Lemon Curd

If you're not familiar with lemon curd, this is a very classic British lemon-spread to put on scones, or other pastries. (Try it on pancakes, or in homemade Danish, for instance.) Lemon curd is bright, smooth, velvety and rich, and it pairs so well with a hot cup of Earl Grey. 

This is a breakfast staple at my parents' house, so I've grown up eating it, but this very batch that I'm sharing with you here is the FIRST time in 42 years of living that I finally got around to making myself. And it was super easy, and very fast. I think zesting the lemons took 1/3 of the total time.

Mango Coconut Almond Granola

A few years ago, I got tired of buying a box of granola for $4 every few days because we eat it a lot, and I kept thinking about the cost per ounce, and how absurd it was that we'd maybe be able to get 8 bowls worth on our yogurt which ends up being like 50 cents per 1/2 cup, give or take. I knew it would be cheaper to make my own, especially since I have that magical item in my purse that allows me to shop like royalty; I'm talking about the CostCo card!

After some loose inspiration from a recipe in Real Simple, I doubled the batch so it would last us at least 2 weeks, not to mention I constantly alter ingredients, embellish a bit and switch things around as I'm inclined to do.

Kombucha

Raspberry Ginger Kombucha on the rocks

EDITED 01-25-2016 with an important medical note. Due to my own naive overconsumption of Kombucha, I was actually causing damage and stress to my liver, which was discovered with a standard blood test. Please be aware that this is a beverage with live organisms in it, and it should only be consumed in small quantities, as a "health tonic." At most 4 or 5 oz per day. I was actually drinking 12-16 oz per day, the way I might have regular ice tea in a big glass. My dear friend and "sister-in-law-once-removed", who is a nutritional therapist, did some extensive research and learned that people who have had toxic mold exposure should not drink kombucha at all, nor have raw vinegar with "the mother" in it.  That all rings a bell for me, because I was chronically exposed to toxic mold for 3 years in a rental house in the 1990s.  Furthermore, after discovering my off-kilter lab work, I told all my friends who drink kombucha to be cautious. One of my friends also decided to get bloodwork done and her liver enzymes were also elevated after regular kombucha drinking. So please use caution! As fun as it is to make this natural beverage, if you are in doubt at all, ask your doctor to run some bloodwork on you, especially if you feel more fatigued or lethargic, or start having any illness symptoms after consuming it. I am not a doctor. I am just sharing my own experience in the last 3 months, after six months of daily kombucha drinking.  As for myself, I'm afraid my kombucha drinking days are over. I'll miss it's tart, fizzy effervescence, but I only get one liver.

Turkey Chili

This chili came together a month or two ago, but I made it again 2 more times, and it's always yummy, so I figured I should blog it for my fateful... uh... I mean, Faithful followers.

This one is on the milder, savory side. You could definitely pack some heat into the mix by increasing spices or adding some hot sauce or jalapenos but I liked how it was really tasty, and could be kid friendly as well, if that's a concern to anyone.

So... as pictured here below, the contents are pretty simple.

INGREDIENTS: 

1 package ground turkey
1 cup cooked rice
1 can kidney beans *(or try other beans, instead of kidney / black)
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 can tomato paste (Cont'd below)
 

1/2 yellow or white onion, finely diced
1 tsp Oregano (more to taste)
1 tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 tsp Chili Molido Powder
1 whole chipotle pepper

(Optional, 1/2 tsp cayenne powder, to make it spicier)

DIRECTIONS:

Begin by dicing up the half onion, into small pieces,  and then add a bit of butter or vegetable oil to the bottom of a large soup pot or cast iron Dutch Oven, over medium heat. Add onions, and sautee, stirring often until translucent or slightly caramelized.

Turn up heat to medium high, and add in ground turkey. Break it up frequently with a spatula or spoon to brown it evenly.  When it is cooked through, pour in spices and seasonings, and add all the canned ingredients. Let this simmer for at least a half hour or more.

Serve to your liking, with shredded cheese, corn muffins, sour cream, chopped onions,  or other toppings like hot sauce, jalapenos, or chives.

For more chili of my chili recipes, check out these options, Sweet potato chili and Black Bean Chili with Cilantro.

Until next time!

Pistachio Cedar Planked Salmon, and Salmon Leek Chowder

Here are two easy and salmon recipes I made yesterday and today, all from one four-pound $20 whole salmon. If you can learn to fillet and debone your own fish, you can save so much money on seafood dishes. So here is Pistachio Crusted Cedar-Plank Salmon, and Salmon Leek Chowder.

Orange-Raspberry Pots De Creme

I've been making this recipe for a year or two ever since I first saw it on The Pioneer Woman's website. The beauty of it is that it only takes a few minutes to prepare. And you do it ALL in the blender. You could make this with as few as 4 ingredients, or add a few extras for oomph. It looks super fancy, and tastes so rich and decadent that you could easily fool your guests into thinking that it has taken hours of cooking over a hot stove.

I made a few tweaks to the original recipe, just to switch up the flavor profile a bit. Other than that, all credit goes to the inspirational and beautiful Ree Drummond!

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz chocolate chips
4 eggs
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup piping hot strong coffee * (see my suggestions)
1 cup frozen or fresh raspberries
Zest from 1 orange
1 tbsp Triple Sec (I used DeKuypers, but if you're fancy, by all means get the Cointreau or something.)

Whipped Cream for topping.

DIRECTIONS:

First brew about 1-2 cups of coffee -- very strong.

I would suggest using double the normal quantity of coffee grounds to what you normally use, to assure a really concentrated flavor.  Personally, I made my coffee as Pour-Over (which, for the uninitiated, is exactly what it sounds like: A method of manually pouring hot water through a coffee filter in a cone straight into a measuring cup.) For my pour-over, I used about 3 tablespoons of coffee beans, to 1.5 cups of boiling water (assuming that almost half the water will get trapped into the ground coffee).

To really extract the flavors, I actually ran the coffee through the same grounds 2 more times. I'm sure there are baristas that would faint from reading that, but I'm just keeping it real!

Get your blender set up and have all your ingredients ready.

Distribute the raspberries evenly into the bottoms of ramekins, small demitasse coffee cups, or mini Mason jars. 


Next crack the eggs into the bottom of the blender, add the chocolate chips, liqueur, and salt.

Zest an entire orange and add the zest into the mixture.

Run blender on high, until there is a pudding-like texture.  While that's happening, microwave your coffee for a minute again to make sure it's super hot. It has to be hot enough to set the egg-proteins up like a custard. Pour the coffee into the blender, and run it on high again to mix in the coffee, and then immediately pour the mixture into the prepared ramekins or jars. Let it set up in the fridge for at least 2-4 hours before serving.

Top with whipped cream, some raspberries, and/or orange rind for a nice garnish. And pace yourself. You'll want to eat it all really fast, but also want to savor each bite.

FLAVOR SUBSTITUTIONS:
Ideas that could be swapped for the orange/ raspberry combo, would be to use mint extract, Kahlua, vanilla extract, or a shot or two of spiced rum just to take this in a different direction.   Or use white chocolate chips and instead of coffee, try using very hot, double-strength Earl Grey tea and lemon zest. Lots of variations that might be fun to experiment with.

Chicken-Bacon-Dijon-Pot-Pie

Anyone remember David Cross singing "Chicken-pot, chicken-pot, chicken-pot-piiiiiie" on "Just Shoot Me" ...? It's kind of an obscure reference, but it makes me laugh every time I think of it.

Now then, some disclaimers.

1. I'm a pretty decent cook, but I'm a mess when it comes to pie crust. This one actually turned out quite okay taste and texture wise, but it was hard to roll out and kept splitting apart. Nine out of ten times, I get a store-bought rolled pie crust for my quiches and pies, because well, it's $4 toward me not having a meltdown in the kitchen. Trader Joe's has a good one that I like which is not full of weird synthetic ingredients. However, I was not at TJ's yesterday so instead I opted to make my own crust, and I used the recipe in this book Good Kitchen Magic which I think should make a good crust in theory. My trouble is that I don't usually get the dough to bind together with the first 2 tablespoons of water as they say. Sometimes even the 3rd tablespoon of water doesn't do the trick so maybe I'm using too much flour. Who knows. Either way, I won't chide you for using a store-bought crust, because I do it all the time myself.


2. This is NOT a quick meal. It can be made significantly faster with a few shortcuts, which I'll put in parentheses next to directions or ingredients. Of course, as with any of my recipes, alterations are often necessary.

3. Even though I know my way around a DSLR, it is January in the Pacific Northwest, and rather gray, and I have no window light in my kitchen, and it was dark outside anyway, so I have done my best to get some good photos with my tripod and bounced light.

4. Because of the multiple steps and ingredients, read this all the way through before starting the recipe so you see the way I split up my directions and ingredients.

5. This recipe can make two 6-inch pies, (I made my pies in cast-iron skillets) or one larger 9-inch pie either in a skillet or in a glass pie dish, so you'll divide up your dough and filling accordingly. 

Thus, I present you with Chicken-Bacon-Pot-Pie.

Garlic & Pink Peppercorn Butterflied chicken with Pan Gravy

Woopity-doo!! I'm posting a recipe! I think some of you will find this one worth the wait, at least in terms of the gruesomeness of the step-by-step photographs. I have been hoping to do a photo-journalistic instruction on how to butterfly a chicken (a trick I only learned myself last year) but it's so useful for doing whole birds.  Bonus: It was a reasonably sunny afternoon (which meant BETTER PHOTOS!!) And Bonus #2: I wrangled my husband into manning the camera and tripod I didn't have to wash my raw-chicken hands every 3 seconds, set the camera timer. That would have been tedious, and impractical. So thank you, dear for making this infinitely easier. Good job on the pics, too!

Anyway, back to the bird at hand.

Red Curry Barramundi

Barramundi! Barramundi!! That's fun to say. (I feel like Will Ferrell in "Elf" when he keeps repeating "Frrrrancisssco!! That's fun to say!" Speaking of which, Christmas is less than 5 months away. Wow. And I have not posted a recipe since March. My sincere apologies, but I doubt if any of you feel bereft.)

Anyway. Barramundi! I had never heard of this relative of the Sea Bass (which reminds me of the "Kick his @, SeaBass" line from "Dumb and Dumber" ... okay, I'll stop with the movie quotes.)

So sea bass... Barramundi. I do have a point. I had never heard of this fish before, but saw frozen fillets at CostCo recently and thought I'd take a crack at incorporating it into my seafood rotations.  It's a mild, flaky, white fish, and it's considered a sustainable seafood variety. The fillets defrost quite fast in a bowl of cold water, and cook easily since they're evenly thick.

I've tried a few different twists on using it in Fish Tacos (I'll blog that some other night) and then last night I was jonesing for Red Curry, so I thought rather than chicken or pork, I'd put fish in it.  I had a few garden-fresh veggies from my yard, and incorporated some green onions, yellow zucchini, sugar snap peas, and then a few other things from my refrigerator. 

This is the link to the company that markets Barramundi: The Better Fish

Basil Mozzarella & Pistachio Mushrooms

I hastily made these little appetizers for a party last night. I have made other mushroom cap hors d' oeuvres before, usually with garlic, parmesan, parsley, or some similar combination. But last night I was trying to figure out what I had on hand, and this was the end result.  Took about 10 minutes to make them, not including the oven-time.

And since I -- as par for the course -- have not posted a new recipe for 2 months, this was a quick one to upload for you to try out.

The measurements are approximate, since I was in a hurry and did not write anything down.

I also only have one photo from the end result, so you can use your imagination for the rest.  (PS. In the photo I intentionally left off some of the pistachios for a friend with nut allergies.)

INGREDIENTS:
Baby Portabella mushrooms (approximately 24-36 depending on the size)
1/4 lb mozzarella (I used firm kind, instead of "fresh" so it wouldn't be as runny when melted)
1 stalk of green onion, or equivalent amount of chives
2 or 3 fresh basil leaves
1 or 2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup of shelled roasted pistachios

DIRECTIONS:

Begin by snapping off the stems on the baby portabella mushrooms carefully so that they leave a little cup to stuff.  If the stem breaks too much, you can scoop it out with a teaspoon carefully to hollow it out. Brush off any loose dirt with a paper towel, or pastry brush. 

Trim off the root end and wilted green tops on the green onion stalk, and cut it into smaller discs.

Use a blender or mixer to puree together the cheese, basil and green onion with the olive oil. Use a teaspoon to scoop cheese mixture into each mushroom cap, and top with a couple of pistachio nuts.

Roast in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minute until cheese is bubbly and hot.  They are good served warm, but also quite tasty even at room temperature.  They are really easy to make, and pretty fancy-tasting.  The basil makes a nice bright flavor contrast to the umami earthiness of the mushrooms, cheese & pistachios.  Try experimenting with other herbs if you'd like-- sage, oregano, or rosemary, used in moderation so as not to be too bitter.  Remember a little goes a long way.