Recipe Test ... uhh ... Sunday - Coconut Red Lentil Soup

Ryan's never said, "God bless you, Jen," in the middle of a meal before, but this Coconut Red Lentil Soup drew it from his lips. The picture transfer from the camera to Ryan's computer to my computer (long story) just isn't going to happen given my crazy week, so you'll just have to rely on Heidi's picture from 101 Cookbooks. Where does she get all those cool bowls? The only modification I made to the recipe was to add red curry paste to give it more of a bite. And I think I also added more raisins, which surprised and delighted me with their punch of sweetness. Hope you try it!

Crock Pot Yogurt

I got our crock pot out today for the first time since we got married 5 1/2 years ago. I figured out first crock pot dinner would be white bean chicken chili or a nice stew with chuck roast, potatoes, carrots, and onions. But no. My husband is not surprised, especially because of my recent "but I could make that!" kick.

I got our crock pot out today to make, of all things, yogurt. I'm all about high organization, low actual time commitment, and good, real food. Though we've been drinking raw milk, we eat yogurt made with pasteurized milk (don't know any way around that), so I decided that making yogurt with pasteurized milk wasn't so bad. I could make it with raw milk, but it would be pasteurized anyway because of the process required to make yogurt. Anyway ...

2 1/2 hours on low followed by 2 hours of just sitting there (crock pot off).








Wrapping her up for the night after adding in some live culture









Straining some of the whey off to make thicker yogurt. See Bittman's article on making greek yogurt in the NYT.
(I left some in the cheesecloth to make cheese.)






Yogurt with homemade granola, banana, and craisins for breakfast. Yum!

Recipe Test Tuesday

When we finally got dinner on our plates at 6:50, it looked so good, and I was so hungry, that I completely forgot to take a picture before plowing my fork into the potatoes. Then I remembered and stopped sharply, but my plate clearly betrayed my forgetfulness. So just picture it ... a small, brown, square plate with a pile of mashed, buttery yukon golds next to several small chunks of pork, with dark green sauteed kale piled liberally over both, all drizzled with a dark brown balsamic sauce that was so strong it tickled my nose. Ok, so I'm not a food writer.

It was delicious, and I realized a belief I have about cooking that I've never really thought about before. I believe that one quality of a good meal is that one can combine any of the mains or sides on a fork and it all still tastes amazing. I didn't have meals like this growing up. My parents fed us well, but there were about half a dozen sides that they felt went equally well with any dish (ice berg lettuce salad, bran muffins, corn, fruit salad ... I'm sure there are a couple more). I, however, think sides should actually GO with a dish, like they were meant to be together. Coconut chicken soup with green apple and red pepper salad (fish sauce, lemon juice, and paprika dressing). White chicken chili and sweet squash corn muffins. Homemade pizza and beer (beer's a side, right?). Pork and kale with balsamic reduction sauce. They're just good together.

All the combinations of pork, kale, and potatoes tasted lovely. Even Ryan agreed, and he's not a cooked greens guy (neither was I until about a month ago, well, a cooked greens girl at least).

So forgive me for the lack of a picture. I'll have to make it again sometime and post a picture at that time. Until then, this'll have to do.

Pork with Mashed Potatoes, Sauteed Kale, and Balsamic Reduction Sauce (inspired by this recipe)

Sauce:
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 t rosemary
sprinkle of pepper
Simmer sauce ingredients in a pan over moderate heat until just syrupy and reduced to about 1/4 cup. This took me about 6 minutes.. Pour the sauce through a sieve into a small bowl. Dump the rosemary.

Kale:
large handful of kale (I used chard before and that works well too. I'm guessing beet greens may work too.)
1/4 c red onion
1 t garlic
salt & pepper to taste
olive oil or butter to saute
Saute the onion and garlic 4-5 minutes. Add the kale, salt, and pepper and cook 7-8 minutes or until they're done like you like them. You can add a little water to make them softer if you'd like.

Pork:
Cook pork (I had kabob meat, chops would also work nicely) while the other parts of the meal cook
The original recipe is for broiled lamb chops sprinkled with garlic, salt, rosemary, and pepper. I figured that if I was going to drizzle the pork with the reduction sauce and eat it with potatoes and kale that I probably didn't need to season the pork. I just sprinkled a little salt on it and called it good.

Mashed potatoes:
2 yukon golds (steams and smashed)
a good amount of butter
1/4 c. sour cream or plain yogurt
1/4 c. cream cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Beet Borscht

Fawna brought us over beet soup a couple weeks ago and I had to try her recipe this evening. Yumm! I love beets, so I can appreciate almost anything with beets in it. Ryan, however, does not like beets. Or at least he didn't think he did before he ate Fawna's soup. Now he guesses that he does, at least in soup. Thanks Fawna!

3 T olive oil
1 large onion
2 1/2 c.cabbage
5-6 beets
3/4 lb. russet potatoes (I put in carrots instead, but Fawna used potatoes and they were good)
8 c vegetable stock (I used chicken, it's what I had)
1 c drained can tomatoes, chopped
1 t lemon juice
sour cream (I used plain yogurt) and parsley (I used basil) for garnish

Cook onion and cabbage in olive oil for 5-6 minutes. Add stock, beets, potatoes and/or carrots, and tomatoes and simmer for about 1/2 hour until the veggies are cooked. Add lemon, salt and pepper before serving. Top with sour cream or yogurt and herb garnish if you want.

Fawna's original recipe directed the cook puree the soup. Fawna left it chunky and I liked it that way. I pureed about 1/4 of it and left the rest in chunks.

It was the first dinner time I didn't make something different for Riley. She LOVED it!

Brisket

I've decided to try one new recipe every week. Last week it was coconut chicken soup (a smashing success!), and this week it was braised brisket (another success). I'm on a roll ... it's a good thing that one area of my life is going smoothly :) So I thought I'd share, even though it seems a bit of a braggy thing to do, because I love reading other people's successful recipes. It's so much better than reading random reviews on recipe websites.

I didn't have high hopes because I've never liked brisket that much, but we had a cut in our box from the farm so I had to figure out how to cook it so it didn't turn out dry and tasteless. So I figured the only way to keep it moist was to smother it in an ocean of wine, broth, and veggies. I found a recipe that looked promising online, made a few changes (as usual), and voile! In addition to being tasty, it made the whole house smell wonderful and gave us leftovers for a few to several days. I was planning to make chili with the leftovers tomorrow (since I thought it might still end up a bit dry and tasteless), but no, now we'll just eat it as is.

Braised Brisket:
I started with what was probably about a 3 lb hunk of brisket. (I had marinated it for a couple days in buttermilk, thanks Marianne.) I pan fried it in oil with salt and pepper, about 4 minutes/side. Then moved it (fat side up) to the roasting pan. I poured in about 1 1/2 c. each of cabernet and beef broth (homemade if you can), then threw in a can of diced tomatoes and sauce (canned last summer), a sliced onion, a few carrots (chopped), a head of garlic (peeled), and a handful of chopped prunes. I sprinkled thyme liberally over it all and threw it in the over at 325. I left it in for about 3 hours as the savory smell filled the house. (I love being able to smell dinner from every room in the house!)
After I took it out, I pureed the leftover sauce and veggies into a nice mash and spooned it over the cut brisket. Oh my, was it good! However, had I not pureed the sauce and veggies, the brisket would have been moist, but not especially flavorful because most of the flavor was in the puree. It was a good thing there was a lot of leftover puree!

As a novice to braising, I was pleasantly surprised at how moist it kept the meat. Any other good braising stories?

Coconut Chicken Soup

After a rough morning at school, I came home to leftover coconut chicken soup for lunch. It was so very good. There's really nothing like a steamy bowl of soup with delicious, nutritious broth to make the world a little better (even if just for 15 minutes). And I thought if it made my day better, it might help do the same for friends too.

I love trying new recipes. Not that I have much time for it these days, but it's probably one of my favorite things to do. I really enjoy preparing someone else's idea of wonderful, tasting it, then throwing in a little more of this, a little more of that, or some oh-wouldn't-this-taste-good-in-it-too? My additions don't always make it better, but the process sure is fun. It's like revising a story because you have a form to work with instead of creating from scratch.

The original recipe is from the book "Eat Fat, Lose Fat" by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon (in keeping with New Year's resolution 6). It looked promising and, having cooked nothing like it before, I had few expectations, which I think is helpful when going into a new recipe. Ryan had cut up all of the leftover chicken from the night before, so it took about 45 minutes total, and that's including tending to the babe. So here it is, with my additions.

Coconut Chicken Soup (for 4)
1 can whole coconut milk (Mae Ploy is my favorite)
3 c chicken stock (homemade if possible)
1/2 c brown rice (optional) - I used 1/4 c., and I cooked it ahead of time. It added some nice texture to the soup.
1/4 t crushed red chiles - I used cayenne as I didn't have crushed red chilies. I just kept adding to taste, probably around 1/2 t
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 t salt or 1 T Thai fish sauce - I used fish sauce, and added more than 1 t, to taste
1 t Sucanat/Rapadura, or palm sugar
juice of 1 lemon or 2 limes - I added more lemon juice (from the bottle in the fridge) to taste
1 T fresh basil leaves - I added a little more
1 c chopped cooked chicken meat or uncooked chicken meat cut into fine strips
+ I added about a cup of chopped mushrooms, which the recipe didn't call for but which sounded good to me ... and I was right :)

Put it all in a pot, bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes (unless you cook rice in the broth, then you'll have to simmer longer, and wait to add chicken until the last 15 minutes or so).

Delish!

Making Scones

After a long week of school, making scones was just the remedy for my overworked mind.

I love making scones, the actual making part. Sure, I always enjoy eating the scones when they're done, but the process of making them is just as, if not more, rewarding than the actual eating. There's something about working the butter into the flour that's quite cathartic. I like feeling the butter slowly warm between my fingers and watching the mixture become consistent throughout.

I also like that scones are simple and predictable. While I enjoy being creative and spontaneous, I also enjoy a process that I know will turn out well if I just do a few simple steps.

1 3/4 c. flour
4 T. butter
4 t. baking powder
1/2 c. plain yogurt
2 T. milk
a dash of ginger and a handful of craisins

Gotta go make my coffee :)