Orange Braised Carrots and Parsnips

These (from Foolproof) were a lovely addition to Easter dinner. I doubled the recipe for 15 people, and we had just a little bit left over. Not bad, considering that half of our guests were under the age of 10. The freshly squeezed orange juice complimented the sweetness of the vegetables, but there was enough fresh thyme and crushed red pepper to keep them from being too cloyingly sweet.

Completed/remaining:  424/262

Rack of Lamb, Celery Root Remoulade, and Spinach with Feta

This is not the first time I’ve tried to make the Rack of Lamb recipe (from Parties!). I once undercooked it, hoping that it would be rare to medium-rare, and it came out practically raw. Because the recipe calls for some resting time, I was afraid to put it back into the oven for fear that the bacteria had already multiplied. I have a strong fear of poisoning my family.  So, this time, it was a little overdone, but the seasonings of mustard, balsamic vinegar, and garlic made up for it, and it wasn’t dried out or anything.

The celery root remoulade (from Barefoot in Paris) was way too rich or salty or something. It was good in small doses, but I wouldn’t have wanted more than a few bites. It’s possible that I oversalted it, but I’m sure I didn’t use more than was listed in the recipe.

If the plate looks like it lacks color, well, it wasn’t planned that way. I had planned to serve these with spinach with pine nuts and feta (from Foolproof). Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the feta was moldy until I had dumped some of it on top of the spinach. Sad.

 

The cheese had a sell-by date a few weeks away, so I returned it for a refund. It was a real bummer because the spinach smelled so good cooking with the onions.

Completed/remaining:  419/267

Pan-Roasted Root Vegetables

This recipe, from Back to Basics, was surprisingly easy and really good. I always have this idea that root vegetables are going to take forever to cook, and that’s after pre-heating the oven. These kind of self-steam with some butter and salt, and they were just soft enough while keeping their flavor.

 

Completed/Remaining: 406/280

French Flageolets

I ordered some flageolets from amazon to make with the 4-hour lamb (for the second time making the lamb).

They were great, but I would definitely cook them longer than the recipe (from Foolproof) requires, and maybe just cook them for the same amount of time as the lamb.  At any rate, if you want to make white beans of any variety more exciting, Ina’s spot on in adding bacon and onions.  Well played, Ina.

 

Completed/Remaining: 402/284

Catching up: Post-Thanksgiving Redux

I can’t believe I didn’t take photos of the pumpkin pie or brussels sprouts on Thanksgiving (both from Foolproof), but I did manage to snap this of the “accidental” turkey. (No really, that’s what she calls it in Foolproof!)  The recipe was a bastardization of the new recipe in Foolproof and this recipe from a Cooking Light magazine several years ago.  The Foolproof recipe calls for starting the turkey in a 450 degree oven, and the Cooking Light recipe says 500 degrees (!!).  I used the 450 degree instruction, and turned it down after 30 minutes.  Despite the charred appearance, it was juicy and tender, and everyone raved about the results.  The cider brine makes the most delicious gravy I’ve ever made.

Another tradition of ours is to make the turkey a little bit in advance of dinner, and slice it up with some stock and kept warm in a counter-top oven/roaster.  The pressure is off for carving at the table, and you can start the stock while dinner is served.  Or, as has been the case for us, you can transport the turkey to another host’s home.

 

A word about organic, free-range turkeys:  I prefer them for a long list of reasons, but you should be aware that they are not bred for the same qualities that Americans love, namely a large amount of breast meat.  (Keep your jokes to yourselves, please, my mom is reading!)  If you have a crowd that prefers white meat, or you want leftovers for sandwiches, you may consider adding an additional turkey breast on the side.  (If you’re not going to make Ina’s, I love the turkey breast recipe from Cook’s Illustrated’s Slow Cooker Revolution, and it doesn’t require any oven space!)  In exchange for a little less meat on your bird, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting a local farmer, turning away from unnecessary antibiotics and hormones, and that the animal that provided your holiday life led a little bit more of an enjoyable and natural existence.  For more reading/watching on what has informed my views on turkey and other food decisions, I would highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (she even talks about turkey reproduction!), Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, and the movie Food, Inc.  Be warned that they will make you want to cook dinner for your family!

I’m afraid I’ve given the brussels sprouts with pancetta and balsamic the short shrift.  Don’t brussels sprouts often get overlooked?  These were not your mother’s frozen, gloppy, boiled sprouts.  They were crunchy and salty and tangy, and just wonderful.  I even caught some of the self-professed sprouts haters taking seconds.

Completed/Remaining:  396/290

Chicken & Wild Mushrooms, Crispy Roasted Kale

Both of these recipes came from Foolproof, and both are definitely making it into our regular meal rotation.  The chicken and mushrooms recipe is a lot like chicken marsala, but it uses sherry and white wine instead of marsala, and it’s finished in the oven.  Instead of cutting up a whole chicken, I used boneless skinless chicken thighs and reduced the cooking time.  I feel like chicken thighs are one of the great secrets of cooking on a budget.  They’re inexpensive, and they’re thinner than chicken breasts, so they don’t need to be pounded thin for a quick cooking time.  They contain more fat, but we also tend to eat a smaller portion than when I use a larger cut of chicken.

The chicken definitely requires a starch with low ego needs to sop up the juices.  It can’t be anything fancy like potato basil puree that would compete with the rich flavors of the wine and garlic in the sauce.  I chose plain orzo this time, but it could have easily been mashed potatoes or steamed brown rice (I’m partial to the frozen kind that can be microwaved in 3 minutes).  If I made this for guests, I would probably serve it “family style,” on a large platter with the chicken and sauce on a bed of the rice or pasta.

On the side, we had crispy roasted kale.  I’ve made this before, after hearing it mentioned in CSA circles for the last couple of years.  Until now, I’d made it as more of a snack – something salty to replace chips or pretzels.  We really enjoyed it as a side dish, and it was easy to make alongside the chicken in the oven.  I bought a huge bag of organic baby kale at Costco, so I have the feeling we’ll be making this again (and again and again) over the next week or so.

Completed/Remaining:  391/295

4-Hour Lamb and Tuscan White Beans

Add this meal to the general theme I’ve had going on here for a while:  easy enough for a weeknight, but special enough for guests.  See also:  easy (or even essential) to make ahead of time.  The nature of my job (teaching piano lessons in the afternoon and early evening) and family life (young kids who eat relatively early) is such that I don’t have the immediate time before dinner to throw something together.  But, I do have some time in the early afternoon, when my oldest son is either at preschool or having some down time, and my toddler is having a nap, where I can devote a little time to putting dinner together.  That’s a luxury I don’t take for granted.  Enter:  the 4-hour leg of lamb (from Foolproof).  We used a boneless leg of lamb (from Costco), and I wouldn’t say that the flavor or the texture suffered any.  I wanted to make the accompanying recipe for flageolets (French white beans), but I didn’t think far enough ahead to seek out any fancy beans, so I used plain Great Northern beans instead for Tuscan White Beans (from How Easy is That).

To me, lamb is special.  We had it on holidays, and I think that made us kind of weird in my small Midwestern hometown.  My dad was a grocer, and he remembers selling very little lamb in his 4+ decades in the industry.  My mom, however, grew up on the East Coast, where lamb was standard holiday fare.  During my childhood, we befriended an older gentleman who was also from the East Coast – from New York.  He was an Episcopal priest, and an old crusty bachelor who had never married and never had children.  His parents were from England and Scotland, and he spoke with the generic British Isles accent that many children of the 1920s with immigrant parents seem to have adopted, at least in my imagination.  He became a surrogate grandparent for us, spending most weekends and all holidays with us.  Over the years, he just became a fixture at our dining room table, and then in a wingback chair by the fireplace.  When I smell lamb cooking in the oven, I think of him.  When this was cooking, I can’t tell you how many times I said, “Oh my God.  The whole house smells like David.  We need some gin.”  David stories, and David-isms have become such a part of our family vocabulary that I can’t imagine our family history without him in the center of it.  He would have loved this meal, and the celebratory air around it.  He doubtless would have had a lot of commentary about it, and the French, and probably a story about Prohibition and the Great War to go with it.

Completed/Remaining:  386/300

Israeli Couscous and Tuna Salad

This is a quintessential Ina pasta salad:  lemon juice, lemon zest, vegetables, some kind of protein, all mixed up and set aside for the flavors to set for a few hours.  And hey, why not go with a formula that works?  I’d never made anything with Israeli couscous before, which is also sold as pearl couscous.  I liked it, but would also consider substituting quinoa or bulgur for a more nutritious substitute.  My friends and family won’t be surprised that I omitted the capers and olives, and I could have thrown in some feta to make up for the lack of saltiness/brineyness that those ingredients would have offered.  Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and/or fresh herbs would have been good additions, too.  This is one of the few recipes from Foolproof that was pre-published as part of a Washington Post review.  Man, I miss getting home delivery of the Washington Post.

This was a great side for a soup and salad night, or a good make-ahead recipe for weekday lunches.

Completed/Remaining:  382/304

Dijon Chicken, Sweet Potato Puree, and Green Beans Gremolata

Here’s the thing about a new Barefoot Contessa cookbook.  Everything is new and different, and you can crank out three new recipes in one meal because you haven’t been avoiding any of them for their expensive or weird ingredients.  The vegetables here were big winners.  The sweet potato puree was sweet and creamy without being overly sweet.  The creaminess came naturally – a stick and a half of butter, plus half and half.  Ooof.  But instead of the brown sugar or marshmallows that adorn way too many sweet potato dishes, this just had freshly squeezed orange juice and orange zest to brighten it up, and a dash of cayenne and freshly ground black pepper for a little kick.  The addition of orange juice was a little unexpected, but it really worked.  Back when I was first discovering sweet potatoes (we didn’t eat them when I was growing up, because of the aforementioned marshmallows in all the recipes my mom encountered), I found a Rachael Ray recipe for sweet potatoes that included a ripe banana.  She swore up and down (and enthusiastically so) that our guests would think, “Wow!  There’s something there, but I’m not quite sure what it is.”  She was wrong.  I think she just had an overripe banana to use up when she was throwing things together.  I think it was then that I realized that not all celebrity chefs are created equal.  I will take orange juice and cayenne over a banana any day.  These sweet potatoes were easy and accessible enough for a weeknight, but still worthy of the Thanksgiving dinner table.

The green beans were similar – the gremolata mixture makes this holiday-worthy, but it takes just a few minutes to mix up – in the same amount of time it takes to steam the beans.  I don’t know what “gremolata” means, but I think it comes from the Latin for “Sweet Jehovah, I didn’t know that green beans could taste like this,” and it consists of pine nuts, fresh parsley, lemon zest, olive oil, garlic, and parmesan.  Where was this recipe during green bean season?!

The chicken was good, but not as praise-worthy as the vegetables in this meal.  It was kind of a combination of lemon thyme chicken and oven-fried chicken.  Instead of egg to make the breading stick to the chicken pieces, the recipe calls for a combination of dijon mustard and white wine.  In theory, I like this idea – more flavor, and a nice substitute for when you’re running low on eggs.  But in practice, the mixture kind of crumbled off.  And with almost all Barefoot Contessa chicken recipes, the chicken was still really pink when the suggested time was up.  I timed the rest of the dinner around the chicken, and I ended up photographing the chicken separately because it needed another 10-15 minutes to cook before serving it.  (She gets kind of preachy about this in Foolproof, by the way.  ”If one of my recipes didn’t work for you, it must be because you did something really, really wrong.”  Either that, Ina, or you like raw chicken.)  I, obviously, am not immune to substitutions or throwing caution to the wind when it comes to specific measurements, but this time I was really careful to follow the directions precisely, and the chicken was not previously frozen, so that should not have affected the cooking time.  I think I do need to invest in an oven thermometer, but until then, it seems that I just need to factor in some extra time when it comes to her poultry recipes.  I thought the kids would be all over this, but they refused to touch it.  It’s getting harder and harder to sell me on chicken recipes to cook at home, when this chicken cost over $8 and rotisserie chickens (which the kids devour) are $5/each at Costco and on certain grocery store sale days.  But this was worth a try.  I still wouldn’t say that it was bad, but maybe not worth the effort.

(All recipes from Foolproof.)

Completed/Remaining:  378/308

Roasted Pear & Apple Sauce

Yes, I desecrated perfectly good apples to combine them with pears in this sauce (from How Easy is That?).  No, I don’t particularly want to talk about it.

 

But I will admit that it made the house smell pretty fantastic.

Completed/Remaining:  364/234