Friday Night Challenge: D-E-L-M-S-T=Dilled Edamame/Lentil/Tomato Dish with Sauteed Shallots and Mushrooms

The Letters for tonight's Friday Night Challenge--

D-E-L-M-S-T

resulted in a side dish that is pretty tasty. To prepare:
Cook 1/2 cup brown lentils in 1 cup lightly salted water. While the lentils are cooking, prepare the edamame in the microwave as written on the package. Once the other items are started, then, using 1T. olive oil seasoned with dill weed, saute sliced shallot and chopped mushrooms. Slice a tomato. 
Drain the lentils, combine in a bowl with the warmed edamame; add the sauteed vegetables to the lentil/edamame mix. Place the sliced tomato on top. Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: (a-d-p-s-y) Arugula Salad with Roasted Sesame Yams

This is a very quick fix and pretty tasty:  Preheat the oven at 425 degrees. Peel and cube a yam (or sweet potato). Sprinkle some sesame seed oil on the yam and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned on the outside and tender on the inside. Remove and cool. Pull the leaves from the stems of arugula and arrange on a plate. Make a dressing of dill, dill pickle juice, smoked paprika, and sesame oil. I know it sounds odd, but the flavors work well together!

Friday Night Challenge: Savory Quinoa Pudding

The alphabet game for the Friday Night Challenge: Letters given were E-L-N-P-Q. The result?
A savory quinoa pudding. This would accompany a good roast chicken or roast beef.


To make: Cook the Quinoa (around 1/8 c. per person) by cooking at a low heat--instead of cooking in water, use a bit of Evaporated milk (1/4 c. per 1 c. quinoa--perhaps less, based on consistency. You don't want the quinoa to be watery, but it shouldn't be dry, either). Once cooked to a completely softened stage, put the quinoa into a blender along with enough nutmeg, paprika, and lemon juice to taste, based on the amount of servings desired. The average amount to use say, for 1 c. quinoa would be 1/4 t. nutmeg, 1/4 t. paprika, 1/2 t. lemon juice. If you taste it and decide you want more heat, add paprika; more intensity, add nutmeg; more zest, add lemon juice. You can serve this along side your main course much like a Yorkshire pudding, but it will be a much healthier substitution. 
Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Nutty Arugula Salad

First of all, a series of mea culpas for 2 gaps in this week's Friday Night Challenge--namely asparagus and seitan...unfortunately, fresh out of both. I figured I could go out scouting for asparagus, but I'm sort of like it as I am with morels--I enjoy them immensely when in season and when we freeze what comes from our yard and woods. Once they're gone, the patience kicks in and we wait until next spring with great anticipation. I checked the freezer and yep, the last of the asparagus was gone. However...I took liberties and replaced it with another vegetable that I picked from the garden fresh and it does begin with an "a". I used arugula or rocket, as some know it. I love this stuff...a green that tastes just like fresh pepper...fantastic! As I said in the beginning of the blog, no seitan to be found for many a mile; however, I am intrigued with it after figuring out its qualities. Next trip to Btown will probably yield some.
So, whatever was left of the ragged Challenge? Plenty! I had quinoa, lentils, and nuts. So, first things first--prepare the quinoa and lentils. Easy-breezy...pretty much a 2 to 1 ratio of water to grain/legume--a touch of salt in the water. Bring to a boil and then once the grain or legume is added, scale back to a simmer. Time is the big difference here. Quinoa needs about 20 minutes; lentils about 10...much longer and you'll have mush. So, cook both the items. In the meantime, take 3 or four small leaves of arugula and dice into ribbons. Next, take the walnuts (around 2 T.), place in a baggie and pound with a rolling pin. Keep one in tact for the finished product. Spoon the quinoa on a plate, add some lentils on top of the quinoa, scatter the arugula ribbons around, and then sprinkle on the walnuts. Add 1/2 walnut to the stack. That's it. Incredibly easy and tasty. No dressings, oils, or anything else needed. The combination of nutty/pepper tastes are great.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Raspberry Thai Shrimp Pasta

Tonight's challenge just seemed to frame itself as the items appeared in the comments section:

fish (cook's choice)=shrimp    pasta     fruit (cook's choice)=red raspberries   peas    Greek yogurt

The fish, fruit, and other ingredients, just seemed to point to a Thai dish. Quite easy to do as follows:

Thaw shrimp (if needed)--be sure to use raw. Heat just a bit of vegetable oil in a skillet. Add the shrimp and cook. Add a bit of Thai chili sauce and cook for a bit.

While the shrimp is cooking, prepare some miniature pasta in boiling salted water. For the peas, I microwaved a bag of sugar snap pea pods and had them at the ready. Finally, I crushed some red raspberries into some Greek yogurt and cooked over low heat. I added a bit more Thai chili sauce to the yogurt  and let it warm.

Then, to assemble, pour off the oil and liquid from the shrimp, pour the water off the pasta--mix the two together. Add the raspberry -yogurt sauce and then the pea pods.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Fava Beans and Pork

Beans. Versatile, sustaining, filling, economical...and the centerpiece of this Friday Night Challenge. Here are the ingredients:

beans (my choice)     cilantro    sour cream   bacon   goat cheese

All the makings for a good, solid meal.

Fava beans were the choice. These dandies are some of the oldest beans in civilization...and also technically not beans. They're really peas, but they definitely qualify as beans, so we're going to run with that.... Fava beans have a nice, creamy texture and a bit of a nutty flavor. I used a canned version of them I found at an international market in Bloomington. (They may not be easily found in many more rural areas, so be on the lookout when you're out and about. They also grow well in the garden, so fresh would be even better!) I rinsed the beans, added a bit of water, and then put them on low heat. I added a bit of bacon grease to the beans. (The original plan was bacon, but when I priced it earlier in the week, it was $5 a pound; I bought a great pork roast for $2.19 lb...it won out.)

You can put the pork roast in the crock pot earlier in the day; it will cook into sublime tenderness with great flavor. It needs little else.

Back to the fava beans. Once they are warmed, add a mixture of finely diced cilantro to sour cream and fold that into the beans. As a final touch, add a couple of tablespoons of goat cheese crumbled to the mix and let it all get nicely and creamy.

A simple meal, and a sustaining one...and tasty!

Enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Shrimp Bisque with Capers

We're soup lovers here; anytime, any season. So when I saw the list of ingredients for the Friday Night Challenge
shrimp     onions      capers      squash     carrots
I started thinking a good shrimp bisque might be in order.


First get the squash started cooking. I used a butternut squash and cut it lengthwise. In a 425 degree oven, place the 2 pieces of the squash cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes until tender when pricked with a fork. Let cool until manageable and then peel the pulp away from the skins. Set aside.


When making the bisque, be sure to use raw shrimp. If you use the pre-cooked, the shrimp will get very tough very quickly. Raw shrimp is not always the easiest to find in this area, but you can usually find it frozen, which is perfectly fine. Run the package of frozen shrimp under lukewarm water until they start thawing; you can then remove the shell, tail, and mud vein (that little thread-like dark streak). 


While the shrimp is thawing, peel and dice 3 or 4 carrots and one medium onion and put into a pan  to cook with just a bit of butter and olive oil. Once it starts sweating, turn the heat down and cook until soft. Add the diced shrimp, the squash pulp, and 2 cups of chicken broth along with 1/2 t. ginger.Salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer until the shrimp is pink. Once it is cooled down a bit, add it in portions to a blender and puree. Place back in a pan. Once all is done, then put into soup bowls and add 1 t. capers to the center of each bowl. This is a good second-day soup; the shrimp flavor is enriched after it chills in the refrigerator overnight. Warm it back up, and you have a meal.


Enjoy!