It's a New Year!

Is this the most beautiful thing you've seen or what?

And it tasted as good as it looked! Plus the satisfaction of having made it myself made it even yummier. And the smell wafting through the house... I'm hooked!

I started with the Boule recipe and halved it just to make sure it would work. I wouldn't say that it's exactly a five-minute process, between mixing it and letting it rise and refrigerating it and letting it rest, it's a process, not an active process, but a process. But I could see how it would get easier and more intuitive the more I did it. I've got some whole wheat dough in the fridge that I'm going to try tonight.

I used the alternate steam recipe because I was kind of freaked out by the broiler tray and water. I got a nice crusty loaf, but my pizza stone cracked. :( It was a thin one and they warned against it, so I went out and got one from Williams Sonoma that is much thicker and that I can return if it cracks.

I've making lots of the recipes that we made last year and it's been fun to search through our comments and remember what we liked and didn't!

Back on track

Last night, I made the Artichoke Stuffed Chicken Breast from Weber. It was yummy and surprisingly easy. I'm not a huge fan of sundried tomatoes so I substituted roasted red pepper. I served it with a salad with toasted pine nuts, cranberries, grapes and red peppers. You definitely have to like goat cheese to enjoy it since that's the strongest flavor. And I LOVE goat cheese. It was a big hit with Anshul too.

Potato Salad with Green and White Beans

In our CSA box yesterday we got some freshly dug red new potatoes and a nice bag of beautiful flat green beans. Green beans are always best eaten when their super fresh, so I wanted to use them quickly. We also had a fresh red onion in the fridge from an old CSA share. So, after hemming and hawing for a while, I serendipitously found the perfect recipe in Simple Suppers - Potato Salad with Greens and White Beans (scroll down) - that used all those ingredients. It is basically a nicoise salad without the tuna. I made my typical Dijon, white wine vinaigrette that I make with nicoise salads instead of the one in the recipe (Dijon, white wine vinegar, bit of sweetener (I used honey and Splenda), pinch of herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, olive oil). The dijon gives the vinaigrette a fuller flavor and helps the dressing emulsify better. I also used some parsley from the garden, in addition to the basil. We only had red kidney beans, not white, so I used those instead. There wasn't any flavor difference that I could determine. I also threw the green beans in with the potatoes for the last few minutes of cooking, rather than cooking them separately. I cannot imagine why they tell you to go through the bother of cooking them separately! We had it over lettuce with some nicoise olives on top. It was delicious.

Salmon

I made the Tequila Salmon earlier this week. Like the other recipes in this book, the marinade was easy and didn't take long to make. It was good, didn't have the wow factor of some of the other recipes, but it was definitely tasty. I liked the citrus from the orange with the fish. I really liked the dressing for the salad - I threw in some bell pepper and red onion in addition to the tomatoes and it was a nice compliment to the salmon. I also made some cornbread muffins to go along with it. I like to cook salmon since it's so easy to find and so good for you and this is a good fallback recipe. I'm still mastering cooking it on the grill though and wonder if it might have been a little less dry in the oven.

This Week's Pick

I'm not really sure when our week is starting and stopping at this point, but I'm going to make some Tequila Salmon!

Cooking/Meat Hiatus

So we had 21 people over last Saturday for a "Dining with Friends" event that raises money for Lowcountry AIDS Services. While I thoroughly enjoyed throwing the party and cooking all the food, I haven't had much initiative to cook adventurously this week. And then last week, most nights were spend preparing the house or prepping food. So, I haven't really had the energy for our CCC. And I've been in the mood to eat healthy veggie meals after ample rich food and drink.
I did make some really yummy recipes for the party, but unfortunately none were on the grill. . . Everything was fantastic though. I especially recommend the strawberry cheese mold, crostini, almonds and beans. The pork was really yummy as well, and the associated sauce recipe was so good people were pouring it on bread to eat it alone. The pork loin roast is also a very economical way to feed a lot of people!

Appetizers:

Strawberry Three Cheese Mold

Arugula and Fava-Bean Crostini

Honey-Spiced Almonds

Dinner:

Orzo with Artichokes and Pine Nuts

Asparagus, Peas, and Basil (Piselli con Asparagi e Basilico)

Tuscan Beans in Summery Tomato Ragù

Herb-Roasted Pork Loin

Indonesian Lamb Satay

Oh, shoot, I just accidentally deleted the photo and it was such a nice photo! I finally found all of the ingredients for this which took almost a week in itself. Star anise. Good, not too expensive, lamb (TJ's!). Lemongrass. And then when I started actually making it, I couldn't find the damn lemongrass. Oh well, not essential I guess. I subbed in some lemon zest. The lamb was really, really good. It was super tender and the marinade was really nice. I cut the pieces thinner than the recipe called for pretty much on accident but just cooked it for less time and they came out fine. It definitely needed a big side dish though because it wasn't that much food. Especially for Anshul. I made some spicy rice noodles to go with it, stir fried with bok choy, carrots, red pepper and a few edamame. I made up the sauce myself, taking hints from a few Indonesian noodle recipes. Some garlic and ginger at the beginning, then a sauce with 4 tbs soy sauce, 1 tbs honey, 1 tbs sambal oelek, and I think there was one more thing but I can't remember what. It was really spicy - a little too spicy for my taste, but Anshul liked it. When mixed with the peanut sauce, it was delish. The peanut sauce overall wasn't very memorable and I think there are probably better recipes out there. It was fine, just not fantastic. Anshul was a very happy hubby at the end - what could be better in life than lamb AND spicy noodles? Except maybe Kashmiri food, but his mom will be here soon to make that. I liked it a lot, though don't think it will be a regular - the lamb was really tasty but took a while to cut into strips for not that much meet.