Leftovers and Leeks

I didn't feel like going to the store for ingredients this evening, so I looked in my fridge for something I could piece together. I had leftover chicken from last week's Brunoise dish, and I also had a really pretty bunch of leeks from the farmers market that I needed to use before they went bad. My first thought was of a really delicious recipe for braised leeks with thyme and garlic, from Jamie's Kitchen, by Jamie Oliver. When I flipped to the page, however, I noticed a note at the bottom, directing the reader to add a little cream, a handful of parmesan cheese, and toss with pasta for a yummy main course.

Okay, so left over chicken, with a side of spinach fettuccine mixed with this leek recipe! Sounds like a plan to me! I cut the leeks, and sauteed them with some butter, garlic, and thyme, before adding some chicken broth and wine. The whole pot went into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. If you have large leeks, go for more like half an hour, but the leeks that I had were on the smaller side, and I didn't want to overcook them. Meanwhile, I put a pot of water on to boil for the fettuccine. 

Once the leeks were done, and the pasta was cooked, I mixed the two, along with a touch of cream and a nice, healthy handful of grated parmesan. I seasoned to taste and voila! A really tasty pasta dish that paired really nicely with my already-prepared chicken breasts. If you can recall, there were even leeks in the chicken dish, so the flavors overlapped and tasted really nice together! And, I got to finish off the bottle of wine that I was using to cook with, too! That's a win-win for a Monday, if you ask me!

A Minestrone for Spring

Yesterday, we were in Vermont for a quick visit with Matt's mom, and we woke up to what I can only describe as a snowstorm. There was an inch of snow on the ground, it was coming down in buckets, and it hardly felt like the end of April! We drove back through rain and snow to warmer temperatures here in Boston, and thankfully, today was short-sleeve and flip-flop weather! What a difference 24 hours makes, huh?

Last night, it was so dreary and blah. It was definitely a soup and sandwich kind of evening, so I started cooking early in the afternoon...this soup takes a LOT of prep work, and minimal cooking time.

From Jamie's Kitchen, Jamie Oliver creates a delicious minestrone for the spring season. Using vegetables readily available during this time of year can make a meal seem even more comforting. It just seems...right. I made some basil pesto (for the end of the process), and gathered some chicken stock, diced fennel, sliced asparagus, cauliflower florets, diced zucchini, blanched and diced plum tomatoes, olive oil, sliced garlic cloves, chopped scallions, sliced green beans, shelled fava beans, broken spaghetti noodles, salt, pepper, basil and chives. I left out peas and yellow beans - and i'll tell you why - I couldn't find yellow beans and I was already shelling fava beans, so I chose to just stick with those. Check out the mise en place on this one!

It took a long time to cut, dice, chop, slice and shell all these veggies! I totally cleared out a nice little alcove in my fridge though - that's a lot of vegetables!

Once we were ready to start cooking, I brought a pot of stock to a boil. Meanwhile, I added about 5 tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot. I heated the oil until warm and then added the sliced garlic cloves, diced fennel, and sliced scallions, and gently fried them without browning for about 15 minutes.

While that was cooking, I started to gather the ingredients for my sandwich...Chicken and Mango with Cilantro-Pesto, from the Williams Sonoma Panini Cookbook. While I didn't take pictures of the process, I will say that the recipe was quite easy...and delicious! I'll make it again so I can document it for you guys sometime soon.

Once the 15 minutes were up, I added all of my veggies (asparagus, cauliflower, zucchini, fava beans, green beans, tomatoes) along with some broken up spaghetti noodles and my boiling chicken stock. Stir everything together, and depending on how liquid-y you like your soup, add some more stock accordingly. I added an extra cup of stock because it didn't look soup-y enough for my taste, but if you love a REALLY chunky soup, there's no need!

I brought it all to a boil and allowed it to cook for about 10 minutes more. Meanwhile, I assembled and pressed my panini sandwiches.

When plating, I scooped some soup into each bowl and then topped them with a hefty tablespoon of pesto. I sprinkled some chopped basil and chives on top and then put a panini on each plate. The pesto packs a real punch of flavor into each spoonful of the soup...I'm so happy I've got leftovers for lunches this week! :)

Running on Empty

Well, I'm running low on pretty much everything in my kitchen. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, thank goodness, so everything will be restored soon! I haven't cooked in a few days because of this so I'm jonesin' for some new ingredients. We've either eaten leftovers or ordered out the past few nights so I took the opportunity to update the menu on the site this evening.

from Flickr - by sparnie808

The current menu is set to commence this weekend, so I'm looking forward to a few weeks of yummy Italian fare. The recipes also make pretty large amounts of food, so I'm going to have some delicious leftovers for lunches while I'm at work the next few weeks. I love coming back from the gym, knowing there's a home-cooked delicious something-or-other, waiting to fill me up after a hard workout. It's very comforting to take a container out of the fridge, heat it up and have a little taste of home while sitting in your cube!

from Flickr - by Feb12

I think this menu is timed perfectly for the weird winter/spring weather out there - a little bit refreshing, a little bit comforting and warming. Jamie Oliver's recipes always make for such feel-good, rustic dishes. So, check out the current menu, and I'll see ya back here with something Italian very, very soon!

Nobody eat the beef! The beef has gone bad!

Here I am, on my couch, alone on a Tuesday evening. It's just me, my laptop, a Law and Order: SVU rerun and a sushi takeout menu. I know, there's one more thing on my menu, but when I took the steak out of the fridge, I realized that it had frozen and then defrosted into a sickly grayish color that was just about the opposite of appetizing...it's probably not a good idea to eat it. Matt (my husband) is at dinner with some co-workers and I'm on my own here. I tossed the steak because...well, ew. Luckily, it was on super sale, and I had only purchased enough for 2 people exactly, so I only lost about 3 bucks. Maybe I can get to the store to pick up a replacement before the end of the week. Otherwise, we'll just chalk that up to fate and scratch the recipe from the old list, because tonight...tonight is menu-planning night!

Dinner's here!

We've decided that our new grocery shopping day is Friday night. H-Mart is relatively uncrowded on Friday nights - the only time I've ever seen it less than packed! They have a great food court inside, full of wonderful Asian delicacies so we catch dinner there and then do our shopping! I have gym classes on both Wednesday and Thursday nights after work so today's a better time than ever to get this list banged out.


Yesterday I asked you, my lovely faithful readers, what you wanted me to cook over the next few weeks. Alas, only one lonely reader responded. Thank you, Rachel, for suggesting Italian fare. The suggestion of such a vast cuisine couldn't have come at a better time, because today I came home to a delivery: Jamie's Italy by Jamie Oliver! I spoke to Rachel a bit more in depth about what she wanted to learn most about Italian cuisine. She mentioned specifically that she wanted to know how to make lasagna. What a great lesson! But I've decided, because Italian was the only suggestion I received, and because I always get obsessed with new cookbooks, that I will make this menu entirely from Jamie's Italy!

Once we've completed cooking all the recipes I choose for the menu, we'll have a better understanding of some of Italy's greatest dishes, provided of course, with Jamie's special twists. For any of you who decide to purchase the cookbook and follow me through this Italian journey, I'll provide the page numbers of each recipe I choose to use, and of course, how-to pictures!

Who's excited!?

Also, if you are now inspired to send recommendations for menus, I'm always open to them. I'll make a running list and work from it for future menus, so send me your ideas, your questions, and your recommendations!

The Early Bird Special

My husband has his weekly hockey game this evening, which translates to an early dinner in our household. I started to prep around 4pm today, and before 5pm we were sitting down to a lovely meal! The new menu started today, and I chose to begin with the Steamed Sea Bass, Green Beans with a White Wine, Vanilla, Cream and Garlic Sauce from Jamie's Kitchen by Jamie Oliver. Except, instead of sea bass, I chose to purchase cod steaks at the grocery store...they were a bit more affordable, and looked really nice and buttery. This meant altering the cooking times a little bit but that's okay. This recipe doesn't call for a ton of ingredients so my mise en place didn't take very long at all!

So, here we have 2 vanilla beans, some lemon zest, olive oil, a couple of cod steaks, salt and pepper, a clove of garlic, some green beans, white wine (measured by the glass - gotta love Jamie), a little heavy cream and the leaves from a celery heart, for garnish. Not too much to prep at all!

I made a marinade for the cod steaks, using the lemon zest, one of the vanilla beans seeds, and the olive oil. Vanilla beans are an interesting ingredient - I slit open the leathery skin and scraped out the insides, which look like a black blob when grouped together but when mixed with an oil or liquid, the seeds disperse and you can see how small each one really is. They are like little flecks of deliciousness. I rubbed this mixture all over the cod.

Meanwhile, my large pot of salted water was coming to a boil on the stove, and once it got there, I threw the garlic clove into the water for the first three minutes. On another burner, I had the second vanilla bean's insides, plus both pods steeping in some white wine that I left to reduce. We've definitely got some multi-tasking goin' on here!

Look at all the little flecks of deliciousness!

Once the garlic had been in the boiling water for three minutes, I placed my cod steaks in a steamer and placed them on top of the boiling water. The recipe actually calls for throwing the green beans in the water at this time too, but since my cod steaks were definitely thicker than a fillet of sea bass, I added 3 minutes to the cook time. I put 8 minutes on the timer, and when it counted down to 5, that's when I added the green beans!

While the cod steamed and the green beans cooked, I added the cream to my reduced wine and vanilla beans, and allowed it to heat through. I didn't want the cream to come to a full boil and burn, but I allowed it to get pretty hot and begin to reduce. The recipe said to continue reducing until it coated the back of a spoon nicely, and that's just what I did. I also added a touch of vanilla extract to the sauce...the recipe didn't call for it, but I think my vanilla beans might have been a little old and lost a bit of their flavor, because I wasn't getting the scent I wanted ...so I improvised!

When the timer dinged, I pulled the steamer off of my pot, drained the green beans, and transferred the garlic clove to the sauce and mashed it up a bit in there. I poured the sauce into a small food processor just to blend the garlic in and get a touch of foaminess to the cream. I bunched the green beans on the plate and placed the cod steak on top of that. I drizzled on a generous amount of sauce and then garnished the plate with the celery heart leaves.

Isn't that pretty!? It was a very mild, refreshing dish. There wasn't a lot of salt or pepper in it, but yet it had a ton of flavor. The vanilla beans and lemon zest really added a lovely fresh scent which also transferred to the palate! This dish made me think of spring...something I wish would hurry up and get here!