Week 31: Broiling

Let me start out by saying it is wayyy too hot here in Phoenix to keep the oven on 400+ long enough to broil anything even remotely thick or dense.  That's why, for this week's broiling challenge, I chose to do broiled tomatoes.

I sliced the tomatoes in half, then removed the tough center.  The resulting hole was stuffed with goat cheese and smothered with pesto.  I sprinkled on a heavy coating of bread crumbs and broiled the tomatoes in the oven for around 6 minutes.  They were delicious, and grandma and I ate them for lunch next to last night's veggie pasta.  

Week 30: Burgers

For some reason I'm still a week behind with these entries! I'm doing plenty of cooking, just not finding the time to post here.  Last week's challenge (ending July 29th) was burgers.  I've been really impressed with the Real Simple cookbook I got from the library a few weeks ago, so I pulled a delicious looking recipe from there.

I present to you grass fed beef chuck burgers with smoked gouda cheese and a fennel and onion relish:

I thought it was a little lacking in flavor, and my Aunt Maggie blames it for my Grandma's recent loss of appetite.  However, the relish and gouda were tasty, and put together with the potato salad it made for a nice meal.

Week 29: Inspired by a color

This is not one of my proudest posts, which might explain why I am so slow in updating it.  Our challenge was to do a dish "inspired by a color" and had grand aspirations of doing an entirely purple plate with eggplant and red cabbage followed by wine poached pears for dessert.

Instead, I made shrimp pot pie, and it was "sort of white, sort of green" for my color inspiration.  Luckily, it was delicious.  The puffed pastry crust was a little disappointing, but the fennel, leek, and shrimp filling definitely made up for it.

Next week's challenge is burgers, and I'll try to be a little more impressive!

Week 28: Citrus

For our citrus challenge, I did a spicy orange glazed chicken with lemon flavored green beans and plain corn muffins.  The chicken was roasted in the oven and brushed liberally with a sauce of orange marmalade mixed with hot garlic chili sauce.  It was delicious, and even grandma requested extra sauce!

Week 27: BBQ

For this week's assignment of BBQ, it didn't occur to me that I should actually try to use the barbecue grill.  Instead, I made a dish that captures the spirit of BBQ using the slow cooker.  

This was our "5th of July" feast and it consisted of "BBQ" pulled pork sandwiches, baked maple beans, and a spinach pasta salad.

It was absolutely delicious.  The pork spends almost 5 hours in the slow cooker before being shredded and put in a hot oven to crisp up a little.  The pasta salad is one of my favorites, using farfalle pasta and two entire bags of spinach.

Dessert was outside the scope of the challenge, but it was a big hit, so I'll include it here.  I made baked apple dumplings from a recipe I found online.  The secret ingredient is a little bit of Mountain Dew!

 

    

       

They were just right fresh out of oven with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream! 

      

Week 26: Pizza

Another challenge I was looking forward to: Pizza week! I made a pretty tasty pizza that replaces traditional tomato sauce with an avocado spread and topped it with sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, and monterey jack cheese.

I even used a pizza stone for the first time, which really did seem to help crisp up the crust.  Overall this was pretty tasty, next time I'll add steak or chicken.

Week 25: Regional Cuisine

One week too late for my trip home to Alaska we had a "Regional Cooking" themed week. Since I was half traveling and half packing for a big move, I decided to cheat and submit my Grandpa's smoked salmon as my dish.  Last time I was in Alaska in the summer I took several photos of the fish smoking process, and I submitted them as a mini photo journal for this week's challenge.  I also did brought some fresh smoked salmon home, which Grandma and I will definitely be enjoying during cocktail hour!

 

Week 24: Berries

This week makes my second recent berry tart. Our week 22 challenge was tarts, and this week's is berries.  I've been traveling in Alaska  (which explains the delayed post) but I did have time to make raspberry poptarts using Grandpa's homemade jam.

The recipe is super simple since it uses ready made pie crust and prepared jam.  They were pretty tasty considering, especially since the jam I used was pretty tart.  Strangely enough, this submission was one of my highest voted ever in the online submissions! 

Week 23: 20 minutes or less

For week 23, our challenge was to create a full meal from prep to finish in under 20 minutes.  I found that the time limit made me a little less inspired than usual, I don't particularly like to be rushed.  At any rate, I went looking for simple recipes that wouldn't require an extra trip to the grocery store this week.

This is what I found:

It's a quick and easy curry tuna on rice.  It's flavored with yellow curry powder, cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper.  I didn't eat the salad because I'm pretty sure Ben is saving the greens for lunch tomorrow, but I'm sure he won't mind that I borrowed them to give the plate a little color!

Week 22: Tarts

For this week's sweet or savory tart challenge, I immediately knew I wanted to do something with fresh berries.  I also knew that I wanted to make  my own crust, unlike last week's challenge where I used the frozen store bought variety.  These criteria led me to a Rustic Blueberry and Blackberry Tart with a cornmeal crust.  

Here it is just before going into the oven:

And after coming out, cooling on a rack, and being placed on another of my Aunt Maggie's stellar serving dishes:

And finally, sliced and ready to serve:

It sliced up more neatly than I thought it would, and was the perfect end to our new Saturday sweet corn feast tradition! 

Week 21: French

I've never been especially interested in French food.  I realize that I probably use many French inspired techniques and recipes when cooking, but this challenge might be the first time I've ever sought out a specifically French recipe.  I'm not sure how authentic it is, but according to the website I found it on, it's a traditional dish, titled French Leek Pie.

It's very simple to put together, it's mostly leeks and gruyere cheese.  Unfortunately it didn't slice up very well, because it was absolutely delicious! I served it with a simple green arugula salad with a homemade dijon dressing.  It was the perfect Saturday brunch after a long bike ride.  

Week 20: Rice

Rice! Considering how much rice I eat, I figured the real challenge this week should be to cook something that really included rice as an ingredient rather than just a side dish.  I first planned to do a rice pudding, and then found an intriguing recipe for rice pudding muffins. Yes, that's right.  This week I made almond rice pudding muffins.

A few pictures of the process (and proof there's rice in it!):

Following the addition of cream, milk, butter, almonds, dried cranberries, and other ingredients I'm sure I'm forgetting:

Here's a shot of the filled muffin pan, each muffin is garnished with toasted sliced almonds: 

And finally the finished product:

The muffins are certainly tasty, I love the almond and cranberry flavor together.  I can definitely taste the rice, though it's subtle.  My only minor complaint is the result of my own error, instead of using slivered almonds I used sliced, and the slices are just a little bit big on the inside.  Oh well, I'm sure we'll have no trouble polishing them off. 

Week 19: 5 ingredients or less

This week, our challenge was "5 ingredients or less".  It was left pretty open aside from that, and I saw submissions ranging from basic french bread to salads and full meals.  I chose to do a complete meal. According to the rules oil, butter, salt, pepper, and water don't count towards the ingredient total, so with that in mind I made it in with exactly 5 ingredients!

I made a peppered loin steak with a pan sauce, garnished with shaved paremsan cheese and served with fresh spinach and rice.

My 5 ingredients were:

• White Rice
• Loin steak
• Spinach
• Parmesan cheese
• Beef broth

I also used salt, pepper, and olive oil.   

Week 18: Salad

My original intention for this week was to replicate a delicious dish that they recently took off the dinner menu at my Grandma's retirement community: a cherry tomato and fresh mozzarella salad with basil and a balsamic reduction.

Unfortunately, that was before I inherited 1.5 pounds of french green beans.  So I searched the internet until I found a recipe that used most of the ingredients I'd bought for my tomato salad, plus green beans and minus anything I didn't already have in the house.

The result is an Asian Green Bean salad courtesy of the Food Network with cherry tomatoes, basil, toasted peanuts, and a homemade sesame vinaigrette.

  

Week 17: Something from childhood

When I saw this week's theme, I had to laugh thinking back to my most memorable childhood meals. It's well known among my family that my dad wasn't a particularly involved cook, and my favorite dinners were probably the ones I ate on the designated "picnic towel" in front of a movie about seals, eating cheese, crackers, nuts, and raw broccoli dipped in french dressing.

I do however have some nostalgic childhood food memories, and the recipe I chose to recreate this week was always a favorite from summertime visits to upstate New York. It is a traditional chicken and rice casserole, courtesy of my Grandfather's Aunt Bess.  I learned this week that it's considered a "true casserole" straight from the 1950s, distinguished by the fact that the rice goes in raw and it all cooks together.  

Be warned though, there's nothing particularly photogenic about raw chicken on floating rice slathered with cream of chicken.  Here goes anyway...

Right before the casserole goes into the oven, after the addition of Lipton's onion soup mix, Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup, and the curry (the purported secret ingredient):

And last but not least, dinner is served... Complete with a side of frozen peas on vintage dinnerware!

              

Week 16: Asparagus

I was a little wary of this week's theme, since I absolutely love asparagus just roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Luckily, this recipe takes that same roasted asparagus, mixes it with a few tasty friends, and results in an incredible salad.  This is definitely one of the best dishes I've made so far this year. This recipe (and the tablecloth, serving dish, napkin, and utensils....) are all courtesy of my Aunt Maggie, who will now be serving as my weekly food stylist.  =)

Here's a quick "before" picture, when the asparagus is just about to go into the 450 degree oven.

And the final presentation, which includes the following: grape, pear, & cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, red onion, grated parmesan, and a delicious homemade dressing.  

Week 15: One pot

This was one of the first weeks where I decided first what I wanted to cook, then figured out how to make it fit the challenge. This week's challenge was one-pot cooking, which "by definition, includes all essential ingredients in one pot. Any recipe that requires the cook to 'prepare pasta separately' or 'serve with bread' doesn't fit the bill".  I've been craving the Carlsbad Tavern's green chile mac and cheese for quite a while, so I scoured the internet to find a highly-reviewed one-pot mac and cheese recipe.  It wasn't as easy as it sounds, most recipes had horrible reviews.  I finally found something and adapted it to incorporate the green chiles and the right type of cheese.  Here are two photos of the process, which uses just enough water to have most of it evaporate while the noodles are cooking:

And a photo of the final product, which I garnished with pancetta left over from last week's submission and thinly sliced green onions.

Week 14: Sandwiches

This week's challenge was sandwiches.  These are some of the highest rated submissions I've ever seen on the challenge website, mostly because I think sandwiches kind of lend themselves to being photographed better than some other types of dishes.  I hope my submission is no exception.

I made a roasted chicken caesar sandwich with shaved parmesan, pancetta, sun-dried tomatoes, and spring greens.  It includes a from-scratch caesar dressing sauce and supposedly home-roasted chicken.  I did cheat and buy a rotisserie chicken from the store, but as far as I can tell I haven't done the sandwich any disservice.  The recipe comes from Ina Garten on the food network.  I haven't tasted it yet, since I'm waiting for my boyfriend to come home from work and eat his share, but it looks delicious!

Week 13: Russian

Following last week's creative endeavor, I found myself looking for something simple and low maintenance this time around.  This must be technically "week 3" of the month since our challenge was culturally based: we were instructed to cook something Russian inspired.

I chose to do a cookie very similar to the classic Russian tea cookie: the familiar crumbly, nutty, powdered sugar coated delicacy.  I made orange tea cakes flavored with orange extract, zest, and fresh squeezed juice.  They came out just right, especially dipped warm in powdered sugar.

Week 12: Cheese

This week our challenge is cheese.  For the first time in several weeks, I decided I really wanted to try to make something at least slightly photogenic.  For that reason (and also because I have helpful, artistically minded family visiting) I have 2 dishes to submit.

First, I made the Parmesan cheese straws from the American Test Kitchen cookbook. They are essentially just puffed pastry sheets sprinkled with cheese, salt, and pepper, and twisted into twisty logs.  We weren't at all crazy about them, they basically just taste like puffed pastry.  They did look pretty though, so mission accomplished?

Part 2 was our family Sunday dinner.  With the help of my aunts, I made a spring vegetable and cheese dip.  It's made with white cheddar, goat cheese, asparagus, leeks, and artichoke hearts.  And mint, lots and lots of mint.  We served it with crusty bread, and though it was definitely unusual, it got good reviews.  We thought it was even better warmed up the next day with crackers.