Wow! April and May were incredibly busy! I have not blogged in many weeks, but now it is summertime and the living is easy! I wondered how I could ever catch up blogging the many weeks of menus I have missed and then I had an epiphany - I will make the week a "best of week" - the best daily menus from the time I have been absent from cyberspace. You and I will then be caught up and I will do my best not to allow such a lapse again!Monday
Salmon en Papillote
Salad
Rolls
My family loves this method of cooking salmon. It is from a Pampered Chef cookbook called Doris Christopher's Main Dishes. I could not find a replica anywhere on the web so here is the recipe:
Ingredients
2/3 c uncooked orzo pasta
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1/4 c green onions with tops, sliced
1/3 c pitted ripe olives, sliced
3 T prepared basil pesto, divided
1/2 t lemon zest
1/4 t salt
4 (4-6 oz) skinless salmon fillets
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut four 15 inch squares of Parchment Paper. Fold in half and cut to make large heart shapes when unfolded.
2. Cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Place pasta in a large bowl. Add tomatoes, green onions, olives and 1 T of the pesto to the pasta. Stir lemon zest and salt into pasta mixture.
3. For each serving, open paper heart and spoon about 3/4 cup pasta mixture on right side; top with salmon fillet. Spread salmon with 1 1/2 t of the remaining pesto. Fold left side of heart over salmon. Starting at top, tightly seal packet by making a series of short, narrow, overlapping folds along the open edge. At bottom of heart twist tip and turn up.
4. Arrange packets on a baking sheet. Bake 13-15 minutes. (Carefully open one packet to test that salmon flakes easily with fork.) To serve, cut an "X" through top layer of paper and fold back points. (We just unroll paper.)
4 servings.
Tuesday
Salad
Fruit
Bread
The May 2011 issue of Bon Appetit was devoted to pasta. I have always loved pasta. I enjoyed this dish and I learned a lot about making pasta but I admit that I really like my usual sauce simply poured over pasta better. As far as salad goes, I don't usually follow any recipe. Spring has so many great ingredients to put in a salad. I just clean some lettuce then open my refrigerator and start adding. Speaking of lettuce, we have a wonderful community supported farm here and I have been buying some amazing organic lettuces (including arugula.) Good lettuce makes a good salad. I also try to buy and serve fruit as often as I can. Fresh fruits and vegetables are very important in our house. I admit that the cookies often call my name, but adding extra fruits and vegetables to your menus will greatly improve the quality of your meals.
Wednesday
Black and Blue Salad
Roll
Speaking of salad, the warmer days of summer lend themselves to more main dish salads. This salad is one that I created. I had some leftover beef chuck steak (a meal I didn't report) and decided to slice that very thin and add it to some mixed greens. I then added green onions, candied pecans, dried sweetened cranberries and blue cheese. I tossed it with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and some herbs, but any vinaigrette would do. I think an orange vinaigrette would be spectacular. You can really impress people with your salads simply by adding some candied nuts. They are simple to make. I heat my trusty cast iron skillet, add a little butter and sugar and stir it until the sugar melts, stir the nuts in the butter/sugar mixture for a few minutes and then let them cool on wax paper. Yum!
Thursday
Sauteed Bok Choy
Frozen Rolls
Southern Living puts together cookbooks for each year of recipes from their magazines. I have all of the annual cookbooks from 1986 - 2001. For some reason I stopped after 2001. My four favorite years are 1989, 1991, 1999, and 2000. The Honey-Glazed Grilled Chicken recipe I found in the 1999 cookbook. Fortunately, that year is recent enough to be posted on the internet. The chicken was very good. With warmer weather I fire up my grill pretty often. Last year for Mother's Day I asked for my own gas grill. My husband has a large charcoal grill but it was too much trouble for weeknight grilling. I love my little grill. It definitely receives more use than the other. I am still a beginner griller, but I love that time outside while grilling. Of course I am usually making trips back and forth to the kitchen to continue making the rest of the meal.
I have seen in several magazines the health benefits of black rice. I think even Dr. Oz has sung its praises. Black rice is a whole grain rice like brown rice but is much less glutinous. The only problem with it is finding it. I have only found it in Asian grocery stores, but Asian grocery stores make a great field trip. I have found many unusual ingredients to try in the Asian stores. This recipe combines black rice with scallions, sweet potatoes and ginger. The rice is actually purple so everything it touches eventually darkens so the sweet potatoes don't stay orange very long, but the recipe is very tasty and very healthy.
I had some beautiful Bok Choy from our local farm stand. I decided to saute' it in some sesame oil and then add a little chili garlic sauce. The whole meal took on an Asian flavor.
I usually make all of my own bread products but with our busy April and May I bought some frozen rolls which I admit were very tasty.
Friday
I don't always do much cooking on Fridays. We enjoy wine and appetizers on some Fridays. I have been curious about making sushi so I tried it recently. The picture at the top of the page is my experiment into sushi making. I used two recipes spicy tuna salad sushi roll and smoked salmon and mango sushi with citrus soya dipping sauce. Both were very good and I was proud of my first foray into sushi making. The tuna salad sushi roll uses canned (pouch) salmon and so it was a good first try. My son thought this one was the best. It was spicy even though I did not have chili oil. I have since purchased some at the Asian market so I can't wait to try it again. The smoked salmon and mango sushi was preferred by my husband because he loves mango. I did have a sushi making set but it is not absolutely necessary to make sushi.
Saturday
When I first started the blog, a friend of mine from high school sent me a recipe for chicken wings. We tried it and it was great. The only problem was it was so good my kids kept inviting friends and we ended up having small portions. Thanks Marcy for the recipe!
Chicken Wings
Salad
Oven fries
Slow-Cooker Sticky Wings
Serves 12
In step 3, the oven rack should be 10 to 12 inches from the broiler element. Don’t wander off while the wings are in the oven.
1 (3-inch) piece fresh ginger , peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves , peeled ( I used 1 small clove)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 pounds chicken wings , halved at joint and wingtips removed
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup tomato paste
1. MAKE RUB Pulse ginger, garlic, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne in food processor until finely ground. Add mixture to slow cooker insert. Add chicken and toss until combined.
2. COOK AND COOL Cover and cook on low until fat renders and chicken is tender, 3 to 4 hours. Using slotted spoon, remove wings from slow cooker and transfer to clean large bowl (discard liquid in slow cooker). Let wings cool 20 minutes (or cool briefly and refrigerate up to 24 hours).
3. SAUCE AND BROIL Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Set wire rack inside rimmed baking sheet and spray rack with baking spray. Whisk water, tomato paste, remaining sugar, remaining soy sauce, and remaining cayenne in bowl. Add half of sauce to bowl with cooled wings and toss gently to coat. Arrange wings, skin side up, on prepared rack. Broil until wings are lightly charred and crisp around edges, 10 to 15 minutes. Flip wings, brush with remaining sauce, and continue to broil until well caramelized, about 3 minutes. Serve.
Serves 12
In step 3, the oven rack should be 10 to 12 inches from the broiler element. Don’t wander off while the wings are in the oven.
1 (3-inch) piece fresh ginger , peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves , peeled ( I used 1 small clove)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 pounds chicken wings , halved at joint and wingtips removed
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup tomato paste
1. MAKE RUB Pulse ginger, garlic, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne in food processor until finely ground. Add mixture to slow cooker insert. Add chicken and toss until combined.
2. COOK AND COOL Cover and cook on low until fat renders and chicken is tender, 3 to 4 hours. Using slotted spoon, remove wings from slow cooker and transfer to clean large bowl (discard liquid in slow cooker). Let wings cool 20 minutes (or cool briefly and refrigerate up to 24 hours).
3. SAUCE AND BROIL Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat broiler. Set wire rack inside rimmed baking sheet and spray rack with baking spray. Whisk water, tomato paste, remaining sugar, remaining soy sauce, and remaining cayenne in bowl. Add half of sauce to bowl with cooled wings and toss gently to coat. Arrange wings, skin side up, on prepared rack. Broil until wings are lightly charred and crisp around edges, 10 to 15 minutes. Flip wings, brush with remaining sauce, and continue to broil until well caramelized, about 3 minutes. Serve.
With teenagers, the recipe doesn't quite serve 12. The wings were good and not too spicy. I will definitely make them again!
Sunday
Salad
Bread
During warmer weather, I have a love affair with my grill and one of my favorite foods to grill is
pork tenderloin. As long as you don't grill it too hot or too long it is very tender. I love the combination of lemon and rosemary (from my garden) so this was a wonderful dish for us. It was a meal that I could make after church since pork tenderloin cooks quickly. My husband loves both coconut and mango so when I found the coconut mango rice recipe I knew it would be a winner. We finished up the meal with a salad and bread.
I hope you enjoyed this compilation post. I hope to be back on track for weekly posts for the summer. Thank you for reading. Become a follower!
Until next time,
Enjoy your food!
