be You - Harry Connick, Jr.
L-O-V-E - Joss Stone
Never Had Nobody But You - M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel
Can't Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
I Will - The Beatles
Your Song - Elton John
To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens
Everything - Michael Buble
They Bring Me to You - Joshua Radin
Everyday - Vetiver
Melt With You - Nouvelle Vague
Nobody Knows Me - Lyle Lovett
Question - Old 97's
Real Love - Regina Spektor

Thoughts? Suggestions? Also, don't be bitchily judge-y. Now is not the time.

Whip It Up! Two-fer: Spicy and Appetizer

Last weekend, we took a trip to Tahoe. As is my habit, I commandeered the cooking duties, such as they were: dinner on Friday night, and a couple of fairly easy breakfast items (really only eggs and biscuits, because I am weird and enjoy custom-cooking eggs). The only wrinkle in this plan was that half of our group would be vegetarian-- I had to think of something that was palatable to all and a good fit for the non-meat-eaters. And an entree (and corresponding appetizer) was born! (Or conceived of, whatever.)

From the magic of the internets, we have a recipe for samosas. I've served them as both appetizer and side, and they are delightful either way. This recipe was the first time I've made them from scratch (minus the wrappers, which turned out semi-disastrously when I tried making them myself-- just wrap the filling up in triangles of store-bought puff pastry).

Ingredients
1.5 cups peeled, cubed, and boiled potatoes
.5 cup peas
2 tbsp Amchur powder or Chaat masala
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp Garam Masala
Salt to taste

Grind together: .25 cup fennel seeds, .25 cup coriander seeds, 4-5 red chilies, 3-4 curry leaves

Method
Mix together all of the above ingredients. Use as much or as little of the ground spice mix as you'd like-- the above amounts make quite a bit, so it might be too potent depending on your taste.

Scoop a heaped tablespoon of the filling into each puff pastry triangle.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.



From my Bon Appetit "Every-Night Cooking" cookbook, we have Peas and Potatoes Masala (the carnivores had to deal with sauteed chicken breasts), a dish that is spicy only in that it contains spices, but I had little to no hope of making something with any degree of kick if I wanted anyone to eat it (yeah, I know that sentence was longer than it needed to be).

Ingredients
.25 cup vegetable oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 14.5-oz. cans diced tomatoes in juice
2 6- to 7-oz. russet potatoes, peeled and cut into .5-inch cubes
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground allspice
12 oz. firm or extra-firm tofu, drained well and cut into .5-inch pieces
3 cups frozen peas, thawed
.5 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Method
Heat oil in a heacy, large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute until golden-- about 6 minutes.

Add tomatoes with juices, potatoes, cumin, and allspice. Cover and simmer until potatoes are just tender, stirring occasionally-- about 8 minutes.

Add tofu, peas, and cilantro. Simmer uncovered until vegetables are tender-- about 6 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper. Enjoy!

And now, the wrap-up for both:
Were the recipes easy to follow?
Yep-- each left a good amount of room for improvisation, and I felt comfortable doing so because there wasn't any mystical cooking technique going on. It all amounted to "cut up some things, measure out other things, mix them up, add heat," which makes for an easy-to-follow recipe and plenty of room for variation.

Did the dishes taste good?
They were both hits! Even for a crowd that had some members that were wary of Indian cuisine, they scarfed it right down. Fun tip for cooking for a bunch of people: wait to serve dinner until about 9, and make sure they have had plenty to drink. They will love whatever you cook! Seriously, though, it was just as good-- nay, better!-- the next day.

Would you make it again?
Absolutely! I might leave out the tofu and include a few more veggies-- there were a lot of peas involved. Maybe some eggplant or squash next time?

Making it official

So, the wedding is only about two and a half months away. After months and months of putting things off or figuring that we (read: I) would "get around to them," we're now having to put together all those last pieces. It feels real now, and it feels good. Also a little crazy. Who gets married? What are we-- grownups?

The invites have been sent (and we got our first RSVP last Friday! Hurray!), the florist has been booked (he is five feet, two inches of pure delight-- and got me more excited about flowers than I thought I would ever be), the dress is here (and pending alterations, which apparently don't happen until about six weeks out), and our tasting is on Wednesday (more of a formality, fine, but yay for food!). This is going to happen, really happen. I have known this, of course, for over a year now, but getting all of these to-do's accomplished makes me feel like we are making visible progress toward it, not just checking off days.

We've been meeting with and talking to officiants, which has made me a little regretful that I haven't attended church (or been particularly religious) for about fifteen years-- the choice would be so easy then! The idea of having a friend or family member officiate (something that we can do through the online ULC certification or through a county deputy commissioner thing) was quickly rejected because everyone has enough to do that day. But we are using all the power of the internets to try and find that Perfect Person to lead us through our vows. The first one we talked to was very thorough, having us fill out a questionnaire about why we thought our marriage would last, what we have learned from each other, and how we think of marriage. Our phone call lasted about an hour, and she seemed so interested in what we had to say, very committed to making our ceremony feel different. The second call, with another officiant, was yesterday morning. It was much shorter, she sounded (and is, I believe) younger, has definitely been doing this for a much shorter time than officiant #1. Then, yesterday afternoon, we met with yet another officiant, the first (and only) man we had on the short-list, and liked talking to him, too! The icing on that interaction was that he sent a follow-up email to GP saying that he "I know[s] [our] life together will be filled with lots of happiness. [We] are one of the few couples [he has] met who really KNOW themselves. That is such a refreshing quality." I will admit it, I teared up at my desk. I know that, whoever we choose, we will have a great ceremony (that I will cry just about all the way through, no matter what)...I just wish the choice were easier! We have another meeting (our last) tonight, with officiant candidate #4. I'm sort of hoping that she'll be awful, to make the choice simpler, but I am afraid she will be lovely. Yeah, I know, this is not a real problem.

All you married or about-to-be ladies and gentleman-- how did you pick your officiant?

Whip It Up! Healthy Options

Ah, our good friend, the Healthy Dinner. In the name of impending wedding as well as better health in general, most dinners in our house have been of this type in the last ten months or so, so there is a big fat stack of "recipes to try" that fit neatly into the healthy category. Having been tempted by on-sale eggplant at the market, and knowing that GP would never permit the long and hot oven journey to an eggplant parmesan (a recipe that is, now that I think about it, not new to me-- hence, not WIU-eligible-- but is a favorite nonetheless. I'll share later.), I knew what I had to do: ratatouille!

Not just because we are rabid Pixar fans (seriously, friends, we have all the movies and the shorts, and an unhealthy obsession with John Lasseter), but because we are enthusiastic eggplant fans, I knew this would be a hit. I chose a non-traditional recipe that contained chicken because GP is so rarely enthusiastic about meatless meals (in a very "Where's the beef?" sort of way). Without further ado, I give you...

Chicken Ratatouille
(adapted from a SparkPeople.com recipe)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 medium chicken breast halves, skinned, and fat removed, boned, and cut into 1" pieces

2 zucchini (about 7" long), thinly sliced
2 medium eggplants, cut into 1" cubes
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 medium green bell pepper, but into 1" pieces
4 medium tomatoes, cut up
1 clove garlic, minced
1.5 teaspoons dried crushed basil
salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat oil in large Dutch or French oven. Season chicken with salt and pepper, add to pan and saute about 3 minutes, or until lightly browned.

2. Add zucchini, eggplant, onion, and green pepper. Cook, covered, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add tomatoes, garlic, basil, and pepper; stir and continue cooking about 5 minutes, or until chicken is tender and cooked through.

Et voila, you have ratatouille for days! Seriously, this recipe makes a ton.

Was the recipe easy to follow? Yes! It is as simple as "cut stuff up, put it in a pot until you think it's done, and eat it." While that would read ridiculously in a cookbook, that is basically how this one goes. I saved myself some time (I think) by prepping everything ahead of time, cooking-show style, all cut up and in little bowls. Take that, Giada!

Was it good? It was a hit! We are still eating it a few days later, and it has only gotten better-- definitely one of those dishes that improves as all the ingredients hang out together.

Would you make it again? Sure would! I can see myself adding and subtracting ingredients based on what's on hand and what's in season. I think I could even manage to sneak a meat-free version under GP's nose...those eggplants were beefy!

Whip It Up! Regional Favorites

Being a native and likely lifelong Californian (though of course I am not ruling anything out...), I knew immediately that my "regional favorite" had to be something that contained avocado. This week, I decided to concoct what is essentially a no-cook recipe-- a delicious chilled soup, perfect for the entire summer, of avocado and cucumber. Also included in the process? An opportunity to use my immersion blender, one of my favorite (so far) registry gifts.

Cucumber Avocado Soup
via Gourmet Magazine, July 2007

1 lb of cold, seedless cucumbers
1 large firm-ripe avocado
2 scallions, coarsely chopped
¼ cup fresh mint leaves [I used dried, and just let them hang out with the buttermilk for awhile before blending everything together-- but I bet the fresh mint would be even better]
½ cup chilled buttermilk [which, at my local market, is only available by the quart. Bonus: buttermilk waffles on Sunday morning!]
coarse kosher salt

Cut cucumber into 3 equal pieces, then coarsely chop 2 pieces. Quarter avocado lengthwise, then pit, peel, and coarsely chop one half.

Blend together chopped cucumber, chopped avocado, scallions, minutest, buttermilk, water, and 1 teaspoon salt in a blender until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Chill soup, uncovered, 15 minutes.

Cut remaining cucumber and avocado into 1/4-inch pieces and stir into soup. Season with salt. Thin with additional water if desired.

Was the recipe easy to follow?
Sure was!

Did the dish taste good?
Yes. Not not mention the fact that it was hot as blazes outside, so a chilled soup was just the thing.

Would you make it again?
Absolutely. The leftovers didn't stand a chance, so I foresee this soup becoming a regular in the rotation.

Pint night!

I'm officially hopping on the Green Monster train, albeit minus very many supplements, for now (though I do have my dad out on a flax-procuring errand). This one is a banana (frozen, because I never manage to eat the whole bunch when they're fresh), half a small can of crushed pineapple (an artifact from when we used to have roommates), about a cup of unsweetened Almond Breeze, and a couple handfuls of spinach (it was a shockingly-low $1.99 at the Lucky near my parents' house). It is delicious! I love that I am able to get a whole mess of fruit/veggie goodness and freak GP out simultaneously, and the fact that it is a tasty and cold treat is just the icing on the cake (oh, cake...I miss you, cake!).

What strange-looking but delicious foods are you a fan of? Any suggestions for my next GM iteration?