Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

So far, this cookbook is giving it’s sister, The Best Simple Recipe, a run for its money. I haven’t come across a clunker yet, and this recipe was no exception.

The star of the dish is the roasted red pepper sauce, based on the classic Spanish sauce called romesco. You take roasted red peppers (from a jar), sliced almonds, a slice of white bread, water, garlic, olive oil and a bit of cayenne pepper and process them in a food processor until the sauce is smoothish and creamy. The sauce is served over pork chops that have been sauteed on the stovetop. Roasted cauliflower dusted in paprika rounds out the meal.

The red pepper sauce is tangy with just the barest hint of heat from the cayenne pepper. You can taste the almonds and the garlic, but neither flavor overwhelms. This recipe makes a lot of sauce, so I’ve been using it on grilled chicken and to add flavor to rice. This is an easy way to perk up just about anything, I think.

The only thing I didn’t like about the dish was the cauliflower. I didn’t like the paprika, and will continue to roast my cauliflower seasoned simply with salt and pepper.

I really liked this dish. It was fast and easy, just as advertised. My only beef is that I would have preferred chicken breast meat to chicken thighs. I find I’m not much of a thigh person these days.

The dish starts out by microwaving small red potatoes until they are tender. This is one of those I-can’t-believe-I-didn’t-think-of-this tips that I will use forever more. It’s much easier and faster than waiting for water to boil.

Anyway, while the potatoes are microwaving, you brown the chicken thighs that you’ve cut in half and seasoned with salt and pepper. The chicken gets set aside, and using the same pan, you cook carrots and leeks until they are tender. Wine is used to deglaze the pan, after which the chicken and any accumulated juices are added back to the pan. The pan is covered and the chicken simmers until it is done. The chicken, carrots and leeks are transferred to another plate, along with the potatoes, so you can reduce the remaining liquid to build the sauce. Once the liquid has thickened slightly, you stir in creme fraiche (or sour cream if you are me), lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. The sauce is poured over the chicken, carrots, leeks and potatoes and everything is stirred together and seasoned to taste.

As I said above, both Bryan and I really enjoyed this dish. It was filling and reheated very well. The only change I would make next time, besides using chicken breasts instead of thighs, would be to cut down on the amount of meat. It felt like there was too much meat compared to the amount of veggies.

Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

I’ve found cooking (not baking, but cooking) with oranges to be hit or miss. Sometimes the dish gets overwhelmed by an orangey-furniture polish taste and smell. Or it is simply bitter from the orange zest. That was my main concern with this dish, but fortunately, it worked.

This one is pretty simple. You make a simple dressing of soy sauce, orange zest and juice, vinegar and ginger. This dressing does double duty by being the basic dressing for some bagged broccoli slaw and then, with the addition of some butter, becoming a pan sauce for steaks.

First, the slaw. This is one of those side dishes that comes together very quickly but is really tasty. The recipe calls for adding edamame to some bagged broccoli slaw, which is convenient. Unfortunately, all of the broccoli slaw in my grocery store looked old, so I made my own by simply mixing together broccoli, cabbage and shredded carrots. The dressing has a hint of Asian flavors, especially with a bit of sesame oil added to the dressing portion. The vinegar softened up the cabbage and the broccoli, toning down their raw bite. It even held up well overnight.

The steaks are simply pan-fried, and a portion of the dressing (minus the sesame oil) is reduced in the same pan. Once the sauce is reduced, you take it off the heat and swirl in a few pats of butter. The butter enriches and thickens the sauce and makes it seem a little more luxurious.

The flavors in this dish were bright and fun. The pan sauce was easy to make, but really added a lot of flavor to the steak. For me, the slaw was the highlight of the meal and could easily stand on its own. I can see slicing the steak and adding to the slaw, or even using leftover chicken to make it a stand-alone meal. This dish was definitely a winner.

Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

Here we go again; another America’s Test Kitchen offering. When I first picked up this book, I was worried that it was just a repeat of their other books, such as The Best Simple Recipes. I’ve heard that other people have found repeat recipes, but I haven’t come across any. And even if I do, I think there are enough new ones to keep me interested and make the purchase of this book worthwhile.

Simple Weeknight Favorites is full of quick, weeknight meals, along with scads of tips and quick side dishes. In fact, those side dishes might be my favorite part of the book; I’m always looking for (easy) ways to make side dishes more interesting and varied. As Bryan has pointed out on occasion, there’s only so many times you can eat microwaved frozen peas before they get boring.

This was the first dish I tried out of the book. I was looking for something a little different, and this caught my eye because of the cooking method: en papillote, or in a pouch. Translated into Trista speak, that really means fewer dishes! In addition, I thought the flavors sounded interesting.

The pouches came together very quickly. You start by mounding quick-cooking or ready rice in the middle of sheets of tinfoil. A fish fillet (the recipe called for cod or halibut but I used tillapia) is placed on top, and a mixture made with rice vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes, coconut milk, cilantro, fish sauce, garlic and ginger is spooned over it. The  pouches are sealed and then baked for about 20 minutes.

The fish came out tender and flavorful, with no trace of fishiness. The sauce mixture thickened and coated the rice, with the coconut milk making it creamy and muting the heat from the red pepper flakes. I did find the sauce a little sweet, so I’d cut down on the amount of sugar, probably by half. As per usual, I only used about half of the ginger called for and didn’t miss it at all. And the best part? One little, lonely pot to wash.

I can already tell that I’m gonna like this book.

Currently cooking from Cook This Now by Melissa Clark

Clark has introduced me to another ingredient that I’ve never cooked with – boneless, beef short ribs. Where have they been all my life? How have I lived without them? This dish was so good and easy, don’t let the word “coconut” in the title scare you. There is enough heat in the dish to counter any coconuttyness you find. I couldn’t taste the coconut milk; Bryan said he could, but that didn’t stop him from inhaling his meal. And he doesn’t really like coconut.

The dish starts off by browning the short ribs (which you’ve cut into 2-inch chunks) in oil. Garlic, jalapenos, ginger, shallots and cumin seeds are added to the pot and allowed to cook for a minute before coconut milk (unsweetened, please), lime zest and juice, salt and pepper and water are added. The pot gets transferred to the oven where the meat braises until it is fall-apart tender. And succulent. And just plain wonderful.

As usual, I made a few minor changes. I left out the ginger (yuck) and added more garlic and shallots. I also used lemons because I forgot to buy limes (darn). We ate this over brown rice, but it would work over any grain, or potatoes or even pasta. This is definitely a dish worthy of company.

I don’t have much to say about this dish. It was easy to make, it was done in less than 30 minutes and it was okay. Not stupendous, just okay.

You start out by browning bone-in pork chops. Next you saute onions, rosemary, garlic, tomatoes (I used canned) and anchovies until the tomatoes start to break down. The pork chops get nestled into the tomato mixture and baked until they are done.

My pork chops were a little dry; Clark calls for thick-cut chops, but I could only find thin ones, and I think I ended up overcooking them slightly. We ended up with way more sauce than we could use for two pork chops. The extra sauce would be good over rice or pasta or potatoes.

Finally, this was the first time I’ve used anchovies in my cooking. You hear people say that the anchovies melt into the food, and that they don’t make food taste fishy. Those people are right.

Currently cooking from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark

At some point in my life, I decided that I was a chicken breast kind of person, not a drumstick one. Maybe it was that little piece of fatty, chewy gristle that I could never seem to avoid eating, or the fact that there always seemed to be more bone than meat on a drumstick. Whatever it was, I haven’t eaten chicken drumsticks for years, until this recipe came along. Now I’ve made it twice in one week.

The first time I made it, we ate most of the drumsticks before I could get a picture (curse you winter and your early darkness). Since I wanted to try the dish with more lemon and less garlic and it really needed a picture, I made it again, with a few changes.

The recipe begins by having you rub drumsticks with olive oil, salt and pepper, and broiling them until they are lightly browned. While the meat is broiling, you create a paste by mashing up some garlic cloves and stirring in lemon juice. Once the drumsticks are browned, you brush the garlic/lemon juice paste over the chicken, sprinkle it with oregano and bake the dish for 25 to 30 minutes.

Here’s what I learned the two times I’ve made this. I like my drumsticks with less garlic (two or three cloves as opposed to Clark’s five) and more lemon (the juice of two lemons instead of Clark’s one). Make sure you smash the heck out of the garlic (if you have a mortar and pestle, this is the time to use it. I don’t, so I just used a knife to  smear and mash the garlic). I also broiled my chicken until it was very dark brown and baked it for about 20 minutes. Finally, use the smallest dish you can, even if it means you have to wedge the chicken in. If you use too big of a dish, the stuff on the bottom (bits of garlic and chicken and lemon juice) can burn.

The lemon, garlic and oregano make this dish fragrant and tasty. It comes together very, very quickly and is perfect for a weeknight meal. I’d imagine you could use thighs instead of the drumsticks, adjusting for a longer baking period. You could even use chicken breasts, but I wouldn’t use skinless breasts. With the broiling and the baking, I think a skinless chicken breast would dry out before it got cooked all the way through.

Currently cooking from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark

You should have seen Bryan’s face light up when I told him we were having chicken fingers for supper. I’m pretty sure this guy has eaten more chicken strips/fingers than anybody alive. Then his eyes narrowed and he started asking questions.

Bryan: Are they deep-fried?

Me: No, baked.

Bryan: Are they breaded?

Me: No, but there are bread crumbs involved.

Bryan: Are they even chicken?

Me: Well, no. They are ground turkey, but it is all poultry.

Then he walked away, shaking his head and muttering some not-so-very-nice things under his breath.

In the headnotes to this recipe, Clark talks about wanting to make chicken fingers for her daughter that were spicy, nutritious and something that adults would like. So she modeled them after lamb kibbe, a turkish dish that mixes ground lamb with aromatic spices such as cinnamon, cumin and allspice. You take a pound or so of ground chicken (or turkey, if your supermarket doesn’t carry ground chicken), mix in the afore mentioned spices plus green onions, garlic, cilantro, bread crumbs, pepper and a pinch of cayenne and then form the mixture into “fingers.” Those fingers get brushed with olive oil and baked in the oven until cooked through.

The turkey fingers were … interesting. Neither Bryan nor I really liked the spices with the meat, and the texture of the fingers was quite dense and a bit tough. I’m pretty sure I overmixed the turkey mixture and that’s what made the fingers dense and tough. As to the flavor? Well, I prefer my cinnamon be kept with the sweet things. I liked the idea of the recipe, though, and could see making these with different spices and herbs.

Currently cooking from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark

When I started reading through this book, looking for recipes to make, I skipped this dish three or four times. It looked like too much work. I couldn’t imagine the flavors. It just didn’t sound that good. Then Bryan happened to see the recipe; he thought it sounded good.

Maybe I should listen to him more often, because this dish rocked. Seriously, this is one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever made. And it wasn’t that much work.

You begin by using a food processor to make a paste of salted, roasted cashews, cilantro, olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar, lime juice and a jalapeno. Half of the paste gets rubbed over chicken thighs/drumsticks which are then broiled or grilled, and the rest of the paste is served at the table as extra sauce.

I used chicken breasts that I cut into pieces and threaded on metal skewers. I opted for the broiler over the grill, and I let the chicken marinate in the paste for about two hours before I broiled them. At first, I was worried that the paste was too sweet and too spicy (even though I only used half of a seeded jalapeno). But under the broiler, some sort of alchemy took place. Married with the chicken, the sweetness turned into a faint caramel bitterness, the toastiness of the cashews took center stage, and the spiciness of the jalapeno almost disappeared. Unfortunately, the paste that I saved to serve as a sauce (I thinned it down with a little water) was still too sweet. Next time I’ll add extra lime juice or cut the sugar a bit.

I can’t wait until summer when I can try this out on the grill. I suspect the smokiness of the grill will take this dish over the top.

I’ve had a devil of a time trying to pick my next cookbook. You’d think, with more than 200 cookbooks, that that would be easy. Nope. I’ve been trying to cut down on my processed sugar intake, so I wanted to steer clear of baking cookbooks (at least for a little while). And none of my savory cookbooks looked very appealing. Lately, all I’ve wanted to eat are salads full of cabbage, lettuce and other assorted veggies. Also, I wanted to cook out of one of my newer cookbooks. I kept coming back to this book, but I just couldn’t find more than a handful of recipes that sounded good. I decided to go for it anyway. I’ll probably tagteam this book with another of Melissa Clark’s new cookbooks, Cook This Now.

One of the first things that struck me about In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite was how readable it was. Every recipe comes with a story. Not just headnotes, but a story that tells you how the recipe came about. That’s not surprising, considering Clark writes a regular column for the New York Times dining section, in addition to appearing in just about every food magazine ever published. She’s got an easy way of writing that makes you feel like she’s your best friend. She makes writing look effortless.

Anyway, onto the first dish. This book has exactly one recipe for chicken breasts, and Clark even admits that she originally envisioned using a whole chicken, preferring the dark meat to the white meat, but her editor requested chicken breasts. I don’t know how this would work with a whole chicken, but I can tell you that it works just fine with chicken breasts. Better than fine, actually. This was so good that Bryan even admitted to kind of liking the sweet potatoes.

The dish is pretty simple and perfect for a weeknight. You take a couple of sweet potatoes (okay, yams), cut them into chunks and start roasting them in the oven. Meanwhile, you make a paste of honey, chipotle chilies in adobe sauce, cumin, cinnamon, salt, garlic and vinegar. The paste gets rubbed all over chicken breasts, then the meat gets place on top of the sweet potato chunks and roasted until the chicken is done, about 20 more minutes.

My only gripe is that the paste was very spicy. The recipe calls for 4 chipotle chilies, minced. I hate the seeds (they never soften, and I find their hard texture annoying), so I took all the seeds out, and it was still too spicy. I would cut the chilies in half if you don’t like spice. Other than that, I really liked this dish. The sweet potatoes get soft but not mushy and soak up a lot of the chicken juice. The chicken stays moist, and the paste gives it a lot of flavor. I was a little unsure about the combination of cinnamon and cumin, but here it really works. I love the idea of roasting the chicken breasts over veggies, and I’d like to try it with cauliflower.

As for a picture? Well, I came down with a cold the day I made this, and I was too tired and sneezy to get out the camera. Sorry.