Puttanesca Hake & Potatoes 2/13

Awesome Awesome recipe!! It looks beautiful and tasted nearly as good!!  Another magazine recipe from Bon Appetit for Roasted Potatoes and Haddock Puttanesca.  When I stopped by Whole Foods, they had haddock, but the filets were small and had skin on, and were somewhat expensive, so I went for the Hake since it was on sale and is a similar flavor (closer to Cod, but still would do fine with the Puttanesca).

I started the shallots and potatoes first, I didnt have fingerling, so I took some baby potatoes and cut them in half.  They actually unfortunately baked a little dry, I think I would have not put them on the rack, added some more olive oil and cooked them whole if I did this recipe again.

While those were baking, I started the puttanesca sauce, which was actually deceptively simple for sooo much flavor! Garlic, Anchovies, Olive Oil, black olives and canned tomatoes and wala!  And I definitely recommend finding the non-canned variety of pitted black olives, they added a huge amount of flavor to the dish that I think would have been lost by canned ones.

Add the hake to the same pan you are baking the potatoes on and plate the dish!  Fairly fast, the longest part was cooking the potatoes.

Flavor was excellent!  With some work on the potatoes, definitely work doing again!  And I may even use the puttanesca sauce recipe just for pasta!  And I think mine came out better than the picture ;-)

Pressure Cooker Boneless Pork Chops 2/11

Eric felt like pork chops tonight and I wanted to use up some of the veggies I had in the fridge.  For some reason I got the bright idea that we should try out the pressure cooker for the first time!

Prepare your pressure cooker per the directions, but leave the lid off. Start by heating some olive oil on high heat in the base of the pressure cooker pan.  Season the pork chops with salt and pepper and sear quickly on both sides until browned (should be ~30sec per side). Remove from the pan and place to the side. Add an additional tablespoon of oil. Quarter 6-8 baby potatoes, chop 1 medium sweet onion, and chop 4 carrots into 2" slices. Toss into the pressure cooker and brown for ~5 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.  Ad 4 sprigs of fresh oregano and 2 bay leaves about half way through. Season with Salt & Pepper. Place the pork chops on top of the veggies and add 1 cup of liquid (I did 1/3 wine, 2/3 chicken stock).  Seal the pressure cooker and cook per the directions.


 (This is Eric being "safe" around the pressure cooker.  I told him it was dangerous and that we needed to "respect it"... so he put on his safety glasses and oven mits!)

Its likely to only take 10 minutes once the pressure has built up.  And just that quick, dinner is done! I strained the liquid and served with just some salt and pepper. Though it probably just as easily could have been served like a stew.

While it wasn't the most flavorful dish we have had in a long time, everything came out incredibly tender, and I am definitely sold on how amazingly fast it cooks everything!! Expect to see more pressure cooker recipes coming soon!

Cauliflower Pasta 2/7

We almost ordered out... but I had this huge head of cauliflower in the fridge that needed to get used up, so I decided to make myself cook!  Eric really wanted pasta of some sort, and I figured I wasnt really feeling the plain old marinara sauce, so I quickly searched the web and hit a few like this Cauliflower Pasta Recipe.  Though even that sounded a little boring, so of course I added my own twists!

First I tossed the Cauliflower in the Oven on a baking sheet at 400 with some olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.  I also started the pasta water, and cooked the pasta per the directions.  We had a half a box of penne and half a box of rigatoni, so I just threw them together :)

While that cooked, I tossed some capers into a pan and sauteed them for 2 minutes.  Once the water started to cook out of them, I added some harrisa olive oil (Thanks Cynette & Tom!) and tossed in the garlic. I sauteed that for another 2-3 minutes until the garlic started to brown.  Then I added a few tablespoons of sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon of the oil from the sundried tomatoes. Sauteed that for a few more minutes.

I then added about 1 cup of panko bread crumbs to the pan and tossed and sauteed all of that until the bread crumbs began to brown, and then turned off the heat.

To assemble the dish, I put about a cup of pasta on the plate, I then put about 4 Tablespoons of Ricotta cheese in lumps over it.  I poured a few tablespoons of reserved pasta water over the ricotta and then topped that with the cauliflower.  I put about 1/4cup of the breadcrumb mixture over the top of that, and sprinkled it with 1 Tbsp parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley.

Awesome dish that was incredibly flavorful.  I could have made a thicker ricotta sauce if it was needed, but for a light and fast meal, this definitely worked and brought out the flavors of the cauliflower nicely!

Verdict - Worth doing again!!

Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup 2/6

We weren't sure we really wanted to cook on Monday when we got home, but we mustered up the drive and threw together this soup!  The Moroccan Chicken and Butternut Squash Soup Recipe is yet another Cooking Light Recipe and it was Excellent!!

I followed the majority of the recipe, except after adding the tomato paste it wasnt as vibrant as I wanted, so I added a can of V8 juice. And most of my basil had gone bad, so I only had 4-5 leaves, so I supplemented it with a 1/4 chopped fresh cilantro.  The cilantro and orange zest really made this dish, but all of the flavors blended so well and just made every bite an experience!!  (It was so good/I was so hungry I burned my tongue on it!!)

Verdict? Definitely going to make this one again!! Incredibly flavorful and filling, and I loved the texture the couscous gave to the soup itself! YUM!

Lamb Tagine and Wild Mushroom Salad 2/1

In perusing my magazines for recipes I found a Lamb Apricot Olive Tagine Recipe in Real Simple that sounded really good.  Upon examination, even better - it was a slow cooker recipe!  I've been cutting down on the starches, especially when I eat late at night, so I thought perhaps I would pair it with a salad instead of the couscous.  I found a hearty salad in Bobby Flay's Bar American that was a Wild Mushroom Salad with Quinoa Goat Cheese and Caramelized Shallots.

The Slow cooker recipe was incredibly simple.  I bought stew lamb so it was precut and it was then just a matter of chopping some veggies and throwing it all together with some spices and setting the slow cooker to cook while we were gone for the day.  There was a fair amount of flavor to the dish... though I can't say I really caught the apricot part, the spices & veggies were good.  The lamb turned out a tad tough, I imagine it could have used some stirring or a bit more liquid throughout the day.

The Salad was a bit more labor intensive, but also had some really impressive flavors.  I ended up placing a bunch of the shallots over the greens and the mushrooms on top of that.  I somehow forgot to buy the goat cheese, but I did have a humbolt fog (an ash striped goat cheese) so I used that instead.

Eric also found a trick for reviving "stale" baguettes - wrap it in a wet paper towel and then in tin foil and place it in the oven at around 250 for 10 minutes or so.  Check after 10 minutes, the bread should soften right up!

Anyways, the salad was impressive, and actually could/should have stood on its own.

Verdict? Individually the recipes were good!  I loved the salad and might make it again.  It was a bit labor intensive for the result, but the flavors were awesome.  The lamb dish was good, I think I would try something else before doing this again though.  And ultimately, I'm sad to say the two dishes did not compliment eachother well.  I think I got a little too exotic in my ideas and with each having such strong flavor, it really needed to be beside something more bland.  Oh well!

Truffled Mac 'n Cheese 1/31

This is going to sound odd, but I am not certain I have ever actually made home made macaroni and cheese.  I've had plenty from others that were absolutely amazing, but I don't believe I have ever made my own... so it was time for an adventure!  Being me, regular macaroni and cheese was not enough... I saw a recipe for Truffled Macaroni and Cheese in Cooking Light and decided to amp it up a notch.

I started by sauteing up a bunch of wild mushrooms and some of the onion - I just a mushroom blend from Wegmans.

While that cooked I heated the milk mixture for the cheese sauce and boiled the pasta.  (Not sure why this image is sideways!)

Once the cheese sauce was made, I just tossed the pasta with the mushrooms and the sauce and drizzled with some extra truffle oil (I only had black truffle oil, not white) and the breadcrumb mixture and threw it under the broiler.  I apparently need to learn to use my gas broiler as the heat obviously was a bit uneven! oops!

The finished product was awesome!! So filling and delicious.  I probably could have done a little more cheese sauce (I had more pasta than the original recipe), though it is supposed to be a "light" recipe.

Verdict - definitely a great recipe, I would do this one again, or perhaps get a bit more adventurous next time!!  The best part is that it was actually a fairly fast recipe.  It didnt take an hour of baking, just about 10 minutes under the broiler and it was done!