Simple Lemon-Butter Asparagus

I don’t consider this a “recipe” per se; it’s just how I cook asparagus. however, they have a more complicated version over at culinate, and I wanted to capture my version because I’m really not sure the extra trouble is worth it. The simple version focuses on the pure flavor of a single ingredient, with the other flavors present simply to enhance it. Try them both and see what you think.
http://www.culinate.com/recipes/collections/Culinate+Kitchen/Side+Dishes/Asparagus+with+Lemon+Vinaigrette

1 small bunch of asparagus (I use only the tiny kind…can’t stand the big ones!)
1/2 to 1 TB Butter
Juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar (you may not need this)

Bend each piece of asparagus until it snaps, to remove the tough end. I don’t believe in bending one and then cutting them all!
Heat a small amount of water to boiling in a pan large enough for the asparagus to spread out. Add the asparagus and toss with tongs nearly constantly for about 1 minute. Test a spear for doneness. They will continue cooking for a bit and you are definitely going for a crispy texture! As soon as you decide they’re done, drain them quickly and add the butter. Remove from heat, tossing as the butter melts and you sprinkle on the salt and lemon juice. If there was a lot of bitterness in the one you tasted, sprinkle on the sugar as well. That’s it!

Note: asparagus is a flower, and you should treat it as such while storing it. Trim a small amount off the stem end and stand the bunch upright in a small vase or large glass in the refrigerator.

You are the best Thai chef in town

How, you say? Simply by heading over the Thai Chilli on Briarcliff! Go have lunch, and before you leave, buy several packets of frozen Curry in a Hurry. Yep, they sell their crack in pre-mixed, frozen baggies. Flavors include green curry, masaman curry, and panang curry. I haven’t tried the green yet, but the masaman and panang are exceptional.

Just take leftover chicken, beef, or pork, or maybe saute boneless, skinless breasts, add veggies, then dump in the sauce. Serve over pasta or rice. It could not possibly be easier. And, as much of a carnivore as I am, I actuall caught myself thinking “this would be even better without the meat” one night while eating a Thai Chilli-assisted melange of snow peas, red pepper, and broccoli.

Maybe I’ll eventually find the courage to attempt from-scratch Thai cooking one day…or maybe not! Maybe I’ll just keep heading over to Thai Chilli.

Spinach, Red Pepper, and Leek Ravioli

I have been enjoying inventing some vegetaran dishes for a very health-conscious friend who has temporarily displaced from his home. I try to minimize dairy and anything artificial (but it’s not easy!).

1/3 cup finely chopped red pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped carrot

3/4 cup chopped leeks

2 cups coarsely chopped spinach

1 tsp butter or olive oil

2 TB tzaziki dip (or 1 tb yogurt, 1 tb sour cream, 1 scant tsp lemon juice, and 1 tsp chopped cucumber…work with whatever you have)

2 Tb parmesan cheese (grated)

1 egg, divided

dash of salt, pepper, fennel seed (thanks Thomas for the suggestion), and honey

2 Tb chopped fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley

Store bought wonton wrappers

Heat a pan to medium high, add the butter or oil, then the carrots. Saute for a couple of minutes. Add the leeks and peppers for a minute or two, then the spinach for another minute. Your goal here is to get a little carmelization but to retain the fresh, crisp quality of the raw veggies.

In a food processor, combine the egg yolk, tzaziki, vegetable mixture, parmesan cheese, herbs, and spices. Pulse to create a puree that has a lot of small chunks of vegetables (not a true puree).

Have a seat and turn on something interesting on TV (unless you have a buddy over for a leisurly conversation). Assembing the ravioli is not hard, but it can be tedious.

Take the egg white and combine it with a couple of teaspoons of water. If you have  cooking brush (or clean tiny paintbrush) use it; if not, use a finger. Lay a single wonton wrapper on a clean surface and paint all four edges with the egg dip. Place a teaspon of the filling in the center, then pick up two opposite corners. You want the filling to stay in the middle while you close the edges (making a triangular ravioli), using the egg wash as adhesive.

Your goals are: no air bubbles, no filling escaping along the sides (if you are using too much filling, it will escape and the ravioli will pop during cooking; ratchet that back), thorougly connected edges.

I lay these on a Pam-coated piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. This makes a couple dozen ravioli. You can freeze these flat on the cookie sheet, then bag ‘em in ziplocs for future use. If you want to use them fresh, cover them carefully in plastic wrap or they’ll dry out.

Cooking:

Bring salted water to a rapid boil, then add the ravioli (gently!). The water should stop boiling as a result of adding the ravioli. Decrease the heat to medium and very gently simmer the ravioli until the pasta is al dente (a couple of minutes).

Coat the ravioli with the sauce of your choice. Let the veggies be the star! Maybe combine a little heavy cream with some high-quality parmesano-reggiano, or briefly saute fresh chopped tomatoes, basil, and garlic.

New Foodie Blog in the ’sphere

My friend Thomas has launched a cool new blog, http://thecookinghusband.com/

This looks fun. Check it out!

Puppy Chow, per request, quick and dirty

6 cups chex, any flavor
1 stick butter, into which you melt 1/2 bag chocolate morsels. The
orig recipe may have been more, but I usually don’t use as much as
they say.
Add to butter/chocolate 1 cup peanut butter. I use chunky, but you can
do whatever.

gently fold the chex into the hot mess, trying not to crush the chex.
Dump it all into a (clean garbage bag
Add 1 box (!) confectioners sugar and shake, shake, shake

Voila. Puppy chow.
Kate + 8 calls it something different (I H8 K8)

The Week of Altogether Too Much Pumpkin Bread

I just wanted to make pumpkin bread. I didn’t think that was all that much to ask. But the first recipe I cooked, and virtually all the recipes I found online, called for copious amounts of oil. Which resulted in a heavy crumb and (natch) an oily flavor.

There are lots of lovely Pumpkin Bar recipes that don’t suffer these problems, but they are by nature very flaky and delicate — not suited for bread. I was really looking for something sturdy enough to ship out to CA to James’ mom and sister. Bars weren’t going to cut it.

I gave up on the internet and took inspiration from a longtime family favorite, which I knew to be freezable and shippable for the holidays: Triple Chocolate Cake, a mix-based pound cake recipe that includes pudding, mini chips, and (optionally) bourbon.

The 1.0 version of Pumpkin Crack was alcohol-free, because I didn’t have any in the house and couldn’t find anybody to borrow it from and it was late. It was still too heavy and gooey, although tasters agreed that it was amazing. (Except Cooper, who doesn’t like nuts, butterscotch, or bourbon.) Although later iterations did include alcohol, you can still make it alcohol-free by substituting more of any of the wet ingredients for the alcohol. More complicated discussion follows the recipe, but you can just go with the following and you’ll be fine.

Pumpkin Crack v 2.0:

1 spice cake mix

1 small box vanilla instant pudding

2 eggs and 3 egg whites

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup bourbon

1 15-oz can pumpkin

1/2 cup butterscotch chips plus 1/2 cup pecans or walnut pieces, processed in a food processor until just chopped up

Mix all ingredients except butterscotch chips and nuts. Fold chips and nuts into batter.

Grease 2 9 x 5″ loaf pans and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar. Divide batter between the two pans and sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar.

Pour batter into pans and bake for 45 minutes in 357-degree oven (check periodically, b/c I was watching House and forgot to look at the time).

Cool on racks for 10 minutes before removing. You should really cool these completely before wrapping, to avoid a wet, gooey surface (thanks to Jeff at work for reminding me of that!).

Other thoughts:

*There was also 1/2 tsp almond extract in the one I did last night. I couldn’t really taste it but it may have been contributing a little something to the flavor.

*The butterscotch chips really want to turn to paste in the food processor. I am going to try freezing them first when I bake version 2.5. While I’m talking about the butterscotch, I should point out that the goal here was NOT to have it taste like butterscotch. In fact, people have some difficulty identifying it, which was my intent when I decided to grind them up a little. The chips, not the people.

*I wanted a little more of a bite from the bourbon flavor. For 2.5 I am going to use 1 cup bourbon and zero sour cream. I suspect you can use any combination of the two, as long as it totals 1 cup.

*If I don’t burn out (and I probably will), I may try this with yellow cake mix and some combination of pumpkin pie spices of my own creation.

Old School Vegetable Casserole

My idea of vegetable is a steamed perfect broccoli spear or group of asparaguses or green beans, in the nude. But sometimes you have to make a casserole. This recipe was originally “Connossieur Casserole” from Southern Living. Not being able to find it, I made it from memory, therefore it’s mine.

2 cans french cut green beans, drained

1 cup frozen corn (preferably shoepeg)

1 can cream of mushroom soup

8 oz sour cream

4 oz mayo

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup chopped onions

1 TB hot sauce

Mix everything together and dump into a greased casserole dish. Cook for 30 mins on 350. Top with 1 sleeve Ritz cracker crumbs + 1 stick melted butter, mixed together (if you want healthy, look at the first sentence of this blog). Continue cooking 15 minutes or until whatever else you’re making is ready. It’s delicious and horrible for you. Maybe you could eat it with some grilled chicken. It’s actually low-carb, so maybe that’s your excuse.

Pork Tenderloin Asian-ish Yum

Not sure who came up with the original version of this…Mom? Anyhow, I made it today for Cody and three of his friends from school, so writing it up seemed timely. As usual, I’m not going to give you exact directions, but general guidance instead.

In a big ziploc bag, put 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup teriyaki or soy sauce, 1 TB ginger paste or minced fresh ginger, 1TB minced fresh garlic or 1 tsp dried, 2 TB fresh rosemary leaves or 1 TB dried, and 1/2 cup jelly (currant or apricot, melted). Put 2 pork tenderloins in the bag and marinate for 1 hour or more.

Preheat the grill, then drop the temperature to low immediately before putting the loins on. They will stick, and the sugar in the marinade will burn. Turn the loins periodically, but keep the grill lid closed as much as possible. Remove from the grill when medium rare (it’s no longer true that you have to cook pork to death).

While you’re grilling the meat, put the rest of the marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a boil on the stovetop. Be careful, because the sauce will go from not boiling to boiling over in seconds. Immediately after it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to very low. You may need to temporarily remove it from the burner. You need to actively simmer this for several minutes to kill any bacteria before serving it as a dipping sauce with the meat.

Fabulous Dinner: Part 3

This is the third recipe from the series that starts on the post Fabulous Dinner: Part 1. So maybe you should start there if you want context

Bok Choy and Asparagus with a light garlic/apricot vinaigrette

You could make this recipe with any sturdy green. I think spinach would be too delicate, so stick with Bok Choy, Chard, etc.

For two:

2-3 cups coarsely chopped Bok Choy, green parts only

1 cup asparagus broken into 2″ pieces, and blanched (I microwave in a bowl with a small amt of water for 30 seconds to 1 minute)

1 tsp minced fresh garlic, 1/2 tsp minced fresh ginger

Vinaigrette: whisk together 2 TB olive oil, 1TB red wine vinegar, 1 TB lemon juice, and 2 TB apricot jelly (I used Mary Lyn’s Apricot/Plum jam)

In a sloping-sided skillet or large saute pan, heat 1 TB olive oil and 1TB butter. Add the garlic and ginger and just let them bloom. Do not let them brown. If they do, start over Add the greens and asparagus and saute, stirring or flipping frequently, until the bok choy is very wilted (to your taste). Drizzle withe vinaigrette and add salt and pepper to taste.

Now, if you are cooking the entire Fabulous Dinner, you’ll probably need to follow this sequence (also included in part 1):

1. Marinate the beef

2. Roast the squash and cook the carrots while you chop the bok choy, garlic, and ginger, and prepare the asparagus

3. Make the souffle batter and get it in the oven. Saute the potato pancakes.

4. Put the meat on kabob sticks and start simmering the sauce.

5. Preheat the grill and grill the meat.

6. Remove the meat from the grill to a plate, and cover with foil.

7. Saute the bok choy/asparagus and crisp the potato pancakes.

8. Serve.

Secret sauce: only my family members will understand this: for the vinaigrette, I actually started with Lebanese dressing and added the ML jam.

Fabulous Dinner: Part 2

Butternut Squash Souffle

This recipe is just like so many others available. It’s very similar to the Carrot Puff recipe I made so many times years ago. That recipe was from one of my Southern Living Annual Recipes cookbooks (that I can’t find since the move).

If you know me very well, you know that I HATE squash. I’ll have you know that Butternut Squash is quite different than nasy, slimy yellow squash, so it’s OK to eat it. You have to wrestle it to the ground first, though. It’s very hard to cut when it’s raw, so you may consider simply halving it and roasting it first. I only needed a very small squash this week, and it seemed rather tender, so I cubed it before roasting it. In any case, you need about 2 cups of roasted butternut squash. I’ll give the directions for the “cubed first” version.

Peel a smallish butternut squash, halve it, scrape out the pulp and seeds (as you would a pumpkin), then cut it into medium-sized cubes. Try to get them relatively even in size, to promote equal cooking. Toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then spread them on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Bake for about 30 minutes at 375. Test for doneness (they should feel like a baked potato or sweet potato). Continue baking as needed. Remove from the oven. Increase heat in the oven to 400.

In the meantime, simmer about 1 cup of carrots in water so they’re done about the same time.

In a blender or food processor, process butternut squash, carrots, and a stick of melted butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste, plus 1/2 tsp nutmeg and about 1/4 cup white or brown sugar. Don’t overdo the sugar!

After the veggies are pureed, add 4 eggs, one at a time. I had to start adding eggs before the veggies were completely pureed because they were so thick. If the veggies are still quite hot, consider tempering the eggs with a bit of the veg mixture before adding them, to prevent scrambling.

Pour the souffle mixture into a greased casserole dish (preferably a round one) and bake for 40 minutes or until set.