Year of the Sauce:  Week 2

Don’t confuse Italian Salsa Verde with Mexican Salsa Verde.  They are very different sauces, to be sure.  Italian Salsa Verde has none of the heat you might expect from Mexican Salsa Verde.  Instead, it will bring the vibrant flavors of parsley, capers and lemon to almost anything.

This is the kind of sauce you keep in a jar in the fridge and pull out all the time.  I know, since that’s what we have been doing for the last week since I made this sauce.  It’s great on roasted vegetables and chicken, and I’m sure it would be excellent on certain types of pastas and pizza.  I suspect the longer we have it around, the more things we’ll come up with to eat it on.

Ingredients
2 cups parsley
1 cup mixed fresh herbs (cilantro, mint, tarragon, etc.  I used tarragon and a little cilantro.)
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
kosher salt and black pepper

Directions
Combine all the ingredients except salt and pepper in a food processor. Puree until smooth, then season to taste with salt and pepper. If the mixture is too dry, add a bit more oil to loosen it up.

Source: Always Order Dessert

Year of the Sauce:  Week 1

What better way to start off the new year than with brunch?

In the past we’ve tried to host fancy New Year’s Day brunches for our friends, but they’ve always been too exhausted or hungover to make it to our house within a reasonable brunch hour.  So this year, I just made a simple brunch for two.

I thought the hollandaise sauce would be the most difficult part of this dish, but honestly poaching the eggs gave me more trouble.  (I still haven’t perfected my egg technique.)  The hollandaise sauce actually whipped up very easily, which was excellent.  It’s always nice to have a win for the first recipe of the year!

Ingredients

For the Hollandaise Sauce:

• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon water
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

For the Eggs Benedict:

• 4 eggs
• 2 English muffins
• 1 avocado, thinly sliced
• 1 medium tomato, thinly sliced
• Chopped parsley

Directions

For the sauce:  Whisk together the egg yolks, water and lemon juice.  Over a double boiler (or an improvised double boiler consisting of a bowl sitting above a pan of boiling water) whisk the eggs while slowly adding the melted butter.  Whisk constantly until all the butter is incorporated, creating a thick sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

For the Eggs Benedict:  Toast the English muffins.  Layer on slices of avocado and tomato.  Poach each egg one at a time, sliding cooked eggs onto each muffin.  Top with Hollandaise sauce and chopped parsley.  Serve hot.

Recipe inspired by Average Betty.

I’ve been inexplicably absent from this blog for quite some time.

Actually, it’s pretty easy to explain my absence.  For half of 2012 and most of 2013 I was traveling around the world with my husband.  We visited 22 countries in 16 months, and though we tasted a lot of amazing food (and even took a cooking class or two), food blogging was pretty far off my radar.  I think you can understand why.

Now that we’ve entered 2014, however, I find myself yet again looking for a cooking project.  In a similar vein as The Year of the Soup (2010) and The Year of the Noodle (2011), I bring you 2014: The Year of The Sauce.

I look forward to learning 52 new sauce recipes this year, and all of the dishes that come with them.  I suspect a lot of butter will be in my future.

Happy New Year!

Bringing a dish to dinner to share with friends is stressful.

It has to be vegetarian, be served alongside unknown non-vegetarian dishes (and somehow create a cohesive meal), and prove to our hosts that veg food can be delicious.

How do you do all that with one dish?

I decided on quinoa.  Made into something hearty, like a risotto.  Something combining this recipe with this recipe.

Fortunately, as though the heavens shined down upon me, I searched the internet and discovered that someone had already done the work to combine these two things into the exact recipe I wanted.  It’s hearty, veg friendly, and goes with a lot.  It’s quite flavorful and delicious, too.  I thought I had a winner.

Until we got to our guests house and found out that my contribution was to be served alongside Indian takeout.  Not exactly a match made in culinary heaven.

Oh well.  Make this for yourself and serve it alongside some vegetables for a tasty meal.

Just don’t put curry on your vegetables.  I don’t advise the goat cheese and curry combo.

Ingredients

4 cups vegetable stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
8 oz package of sliced mushrooms
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1/2 cup dry white wine
6 oz baby spinach
2 oz (about 1/4 cup) goat cheese
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Add vegetable broth to a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer. Keep it gently simmering as you make the risotto.

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and mushrooms and sauté until softened and lightly browned, stirring often, about 5-7 minutes.

Add the garlic and the quinoa and cook for another 1-2 minutes, stirring often, until quinoa is lightly toasted and fragrant.

Add the wine and stir until all the liquid has been absorbed.

Begin adding vegetable broth to the quinoa, a small ladle at a time, stirring constantly. When each addition of liquid is absorbed by the quinoa mixture, add another small ladleful. Continue adding broth and stirring for about 25-30 minutes total, until quinoa is cooked through and no longer crunchy.

Add spinach to quinoa and stir until spinach is wilted. Add goat cheese and stir until melted and completely mixed in.

Remove from heat, taste, and add salt and pepper if desired. Serve warm.

Source: Once Upon a Cutting Board

We only have three more weeks with a permanent address.

I’m so wrapped up in cleaning out the house and organizing closets that I don’t think that has fully set in yet.  My brain knows that we are moving out of this apartment soon, but I’m not sure it has really grasped that we are not moving into another one.  Instead, we’re moving into our backpacks and the trunk of our Honda Accord.

One thing my brain does understand is that I won’t be able to make fancy cookies for a while.  At least not when we are living out of a car.

It also knows that chocolate and espresso are yummy.  Even in shortbread cookie form.  Especially when the drizzles of chocolate turn more into blobs of chocolate.

More chocolate is always better.  Especially if you are cleaning and packing all day.  Trust me.

Ingredients

1/2 lb (1 cup) of cold unsalted butter, cubed into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup of white granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt, fine ground not course or kosher
2 1/4 cups of unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of finely grounds espresso beans
9 ounces of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening

Directions

To make the cookies, place the butter, sugar and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Mix on low speed until combined.  Add the flour, vanilla and espresso beans.  Mix until it comes together.  This will take a few minutes.  When the dough just pulls away from the bowl (like a pie dough) and pulls together stop mixing.  Do not over mix.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface about a 1/4 inch thick.  Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or cut squares or rectangles/bars with a knife.  Place the cookies on parchment paper on top of a cookie pan and chill for about 20 minutes in the refrigerator.

While the cookies are chilling, preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cookies look dry on top and are a shade darker.  Remove from the oven and let cool.

Melt chocolate with a double boiler or in microwave.  Stir in oil until glossy.   Take each cookie and dip them halfway into the chocolate, or drizzle chocolate over the top of the cookies.  Leave on wax paper until set, approximately 2 hours.

Source: Sweet Savory Planet