Usually it's just Jake who gets to enjoy the fruits of our culinary adventures here (and suffer through our failures), but for this one we had a special guest: Kelsey, celebrating her birthday! And for a birthday treat we decided to cook her some chicken and chicory - though first we had to figure out what chicory was.
Once we solved that mystery, though - turns out chicory = endive - we were in for a surprisingly simple time. Seven ingredients and three steps can either be a day at the beach or a trap, but fortunately this was the former.
Actually, one of the three steps is "Serve." The others can be summed up as "cook one side of the chicken," and "cook the other side of the chicken." It's not rocket science, this one.
What it is, though, is crazy delicious. And apparently we weren't the only ones who were looking forward to it...
Don't worry, she got her piece. Just a little bit, mind - it was too good to give her too much.
There was one key component to the second step - "cook the other side of the chicken," for those not paying attention - which was the addition of marsala and butter. Through some mad alchemy of cuisine, this resulted in one of the most tender and flavourful pieces of chicken I've ever had.
The chicory didn't really add anything (and the chard we just threw in at the end for nutrition's sake) but in the end, this was a triumph. Short of roasting a whole bird, this is my new favorite way to cook chicken, and we'll definitely be coming back to it.
Blondies: The white chocolate version of brownies.
Sounds pretty tasty, says the girl who doesn't like white chocolate (it's not really chocolate!). But Gordon wouldn't be Gordon if he stopped there, so his blondies have dried cranberries too. Game on.
You know how good it smells when you melt butter and then you add sugar and vanilla extract to it? Yeah.
Next you whisk some eggs into the butter mixture, sift your dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder - together and combine everything, just like you would do with pretty much any other batter.
Here's where it gets cray cray; after letting the batter cool for a few minutes, pour in the white chocolate chips and cranberries.
It might make for a beautiful picture but it's still not real chocolate.
Anyways, now the batter goes into the oven to bake for about 40 minutes, assuming you have any left after sampling, that is. And if you're feeling artistic you can make a pretty design in the baking dish first:
While it's hard not to like uncooked batter (raw eggs and all) and ooey-gooey dessert that's right out of the oven, I found this recipe to be a bit underwhelming in the end. The cranberries seemed out of place, and did I mention that white chocolate isn't chocolate? Give me brownies any day.
Kelsey's birthday dinner is next!
Given my oft-confessed love of bread, you might think that I would harbour a resentment towards those that wear its colours falsely, trying to pass themselves off as something better than they truly are. And you'd be right: sweetbreads? Not what they sound like. Shortbread, though? Love it.
I mean, sure, it's far from bread. But it's just butter, flour, and sugar - where can you go wrong? For a start you can use the wrong kind of flour. That would be a start. In our defense, wheat flour was all we had, and... healthy, right?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point we were just excited to finally be getting a chance to use our gorgeous mixer, which really is more suited to cooking for crowds. (The included recipe for chocolate chip cookies had a yield of 54 cookies. Crowds! Or, y'know, Americans.)
Today's Gordon touch: lemon thyme. Shortbread is a delicate creature (when made right), and lemon thyme is a delicate flavour, so we were definitely looking forward to the finished product - something suitable for afternoon tea, perhaps.
In with the flour! Did I mention it was the wrong kind of flour? I'm beginning to get the impression that we should stick to savouries.
All seems well for now, anyway - we have dough! It's a bit brown, sure, but that's only to be expected, given the flour. Time to roll it out and cut our rounds.
Ah. So that's not going to work, then. Plan B?
Good old Plan B: throw it all in a baking dish. We can always cut it up later. (Even the camera was excited about Plan B.)
Did I mention it was brown? Cooking it until it's golden brown is a wee bit trickier when it was darker than that to begin with. So it ended up being not really cooked through.
Most disappointing was that the lemon thyme was all but lost in the mix. Overall I thought it was kludgy and weird, but Christina loved it!
Keep reading if you're looking for a super yummy meal that's quick and easy to make on a weeknight. And for you legit vegetarians out there, I don't think you could go wrong doing a fake meat version of tagliatelle with sausage bolognese.
As you can see, there isn't a whole lot going on in this recipe. Boring, you say? I prefer to call it rustic. The key is to get high quality Italian sausage (from Skagit River Ranch or other places like such as [no, my grammar is not really that bad]). Trust me, the extra flavor makes a world of difference.
Ready to see how amazingly simple this is? First, get your pasta water boiling and sweat the onion and garlic in olive oil, then add the sausage and break it up to brown it...
...add cherry tomatoes and seasoning, and heat for a few minutes, adding a little bit of water for the sauce - hopefully your pasta is cooking by now.
Toss the tagliatelle with the bolognese mixture, serve and sprinkle with some parmesan.
Seriously, that's it. And it's really, really, really good; it made Robin's top 3.
There aren't a lot of shellfish easier to work with than mussels - they even open themselves for you! So we were pretty excited to recently discover a fresh, local, and sustainable source in Penn Cove's farmed shellfish offerings; I'm sure we'll be trying their oysters and clams soon enough.
We haven't talked enough about how fantastic it's been to work with all these fresh ingredients. It's easy to get in a cooking rut, where the only fresh things you're buying each week are lettuce for lunch salads, onion and cilantro for Mexican, and maybe the occasional tomato or avocado for variety. Having to buy shallots, thyme, celery, peppers, what have you - it all has a knock-on effect for our cooking the rest of the week, and that can only be a good thing.
Can you tell I'm stalling? It's because this is another incredibly simple recipe. (And that's the real secret of cooking, it turns out - use fresh ingredients, and don't try too hard!) Into the pot go the shallots, green onions, pepper, celery, thyme, and bay leaf - let them sweat down a little.
Then it's the mussels' turn! Throw them in, put the lid on, and let them open up. Then, when they're least expecting it, drench them in wine and vermouth.
Once the alcohol has boiled away - yes, I know, terrible waste - you're pretty much done!
Dish those mussels out into a bowl with a generous serving of the sauce, and plenty of bread nearby to soak it up. The only problem you'll have will be figuring out what to do with all those empty shells...
We like spice and we like meatballs, so why not try spicy meatball soup? After all, Gordon's meatballs in coconut broth were to die for (seriously - shame on you if you haven't made those yet). The long list of ingredients for this recipe seemed daunting at first, but it's not so bad once you realize that most of the stuff goes into making those delicious meatballs.
Just like before, we sauteed the onion and garlic with dried chili flakes and combined them with the ground beef, (fresh) breadcrumbs, and milk. And salt and pepper for seasoning. Never forget the seasoning!
Then we shaped them into perfect little golf balls and let them chill in the fridge for a bit. Now that's a nice looking meatball!
To cook the meatballs we sauteed more onion and garlic (it turns out onions are pretty good for you - look it up!) and added cumin seeds for extra flavor.
Time to make the soup! Canned tomatoes, oregano, veggie broth, and smoky chipotles went into the pot to simmer with the meatballs. Chipotles in adobo are my new favorite.
Finally, we threw in the zucchini and sweetcorn (actually, it was creamed corn because I messed up but, so what? Who cares?) and garnished with cilantro, tortilla chips, and jalapenos because, apparently, it just wasn't hot enough.
Mmm. The absence of cheese threw me off a bit, but any soup with crushed tortilla chips on top is okay in my book. This soup does not disappoint.
