Recipe Review-Fiesta Salad

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (hmph-see below for unpleasant details*)
1 6 0z can tuna
1/2 c diced celery
1/4 c chopped green pepper
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp seasoned salt
1 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. sour cream
1 tomato, diced
corn chips

Directions:
combine cooked rice, tuna, celery, green pepper and lemon juice. Blend seasonings with the sour cream and stir into rice mixture. Chill for 1 hour (or two days). Garnish with tomatoes and serve with corn chips. I kept the tuna and peppers separate so that Jeff could add the tuna to his and I could add the peppers to mine. I actually heated mine up and melted cheddar cheese on it. We both put taco sauce and sour cream on ours and crunched the tortilla chips up into the whole thing. (which probably helped mask the fact that the rice was still not totally soft. yay.) All in all it turned out really yummy and I would fix it again. Using minute rice. Two thumbs up.







*So, this is quite the recipe story. First of all, there is a HUGE difference between minute rice and the other kind of rice. I, being the kitchen savvy gal that I am, have never used the "other" kind of rice. Until now. I got the rice for this recipe in the bulk aisle at Whole Foods. Pretty awesome, right? No. Not if you don't know how to cook it. Which I didn't. And still don't. So instead of adding equal parts water and rice, bringing to a boil, removing from heat and simmering while covered for 5 minutes, I boiled and boiled and simmered and simmered and added more water and covered and uncovered and after an hour and 15 minutes I finally gave up and we had grilled cheese sandwiches. I left the rice in the pot while we ate and I think it somehow, finally, got mostly done. So I stored all the other ingredients and we ate this meal two days later. Oi Vey.

In other food news, how awesome are these pitas?!


and this decadent chocolate cake, which is almost as good as the one at Whole Foods, if I would just stop overcooking it!

Recipe Review-Lemon Tart

I made this tart for dessert night with the girls. It looks so pretty (as do the rest of the desserts) however it was SO TART! I couldn't even eat one bite without puckering like I've never puckered before. It was way too sour for both Jeff and I. I took the leftovers to work, though, and it was gone by mid morning, so I guess it was OK. I'm just more of a chocolate person, I guess.

Lemon Tart
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2010/02/in-the-kitchen-with-marjorie-taylors-lemon-tart.html

Pâte sucrée (I guess this means pie crust in fancy talk ;)

Makes enough pastry for 2 tarts (I bought my crusts. What? making the filling was plenty of baking for me!)

1/4 cup heavy cream
2 large egg yolks
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
A pinch of sea salt
8 ounces unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Whisk the cream and the eggs together in a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter. Using your fingers, incorporate the butter until you have a coarse meal. Gradually add the cream and yolks, and mix until just combined. Be careful not to overwork the dough. Bring the dough together with your hands to incorporate completely. Divide the dough in half, shape into disks, and wrap one of them to freeze and use later.

If the dough is soft, put it into the refrigerator for a few minutes prior to rolling. Place it on a lightly floured work surface, and sprinkle with a little bit of flour. Roll it into a 1/4-inch-thick circle, flouring as needed. Started at one side, roll and wrap the dough around the rolling pin to pick it up. Unroll the dough over the 9-inch tart pan. Gently press the dough into the pan, being careful not to stretch it as this will cause it to shrink when baking. To remove the excess dough, work your way around the edge pinching off the excess dough with your fingers. Chill for 1 hour before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375

Line the tart pan with the pâte sucrée. Prick the bottom with a fork and line the shell with parchment paper. Fill the lined tart with dried beans or pie weights and bake for 15 minutes. Take the tart out of the oven and carefully remove the parchment paper and dried beans. Return the tart to the oven, and bake until golden brown turning as needed to ensure even color. Set aside on a rack to cool completely.

Lemon Curd (I guess curd is supposed to be an appetizing word?)

Makes enough filling for one nine-inch (23cm) tart, or about ten 3.5” (9cm) mini-tarts, depending on their depth

4 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup lemon juice, about 5 lemons (Jeff totally juiced these for me. He's my tart hero!)
5 ounces unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

A pinch of sea salt

Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, sugar and lemon juice together in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the lemon curd has thickened and coats the back of the spoon, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. (The consistency is like melted-ice cream)

Remove the lemon curd from the heat and add the butter a little at a time, stirring to incorporate each addition before adding more. Season with the sea salt.

Strain the lemon curd into the prepared tart shell(s) while the curd is still warm. Decorate the tart with thin slices of lemon and chill for at least 3 hours. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or crème fraiche. (more fancy talk)

No thumbs up from the Schurz home. Oh well.

Recipe Review-Sun dried tomato dip

Sun Dried Tomato Dip

Jeff and I sampled a dip at Whole Foods and instead of buying thought it would be fun to try to make it. It was GREAT!

Unfortunately the ingredients are all “to taste” meaning I didn’t measure anything. So, I’ll give you some approximations and then you can make it to fit you!

7-8ish sun dried tomatoes (we got these from the bulk isle, dried, then soaked them in water)
8ish oz cream cheese
1/3 ish cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 Tbsp ish dried basil (fresh would be so much yummier)
A little garlic salt
A little sea salt
Other spices/herbs to your liking

Blend all in food processor. Serve with chips, pitas, or whatever!

Two thumbs WAY up :)

Recipe Review-Soup Edition

Beer Cheese Soup

6 thumbs ups! My great friend Liz was over the night we had this yummy meal. All three of us liked it. And she provided asiago cheese bread which was heavenly dipped in the soup.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onion (except, yeah right. I don't do onions. sick. death. sick.)

3 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth (except this girl is a vegetarian, so I always replace chicken broth with this awesome stock called NO Chicken broth. You can't even tell a difference!)

8 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon prepared Dijon-style mustard

1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer (I totally bought a giant 24 oz can of Coors

Directions

1. In a medium pot over medium heat, melt butter. Cook celery, carrots (and onion) in butter 5 minutes. Pour in no chicken broth and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.

2. Puree mixture in a blender or food processor or using an immersion blender. Return to pot over medium heat.
3. Toss Cheddar with flour and stir, a little at a time, into the pot, until fully incorporated and melted. Season with mustard. Stir in beer to achieve desired thickness just before serving.

SO GOOD!


Spicy Red Lentil Soup



Ingredients

1 cup red lentils (I bought just one cup in bulk at Whole Foods. Whole Foods is, unlike what you might believe, pretty affordable if you do it right.)

1 tsp. salt
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
2 Tbs. minced fresh ginger (I don't know if this is different than ginger root or not, but I used ginger root and it was tasty)

1 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)
1 15-oz. can light, unsweetened coconut milk
1 Tbs. tamarind concentrate or paste, optional (I couldn't find this so I opted out. I guess you can get it in Indian grocery's and high end grocery's, whatever those are.)

1 Tbs. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1 small jalapeño, stemmed, seeded and minced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Directions

Combine lentils, salt and 5 cups water in large saucepan.

Cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, partially covered, 20 to 25 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Blend lentils with whisk for rustic texture, or purée in food processor for creamier feel. (I pureed. I think I'm glad I did because the texture was very nice and the lentils looked a little strange before they were pureed.)

Purée tomatoes and ginger in blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Add garlic, and cook 30 seconds, or until just golden, stirring often. Add tomato mixture, coconut milk, tamarind if desired, coriander, cumin, turmeric and jalapeño.

(PS the soup wasn't spicy at all, so I think I will leave some of the jalapeno seeds next time.) Simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in lentils, and simmer, partially covered, 20 minutes.

(haha! I wanted to capture myself cooking. :)

Season with salt and pepper. (seasoned with TONS of salt. I thought the soup was a little bland without it.) Sprinkle with cilantro, and serve. Cilantro? It's like the chocolate of herbs. Delish.

Two thumbs up again! YES!

Recipe Review - Goat Cheese Balls

I'm not going to keep track of what number I'm on anymore. I'll just have to use the list on the side of my blog to do that for me. This week I made goat cheese balls for our salads. They were DELISH! Two thumbs up!!!


Directions:
Take 110z tube of goat cheese (or however much you want to use) and stir in 2 Tbs of finely chopped fresh rosemary and 1 tsp coriander.

Roast 1 cup pecans (I used walnuts because that's what we had) by coating with melted butter and baking at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely, then finely chop. When I was chopping I also mixed them with a bit of garlic salt and sea salt.

Roll cheese into marble sized circles, then coat with nuts. Serve with salad and enjoy. I had extra nuts so sprinkled them on the salad to enjoy.

For a delicious salad use mixed greens, add nuts, dried cranberries, raspberry vinagrette and cheese balls. YES! Healthy and delicious :)

Recipe Review - Poached Eggs on Toast

(I wish I could have taken a better picture, but this will have to do.)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup yogurt
1 small clove garlic, crushed
10.5 oz baby spinach
1 oz butter
herbed salt (not sure what this is, but I used Season All and it was delish)
4 tomatoes halved
1 tablespoon white vinegar
8 eggs
loaf of your fave bread (recipe calls for rye, we used french)

Directions:

Mix yogurt and garlic for the dressing (PS, I hate garlic and thought the yogurt would have been awesome just plain. PPS Jeff didn't like the yogurt at all)
Wash spinach and place in large saucepan wiht water clinging ot leaves. Cook, covered over low heat for 3-4 minutes or until wilted. Add the butter and aslt, set aside to keep warm.
Cook the tomatoes under a hot grill for 3-5 minutes. (a hot grill? under? I have no idea. I just broiled them for a few.)
Fill trying pan 3/4 full with cold water and add the vinegar and salt to stop egg whites from spreading. (this didn't really work for me) Bring to a gentle simmer. Gently break the eggs one by one into a small bowl and slide into the water. Reduce heat so water barely moves (whatever that means). Cook 1-2 minutes. (Um, yeah right. I cooked for at least 6 minutes and don't you worry your little head, those eggs weren't too done. Which to me, is sort of an oxy moron.) Remove eggs.
Toast bread and top with spinach, and egg and some dressing. Serve with halved tomatoes.
1 thumb up (mine, without the garlic I thought this was really tasty. I would actually remove the spinach, too, but hey, let's stay healthy together shall we.) and 1 thumb sideways. Sweet Jeff never says something is yucky, but he did say it was weird and that he didn't like the yogurt. He ate it all, but I probably won't make it again. So there you have it.

Recipe Review - Asparagus Pistachio Rissoto

4 c. vegetable stock

1 cup white wine

1/3 c extra virgin olive oil

2 cups arborio rice (I used Orzo)

10 3/4 oz asparagus spears cut into small pieces

1/2 cup cream

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup shelled pistachios-chopped



1. Heat stock and wine in a large saucepan, bring to boil, then reduce, cover and simmer.

2. Heat oil in another large saucepan. Add rice and stir for 1 minute or until rice is translucent.

3. Add 1/2 c. hot stock stirring constantly over medium heat until the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding 1/2 c. at a time until all stock is absorbed and the rice is tender and creamy in texture. Add the asparagus during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Remove from heat.

4. Let stand for 2 minutes, stir in cream and Parm and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with pistachios.



Yummy! I would actually probably have left the asparagus out and just had it as a side. The pistachios were absolutely delicious.

4 thumbs up!