Green Curry Broth

While scrolling through my Pinterest app, I saw that Heidi from 101 Cookbooks had posted an older recipe from her site - Green Curry Broth.  I can't explain why, but it really appealed to me at that moment and I made it for dinner not too long after that.

First, you chop and chop and slice and dice and chop some more to create the foundation for the delicious green curry broth.  This is the longest part of the recipe.  After all of this cooks down to impart its flavor, you strain it out and throw it away.  At first I was sad about this, but then I tasted the broth - it was amazing.  Next time, I would not bother with all the fine dicing and such - you can get this done much faster with bigger chunks and since you're straining it, you probably won't even notice a difference.  I also wouldn't hesitate to make this broth with the intention of freezing it, without any add-ins, to enjoy on a rainy day.

Once the broth has been made, you can put pretty much whatever you want in it.  We opted for rice noodles, shredded cabbage, broccoli, frozen corn and green beans, and I saved the tops of the scallions (used in the broth) and added those in too.  I chopped handfuls of mint, basil, and cilantro from my balcony and mixed those in at the very end.  I topped off my own bowl with a little swirl of coconut milk.  This was a good combination of things, but I would break the noodles in half next time, and I had also intended to add cubes of tofu, but things got away from me.

Roasted Broccoli and Shrimp

Hi! I swear, I'm trying to post more often now that I'm cooking more. This month the 101 Cookbooks Library is featuring Melissa Clark, NY Times food writer and someone who understands the challenges faced by home cooks.

I started with a roasted shrimp and broccoli recipe, something super simple and easy that is still healthy. I love the cumin, coriander, and just a bit of spice - I used red pepper flakes. Next time, I'll roast the broccoli for a bit less time, so there will be some crunch left to it.

And I'm looking forward to some more quick, simple, healthy, and most of all tasty meals from Melissa Clark's books.

2012 Whole Living Healthy Detox: Week 2

Well, week 2 is over, but it was much easier than week 1.  We made quite a few tasty meals.  We started  the week off with a family Christmas party - we brought baked salmon with chimichurri sauce.  We also revamped one of our favorites, lemon pepper shrimp, to be detox-friendly (and MUCH healthier).  Typically, this dish consists of whole wheat orzo and broccoli sauteed with garlic, topped with shrimp in a lemony, peppery, garlicky, buttery sauce.  We left out the orzo and we left out the butter, making the shrimp with only the lemon, pepper, garlic, and a bit of olive oil, so there wasn't much of a sauce.  We were very pleased with the results!

Throughout the week, we also ate our Dark Days meal of beans and cabbage, and I improved upon my favorite smoothie from last week, the Carrot Mango Smoothie, by adding some strawberries to it as well.  We used up the only soup in the freezer that we can eat, a veggie-filled base for Soup au Pistou, to which we added white beans and a cube of basil puree to give it flavor.  One day for lunch at work, I had half a bag of frozen edamame for lunch, which surprisingly filled me up a lot!

I also managed to squeeze in another recipe from Plenty, one of the two featured cookbooks for January.  The recipe is for Saffron Cauliflower, shown up above, which we ate as a side with salmon.  Because you cook the cauliflower, onions, and golden raisins in the oven, covered, the saffron flavor steams into them.  If you really like saffron (I find it overrated, but that's just me) you will probably like this dish.  I would have preferred if the cauliflower mix was left open to roast and crisp up a little, but it was an OK dish.  I probably won't make it again.

This week is week 3, the final week of the detox.  It's going to take all my willpower not to go straight back to sugar and coffee and bacon!  Wish me luck!

2012 Whole Living Healthy Detox: Week 1

I'm doing the 2012 Whole Living Action Plan, which is kind of a healthy 3-week detox.  This first week, I ate only fruits, veggies, nuts, and plant based oils.  It was hard at times, because I was seriously craving sweets from the holiday season, but we made it through the cravings and I even dropped a pound or two of unwanted weight!  We cut this week short to 5 days instead of 7 because we have another family Christmas gathering to attend and we wanted to have more options than just the veggie tray.  I'll write more about week 2 next week.  I've been too busy during the week to post, so while I'm doing this detox, I'll do a summary at the end of the week.  Hopefully when I'm done I'll be craving nutritious foods instead of all the sugar I've been craving.

Here are some of the foods I've eaten this week...

Fruit Salad Smoothie - from the Vitamix cookbook, which came with my Christmas gift :) and this was the first smoothie I tried with the Vitamix.  It was delicious.  It had a bunch of different fruits along with carrot and cucumber.

Berry Delicious Smoothie - also from the Vitamix cookbook, some pineapple and berries, including cranberries, which provided a really nice flavor.  I plan to make this again this week.

Orange-Berry Smoothie - This one was pretty good, kind of tangy from all the orange juice. I would make it again.

Beet and Carrot Smoothie - This was my least favorite. I couldn't even force myself to eat it. I don't like beets, so I thought this would make them easier for me to stomach so that I could get all their nutrients without the flavor and texture I don't like, but the beet overpowered the smoothie and the ginger didn't help either.

Carrot, Mango, and Herb Smoothie - I'm drinking this one right now and it's one of my favorites from the week, probably because it doesn't have any veggies in it... just carrot juice, orange juice, mango chunks, and mint.  I put about half the amount of mint in because it can be overpowering, and I just get a slight refreshing coolness from it.

Kale Slaw with Red Cabbage and Carrots - I had this for lunch a few times, and I really liked the tangy dressing and the crunchy pepita seeds and the hemp seeds were good too.  I liked the refreshing bite of parsley though toward the end of the week I got lazy and it was just kale, cabbage, the nuts, and dressing.

Steamed Broccoli and Squash with Tahini Dressing - We had this for dinner one night and it was one of our least favorites of the week.  The broccoli with the tahini sauce was the best part.  I definitely wouldn't make this one again.

Roasted Peppers, Cauliflower, and Almonds - This one was pretty good.  I liked the roasted peppers and the saltiness from the kalamata olives.  One thing I would do differently is to make a better dressing, since this one was mainly just lemon and oil.  This would also be really good with feta.  Boy do I miss cheese.

I've already started week 2, and I've moved on to making mostly my own recipes either improvised or from other sources.  One in particular deserves its own post, and if time allows, I will share it this week.

Broccoli-Basil Mac & Cheese

Ever since this recipe for Broccoli-Basil Mac and Cheese was posted, I was looking forward to it.  I love broccoli and I love mac and cheese.  Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed in the outcome.  I used manchego as called for in the original recipe, and I don't think I like it very much.  The basil flavor didn't come through at all, nor did the out-of-season yellow cherry tomatoes.  The broccoli wasn't pronounced.  The squash seemed out of place.  I probably should have used a half-and-half pasta instead of whole wheat.

I want to go through this recipe and rewrite it to be more appealing to me.  I know I can use it as a starting point to make something great.  I'll likely keep the broccoli bread crumbs, but I'm considering trying a cauliflower bread crumb, maybe sauteed to crisp it up a little.

Lemony Ravioli with Baby Broccoli, Onions, and Walnuts

Here's one that I made up myself :)  Orange-striped ravioli, filled with asparagus and Gruyere, plus sliced onions and baby broccoli florets and stems sautéed with garlic, topped with toasted walnuts and a lemon-olive oil dressing.

Orzo Salad

I made this Orzo Salad from Super Natural Every Day with a friend who doesn't like cheese or pine nuts (two key ingredients in the pesto) and she had seconds!  I love a good vegetable pesto.  The pesto is made from broccoli, and there are also broccoli florets in the salad.  The creme fraiche in the pesto made it unique.  I've never used creme fraiche before - it's kind of a cross between yogurt and butter.  Kind of the consistency of yogurt, but tastes kind of like flavorless butter.  It's confusing, but I know that you can make cultured butter from creme fraiche, so I don't think I'm too far off here.

Sadly, this was not as good the second day.  Maybe it was too cold while I was eating it, but I was totally overwhelmed by the garlic, which didn't happen when it was fresh.  I liked it, but I'm not sure I'll make it again.

Harissa Ravioli

The Harissa Ravioli is this week's second Super Natural Every Day recipe.  It's somewhat similar to the Harissa Spaghettini recipe I posted last month - they both have a spicy, lemony harissa oil dressing.  This one, however, uses ravioli as the pasta (we used a spinach/ricotta stuffed ravioli) and broccoli florets.  We added feta to the Harissa Spaghettini, and this recipe actually calls for it.

We liked this a lot.  We are really digging the stuffed pasta dishes.  Here, I could have swapped out some of the broccoli - maybe for some of the leftover asparagus from the Tortellini Salad.  I used half of the harissa called for, and it was plenty spicy - this stuff is pretty strong.  I omitted the black olives out of laziness (and Ken hates them) and we decided on toasted slivered almonds for the crunchy aspect, but I'd like to try the pepitas next time.  The recipe says it serves 4, but we used slightly less ravioli and polished it off between the two of us.  I see some more stuffed pasta dishes in our future!

Tortellini Salad

I chose a few recipes to make from Super Natural Every Day this week and bought all the ingredients - now I'm committed to making them!  First up this week was the Tortellini Salad, with crisp broccoli and asparagus, creamy avocado, a lemony-garlicky dressing, the bright flavor of cilantro, and crunchy toasted almonds.  It's served at room temperature, which is perfect for warmer weather.  It wouldn't be too difficult to vary the vegetables, and I could even see doing a grilled version - grilled asparagus or zucchini instead of quickly cooking it in the pasta water - even leftover grilled vegetables would work well here.  We used an asiago-ricotta tortelloni (they're bigger than the little tortellini) which brought a great saltiness that tied the outside of the pasta to the inside.  I'd like to try tortellini next time, since it would more closely match the size of the cut vegetables.  I can't wait to get deeper into this book - so far I'm very pleased with the recipes I've made.

Leftovers Fried Rice - Take 2

 I cook from recipes almost exclusively.  I want to try harder to foster my own creativity.  In trying to come up with a quick weekday lunch, I ended up making fried rice.  So here we have leftovers fried rice, take 2.  (Much more interesting than take 1, interestingly posted at almost the exact same time last year.)

I used leftover brown rice from my Thai food, a scrambled egg, some chunks of yellow zucchini, half a small red pepper (diced), frozen broccoli, and some scallions.  I cooked it in canola oil and garlic (not enough, though.  More next time!) and added a drizzle of sesame oil, a splash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds.

As I said, this was delicious, but I need to get a better handle on the seasonings.  My timing was much better than it has been in the past, despite the mix of fresh and frozen.  More garlic!!!!

CSA: June 2010

Week 4 (6/3/2010):
- 1 quart strawberries (PYO)
- 1 quart snow peas (PYO)
- 1 lb spinach
- 1 lb swiss chard (rainbow colors!)
- 4 heads of lettuce (2 green leaf, one smaller, tighter head type, and one called "deer tongue!")
- 1/2 lb arugula
- 2 bunches kale (I believe it is the Red Russian variety, different from last week's)

With the last kale of May, we made the kale chips.  They would have been delicious if they weren't so salty!  We may try again sometime, but we have been getting a different variety lately and are not sure how it would work with this type (Red Russian, I think).  The lettuce was, of course, used for salad.  Having just gotten used to having six heads, we went through it pretty fast.  Some spinach and arugula were tossed in for a mixed salad.  The strawberries were eaten quickly.  My sister Deanna made a pasta dish using the spinach, a combination of Jamie Oliver's classic tomato spaghetti and a recipe from Giada with spinach and asiago cheese (the cheese is a new family favorite).

Here is where we started to get lazy.  The kale and chard went unused as did much of the arugula.  The snow peas weren't used until Thursday when the next batch of veg had already stormed our fridge (see below).  We (well, I should probably say I) resolved to make a better effort in the upcoming week.

Berry Pine Nut Salad (29 Minutes to Dinner)

Week 5 (6/10/2010):
- 1 lb spinach
- 1 lb chard
- 6 heads lettuce (1 little weird one, 2 deer tongue, 1 green leaf, 2 red leaf)
- 2 bunches kale
- 1 bunch scallions
- 1 bunch radishes
- 2 heads radicchio
- 1 qt snow/snap peas, 1 pt each (PYO)
- a few sprigs of mint
- 4 summer squash (2 light green zucchini, 2 pattypan)

We made Asian chicken rolls (from the Pampered Chef book Grill it Quick!) on the grill - these are chicken tenderloins rolled up with a long, thin slice of carrot and one of the zucchini as well, secured with a toothpick and coated with Asian seasoning mix and a delicious glaze.  Bits of zucchini and carrot were chopped up in a rice pilaf, with some scallions mixed in.  To go along with this, I made sesame snap peas with carrots and red peppers using last week's snap peas.  That seemed to be a hit, but I thought the peas were too bitter - maybe because we waited so long to use them.  Deanna used up the zucchini we didn't use for the recipe in an omelet. 

My mom had a barbecue with her friends on Saturday, which is when I found the mint which I had forgotten in the bottom of my cooler.  (Oops...)  Fortunately, Ken had trimmed the mint at his parents' house so we were able to make mojitos!  (My favorite drink.  Yum!)  With some of the mixed lettuce and snap peas, we made a Berry Pine Nut Salad from a Pampered Chef cookbook (Berry-Pine Nut Chicken Salad, minus the chicken, from 29 Minutes to Dinner), which also had toasted pine nuts, red onions, blueberries, and a raspberry vinaigrette.  It was a beautiful salad (I made quite a nice presentation, thank you) and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.  (I had it the next day, though, and I did not like it.  Oh well!)  Since it was a barbecue, we also made grilled radicchio.  Some people liked it, some didn't - I think it might have been better if we were able to marinate it.  The next day we had a lot of barbecue leftovers for a lunch with the grandparents, and we added in the roasted spring vegetables, which has become a family favorite and was the exact reason I chose radishes from the choice group this week.  Instead of chives, my mom sprinkled scallions on top.  Later in the week, I used some of the remaining scallions to make the Otsu from Super Natural Cooking (also available on 101 Cookbooks). 

After not eating our kale or chard last week, I decided to take action and get creative.  Since we are sharing all this produce, I usually don't take any of it home - we most often cook at my mom's and eat there, or I bring home the leftovers.  This week, I took home the kale.  I've never really had kale before but I know that it is a nutritional powerhouse, so I really wanted to like it.  I've heard it tastes like and is in the same family as broccoli, so I decided we should try it in one of my favorite dishes - lemon pepper shrimp.  We threw in a little broccoli, just to give us that familiar flavor in case the kale was a flop.  It was delicious!!!  We used one bunch of the kale for that, so we had a bunch left over for the next night's dinner.  I had a bunch of things that I wanted to try, but I settled on a variation of the Matchstick Pasta on 101 Cookbooks.  I left out the pomegranate seeds, crushed all the pistachios for the sauce instead of sprinkling half of them on whole, and didn't break up the pasta.  Mine certainly wasn't as pretty, but it was a very delicious quick and easy weeknight dinner.

 Lemon Pepper Shrimp

Week 6 (6/17/2010):
- 4 heads lettuce (2 green leaf, 2 red leaf)
- 2 bunches kale (1 Red Russian, 1 "regular")
- 2 bunches fennel (about 4 bulbs)
- 4 summer squash (1 light green zucchini, 3 dark green)
- 4 green garlic (bulbs and loooong stems)
- 12 heads broccoli
- 1/2 lb arugula
- a few sprigs each of rosemary, thyme, and oregano, and a bunch of chives (without flowers)

I was excited to see kale in the farm stand this week, since we discovered last week that we loved it, and I hadn't seen it on the list of available items on the farm's distribution blog.  We used it immediately in our lemon-pepper shrimp recipe, along with a few heads of the broccoli and some of the green garlic.  I chose the fennel from the choice group (the other option was the radicchio we weren't crazy about last week) as kind of a Father's Day present for my dad, who loves it and will eat it raw, roasted or grilled.  He finished it all off raw this time.  Deanna came with me this week and was super excited about the fresh herbs.

At the beach, we grilled some of the zucchini and last week's pattypan squash.  We chopped a bulb of the garlic to eat with steamed green beans - delicious!  For a quick and easy dinner when we got home on Sunday night, we made the Almond Soba Noodles from 101 Cookbooks using some of the broccoli.

Grilled Zucchini and Pattypan Squash

Week 7 (6/24/2010):
- 4 bulbs green garlic
- 2 heads broccoli
- 1 lb chard
- 2 bunches kale (regular variety)
- 2 bunches fennel
- 1 Chinese cabbage
- 1 bunch onions
- 6 heads lettuce (4 red, 1 different type of red, 1 deer tongue)

I have been trying to share with my family - it's hard for me not to snatch up everything I want and take it home with me.  I try to leave some, maybe even most, of the weekly produce for them.  However, I am discovering more and more that I eat a lot more vegetables than they do.  Last week after splitting the 12 heads of broccoli (6 for the two of us, 6 for the four of them) we used ours up fairly quickly, while they had some left over.  (We took it down the shore and made a salmon version of our lemon pepper shrimp to finish it off.)  I was disappointed to see only 2 heads of broccoli this week - it's one of my favorites.  We finished it off in our lemon pepper shrimp recipe, of course, with some kale in there as well.

I chose fennel again for my dad, which he ate raw again, and he says he's not sick of it yet.  I brought home the kale and chard for myself this week - I don't think we've eaten any chard yet this season and we've been collecting it for weeks.  It has a much better shot of getting cooked, much less eaten, at my house than at my mom's.  Plus, last week's bunch of regular-variety kale, which Deanna insisted on taking to make kale chips at the expense of my enjoying the red variety, is still in their fridge.  We ended up having some chard sauteed with garlic, kind of like spinach.  It was pretty good, but didn't blow me away.  I used up the rest of the chard, including the stems, in Walnut Miso Noodles.

The lettuce and onions were used in a salad - the onions were particularly delicious.  (My dressing recipe has evolved into something amazing: 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup white balsamic, a clove or two of garlic, a shallot, two moderate and controlled squeezes of dijon mustard, and salt and pepper.  Easy, classy and so delicious.)  The garlic was, unfortunately, forgotten at the beach, so hopefully it's still good next weekend.  I would like to look for more raw uses.  The Chinese cabbage was forgotten by everyone, so maybe it will turn up in next month's post.

Almond Soba Noodles

Since we wanted to experiment more with soba noodles (and maybe follow some directions this time) I decided to try the Almond Soba Noodles from 101 Cookbooks.  We had broccoli from our CSA and used that in place of the pea shoots.  Rather than bother with a separate pan (cooking tofu is enough of a struggle) I just tossed the tiny florets in with the soba noodles in the last minute of cooking - they came out perfect.  My rule for cooking vegetables is this: if you think they're going to be underdone, they are probably ready.  Only a taste will tell, but better a crunchy veg than a mushy one.  Broccoli undergoes an extreme personality change when overcooked, at which point we no longer get along.

The dressing for this recipe uses almond butter and Thai red curry paste.  I thought it was very good, but Ken wants to try it with peanut butter instead.  I think it just needs more of the curry paste.  I thought the basil was crucial - it complements the flavor of Thai red curry paste perfectly.

Since this was such a quick and easy meal (delicious too) I'm sure I will be making it again - the openness to variation makes it very inviting to me as well.

Asparagus Salad

 I had this post all set up and ready to go.  All it needed was a picture.  When I copy photos over from my camera to my "food" folder I name them things relevant to the recipe, and I number them in case I have more than one.  I named this photo "aspsalad1" for asparagus salad, #1.

Much to my surprise I was greeted by a message asking me to rename the photo, since one already existed with that name.  I thought, hmm, maybe I misnamed the broccoli salad.

But no.  Apparently I have made this before.  With the radishes, too.  Last August.  Why didn't I remember this?

I went back and read my post about it.  It turns out I didn't like the radishes and I undercooked the broccoli.

I think it's funny that I blocked it out like that.  I haven't been cooking long, and I haven't cooked much in that short amount of time, but I made the same dish twice without even realizing.

Anyway, I used the asparagus salad recipe from 101 Cookbooks.  I should not have bought broccoli and asparagus, because they are ALMOST in season here, but I was craving some vegetables.

I do not like radishes.  Somehow THIS I remembered, so I skipped them.  The dressing was the best part... pine nuts are delicious.

I ate this all by itself because I was too lazy to make a grain or pasta to go with it.  (I also ate the entire thing in one sitting.)  I think a handful or two of a small pasta shape would work well here.  It would also be fun to experiment with some other vegetables.

Maybe next time I will remember that I already made this and already posted about it...

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Andrea came over and we made the Loaded Baked Potato Soup from the Pampered Chef Season's Best book. I had intended to make this for my next show, but good thing I tried it at home first - it's not a recipe well suited to a presentation. In fact, one of my customers who tried to make it actually threw it away before it was finished because it looked so gross! But it is a fun recipe to make using the Deep Covered Baker - and it is done entirely in the microwave. (If you don't have a Deep Covered Baker, order one from me, right now. You might not think you need it, but you do. If you don't believe me now, within a few months you will, when I am making fancy stuff in my microwave, and you are sitting at your computer with your mouth watering over it, about to go make it, when suddenly you remember that you didn't order one when I told you to. Just wait and see.)

Luckily, it tasted good. Ken even said it was better than Panera's soup. Salt and pepper make all the difference, though. I also used mild cheddar because I wanted it to taste like potato, not cheddar. Typically I like extra sharp, but I thought it might overwhelm the soup. I barely tasted it, so this worked. Optional add-ins listed are steamed broccoli florets and bacon. I steamed the broccoli by just wetting it and microwaving it for about 20 seconds. I like my broccoli to be much more crisp than tender, and it was a nice contrast to soup. We didn't use bacon, but that is what is in the Panera baked potato soup, so I would like to try it next time. I am not a big soup person, but I like chunky soups. This would be interesting pureed if that is something that you are interested in.

Ham and Cheese Calzone

I am not a big meat-eater (as you can probably tell if you are reading this) but now that I am selling Pampered Chef (ask me about that!) I have obviously been making some Pampered Chef recipes. This is the one I did for my Grand Opening show. It is from the Season's Best Fall/Winter 2009 cookbook (which you can purchase through me for $1!).

It is a super easy recipe, so there is not much to say. I think the thin crust Pillsbury pizza dough is better to use for the large bar pan. At home, I used provolone and mozzarella instead of swiss because Ken hates swiss. Don't be silly and forget the second half of the cheese INSIDE the calzone. And other than that, it is pretty straightforward.

I want to try some variations on this, including some kind of vegetarian version. A broccoli calzone would be interesting but I would also like to find a way to reduce the excessive amounts of cheese that are present here. This is not a recipe that lends itself well to health-itizing it, so we'll have to see what inspires me, but it's always nice to have suggestions for guests at parties. My cheese swap was one of my suggestions last time. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'll really be making this much at home as it just isn't really something I loved.

Broccoli Crunch

For our cooking date, Haley picked out Broccoli Crunch as an entree. We had planned to add some shrimp to make it more of an entree, but we totally forgot about it and didn't even notice until we were having seconds. This recipe, although it was a bit of work, was absolutely delicious.

The crunchy shallots were one of my favorite parts. They got a little lost in the salad because of the red onions, but they were so fun to make and yummy little crisps. These can be made in advance, which I would recommend since I was constantly running back and forth to check them. I guess I am not the type of person who can handle more than one thing on the stove at a time.

One sad part was that I cooked the broccoli a little more than I wanted to. The salad is called "Broccoli Crunch" for a reason - everything is supposed to crunch. I cooked the broccoli in boiling water as per the directions, but left it for a few minutes rather than a few seconds. It wasn't mushy or bad, just not crunchy enough. The broccoli also was unfortunately not that great quality either. I would like to try again when I see some better broccoli at the market in the coming weeks.

We used Pink apples and Fuji apples (or so said the sign at the store). Both were delicious, but I particularly liked the Pink apples. We sliced them thinly, which was fine, but I would also cut the apples into bite-size pieces next time in keeping with the rest of the salad being crunchy bite-size pieces.

The almond butter dressing was amazing, and we used sliced almonds instead of walnuts to complement the dressing. It was so good, and I know it would lend itself to shrimp as well, even though we forgot them. They would be perfect in this bite-size salad. I think some tofu croutons (see How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) might be yummy as well. I also want to note that I left out the optional chives. I think the salad was oniony enough without them, and after the sad green bean experience yesterday, I didn't want to use them in case they were part of the problem.

One more note about leftovers... I might make this again on a weekend, keeping all the ingredients separate and combining them only for individual portions. I might cook the broccoli each time too, since my slightly overcooked broccoli didn't hold up too well in the leftovers. But it would be easy to throw together during the week with everything already prepared and ready to go. I found that it worked well to keep the thinly sliced apples in a tupperware with water and the juice of one lemon. They seem to be keeping really well.

This is definitely something I will be making again, especially as more apples come in season. According to this map on Epicurious, broccoli will be in season through October, so I will have plenty of chances to perfect this recipe. If I am lucky, broccoli will stick around for Thanksgiving so I can make this for the big meal... I am already plotting to cook lots, although I won't be able to have it at my house, so hopefully my mom will host and take care of the meat and things. But that is a topic for another time...

Asparagus Salad

I know what my mom is going to be thinking when she reads this - "asparagus is out of season!!!" Well, I saw some nice looking ones at the store and I have been wanting to try this Asparagus Salad, so I picked them up. I just couldn't wait until next year! I had also seen radishes at the farmer's market over the weekend so I went back and got them today just for this recipe. I also made some plain barley to give it some more heft as a dinner meal.

The sauteed broccoli and asparagus were nice, because they both taste better cooked. The radishes added an interesting color and dimension but they were way too large (the recipe specifies tiny radishes for a reason, I guess). The lemon pine nut dressing was delicious, although it did take two tries to properly toast pine nuts. (Oops!)

Barley takes forever to cook, and I have pearled barley, so it could have taken even longer. For a weeknight, that is no good. Luckily you can make grains ahead of time and reheat them from the fridge, so I saved some for my next endeavor.

Overall, I was not crazy about this salad. Maybe I built it up too much because I really wanted to try it. My favorite part was the asparagus. It was perfect. The broccoli could have been cooked a little more, but that's my fault for not putting it in by itself first. The dressing was delicious and you can easily serve it over any vegetable. I have never had radishes before (that I know of/remember), and they were OK. They were pretty boring. Now that I think about it, they sort of reminded me of water chestnuts, which I really don't like at all. I also wish I could have tried broccolini, but I don't remember ever having seen it anywhere. If you want to add barley (or other grains) to this, I would use just a few small spoonfuls and mix it in thoroughly. I probably won't be making this again. It was OK, but I guess just not what I was looking for!

The good news is that I still have broccoli and asparagus to experiment with something new! I just finished reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman (it's a quick read, since half of it is recipes anyway) so I am trying to keep more fresh produce in the house, and using whatever pantry items I have on hand to turn them into meals. The overall idea of his book is to eat more plants and less meat/dairy products, which is much healthier, so I am giving it a try.

Lemon Pepper Shrimp Scampi

Today I wanted to make dinner for my family and decided to make the Lemon Pepper Shrimp Scampi that we frequently make at home, which we adapted from a recent issue of Cooking Light. I had a lot of help but it turned out very yummy in the end. If you are wondering where the peppers are in the pictures, the "pepper" part is actually ground black pepper!


My mom helped me out by peeling and defrosting the shrimp while I cut up parsley and broccoli. I tried to chop it like they do on Food Network. I pressed some garlic and juiced a few lemons. I had the orzo cooking while I was juicing the lemons, so I overcooked it by a minute or so. (Luckily it still turned out good.) My mom helped by straining it. The pot was very heavy (to me at least), and since orzo is so small it can't be put through a regular strainer or it will just fall right through the holes!! She had to use the lid to hold in the orzo while draining the water.

To cook the broccoli, I needed to saute some garlic and olive oil in the pan. It heated up much faster than I expected and as I was pushing it around, it suddenly turned brown! It had to be redone and Ken decided at that point that we wouldn't be able to eat unless he took over entirely. I helped as much as I could. When the broccoli was done, I mixed it into the orzo along with the parsley.

The final product came out great, although I wish I was able to do more of it myself. Everyone seemed to really like it and it is a great light summer dish.

Pepper and Broccoli Stir Fry

On Saturday I had some friends over and cut up a bunch of peppers to dip in this ginger miso dressing I discovered on my first adventure to Whole Foods. The dressing was a huge success, but the peppers weren't that big of a hit so I had a lot of them left over. So last night I decided to make a stir fry. I had some broccoli so I threw that in as well. I used boil-in-a-bag brown rice and precooked frozen grilled chicken breast strips. As a sauce I used Kikkoman toasted sesame marinade. My goal was to make it taste like the Contessa Sesame Chicken frozen meal, but with better vegetables (they don't have broccoli, or at least they don't have enough broccoli).

The picture doesn't really show it well, but the veggies were bright and delicious looking. Overall I believe it was a success. The grilled taste of the chicken wasn't great but it sure was convenient. I also should have started the stir fry later, since waiting for the rice held me up. I am having leftovers for lunch today!