Third Week of Resolution!

This week just flew by for some reason – probably ‘cause we were getting out of Dodge!

Tuesday, the 16th – I played with the dish I made in Windsor for the fundraiser dinner two years ago. Bresaola Layered With 3-Peppercorn Chevre and Huckleberry Puree.
At the dinner, Lorraine and I served it as a salad course, but I wanted to make it over into an hors, so tried two options –

Prepping: combined the Chevre and mascarpone cheeses.
Rather than making the original huckleberry puree, I thinned Huckleberry jam w/jalapenos with tawny port to a dropping consistency.

1 - Spread a layer of the cheese mixture on each round of Besaola, a drizzle of the jam/port and topped with a few of the micro greens that had been tossed with EV olive oil and fresh lemon juice.

This didn’t work – the bresaola was not strong enuf and came apart.

2 – Toasted 18-hour bread rounds; spread with cheese mixture, layered bresaola over and spread a little more cheese mixture on the meat; drizzled the jam/port over and sprinkled with the micro-greens. This turned out wonderful and the heat from the toast added a nice creaminess. Very happy with this version.

This was supposed to be an appetizer, but we at so much of it – this was dinner, so was it a new one or an old one????? I’m thinking old with a twist.

Wednesday, the 17th – another old one, Chicken Picatta. Now, I’ve made this many times over the years, but for some reason it all came together for Roy and he could not stop raving about it. Served with a rice pilaf and some fruit.

Chicken Picatta
Season 4 chix cutlets, pounded thin, with s&p; dust w/flour. Spray a pan with nonstick spray, add a mixture of olive oil and butter- a Tablespoon of each, and heat over medium heat.

Saute cutlets 2-3 min; flip and sauté 1-2 min more with the pan covered. Transfer cutlets to a warm plate; pour off fat from pan.

Deglaze pan with ¼ c. dry white wine (I always use Noilly Pratt vermouth for this step); add 1 med. clove of minced garlic and cook till garlic is slightly brown and liquid is nearly gone, 2-3 min.

Add ½ c. chix broth, 2 T. fresh lemon juice and 1 T. capers, swish together; lay the cutlets on top and cook 1 minute on eah side. Transfer cutlets to serving plates and finish sauce with 2 T. butter and 3-4 slices of lemon. When butter melts, pour sauce over cutlets and garnish with fresh parsley – that’s it! A simple dish is a wonderful dish!!

Thursday, the 18th – at the beach, Port Townsend, left sunshine in P.A. to go to stormy looking weather in P.T!! Dinner this nite was the old standby, Pasta with capers, sundried tomatoes, Kalamatas and a little Parm. As a side dish, we again stopped and picked up Seaweed Salad – boy, do I just love that salad, from the seafood deli on the wharf. Also had leftover Herb bread.

Friday, the 19th – fixed Roberto’s Sausage and Veggie Roast – love that dish – picked up some Andouille at the Food Co-op in P.T. so used it in this dish.

ROAST SAUSAGE WITH ONIONS, PEPPER & POTATOES

Recipe By: (Roberto), Kernersville, NC USA
"Amounts are irrelevant - this is ultra simple and delicious."

Bell Peppers - green, red, yellow - whatever you prefer to use - cored, seeded and cut into nice chunks.
Potatoes, scrubbed & cubed into large chunks.
Large onions, of any variety, peeled and chunked.
Salt & Pepper, Olive oil
Sausage - Italian is the primary choice but this is wonderful with Kielbasa, Bratwurst, Chorizo, Andouille, whatever you can get a lot of for a little.

Combine all cut vegetables in a large foil roasting pan and drizzle with a goodly amount of olive oil, season with salt & pepper.
I add some crushed red pepper, a little Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano and mix well.
Cover with foil and bake in a 350°F oven for about an hour.

While the veggies cook, parboil your sausage in a little water in a covered pan for 15 to 20 minutes.

When veggies are starting to get nice and soft, cut the sausage into nice size pieces and add to the roasting pan.
Cover and bake 3/4 to 1 hour, then uncover & roast under the broiler, stirring occasionally, till the sausage is browning nicely and the veggies start to show signs of browning.

Serve with grated cheese, bread and a salad, or a raw vegetable antipasto, or soup, or anything.


Saturday, the 20th – a movie date nite!! Saw DreamGirls – what a wonderful movie – laughed, cried, sang along… and the on the pizza place a number of people have been telling us we ‘must’ try – Waterfront Pizza. We had a ½ and ½ - Greek (seems like all I’ve eaten this week is Greek flavors!!) and Roy’s side was sausage, pepperoni, etc. The pizza was great – they make a sourdough pizza dough that is lighter than air! And so tasty.

Sunday, the 21st – we had l/os from Roberto’s Sausage and Veggie roast with a green salad and a honey/mustard dressing. I guess the dressing is the only new thing we tried this week!!

Monday, the 22nd – it’s only 6:30 a.m. so haven’t had dinner yet, but as I have to report for jury duty, tonite will be l/os fro the freezer. There is some ham & beans, beef/veggie soup, and a couple other things to choose from.

So the count this week – new 2, if you count the pizza and the dressing, all the rest old ones. One week to go, and it certainly was not as hard as I thot it would be – it’s sure fun to look for some of the old favorites.

And I'm very please that we have held to the 'diet' regime of eating a heck of a lot healthier so far this year. I've been cooking and eating like I was still working full time and wow, my clothes are not fitting anymore!! Treadmill every day and watching what we eat - it's working!

2nd Week of Resolution

Did pretty well this week -
Tuesday, the 9th - Beef Stew (l/o) over pasta
Wednesday, the 10th - Taco Salad
Thursday, the 11th - Chicken Breasts w/Spicy Citrus Glaze - this is a very healthy dish that I first made in '99

Sear chicken breasts or strips of in butter (about 4 min. on each side).
While this going on, mix together:
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup thawed frozen o.j. concentrate
2 tsp. orange zest
2 cloves of garlic minced
salt & red pepper flakes

Pour the honey mixture over the chicken and cook, turning to coat for about 2 min or till sauce begins to thicken. Garnish with scallions and serve with rice.

For a starter for this dinner, we had Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup - garnished with one meatball (from freezer), capers, kalamatas and feta sprinkled over. Very good!!

Friday, the 12th - Postponed Christmas party dinner in Bellevue.

Saturday, the 13th - Got home late afternoon from Pike Place so had Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup from Trader Joe's (wanted to compare to the online order product Burr's gave us and it's just as good!) topped with goat cheese.

Pesto Stuffed Tortellini topped with Parmesan, capers, kalamatas and Pancetta (most of which were purchased in Seattle). This was a nice combination, will definitely repeat.

Sunday, the 14th, I made the dinner to be reviewed on C@H forum on Monday.

Chicken Pho with noodles, fresh herbs, and lime - here's my review of this dinner that I posted on the forum:

Now this is a tasty dish - pretty too!! (will try to post pictures here)

The broth is just a wonderful flavor - I've never charred cinnamon nor ginger, but I'll sure do it often now!And the overall combination - great!

In addition to the Pho, we had stir fried Bok Choy
Nuoc Cham - from Mai Pham's Southeast Asian cookbook:
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp. chili paste
1/4 cup fish sauce
2/3 cup hot water
2 T. lime juice with pulp (author's note:"very important to include the pulp")
1/4 cup sugar
grated carrots

Red Bean Buns - I wasn't sure how to finish them, so steamed half and baked half. Love them both ways!!

Monday, the 15th - an old Cooking Light recipe that we especially like -
Conflake-crusted halibut with Chile-Cilantro Aioli (instead of making the Aioli, we tasted different chutneys/sauces we picked up in Seattle and all were great with the fish and 'chips'.
Oven fries with Yukon potatoes - these are becoming my favorite potato to use for oven fries.

So, for the week - four old dishes; two new dishes; and one night out to dinner - which the food was not the least bit tasty.

The third week will be mostly at the beach - and I'm taking the stuff for a lot of our old favorites (and healthy) that we've been making in the trailer for a long time. One nite tho, we are eating out at a local pizza joint that neighbors around here have said is the best pizza around.

A TRIP TO SEATTLE

WITT's Christmas party had to be postponed because of 'the storm' so it was held Friday (1/12) in Bellevue - dinner terrible. It was held at an Italian chain that I'd not heard of before, Maggiano's Little Italy. Only one dish passable they served a hot artichoke dip that was tasty.

But, on Saturday we went to Pike Place Market and The Spanish Table and spent the kid's inheritance!! What fun.

Beecher’s Handmade Cheese
1600 Pike Place (across st.)
Blank Slate Tapenade cheese - a soft, fresh farmer's cheese with a mixture of gr/blk/kalamata olives, garlice and lots of herbs and spices.
6 oz. / $5.75 (have brochure) Beecherscheese.com
What a wonderful selection of cheeses - first stop so had to watch the sheckles and bot only one (the tapenade), but they also had a Blank Slate Honey. It was a hard choice.

La Buona Tavola
(truffle Café Specialty Foods)
1524 pike Place (across st.)
TruffleCafe.com
Three Pack-
Truffle & Salt
Mushroom-truffle pate
Acacia Honey & Truffle

Trader Joe’s
Belletoile - Brie Triple Cream - wonderful
Castello Blue – real creamy/delicious
Tortellini w/pesto filling – 1 lb. (had for dinner when we got home mixed with a little capers, kalamatas, parm and some of the Sun Dried Tomato Bruschetta.)
Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper soup (2) (had a cup of this also for dinner, very good flavor! sprinkled with goat cheese)
Creamy Corn & Roasted Red Pepper Soup (1)
Spinach & Chive linguine – 8 oz.
Sun Dried Tomato Bruschetta
Rst’d Red Pepper Artichoke Tapenade
7 bottles wine –
Bears’ Lair Cab - $4.99 (Napa)Falcon Ridge Lodi Zin ’04 - $5.99
1-877-994-4616
Chariot Gypsy ’03 Red -7.99 (American Canyon, CA)
Barefoot Zin (Modesto) – 4.99 Barefootwine.com
Trader Joe’s Chilean Collection, Merlot – 3.49 Central Valley, CA
Haywood ’03 Merlot - $4.99 (Geyserville) haywoodwinery.com
Montepulciano D’Abruzzo ’05, Denominazione di Origine Controllata
Italian – 4.99

The Spanish Table – Food & Wine from Spain & Portugal
(Matiz Catalan) Squid Ink Pasta – Fideo
La Hacienda De Ybarra - Pimientos del Piquillo de Lodosa
(piquino peppers)
AlCaparras Capers ( big hummers)
Two Temranillo wines –
Campo Viejo, Crianza ’03, Rioja $9.99
Legaris Crianza, Ribera Del Cuero ’03 – $16.99 (Owner recommended) had with dinner tonight - great temprnello
Spanish Style Aurelia’s Chorizo, 6 oz. - $9.99
Redondo Iglesias – Dry cured Serrano Ham/
18 mos old.

Delaurenti Specialty FoodWine Store in Pike place
Fennel Crackers
Talatta Filetti di Aciughe, all’olio’di oliva – Anchovies $6.99
Bresola from Uruaguay – ¾ lb.
1 end piece $1.50/9.99 lb.
¼ lb. $5.76/ 23.99 lb.

Trying to work all of these goodies into a 'healthy regime' in eating for the next couple months will be hard! But, a good challenge.

First Week of the Resolution!

I committed myself in the form of a New Year's resolution to only fixing old recipes for the entire month of January! Well, I know (and knew it at the time probably) that no way could I go a whole month without trying a new dish - so I'm modifying my resolution. Two nites a week I can have fun with new recipes and the rest of the week I'll have fun with oldies that I'd forgotten about.This really is fun. Especially because I use my recipes as kind of a diary - I always write the date (YES, even in my coffee table type up-scale books!!) and if we're doing a project, or someone's here, just things that are going on in our lives that particular day.

So today is the 9th of January, the second week of the new year. I’ve tried to keep the resolution, but I really have not listed every dinner I’ve made, so now I’ll look over what I have done.

January 1st’s menu is listed in previous blog – all old recipes and ate this food on Monday (1st) and Tuesday. Wednesday, had ham/cheese grilled with ham and beans (old recipe); Thursday – Confetti Pasta (old, healthy recipe) – fettuccine, ham, peas, milk, cottage cheese, Parm, s&p&nutmeg.

Also on Thursday fixed the first of two versions of Sex on the Beach drinks. (thanks to dollop and Jan)
Dollops first –
1 ½ oz. each:Peach Schnapps & Vodka
2 oz. each: Cranberry, Orange and Pineapple juices.

Very good, but…

Next day we tried Jan’s offering –
¾ oz. each: Peach Schnapps, Vodka, Pineapple juice
3 oz. Cranberry juice
Splash of o.j

This was the best I think because of the larger amount of the cranberry juice. Love that flavor.
Well, love this drink. We’ll take the makings for this drink every time we go to a ‘warm’ state.

Also on Thursday, I started the 18 hour bread and finished it on Friday afternoon. Damn near ate the whole loaf before dinner.

Friday, old recipe again!! ‘Baked Beans’ which we really liked the first time around and ‘Tar-Heel Ribs’ with a marinade:
2 cups cider vinegar
2 T. brown sugar
1 T. molasses
1 ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
Black pepper & salt

Marinated ~8 hours, drained & brushed with a combination of ½ Huckleberry BBQ sauce & ½ Heinz Chili Sauce (I didn’t have the ingredients for the sauce called for in the recipe). Roasted for a couple hours and had planned on grilling on the Barbie later with more sauce. BUT…we encountered Seattle weather in Port Angeles that nite and I stuck the buggers under the broiler instead.

While this is an old recipe, I made it Aug. 3, ’04, I really, really like the combination of the Berry bbq sauce and chili sauce mixture. Will definitely do this again.

Saturday – a brunch morning. Friday nite we saw Ina Garten in her ‘Barefoot in Paris’ and got a real yearning for the ‘Herbed Baked Eggs’ – added some minced ham to help disguise the egg a little ( ;) ) and it was a very nice dish. Will do this for company.
No Champagne tho, had Bloody Marys instead.

Sunday, the 7th – Had Emeril’s ‘Steamed Baby Bok Choy with Broiled Salmon & a Warm Roasted Tomato & Lemon Vinaigrette’ – what a nice light, fast dinner this was.

The standout of the dinner was the Roasted Tomato & Lemon Vinaigrette –
2 c cherry tomatoes, halved
¼ c plus 1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 T. fresh marjoram leaves
The zest from 1 lemon
Salt & pepper
¼ c lemon juice
2 T. basil leaves

Saute quickly the tomatoes in ¼ c. of the olive oil, marjoram, lemon zest, s&p and lemon juice. Move to the oven and broil till well caramelized, 8-10 min. let rest while roasting the salmon, then add the julliened basil leaves – season again with s&p.

Love this ‘vinaigrette’ – will use it on lots of things, bet it would be good just over a bowl of pasta!

The second week will be much easier not to want to experiment – Roy will be in Portland Tues thru Thurs., but I may cook up something old that I especially liked…..hmmmm.

And for dessert we had frozen yogurt with Ina Garten’s chocolate sauce – yum!! (but didn’t make the profiteroles – maybe next time)

So, that’s the first week of the year – did I do O.K.??
Yes!! Five nights – old; two nights – new. There were some extras (drinks, brunch eggs, 18-hour bread, but also old meatloaf for sandwiches and herb/Kalamata/sun-dried tomato bread)