eating my vegetables: ratatouille

Can I tell you, (wanna be)writer's block sucks?  I have these ideas.  They are floating around in my head.  I metaphorically go to catch one and as soon as I try to form a sentence, I can actually see it disappear into nothingness, like when the two year old pops a bubble with the tip of her finger.  

I still have to eat my vegetables though and fortunately, produce is real and finite, just waiting for me to transform it, usually with a sharp instrument and heat, into something better.  And so I do.

"Whatever's in the 'Fridge" Ratatouille

extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, chopped

3 Japanese eggplants, half inch cube
2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 large yellow peppers, half inch cube

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup chicken broth (or water.  hmmm... or maybe white wine? next time.)

1 can chopped Italian tomatoes with juice

dried thyme (1/2 tsp?)

1/2 cup fresh basil, chiffonade 

cubed mozzarella cheese (or a sick of sting cheese cut up =)

crushed red pepper

fresh ground pepper

Cover the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and heat over medium.  Add onion and saute for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft.  Add eggplant, saute another 5 minutes, stirring occaionally. (If pot seems dry, add more olive oil.)  Season well with salt and pepper.  Add garlic and saute for one minute more.  Add chicken broth and bell peppers.  Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice.  (You may need to add more liquid as it boils off.)  Add tomatoes and thyme, bring to a boil and simmer partially covered for 20 minutes until most of the liquid is absorbed and vegetables are soft.  Stir in basil and remove from heat. Portion into bowl(s) and stir in chunks of mozzarella to create gooey goodness.  Sprinkle with crushed red pepper and fresh ground pepper.  (I like a course grind.)

Cook's Notes

1.  I also like this over a tube pasta, with a generous sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

2.  Also good as a side with grilled steak or chicken.

3.  I trim some of the skin off the eggplant.

4.  If everyone in your family likes heat, add the red pepper flakes with the salt and pepper.

{forgot to add the cheese on my second helping!}

fall recipe exchange, part one: dinner!

i deface books.

sadly, the last of my homegrown basil 

my new favorite shortcut

Crock Pot Chicken Spezzatino or Chicken Zoooooop (as the two year old calls it)
*adapted from an original recipe by Giada de Laurentiis in Everyday Italian, one of my favorite books.  Buy it!

4 tablespoons olive oil
4 celery stalks, cut into bite sized pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
1 large onion, chopped
2 teaspons salt, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon pepper, plus more to taste
32 ounces low sodium chicken broth
1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 chicken breasts with ribs (about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds total)
2 (15 ounce) cans great northern white beans, drained and rinsed

Saute the celery, carrots, and onion in olive oil over medium heat in a large heavy pot until the onion is soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and saute another minute.  Dump this mixture into a slow cooker set at high.  Add salt, pepper, tomatoes, broth, basil, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme. Stir well.  Add chicken and press to submerge.  Cover slow cooker and cook on high for one hour.  Reduce heat to low and cook for 6 to 8 house.  About 30 minutes before you are ready to eat, remove the chicken and let cool about 5 minutes. Discard the skin and bones and shred chicken.  Add beans to stew and heat through (about 30 minutes.)  When ready to eat, return chicken to the stew.  Add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with more fresh basil.  Serve with warm crusty bread to soak up the yummy broth.

Cook's notes:
1. Honestly, I have no idea how much broth I add.  I pour in "just enough."
2. Sparky and I like things spicy but our girlies aren't quite ready for it.  I've found that swirling a tiny bit of Sriracha into our bowls right before eating adds a nice amount of flavor and heat.  (Where as when I add straight red pepper to the finished stew, it tastes like straight red pepper and not a part of the dish.)
3.  Al dente pasta is a nice addition.
4.  I'm sure you could cook the stew for 8-10 hours on low without the first hour at high.

yum!

Thanks to the Pretty Mommy Michelle for organizing the fall recipe exchange and allowing this newbie to take part!

dinner last night (or i will lose those 6 pounds i gained in nyc AND still eat yummy food!)

I went to NYC in July and gained 6 pounds over the week eating my way through the city.  Let me start by saying it was the best 6 pounds I ever gained (and I've gained my share of 6 pounds.)  But now, well, it's almost 3 months later, and I'm still carrying around that amazing cheese plate from Balthazar, the quatro of paninis I nibbled to completion at Cafe Ino, and the 5 course spectacular I consumed at Gramercy Tavern.

Enjoying dessert (and a bottle of rose') with my friend Kim at Bar Pitti in NYC.

Fall has arrived (and even though we are hitting record temps here!) I'd like to fit back into my skinny jeans. Flowy sundresses and forgiving (although mini) skirts aren't going to to cut it for much longer. But, here's the thing--I pretty much suck at diets.  I like to eat, and eat well.  So I am determined to lose that 6 pounds while at the same time eating good meals.  Since I'm an amazing above average cook =), hopefully this won't be too difficult.

Dinner last night was citrus marinated, spice rubbed, pan roasted chicken with an avocado salsa, spicy white beans, and roasted corn on the cob.  

Citrus Marinade

1/2 cup of OJ

juice from one lemon and the lemon itself, cut in half

salt

pepper

one clove garlic, finely chopped

one onion, sliced

large pour of olive oil

Spice Rub (I used Emeril's Southwest Essense, but I'm sure any will do.)

Put all of the ingredients for the marinade in a large ziplock and smush it around.  Add 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts and smush it around some more.  Then refrigerate for as long as you have (an hour will work, but the longer the better and if you only have 30 minutes, that's good too.)  Pour a bunch of spice rub onto a flat plate and coat both sides of the chicken after it's marinaded.   Saute over med-high heat in olive oil three minutes, flip, and put into a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until almost done.  Cover each chicken breast with a slice of pepper jack cheese (or plain old jack if you aren't into spicy.)  Return to oven for a minute to melt the cheese. Top chicken with avocado salsa (recipe follows.)

Avocado Salsa

one avocado, diced

jalepeno, seeded and membrane removed, finely chopped

juice from one lime

Toss everything gently and refrigerate for an hour (or five minutes if that's all you've got!)

Spicy (Cheater) Beans
one can great northern white beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can of Herdez (the best non-fresh, non home made ever) salsa
Dump everything in a pot and heat through.

Roasted Corn on the Cob
Butter corn and wrap completely in foil.
Roast at 400 degrees for 35 minutes (put in 20 minutes before you start to cook chicken.) Generously salt  after roasting.

P.S.  I am completely unhappy with these photographs but am sharing them anyway.  It's really difficult for me to photograph food at dinner time.  I think food network should produce a show starring a mommy putting together a real meal, all while stumbling over an over fed 10 year old lab, negotiating with a five year old, carrying around a two year old (who otherwise would be following her around the kitchen repeating "hold you" over and over,) and counting the minutes until hubby gets home.  Oh, and sipping a glass of cab at the same time.  Now THAT would be impressive!  (Maybe I could be the host???)

I don't add the spice rub to the girlies' chicken.
I also put theirs over brown rice since they aren't
getting the spicy avocado salsa either.

Actually, I could eat this avocado salsa over a
bowl of white beans as a meal in itself.
But that's not quite enough for Sparky.

let them eat cake.

A macaroni and cheese cupcake, that is.  I am so making this for my next party.  (Really, though who needs a party?  The girlies can have these with a side of broccoli for dinner, Sparky would eat about 15 of them, and I'll munch on one (or two...) while sipping a glass of cabernet as I watch the first season of netflixed Mad Men.)

Photo and recipe courtesy of Framed Cooks.

And consider the possibilities of what else might be made into a cupcake?

dinner last night: making do.

A trip to Gelson's seemed out of the range of reason yesterday even though the list of edible items in our kitchen has dwindled to little (or nothing according to the five year old.) We are leaving for the long weekend on Friday morning and have plans for dinner the next two nights, so really, what point was there?  (Although, I'm fairly certain the lack of motivation for a grocery store run was due more to my laziness and my desire to spend one of the last days of summer with the girlies at the pool.)  So I decided to give Ava a lesson in making do (rather than ordering out for pizza) and here's what we used:  

one onion, sliced and caramelized in a couple swirls of olive oil 

(with a bit of brown sugar added at just the right moment--Is there anything better than the smell of sauteed onions?  Maybe homemade chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, but I digress.)

frozen organic brown rice from Trader Joe's (cooks in 3 minutes in the micro!)

grilled corn on the cob left over from Sunday's bbq

a few packages of soy sauce 

three eggs, scrambled

a bag of mixed veggies from the freezer

oh, and of course, the current house pour (for momma and Sparky)

Okay, so nothing spectacularly gourmet happening here, I realize that. But the resulting meal of vegetable fried rice was actually pretty tasty and on top of that healthy, and on top of that cheap.  A win, win, win in my book.  If I thought anyone was actually reading this, I'd ask what's your go to, make do meal?

dinner last night.

leftover barbecue chicken pizza using frozen bread dough

Dinner last night actually consisted of quite a bit of leftovers, the star of those leftovers being the most scrumtious home made "everything but the kitchen sink" bbq sauce you ever did drink, ahem, I mean taste.  It is totally worth the effort of making.  There's a secret part of me--well, I guess not so secret now--that wishes simply to guzzle the sauce straight out of the glass jar I have it stored in.  I'm not kidding.  It is that good.