Soy Honey Glaze

We eat a ton of salmon. It's easy, relatively cheap, and delicious.  Needed to switch it up a bit and started to play with some different flavor combinations. It's not earth-shattering by any means, but this glaze to finish off the pan-roasted salmon we made the other day was super awesome. p.s. charred lemon squeezed over salmon is the bomb.com.

Sorry for the crap picture, but we were starving and it was delish...so real life happened, forgive us! ;-)

Here's the recipe:

1 tbsp honey
1/2 tbsp soy sauce (I used lite sodium, but live dangerously!)
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon or lime squeeze

Whisk together ingredients with fork/whisk. When you take salmon off your skillet, I just poured this mixture in the skillet and rolled it around a couple of times to deglaze the pan and heat it up. Keep on the side or generously pour over your dish. I bet this would also be good with tilapia served on rice or even on chicken breast! Here's the baked salmon I've made in the past and this would be great poured on top right before serving.

Any other flavor combos you like to try?

A Hit and a Miss! Roast Chicken with Shallots and Roasted Artichokes

Do you ever see a recipe and think how awesome and classy it looks, and the description is even better? Me too. Roasted artichokes are that recipe for me…. so I tried making them...

NOT SO MUCH. I tried, and I failed miserably.  

Figures I try this with the 2 for $1 artichokes. That might be my problemo.  As far as I could tell, I followed the recipe from Iowa Girl Eats and hers looked amazing!!!  I failed miserably. But, my cheerleader hubs told me to try them again soon. Which I will (shout out to Iowa Girl, those looked killer, mine were beautiful, not tasty). Please try her recipe and win, and tell me what you used, I am determined to master this eventually!

Gorgessity…..Grossesity?

Alas, where there is a fail, there is a victory!  Cue in David Lebovitz's Roast Chicken with Caramelized Shallots. HELLLLLLOOOOOOO beautiful! This was the jackpot of all recipe finds. 

Calls for minced shallots - chopped as finely as I could!  

I have a new local store, Lucky's, that had their bone in chicken breast on sale for 98 cents a pound. 98 CENTS! The butcher  gladly gave me 4 breasts, and I saw they were $1.89 for all 4. So, naturally, I annoyed the hell out of him and asked for 4 more.  Beauties! Skin on is the way to go. For you skinnies, once again, eat the freakin skin and work out a bit more tomorrow. Its worth it.

Here's the link to the recipe:

David Lebovitz's Recipe below. 

PS. His website and recipes are amazing. Follow for updates! www.davidlebovitz.com

Roast Chicken with Caramelized Shallots
Serves 4 to 6

Adapted from French Farmhouse Cookbook (Workman) by Susan Herrmann Loomis

I use a whole chicken cut into eight pieces; two legs, two thighs, and I cut each breast piece in half, crosswise, keeping the wings attached. You could also just use eight of your favorite chicken pieces.

I used 3 large bone in breasts for 2 people and 1 large shallot. I used about 3/4 the recipe but just eyeball it to coat your chicken accordingly. 

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 4 large shallots, peeled and minced
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• One whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• one generous handful of coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC).

2. In a large baking dish, one which will hold all the chicken pieces in a single layer, mix the olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce, shallots, and some salt and pepper.

3. Toss the chicken in the mixture, so they’re completely coated with the shallots. Turn the chicken pieces so they are all skin side up.

4. Roast the chicken for about twenty minutes, until it starts to brown on top. Turn the pieces of chicken over. Scrape any juices and shallots over the chicken that may be clinging to the pan, and bake for another twenty minutes, or until the pieces of chicken are cooked through and the shallots are well-caramelized.

5. Remove from oven and toss in the chopped parsley, then serve

The bottom of the pan should be covered for the most part with your sauce. Toss your chicken in.

Roast for 20 then flip for 20. It is perfection!

It was truly delicious and something we will make again in the near future. Try it! So easy, even I can screw one thing up and end up with a majorly delightful entree! 

Homemade Marinara

MUCH, MUCH easier than you think. Now I just need to learn to can stuff and will have this on a whim all the time. So simple, so delicious, and really really easy. Please make this! I know Prego is the solution! I used it up until I made this sauce. Plus, you can say it is homemade!!!!

I actually made some more pasta (whole wheat!) dough the other day but had not made a sauce to go with it yet. Remember, I am a newbie…nothing is always perfect like TV chefs make you think. Was a bit weary about the wheat pasta.. How would the texture be? Would it be mush?  More on that later. Don't you wish sometimes on food network they would cringe when they taste the end result because they messed up? Ok, whatever, I'm the Debbie Downer. But sometimes, your food ain't perfection. It is what it is. This time, it's good.

This marinara is  Giada's and is excellent.  I may have changed a couple of measurements like keeping all the veggies, but it's basically the same. Sweet from the tomatoes, savory, rich, decadent. All you wish for in a great pasta sauce.

I cut Giada's recipe in half (sorta) because it makes a ton and I am just feeding 2!

1/4 c olive oil
1 medium white onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic (we love garlic in our house), minced
2 carrots chopped
3 celery stalks (they were very small), chopped
1 32 oz can crushed tomatoes (we used Hunt's brand it was amazing but any crushed will do!)
2 bay leaves (still used 2 because I love the flavor they give to a sauce)

Add olive oil to your pot- any pot will do!!! - and sweat (stir every 3 minutes until they look glossy) your chopped onions down for about 10 minutes. Giada's recipe tells you to add the garlic as same time as the onions, but I find that makes the garlic burn and turn bitter. I added the garlic after the onions turned translucent. When you add the garlic, add the chopped celery and carrot.  Let those cook and stir every couple of minutes for about 10-15 minutes.

Then, add a 32 oz can of crushed tomatoes, 2 bay leaves, and stir…. THEN WALK AWAY. Really. For an hour. You have to let all those yummy flavors marry. But really, you are done making the sauce! All you have to do is stir every so often…but yes, you are going to make homemade marinara that quick!

I peeked - and stirred. MMMMMM

You don't have to do this next step, but I did just to make it a little smoother. If you like chunky sauce skip this step.  I used an immersion blender for just a couple of whirls to get it a little smoother. 

Here's my yummy pasta recipe- For the whole wheat pasta I cut the all purpose flour in half and used whole wheat in place. You still need the gluten in the AP flour to make the particular recipe I used work. Here's where it went awry! So, when you freeze your pasta, make SURE you flour it liberally…i mean, coat those babies with more flour than you think. Luckily, I defrosted some dough I hadn't cut into spaghetti yet and did it the right way. See the pic below. Those noodles need to be DRESSED in flour. Just do it. You will thank me later. I thought it looked wrong, but it was soooo right.

My cheat boil - a fry daddy basket :-)

When I boil my pasta I used SALTY SALTY water. 

Ooooh weeeeeee. Doesn't this look excellent? Don't say so if not.

Sprinkle some parm on there. 

Enjoy! Let me know what sauces you like with pasta. Mine obviously are those of the unhealthy variety. :-)

Fish Isn't Scary & Fancy Word Friday

For the longest time, cooking any type of fish was something I just didn't think I could do, and to be honest, want to do. I always thought of any fish tasting like frozen fish sticks, tasting bland, or over/uncercooking it.  Childhood memories are awesome, but I think I had way way too many fish sticks back in the day.

Then recently, I got brave and decided "Let's do this! I'm going to make us some fresh fish, and actually enjoy it!"

So, after all is said and done, now I want to make all kinds of fish.

Face your fears! Or, if you have always loved cooking fish, well, I'm glad I crossed over to your side of the fence, because YES it's good when done right.

A good fish dish (poet and don't know it) has a great accompanying sauce. This week, Joey gave me his expertise on a sauce that he made for me the first time he cooked for me. It was sea bass with angel hair and lemon caper sauce. Hey-Oh husband! I was hooked, we got married, so I of course agreed I wanted to learn to make this special sauce. Your save-the-dates for our vow renewals are in the mail, because I nailed this sauce. NOT REALLY

Behold!!! Beurre Blanc! And, surprise! We have our fancy word for Friday.

Beurre blanc —literally translated from French as "white butter"— is a hot emulsified butter sauce made with a reduction of vinegar and/or white wine (normally Muscadet) and grey shallots into which cold, whole butter is blended off the heat to prevent separation. 

My photography skills are impressive…..(I see you giving me the side-eye) I also can't help but see the purple sandwich bag elephant in the room.

For this particular beurre blanc, I made a lemon caper variation. It's adapted from the culinary school book "On Cooking". I found it on amazon for cheap and it tells you everything you need to know about cooking. This sauce is acidic, salty and delightful. Perfect for pairing with my choice catch of the day, cod.  Why did I choose cod? It was a weekend and everything was picked over. I was not disappointed though.  I asked for a pound at the butcher because I honestly had no idea how much it would be for the both of us once cooked. It was plenty for both of us, and we actually used some of the thinner end pieces and coated them in panko and had some delicious "fish sticks" for a appi-teaser (I should try to avoid two eye rolls in one post, bad joke). I wasn't expecting their deliciousness so next time I will have a dipping sauce ready for those little fish babies! This lemon caper sauce will go great with any flaky white fish, if I had to guess. If you try it with one and it's terrible, please let me know, but I doubt it will be bad because this sauce makes the dish. I would start this sauce about 30 minutes before you want to cook your fish because it takes a bit of time and attention. 

Full recipe rundown:

1/2 medium minced white onion or whole shallot (shallots are usually used in this sauce but we didn't have any, so minced onion works great too)

The juice of 1/2 a lemon

Just shy of 1/2 cup of white cooking wine

2 tbsp capers, drained

1/4 to 1/2 stick of COLD butter

3/4 lb or 2 thick cod filets

Sweat onions on medium to high heat for about 1-2 minutes in a small saucepan. Pour in white wine, lemon juice, and capers. Reduce almost to nothing. You may see just a slight liquid when it is ready. I set the sauce off the burner and then put it back on once I flipped my fish.

VERY IMPORTANT,  add cubes of cold butter one at a time, letting each melt into the sauce and gently whisk constantly, with the saucepan lifted off the burner (still above burner, but not directly on). I told you this needed plenty of attention. Keep adding cubes of butter until you get to the consistency of a light vinaigrette or oil, or really, whatever your choice of consistency is. For a thicker sauce, less butter, for a creamier, thinner sauce, more butter. You get my drift.

As for this scary thing called fish…it's easier to cook than boiling water. S&P your cod, tilapia, flounder, whatever and put a pan on medium heat. A 2 second drizzle of oil in the pan and then sear your fish on each side around 5 minutes tops. I think I am high balling the time on each side because we had a thicker cut of fish this particular time. For tilapia it will probably take 1-2 minutes on each side, if that. 

You won't think it starting out, but you really will know when your fish is done. I like to flip one more time to see how solid and held together it is, then immediately plate my dish. Pour some of your lovely lemon caper sauce on top and voila! You are your new best friend and will make this whenever possible.