This is NOT my photo. This is by Heidi Swanson, who also created the recipe.
I cannot take any credit for this recipe at all—it’s all down to one of my absolute favorite recipe sources, 101cookbooks.com. Basically, I want Heidi Swanson’s life. She lives in San Francisco, has had two wildly successful cookbooks, travels all over the world, is a rock-star food photographer. NO, I’m not jealous. NOT ONE LITTLE BIT. Continue reading
Get your braise on. You won't be disappointed.
There’s nothing like a cloudy, nippy day for braising some meat—or veggies—in the oven. It’s a perfect time to use the Le Creuset cast-iron pots (seriously, are they ever going to contact me? I mention them every other blog, at least!), load them up with goodness and let them do their thing in the oven.
And what a lovely “thing” that is. I wasn’t sure about posting this one, but after just making it again for The Mother-In-Law’s birthday dinner, I changed my mind. Plus, the first time I made it, The Husband had not only finished his meal first, he ate all his lamb. All of it. And he never does that, so I felt that perhaps the dish would make the blog after all. Continue reading
I still can't believe they came out this good!
Now that we’ve found the farmers market in Laguna Hills, sometimes James stops by after the acupuncturist. Unfortunately, on Friday our bubble was burst, as we thought that all stands were selling organic produce. Not so! Very sad. But there are some organic stalls there and we try to support them.
I have no idea if these zucchini flowers were from an organic source, or not, but they were beautiful. I’ve already mentioned our friend Troy, and I’d helped him stuff some zucchini flowers before, but he had a deep-fat fryer, which I don’t. I decided to go for it anyway.
I found some herbed chevre and a recipe for the batter and went to town. I must admit, they turned out awesome for my first try, and I can’t wait to do them again! We served them as a side dish alongside one of our many chickens-under-a-brick, but these would be an awesome vegetarian main dish. Vegans, use a tofu ricotta and I’m sure it will turn out super delicious. Here’s my favorite recipe from my favorite vegan chef, Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Continue reading
Perfectly roasted, perfectly seasoned. Really, this is a must try.
Okay, pretty soon this blog will need to be called “Tiny Chicken Stories” instead of “Kitchen” if I keep getting a chicken at the farmers market every week. But I must admit, I really did outdo myself this time, and it wasn’t even on the time-consuming pepita-cilantro sauce that accompanied the chicken. Sadly, we didn’t even need it, even though it was delicious. I will have to make some (chicken) enchiladas soon and use the sauce then.
So what did I do that was so amazing? I’m not sure if it was the spice mixture or the butter. Since I have been responding well to the sheep and goat milk products recently, I found some goat-milk butter at Whole Foods and decided to try it. It has a delicious flavor, not sour at all, as I expected. It also melts quicker too. But it tastes like the smooth, unsalted butter of Europe, and I’m hooked.
Last night as I’m cooking the sauce, I decide to take about half a stick of the goat butter and mix in some ground cumin. I went to toast some cumin seeds up to grind them, then found a mixture that I’d already made that had ground cumin, coriander and brown mustard seeds. What the heck? I thought, and mixed in about a teaspoon of it into the butter. Continue reading
Insert your favorite ball joke here.
I was so happy when I had leftover wild rice that I’d made with mushrooms and pasilla chile. I’d wanted to make arancini for some time, and this seemed like the perfect time.
Ideally you’d want to use leftover risotto, as it’s much easier to mold than this rice dish that I had made. It was basically the Lundberg Farms wild rice blend, cooked in mushroom stock and then added to sautéed onions and pasilla chile. It was a delicious side dish to one of the many Chickens Under a Brick that we’ve cooked since we found Lydia at the farmers market with her wonderful product. Continue reading
These mini food processors are perfect for pesto making.
I like pesto, but sometimes it can be a bit, well…bland. Especially when you get it in a jar, and you realize you need to use almost the whole thing to get any flavor. It’s so easy to make at home, especially when The Husband buys a big box of basil at Trader Joe’s, which completely forces my hand.
I don’t like using just basil, though. Luckily The Husband had also picked up some arugula, which is a perfect green to mix with basil for a pesto with a little kick.
Also, since we are going through a recession, sometimes it’s hard not to get some sticker shock when you look at a bag of pine nuts. Continue reading
The finished product...yum!!
Sorry to my veggie and vegan friends, but there’s not much of this that can be vegan, except the roast potatoes. And I’d recommend them highly! But skip to that part, if you don’t mind.
Carnivores, read on! I’d been waiting for this for some time, and it took me years to find it. As I recounted in my roast chicken blog, a Sunday roast is an English tradition, and I got quite attached to a nice pork roast, especially the crackling. My English friends would agree—you just can’t have a roast pork without the crackling. It’s just not cricket, darling. Continue reading
These chickens from Lydia at the farmer’s market—yes, I finally found out her name—are freaking amazing. We have been getting one a week, and last weekend we found a magic combination of herbs and spices that just made the chicken sing. Not literally. That would be weird.
Mmmm....it's hard not to eat the whole thing in one sitting! But we didn't. I swear.
Last night we had a great opportunity to try the recipe out again, and on other people to see if it really was that good—both the flavor of the mix and the chicken itself. Both were given superb reviews. Continue reading
Well, yes. The Husband is required for carving. Haven't watched that video yet.
We’re very lucky to have, at our farmer’s market, a lovely lady who sells organic, free-range chickens and their eggs. She actually has photos of her daughter chasing them around the farm, so you know that they truly get outside, rather than just having access to the outside. Chickens, apparently, are not the smartest creatures and if they don’t know there’s an “outside” it’s rare that they will use a door to get to it. So it’s nice to see that “free range” lives up to its meaning for once!
I’m a big fan of anything that’s not mass produced or factory “farmed”, so it’s a real treat to have her there. Seeing as how her eggs are 50¢ more expensive than Whole Foods, and a whole chicken is just $14, and two chicken breasts at Whole Foods cost $10, buying her product is a no-brainer. (And, thanks to this very instructive video, I’ve learned how easy it is to cut up a chicken into pieces!) Plus, you can make your own chicken stock out of the bones—especially after you’ve roasted a chicken. Continue reading
This dish goes nicely with a glass of red wine, natch!
After we’d been grilling all summer, and even had a tank in backup, we ran out of propane for the grill. I was in a panic—what the heck was I going to cook for dinner?? For crying out loud, I’d even been putting pizza on the grill!
I finally pulled myself together. I mean, it’s like I’d never used the oven or stovetop before. Geez. The Husband can’t eat fish at the moment (not allowed by the acupuncturist for some reason) and we’d had chicken the night before, so I decided on some pappardelle that I knew we had in the cupboard. I wandered around the Gelson’s produce department, thinking about what would go with the Italian sausage or prosciutto that we had in the fridge. I settled on some beautiful, organic Swiss chard and a lovely red jalapeño, plus some nice pecorino Romano cheese from the deli. Continue reading
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