Hard-Cooked Eggs with Dukkah

The phase has passed by now, but when I made this recipe a few weeks ago, I was eating hard boiled eggs almost every day as a snack.  The dukkah recipe from Super Natural Every Day seemed like a great way to spice it up (accidental pun!).  The fragrant mixture of nuts, seeds, and spices is not as strong in taste as it is in smell, but as I write this I find myself craving the flavor.  The dukkah could also be used to flavor dipping oil for bread, and I intend to try it crusted on salmon.  Hopefully I'll be reporting back on that soon.  I'm intending to post more - just need to get my ducks in a row over here...

Salmon with Red Pepper and Hazelnut Salsa

As you probably already guessed, this detox is tough.  There is such a limited amount of things that I am permitted to eat.  Salmon is one, and even with chimichurri sauce (OMG, I love it) I was starting to get bored of it really quickly.  I also want to be able to participate, at least a little bit, in the featured cookbook thing for the month - we're doing Ottolenghi and Plenty together, two books I've been dying to cook from, and there are only a select few recipes I can make from them while doing this detox.  As it turns out, I had this salmon recipe flagged already, and I was excited to be able to try it.  I knew when we started mixing together the salsa ingredients that it was going to be a huge hit.

Honestly, I could eat this salsa every day, on anything.  It is so good.  It sticks to your expectations about what a salsa should be while totally blowing them away.  I am obsessed with it and I can't wait to have it again.  This is the way salmon was meant to be eaten.  I had my leftovers for lunch the next day, but Ken ate that second serving right after finishing the first, and I was tempted to do the same.  (I'm glad I prolonged my gratification by saving it.)  As a huge bonus, this was really simple and easy to make, so I expect it to become a staple in our house.

A few notes on the prep... mainly reminders to myself :)  Roast the hazelnuts and the peppers at the same time.  Cook the salmon opposite of the recipe directions, so that you get a crispy skin.  Make the salsa the day before if possible (oh, and double it while you're at it!) and this will come together in a flash.

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving 2010 was cooked for only 7 people, so we didn't go too overboard.  It was a lot less stressful this way.  We had no appetizers to worry about, either.

Pumpkin and Feta Muffins

These are first because they are the coolest thing we made.  I got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks a few weeks ago and they were the first thing on my Thanksgiving recipe list.  I followed the directions exactly and got excellent results.  The only thing to note was that we ended up with 18 muffins instead of 12, but that's certainly nothing to complain about.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts

When my sister got wind of the menu (the day before Thanksgiving, of course) she greeted me with: "Can we PUHLEEEAAASE make a DIFFERENT VEGETABLE?!?!"  Right after these were cooked, I saw her stick her hand right in the skillet to try one - and of course she loved it.  Super simple, and the caramelized edges were the best part.  This is another recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

Lemon-Barley Stuffing

This recipe from the New York Times was kind of a wild card, but it worked out in the end.  The mushrooms shrunk into ribbons when roasted, and I thought there wouldn't be enough lemon, but it shined right through.  The chive butter was fun to make and pretty much made the dish.  This is where I gained a deeper knowledge of where the line lies between browned and burned.  Note to self: more liquid next time, trust your instincts.

Sandra Lee's Turkey

Well, of course there was a turkey.  This one had butter massaged into it.  I never liked turkey before, and I still only ate a very small bit of it, but it was very good.  This picture is gross.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Mashed Potatoes

Yuck.  That's all I have to say about that.  This is a picture of what later became mashed potatoes.  There's no finished picture because there's nothing pretty about mashed potatoes.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Garden Vegetable and Potato Lyonnaise

I've got these giant rutabagas sitting in my fridge, plus a few turnips, and I've never had these things before, of course, so I had no idea what we could do with them.  I found this recipe through the "look inside" feature of Amazon - it's in Homegrown Pure and Simple by Michael Nischan.  Naturally, Amazon wouldn't let me look at the second page, but I found an adapted version online and used it to sort of wing it, and it turned out alright.  The strong flavors weren't appreciated by all, but I finally got to try a bunch of things through this dish.

Pumpkin Cornbread

When we were little, my dad used to make us biscuits.  Of course, they came from a box, but I had to remind him to channel those times from the past when my mom asked him to help us by making the cornbread.  This alone was the most hectic time of the day, as he insisted on lining up each ingredient, did not know the difference between liquid and dry measures, and refused to stop whisking even when I said he was finished.  Then we ended up having to bake it in the microwave (it makes sense if you've seen my mom's space-age microwave) and since we're all too short to see the top it got a bit toasted.  Fortunately, it tasted fantastic.  This was another New York Times recipe.  (Thanks to Haley for these photos.)

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, 

Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

I made this last year, but did a different candied walnut.  Though we had to make some substitutions, these walnuts were delicious.  Everyone kept walking by them and snatching a few - we're lucky we had any left for the salad.  The vinaigrette was my favorite part.  This recipe is from Clean Food.

"Best-Ever" Apple Pie

Haley made her famous apple pie with lattice crust.  It's the best-ever apple pie!  This particular pie contained a variety of apples known as "whatever we had lying around."

Spice-Kissed Pumpkin Pie

This pumpkin pie recipe is from 101 Cookbooks.  It features a special spice blend and a hazelnut paste between the filling and the graham-cracker crust.  Delicious.

Pumpkin and Ginger Scones

These were not for Thanksgiving, in particular, but they were there when I arrived to cook on Thanksgiving, and they were delicious.  I liked them plain, but they were very good with Haley's cinnamon glaze.

Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Hazelnuts and Brown Butter

Since I have been on this soup kick lately, I've been trying to use it to my advantage by using up things that are already in my fridge.  This soup used up two heads of cauliflower approaching their last days as well as some leeks I've had for almost a month.  And, it was tasty too!

Ever since the Hazelnut Muffins (<3) I've been especially attracted to hazelnuts and brown butter.  They added a nice change of pace to this soup - I like to have a little crunch in there.

So when I came across the recipe for this Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Hazelnuts and Brown Butter, I was excited to try it.  A few notes: it would still be great with a lot less butter, or even none, and the excessive salt added when you boil the cauliflower pretty much eliminates the need for salt at the end.  White pepper adds an interesting flavor.  I followed the recipe exactly, and the resulting soup was a bit indulgent - a great addition to a holiday menu or for guests.  You don't need much to feel full.

This soup got me thinking - how many servings of vegetables are in a cup of soup?

Hazelnut Muffins

It's hard to explain what these muffins taste like, but I can tell you how I felt when I first bit into one.

I was speechless.  It was almost a spiritual experience biting into this muffin - it was THAT good.  I never wanted to stop.  It was sweet and nutty, with a balanced whole grain flavor and a distinctive richness from the teff flour and brown butter.  The spices in the topping gave the plainer batter a twist.

I will be making these muffins again, and again, and again.  I never cease to be impressed by the recipes in Good to the Grain - if you've noticed, I hardly bake anything else at all, but I don't even want to.  I have a reasonable stash in the freezer already, but as soon as I run out, making a new batch will jump to the top of my to-do list.  This is one I will NOT mess with.

The crushed hazelnut, sugar and spice topping makes a bit extra, so I saved it and used it to top oatmeal - yummm :)