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Mmmmm food makes it warmer

What could be better to make for dinner when a bunch of women get together to watch Stargate: Atlantis than lemon chicken? Nothing. But having cookies and mashed potatoes on the side is a big plus.

I have had chicken stock AND duck stock boiling away all weekend. Actually, they are both turned off and cooling down now so I can put them up, but – YAY – so much humidity that it is condensing on my walls and fogging up my windows.

And for breakfast today I had an egg white omelet full of cream cheese and bacon (because I’ve been thinking about that ever since Traveller mentioned it. And, no, I am not dieting – I just keep giving all my good yolks to the feral cat.

Mmmm… I may be dressed, but I am all warm and cozy in my bed, cuddling my cat, with a belly fully of tasty hot food.

Later there shall be bridge playing.

Carrot and Ginger Soup & Mediterranean Lemon Chicken

I made two tasty things this weekend, and I don’t think I have posted these recipes before. Both were inspired by fairly different dishes at restaurants.

Carrot and Ginger Soup
based on the Carrot and Ginger Soup at the Hershey Hotel buffet lunch… their soup was smooth and creamy and the sort of thing where the directions tell you after cooking to put everything through a processor and strain it. I so don’t understand why people think it is such a good idea to transfer boiling hot soup through several different containers and processes, so this one all went into a Cuisinart (because the kitchen I was using had one!) before being added to the soup.

Step 1: Soak a cube of Knorr’s vegetable bouillon in 2 cups of hot water. (Or have real stock available, but we didn’t at the time.)

Step 2: Melt butter in stockpot (minimum of 2oz, but feel free to add a lot more). Chop 2 medium onions in Cuisinart and 1 clove of garlic (only 1 because I don’t think the original soup had any, but I found myself unable to make savoury food without any garlic). Dump onions into pot and rinse the Cuisinart.

Step 3: Peel carrots (7? A bagful? A bunch o’carrots) and put them in the processor (ETA: in retrospect, it would be better to precess the carrots after. There were tiny grainy bits (that weren’t a bit deal but could be improved) in the final product). Peel ginger (1.5-2 inches), slice it against the grain to break up the fibers, and put that in the processor. Dump into the pot. Stir around to just fry it all in fat a bit and then add the stock/bouillon.

Step 4: peel half a normal-sized sweet potato (or one small one), put it in the processor, and then add it to the soup for smoothness. Peel, process, and add one apple, too.

Step 5: Let cook covered until there is no resistance on your tongue.

Step 6: Reduce heat, and finish off with whole milk and/or cream until it looks sexy to you.

~*~

Mediterranean Lemon Chicken
inspired by those Moroccan nine-course dinner places with belly dancers… usually one course is really sexy chicken, and this is the closest I can get to the flavour.

Ingredients
Garlic – as much as will – a minimum of 3 pods, but one of those large jars of peeled garlic cloves will be very useful here
3-5 lemons
chicken parts
white wine
(olive oil)
8-10 olives (not in vinegar, not in cans, and not in jars either – go somewhere with a fancy olive bar and look for wrinkly black olives in oil that smell dark and musky – they should add a nice flavour to the chicken without making it olivey)
optional fresh herbs (rosemary works well, and you only get to pick one herb and stick with it for the dish)

Directions
Choose a casserole dish that will fit your chicken pieces laid out flat – and deep enough to hold juices.

Cover the bottom of the casserole dish with peeled garlic cloves. No, that’s not enough, I said *cover* the bottom – 1 solid layer.

Put chicken in dish. If you are using both dark and white meat, but the white meat to the center and the dark meat around the outside (and, I have a theory that if you are doing both, the dark meat should be pulled from the fridge and the breasts from the freezer, but I haven’t tested that theory yet).

Scatter olives evenly among the meat.

Slice the lemons into slices of any thickness, leaving the ends chunky. cover the surface with lemon slices and put the ends around the edges of the dish.

If you want, take some herbs, still on the stems, and just lay them over the chicken and tuck them under some of the lemon slices.

Add a little white wine to give it some juice as it starts cooking, but no more than will cover the layer of garlic.

If your meat is predominantly white meat, then drizzle some olive oil over the top as well.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake until it is cooked. If you have all thighs, then you might need to check it halfway through and see how the level of liquid is doing… you might need to drain some. After it is cooked though, uncover it, and let it go a few more minutes to get some color.

Furthermore, these dishes have been given the AprilKat seal of approval.

Gluten free Hors d’oeuvres

I think these were all based on recipes from Finger Food by Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen, but I have a cat lying on my arms, so I’m not getting up to check.

Smoked Salmon Nests on Wild Rice Pancakes

Ingredients:
8oz smoked salmon
3-4T creamed horseradish sauce
fresh chives or dill to garnish

1/2c rice flour
salt & white pepper
1 egg lightly beaten
1/4c milk
1 1/3c cooked wild rice (we’ll probably use red rice instead)
2T chopped chives or dill
vegetable oil for frying

Mix up patties, adding the rice after everything else is smooth. Fry. Top with yumminess.

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Straw Potato Cakes with Caramelized Apple

Ingredients
1T butter
1-2 eating apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1t lemon juice
2t sugar
pinch cinnamon
1/4c thick sour cream

oil for frying
1/2 small onion, finely chopped or grated
2 baking sweet potatoes
salt
finely ground black pepper
flat leaf parsley to garnish

cook apples in butter, lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon – set aside.

grate potatoes onto a towel and squeeze dry. Mix in a bowl with onions – season with salt & pepper. [Do other latkes recipes have something binding them together???] Drop Tabelspoonfuls into hot oil, and press flat while cooking.

top with apples and sour cream.

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Smoked Trout in Cucumber Cups

This is the recipe, but I think of it more as a guideline

Mix together in a big bowl:
1/2c cream cheese, softened
2 green onions, chopped
1-2T chopped fresh dill or parsley
1t horseradish sauce
8oz smoked trout fillets, flaked
2-4T heavy cream
salt
cayenne pepper to taste

Make cucumber cups. Fill them.

Eat.

~*~

These recipes below are not from the above-mentioned cookbook

Spinachy Cream Cheese Goodness on corn fritters

Mix together:
16 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons dill weed
8 ounces bacon — chopped
1 cup onion — chopped
1/2 package fresh spinach — chopped (Hah! Possibly frozen)
1 cup cheddar cheese — shredded

Corn Fritters

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Crab Dip Wot Does Not SuXXor … recipe found by [Ex – name redacted]

1 medium leek (white part only)
1 medium Vidalia or other sweet onion
1/2 cup drained canned artichoke hearts
1/2 cup thawed frozen chopped spinach
1 pound Brie
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup Riesling or other medium-dry white wine
2/3 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon leaves
1 pound fresh jumbo lump crab meat
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Tabasco, or to taste

Accompaniment: toasted thin baguette slices

Preheat oven to 425°F and lightly oil an 11-inch gratin or other shallow baking dish (about 6-cup).

Trim and finely chop leek. In a large bowl of water wash leek well and lift from water into a large sieve to drain. Finely chop onion. Rinse and finely chop artichoke hearts. Squeeze dry and finely chop spinach. Discard rind from Brie and cut into 1/4-inch pieces.

In a heavy skillet cook leek, onion, and garlic in oil over moderate heat, stirring, until pale golden and stir in artichoke hearts and spinach. Add wine and cook, stirring, 3 minutes. Add cream and simmer, stirring, 1 minute. Add Brie, stirring until it just begins to melt. Remove skillet from heat and stir herbs into mixture.

Pick over crab meat. In a large bowl stir together crab meat, mustard, Tabasco, and salt and pepper to taste and stir in cheese mixture. Spread mixture evenly in baking dish and bake in middle of oven 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.

from a list of grumpy things + salad

4. And I have food I need to cook before it goes bad, and meals I am aching to try, but I keep getting home around midnight and needing to wake up in the morning and I just don’t have time for food. I ate ramen on Tuesday. Okay, so it was really tasty ramen, but I have eggplant and a spicy stir fry sauce all going to waste. I have chilled chicken and salad mix going to waste. I have baby spinach. I have a cauliflower. I want to make spanikopita and pumpkin bread. Whah!

ETA: Oh, man – I just had a great salad. I used the salad mix I had from the farmers’ market (picking out the frisee (because how is that food?) and the largest chunks of bitter cabbage and adding spinach, YAY!). I had enough to need a BIG bowl. Then I microwaved the grilled chicken, cut it up, and added that. I sliced a purple onion, shredded some cumin gouda, and crumbled bacon on top. Then I dropped some mustard and garlic into the bacon fat, dropped in a pinch of brown sugar, and swirled in some balsamic vinegar and some red wine… and called it salad dressing. So good!

ETAA: All food successfully eaten.

pondering pumpkin bread (plus bonus soup)

I am feeling adventurous – I like cooking, but am kinda amateur at the baking.

So

Pumpkin Bread…

from real pumpkins or canned ones?

discuss.

ETA: I guess I’ll have to wait until I get home to research recipes. Neither allrecipes.com or epicurious.com have an old fashioned pumpkin bread recipe that includes both real butter and brown sugar. Everything is trying to be different – less fat, more fiber, less spice, less pumpkin flavour (!! Why you makin pumpkin bread, then?). Probably my red checked cookbook will have the right recipe.

Why, no, I don’t get to eat lunch for another 40 minutes 10 minutes

~*~

For actual food porn content – I made a lovely soup this week.

I thawed out my remaining cubes of chicken stock (so I can make more soon! because I’ve started to think that an autumn without making stock is wasted).

Added an acorn squash. By which I mean that I washed the outside, cut of the top and tip, split it in half, and stuck it open side down into the stock and let it cook until mushy… and then scooped out the inside with a spoon.

I threw in a frozen pork chop because I figured there should be some meat. After it cooked, I trimmed and diced it.

At this point I realised that 1 squash would not be enough, so I turned off the pot and let it sit overnight.

The next day, I bought a second squash and two sweet potatoes. Rinse. Repeat. First the squash, and then I decided the soup could still be thicker, so I cooked the potatoes in the microwave and then mushed them into the soup.

Meanwhile, I melted some butter and sauteed some onion, cumin, and a winesap apple…. when golden and mushy, I added that to the soup.

In went a bay leaf, a dash of worcestershire sauce, and tiny bit of nutmeg.

Cooking. cooking. cooking. (more like 20 minutes worth)

Then I drained a can of black beans… because apparently I live in a crazy land where I can’t find dried black beans (ghetto mart would have had some before they closed, but it hasn’t reopened yet – harrumph). Beans get dumped in. And the soup cooks for the length of an episode of Spooks.

Then eating… and the realisation that I forgot to add salt and pepper… and that it’d be good with a dollop of sour cream in the middle.

Second (third?) day. Soup! With salt and pepper. And sour cream seasoned with more cumin and a smidgeon of horseradish. Very tasty!

The soup was a bit gloppy and would have benefited from a run through a food processor or blender, but I don’t believe in doing that to the poor soups. And it was quite tasty.

Really. I’ve had two other people eat this soup, and both liked it. Or said they did. But there were second helpings involved. And I’m perfectly willing to eat soup again tonight for dinner. Yum!