October 13th: Salmon and potatoes and mustard greens

Received the last of the veggies from the farm for this season, including some gorgeous mustard greens. With no idea what to do with them, I went a-looking through epicurious recipes and came up with this one: Salmon, Mustard Greens and Potatoes with Mustard-Dill Glaze. Even though I made an extra trip to the grocery store just before cooking to pick up dill, there was none in stock, so I subbed in a bit of fresh rosemary, since that was what I had. Probably not a bad substitute, but in the end, the recipe wasn't quite good enough to keep. However, if you are ever stuck with mustard greens and unsure what to do, it is good enough for that purpose; in fact, the greens were probably the best part of the recipe, so maybe make the greens and do what you want for the rest, there's an idea. I read a number of reviews online, and based on the reviews, I added the juice of half a lemon to the sauce: tasty, tasty.

Fried mushrooms on the side.

June 15th: spring veggie ragout

Although we often slip away from it, the criterion I've set for retrying or keeping recipes in this house is that the food is so good, we want to eat the exact same thing again tomorrow (not that we actually do eat the same thing two days in a row). Tonight's meal fit that criterion perfectly. Another way of saying the same thing is that supper is so good, I resent having to share it, even if the recipe tells me it makes 6 servings (I've reduced that to 4 below). This one is definitely worth trying again:


Spring Vegetable Ragout (Ottawa Citizen)


1 lb (454 g) fingerling potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
6 tbsps butter, divided
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 head of garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
1/2 lb (225 g) carrots, sliced into pencil-width pieces

1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets

1/4 lb (110 g) baby collard greens (the original recipe called for arugula)
1 tbsp minced fresh herbs (e.g. chives, parsley)
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste


Steam the potatoes in a tightly covered pot over boiling water until tender, about 15 minutes, then drain.


Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat and add the onion and garlic cloves. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften, about 5 minutes.


Reduce the heat to low. Add the carrots and cauliflower to the pan, then scatter the greens  overtop. Cover tightly and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. The greens should exude enough moisture, but if the pan looks dry, add a tablespoon or two of water or white wine.


When the carrots are tender, transfer the steamed potatoes to the pan and stir gently to combine. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of butter to the pan in chunks, stirring them into the vegetables to make a light sauce. Scatter the fresh herbs over top, and season to taste with salt and pepper.


Makes 4 servings.

This is not a complete supper on its own, but a great accompaniment to meat or, in our case tonight, spaghetti and tomato sauce.

March 12th: poached eggs for brunch, fajitas for supper

Our after-swimming-lesson-brunch was poached eggs on toast, jazzed up with focaccia for bread, and prosciutto and sautéed spinach for toppings. This was a re-try from last year, and this time we decided a couple of slices of old Cheddar on each piece of toast was a perfect addition. Served up with fruit, brunch was complete and delicious. From March 2010's Chatelaine: poached eggs over sautéed greens and toast.

For supper, I made fajitas, with one small change: inspired by Cooking With My Kid, I roasted a whole chicken (I skipped the crock pot method) with some fajita seasoning rubbed over the bird. I didn't find the chicken had much flavour beyond that infused by the lemon in its cavity, however, I did find the fajitas less greasy than usual, because the meat was baked rather than fried. The pièce de résistance, though, was my guacamole, a recipe I have perfected over the years:

Guacamole

2 ripe avocados
1/2 lime
salt and cayenne pepper, to taste
1/4 large red onion, diced fine
1 jalapeño pepper, diced fine
1/4 cup minced cilantro
10 grape tomatoes, quartered

Peel, pit and chop avocado flesh into a medium bowl. Squeeze lime half over top, sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper, then mash avocado roughly. Stir in onion, jalapeño and cilantro. Taste and adjust seasoning. Top with grape tomatoes.

The key with this recipe is to adjust the quantities as you see fit. Tonight, for example, I had some bad avocados, so I ended up using 4, with all the bad spots cut away, to get the right amount of avocado for the dip to have good consistency. Then I had to squeeze on another lime half to get the taste right. Play with this recipe. Make it your own. Love it as I do!

March 2nd: Parmesan creamed spinach and corn, garlic butter roasted mushrooms

Liam got me onto yet another food blog: smitten kitchen. From this one, tonight I tried out garlic butter roasted mushrooms, which are just mushrooms baked with lots of garlic (I used more than called for!) and lots of butter and oil (I skipped the capers). Yum. Though, not quite as yummy as I had hoped; given the description on the website, my expectations were high and it didn't quite meet them. Still, yum.


Greg has become the bread-maker in the house of late, and all of his breads have turned out beautifully until today, when he had a failure on his hands. Too bad, because that buttery, garlicky oil would have made for good bread sopping.


Besides all the oil, we had cream too: from January 2011's Chatelaine: Parmesan creamed spinach and corn. Tasted a little bit of the frozen spinach, which of course is just not as good as fresh, but the overall effect wasn't too bad.

February 16th: baked & stuffed sweet potatoes

Tonight we had a yummy vegetarian main, from the vegetarian salmon: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Sweet Potatoes. Basically, roast your sweet potatoes, fry up some onions, mushrooms and spinach and combine the fried veggies with the sweet potato flesh. I topped ours with toasted walnut pieces and herbed goat cheese. When you eat the sweet potato skin, the meal is super filling and yummy to boot! I called it a main, but it was the whole meal; we had no room nor desire for anything else.


[Picture to be uploaded when my computer is feeling more cooperative.]


I'm going out for dinner tomorrow night, then to Montreal for the weekend, so I don't expect to be posting for a few days.

January 18th: 100!

This is post #100.

This is also the vegetarian meal of the week; from January 2010's Chatelaine: Spicy peanut, tofu and spinach stir-fry. Funny, this must be a re-try from last year, but I do not remember it at all. It was...

...delicious! I bought all-natural peanut butter, as per the instructions, and who knew? It's really good. And it has just one ingredient: peanuts! Amazing. I replaced the extra-firm tofu with PC brand teriyaki-flavoured firm tofu, which is one I enjoy on the barbecue in the summer. I debated whether or not to use the whole 2 tbsps of chili-garlic sauce, and in the end I did, but next time I might use  just 1 1/2 tbsps. It was on the cusp of being too spicy for us, but had a really yummy, peanutty flavour.

Yum, yum, yum. Served with quinoa.

October 13th: garlic + lemon + cilantro = yummy spinach and fish

Verdict:
Try Again: fish & squash recipes

I should work a two-day work week every week. Two productive days, sandwiched between two four-day weekends, makes for one happy Kirsten. Tonight, to celebrate: healthy, tasty foods from October 2010's Chatelaine: Seared trout and spinach salad with Sweet & spicy squash. Greg's on the fence about the fish and I'm on the fence about the squash, so I guess we'll keep both recipes and try them again. This is not how it's supposed to work. The criterion is simple: we both need to love the recipe in order to keep it. Sometimes we just can't agree though.

The fish recipe called for salmon but I subbed in trout. The dressing for the salad called for one clove garlic, but I upped it to four. Who doesn't love more garlic? There was enough garlic and lemon to mute the flavour of the cilantro, which Greg loathes, so everyone was happy to eat it. Olivia sampled fresh cilantro and parsley as I was herb-chopping, but she didn't dig them overly much. She did eat up her meal though, then cake, then a pickle, then cheese, then milk. Her appetite goes on and on.

The squash I was working with was not of the best quality, so it wasn't as easy to judge the squash recipe. That's part of the reason I want to try it again: the curry topping was good and I want to give it more of a fair shot.

September 27th: Swiss Chard & Pork Chops

Verdict:
Try Again: pork chops with leeks in mustard
Toss: honeyed swiss chard with plums

Tonight's meal was inspired by leeks leftover from September 19th's supper (vegetable saute). I went searching on Epicurious for a leek recipe and came up with this: Pork Chops with Leeks in Mustard Sauce. This recipe is going in the try again binder, with a few notes to reduce the amounts of salt and Dijon mustard, both of which were overpowering. I should note, I had intended to do the whole rub the meat with herbs and let sit overnight thing, but I completely forgot, so the herbs were rubbed on minutes before the chops went in the pan. No biggie.

With the meat we had Yukon Gold potatoes and, from September 2010's Chatelaine: Honeyed swiss chard with plums. I liked this and was debating trying it again, but Greg gave it a thumbs down and so I'm letting it go.

I should note, tonight's supper was made up of two recipes I had intended to try--separately--on the weekend, and I do not recommend cooking these on a weeknight. It took me a good hour to pull everything together, with a fair amount of slicing and dicing along the way. Lucky for me, Olivia was in a super good mood and patiently awaited her supper, entertaining me along the way with her imaginary trips to the grocery store with 15 bears in tow. And putting babies to bed, of course. It's not a good day if you haven't tucked many babies into bed.