Couscous

Tonight we recycled more leftovers (my mother in law sent us carrots and ham). I am rather pleased with this one. 

We made a big pile of couscous.

I boiled 3 cups water with about two tablespoons of raj el hanout. When the water boiled, I added 2 cups couscous and put the lid on for five minutes.

My husband diced the leftover carrots and ham. I also had him add the leftover sugar snap peas. I heated that up on the stove and added about two tablespoons parsley.

When we took the lid off the couscous, my husband fluffed it and we put some on each plate. (We have some leftover).

I drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on each pile, added the carrot/ham mix (and I know this is not halal), sprinkled with more raj el hanout, and served.

I keep harissa in the freezer, a few spoonfuls in fold-over sandwich bags all rolled up inside a freezer bag. I took one out and thawed it out in warm water like when you get sauces in processed frozen dishes.

This hit the spot.

Ravioli and Brussel sprouts

So tonight I made Bertolli roasted tomato and mozzarella ravioli (that I got on clearance) in an olive oil sauce with a serious side of Brussel sprouts.

I put a small amount of butter on each serving of ravioli then sprinkled them with fresh ground Italian seasoning, garlic pepper and basil. I drizzled extra virgin olive oil over top.

The Brussel sprouts were sautéed briefly in coconut oil, fresh ground four color pepper, garlic powder and sprinkled with salt. I topped them with olive oil also and placed them, in the Le Creuset skillet, in a preheated 450 degree oven for ten minutes.

Delightful.

Harissa craving

Had to go to Forks Mediterranean Deli. Read this passage in my book and had the worst *need* for lamb shawarma swimming in harissa: "He ate couscous from a big clay bowl... He poured harissa sauce and we ate with our fingers." (From Ted Morgan's My Battle of Algiers.)

So I bought 3 gigantic lamb shawarma with 2 packs of large zaatar bread, 2 packs of homemade zaatar bread (of which daughter ate one immediately), one bottle olive oil, one side of harissa, one bag of dried strawberries, one bag dried blueberries and a nice container of majhool dates.

I spent $57 but $24 was the lamb shawarma.

Zucchini/squash boats

I hope this works. It always makes me nervous when I'm this avant garde.

We had a fridge full of yellow squash and zucchini given to us via the garden of a friend of a friend.

So we decided to stuff them and make 'boats.'

NOTE: do not try this unless you've read this whole entry and I say it comes out decent. Because I'm totally making this up, with no guidance.

INGREDIENTS:
- one yellow squash
- one zucchini
- extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed
- salt
- garlic powder
- Italian seasoning
- two Morningstar breakfast patties
- 5.2 ounces Boursin shallot & chive Gourney cheese
- one egg
- about 1 cup corn flake crumbs (or bread crumbs)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Slice squash and zucchini in half long-ways and gut out the seeds with a spoon. (feed to tortoise if you have one, they love squash guts.)

Child can then use pastry brush to coat each half with olive oil. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and garlic to each and a hearty sprinkle of Italian seasoning.

In a bowl, mix cheese, breadcrumbs and egg. Stir into a filling. Mix in broken bits of vegetarian sausage patty.

Fill boats (the squash and zucchini) with filling. Assemble the halves back to whole vegetables. Wrap in aluminum foil. Bake 45 minutes.

Pesto ravioli primavera

I started a cream sauce while browning beef kielbasa (which I divided into four segments and froze three of them) but I never got the cream sauce done... So, I made this:

- about 1.5 cups diced beef kielbasa
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons flour
- about 2 tablespoons garden fresh dill
- 1 large leave sorrel
- about 7 basil leaves
- 2 cups peas
- 2 cups cauliflower, carrots and broccoli
- 2 packages trader Joe's ravioli

I put the butter in my Le Creuset skillet and browned the meat. I carefully pushed the meat to the side, added the oil, and incorporated the flour as if I were going to start a cream sauce. I added all the herbs.

Meanwhile, I cooked the ravioli and added the vegetables so it could all cook at the same
time.

The sauce smelled so fragrant I opted not to make the cream sauce after all. The family ate it all.

Backyard picnic!

Today's weather was refreshingly warm and happily sunny. With my fresh baked zaatar foccaccia (that the sunflower seeds fall off of, when will I learn to knead these items into the dough), it felt right to wash off my little café table and ask hubby to grab a bagged salad and a bottle of Vouvray on the way home.

What else says summer-ish than cold French wine, Dole Asian Crunch salad ($12.71 for the wine and $3.99 for the salad) with homemade bread dipped in cold pressed extra virgin olive oil?

The whole meal would have been vegan if it weren't for the egg yolk-- I'm not sure if it was in the ginger sesame dressing or the Asian-style noodles.

Zaatar foccaccia

Ever since my bout with anemia last summer, making bread has become a chore. Because of this, gradually I have made less and less bread. But, today, with zaatar spices in hand, I wanted to make bread again.

Among my first summer entries, you can find a garden herb pesto/fresh tomato foccaccia that is a family favorite. I adapted this from a recipe from VegList, a veg*n email loop I belonged to in the dark ages before Yahoo groups.

Today, I have transformed that basic foccaccia into a zaatar and sunflower seed variation.

The DOUGH
About 1 teaspoon yeast
1.5 cups warm water
Mix and let rest 15 minutes.

Add:
1 pinch fresh ground salt
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup unbleached white flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour

Stir with a wooden spoon.

Add another cup white flour and a little wheat flour.
Add a handful of flax seeds
Add a handful of roasted sesame seeds

Kneed.

Coat with olive oil and let rise abot 1.5 hours until doubled.
Lightly oil and flour a big cookie sheet.
Press out the bread.
Brush with oil. Coat with liberal zaatar and sunfloer seeds.

Let rise another 45 minutes. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.

Avocado Salad

This is my first shot at replicating the avocado salad I had at a French household.

This sounds similar:
http://www.acozykitchen.com/avocado-salad-with-honey-mustard-dressing/
At least in terms of dressing... so...

I made a good dressing of:

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, cold-pressed
• almost 2 tablespoons lemon dijon mustard
• 1 TBS champagne vinegar
• 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsps. fresh parsley

I like the way the dressing turned out, but my avocados are overripe and mushy. I threw them in the fridge to chill will the dressing, but it's a futile attempt. I have a feeling I'll be mashing them and making avocado mustard dip. 

Bruschetta pizza

While anemia and a heat wave do not make prime conditions for cooking, herbs and tomatoes ripening in the garden demand attention. And good food.

My garden has yielded five more tomatoes since I made bruschetta last week and my mother decided I needed the first two tomatoes from her garden.

So today my daughter and I made homemade pizza dough. We started with a cup of warm water, two tablespoons of yeast, a dollop of honey and a dollop of blackstrap molasses. We added 1.5 cups unbleached white flour, 3/4 cup wheat flour, and 1/4 cup rye flour. I stirred and kneaded as she went to the garden for a heap of basil. I shredded about six leaves of basil, probably about three tablespoons and we kneaded that into the dough.

While that rose (about an hour), I made about three cups of bruschetta. This required close to 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, six small tomatoes chopped, about 1/3 cup chopped basil leaves, 2/3 teaspoon four color peppercorns, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt and about 1/4 cup grated romano cheese.

When the dough was done, I sprinkled a long jelly roll pan with cornmeal. I rolled out the dough on my dishwasher and coated the bottom lightly with cornmeal. Then I dampened my hands with olive oil and patted the bottom of the dough before I put it in the pan and finished spreading it out.

I dumped the bruschetta on, added bites of broccoli, covered with 8 ounces of mozzerella and added some more basil on top for pretty.

It's baking and I'm STARVED.

Bruschetta

It's been a while since I made bruschetta.

But I had two small tomatoes redden in my garden. My basil is doing wonderfully and I have a loaf of homemade bread in the freezer.

Ingredients:
About 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
About 1 teaspoon garlic powder
About 1/4 teaspoon four color organic pepper
2 small tomatoes, diced.
Enough extra virgin olive oil for the herbs and tomatoes to soak in (less than 1/4 cup)
About eight leaves of fresh basil, chopped
About 1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped
About 1.5 teaspoons fresh parsley, chopped
About 1/2 teaspoon fresh chives chopped

Stir. Cover. Let sit.

Toast some bread. Spoon on top. Let oil soak into bread. Serve.

Leftover Skillet

Every family has its way of treating/recycling leftovers.

Today we took some leftover meats, some leftover greenbeans from the garden, leftover fresh vegetables, and leftover Kraft macaroni and cheese and cooked it in the skillet in a sauce of leftover white wine, butter, extra virgin olive oil, four color peppercorn and a touch of garlic salt.

Shrimp Scampi?

So we stopped at the Purple Cow Creamery since Little Miss got money from her grandparents for her kindergarten celebration.

We were on the way home and talking about the possibilities for dinner when my husband and daughter selected pasta. Now, I'm a once-a-week kind of pasta gal so I didn't really have interest in pasta. But I didn't have any better ideas so I asked the fateful question, "Pasta and red sauce pasta or pasta with butter/olive oil pasta?" To which my husband replied, "Oooooh. That would be good with shrimp."

Now, my anemia is proving a problem but I decided to be a good mom and said, "Tell ya what. If you don't mind waiting as long as it takes for me to make it, I'll make pasta with shrimp. But it might be 7 o'clock by the time I get it on the table."

"I'll help," he replied.

"I know," I said. "That's with your help. Otherwise it'd be breakfast."

Since I don't like shrimp, I got two small pieces of chicken out of the freezer for me and about 15-20 shrimp for them.

I sent hubby to the garden where he collected:
- chives
- spinach
- oregano
- parsley
- basil

I prepared the Le Creuset skillet with about:
- one tablespoon butter
- one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- one clove sliced garlic

Simmered on low and added the herbs (and spinach) in ripped pieces. Once they got nicely cooked and aromatic, I added:
- the shrimp
- chicken
- the juice of about 1/3 a lemon (from my freezer and thawed in the microwave)
- another tablespoon butter

When I flipped the chicken I added to the "meats" in the skillet:
- about 1/2 teaspoon four color organic peppercorn
- about 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground garlic sea salt

Started a pot of spaghetti: half regular, half whole wheat

Once the chicken cooked, I added a can of peas to the skillet (ran out of frozen)

When the spaghetti finished, I drained it and returned it to the pot with the contents of the skillet and another teaspoon butter plus 1 teaspoon olive oil.

Then I mixed the juice from the remaining 2/3 of a lemon with a tablespoon butter (All in all the whole recipe was about 1/2 a stick of butter for 3 large servings and 3 small servings) over medium low in the skillet, stirring constantly until the color starts to change. Poured that over the pasta.

Dished onto plates, sprinkled asiago on top.

Shrimp with broccoli

A friend bought a bag of shrimp for us to help celebrate my birthday. Tonight I made a shrimp, broccoli and egg noodle dish.

I sauteed the shrimp in butter, 3/4 clove garlic, and lemon juice. Sprinkled with it's a dilly.

Sauteed broccoli in olive oil and a touch of butter. Added that to the cooked pasta, added some extra virgin olive oil and a tad more butter. Mixed.

Added the shrimp. Mixed.

Added shredded asiago.

served.

Scrambled egg wraps

Tonight for dinner I made a knock off of Vito Caiati's Heuvos Diablo. I started with five eggs (that's how many were left in the package). I only had two tortillas left so I heated those in my le Creuset pan, with a touch of olive oil in the pan. For the other, I put the last section of homemade bread in the skillet.

I made a simple salad for each of us of romaine lettuce, a touch of romano and some ranch dressing.

I put a tortilla (or bread) on each plate. Then I added more oil to the Le Creuset skillet and approximately an equal part low sodium soy sauce and let it heat. Added a can of potatoes. (Yes, a can. I keep them around for when I want potatoes and don't have potatoes.) Sprinkled them with It's a Dilly.

Scrambled the eggs, added some soy milk, put them in a different skillet. Once they were scrambled I topped with havarti dill cheese and transferred to the tortilla shell.

For the sauce, I mixed one part horseradish mustard with two parts mayonnaise.

The beverage of choice was 100% juice diluted with seltzer.

Leftovers in lemon-butter sauce

Today for breakfast we had raisin bran and I forgot to have my second breakfast. That made the morning challenging.

It's cold and rainy so my multigrain pizza crust didn't rise properly (still tasted fairly good and kind of like a soft pretzel). But the pan pizza came out nicely.

The perfumed pineapple, well, my daughter over perfumed it and I over-buttered the crumbs again so it was far from perfect but edible.

But I made up for all of this with dinner.

I started with some white rice in the steamer.
Assembled the following:

• Le Creuset skillet
• 1 clove garlic sliced
• extra virgin olive oil (cold pressed)
• butter
• lemon juice
• 1 crown broccoli, chopped into bite-sized pieces (2-3 cups?)
• 2 chicken sausages with apple (from Trader Joe's), sliced
• 1 chicken breast prepared "chicken frances" leftover from the diner last night, chopped
  
• leftover rice from the diner

• 1 slice garlic bread from the diner

Okay, so I started with two tablespoons of olive oil and a slice of butter in the skillet as I dropped the garlic in on low. I added the chicken, because it came out of the fridge and was cold. Then the sausage. Then the broccoli. Every time the liquid got absorbed, I pushed everything to one side of the skillet (now at medium heat) and added a couple tablespoons of butter and equal amounts of lemon juice and blended them vigorously. Then I let the sauce seep to the other side of the pan and mixed everything up again.

I probably made this little batch of sauce three times and then I added the leftover rice from the diner and two heaping serving spoons of white rice from my steamer. More vigorous stirring.

Then, when the liquid disappeared and the rice started to stick, I moved everything to the coolest side of the skillet, reduced the heat to low, and added another couple tablespoons olive oil and mixed it up one last time.

And served.

I put the garlic bread in the skillet (once I pushed everything to the side, again) and fried each side a minute to get it warm without getting it soggy. Who says you can't reheat garlic bread?

All in all, I used 3/4 stick of butter and equal amounts lemon juice for the sauce. I love lemon-butter sauce.

Seitan wraps

I used my homemade seitan last night to make wraps with Aldi steam-in-bag Season's Choice Italian blend vegetables.

I fried the seitan over medium low heat in olive oil and sesame oil to make it crisper and give it some extra flavor.

This morning, we had frosted mini-wheats. For lunch I'm anticipating half tuna sandwiches on store-bought wheat and tortilla chips with mango salsa.

For dinner, I want to try and make pizza in my Le Creuset skillet. Using it like a pizza stone...

Sausage and rice with veggies

Tonight I prepared Trader Joe's chicken sausage with apples (3 sausages) in my Le Creuset skillet with about 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 2 cloves fresh garlic. When the sausage finished cooking, I sliced it and added the broccoli from one broccoli crown and a couple cups of fresh chopped cauliflower. I let that sizzle for a while until the vegetable soaked up all the "juice" and then I added another tablespoon olive oil, the last of my French butter (probably three tablespoons) and about three tablespoons champagne vinegar.

And then I added the long grain white rice I had cooked in the steamer with garlic powder and four color black peppercorn. (It was 1.5 cups unprepared rice) And stirred it all up and let it cook until the rice turned a soft yellow (and wanted to stick to the bottom as I stirred. I stirred constantly.)

I was nervous about it because of the champagne vinegar, but it was good. Really good. I had two plates and I'd really like another...

More Super Salads! (Croutons)

We're having more salad tonight (It's a spring thing for me. I *want* it.) I bought fresh spinach to add to last night's salads and we're transforming my last homemade baguette into homemade seasoned croutons.

We heated the oven to three hundred.

We sliced the bread, put it in a bowl, drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on it, and sprayed it down with cooking spray. My daughter mixed them all up and we poured generous amounts of the following in there:

• garlic powder
• pizza and pasta seasoning
  
• parmesan cheese
• parsley
• four color organic peppercorn
• garlic pepper

And bake as long as it takes, turning every 15 minutes of so. They smell scrumptious.

Asparagus

I steamed a pound of asparagus tonight. I forgot to store it in a small glass with an inch of water like they always recommend, but it was prime asparagus so it was salvageable. Heloise-- the syndicated columnist with the helpful household tips-- recommends rinsing the asparagus in cold water, then snapping the wooden ends off, by bending and letting the stalks naturally break wherever they break.

My husband will eat the woody pieces, so it's a waste for me.

I placed the pound of asparagus in the steamer for 15 minutes. Then, I heated a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in my Le Creuset skillet.

Then I placed the steamed asparagus in the skillet, sprinkled liberally with garlic powder, ground about 3/4 teaspoon four-color pepper and added less than 2 teaspoons butter. And sauteed for five minutes.

Great stuff! (Even the little one loved it!)

Chicken and mashed taters

Tonight for dinner I'm making chicken in lemon-butter sauce (française) and roasted garlic mashed potatoes, a side salad, and Vouvray.

Except my husband grabbed the Bordeaux instead of the Vouvray.

For the mashed potatoes:

• about 1/2-3/4 cup chicken broth/olive oil/chicken "juices" from frying pan skillet
  
• probably 3 lbs of potatoes, mostly peeled
• About 15 cloves roasted garlic
• About 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 tablespoons butter
• About 1/4 cup sour cream

For the salad:

• greens
• shredded carrots
• raisins
• cashews
• zesty sprouts
• Ranch for him and child, red wine mist for her

And finally the chicken:

• About 1.25 pounds boneless, skinless chicken tenderloin (from the discount pile: $3)
• lemon juice
• extra virgin olive oil
• butter
• unbleached white flour
• four color organic peppercorns
• chicken broth

Place about one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil in skillet. Preheat skillet and oven (to about 250, will be used to keep the chicken warm while we make the sauce). Lightly dredge the chicken, sprinkle with pepper. Add to pan with one tablespoon butter. Cook about five minutes, flip. Cook about five more minutes. Add about 3/4 cup chicken broth. Cook until finished. Move chicken to oven.

Reserve juice in skillet into cooked potatoes for the mashed.

In the skillet, add about three tablespoons butter and about the same amount of lemon juice. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring often. Pour oven chicken and serve.

This looks to be a good guide on mashed potatoes:
http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/mashed.htm