Two at the Table

Two at the Table_Menu_Week of October 26 2014

We’ll only be making four dinners this week, as we have plans to attend a lecture Monday night, so will probably eat out, and Tony has photography classes Tuesday and Friday night, so Kim will be on her own. We’re still going to make some fun things, including a whole Oktoberfest menu to enjoy with our good friends Krista and Lynee on Saturday.

On Sunday night, we’re making Ina Garten’s Salmon with Lentils, which we made once before and loved. The secret ingredient in French lentils that we bought at an outdoor market in Paris. Not only will this dish be delicious, it will also bring back fund memories of a wonderful trip.

On Wednesday night, we are making two new recipes, both from Skinnytaste (www.skinnytaste.com), Gina Homolka’s fantastic Web site. We’ll be making Fig Balsamic Roasted Pork Tenderloin as the main course and Sautéed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta as a side. This may seem a bit ambitious for a weeknight, but pork tenderloin cook relatively quickly. Plus, we’re saving some time on the prep side by buying pre-shredded brussels sprouts from Fresh Direct (www.freshdirect.com).

We have another somewhat ambitious recipe planned for Thursday night too: Mushroom, Onion and Thyme Galette from the Hip Foodie Mom blog (www.hipfoodiemom). Tony’s been wanting to try to make a galette for some time and this one sounded too good not to try. Making a pastry crust is definitely not part of an average weeknight for us, but our hope is that doing a little prep in advance (like measuring out flour and slicing the onions) combined with ordering pre-sliced mushrooms and using a food processor to make the dough will allow us to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. We’ll be sure to let you know how the experiment works out.

Last but not least is an Oktoberfest dinner on Saturday night. (We know it will be November by then, so it may be more of a Moktoberfest, but we’ve been thinking about this for so long, that we don’t care!) We’re going to start with Alton Brown’s Homemade Soft Pretzels, which we’ll serve with at least two kinds of mustard. These are a lot of work (you have to make the dough; roll it out and shape in into a pretzel;  boil the uncooked pretzel briefly and then bake it) but absolutely, totally worth it. For dinner, we’re going to modify two recipes, taking the best parts of each to make something new. We’re going to take the rub from Ellie Krieger’s recipe for Sage Rubbed Pork Chops with Warm Apple Slaw and the cabbage from “Bon Appetit”‘s Beer-Marinated Pork Tenderloin with Red Cabbage and combine them into a dinner of Sage Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Beer Braised Red Cabbage. For dessert, we’re going to make Single-Serve Apple Crumbles using the Summer Fruit Crumble recipe from Christian Constant’s “Notes from My Kitchen” cookbook. These crumbles are spectacular – the topping is not too sweet and contains almonds, which give it a much deeper flavor than traditional crumble topping – and we’ve been able to adapt them for use with apples and even pears.

Tony was home alone again Wednesday night, so he made a simple dinner of Skirt Steak with Roasted Shallots, Broccoli, and Horseradish Sauce that left him lots of time to watch the World Series.

This was another great, quick dinner that took more time (almost!) to eat than it did to make.

I started making the horseradish sauce while I was preheating the oven. The sauce couldn’t have been easier – with the exception of chopping the parsley, I just measured out the ingredients (3/4 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley, 3 tablespoons of horseradish, and some salt and pepper) out and mixed them together. I was a little worried because it seemed like I was adding a LOT of horseradish to the sauce, but it worked out just fine. Even though I was halving the steak and veggie part of the recipe, I made all of this sauce because I thought it would be fun to have around. It’s more than we can use in a reasonable amount of time, so I’m going to freeze it and see how that works out.

Next, I turned to the veggies. As with the sauce, there’s not a lot to do here. I just quartered the shallots (the recipe doesn’t specifically say to peel them, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that I needed to do this too), put them on a baking pan with the broccolini, and sprinkled the veggies with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I tossed the veggies to make sure they were well coated and put them into the oven.

Last but not least, I turned to the steak. I put the grill pan on the stove top and turned the heat to medium high. While the pan was heating up, I cut the hanger steak in half (it was a pretty big piece) and put one half in the freezer. I rubbed a little olive oil on the other half and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. At this point, the grill pan was good to go. I was very hungry and not in the mood to wait much longer for dinner, so I only cooked the steak for about a minute and half per side. I turned out just fine, but very rare; a half a minute more per side would probably have been perfect. The five minutes that the steak need to rest was just enough time for the veggies to finish roasting, so I was able to plate everything very quickly.

Dinner was very simple but very good. The steak was very tender and the horseradish sauce had a nice kick to it, without being overwhelming or totally masking the flavor of the beef. The roasted shallots and broccolini made for a nice side: the slightly sweet shallots paired up nicely with the slightly bitter broccolini and both were a nice counterpoint to the steak.  There was just enough left over to make for an awesome lunch – or for a quick dinner for Kim next week when I’m in a photography class!

With Kim out of town, Tony was on his own to try a new recipe, Cilantro Scallops, which he made Monday night. Here’s what he did to make this very easy dish.

This dinner was one of the easiest I have ever made; I went from starting the prep work to sitting down to eat in under 30 minutes. The reason is that the recipe basically involves taking the scallops and marinading them in (it’s really more like tossing them until they’re coated with) a mixture of olive oil, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, soy sauce and crushed red pepper. Once that step is done, you simply grill them for a couple of minutes per side – I used our trusty grill pan – and you’re done.

Rather than serve this dish with plain avocado on the side, I added a twist and used an idea that Kim got from her friend Alexandra. I cut an avocado in half and grilled it, cut side down, along with the scallops. I probably could have grilled the avocado a little longer, but it was nice to have warm avocado to eat with the tortilla chips.

This dish was a good, but maybe a little bland. If I make it again, I think I will make extra “marinade” to use as a sauce to spoon over the scallops after they are cooked.

Who says you can’t make risotto on a weeknight? With Ina Garten’s unique method, risotto is a weeknight reality. Here’s how it went for Kim last Tuesday.

Risotto is such a comforting, creamy dish and nice treat for a weeknight. For this, I make the whole recipe as the leftovers hold up really well and make for a great lunch or an easy dinner later in the week.

Since it takes a little while to make but requires very little prep, the first thing I did after walking in the door from work was to preheat the oven. After changing from my work clothes to something a little more suitable for cooking and paying a little attention to our two cats, I was ready to get the chicken stock simmering and measure out the rice.

While the rice and chicken stock were in the oven, I grated the cheese got 1 cup of peas out of the freezer. Towards the last few minutes of the risotto being in the oven, I also got the remaining one-cup of chicken stock simmering. (This was the one cup container I had opened for the swordfish so it was missing one tablespoon. I simply added a tablespoon of water to the stock to bring it up to the full amount.)

When the rice came out of the oven, the chicken stock was fully absorbed and I was ready to add the remaining stock, Parmesan cheese, wine, butter, salt, and pepper and also to stir like crazy! I quickly stirred in the peas and in less than an hour, we had creamy, cheesy risotto.

This is certainly a go to recipe for us, I’m sure it will make an appearance again soon. I’ve tried other successful modifications like adding sautéed shrimp and fennel at the end instead of the peas. I think I’ll try another modification soon by adding some sautéed mushrooms and thyme.

As you may have noticed, we often have fish on Monday or Tuesday nights since we get our Fresh Direct delivery on Sunday afternoon or evening. Last Monday, Kim made Ina Garten’s Swordfish with Tomatoes and Capers and it was a really nice way to start the week! Here’s how it went:

I started by pre-heating the oven so that I could bake one of Fresh Direct’s par-baked baguettes. I highly recommend serving this dinner with a bit of crusty bread—the sauce is delicious and you’ll want to soak up every bit.

As usual, I halved the recipe since I knew that Tony would only use half of a 28 ounce can of tomatoes in the Winter Vegetable Chili on Sunday night. The prep is really quick since it’s only a bit of onion and fennel to start. As the onion and fennel were cooking, I got the rest of ingredients together by chopping the garlic, measuring the wine, and getting the basil, capers and butter ready. This dish only requires a tiny amount of chicken stock and sometimes I just use water or extra wine, but I knew I’d need chicken stock for the risotto on Tuesday so I didn’t mind opening up the container.

The sauce requires a few easy steps but the flavors meld together nicely and make a lovely bed of deliciousness for the swordfish, so I promise the 30 to 35 minutes to make it are worth it!

While the sauce is simmering for the last 10 minutes, that’s when I grill the fish. Since we live in a New York City apartment, we don’t have an outdoor grill but I find cooking the swordfish on our indoor grill on high heat for 4 to 5 minutes a side works nicely.

We made Half Baked Harvest’s One-Pot Herb Roasted Chicken with Butter Toasted Wild Rice a few weeks ago, but as we haven’t stopped thinking about it since then, we needed to write it up and share how much we enjoyed it. Here’s what Tony did:

Before I start, I just have to say how unbelievably good this dish was. We were expecting a nice, comforting meal, but I swear this dinner actually gave us a hug. It is only a slight exaggeration to say I’ve thought about this dinner every day since we made it. It’s very simple to make, but the flavors are really complex and very well-balanced. You get earthy from the mushrooms, nutty from the wild rice and orzo, and sweet from the carrots, onion, and brown sugar. All of this is combined with the floral notes from the mix of herbs. Let’s not forget the moist, flavorful chicken.

The prep for this dish was very easy. I first did what you might call the “large-scale prep” by cleaning (but not cutting up) the mushrooms, slicing the carrots, and cutting the onion into quarters and the head of garlic into halves. The small-scale prep involved chopping up the parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. If you factor in measuring out everything else in the recipe (brown sugar, butter, orzo and rice, chicken stock, and lots of other tasty things), I probably spent 30 minutes doing not-so-difficult prep work. Because I wanted to get everything prepped and ready to go before I started cooking, the only challenge was finding enough counter space on which to put everything.

After patting the chicken dry with paper towels and tossing it very well with a mix of olive oil, thyme, rosemary, brown sugar, salt, and pepper, I was ready to start cooking. I added the chicken four pieces at a time (I was using a whole chicken cut into eight pieces) to the hot oil in the Dutch over and let it brown for about 2 minute per side. (This wasn’t a terribly messy step, but the splatter shield came in handy!)

I added some butter to the pan, where it mixed with the remaining oil and whatever fat had rendered from the chicken and used all of that to toast the orzo and then the wild rice. I added the carrots and mushrooms to the pot next and cooked those for a few minutes. For the last step, I added all the liquid to the pot (chicken broth and beer), scraped up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot, and took the pot off the heat.

The rest of the recipe was very simple. I placed the chicken on top of the rice, drizzled it with lemon juice, and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I added the onion and garlic to the pot and placed the remaining butter (about eight big pats) on top of the chicken. I threw in a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary and put the pot with lid on into the oven for about 45 minutes. I checked the internal temperate of the chicken with meat thermometer and when I saw it was done, I put the pot back in the oven with the lid off for about five minutes to crisp up the chicken a little bit.

Like I said, this was a tremendously satisfying dinner and one that we’ll come back to again soon. We did not make the cider drizzle, but we definitely will next time. We paired this up with a very hoppy IPA for a great dinner.

Two at the Table_Menu_Week of October 19 2014

Kim is going to be away at a conference for a good part of this week, so Tony will be on his own for several nights. He resisted the temptation to make nothing but red meat and found a few recipes that we’ve never tried before.

We still have plenty of leftovers from last week, so Sunday night we’ll have Roast Chicken and Artichokes with Cilantro-Caper Sauce. We enjoyed this a lot when we first made it, so we’re looking forward to having it again tonight.

Tomorrow will be Tony’s first dinner alone this week. Since Kim is not the biggest fan of scallops, he decided to make Cilantro Scallops, which he’ll have with some avocado and tortilla chips. A margarita is also not out of the question.

In honor of the start of the World Series on Tuesday, Tony will make Sausage and Peppers, one of his favorite ball park foods. Rather than make a traditional sandwich on a roll, he’s going to eat this with bread on the side. He’s also going to use mini bell peppers, which we haven’t tried before. A cold IPA (or two or three) will wash it all down.

Wednesday night will be a red meat night, and Tony will make  Skirt Steak with Roasted Shallots, Broccoli, and Horseradish Sauce, which Kim found for him in the November 2014 issue of “Real Simple”. It’s a pretty straightforward recipe and should produce very tasty leftovers, perfect for a fun lunch later in the week. We have a bottle of red wine we’ve been waiting to open and this should give us a good excuse.

Kim will be back late Thursday night, so Tony will just order in. On Friday, we’re going out for beers and dinner with our good friend Joy. It will be everyone’s first trip to the famed Bohemian Hall beer garden in Astoria, New York, where Tony grew up, so we’re looking froward to seeing Joy again and hoisting a few beers in an entirely new place.

We’re going to finish the week with Rachel Khoo’s Boeuf Bourguignon with Baguette Dumplings. This dish is one of the ultimate French comfort food dishes, so we’re excited to give it a try and are especially looking forward to making Rachel’s very unique take on dumplings, which use day old French bread. This dish is major time commitment (it takes about three hours), so we saved it for a weekend night when we had no other plans; we’re  really looking forward to having the apartment smell like French goodness for the whole day. Beef Bourguignon is made with red wine, so we’ll have to get a bottle of two of nice French wine to go into this dish – and into us!

Sunday night, we made a recipe that we’ve been waiting to try again for a long time: Winter Vegetable Chili from “Food + Wine”. We used some very colorful Black Dirt Region rainbow carrots that we got from Fresh Direct (www.freshdirect.com), including the beautiful, deep, dark purple one in the photo below, to give this recipe a different look. Tony describes how this dinner came together.

We picked this recipe for a Sunday, because we knew it would probably take more time to make than we would have on weeknight, but as I got into it, I remembered that it really doesn’t take that long at all. The reason for that is simple: unlike a meat based chili, which you can cook for a very long time and it gets better and better, if you cook this too long, the vegetables will turn to mush and your chili will be ruined. This is another one of those great recipes that doesn’t take a huge amount of time but delivers a high amount of flavor.

It did take a bit of time to prep everything, as I had to peel and cut up the carrots and parsnips, then cut up the red pepper, and then dice the onion and garlic. This is not very hard, but two words of caution about the parsnips and carrots. Both veggies are pretty tough, so you want to use a sharp knife; the last thing you want is for your knife to slip while you’re trying to get it through a big carrot. Also, if you’re using a purple carrot, be prepared for the cutting board, your hand, and anything else the carrot comes into contact with to turn a little purple.

Once everything was prepared, cooking was pretty simple. I sautéed the onion and garlic for about three minutes then added the carrots, pepper, and parsnips and cooked everything for five minutes more before adding the chile powder and cumin.

While the veggies were cooking, I prepped the tomatoes, the chipotle pepper, and the adobo sauce. Following my usual pattern of not always following directions too closely, I put the three ingredients into a food processor with two and half cups of water, turned the food processor on, and learned very quickly why the recipe said to use a blender. I didn’t spray tomato juice all over the kitchen, but I did have a slight overflow problem with the food processor. My advice? Use a blender.

Once everything was blended, I added the tomato mixture to the pot along with the hominy and kidney beans. After I got everything to a boil, I put the lid on the pot and simmered the chili for 20 minutes. Once that was done, it was time to eat.

We garnished the chili with diced red onion, chopped cilantro, and sour cream and ate it with tortilla chips. It was as good as we remembered. It had a deep heat without being too spicy and a little sweetness (mostly from the parsnips). It was thick and rich and really satisfying and made for a fantastic lunch the next day.

Two at the Table_Menu_Week of October 12 2014

We took a bit of a week off this week, but ended in pretty spectacular fashion by making a full on Italian feast on Saturday for my Very Italian Mother and Very Italian Father to celebrate their 49th anniversary. I started making tomato sauce early in the morning and we spent most of the late afternoon and early evening getting everything else ready. All the planning for Saturday’s dinner got us excited for next week, so we planed another great menu of dinners. The best part is many of the dishes will produce leftovers, so we’ll have lots of fun lunches too.

On Sunday, we’re going to have a dish that we only made once last winter and have been waiting to make again since then: Winter Vegetable Chili from “Food + Wine”. This recipe gets its heat from chili powder, chipotle in adobo, and adobo sauce, so it has a deep, powerful heat, but is not over-the-top spicy. It also contains hominy, which gives the chili a bit more body (not that it needs much more!) and a nice but not overwhelming corn flavor. We’re really looking forward to taking this one to work later in the week.

Monday night, we will make Ina Garten’s Swordfish with Tomatoes and Capers, a very easy dish that we’ve made a few times before. We decided on this one when we saw that swordfish was very highly rated on Fresh Direct and on sale too.

We’re going to stick with Ina Garten for Tuesday nights’ dinner and make her Parmesan Risotto. This is a great recipe, because it gives you all the rich flavor and creamy texture of risotto, but because it is made in the oven, rather than on the stove top, you don’t have to spend lot of time stirring and stirring until it’s done. This is another good recipe for leftovers.

On Wednesday, we plan to make Roast Chicken and Artichokes With Cilantro-Caper Sauce from the May 2014 issue of “Real Simple”. This recipe involves roasting chicken with marinated artichoke hearts and then dressing it with a mixture of shallots, cilantro, capers, vinegar, and olive oil. We’ve never made this dish before and we’re excited to give it a try.

Our dear friends Tom and Sharon are having us over for dinner on Thursday, so we’ll have the night off, but we’ll be back with another new recipe on Friday when we make another “Food + Wine recipe: Kale & White Bean Stew. Despite being a stew, this is a pretty quick recipe, though it will involve a bit of chopping. The leftovers from his dish will probably show up as lunch on Sunday.

We have opera tickets Saturday night, so we’ll have dinner before the show. It will be nice to take a night off, but we’re looking forward to a fun week of cooking!