Browsing articles from "November, 2011"

Cranberry, Red Wine & Orange Sauce

Cranberry Sauce
Less than a week to go until Thanksgiving…woo hoo!! For people like me who love to cook (and eat! ) Thanksgiving is THE holiday. I mean really, who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? Even if you are one of those people for whom cooking is a dreaded and disastrous affair, chances are you still enjoy going over to Grandma’s and feasting on turkey and mashed potatoes till you burst. Lots of holidays seem to be centered around eating these days, but Thanksgiving takes the prize for being the holiday when you are allowed… no, EXPECTED, to fill your plate with heaps of goodies and then stuff yourself silly. So, In honor of this foodalicious (this is what I originally wanted to call my blog…but someone already had it) holiday I have decided to post a few of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes.cranberry
I am starting off with a really basic and simple recipe for cranberry sauce. It seems to me that this dish is often overlooked, shunned, or even (gasp) replaced with the canned version cause no one cares enough to make the real deal. Well, I am here to correct this mistake! Yes, I know there’s lots of people out there who swear by that gelatinous tube of red jelly. But just because your mom, and her mom before her, sliced it up and served it every year doesn’t mean you can’t break this misguided tradition. Besides, have you bothered to read the back of one of those cans of so called cranberry sauce? They’re loaded with high fructose corn syrup and preservatives – things that should NEVER go in cranberry sauce, not to mention your body! Okay, enough ranting. What I am trying to say is that this recipe for cranberry sauce is delicious and super easy to make. Just try it. You will like it.
A quick recipe note:
This recipe makes a fairly large amount of sauce. Unless you are serving a huge group, or you have some serious cranberry lovers in your family, I would suggest cutting it in half. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with making the full recipe and using the leftovers for other tasty meals. A few ideas to you started:
• Slather it on some thick bread along with a slab of leftover turkey and a piece of melty cheese. Put this in the toaster oven and you have a day-after open face sandwich.
• Mix it with some maple syrup and use it as a glaze for pork or chicken.
• Make a parfait! Layer cranberry sauce, vanilla yogurt and granola. Top with toasted almonds.
• Whisk it with some white wine vinegar and use as a salad dressing.

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving recipes coming soon…very soon

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Roasted Beets with Balsamic Glaze

Roasted Beets
As far as I am concerned roasted beets are the only beets worth eating. Sure, you could argue that this same recipe would be just as good with boiled beets and take less than half the amount of time…but you would be wrong! Boiled beets are fine, but roasted beets are DELICIOUS. The long, slow roasting process brings out the earthy sweetness of the beets and causes the natural sugars to caramelize into all sorts of irresistible flavors. Boiled beets only wish they could be that good! Then there’s the glaze. This sweet yet tangy, super simple balsamic glaze adds an extra layer of yumminess to the already mouthwatering beets. I swear, this recipe might just win over even the most skeptical beet eater.

But wait…there’s more. I have been wanting to share an TAW31757
entire meal here for awhile now. Not just a one dish meal, but a few simple recipes that together create a complete meal. Since beets are really just a side dish (no matter how good they are) I thought this would be a great opportunity to create an entire meal post with three separate recipes. Roasted Beets with Balsamic Glaze, Chicken Thighs with Honey and Spice, and Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic. By the time you’re done reading this you will know exactly what’s for dinner tonight. Well, maybe tomorrow night. Since the beets take such a long time to roast I would suggest that if you’re making this meal on a week night you might want to roast the beets the night before. While the chicken and cauliflower are in the oven you can then make the glaze and pop the pre-roasted beets in the microwave for a few minutes until they’re warm. Make sure that you peel the beets while they are still warm though, because the skins are much harder to get off once the beets are cold. That reminds me,cold beets are great on salads. Slice or grate them over a spinach salad with citrus and toasted sunflower seeds. Maybe add some chick peas for protein and you have another delicious meal
that can’t be beet! I couldn’t resist – I had to include at least one beet pun.
Roasted Beets 

 

TAW11680-1 The next recipes are for Roasted Cauliflower and Chicken Thighs with Honey and Spice. They can both go in the oven at the same time because they have similar cooking times, but depending on your oven and the size of the chicken thighs they may not be done at exactly the same time. No problem. Just take out whatever dish is done first, cover with foil and place on your cooktop to keep warm.

Originally, I had planned on roasting the cauliflower and mashing it with a bit of roasted garlic and olive oil, sort of a rustic version of mashed potatoes. That plan all fell apart though when I pulled the roasted cauliflower out of the oven and popped a piece in my mouth. The browned edges and deep nutty flavor were so mouth-watering that I knew then we would eat it as it. Go ahead and mash it if you want, but in the end all I did was toss in a few cloves of roasted garlic and some grated parmesan and oh man was it good. Sometimes the most simple recipes are the best. Roasted Cauliflower

The roasted garlic can go in the oven along with the cauliflower and chicken. Roasted Garlic


The chicken can also go in the oven along with the cauliflower and garlic. This recipe is one of my favorites because its easy and flavorful. The spice level can be adjusted by varying the amount of red pepper that you add. This is a recipe that I make year round. In the summer on the grill, and this time of year in the oven. You really could make this dish with any chicken parts that you like, but in my opinion chicken thighs are the most flavorful and don’t dry out in the oven like chicken breasts tend to. I also like to use the thighs with bones in them because they tend to stay more moist than the boneless version. Sometimes I can’t find skinless bone-in chicken thighs so I just buy the ones with skin and remove it. Yes, I know the skin is oh so tasty, but also oh so unhealthy. I promise that with the spice rub and honey vinegar glaze you will never miss the skin.TAW31719



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Quinoa Stuffed Squash

TAW81574-1Quinoa is a funny sort of grain. First of all, there’s the way it looks. It starts off pretty normal looking, kind of like chopped-up uncooked rice, but as it simmers away in the pot it begins to morph into tiny, semi-transparent ovals that are reminiscent of some sort of insect egg. I realize this description might not be the most appetizing, but I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe it. As it changes from a solid to an opaque the germ separates and leaves behind a thin spiral-like strand that wraps around the grain. The whole thing is very science fictiony, but the result is quite tasty. TAW71505-1Quinoa (by the way its pronounced keen-wah)  is best known for its exceptional nutritional qualities. Its claim to fame seems to be that it is considered a ‘complete protein’. Essentially this means that quinoa is both high in protein and contains all nine of the amino acids that humans need. This is pretty rare to find in a plant and helps explain why, along with corn and potatoes, it was considered one of the three staple foods of the Inca civilization. That is until the 15th and 16th centuries when the Spanish began to conquer, um..I mean colonize, South America and they banished the cultivation of quinoa for a time due to its use in non-Christian religious ceremonies. Luckily these days quinoa cultivation is alive and well in countries such as Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. There is even a farm in the mountains of Colorado that has been growing quinoa since 1987. Check out these links to read more about this fascinating and wildly successful experiment. http://www.whitemountainfarm.com/
http://www.frontrangeliving.com/cooking/quinoa.htm

The other strange thing about quinoa is that while its often placed in the same category as rice and other grains, it is not actually a grain. Instead it is actually a relative of some leafy green vegetables and is closely related to plants such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds? Tumbleweeds!

I could keep feeding you interesting tidbits about this super healthy, non-grain grain all day, but I suppose before you all stop reading and refuse to ever come back here again I should get to the recipe. TAW71467TAW71466
Stuffed squash is really a pretty basic dish. Generally you cook up a mixture of rice and veggies, stuff it in a hollowed out squash, throw it in the oven, and bamm…you have stuffed squash. In this recipe, the biggest variation from what I just outlined above is that the squash is partially cooked beforehand in the microwave (thank you Cooking Light for this excellent idea). This accomplishes two things. First it cuts the baking time down by more than half, and second because the baking time is shorter it allows the grain, or in this case the quinoa, to retain some of its nutty texture instead of turning to mush while it hangs out in the oven for an hour waiting for the squash to cook. For this recipe I used the beautiful Amber Cup squash pictured above. You could use a variety of different squashes in the is dish. Golden Nugget, Acorn, Buttercup, Autumn Cup, Carnival, Turban. Basically any winter squash with a shape that allows you to hollow it out and stuff it will work just fine. TAW71521-1

These are some of the goodies I put in the squash. The original recipe only called for onion, garlic, and sausage, but I decided to throw in some carrots, fresh Italian parsley and a portabella mushroom for extra flavor and texture. This last minute addition was so tasty that I am pretty sure I will be making a vegetarian version with just the portabellas in the near future. If you decide to go this route I would suggest using at least three mushrooms to replace the 8-ounces of sausage. On the subject of sausage, any kind will do but I used Al Fresco brand Chicken Apple sausage with Vermont Maple syrup- wow! That’s good stuff. TAW71549
Here is the squash stuffed and ready to bake- Yummm!TAW71559-1

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