April 16: Grilled Salmon. Rosemary Polenta and Roasted Radicchio with Ricotta

For Saturday night dinner, I had some grilled salmon, rosemary polenta and some roasted radicchio on the menu.  I am in serious love with Ina Garten's Rosemary Polenta recipe and kind of want to make it all the time.While it not a difficult recipe to make, I (without fail) forget to include the "cooling" period between cooking up the polenta and being ready with the cold polenta to pan-fry. And therefore grossly underestimating how long it will be until we're ready to eat. Paul was planning to meet his guy friends out, and I was apparently pushing back his departure time.

It is approximately 7:30 p.m. (a normal time for us to eat or start to prepare dinner). The anxious commentary begins.

P: "Are you seriously just starting this now? It's going to take forever!"

C: "I told you this was what I was going to make! Why are you surprised? And it doesn't take that long." <-- blatant denial.

Unabated, I got the ball rolling melting the butter and olive oil on the stove. I am going to make it and it's going to be good and made quickly, dangit. 

Yeah. It's really healthy for you.

I clipped some rosemary from our planter to use for the recipe. 

P: "Well, tell me when I should start the grill for the salmon because that won't take very long." 

C: (audible sigh)

It was wise that he stayed in the living room while I chopped this.

After the butter is melted, you add in garlic, red pepper flakes (I only use about 1/2 a teaspoon because I only tasted red pepper flakes when I used the full one, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Following that is the half and half, chicken or vegetable stock, and milk. You then bring everything to a boil. 

The commentary temporarily subsides. I think Back to the Future III was on or something. 

Right now, I'm thinking, "I should have used a bigger pan."

You stir in the cornmeal until it is incorporated into the milk mixture. I found this didn't take very long to happen. Thank goodness, or someone may have had a coronary. 

P: "Seriously, how much longer?"
C: "I don't know. You are driving me bonkers."

After the polenta is mixed together, you add some Parmesan and then pour it into a 13" x 9" pan. 

P: "Are you going to put that in the fridge? You can't put it in hot. It will warm the fridge up."
C: (highly doubting the accuracy of that statement) "It's that what the fridge is for? To make things cold? How will it do that?"
P: "It's going to take too long! I'm already late! Why aren't we just eating it like that?"
C: (louder audible sigh)


In order to aid the cooling process (and to calm someone down), I ended up putting the polenta outside rather than let it cool on the countertop and then put it into the fridge.

Here's the polenta, you know, just checking out the neighborhood from our front balcony.

P: "Is it ready, yet? They are all already there!" <-- not verifiable
C: "JUST GO."


(He didn't. The polenta is persuasive.)

I had some leftover radicchio to make from the produce basket the week before, so I saw this recipe featured and decided to give it a whirl. I didn't have very much, so I tried to pare down the ingredients to the right proportions. I was also wondering if I even had radicchio, as most radicchio I have seen is more of a purple color. (I did. Phew.)

I brushed the leaves with olive oil and set them in the oven to broil. They cooked up VERY quickly (especially since I had such a small amount). 

After the radicchio was done roasting, I added it to the marinade and let it sit. Paul saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and began to cook the salmon.


After the polenta is cooled (via front balcony or fridge), you cut it into triangles, and pan fry it in olive oil and butter.

Do you SEE why I make this? IT'S COOKED IN MORE BUTTER AND OLIVE OIL.

Paul cooked the salmon on the grill for about 10-12 minutes. We used the single packages of frozen salmon a lot. They are really easy to make and can be defrosted in 15-20 minutes in a cold water bath if you forgot to pull them out of the freezer ahead of time. The salmon also had those neat little turkey timers, which help indicate when the fish is cooked through.

Bing! It's ready!

The polenta turned out great. Browning it in the pan makes the edges crispy, but keeps the middle soft and warm.  I think you could add even more fresh rosemary if you wanted. You definitely get the rosemary flavor, but it's not overpowering. I have concluded that the polenta goes well with pretty much everything -- we've had it now with fish, pork, chicken, with runny eggs in the morning. It also makes quite a big amount, so it lasts for many meals. 

Salmon was cooked just right -- not too mushy for me, and a little less cooked for Paul. Using the gas grill makes things a heck of a lot easier in terms of even heat and cooking time.

I was not a big fan of the radicchio -- I think it still came out really bitter, even though I would guess that the marinade and ricotta are supposed to help alleviate that. Maybe my ratio math was shoddy?

And yes, Paul made it out. He was like, "Do you want to come?" with his coat on and the door open. I almost said, "Yeah, I'll come. I just need to go fix my makeup and change..." but figured I had tortured him enough for one night.

April 15: Rigatoni with Asparagus, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Artichokes

For our Friday night dinner, we decided to try a recipe from Giada DeLaurentiis. Paul got started on everything before I got home from work. He also managed to take photos of what he was doing. I don't know why he doesn't document his cooking for the blog more often. I usually end up with ill-focused, dark photos and a buttery camera when I try to do it myself.



Look at those skills!

So the pasta recipe has artichokes in it, but we decided to cook up the single artichoke sent to us by the delivery box as an appetizer. We like artichokes. And honestly, I had never cooked a fresh one on my own, so that was kind of neat.

Paul cutting off the ends of the artichoke.

I was very hard at work.

I contributed lively conversation.

After trimming up the artichoke (which we read about in our fave book), Paul steamed it on the stove for about 30 minutes until it was nice and soft. We dipped it in some melted butter mixed with garlic. Yum-my.


How fancy!

After our snack break, we (and by "we," I mean Paul) got back to work. Paul chopped up the sun-dried tomatoes. 

They are slippery little guys. I'm glad Paul took this on. I am much more likely to hack a finger.

Paul made sure the hot (i.e. spicy) turkey sausage was cooked all the way through.

I did stuff for this meal, I swear. Like take non-buttery photos.

The sauce cooking on the stove includes: chopped asparagus, 2 cans of artichoke hearts (we couldn't find frozen, but these worked fine), sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, chicken broth and white wine.

Don't worry, guys. None of the wine went to waste.

Here's my handiwork -- the salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, ranch dressing and a lot of ground pepper. You also get a little sneak peak at our china! Wheeee!

The fancy china is offset by the fact that I was wearing pajamas. They are my normal cooking attire. That is why there are no photos of me on this blog.

We recently purchased and are growing our own parsley and basil, so we used some herbs we clipped from the plants.

Take that, Martha Stewart! Actually, I almost killed all our herbs a day later by forgetting that I left them outside when the temperature dropped overnight, so she pretty much has nothing to worry about.

We added the cooked sausage, mozzarella cheese cubes, chopped parsley, basil, and rigatoni to the sauce mixture. 

The cubed mozarella was optional. We opted yes.

The final product!

Mmmmm...more cheese.

We thought it tasted really good. The sauce coats the pasta well without being overwhelming. You taste all the components -- artichokes, asparagus, sausage and tomatoes. This is not a recipe where you'd want to omit one of those ingredients. The pasta was perfectly al dente, too (Paul made me write that).

It's definitely not a "light" dish -- especially with the sausage. You cook the sausage in some of the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, which helps tie the flavors together. We cooked the entire box of pasta, so we had a lot of leftovers, which made for some tasty work lunches.*

*Sorry, work friends. No mugging me for my lunch.

Seasonal Ingredient Map

Check out this awesome interactive map on Epicurious that shows what seasonal ingredients are available in your area during different months. We get the bulk of our weekly fruits and veggies from the produce delivery box, but it's nice to what else is available and at peak when we need ingredients to supplement or add to our weekly meals.

April 17: Indian Cooking Class!

Paul and I went to the Indian cooking class on Sunday night with several of his colleagues and their significant others. We had a great time. The class was held at Naveen's Cuisine, which is just a few blocks away from our place.

Disclaimer: we realized 45 minutes after we arrived, that we forgot the camera at home. Paul took these photos with his phone, but I think they'll give you a sense of what we did. Let's be honest, our regular photos aren't that good anyways!

The menu that I posted before was what we ended up cooking. The first photos are of the shrimp tikkas. Paul and two others helped butterfly the raw shrimp. Chef Naveen added the spices, and Paul mixed everything together.

Lots of hand-washing was going on.

After the spices were mixed in, we added the shrimp to a grill pan in batches. Each batch probably cooked for about 5 minutes, until all the gray was gone from the shrimp.

I think we asked more questions about the industrial size stove and hood than we did the shrimp. It was pretty awesome.  

The final product is shown below. They were delicious. Several people in our group took turns cooking the remaining batches.

Chef Naveen helped us prep the other items -- the chicken curry (which is not pictured until the end), the mixed vegetable salad, the chili paneer (also not pictured until the end), and began ka bharta (the eggplant dish).  We did a lot of chopping and prepping the different vegetables and spices for the dishes. Chef Naveen talked through a lot of the common spices used in Indian cooking, and showed us some techniques to chopping garlic, peeling ginger, and coring peppers.

The ladies got to work on peeling and chopping cucumbers for the salad.

Bertha and Nick worked on chopping radishes, also for the salad.

I mixed up the salad, which included cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime juice and spices. There may have been other ingredients that I missed. I was on glass two of wine.

Chef Naveen had roasted the eggplant in the oven to make the began ka bharta. We peeled the eggplants, chopped off the stem end, and then coarsely chopped/mashed the eggplant.

Chef Naveen peels the eggplant, while Maureen looks on.

After chopping the eggplant, Jessie adds it to the pan.

You can see the eggplant mixture (with the lid off). The largest pan has the chili paneer, and the pan in the back has the chicken curry simmering away.



The completed mixed vegetable salad. It was delicious and fresh -- the dressing was only lime juice and cilantro; no oil was added.

Everything came together to eat right at the same time. We had been cooking as a group for probably two hours, but I'm sure things move faster when you're cooking for less than 12 and when your sous-chefs aren't all distracted by conversation and wine.

A photo of my (heaping) plate is below. I thought everything was absolutely delicious. The food was nice and spicy, but not so overwhelming that you can't taste the individual flavors. I am totally in love with the mixed vegetable salad. I would eat a gallon of that a day. I also really liked the chili paneer, and look forward to making that. I've never had it with peppers -- only with spinach, so I really liked the slightly crunchy peppers with the softened paneer. 


From the bottom left corner going clockwise: curry chicken on basmati rice, chili paneer, began ka bharta and the mixed vegetable salad. The shrimp didn't make it past 6:30 p.m.



Chef Naveen sends out the recipes after the class, so I'm really looking forward to recreating these items at home. My makeshift chicken curry from last week wasn't bad, but I definitely learned some new ideas to incorporate next time!

Follow up note: I have been teased mercilessly about this post. Apparently my narration of our cooking class is not okay. I was told (and I quote), "You wrote something like, 'and then Jessie adds the eggplant into the pan.' i mean, what the hell is that?"  Um, what happened? Seems awfully judgey there, my over-the-shoulder blog reviewer.

April 11: Chicken Roulades with Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Last week, I decided to make chicken roulades and sweet potato fries/roasted sweet potatoes.  

I sliced up the sweet potatoes into wedges, drizzled them with olive oil, and sprinkled on salt and pepper. They went into the over at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or so.



I cut the chicken breasts in half, and put them into a plastic bag. I flattened them by hitting the bag with a rolling pin. I also cooked some frozen chopped spinach in the microwave, and drained it to add as part of the stuffing.

That move makes our neighbors really happy. 

After I flattened the chicken breasts, I added the cooked frozen spinach, some sliced sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese crumbles on one end, and rolled them up. 

   

I breaded the flattened chicken breasts with a little flour, then dipped them in the slightly beaten egg, then breaded them with homemade breadcrumbs. 

Homemade breadcrumbs = toasted wheat bread. It isn't fancy, but they are better for you than the store-bought breadcrumbs.

Roulades are in the pan with some olive oil to fry them up.

I pan friend the roulades for about 10 minutes, 5 on each side. The roulades that were placed so that the seam was down tended to cook better than those that unrolled a little.

I then put the pan directly in the oven, and cooked the chicken the rest of the way.

The sweet potatoes were more soft vs. crispy, so I wonder if maybe the heat should have been higher or maybe the potato wedges should have been cut more like fries. The roulades turned out pretty good! The filling, especially the spinach, helped keep the chicken from drying out. I'm a big fan of the stove-to-oven move with meat, as well.

April 10: World's Best Salad

I realize it's a little presumptuous to call this "world's best salad," but is affectionately nicknamed that in our household. It has many of the components that I love in a salad: avocado, blue cheese and thinly sliced red onion. They are "strong" ingredients, but they mesh really well in a salad together.

For quantity, I use about 1/3 of a medium sized red onion and half an avocado for two servings.  I slice the red onion very thin using a mandoline slicer, and cut the avocado into small pieces.

I top the salad with the blue cheese crumbles, and add both olive oil and some balsamic vinegar as a dressing. The avocado and blue cheese add some creaminess against the tangy flavors of the balsamic and red onion. We paired it that evening with some grilled steak and baked potatoes.