Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Rabbit on a Roll

Prosciutto-wrapped Rabbit Roulade

1 large onion, finely chopped3/4 cup mushroom caps, chopped
1 large carrot, shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup raisins or zante currants, chopped
1/2 cup red wine
1 tsp fresh rosemary
1 tsp fresh thyme
4oz package of prosciutto, thinly sliced
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2-3 lb rabbit, boned
Cooking twine

1.  Combine onion, mushroom, carrot, garlic, raisins, wine, rosemary and thyme in a bowl to make the filling.  Put in fridge to marinate for 30 minutes.
2.  Preheat oven to 325F
3.  Lay out the prosciutto on a piece of wax paper, overlapping each slice 1/4-1/2".  Slices should be laid vertically, and line up horizontally, so that final layout is longer than it is tall.  After you have laid out all the prosciutto, spread the mustard over it, taking care not to pull up the pieces of proscuitto.
4.  Tenderize the rabbit, flattening to approximately 1/4" thick.  Lay pieces flat (trimming if necessary), to cover the prosciutto.  The mustard will act as a type of glue to hold these two layers together.
5.  Spread the filling over the rabbit.  Carefully begin rolling the roulade. The easiest way to get it started is to actually pick up the edge of the wax paper, and begin rolling the dish about one inch.  Then peel the wax paper back, and do this again, repeating until the whole dish is rolled up.
6.  Use cooking twine to tie the roulade firmly and put in a roasting pan.  Cover with foil.
7.  Cook for 1-2 hours, until center reaches 165F.  Cooking time varies based on density of the filling, how tightly the roulade is rolled, and how thick your roulade is.
8.  Slice into 1/2" thick slices and serve over brown rice.
9.  Enjoy!

Note:  This recipe can also be made with chicken (though you really should try it with rabbit :) ).  Try it with some boneless chicken thighs though in place of the rabbit, and you will still have a great dish.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Cooking with Leftovers, again

So if you're  like me, you'll often have food leftover after a big meal.  Maybe some grilled chicken, an extra steak, etc.  One of my favorite uses for leftover meat (as long as it's not really strongly seasoned in some way that would keep it from tasting good in this recipe), is to make a stir fry.  Since leftovers also tend to mean I just cooked, and probably want a break from that, I use mostly canned and frozen ingredients on this one to keep it quick and easy. 



Leftover Stir Fry

1 tbsp sesame oil
1 cup cooked meat
15 oz can baby corn, including liquid
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper

1 1/2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1 cup frozen brocolli
1/2 cup frozen soybeans
8 oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained

1.  Put sesame oil in wok or large pan set to medium-low.
2.  Cut meat into bite size chunks and put into pan.  Stir for 2-3 minutes until hot
3.  Carefully pour contents of can of corn into pan (the liquid will sizzle when it contacts the hot oil, but this avoids having to add stock, which I normally use in my stir fry.  Again, keeping things simple and quick)
4.  Add rest of ingredients to pan, turn heat up to medium.  Continue to stir for 8-12 minutes, or until everything is hot through.
5.  Serve with slotted spoon to leave behind any remaining liquid. 

Obviously, this is one of those recipes that you make up as you go along, and use whatever you have in the kitchen that day.  If you have a frozen stir fry blend, that will obviously work and will be more traditional than mixed vegetables.  If you have some mushrooms or green onions around, chop them up and throw them in.  The combinations are endless, as are the flavors, so whip some up and have fun with it.  I generally will serve this over rice or soba noodles. 

Sunday, July 18, 2010

The End of the Blueberries

It seems that blueberry season is ending in my house.  To be exact, I just used up the last of the large batch of blueberries that I had bought a few weeks ago.  To finish it up, I figured I would share two final blueberry recipes here, a breakfast and another blueberry cookie.  Now, these blueberry cookies are based on a recipe I got in email from Dominicks (for those who don't live in Chicago area, this is a grocery chain), so I don't really claim it as my own, but man are they good.



Blueberry French Toast

4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon blueberry schnapps
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
10 to 12 slices of bread
2 cups blueberries
Powdered sugar
Maple Syrup


1.  Whisk together eggs, milk, schnapps, vanilla, cinnamon and salt.  Put in a shallow dish or pie plate
2.  Put a pan over medium heat and lightly cover with butter or margarine
3.  Soak each bread with egg mix, flipping over halfway through.  How long this will take depends on the kind of bread.  Don't prepare all of the bread ahead of time.  Only do as many slices as you can cook at one time, and then start the next slices while the first ones are cooking, and so on.
4.  Cook the french toast until golden brown, then flip it and cook the other side. 
5.  Put french toast on plate with approximately 1/8cup of blueberries per slice.  Dust with powdered sugar and pour maple syrup to taste.
6.  Enjoy!



Chocolate Covered Blueberry Cookies


1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup blueberries (frozen)
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 tablespoons blueberry schnapps

1.  Preheat oven to 350F
2.  Cream together butter and sugar.  Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
3.  Add flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and baking powder.  Mix until combined.
4.  Roll dough into 1" balls.  Put on greased baking sheet and push thumb into dough.
5.  In a saucepan, melt condensed milk and chocolate chips, then add blueberry schnapps.
6.  Put a blueberry in the thumbprint, and pour 1 tsp of melted chocolate mix over the blueberry.  More schnapps can be added as you go if needed to keep the mix a spreadable consistency.
7.  Bake for 10-12 minutes
8.  Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Dumplings, Empanadas, What's in a name?


Empanadas, dumplings, potstickers, I love them all. Any time you take a tasty filling, wrap it in pastry and cook it, count me in. Seafood is always a winner when I'm choosing a meal too, so I put the two together. If you want a slightly lighter and fluffier version of this recipe, replace the pie crust with puff pastry dough.

Seafood Empanadas

* 1 pound salmon fillets
* 2 cups water
* 2 cups dry white wine
* 2 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
* 1 carrot, peeled and minced
* 1 leek, well rinsed, dried, and minced
* 1 ripe tomato, seeded and chopped
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
* 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
* 1 egg white
* 1 Tablespoon Pernod or 1 tsp anise extract
* 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
* 1/2 cup heavy or whipping cream
* Pinch cayenne pepper
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
* 4 ounces fresh bay scallops, halved
* 2 packages refrigerated pie crust (they're over by the refrigerated biscuits, generally in dairy section)
* 1/2 cup sweet and sour sauce
* 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Preparation:
Poach the salmon fillets in the wine, and water in a large skillet just until cooked through. Cool and flake the salmon meat, removing all the bones. Refrigerate covered until cold.

Melt the butter in the skillet over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and leeks and saute for 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes more. Remove from heat and stir in the dill and bread crumbs. Process the salmon in a food processor fitted with a steel blade until smooth. Add the egg whites and process until blended. Add the Pernod, lemon juice, and cream and process until very smooth. Season with the tarragon, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste. Remove to a large mixing bowl.

Add the vegetable mixture and the halved bay scallops to the salmon mixture and stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 400F and spray baking sheet or glass baking dish with cooking spray.

Dust a clean, dry surface with flour. Roll out the pie crust dough to 15" with rolling pin. Cut into 3-4" rounds. Repeated with 3 remaining crusts, then roll out the scraps and continue until you are out of dough. Arrange 1 round on a clean, flat surface. Lightly brush the edges of crust with water. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of filling  in the center of the round. Fold the dough over the filling, pressing the edges with a fork to seal. Repeat with the remaining rounds and seafood mixture. Arrange the dumplings on the baking sheet. Mix sweet and sour sauce with red wine vinegar, and brush on dumplings. Cook for 19 minutes.

Enjoy! I served mine with a bit more of the sweet and sour sauce, they tasted great!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Tequila Lime Chicken Sandwich

So when I bought this house I had a housewarming party.  As part of the drinks for that night, I bought a bottle of tequila.  Two years later, there's still most of the bottle left, so I decided to come up with a recipe to use some of it.  Tequila and lime of course always go together, and I had them both, so I figured I would just make a simple, tasty, sandwich.

Tequila Lime Chicken Sandwich
1/3 cup tequila
2 boneless chicken breasts
Juice from one lime
2 slices colby-jack cheese
Fresh Spinach
1 tbsp mayo
1/4 tsp ancho chile powder
1/4 tsp dry cilantro
4 slices whole wheat bread (or other bread of your choice)
Fine sea salt

1.  Put chicken, tequila and lime juice in a bag and set in fridge to marinate for 4-8 hours
2.  Heat grill (gas or charcoal, whatever you prefer)
3.  Remove chicken from bag, sprinkle lightly with salt on both sides, and put on grill
4.  Prepare the mayo by mixing mayo, cilantro and chile powder, set aside
5.  When chicken is finished cooking, assemble the ingredients.  Bread, mayo, a layer of fresh spinach leaves (stems removed), chicken, cheese, bread.
6.  Enjoy!

I don't particularly like tequila to drink, but it sure makes for a great sandwich!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Christmas in July


Growing up, my Mom always made the best Christmas cookies and treats. My personal favorite was always her peppermint bark. She would make white chocolate covered pretzels, and then use the remaining chocolate and crushed candy canes to make peppermint bark. The combination of those two flavors is AMAZING. Every year she had a challenge trying to keep me away from these long enough to get them in the containers to go to people. I decided that I would take these same flavors and make a cookie. Besides tasting great, this can be a fun recipe to make with kids or grandkids. Girls will enjoy the pink color of the cookies, and boys can enjoy smashing the candy canes.  You'll want to keep an eye on them to make sure there are no smashed fingers, though

Peppermint White Chocolate Cookies


1 C butter
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 C buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 C flour
1 1/3 C crushed peppermint candy (candy canes, starlight mints, whatever)
12oz white baking chocolate

Preheat oven to 375F

1. Beat butter until fluffy. Add sugar, beat until mixed. Add eggs and buttermilk, beat until smooth. Add vanilla, baking soda, beat until mixed. Mix in flour 1C or so at a time until combined. Use spatula to fold in crushed candy.

2. Drop onto cookie sheets in approximately 1.5 tbsp size

3. Cook 10-12 minutes

4. Put on rack to cool.

5. Melt white chocolate per package instructions (I used the microwave instructions). Dip the top of each cookie into the chocolate.

You can now find these cookies on our Etsy store!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Date Night

This is a relatively simple meal that I've always had guests find impressive.  Hence, it makes a great meal to whip up for date night.  Unless of course you're dating someone who doesn't eat seafood.  You'll do better to make a good steak then.  :)

This recipe serves two


Pan Seared Scallops with Asparagus Tips in White Wine Sauce
6-8 large sea scallops, rinsed and patted dry (nothing ruins a meal like sand in your teeth)
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup seafood stock
1 cup asparagus tips
2 tbsp rice flour
1/2 tsp thyme
6 oz penne pasta
Salt and pepper

1.  Prepare pasta per package instructions, toss in olive oil, set aside
2.  Put butter and olive oil in pan over medium heat.
3.  Sprinkle scallops with salt and pepper and put in hot pan to sear, 3-4 minutes per side, until a nice caramel color.
4.  Remove scallops from pan and put on a plate, covered with foil to retain heat.
5.  Add white wine to pan and deglaze.  Then add seafood stock and turn heat up to medium high
6.  Stir 1 tbsp of rice flour into sauce, and add asparagus tips and thyme.  Cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
7.  Stir in rest of rice flour and cook until sauce reaches a creamy consistency and asparagus are cooked as desired (I prefer them slightly firm).
8.  Put pasta on plate, followed by sauce, then scallops on top.  Normally you might want the sauce over everything, but scallops have such a wonderful sweet taste alone, it would be a shame to cover them up.
9.  Enjoy!

Note:  If you don't have rice flour (I didn't), and would rather not buy a whole bag for a single recipe, you have two easy options.  One is to use regular flour, but the flavor won't be the same.  The second is to make your own.  I ground the rice in my coffee grinder, 2/3 brown rice and 1/3 white.  The leftover is in the freezer to use another time.

Is that Cider? Winemaking, Day 9

 So 8 days have gone past, and it's time to check on our wine again.  This is one is a quick, simple step.  All we're doing today is transferring the wine from the plastic fermenting bucket into a glass carboy.  If that's a new word for you (I know it was for me when I started making wine), a carboy is really just a big glass bottle with a rubber stopper.  In this rubber stopper you put an airlock, which is a simple S shaped piece of plastic that you fill with water or vodka.  The airlock lets out the carbon dioxide from the fermenting wine, but doesn't let oxygen get back in and ruin the wine.  Since I'm sure some people are wondering, the vodka is to keep things sanitized.  If bugs do get into airlock (attracted to smell of the wine), the vodka will make sure nothing contaminates the wine.  They won't actually get in the wine though, don't worry. 

You'll also notice that the wine looks REALLY cloudy right now.  Don't worry about that, that's just the bubbles and the suspended yeast working away, turning your juice into wine. 

Friday, July 2, 2010

White Chocolate Blueberry Cookies

I figured I should preface this recipe with a couple of notes, and credit where needed.  First, many of you will think this recipe seems somewhat familiar, and you're right.  This recipe is very similar to most chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, including the traditional Tollhouse cookies.  I looked at a bunch of recipes to try to get ideas, see if there was anything unique I could introduce, but hey, there's a reason 90% of chocolate chip cookies use a recipe close to this one.  It creates a tasty, soft cookie.  

Second, some of you may wonder why I call for frozen blueberries when we are in the middle of blueberry season.  To begin with, I wanted to create a recipe that could be made any time of year, so I knew I wanted to use frozen or canned blueberries (My first failed experiment used canned blueberries, though that's not why it failed).  But I was watching an episode of "Good Eats" on blueberries this week, and Alton Brown pointed out that if the blueberries were frozen when you added them to the dough, you have less problems with the berries bursting.  It struck me as very good advice, so I took it.  I actually did buy fresh blueberries though.  These were spread flat on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer.  After they froze, I put them in another container and have already used them to make these cookies and some cinnamon blueberry pancakes. 



White Chocolate Blueberry Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup frozen blueberries

1.  Preheat oven to 375F
2.  Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl, set aside
3.  Cream the sugars into the butter.  Add eggs and vanilla extract, mix until combined.
4.  Add dry ingredients 1 cup at a time, mixing each addition in fully.  If you add them all at once, you'll get flour all over the kitchen.
5.  Stir in white chocolate chips and blueberries
6.  Drop these on cookie sheet in 1-1 1/2" balls, making sure to leave room around them as they will spread.  Bake for 9-11 minutes, then remove and allow to cool
7.  Enjoy