Delicious days: week 1

Delicious and simple

Sunday

Pasta

Quick polenta. Don't forget salt. Stir in smoked mozzarella at the end.
Roasted tomatoes -- little red tomatoes and chopped garlic, olive oil, salt. 425° until crinkled. Add chopped fresh basil.

Also made pesto. Chopped basil leaves tiny. Chopped garlic cloves. Mixed together with olive oil and salt. Next time might try mortar and pestle... 

I froze this in ice cube tray.

Monday

Chicken

chicken curry 

I planned to marinate chicken in tandoori spices, but decided to go with the simpler chicken curry recipe from NYTimes cooking app. I used a bit more curry powder than called for, also didn’t use tomatoes but added frozen chopped spinach instead. It’s good and worth jazzing up a bit, but next time I’ll: 

*marinate the chicken pieces in tandoori spices mixed with a cup of yogurt

*Sauté some garlic with the onions. 

* cook the chicken BEFORE adding  coconut milk

*add some other vegetables

*top with herbs, as suggested. 

Good with brown rice 

Tuesday 

kale

Surprise! this was delicious. But I like kale. I almost thought it would be my entire dinner, but then I fried a little sliced chicken sausage and leftover polenta in my iron skillet. That was enough.

Kale
Heat up 1/4 C. olive oil in hot skillet. Add 3 cloves garlic. Cook one minute or until light brown. Add kale, ribs removed and coarsely chopped, and chicken broth. Cook. Stir in red wine vinegar. Salt to taste. Cook a little more, until not crisp.

Wednesday

Sopa de calabaza*

The hard part is peeling a pumpkin. But it's worth the trouble.  Soup alone wasn't quite enough, so I finished with chocolate and roasted almonds. I mean I ate them later, but writing this now makes me think almonds might be good with the soup. Chocolate too!

Place in soup pot:
1 to 1 1/2 pounds pie pumpkin, peeled and chopped
chopped up celery, carrot, and onion( I use the kind you buy pre-chopped at Trader Joe's)
A box or can of chopped tomatoes, either large or small -- depends on how tomato-y you want the soup
garlic, parsley, bay leaf,
chicken broth and water,  to make 5 cups
3 ounces white wine
1 T. honey
1 T. cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste

Cook until pumpkin is soft.
Mash or blend with immersion blender.
Add 1 cup heavy cream.

*based on a recipe from Goya products

Thursday

Eat out

Friday

Eat out

Saturday

Salmon

Thaw frozen salmon. (I used Sockeye.)
Rub with olive oil, seasoned salt, and pepper if you want. Put on parchment paper. Bake at 450° about 12 minutes per inch of thickness,
Recipe says make a sauce: Mix 3 T. olive oil with herbs to equal 1 T., and 1 T. lemon juice and some lemon zest. pour sauce n top of fish and tent it with foil and let it rest 5 minutes.
Also made brown rice (Trader Joe's frozen)
and salad of mixed greens with olive oil, vinegar and mustard.

Crust for Thanksgiving pies

Pie crust is tricky. That's what Mom said. And a flaky crust is the mark of a good cook. She said that too. I've used lots of recipes, including Mom's, and have to admit mine is not always as flaky as I'd like. My current favorite recipe is from Bon Appetit. I love that it says to work the dough with your hands! You could also use a food processor or a fork, I guess.

The Flakiest, Butteriest Crust

1 cup + 2 T. chilled unsalted butter
2 1/4 C. flour
1 T. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 T. apple cider vinegar
3 T. water

1. Cut butter into 1" pieces. Chill it while you measure the dry ingredients.
2. Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a big bowl. I use that bowl you see in the photo above.
3. Add the butter and toss it until it's coated with flour. Then use your fingers and palms to work the butter into small, irregular pieces. This is fun. Stop before the butter gets warm. You should still see some pieces of butter.
4. Mix the vinegar with the ice water.
5. Drizzle the liquid over the flour-butter mixture. Mix it up quickly with your hands so the dough kind of sticks together. It will still seem pretty dry.
6. Turn the dough onto a piece of waxed paper (no extra flour needed) and knead it a few times. Don't let the butter get all mixed in. The idea is to keep some butter in discreet pieces.
7. Push the dough down and cut it in half. Press each half down to about an inch high, and wrap the two pieces in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator 1 hour to 3 days. (OK, I'm doing a few more than three! Let's see -- Thanksgiving's four days from tomorrow. In a day or two I'll:
8. Roll it out and fit into pie pan.
9. Blind bake or fill and bake according to recipe.

I'll be making this pumpkin pie Thursday morning.  You could do worse!

Best lemon pie

I was messing around in the freezer and found a crumbled graham cracker pie crust, a cup of Meyer lemon juice and a bag of puffs of sweetened whipped cream not eaten with Thanksgiving's pumpkin pie. I decided to marry this combo into something delightful and fumbled my way into a recipe for lemon curd in Baking Illustrated (p. 394), a gift from Rachel. You can see it looks humble, but it tasted heavenly -- I'd choose it over Key Lime Pie any day. Just put the Lemon Curd into a pre-baked graham cracker crust and top with sweetened whipped cream, then chill it. You could even double the lemon curd to make a deeper pie. (Who thought up that terrible name: Curd?)

Lemon Curd

1/3 C. lemon juice
2 large eggs and one large egg yolk
1/2 C. sugar
2 T. cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 T. heavy cream
1/4 t. vanilla
pinch of salt

Heat the lemon juice until hot but not boiling. (I used a glass measuring cup in the microwave.) Whisk eggs and yolk in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in the sugar. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the hot lemon juice into the eggs, then pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until 170° and thick enough to cling to the spoon (about 3 minutes). Remove from heat, stir in butter until it is incorporated; add cream, vanilla, and salt.

Pumpkin Pie

This year I discovered heavenly little pumpkins with green and white stripes. But I'm making our Thanksgiving pie from a can. I remember copying this recipe from a magazine in the Miami Shores library a long time ago. It remains delicious.

Pumpkin Pie

2 C. pumpkin (I use a 15 oz. can -- a little less than 2 C.)
3/4 C. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ginger
1/2 t. nutmeg (or more -- preferably fresh-grated)
3 eggs
1/2 C milk
1/4 C. bourbon (or more milk)
1 t. vanilla if you don't use bourbon
3/4 C. whipping cream.

Make pastry. Line a 9-inch pie pan with it. Make the ridges along the sides high and strong.
Put a thin layer of apricot jam n the bottom as a glaze. Mix all the above ingredients. (I use a mixer, but not necessary.) Fill the pie crust. I put the pie pan on a foil-lined cookie sheet because this fills the pie pan to the top and usually drips some. Bake 15 minutes at 425° and then 30-40 min. at 350°. Cool the pie.

Topping

Melt 3 T. butter in a small saucepan. Add  2/3 C. brown sugar, 1 T. whipping cream, and 1/8 t. salt. Cook it gently until the sugar melts and a tiny bit after that.  Spread it on the cooled pie. Put foil over the pastry edges so they don't burn, and broil until the topping bubbles.