Roasting...Your New BFF

Camille’s earlier reference to roasting sweet potatoes inspired me to dedicate an entire post to the topic of “roasting vegetables”, because honestly, it deserves some recognition. Roasting is my favorite way to prepare veggies because it is so easy and so yummy! It has come to my attention (every time my mom calls me and asks me how I roast my red potatoes) that not everyone realizes how simple and transferable this technique is, so here is a brief description:

• Turn oven to 400-425°
• Prepare your vegetable of choice (wash, chop, etc. Keep in mind the larger the pieces, the longer it will take to cook)
• Put veggies on a cookie sheet, preferably one that is rimmed
• Drizzle olive oil over the veggies
• Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
• Stir veggies to distribute oil, salt, & pepper
• Put in oven and wait for veggies to be tender (the time will differ depending on which vegetable you are roasting). You might also want to stir them occasionally while they are roasting.

My favorite vegetables to roast are asparagus, butternut squash, red bell peppers, red potatoes, and my newest favorite…green beans. So what are you waiting for? Go roast some veggies!

**And stay tuned for one of my new favorite meals that involves roasting red bell peppers, portabella mushrooms, & broccoli. It is awesome!

Chicken, Edamame, and Noodle Stir Fry

I have experimented with different cooking magazines, and the ONLY one I have liked...actually LOVED...is Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food". I am not usually a Martha Stewart fan, but I absolutely love getting my monthly issue of this little magazine. The recipes are easy to make and don't have a list of ingredients you can't even pronounce. I'll be honest, I haven't loved every recipe I've tried, but that fact that I've tried as many as I have speaks for itself. How many times have you dog-eared or torn out a recipe and then never tried it? These recipes are actually manageable and usually pretty healthy (which is a huge factor for me). Okay, I really could go on and on about this, but to sum it up...a lot of the recipes I post on this blog will be from "Everyday Food".

Chicken, Edamame, and Noodle Stir-fry

Coarse salt & ground pepper

8 oz. udon noodles or linguine (**you can find udon noodles in the Asian section of your grocery store)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

(cut into thins strips)

1 Tbsp cornstarch

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 small red onion, halved & thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

½ napa cabbage, thinly shredded (**NAPA cabbage, not regular)

2 cups frozen shelled edamame

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1. Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water; set aside.
2. While pasta is cooking, in a medium bowl, toss chicken with cornstarch; season with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium-high. Cook chicken in two batches until light brown on the outside and opaque throughout, 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
3. Add remaining Tbsp oil to skillet; add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 1 to 3 minutes. Add cabbage, and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, 2 to 4 minutes.
4. Add edamame, vinegar, soy sauce, chicken, and noodles; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing until noodles and edamame are warmed through, 3 to 5 minutes

My Big Fat Greek Salad

I currently work at UC Davis in a department called Campus Events & Visitor Services, commonly known on campus as CEVS. Here at CEVS, we are pretty obsessed with food. We are always coming up with reasons to either bring food into the office or to go out and find great food. We even have a Gourmet Club where a group of my coworkers explores unique restaurants in the area (my church calling keeps me from taking part in this group, but I fully support it). Anyways, a few weeks ago we all went out to lunch at a Greek restaurant here in Davis called "Symposium". The pizza was amazing, but I was also impressed with their salad. So after some searching on good old foodnetwork.com, I found a recipe. I made it last week and it was just like what I had at Symposium. So here it is:

**And it turns out, that taking good pictures of food is really difficult. I think I took about 20 pictures of this little plate of salad.

My Big Fat Greek Salad

3 vine ripe tomatos, cut into chunks

1 red onion, thinly sliced

½ European seedless cucumbers, cut into bite-sized chunks

1 small red bell pepper, seeded & chunked

1 small green bell pepper, seeded & chunked

1 cubanelle pepper, seeded & chunked ( I couldn’t find one of these)

1 cup Kalamata black olives ( I hate olives, so I left these out)

Several sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley, about ½ cup

¼ lb feta cheese (I used crumbled)

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tsp dried oregano, crushed in the palm of your hand

Coarse salt & black pepper

Combine veggies, olives, and parsley in a large bowl. Combine oil, vinegar, and oregano in a small plastic container with a lid. Shake vigorously to combine oil and vinegar and pour over salad. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Season with salt & pepper, and mix well.

Cloudy and 55 degrees?!

It's definitely a soup day. How about a feel good tomato soup and grilled cheese?

While there is the time old classic Campbell's Tomato Soup that you open with a can opener and rinse out the tomato mush with water to add to the condensed meal (Despite all of this I still enjoy eating it with a pile of cheddar cheese and fresh ground pepper.)....

America's Test Kitchen (who publishes Cook's Illustrated) made a 30 minute meal cook book! In my book, their recipes are always perfect, but they require the finest ingredients (which usually equates to most expensive), the most time, and sometimes even fancy kitchen equipment that I haven't acquired yet.

I was shocked when I found out they had condescended to the 30 minute crowd. (Don't get me wrong, Rachel has a lot of great recipes that my family eats all the time and I appreciate her. I just can't stand watching her show.) The shock faded when I read the introduction's disclaimer that truly good food should take longer than 30 minutes to prepare, but the test kitchen has created some forgivable short cuts.

Anyway, Thanks to America's Test Kitchen you can have REALLY good tomato soup in less than 30 minutes. Here's how.

Cream of Tomato Soup
3- 14 oz. cans diced tomatoes
3 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
2 TBLS unsalted butter
1 onion, minced
1 TBLS light brown sugar
1 TBLS tomato paste
Salt
2 TBLS all-purpose flour
½ cup heavy cream
2 tsp dry sherry
Pinch of cayenne

1. HEAT BROTH MIXTURE: Drain tomatoes, reserving juice. Add broth to reserved tomato juice to measure 5 cups (if necessary, add water). Bring broth mixture and bay leave to boil, covered, in large saucepan and set aside.
2. SAUTE TOMATO MIXTURE: Meanwhile, melt butter in large Dutch oven over high heat. Add drained tomatoes, onion, brown sugar, tomato paste, and ½ tsp salt, and cook until tomatoes are dry and beginning to brown, 11 to 13 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute.
3. ADD BROTH MIXTURE: Slowly stir in broth mixture. Bring to simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Remove bay leaves.
4. PUREE FINISH AND SEASON: Puree soup in batches in blender until smooth. Return pureed soup to pot and stir in cream and sugar. Return to brief simmer, then remove from heat. Season with salt and cayenne to taste.

Don't forget about the grilled cheese. I can really go either way on grilled cheese. There's the whitest of white bread, with "cheese" that comes wrapped in square shaped plastic, and of course all sides of the bread buttered for grilling. Then there is the good crusty bread, with good cheese (sharp cheddar, gruyere, or gouda are my favorites), drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper for grilling. Really, either one is delicious to me.

If you had something this precious, wouldn't you want to keep it as healthy as possible?

I have the BIGGEST sweet tooth in the world, but thank goodness I also have people I love who I don't want to die early namely Micah and Nigel (see Nigel above). Today I figured that "bran muffin" is probably a synonym for longevity so I made my "mother-in-law's" (why call it that when it feels more like the real thing?) delicious Cranberry Bran Muffins and proceeded to eat 4 of them... smothered in melting butter.

Olivia's Cranberry Bran Muffins
Yields 12 muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in order listed, then add wet ingredients. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Live a long and happy life.

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 cups bran (I crushed up some bran flakes in my food processor and then measured 1 and 1/2 cups of the fine powder. I'm assuming you can use any kind of bran cereal as long as it's crushed well. Let me know about successes or failures trying other types of bran cereal.)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 beaten egg
1 cup sour milk
2 TBLS oil or melted shortening
1 cup craisins

***Photo courtesy of Jonathan Canlas, taken at the premier Film is Not Dead Workshop, North Shore, Oahu - March 2008.***

Let's just see how this goes.

I just finished reading Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl and it's opened a whole new world to me. The delicious world of FOOD. I can't wait to learn more about this new land. Food has always been a big part of my life, but I have a new excitement for learning how to make the food on my table tastier, healthier and more memorable. Mostly, I'm excited to have an endless supply of ideas of what to even make for dinner.Hence this blog. We're going to share our ideas with you and you with us. No one will go hungry. Everyone was full at my house tonight. I made a version of Robin Miller's Roasted Balsamic Chicken. I served the chicken without the horseradish "froth", brown rice, or roasted acorn squash. I served the balsamic chicken with roasted sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli. Simple and delicious. I also roasted sliced onions on top of the chicken and then finished them on the stove top to get them completely caramelized. Here's my recipe, although next time I'm going to try marinating the chicken instead of just brushing before cooking, and then I'm going to grill instead of roast. That will be a great spring/summer version.

Roasted Balsamic Chicken
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
2 TBLS dijon mustard
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
1 onion, sliced
6-8 chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Combine vinegar and mustard and brush all over chicken. Place onions on top of chicken and roast in oven for about 25 minutes. This wasn't enough time for my onions to completely caramelize so I finished them up on the stove with butter and olive oil at a low temperature for about 1o more minutes.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
diced sweet potato
olive oil
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and dice the sweet potato. Season lightly with salt and pepper and olive oil, stir to coat. Roast in oven for at least 25 minutes.

Steamed Broccoli
broccoli florets
thyme

Fill large saucepan with 1.5 inches of water. Place broccoli florets in vegetable steaming tray and season with a pinch of thyme. Bring water to a boil and cook just until the broccoli turns bright green.