Two at the Table

Tonight we made Cheddar-Cheese Grits with Spicy Black Beans. Tony describes our dinner:

We don’t make this dish very often, but I’m not sure why, because not only is it quick, easy, and delicious, but it is also one of the few dishes we make with leftovers in mind. Since we try to have at least one vegetarian dinner each week, it has that going for it, which is nice.

There isn’t a lot of prep involved, as you only need to grate 1/4 pound of cheddar, cut two bell peppers into 3/4 inch pieces, and slice up six scallions. This only took me about 10 or 15 minutes. (I decided that since the tomatoes get added at the very end, I would chop those while everything else was cooking.) I put everything into the fridge and waited for Kim to get home before starting to cook.

The best part about this recipe is that you can cook the grits and the vegetable/bean mixture at the same time. The recipe calls for cooking the grits for 5 to 10 minutes (they’ve never taken me less than 10) and the vegetables and beans for 10, so it’s not hard to coordinate everything. The only other change I made was to used smoked paprika instead of regular, which gave everything an extra dimension of flavor.

Tonight we made something new and very different for us: Blackberry Chicken. Below, Kim describes was she did:

First, I have to thank my friend Amy in Colorado for a delicious and easy weeknight recipe. We’d never had these flavor combinations before and really enjoyed trying something new!

I decided to halve the recipe and the chicken pieces were a bit small so it was perfect for two servings, especially since we only had it with a simple green salad. Rather than a casserole dish, I used my Le Creuset Dutch oven, as it sits right on the stove and was handy and it also allowed me to make the sauce right in the same pot.

I followed the directions for mashing the blackberries and adding the chicken stock and other ingredients. From here I deviated just a bit from the recipe and sprinkled the thyme, salt, pepper, and remaining paprika directly on the chicken and then poured the blackberry mixture over the chicken.

I put it in the oven and I admit I completely forgot the step of basting occasionally with the pan juices. The end result was chicken that was tasty and moist, so I think it was an OK misstep. I used the 20 minutes that the chicken was in the oven to make a green salad with a dressing of white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper as well as to tidy up the kitchen.

Once the chicken was finished cooking, I transferred it to a plate so I could make the sauce directly in the Dutch oven. My chicken must have been very lean as there was no visible fat to skim. I had previously mixed the broth and cornstarch together in a measuring cup until well-combined so it was on hand when I was ready to make the sauce. I added it slowly to the pan drippings. The sauce seemed a little thick and tasted a little too sweet so I added just a bit of chicken stock, salt and a small sliver of butter which made it just the right amount of tangy and sweet.

I can definitely see why Amy mentioned this was one of her go to recipes. I’ll definitely be taking her suggestion to freeze some blackberries so that I can make it during the winter too.

Monday night was a summertime favorite – Greek-Style Fish with Marinated Tomatoes with a side of cous cous. Tony explains what he did:

Since the tomatoes have to marinate for about 20-30 minutes, the recipe of course instructs you to start with making the marinade. The process is very simple, as you just place all the ingredients to a bowl and mix them. The only challenge is cutting the tomatoes in half without squishing them; a serrated knife works wonders. Keep in mind that you’ll use more garlic to season the fish, so don’t get too carried away here!

The fish itself is very easy to prepare. Make sure that you get the fished deboned and butterflied. You don’t to leave the head and tail attached, but it does make for a more interesting presentation. As you can see from the photo below, I did a layer of garlic, one of lemon and one of thyme. I’ve also done garlic-thmye-lemon-thyme-garlic, just to spread the flavors around a little more, but this made the fish a little harder to flip when it was time to rub with olive oil.

The fish spent about 20 minutes in the oven and came out moist and flaky. To serve, I just cut off the head and tail using a spatula, opened the fish, and removed the garlic, lemon and thyme. I then split the fish along where the backbone used to be to make two filets. As a side dish, we mode cous cous, which we seasoned with fresh basil and parsley from my Very Italian Father’s (VIF) herb garden. A quick, easy, and delicious dinner for a warm summer night!

Two at the Table_Menu_Week of June 15 2014

With Father’s Day on Sunday and Tony’s 25th high school reunion scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights, we only had to figure out dinners for Monday through Thursday. We have two old favorites and two new recipes (technically three) for you this week.

Monday night is Greek-Style Fish With Marinated Tomatoes with cous cous. This is a fun summertime dish because tomatoes are in season and there are lots of fun wines to pair it with, like the rose we decided to have.  It also uses a whole fish, which makes for a very different look when dinner comes out of the oven! The recipe is not a lot of work to make, provided you can get a fish that’s been cleaned and butterflied, but it can be a little tricky to serve. The cous cous is right out of the box; that helps keep things simple.

Tuesday is Blackberry Chicken, a new recipe for us. It was shared by our friends Amy and Erik in Colorado as one of their favorites. We’ve never tried a recipe like this before and we’re excited to give it a go!

We decided that Wednesday night should be our weekly vegetarian night, so we’re making Cheddar-Cheese Grits with Spicy Black Beans. We often halve recipes so that we don’t have leftovers, but this dish is so good that we always make the whole thing, which means that we have enough for two lunches.

We thought we’d get a little adventurous on Thursday and make two new recipes, one for a main dish and one for a side salad. The main dish is Baja-Style Rosemary Chicken Skewers. What attracted us to this recipe is the fact that you use rosemary sprigs as the skewers for the chicken. We thought we should pair this with a summery side dish and found Ina Garten’s Avocado and Grapefruit Salad in her “Barefoot in Paris” cookbook.

Eggs in Pots (with Mushrooms) This dish was supposed to be dinner on Thursday night, and while Kim felt like making it, Tony wanted something a little heavier for dinner. So, we ordered in Mexican. We had plans to go to the ballet Saturday night, so we decided instead of eating out, we would have the eggs as an early dinner that evening. Since we had made this dish and ones like it before, Kim deviated from the recipe a bit. Here’s what she did:

Since we had a few extra mushrooms around, I sliced and sautéed them in olive oil with salt and pepper. I let them cool just a bit because I knew that I’d be putting the eggs right on top of them. I followed the recipe to make the seasoned creme fraiche, which is very tasty just on it’s own. Instead of putting it in the bottom of a tea cup as the recipe suggested, I used Le Creuset cocottes. As suggested I put in a sprig of dill and then the sautéed mushrooms on top.

About this time I realized that the recipe suggested that I put the tea cups/cocettes in a casserole dish with lukewarm water. I tried my small casserole dish–the one I can reach without getting out a step stool (after all it is a New York City kitchen!–but the two cocettes would not fit. I decided rather than reaching into the depths of my cabinets for my larger casserole dish, I’d take chance and just bake them in the oven without the water bath. I had made Ina Garten’s Herbed Baked Eggs  (from Barefoot in Paris) before and I figured I could wing it.

I then cracked two eggs into each cocette, season with a little salt and pepper and then, as the recipe suggested a dollop of seasoned creme fraiche on top. I put both cocettes on a small sheet pan lined with parchment paper and put them in the oven.

While they were in the oven, I sliced some French bread and assembled a mesclun salad with chopped parsley, dill, and chives–all herbs we had around from previous recipes.

After 15 minutes, the eggs were ready and we had a nice pre-theatre dinner, with minimal clean up.

Tonight, we had  Pork Chops with Apple, Fennel and Endive Salad With Feta. Tony describes making our meal:

The salad was a new recipe for us and it involved a good bit of prep. It didn’t take very long, but it was a bit of a chore to peel and grate the apple, then thinly slice the fennel and endive. We made the whole four servings and more or less stuck to the recipe. The recipe calls two small or one medium fennel bulb and two endives. Instead, we used half of a large fennel bulb and one enormous endive. We also substituted thyme for the tarragon, which worked our well, because we also used it for the pork, and sherry for sherry vinegar. I did make one little mistake: I added the vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper directly to the bowl with the veggies in it, rather than mixing them together first. It didn’t seem to have any impact on the taste though!

Since the sale was a little bit of work, I kept the pork chops simple. I rubbed them with a little olive oil and then sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and thyme. I cooked them for about three minutes a side in a large frying pan until the hit the right temperature on the meat thermometer. We paired this meal with the Riesling we had opened earlier in the week.

Tonight we had Tuscan Roasted Chicken and Vegetables. Kim explains what she did:

There is very little prep for this recipe, especially when you’re only making half of it! While this dinner has a long cooking time for a weeknight – about 45 to 60 minutes – it’s worth the wait. What I also like about this recipe is I’ve doubled it and have made it for a larger group, on Mother’s day for Tony’s Very Italian Mother (VIM) and Very Italian Father (VIF), with great results. It was a little outside of Tony’s VIF’s comfort zone, but Tony’s VIM really enjoyed it, which is all that matters on Mother’s Day.

This dish smells delicious while it’s cooking and becomes extremely fragrant when you add the rosemary for the last portion of the cooking time.  After the first 30 minutes and before adding the rosemary, I always check the chicken with a meat thermometers to adjust the remaining cooking time. The recipe suggests an additional 20 to 30 minutes, but this time around the chicken only needed 15 more minutes and the vegetables were still perfectly roasted.

We paired this with a very dry Riesling from Alsace that Tony bought as a surprise for me, since Riesling is my favorite wine by far. (Tony is lucky to have gotten a second glass!)

Shrimp and Lemon Skewers with Feta-Dill Sauce (with Grilled Baby Zucchini) was on the menu tonight. Here’s what Tony did:

The first step was to make the sauce, which involved mixing together yogurt, feta cheese, dill, scallion, and garlic. I was halving the recipe, which I did, except I made two mistakes: I used twice as much garlic as I should have (1 clove instead of half a clove) and I completely forgot the scallion. The sauce was fine, but would have been better with the scallion.

The next step was to prepare the shrimp, which was also very easy: I just tossed the shrimp (and lemons) with garlic, dill, olive oil, salt and pepper. I also prepared the baby zucchini by splitting them in half lengthwise; putting them in a quart size freezer bag; adding salt pepper, and olive oil; and then shaking up the sealed bag. All of these prep steps took about 30 minutes, if that. I put the sauce, shrimp, and zucchini in the fridge, opened a beer, and waited for Kim to come home.

Once she got home, I started threading the shrimp and lemon wedges onto wooden skewers, which I had soaked in water for about an hour. This is an important step, as it reduces the changes the skewers will catch fire! I alternated two shrimps with a lemon wedge (as shown below) until I had used up all the ingredients. One thing to note in the picture below: the recipe calls for large shrimp, but I used extra-large, because they’re easier to work with.

I set our grill pan on the oven over medium-high heat. I put the zucchini on one side, cut-side down, and the shrimp on the other. I shifted the zucchini around to make sure it was cooking evenly and did the same with the skewers, also flipping them a few times. Once the shrimp was cooked through, I took everything off the grill and it was time to eat!

Tonight we made Panko Crusted Salmon, one of our favorite weeknight meals. We paired it with green been sautéed in garlic. Here’s how Tony did it:

I started by making the panko topping. I cut all the ingredient amounts in half, since I was only making half the recipe. This step is pretty simple, but the key is not to add too much olive oil. Add it slowly, stirring constantly, until the panko is just coated.

Next, I spread the mustard on the salmon. I tend to get a little carried away with this step, so there are always one or two bites during the meal that really wake me up! After adding the mustard, I sprinkled the salmon with salt and pepper, and then added the topping. You should spread it evenly, but don’t press down too hard; you want everything to hold together but not be squashed. The picture below gives you a before and after view (or technically, an after and before view) of this last step:

I put the salmon in the fridge and moved on to the green beans. After trimming the ends, I put them in a large bowl with about two tablespoons of regular tap water. I covered the bowl in plastic wrap and put the bowl  the microwave on high for three minutes. While the green beans were in the microwave, I sliced two large cloves of garlic very thinly. After the three minutes were up, I thought the green beans were still a little tough, so I covered the bowl up again and put it back in the microwave for two more minutes.

I put the salmon into a 425 degree oven and set a timer for ten minutes. With this recipe, I always skip the step that calls for searing the salmon, skin side down, in a skillet. The crispy skin is a nice touch, but it’s never been worth the clean up as far as I’m concerned. While the salmon cooked, I sautéed the garlic in olive oil over medium-low heat for about a minute or so and the added the green beans. I cooked them, stirring occasionally, until the timer went off.

Since the salmon filets were a little thicker than usual, they were a little under-done in the middle of the thickest part. This wasn’t  problem for us (we thought they tasted great), but you should adjust the cooking time to get the doneness you want. The green beans, however, were just right, though four minutes in the microwave would have worked too. We paired this with a nice rose that were were pleasantly surprised to find in the fridge, left over from an earlier dinner.

Two at the Table_Menu_Week of June 8 2014

This week looks to be a little less bust socially than last week, with us home for dinner Monday through Friday, but our work schedule is a little heavier. So, for this week, we tried to pick recipes that are especially quick and easy

We’ll start with Panko-Crusted Salmon, one of our many go-to recipes from Ina Garten. It takes very little time to prepare and cooks quickly. We plan to have a side of green beans, which we’ll just sauté with a little garlic.

Tuesday night is Shrimp and Lemon Skewers with Feta-Dill Sauce (with Grilled Baby Zucchini). Since we’ll be cooking the shrimp on our cast-iron grill pan, we decided to grill some baby zucchini as well. This recipe calls for some feta cheese and dill. We know from experience that a bunch of dill – or really any fresh herb – is more than enough for one recipe. Since we’re cutting this recipe in half, we’ll also have extra feta. Whenever this happens, we try to find recipes for later in the week or the next week that will allow us to use up the leftovers.

On Wednesday, we plan on making Tuscan Roasted Chicken and Vegetables. This isn’t really “quick”, in that the chicken has to spend a good 30-45 minutes in the oven, but the prep is easy and everything cooks at the same time in the same pan. Like the dill and feta mentioned above, we know that this recipes leaves us with extra fennel, so we factored that into our plans for the week.

We’ve found that eggs make for a fast, satisfying dinner, so on Thursday, we’ll have Eggs in Pots (with Mushrooms). This recipe will let us use up the creme fraiche that we had left over from last week’s Chicken with Morels, as well as a few mushrooms left over from last week’s Flaky Mushroom and Gruyère Tarts, and the dill mentioned above.

We’ll have a little more time to cook Friday night, so we’ll be a little more adventurous with Pork Chops with Apple, Fennel and Endive Salad With Feta. (You guessed it – this is how we’ll use up the feta and fennel!) The salad is a bit of work (grating apples, chopping fennel, slicing endive), so we decided to keep the pork chops simple: season with salt and pepper, sear on the stove top, and then into the oven.