2011.08.11 - Liptauer, Chicken Salad, Smores Cookies, Honey Herb Soda

A picnic theme this week, all inspired by the appetizer.

Liptauer

YUM.  This gussied up cream cheese spread is very savory.  Perfect on bread, a bit of a salt lick on pretzels.  It's very addictive.  Read the story that comes with the recipe -- it will make you want to go to Austria.

Chicken Salad

I picked this because I knew that a meal of cheese wasn't the most balanced, but it ended up being quite good on its own accord.  The blend of the red peppers, almonds, parsley, and chicken was harmonious.  However, I think I prefer roasting bone-in chicken for chicken salads versus poaching like in this recipe.  I am biased against poaching because I find it a bit imprecise (letting chicken sit without heat and hoping that it cooks through in the specified time!) and find that times given in recipes don't often match up for good results in my kitchen, since it is all a variation of stove heat, pot insulation, and chicken breast thickness.

Modifications: I omitted the garlic and onion, per usual.  I forgot to toast the almonds, but I didn't miss the taste at all.

Honey Herb Soda

I used mint as my herb, since that's what I have the most surplus of in my garden.  Unfortunately this recipe doesn't provide the proportions for a pitcher, so I just guesstimated and dumped the honey syrup into a standard 2 quart pitcher with the juice of two lemons and filled the rest of the pitcher with seltzer water.  This was pretty good, and I served in it jam jars (how adorable)!  I've been saving up jars for various kitchen uses from my favorite preserves.

Smores Cookies

I think I may have hit a milestone with this one -- I found these to be too sweet.  That didn't stop me from eating them, mind you, but I kept thinking "I wish this was dark chocolate".  I found this recipe quite confusing -- you lay down graham crackers and then drop rounds of chocolate chip cookie dough on top.  It seems like the dough is supposed to melt and spread out evenly on its own, but mine did no such thing during baking.  I ended up spreading it out after the five minutes in the oven with a spatula, which of course ruined the shape of the chocolate chips.  Everyone at work loved the leftovers the next day.

2011.07.14 - Turkey Burger Pitas, Zucchini Carpaccio, Cinnamon Cake

Another July birthday means another cake!  We celebrated C's birthday with a cinnamon cake and a vaguely Mediterranean meal.  This was also M's going away meal.  She moved down to California, like so many people are doing these days.  It seems sometimes that for people in the tech industry, you can only live in Seattle or SF, and SF is winning right now.  Best of luck to M and her husband M!

Turkey Burger Pitas

I love food like this.  It's healthy, gives an excuse to eat tomatoes and fresh herbs, is sandwich-like, and is delicious.  The yogurt tahini sauce is key here -- turkey can sometimes be a little dry, so this offsets that.  This would be even better with real pitas from a gyro place (or homemade pitas!), but I went the healthy route with whole wheat pita pockets.

Modifications: The store had NO ground turkey when I went, so I ended up with pre-formed turkey patties.  Not ideal.  Instead of mixing those up with the seasonings, I just sprinkled some onion powder on before cooking and hoped for the best.  I served the pitas with tomatoes, parsley, and the salad.

Zucchini Carpaccio Salad

Everyone loved this salad.  It had plenty of salt and cheese, which really made it stand out from a typical salad.  I finally found yellow squash in the market, so I used a combination of that and zucchini.  One more successful use of a mandoline without slicing a finger off!

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Snacking Cake

This is definitely more of a breakfast/tea cake than a dessert cake, but I loved the sound of it and had to make it.  I served it with whipped cream to fancy it up, but it was unsweetened (my preferred way to make whipped cream these days) - next time I would sweeten the cream up a bit, and maybe add almond extract.  It doesn't help that I forgot to buy the berries I planned to serve on the side!  I would definitely make this cake again as a breakfast cake.

2011.07.07 - Bourbon Orange Coriander Pulled Pork, Kale Salad, Cherry Limeade

My favorite easy pulled pork method comes up again!  This time, with a different BBQ sauce for variation.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork with Bourbon Orange Coriander BBQ Sauce

I asked the gang to vote between three BBQ sauces: tangy coffee, rhubarb, and this one.  This one won by a landslide, I think because of the bourbon :)  The orange flavor really came through, so it was an interesting take on a sweet BBQ sauce.  

Modifications: I didn't cook the sauce because I knew I'd just be throwing it in to the slow cooker anyway.  Time savings!  I omitted the garlic per usual and used a sweet tea bourbon since that sounded good.  Everyone made fun of me because I bought a tiny bottle of bourbon for cooking instead of having a real bottle for my (nonexistent) alcohol collection.  I swapped out the sauce called for in the pulled pork recipe with this one; luckily they both had about the same yield.

Kale Salad

This sounds like nonsense health food, but it was actually quite good.  The dressing was very tangy and I'd definitely use it again.  Trader Joe's came to the rescue with pre-chopped kale, but it wasn't perfect because they leave a lot of the tough stems on.  Why??  I really enjoyed the sweetness that the raisins added to the salad.

Modifications: I omitted the red onion (don't like it raw in salads), bell pepper (too expensive here!  not paying $2 for a single pepper), avocado (forgot), goji berries (??), and hemp seed (???).  The dressing calls for nutritional yeast (????), which I couldn't find, so I left it out and it was still great. 

Cherry Limeade

This was good, but had the same problem that I have every time I make a lemon or limeade -- too much pulp.  Even with a juicer that strains, I still get a bit of pulp and I don't like any at all in these kinds of drinks. 

2011.06.30 - Baked Ziti with Summer Veggies, Salad, Macrina Chocolate Cake

A birthday this week + some time = a proper birthday cake for R.  The cake was the main event, so I tried to keep things relatively light with a veggie-heavy pasta bake and a salad (that was also from leftovers, shame on me).

Baked Ziti and Summer Veggies

I despise red sauce, so any pasta bake dish I can find without it is a godsend.  This has plenty of vegetables in it, and could hold even more if you wanted.  The filling is enough to hold it together, but it isn't soggy at all and the pasta remains pretty distinct (this definitely isn't mac and cheese territory).  You could omit some of the cheese on top if you want to be more health conscious. 

Modifications: I couldn't find yellow squash anywhere (it has been a long cold "spring" and "summer" here in Seattle and the produce is very late), so I substituted it with zucchini.  I thought that I had mozzarella cheese in my fridge, but it turned out it was Trader Joe's shredded gruyere mix, so I used that instead.  I omitted the garlic, oregano, and red pepper.  I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 to serve more people, which was essentially a doubling of the filling because how do you get 1/2 an egg?

Farmers Market Salad

This is a wonderful main dish salad when served fresh and warm.  I had made this for dinner the night before and had a ton left over, so I refreshed it with some shredded carrots and more lettuce and served it as my side salad.  That is probably a hostess faux pas, but I don't want to waste food!  Although this salad is best warm, it is still pretty good cold as leftovers. 

Modifications: I omitted the olives (ew), basil, shallots, and thyme.

Mom's Chocolate Cake from Macrina Bakery

This was my first cake with an infused syrup brushed between layers.  I am not sure what to think about it -- I couldn't really tell if I liked the addition or not.  An annoyingly large amount of vanilla was required for it (that stuff is expensive!), so I was expecting better.  This cake batter is quick to put together, refreshingly not calling for creaming butter and sugar together.  Everyone loved the cake, but I thought it tasted somewhat flat.  I think I should have used better quality chocolate in the frosting.  Although I love Macrina Bakery, I haven't tasted the original, so I don't know how it compares. 

Modifications: I baked two 8 inch rounds (because I don't have 3 round pans except in the 6 inch size) and just layered them, instead of baking one large cake and torting it for the layers.  I halved the frosting recipe because I couldn't stomach using 4 sticks of butter at once, and it was more than enough frosting.

2011.06.16 - Roast Beef Salad, Rhubarb Tea, Banana Bread Bites

Roast Beef Salad is a cult favorite with the Thursday dinner crew.  It is M's favorite in particular, and the first thing I made for her after she had little F and could risk the dangers of listeria again :)  When summer rolls around (which is in fits and starts in June in Seattle), I like to make this a lot.  The rhubarb tea was my first foray into a rhubarb beverage.  The banana bread bites were part birthday cake/part contribution to the year of banana bread and were delicious.

Roast Beef Salad

Roast Beef Salad is a great simple weeknight meal.  Some chopping/tearing, some assembly.  The most difficult part is whisking up some dressing.  I am NOT a mustard person, but the touch of dijon in this dressing really adds something.  I like serving this with rye bread and extra roast beef on the side, in case someone wants a straightforward sandwich, or they just want to plop some salad between two pieces of bread (recommended!).  This recipe only has a 3/5 rating on Real Simple's site and is very simple, but for some reason me and some others just find it very addictive.

Modifications: I realized at the last minute that I didn't have balsamic vinegar, so I went with a substitute of apple cider vinegar and some sugar.  It still tasted good, but the dressing was missing the depth of flavor that balsamic provides.

Rhubarb Iced Tea

I've been cooking more and more with rhubarb over the past few years, and have tried to branch out from the tried and true strawberry and rhubarb combination.  This drink is simply steeped and sweetened rhubarb.  It was very tangy and had an interesting flavor, although I didn't find it very refreshing (something about the sour/tangy-ness).  Next time I would try to lighten it up with club soda.

Modifications: I used agave sweetener instead of honey, since I hate squeezing large amounts of honey out of the bottle (don't have the grip strength!).

Banana Bread Bites

O...M...G pretty much sums up A's reaction to this banana bread.  The base for these bites was a very rich, butter-based banana bread, and it was amazing.  Dipping in candy melt chocolate was merely gilding the lily.  I had no clue how the recipe author could have rolled this banana bread into cake balls without the aid of frosting or something -- it wasn't *that* moist.  So after a failed, crumbled attempt, I decided to cut out squares to dip in chocolate instead.  It was just as good!  Even without the chocolate, this is my new go-to banana bread recipe when I want something more dessert-like than snack- or breakfast-like.

2011.06.02 - Sandwiches, Asparagus Artichoke Salad

This week felt like kind of a cop-out.  Sandwiches!  However, the side salad was pretty amazing, so hopefully that makes up for it a bit.  And sandwiches *was* the first Thursday night dinner, after all.

Sandwiches

Every Saturday, A and I have lunch at a local bagel establishment.  My usual is turkey and havarti with tomatoes and lettuce on a rosemary bagel (or sesame or pretzel).  I almost never eat havarti outside of that lunch, so I thought it would be nice to replicate my favorite a bit for this dinner.  I thought that roast deli chicken and havarti sounded good, and amazingly enough, those were the two things on sale at the deli counter.  Extreme couponing!  (not)

Asparagus Artichoke Salad

I've been going asparagus crazy this spring, but it seems like that's the only thing that's seasonal right now.  It's been a cold and rainy winter in Washington state and the crops just aren't ready yet.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had artichoke, but for some reason the description of this salad called to me.  I love simple, non-lettuce based salads, and this one is certainly near the top of my list now.  The simple dressing of lemon juice, garlic powder, artichoke marination liquid, and oil from roasting the asparagus was just right.  The asparagus, artichoke, and tomato worked well together.  This salad was great and I need to make it again soon!

2011.05.26 - Taco Thursday, Black Bean Salad, Funfetti Cupcakes

Another simple-to-prepare-after-work meal is tacos.  I jazzed these up with a black bean and pineapple salad.  We were celebrating a big award won by B, so I thought funfetti would be appropriately festive.

Tacos

I typically make my tacos with ground turkey breast and Penzeys taco seasoning.  I like the flavor of this spice mix and think that turkey tacos are a bit healthier than ground beef.  I served them with corn soft tortillas, tomato, mexican cheese blend, sour cream, and lettuce.  I make a toppings bar so people can add what they want, which does mean that tacos win the record for most bowls and spoons used in a meal. 

Black Bean and Pineapple Salad

This "salad" was delicious.  The roasted pineapple was amazing.  I think this would be even better on the grill because I didn't have the patience to get my pineapple fully caramelized under the broiler (it took over 30 minutes just to get a light broil!).  I would definitely make this again.

Modifications: I left out most ingredients from the original recipe because I was serving it as a taco topping, not as an individual meal or side.  I only used the onion, beans, pineapple, and spices. 

Funfetti Cupcakes

These were a paaaain to unmold from the muffin tin because they grew slightly over the edge of the paper liner and cemented themselves to the pan.  They were pretty sticky from the sugar in the recipe and it was just an annoying unmolding (although at least most stayed intact).  Aside from all that, funfetti is FUN and one of my favorite kinds of cake.  I've only made it with a box mix before, but this recipe was pretty simple.  I'd love to try it as a full cake sometime.  Rainbow sprinkles are the best!

Modifications: After I bought my stand mixer, I threw out my crappy hand mixer and rejoiced that I would never need one again.  Unfortunately, marshmallow frosting like the one in the recipe requires using a hand mixer over a double boiler.  After realizing this at 10:30 PM the night before the dinner, I gave up and used a container of cream cheese frosting that I had in the pantry.  I bet the marshmallow frosting would have been amazing though.