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: Pizza Rolls for Grown-Ups

I like most things; however, some freezer items in grocery stores taste to me like so much cardboard and bad seasonings.
Take a pizza roll, for instance. I know there are probably legions of fans out there, but really? Dough with no body, seasonings that taste either over-processed or overly-garlicky. Ick.
When given the Friday Night Challenge of:
pizza crust    red peppers     basil    a choice of meat     fresh tomatoes
pizza rolls for grown-ups seemed a good choice.
I consulted the best for the crust: Dorie Greenspan's Baking with Julia book. In it is a great recipe for pizza dough--complete with sponge. I had never taken the time to make pizza dough from a sponge, but I certainly will from now on. The sponge acts as an intensifier. It allows the yeast to mix with just enough flour to really  get going. Later, you add the remainder of the flour. As a result, the dough does taste better. 
The recipe for the sponge and the dough is quite easy and follows:
Take 1 1/2 t. active yeast and add to 1 1/2 c.of tepid water. Stir lightly and let is set for around 5 minutes. Then add 2T. olive oil and stir in 2 1/4 c. flour a bit at a time until all is incorporated. Let rest for around 1 1/2 hours.Stir in 2 more cups of all-purpose flour along with 2 t. salt. Knead for around 6 minutes. Put into an oiled bowl and let rise again for around 1 1/2 hours. 
For the filling, crumble up some ham sausage (seems to cost less and tastes really good). Separately, chop up a green bell pepper (the plan was to buy a red bell pepper, but when I checked they were up to $1.75 a pepper! Green bells are plentiful in the garden, so they won out. I decided to not cook the tomatoes ahead of time, so I used LaRoma (what a great meaty tomato). For the basil, I took a little liberty and used pesto to get a little more intensity of taste.
So, once the dough was ready, I rolled it out, cut it with a pastry round into circles, slathered each piece with pesto, added the pepper and sausage, and then a raw tomato slice. Take two of the rounds and seal them together.  Bake them on a stone in a 450 degree oven for around 15 minutes.
Pizza rolls for grown ups. Enjoy!

      

Buttered Bluegill in Parchment with Summer Squash

What a fantastic time of year--fresh vegetables arriving in the kitchen daily, fresh fish being caught. The Friday Night Challenge ingredients:

fish--bacon--asparagus--butter--lemon--summer squash

started me thinking about a process I recently saw in a Julia Child cookbook that uses parchment paper and high heat to assure that the fish cooks through without drying--a major downfall of fish, especially more delicate whitefish-types.

What follows is a relatively simple process for the meal:

Cook about 3 ounces of bacon cut into small pieces. Once it is about half finished, add fresh asparagus and a pat of butter. Add some small diced pieces of summer squash and let everything cook slowly. Add just a bit of lemon juice (about 1/4 t.).

Set the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare a piece of parchment paper with butter and lay the fish on  it along with some of the summer squash that is peeled with a vegetable peeler. Give it a pinch of salt and a squirt of lemon juice. Wrap tightly in the parchment and put on a shallow baking pan. Cook for around 15 minutes and check. The squash won't be overly tender; it will have texture.

While everything else is cooking and baking, peel and cut a cucumber into small bite-sized pieces. Give it a bit of salt and about 1/4t. dried dill. Let it set for a bit. Once the asparagus has cooked to doneness, remove it and the squash as well as about 1/2 of the bacon. Put the remainder of the bacon with the cucumber. Take the remaining bacon fat, add a touch of olive oil, a shake of salt, and a squirt of lemon juice and heat through. Pour over the cucumbers and coat.

Enjoy!

Olive-Egg Wraps Mediterranean Style

On one of my sojourns to my beloved gourmet Amish grocery in the area, I happened upon some Mediterranean grilling oil. Its combination of garlic, paprika, rosemary, lemon oil, and capsicun makes it a light oil with full-bodied flavors. So, as I was looking at the ingredients for the Friday Night Challenge

fried eggs---spinach---sun-dried tomatoes---olives---bacon

the salt aspect struck me as something that would work very well with the oil. And it did.

Cut the bacon slices into quarters so it can be crumbled it into big crumbles. Once it is fried crisp, put it in a strainer to dry it out. Pour off most of the bacon fat, give it a good blend of the Mediterranean grilling oil, and then add 6 lightly beaten eggs. Before the eggs set, add thinly sliced stuffed olives and let the egg set up to a texture that it can be used it as a wrap. Once finished, cut it in half and remove each half to a separate plate, having flipped it olive-side down. Add a bit of the bacon fat/grill oil back to the pan and saute 1/2 bag of baby spinach, allowing it to wilt to a rich green color.

While all this is going on, "sun dry" paper-thin slices of fresh tomatoes under a high-heat broiler with a touch of the grilling oil and a very generous amount of pepper. 

Once everything is finished, put a layer of bacon crumbled, a layer of spinach, and a layer of sun-dried tomatoes in each wrap and then turn it seam side under. Add the remaining sun-dried tomatoes to the top with the remaining bacon crumbles.

This will work for any meal, be it brunch, lunch, or supper. It has a great combination of flavors.

Enjoy!

Oriental Grilled Chicken Pasta with Fresh Vegetables

Two elements played strong roles in this Friday Night's Challenge: hot weather and fresh vegetables. Both tended to serve the Challenge well. 


The hot weather sent me out the kitchen and onto the deck to the grill. This meant some pre-seasoning of the good things for tonight's menu. I decided to go oriental since a sesame taste was beckoning me.


I mixed up a marinade of canola oil, chili sesame oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, and a generous portion of ginger sesame spice.


Using some heavy-duty foil, I made a pocket and coated it with canola oil. Then I added in a layer of the first ingredient, chicken, that was coarsely chopped. I poured a bit of the marinade over this. For the next layer, I broke into 3 inch pieces whole wheat pasta, and poured a bit more of the marinade. I then added coarsely chopped zucchini, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and off the cob corn. 


Everything was put together on the grill. I wasn't too sure about grilling pasta, but with the natural juices from the veggies and the moisture of the chicken, it did just fine. It also nicely soaked up the mild sesame flavor.


Easy to do; easy to fix. Gotta love this time of year with all the freshness of our food...be sure to enjoy!

Friday Night Challenge: Tuscan Style Tuna on a Hot, Hot Day

When the heat index is in the 100s, all thoughts of heavy-laden foods go out the window. So with the ingredients offered in the Friday Night Challenge:

tuna, asparagus, sauerkraut, cheese, and tomatoes

I decided to steer clear of the Reuben-style solution in favor of a lighter, Tuscan-style meal that allows all the freshest flavors of the season do their thing.

The meal is very easy to make and, happily, very inexpensive. And--it's pretty!

I drained two cans of tuna until all traces of water were completely gone. Set aside. Roughly dice two Roma tomatoes and set them aside. I used frozen asparagus from this spring's garden that I brought to a boil for around 5 minutes and then rinsed in cold water in a colander until cool. Open a can of sauerkraut, drain, and then, in a colander, run cold water over and continuously wring out until much of the "bite" is gone. Mix together olive oil, a generous amount of dried basil (or if you have fresh chopped-great!), and some garlic powder. Pour this first over the kraut and let it sit for awhile while you're working with the other ingredients. 

Assemble the salad with the base of the kraut, then layer on the tuna and tomatoes. Next comes the asparagus. Finish with some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Pour a bit more of the olive oil/basil/garlic mix over the combination. That's it!

Hot and humid days shouldn't keep us from enjoying great food; neither should a questionable economy.

Enjoy!

Tuscan tuna and a limmoncello martini--refreshing!

Spam Time! for the Friday Night Challenge

It seems the lines are clearly drawn when it comes to Spam--people either really like it or detest it. There's just not much area in between. I happened to be married to a nice guy that really likes Spam. Plain Spam, Spicy Spam, you name it--it's all good. So when it was time for a Friday Night Challenge, he asked if he could play along and name Spam for one of the ingredients. Well, of course! And so he did. The other four ingredients were:

Velveeta cheese, pineapple, water chestnuts, and avocado

It was way too hot to heat much up in the kitchen and what's nicer to have than a grill in the summer? So, with little hesitation, I coarsely chopped the avocado, the water chestnuts, and the Spam into bite-sized pieces. I kept the pineapple in slices--pineapple and a grill just really get along well, so why mess with what works? Once the avocado was tender and the rest of everything else warmed through and a bit caramelized, it was time to remove it from the grill and add some thin slices of pepper jack Velveeta and let it do some serious melting. 

My Spam man agreed it was pretty darned good!

Friday Night Challenge: Smoky Hunan Chicken

I finally got the chance to go to the store and pick up the needed supplies for last week's Challenge. As a review, the ingredients were:
chicken---pecans---water chestnuts---sweet potatoes---bourbon

I decided to give the ingredients a spicy Hunan taste since we like that flavor (and I had a jar of smoky hunan sauce I was interested in trying). To make the dish (easy to do!):
--cut up two sweet potatoes into very small cubes
--cook on fairly high heat in some canola oil until they start to get soft and carmelize
Turn down the heat and add the following:
--hunan sauce (I used Hunan Smokehut Spicy Grill Sauce)
--can of sliced water chestnuts
--2 oz. pecan pieces
--chicken pieces (can use a couple of chicken breasts if you'd like--I had left-over fried chicken that I pulled apart and used)

Let these ingredients cook on low heat until everything is heated through; then after turning off the heat, pour in 2T. of American Honey bourbon. Stir for even coverage.

This is incredibly easy, quick, and is quite economical. It makes a pretty dish and tastes great!

Friday Night Challenge: Balsamic-Seared Tuna Steaks

After a cool-down period of over a week, I was ready to get the Friday Night Challenge up and running once again. It is summertime, after all and that means grill weather! (The calendar doesn't show it yet, but the temperatures in the 90's do!) 
Here are the ingredients that came my way for this week:
tuna, artichoke, lettuce, strawberries, feta cheese, mushrooms


Here is the finished product:

And here's the recipe:


Take one jar of artichoke hearts, one jar of shiitake mushrooms, 1/2 dozen sliced button mushrooms. Toss all these together and place in a foil packet with some salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Place on the grill on low heat and let cook for around 15 minutes.


Take tuna steaks and slice to about 1/2-3/4" thickness. Add a bit of salt, a sprinkle of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Drop on the grill--that's it. Watch them until they just start to lose their pinkness. Don't cook any longer or they'll dry out.


For the salad (another very easy to fix item): take lettuce (any kind you prefer). Slice some strawberries thinly.   (Earlier I fixed some strawberries the regular way, i.e. sliced and sugared a bit--needed the syrup for the dressing, and besides--dessert, anyone?) Pull the lettuce into bite-sized pieces, place the strawberry slices on the lettuce bed, sprinkle some crumbled Feta cheese over the salad, and then add the simple dressing of the strawberry syrup, a bit of balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Yep, that's it!


If you need something quick yet substantial for a meal, this is an easy fix and it tastes great with the addition of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt. 


Enjoy!

Summer Squash-Stuffed Chipolte Turkey Cutlets

I had a three-week hiatus from the All About the Food blog; our recent trip to New Orleans and other side trips kept me from the kitchen for any length of time. So, it's time to get things started again; I threw out the challenge and boy did I not get let down challenge-wise. Here are the ingredients I received:
turkey--summer squash--beets--garbanzo beans--pickles 
Okay...
After some thought and imaginary tasting, I came up with the following:
Marinade turkey cutlets or chops (or a chicken breast if you prefer) in a chipolte-based sauce. You can find these most anywhere. Let this marinade in the fridge overnight. 
Take a summer squash, cut and clean out the seeds, slice into about 1" slices and place on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Bake these slices at about 375 degrees for around 35 minutes. Turn them once and pierce the fleshy part with a fork to test for tenderness. Once they are very tender, remove from the oven and turn it down to325 degrees.
Put the turkey cutlet on a baking sheet. Bake for around 20 minutes and check for doneness. If the chop or cutlet is thin, make sure it doesn't dry out. An internal temperature of 170 degrees is suitable.
While the cutlet/breast is baking, cut all the fleshy parts of the squash from the peel. Mash the squash; season as desired, but remember that you have some strong flavors with the other items. 

For the garbanzo bean side dish, simply heat a can of the garbanzos, and then drench with cold water to cool down. To these add some finely chopped kosher dill pickle and sweet dill pickle. Mince up a couple of beet slices and add just before serving since the beet will stain everything it touches.
This has probably been on of the most "interesting" Friday Night Challenges, ingredient-wise, but that's what makes it fun. And, I was quite amazed that the flavors ended up complimenting each other. If I did something like this again, I believe I would use a smoked turkey breast instead of regular chops to get even more lasting flavor.

Friday Night Challenge 9: Savory Basil Calzone

With mushroom and asparagus season underway, this was a great challenge. Joining those ingredients were a strong cast of feta cheese, diced tomatoes (I used Red Gold with basil/oregano), thin crust pizza crust, and artichoke hearts. I decided on a simple calzone.


I split the asparagus lengthwise and sauted them in olive oil along with the tomatoes, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts. Once these were slightly tender, I simply put them with a layer of feta cheese into the crust, folded and pleated it closed and baked in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.


The savory taste combined with the subtle sweetness of the crust and the tanginess of the feta cheese made for a nice all-around flavor. Good job challengers!

Friday Night Challenge 9: Dessert Night

Last Friday night I was given a challenge that turned from the initial idea of a dessert of simplicity to one of decadence. Without further ado, here's a quick yet elegant dessert for you to try sometime.


Ingredients: an angel food cake, strawberries, whipped cream, dark chocolate chips, and light rum.


Split the angel food cake horizontally and allow it to soak in light rum for a number of hours. Melt the chocolate chips in order to drizzle over the dessert. Slice a strawberry into thin pieces.


Assembly: one layer of angel food cake, a bit of whipped cream, a layer of strawberries, the top layer of of angel food cake, more whipped cream, a drizzle of chocolate and a strawberry on top. Drizzle a bit more chocolate on the plate and around the piece of cake. Drop a few chocolate chips around with a couple more slices of strawberry. Extremely easy and quick.

Friday Night Challenge 7: Asian Goodness

When the ingredients came rolling in this weekend, I could see a pattern emerging with some great Asian features. Shrimp, coconut, green pepper, ginger...yep, Asian. And then the curve came--potatoes. Let the thinking begin. 


After a bit of pondering, I came up with Asian gingered shrimp with green pepper with a side dish of shredded ginger-coconut potato patties.


Chop one large green bell pepper into bite-sized pieces and stir-fry in a bit of vegetable oil. Add 2t. Chinese ginger. While the pepper is cooking, shell and remove the mud vein from raw shrimp. Once the pepper starts to soften, add the shrimp, another teaspoon of ginger, and 1t. salt. Let this simmer for around 10 minutes.


For the side dish: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel and finely shred potatoes; cook until soft, add a pinch of salt. Drain and add in 2t. of ground ginger and 1/2 c. shredded coconut. Combine the ingredients. Spray a baking sheet with Pam and add 1T. of the mixture in flattened dollops to the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes until the coconut just starts to lightly brown.


This is a fairly economical dish, not difficult to make, and has a nice, light flavor. Give it a try.

Friday Night Challenge 8: Brunch Time!

Decided to change some things up for the Friday Night Challenge and asked for ingredients for a brunch. Here's the list:

• sausage
• prosciutto
• eggs
• asparagus
• mushrooms
• mimosa (to drink along with the brunch)

Since brunch is such a great "anything goes" meal, I decided to make it a combination. First I made a creamy asparagus/porcini mushroom soup with shredded crisped prosciutto. Reconstitute 1 ounce of dried mushrooms--this takes about 30 minutes. Then take 2 cans of asparagus (NOW you know what to use the slimy stuff for!) and 2 cans of chicken broth. Bring these to a boil--turn down to a simmer. Once the mushrooms are reconstituted, pour them and the broth into the asparagus/broth mix. While the soup is simmering, shred up a couple of slices of prosciutto and fry carefully until crisp.

The other part of the brunch--a sausage frittata. This is just a basic recipe. I fried 1/2 lb. of loose sausage. I then added 5 beaten eggs and let them do their magic. I finished it in the broiler. Quick and easy.

Friday Night Challenge 7: Sausage Rolls with Pecan Leek Fritters

The interesting combination of sausage, leeks, cabbage, pecans, and vinegar allowed me to start off in a different direction. As a result, the Friday Night Challenge yielded Sausage rolls with Pecan Leek Fritters.
To make: Pull full-sized cabbage leaves and drop into boiling water until tender. Remove and drain. Fry the sausage (I used ground turkey sausage). 
Dice the leeks finely and put in a small amount of water; boil for several minutes until they are very soft. Drain.
Chop the pecan halves (around 1/4 c.) to a fine consistency. Form the leeks into small fritters and coat with the pecan crumbs. Fry in the turkey grease until just warmed and lightly browned. 
Put 1/2 c. balsamic vinegar in a sauce pan and reduce to a syrup state. Pour on the finished fritters and across the sausage rolls.
Enjoy!