Thanksgiving Part III: Harvest Focaccia

This focaccia is a bit more time consuming than other focaccia recipes I've made but oh lordy is it worth it!! The grapes and turbinado sugar ("sugar in the raw" as you may know it) sweeten the salty bread just enough but not too much as to make it a dessert bread. I intended to serve it alongside the meal but we ended up eating a bunch as soon as it came out of the oven; it smelled too good!

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Thanksgiving Part II: Wild Mushroom Bacon Stuffing

This was my favorite dish of Thanksgiving, and I don't usually even like stuffing! We didn't stuff the turkey at all, just made a separate dish since most of us prefer a crispy-topped stuffing. This was the first leftover to be devoured (cold, with spoons, directly out of the baking dish) the next day. That's how good it is.

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Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie)

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had as great a holiday as I did. I know I promised my next post would be on preserving lemons, but you'll have to be patient. They are still sitting in the fridge a'preservin' and I didn't feel like taking them out for photos just yet. So instead I'm posting a recipe for an amazing appetizer I used to buy frozen all the time (...and eat the entire tray myself, but who's counting). I decided a while back that I wanted to try my hand at making spanakopita myself. This particular recipe has three different kinds of onions, but don't fear because the end product is definitely not overwhelming in the onion department. However, the flavors meld deliciously with the spinach and feta cheese. Serve that up in a flaky, crusty phyllo dough and your guests are sure to swoon! I won't lie, working with phyllo dough is time-consuming and can be frustrating at times when the dough breaks apart, but it's totally worth it for special occasions.

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Broccolini Puff Pastry Galette

Last year, I made a zucchini galette that had me drooling for more. It was unbelievable. Only thing is that making the dough is time-consuming and a bit onerous in that all the ingredients need to stay cold in order to get the flakiest dough. This time, I decided to take a short cut and use puff pastry instead. The galette came out great! The dough doesn't hold together as well as the previous galette but it is definitely a good way to get the galette look and flavor without having to make your own dough. This time, I filled it with broccolini and feta cheese!

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Roasted Cauliflower with Dates and Almonds

Here's a simple and delicious side I made the other night to use up some cauliflower. The dates compliment the sweetness of the roasted cauliflower, while the nuts balance the dish out with some salt and crunch.

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Ridiculously Easy Chicken Kebabs

This is another recipe Don used to woo me when we first started dating; it's great for a large crowd and easy enough for a kid to make, not to take anything away from the deliciousness of it! Use whatever meats and veggies your heart desires and serve with any bbq-worthy side dish. This time I went with jalepeno-smashed potatoes.

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Pork Chops and Fattoush

As discovered on one of the many food blogs I frequent, fattoush = Lebanese salad with pita chips and sumac. I recently learned of the existence of a spice store called Penzey's, and I'm pretty sure life will never be the same. Man, it's hard to not buy everything there! One of the many things I bought during my first trip is a spice mix called za'atar. It is a very popular condiment throughout the middle east, served with almost every meal. The blend is always different depending on where you buy it from or whose grandmother made it, but it usually contains at least sesame seeds, sumac, and salt. za'atar became the secret ingredient in my version of fattoush, which we served with grilled pork chops. The pork chops were rubbed with olive oil and Arizona Dreaming, a southwestern spice blend (salt-free!) purchased at Penzey's. For the salad recipe, see below.

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The Epitome of Deliciousness

Wow, that's a cheesy post title. Whatevs.*

*Update 08/25/10: I had to change the title of the post. It was just too much.

With this recipe, I believe I've reached the zenith of my cooking career thus far. Prior to this, I had never eaten a galette before let alone cooked one, but I had an overflow of squash from my CSA and decided to test it out. I wasn't too concerned because the recipe came from Smitten Kitchen; if you've ever cooked one of her recipes you would understand.

If you cook just one recipe from my blog, I beg it to be this one. There is only one snag, and it's that the crust has an entire stick of butter in it. And if you're like me, you will eat half of this galette in one sitting. You do the math. It ain't pretty.

If you are done with bathing suits for the season and/or are willing to skip the next meal and/or actually have the willpower to only eat one slice, then read ahead!

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Food Challenge Day 4 - Tomato Panzanella

This 4th-day recipe was the one about which I was most nervous. I've never made a dish that consisted of just tomatoes and croutons, and I was skeptical. I made it as a side dish for a friend's backyard crab party and it ended up being a perfect light addition to the meal. I will no longer doubt such recipes! The simple ingredients combined perfectly in a manner that allowed the delicate flavors to stand out.

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Food Challenge Day 1 - Pasta Salad

Day One of the food challenge called for a summer pasta salad with shrimp. This is where I decided to cheat. Don is allergic to shrimp so I substituted it for prosciutto I had in the fridge and it worked out excellently. I also added artichokes, feta and omitted a some other ingredients. Regardless of variation, this recipe is incredibly fresh and summery; I encourage you to play around with it and add any veggies you want. The day I made it I had just purchased an official Microplane grater so I got to test it out with the lemon zest. That thing is AMAZING. If you don't have one, get one. Now.

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Herby 'Shrooms

This is a relatively versatile recipe for leek and mushroom risotto. Contrary to popular belief, risotto is not difficult to make at all. You just need to be on it the whole time it's cooking; it's not a "set it and forget it" kind of meal. Eh, Showtime Rotisserie people?? My parents swear by theirs.

Anyhoo, what makes this versatile is that you can use any combination of herbs to marinate the mushrooms, the taste of which will come through strongly in your end dish. Go to town with your favorite herbs! I used rosemary, thyme, and some basil. Careful with the lemon zest - the recipe calls for the zest of one lemon, but my lemon was ginormous so I didn't use all of it and the flavor was still a little intense for us. Tasty all the same!

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Branching Out, v1.0 - Jicama!

Note: I titled this post "Branching Out, v1.0" in the hopes that I will branch out more often - if not for me, then for my loyal blog-readers (all three of you)! If you have ideas for strange and delicious veggies/fruits/oddities, please leave them in the comments!

In the past, I'd had several jicama-flavored things but I'd never actually taken a bite out of one. It was hard enough for me to pronounce, let alone figure out how to serve. So, when they were on sale at Giant last week, I took the plunge! I was impressed that the computerized lady-voice in self-checkout pronounced it correctly! I found a recipe that looked delicious and healthy from Bon Appetit (via Serious Eats) so I rolled with it. I added some leftover roasted chicken and served in tortillas as chicken salad wraps. The jicama had a consistency much like an apple or a potato, and tasted a little sweet but overall pretty neutral. The satisfying crunchiness was what stood out the most in this salad.

Salad, pre-tortilla

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