Dinners

I made the Fried Eggplant out of my new cookbook "Think Like a Chef" and I serves it with zucchini, tomatoes and onion. It was good.

The next night I made my favorite way of eating eggplant with Puttinesco Sauce and fresh mozzarella cheese.

Today I made his roasted chicken. It was very moist. The big thing I've leaned from him so far is to keep the heat down.

The next thing I want to try is a braised short ribs.

Slow Cooking-Pan Roasted Salmon with Dijon Caper Sauce

I got a new cookbook for Christmas, Think Like a Chef by Tom Collichio head judge of Top Chef on Bravo. So his first chapter talks about how he like to roast things. He believe slow and gentle is the best approach as apposed to hot, hot temps. I decided to try it on my salmon. He adds butter and bastes the food as it roasts and so that is what I did with my salmon. Being I had all this nice butter in the pan I decided to made a pan sauce and threw in capers and a little lemon juice to cook with the fish and after the fish came out of the pan I added the Dijon. I also made a Greek salad which has a lemon dressing so it was a nice combo.

To pan roast you add some oil to your heated pan, keeping the heat low. I started out with medium and it was too hot so I turned it down to low. You will have to experiment. Turn midway through the cooking and add butter to baste as it finishes cooking. His book has more specific instructions. I'm just trying to give you what I did. Remove fish and make sauce if you wish and then pour sauce over fish.

Asparagus Soup

I followed this amazing recipe by the Pioneer Woman for Cauliflower Soup except I made it with asparagus and it was delicious. I think you could use this recipe for a lot of different veggies in place of the cauliflower. I want to try the cauliflower verion I just happened to have asparagus I needed to use. This recipe is a little differnt than other cream soup recipes I tried and it's very easy.

Review of Indian Chicken Dinner

Last night I made the I Ain't Chicken Chicken The Indian flavors were pretty subtle, but what I really like was her method of baking chicken. I can see using this method with different flavor profiles. You could use herbed butter, garlic, lemon, whatever you like. It makes a nice flavored chicken and not dry. It was very good.

I also made the Ugly Duckling Salad The pistachio dressing was very interesting. I even used the Siracha sauce, but only a tiny bit. It gave a nice spice, but it wasn't too much. I wasn't able to get the celery root, so I just left it out. I would make this salad again and the dressing.

Linda

Aarti Party-American Food with an Indian Twist

Did any of you watch "The Next Food Network Star" this year. I was excited about the winner Aarti Sequeira because her idea for her show was to bring East Indian flavors to regular recipes. I've wanted to explore Indian food but it tends to be very starchy and hot, so I'm hoping I'll learn something from her about Indian spices and ingredients. Today she made a bread pudding that had coconut milk in the custard and baked chicken with flavored butter with coriander and orange under the skin. She also made a spinach salad with apple and celery root and a dressing that had pistachio nuts ground up in it. I thought these were all ideas I would like to try. Her Food Network page is here.

Linda

Plum Jam with Agava and Stevia

I love this recipe from Elana's Pantry. I left out the arrowroot because it seemed thick enough for me. Also I didn't really taste the vanilla so next time I would just leave it out or open the bean and scrape out the seed and add them to the jam. I don't have a high speed blender, but just used my stick blender. She said this lasts a couple of weeks in the frig and I can't eat it that fast so I put part of it in the freezer. I want to use this same recipe and make apricot jam.

My dd is having a give away for a stevia that has a good taste to it. Check it out here.

Linda

Dehydrating Summer Fruits and Veggies

I borrowed my dd's dehydrator and dried some strawberries. I wanted to try drying some fruit this year. I've been looking at dehydrators and trying to decide if I should get an expensive one or a cheap one. After trying my dd's (hers is 1000 watts) I think it worth paying a little more, but for now I may just borrow hers.

I also want to dry some veggies. Dehydrated foods are a good thing to have in your emergency supplies. So I'm looking for ideas of what veggies would be good to dry. My dd likes to do red peppers. I think as things are in season I will try them and see how they do.

Linda