Recipes

(JeffreyW’s Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Carrots and Parsnips)

From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

Tried to fit some actual cooking into what has been a very busy week. The weather is very warm here right now, so I want to rush out and buy plants and get summer underway. But even 90 degree (!) temps can be deceptive – at this altitude they still recommend planting after Mother’s day to be safe. We’ve had 90 degrees to freezing whiplash before.

Roasting seemed wrong for our summer like weather, but most roasting recipes can be adapted for the gas-grill as needed, so I went with it. Roasting adds great flavor to foods, vegetables in particular. The slow cooking method adds a touch of sweetness and depth to almost any vegetable (current cooking crush Ming Tsai even has a recipe for roasting radicchio). For a quick dinner you can add vegetables tossed with olive oil to the bottom of a roasting pan, top with chicken breasts rubbed with oil and seasoned with salt & pepper and roast until the chicken is required temperature. One pan dinner in about 35 minutes.

This week I roasted Asparagus topped with mozzarella and tonight’s sweet potato recipe. And here is the link to JeffreyW’s Brussel Sprouts, Carrots and Parsnips.

For dessert I made a batch of Orange Brownies. I think for the weekend, though, I’m going to stick to stove top cooking and grilling. What’s on your menu this week? Does weather affect what you want to cook?

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
4 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1 or 2 inch pieces
2 medium red onions, cut in to 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
sprig of fresh thyme, cut into 4 pieces
salt & pepper (about 1/2 tsp of pepper or more, finely ground)

Preheat oven to 425. Combine all ingredients in baking dish. Toss to coat the veggies and bake for 35 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender and onions are soft.

Next Week: Awesome Cookies

Thursday Recipe Exchange: RoastingPost + Comments (29)

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From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

Tonight was suppose to be about unusual fruits, but I never made it to the Asian Market to pick up the fruits I wanted to work with, so we’ll save it for another time. Instead I was in the mood to cook up a batch of this wonderful lemon chicken. It’s a bit labor intensive, so I don’t do it often, but it is oh, so good.
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Let’s make this exchange about lemons and chicken. Do you have any favorite lemon recipes? Chicken? Lemon and chicken? And most importantly, what are your cooking plans tonight or this weekend? Hit the comments with your dinner plans.

Zesty Lemon Chicken
(adapted from Crème de Colorado – serves 6)

6 boneless chicken breasts
10 whole lemons, (enough to make 2 cups juice, reserve 2 tbsp for later)
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup oil
2 tbsp lemon zest (grated peel)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup chicken broth*
1 whole lemon, sliced thin
minced parsley for garnish
skillet, bowl, baking dish
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In an airtight container, combine chicken breasts and lemon juice. Marinate for 1 hour. Remove chicken. Pat chicken with paper towel, but don’t dry completely. Mix together flour, salt, paprika and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour mixture until well coated.
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In large skillet heat 1/2 of the oil and fry breasts a few at a time until well browned, adding and heating more oil as needed. (about ten minutes) Arrange chicken in a single layer in a large baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with lemon peel and brown sugar. Mix chicken broth with reserved lemon juice and pour around chicken. Pace a sliced lemon on top of each breast and sprinkle with minced parsley. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes until tender.
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*I added the broth to the frying pan, deglazed it and then added it to the baking dish. Yum.

Next week: Mushrooms

Thursday Recipe Exchange: Zesty Lemon ChickenPost + Comments (45)

(photo by JeffreyW)
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From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

Last week I opened up the ingredients to requests. I had two, bacon and mushrooms. We’ll start with bacon and I’ll serve up some mushroom recipes at a later date. JeffreyW tantalized us all with bacon cups (“ba-cups” he christened them!) and today seemed like a good reason to try them. He used bread in his first batch as the base, but suggested hash browns. I did half hash browns and half bread. Then I was able to cook up the remaining hash browns in bacon grease. Yum. The recipe that follows is for the bread bottoms. Not content with just bacon, he followed up with Prosciutto Cups.
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Are you a bacon person? Ever tried bacon ice cream? What are some of your favorite bacon uses?
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JeffreyW’s Ba-Cups
6 thick slice bacon
6 eggs
3-6 slices of rye or other firm bread
2 oz shredded sharp cheddar (or cheese of choice)
2 tbsp of butter
skillet, 6-cup muffin tin (alternately you can use custard bowls)
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Lightly butter each muffin cup. Cut a circle out of each slice of bread to fit in the bottom of the muffin cups (I was able to get 2 from each slice). Place in the buttered bottom of each muffin cup. Now you can either lightly fry the bacon and then arrange into the cups, or leave it raw (see JeffreyW’s notes below). Crack one egg into each cup. season with salt and pepper, top with shredded cheese. Bake at 375 degrees until bacon is fully cooked and egg whites are set, 20 to 25 minutes. Run a small knife around cups to loosen toasts. Serve immediately.
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JeffreyW’s notes on bacon cups:
I like my bacon on the crisp side, and love runny yolks, so the next time I make these I will fry the bacon a bit before I assemble them. By the time the bacon in this set was edible, the eggs were cooked hard. A thin cut bacon could help, as well.
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I cut some circles to fit the bottoms of the muffin tin out of rye bread. Any bread will work, and a fellow in a comment elsewhere mentioned using hash browns on the bottom as a possibility. I see merit in his suggestion.
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I tried several cheeses on the tops, some shredded cheddar, a couple with parings of asiago, and one with a Greek cheese called Kasseri. I am happiest with the cheddar, although perhaps using grated cheeses will be the preferred method in the end. More experiments! Wonder if I can get a grant?
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Next week: Biscuits

Thursday Recipe Exchange – BaconPost + Comments (70)