Looong time...

So, it's been a long time, but I made such a yummy dish the other night I thought I'd do a post again. I found the dish online and it's from Rachael Ray. I know lots of people don't like her, but this was a really good recipe. The recipe was Shepherds Pie with Horseradish Cheddar Potatoes. It actually wasn't that difficult to make, but it definitely took more than 30 minutes. Then again, I wasn't exactly rushing and I was enjoying some wine at the same time. Quite leisurely cooking. Anyways, here's some pics of the process.

Anyways, it was really delicious. Really rich flavors. I would never have thought of putting horseradish in mashed potatoes, but it was so good (then again, I really like horseradish). All in all this was a great, and hearty, winter meal.

P.S. It's a good thing that I liked it because I live alone and will be eating it for the next week:)

Is everything better with bacon?

So, trying to get back to this. For this week from the Food Revolution book we're making bacon wrapped cod and asparagus with a sauce. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it was. Kind of. First off, I'll say this was a pretty easy recipe and everything is done really fast. Even with prep, it only took about 20-25 minutes. So, here are the results (and I apologize in advance...even for my phone camera this is a terrible picture):

Okay, the good. Even though you cook this at a high heat, with the fish wrapped in the bacon the fish is still nice and tender and not at all overcooked. I used basil instead of Rosemary for the fish and it added a nice flavor.

The iffy. The sauce on the asparagus was very tasty, but very strong. I would totally make this again, but I would go more sparingly on the sauce. As it is, it sort of overwhelms the asparagus (which I actually like the taste of).

The not so good. I even cooked it a little longer than it said and my bacon was still not crispy. Definitely still fatty and kind of gummy. Now, I guess there's a few things I could do differently. One, is that the recipe says to thin out the bacon by running your knife over it, and I didn't do that (oops, my bad). Maybe that would've helped. Another option is to use 3 slices of bacon instead of the 4 it says to use. Lastly, maybe a minute or two under the broiler at the end might have crisped it up. And then, of course, I could have just looked for a thinner cut bacon. Those are my ideas anyways.

In closing, it's a tasty, and easy to cook dish, that I would probably try again. There's just a few things I would do differently.

Claudia? Your turn.

Asian Chicken Noodle Broth

So, this is our first recipe from the "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" book. I got to choose the first recipe, so this is what I picked (mainly because I've been craving pho). I'm putting a pic from the cookbook below because I'm too lazy to transcribe the recipe. Anyways, in the book he says make a recipe and share it with others. So, it's only slightly copyright infringement.

I made a few little tweaks to the recipe. I started the broth a little earlier and let it simmer for a while. I really wanted to make sure the flavors of the ginger and chili pepper was infused (I also added some garlic). The kitchen smelled fantastic when I finally got everything cooking. I couldn't find snow peas or baby carrots (which I don't really care for anyways) so I got totally lazy and bought a frozen bag of "Asian Vegetable Medly" (snap peas, mushrooms, onions and sundry). I also used thin pasta instead of rice sticks. In addition, I decided to use cilantro instead of spinach. This is totally a matter of taste. I love cilantro and the flavor it brings, but I know some people who really don't like it. So, that's totally up to you. Final product?

This soup was really, really (really) good. You could definitely taste the heat of the chili and the five-spice powder (which I've never used before) was such a wonderful aromatic and added so much to the dish. On a side note, I paid $7 for a container of this so I need to find something else to do with it. I think this is going to be a great second day meal as the flavors usually intensify after a day or two (as with most soups and stews). One thing, I totally forgot to add the chopped seeds and nuts at the end. I toasted them and everything. So, even more for my leftovers. All in all this was a delicious start to the cookbook. Can't wait to see what Clussy chooses for next week:)

UPDATE by Claud:
So, since I didn't take any pics of my recipe making for this one, I figured I'd just update what Jems already had in place. 

My take on it in a nutshell is that it was freaking awesome and easy to make actually.  Only thing I did wrong (actually, there were a few snafoos but this one is the biggest) was to dump in 10 oz of noodles into the soup instead of just the 4 it called for, so then I had to add in extra chicken broth but at that point, it diluted it of the other seasonings/condiments which were measured out for half as much broth (like the lemon juice, ginger and chili pepper) so it wasn't as good as it could have been, which is saying a lot because it truly was delicious. Another note, I *did* remember to sprinkle the plated dishes w/the toasted seeds/nuts and they were kind of the highlight for me.  I LOVE texture in that regard so to give me some crunch in a soup and for it to be filled w/this toasted nutty taste was heaven for me.  Winner winner, chicken soup dinner. 
NEXT!

Gardening Update

So, I wanted to give a little update on how this was coming along. Actually had quite a little setback. First my seedlings got a fungus, so I had to transplant them. Then it got realllllly cold for a few nights. And then a squirrel (or other city rodent) decided to eat a bunch of them. After all of that a lot of my seedlings were dead or just gone (all of my cucumber seedlings are dead). So, I've started a few of them again, though, it may be too late in the season. If they're not really taking off in the next week or two then I'll just buy some plants. No biggy. Plus we're supposed to finally have a longer string of warm and sunny days, so I think that should help.

Some of my tomato plants are actually doing pretty well. The name of this heirloom seed is "West Virginia Hillbilly Tomato". So, clearly that's why I bought it because it's the tomato for my peoples.

My lettuce is actually doing pretty well. Still really small, but getting there.


I bought two blackberry bushes 2 weeks ago and planted them and they're looking purty so far. No berries yet (still way too early), but I've got some pretty blooms.

My beans are starting to sprout and making a go of it.

You can actually see some of the first strawberries in my strawberry plant, too. I didn't start this from seed, just bought it.

I'm still really enjoying this whole process and hope everything keeps going so I can supply all my friends and family with fresh veggies this summer. :)

It's like mussles but different...

Well, mussel fail.  It's confirmed.  After murdering a 5 lb bag of mussels (I really didn't know they were alive when you buy them) by putting them away in fridge for a day in a closed bag, I decided to head over to Harris Teeter, after the gym tonight, to try my shot at finding them again.  Oh, I found them but after tapping at the whole array of mussels that were on ice (in net bags), none of them would even pretend to shut. I realized they were like 90% dead if not more and slimy at that! Ew. The whole area was stinky.  I looked over at the seafood counter and scowled at disapproval.  You see, maybe I didn't murder them afterall. Maybe I naively bought mussel corpses and they (seafood counter folks) framed me of their murder. Why me? Ok, rant over.  Point is, I smartly decided against buying dead mussels and instead opted for shrimp.

I got everything out and proceeded to dive in.  I chopped the onion and garlic as well as some fresh basil (that was my taking liberties) and set aside.  Squeezed the oily chorizo out of the casin, into oiled frying pan and browned, then set aside in bowl and threw in the goodies and let them sizzle. The onions, garlic and basil cooking up in the chorizo infused oil was so yummy smelling that Cowboy came sniffing around in excitement.  Since I was modifying the recipe to just have a pound or so of shrimp instead of all the mussels,  I only used about 2 1/2 cups of white wine to deglaze the pan and it turned out to be a perfect amount.

What I'd suggest in cooking this would be to use angel hair pasta as the carb of the dish and up the amount of wine at that point so that the angel hair pasta can sop it up. Other than that, it was quite possibly a perfect recipe.  Good find, Jems!

Sizzling pan full of goodness, just about done.

Plated and ready to eat. I put a bit of the sauce/broth in a separate bowl to sop up w/the toasted bread which ended up being a really nice side treat to it.

Mussels - Jeremy's Take

So, after much searching I finally found some mussels in the grocery store to make the recipe listed 2 posts ago. I was definitely looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the grocery store didn't have chorizo, so I went with hot italian sausage instead. When I began rinsing off the mussels, a bunch of them didn't close, so I knew they were dead and inedible. I will also admit I was getting slightly grossed out by the mussels themselves. It's one thing to order them and they come out all nice and pretty, it's another when you're tapping them to see if they close so you know they're alive when you cook them. Here's a few pics of the process:

And here's the finished product below. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry. And, yes, I have them in a big frying pan as I realized I don't have any larger serving bowls.

So, thoughts. This was actually pretty tasty. I'm sure it would've been more so if I hadn't been slightly turned off the idea of mussels by the process. If I could change one thing I would let the broth concentrate a little longer with the sausage before adding the mussels. I think that would help it develop a little more flavor. All in all, it was pretty good, though. On a side note, I halfed the recipe and still had WAY too much food. So, my big piece of advice would be, invite some friends over before you make this.

Paris Bistro Steak - Bonus Recipe for last week

Woops, I'm falling behind on posting new recipe results.  So, last week, instead of making the mussels (I finally found some yesterday so I'll be making that tonight), I decided to make the Paris Bistro Steak off of the NoTakeOut website. 

Liberties I took w/recipe were countless.  Notably, instead of capers in the dressing for the steamed cauliflower, I used chopped green manzanilla olives, which made this dressing such a treat! I'll be keeping that as a go-to dressing on them for the future. I also added chopped sage to the steak red wine sauce and it gave it a really nice fragrance and taste.  I couldn't find Bordeaux at the local Safeway (but I *did* find a mouse scurrying in front of my card in cheese section of store) so I used a cab sav instead. Also, I decided to add green peppers and mushrooms in for some more veggies. I'd probably not do that next time because I think all in all, it just distracted from the simplicity of the steak reduction sauce and my measurements suddenly were skewed from eyeing to add in more wine and seasoning to account for extra veggies.

So, all in all, it was a tasty dish but the downsides would be that the cut of steak was not particularly good and pan cooking steak is tough for me (and Sean kept insisting it cook longer) so the steak turned out a bit more over-cooked than I like but then again, I like a good Moo to come out of my steak before I bite in and have red steak juices dribbling off my chin.  The flavors were really good but I'd likely pick a different cut of steak or perhaps grill the steak next time and just pan cook the sauce of course.

Red wine reduction sauce simmering down.

Finished product

Time to flex mussels tonight! Hope I didn't kill the poor buggers. Who knew they were alive when you bought them? ((shrugs))

Flexing Muscles! ((crickets))

OK, so for our next recipe effort, we're going w/Jems' suggestion of Mussels. Yums! I must do some serious skipping around in the produce section because I don't know that I've ever actually seen a vidalia onion. I've heard it plenty of times and had dips made w/them. Time for some produce education.

 So looks like we're supposed to serve it up with garlic bread to sop up the sauce. We'll also make a nice salad to have with this dinner.  Mmmm, chorizo...

Ingredients

• 2 (5-pound) bags mussels
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound spicy Mexican chorizo, casing removed
• 1 Vidalia onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, slivered
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• Parsley, chopped, for garnish

Directions

Working, 1 at a time, scrub any grit from shells under running water. Discard open mussels that do not close with a few taps of the finger and any with cracked shells. Put the mussels in a bowl of cold water.

Heat the oil in a large wide pot over medium-high heat and add the chorizo. Using a wooden spoon or potato masher, mash the chorizo into chunks, so it resembles ground beef. Saute until brown, about 8 minutes. Remove chorizo to a bowl. In the same pot, add the onion and garlic and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Saute 3 minutes to sweat. Deglaze the pan with the wine. Pull the mussels from bowl and transfer them and the water to the pot, do not strain, leaving behind any sand and grit that has sunk to the bottom. Stir to coat. Add the chorizo back into the pot and cover. Cook over medium heat until the mussels open, 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a large serving bowl, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.

Lessons Learned #1

So, I spent this morning transferring all of my veggies from the seed tray to pots. I was getting a lovely fungus growing on them and needed to transfer them before I normally would (I was originally planning on transferring them directly to the containers). After some internet research it looks like something called "damping off". This comes from the peat pellets and too much moisture. Evidently it's fairly common, so I don't feel like a complete idiot. The remedies are supposedly transferring them to soil. If that doesn't work, then some organic remedies are sprinkling them with cinnamon or watering them with a mixture of water and strong chamomile tea. Beyond that, there's chemicals, but I'm trying to avoid those. So, here's hoping this works. In general, though, they're still growing and looking pretty good. Hopefully that's a good sign.

First Recipe - Jeremy's Take 04.09.10

So, last night it was my turn. All in all the recipe turned out really well. I agree with Claudia that the potatoes were a little "toothy" and I cooked them a little bit longer than the recipe. There's so few ingredients so it's a lot about quality ingredients, and I wish I could've found nicer fillets. Also, I apologize for the mediocre quality of photos. All I have is the camera on my phone. Overall, though, the recipe was a great, light dinner for spring.


The vultures are circling and looking for dropped food.

I had this great fume blanc with the meal. I've had this before. If you're looking for a really delicious, light, crisp and refreshing white, then I highly recommend this affordable wine.

The finished product, and ready to eat.

In general, I'd recommend this recipe. I do agree with Claudia that the lemon really makes this. Since there are such light ingredients the lemons and chives are pretty essential and make the flavor.

So, what's recipe #2?

First Recipe for our Project - Red Snapper

Red Snapper from No Take Out.  (<-- Clicky here for full recipe from NoTakeOut.com site)

Red Snapper - Served with mushrooms and sautéed potatoes

Shopping List

• 1 lb. potatoes (we like Yukon Gold)
• 1 lb. mushrooms
• 1 bunch chives
• 1 lemon
• Four 6 oz. fish fillets, with skin (such as red snapper or flounder)

 Pantry Items

• Black pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Garlic
• Sea salt

Wine Suggestion:  Sauvignon Blanc (perfect because I have a Cupcake one that we got a bit ago that I'm jones'ing to try)

We're going to be making this tomorrow night. Agreed?  Pictures of what each of our dishes end up looking like and what our impressions of the dish are. We can rotate some more of this site's recipes w/our Jamie Oliver recipe book as well.

Results (to be updated post cooking):

Claud's results for 4/8/2010: 

So, me and my Sioux Indian Chef worked on the prepping and cookin' of the first meal of this @Home blog mission together tonight. I'd say it turned out quite tasty and light and easily digestible. Yums! The lemon juice really gave it that spring meal feel.
What I'd do differently than what recipe called for:

• Cook potatoes longer in the first step. The recipe called for 7 minutes, however, we cooked 'em for about 10 or so minutes and then put them aside. When we put the combo of 'tatoes and mushrooms back in to cook together as last step (for what was supposed to be just 3 minutes) we had to end up cooking it for over 10 min which overcooked the mushrooms and potatoes still didn't seem all the way cooked. ((shrugs))
• I overcooked the fish. doh! I'd not overcook it next time. :)
• I added a dash or two of Paprika to the potatoes while cooking. I wanted something other than salt and pepper. I'm just not a salt and pepper girl so refraining from adding Adobo or cumin was tough for me.

Recipe called for Sauvignon Blanc to accompany the cooking process. We had a Cupcake Sauvignon Blanc that we both enjoyed and neither of us are the biggest Cab Sav fan.
Pics of process and finished product:

Your turn Jems!

Gardening from a beginner....

So, after spending way too many years reading about gardening and growing and supporting local food, I'm finally going to give it a try. I have my patio in Philadelphia and I'm working on my own lot of container veggies. I'm trying to grow quite a bit and I've never done it before. My main thought process is that it's my learning year, and if at least half of it grows I'll still make out like a bandit. My dream scenario is that I'm giving veggies away left and right because I have so much. My main resources are "Grow Great Grub" by Gayla Trail and "Fresh Food From Small Spaces" by R.J. Ruppenthal. Of course, in addition to the handy interweb. I'm starting all heirloom veggies from seed. I'm growing a couple different kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, spring greens, pole beans, cantaloupe, jalapeno peppers, Thai chilies and a bunch of herbs (plus, some daisies, just because they're purty). I'm also hoping to try out some blackberry and blueberry bushes. So feel free to join me in my beginning gardening adventures. And hopefully they won't be adventures in futility.

Here are the slim beginnings of my gardening process. Not much to look at, but at least they're growing.

**If you're interested in the gardening and local food books I've been reading, here's a list:

-Pretty much anything by Michael Pollan (who was also one of the contributors to the doc "Food, Inc."). I'm partial to "The Omnivore's Dilemma".

-"Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver is a great book about a family trying to live (mainly) off their own land for a year.

-"Farm City" by Novella Carpenter is a fun book about a couple building up a farm in the middle of inner city Oakland, CA.

Here we go!

Ok Jems, our blog is set up so let's do this.

What we're going to cover in this bloggy blog:

• Recipes - initially from our Jamie Oliver Food Revolution cookbook, once we receive the book in the mail (we both ordered today). At least one if not 2 a week. Sean's going to be my Sioux chef.(*Jeremy kindly pointed out that I failed to differentiate Sioux and Sous correctly. fail. Sean did say he thought he had some American Indian in him though so maybe I'm not that far off?)

• Gardening - I get to see your purty, thriving garden as it flourishes under your virginal gardening care. Excited to see your results from your first garden!
• Home progress - as we both make decor changes (paint/furniture/etc...) to our humble abodes, we can share pics here.
• Book Club Notes? You think you want to share on here?
• What else?

So exciting! Here's to new chapters in our life and actually feeling productive as opposed to limiting ourselves to feeling stressed out. May our stressors continue to chill themselves out and may we keep building character in the face of adversity.

Boo-yah.

Obligatory Hamming it up picture after Jeremy's botox injections