Shrimp & Spinach Stuffed Portobellos

Sometimes, when I have way too much time on my hands, I think about how it was discovered that certain foods are edible.

I'm sure everyone's thought about who the first guy was to eat a chicken egg - imagine his wife's face when that happened. "Honey, what are you doing? Don't play with that. Stop bothering the chicken! What are you doing with that frying pan...? OH MY GOD."

Similarly, the potato (once deemed poisonous), escargot (Seriously, who thought that one up? Whoever you are though, thank you!), and caviar seem equally as unappetizing when the attempt is made to look at them as if you'd never seen them before. Who's going to pull up a plant, see some weird looking round tuber thing stuck to its roots...and then decide to put it in their mouth? Also, how many raw potatoes were eaten before it was discovered that they're way better cooked?

All that being said, the mushroom is another one of these mystical, extremely tasty foods that frequently makes its way to our dinner plates that, at any point in our culinary history, could easily have been discarded as poison - or just plain gross. I mean, picture it in your head, walking through the damp woods your boot kicks over a bit of leaf litter revealing a spongy, brown plant. It's covered in dirt and leaves, possibly some kind of protective mucus - who's first thought is, "Gee, I should put this in my mouth"? (I know that question mark isn't where it's supposed to be - sue me.)

Again, whoever it was that tried them first - thanks. Because mushrooms are insanely delicious. Especially when they're stuffed with spicy shrimp, cheese, and spinach and then baked until they're hot and bubbly with yummy goodness.

My brother-in-law gave me the idea of pairing shrimp with sriracha - a spicy Asian condiment - while I was in Florida. For this idea I will be forever grateful. It's quite possibly my new favorite thing in the world. If you've never tried sriracha (pronounced sir-a-cha), or never tried shrimp cooked in a little butter and sriracha - you must immediately drop everything that you are doing and go make some right now. NOW.

I decided that instead of using ridiculous amounts of mayo or cream cheese to hold it all together that I'd use Laughing Cow Cheese. It's a spreadable cheese (great on Wheat Thins) that's only 35 calories per serving. I used the Garlic & Herb one - they're pretty tasty. I keep those and the little Babybel cheeses in the house at all times. They're been a great snack while I've been trying to lose weight (23 lbs. so far! 10 more, I'll be at 120, and life will be good!). Now that I recognize the versatility of the spreadable ones though, I definitely won't be giving them up when I quit trying to lose weight.

Even if you don't try the whole recipe, for whatever reason, I cannot stress this enough. Every single person in this world (except those allergic to shrimp) should try shrimp cooked in sriracha.

It will change your life.



Shrimp & Spinach Stuffed Portobellos

Serves 2

8 oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained of all water
1/4 small onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Laughing Cow Spreadable cheeses
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 Babybel Light, cut into small pieces (substitute mozzarella or other light cheese)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
10 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon sriracha
2 portobello caps

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a medium mixing bowl combine spinach, onion, garlic, cheeses and mayo. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside. In a skillet over medium-high heat melt the butter. Cook the shrimp until just pink, toss with sriracha. Set aside. Place the portobello caps gills side up in a casserole dish. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Top each cap with half the shrimp and half the spinach mixture. Return to oven and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until the spinach is heated through and the cheese is warm and bubbling.

Nutritional Estimate

This is a nutritional estimate, I do not claim it to be exact - although it is pretty close.

1 serving equals one whole stuffed portobello cap

Calories: 245
Carbohydrates: 15g
Fat: 15g
Protein: 18g

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CORRECTION 6/27: I am a numbskull and forgot to include the tablespoon of butter in my nutritional estimate. Therefore, the new estimate is:

Calories: 296
Carbohydrates: 15g
Fat: 20g
Protein: 18g

I would also like to point out that in omitting the mayonnaise saves 180 calories and 20g of fat, effectively halving the fat content of the recipe. This would make each cap only 206 calories and 10g of fat.

Spinach Stuffed Chicken Legs with Dubliner Cheese

I think it's pretty obvious by now that just about everyone is trying to cut back expense-wise. In all honesty it's about damn time - our country has become way too spoiled and wasteful.

On that cheery note, let's talk about how we can cut back on one of the many things that interests me - the grocery bill. Right now there are blogs-a-plenty offering recession-savvy dining tips on how to cut back on your dining excesses:

*Eat beans and rice, lentils, quinoa, etc.

*Stop buying all that processed garbage for your kids, they don't need to be eating it anyways.

*Drink water instead of the sodas and bottled drinks.

*Pay attention to what you're actually eating.

*Look for bargains at the grocery store.

It's that last one that seems to work the best for me. Mr. TA and I already eat plenty of beans, rice, quinoa and the occasional lentil. We rarely buy anything processed or from the freezer section (except fish and edamame), we keep only milk, fresh-brewed iced tea, orange juice, and coffee in the house for drinking, and I plan each week on a menu.

That really only leaves me with shopping the occasional sale at the grocery store to cut back anymore on cost. Of course, I'm sure many people out there are in the same boat.

However, when the item on sale is a whole chicken or chicken leg quarters, many people pass because they either don't like dark meat or are intimidated at the thought of trying to bone something. This is really unfortunate, because when times are as tough as these people need to pinch pennies everywhere they can. And buying a package of leg quarters at 60 cents per pound is exceedingly cheaper than boneless skinless thighs at $2.19 per pound - and don't even get me started on $5.99 per pound for boneless skinless breasts. Plus, if you do decide to bone the chicken you can save the bones in a bag in the freezer for making chicken stock. Win-win, baby.

So, dissecting the two main reasons for why people won't buy something as tasty as chicken leg quarters:

Don't like dark meat/Thigh and leg meat is more fattening than boneless skinless breasts - OK, fair enough, you don't like dark meat. Meh, I doubt you can taste the difference in soups, pot pies, pastas, etc. Stop being a big baby and save some money already. As for the fat content debate, it's true - dark meat has more fat than white meat. Just keep in mind that a thigh-leg portion weighs on average about 6 oz. I've seen many a chicken breast weigh over 14 oz. If you're allotting one chicken breast per family member not only are you wasting the meat by serving enormous portions that no one in their right mind should finish, but the health benefits of the low-fat breast are outweighed by the fact that you're scarfing down more than twice as much meat. Period.

Now for the second reason: intimidated by deboning? Easy-peasy. Let me show you how.

First, use a very, very sharp knife. It sounds backwards, but using a sharp knife is much safer than using a dull one. Now that you've got your sharpest knife in hand, don't shank yourself.

Don't worry, this is much easier than it appears. (Not the shanking, the boning.)

Start with your leg quarter:



Cut through the skin and tissue right at the end of the leg bone (the part you hold on to when eating a fried chicken leg). Slice all the way around the bone.

Use your knife to slit the skin on the underside of the leg. The skin will peel back nice and easy down the entire piece of meat, usually with just a little coaxing from the knife here and there to release the skin.



Peel all the skin off and release it around the edges with your knife. The end result will be this:



Next, flip the whole piece over and slice down the underside of the leg bone like so:



Open up the skin around the leg and slice down each side, freeing it from the bone:



Now, slip the tip of your knife behind the bone and run it down until you hit the joint, releasing the meat entirely from the leg bone:



Now, slice under the leg joint and locate the thigh bone with your finger tips. Run the tip of your knife down the length of the thigh bone towards the bottom of the piece, like this:



Keep sneaking around until you hit where the thigh bone connects to the rest of the body:



After that, lift up the leg bone, cut underneath the leg joint and along the bottom of the thigh bone until you come out clean on the other side:



Now you can pop all the bones out of the meat and slice any residual cartilage left on. Now is the time to trim all the excess fat off the meat too.



You'll be left with an underside that looks like you chewed it from the bone,



But the top will be nice and neat,



Ta da! You've just deboned a chicken leg quarter! That wasn't hard at all, was it?

I usually like to buy several package of the leg quarters when they go on sale, spend a half hour or so deboning them and then throw them in the freezer in packages appropriate for the sizes of meals I typically make.

Now you can use the meat for all sorts of things, soups, stews, quesadillas, pot pies, pastas, skewers - you name it, you can do it.

My favorite thing to do with chicken legs though is to stuff them. Gordon Ramsay has a delicious recipe I've tried out before, for Sausage Stuffed Chicken Legs . This time I took a slightly more healthful approach and stuffed the legs with pastrami, spinach, and KerryGold's Dubliner cheese.

It was delicious.

Let me show you how.

First, lay out a sheet of foil and season it with a little salt and pepper. Lay out your boned leg quarter.



Top it with a couple pieces of pastrami,



Next comes some spinach sauteed with a little shallot,



Now for the sticks of Dubliner,



Now start the rolling. Roll it onto itself like a jellyroll, then grab the foil to keep it tight:



Wrap it up into a tight little package and twist the ends real tight.



Now you're going to poach this in a pot of boiling water for twenty minutes.

Pull them out and let them cool off for a minute or so and peel off the foil.

Brown them in a hot skillet with a little melted butter and then slice on the diagonal to serve.

Whoever said eating cheap couldn't taste good?



Plus a thank-you to Foodbuzz for supplying me with plenty of KerryGold cheese to try out for St. Paddy's.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Oh Fresh Spring Rolls, are you Thai? Are you Vietnamese? Are you some sort of creation thought up by crazy Americans and passed off as authentic Asian cuisine? Tell me your secrets!

Though I have no idea where these tasty treats hail from, and after at least three minutes of exhaustively googling them I came up with no conclusive evidence, I still love them. The first time I had them was on one of my first dates with Mr. TA before we got married. He really likes Asian cuisine, all kinds, and he took me to this really cute little Thai place in Washington. We had Phad Thai, Chicken Satay, Mangoes with Coconut Sticky Rice, and Fresh Spring Rolls. Everything was delicious and Mr. TA and I were well on our way to everlasting mushiness - or more typically driving each other as crazy as possible. We like to keep things fresh.

So, more importantly, fresh spring rolls are a rice paper wrapper filled with lettuce, an assortment of herbs, chicken, and shrimp. Many recipes also require the addition of other vegetables like carrots or cabbage and many times noodles are added. I prefer to stick to the style we first had on our date, so I use only lettuce, basil, cilantro, mint, chicken, and shrimp. Top it off with some out of this world peanut sauce and you're good to go.



Speaking of peanut sauce, talk about a crapshoot when you're looking for a good recipe, eh? I've made peanut sauce countless times, and I've never been quite satisfied with any of them. They're either too sweet, too peanutty, too spicy, or too oily. I like my peanut sauce to contain a myriad of flavors - heat, sweetness, spice, and of course the peanuts. It needs to blend effortlessly into a flavor that complements the dish it's adorning, not covering it up. Peanut sauce isn't really an Asian creation (invented by crazy Westerners), so it's little surprise it's now basically the Asian ketchup. We throw it on everything, and instead of adding an additional level of flavor, it masks everything else until all we can taste is the peanut sauce.

I'll pass.

That's why I attempted to create my own recipe completely from scratch. Usually when I attempt something like this it ends in an Epic FAIL. This time, it actually worked. It's the best peanut sauce I've ever had - restaurant or otherwise. It was one of those recipes that as I was mixing everything I knew that it was either going to be the most amazing thing I've ever created - or lump of goo not fit for the neighbor's cat that keeps pooping in my flower beds.

And believe me, at this point I'd feed that cat all sorts of weird crap. That's right, poop in your owners house - not my chrysanthemums.

I've heard that working with some Asian ingredients and techniques can be a little intimidating for some, so I've included some step-by-step photos to guide through the process. They're really so simple, I can't think of any reason for not trying them.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Makes 6

For the Rolls:

6 sheets rice spring roll wrapper (available at any Asian market)
6 leaves green or red leaf lettuce (romaine and iceberg are too firm, they may tear the wrapper)
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 cup mint leaves
1 cup basil leaves
12 shrimp (preferably 25-30 ct.), raw, shelled and deveined
10 oz chicken (1 medium boneless, skinless breast), cut into small strips about 1 oz each
4 tablespoons butter, divided

For the Peanut Sauce:

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon red curry paste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon palm sugar, grated
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/3 cup coconut milk

In a heavy bottomed skillet over medium-high heat melt two tablespoons butter. Add the shrimp, season to taste with salt and cracked pepper. Cook until pink and opaque throughout. Remove from skillet and set aside to cool. Melt the remaining two tablespoons butter and add the chicken strips. Cook completely. Remove from skillet and set aside. Turn off the heat, but keep the pan on the burner (gas stoves may require lowest flame). Using the residual heat, melt the peanut butter for the peanut sauce, in effect deglazing the skillet with the peanut butter. Add remaining ingredients, combine thoroughly and let meld for at least two minutes - adjust to taste if necessary. Remove from skillet into a ramekin or other small dish and set aside.

For assembling the rolls:

Start with your rice wrappers



This is what they look like when they're dry, out of the package



In a wide, shallow dish ( I use a large pie plate) fill halfway with hot water (from the tap is fine). Soak the wrapper for about 45 seconds, lift it out of the water carefully and let excess water drip off. Now it will look like this:



A quick tip, dry to keep your work area as dry as possible. It needs to be moist, but if the area is soaking wet the wrapper will stay soaking wet too - and it needs to start to dry out a little as you're working or when you start the rolling it will be too slippery to stick to itself. Keep a kitchen towel handy and wipe down the surface after every roll.

Start the assembly by placing two cooked shrimp, side to side in the center of the wrapper.



On top of the shrimp, layer the herbs in equal amounts and top with a strip or two of the cooked chicken.



Top with a lettuce leaf. Now, start to roll it like a burrito. Flip the edge nearest you over the top of filling, pull taught, and fold in each side.



Now just keep rolling until it's sealed.



If you're awesome you end up with the shrimp showing through the top of the wrapper. However, I am not awesome, and after rolling all six of mine I still didn't get one to work properly - so they look all plain and boring like this:



Now you're all finished. You can serve them whole or cut on the diagonal.



Top with the peanut sauce, but not too much...



Now devour at will.

Quinoa with Braised Greens and Applewood Smoked Bacon

Quinoa (keen-WAH) is well known for it's nutritional benefits. It's low in fat, high in complex carbs and 1 cup contains 58% of the recommended daily intake of manganese (strengthens cell walls and stimulates collagen production - reportedly also helps in the boudoir). Plus, the 8 grams of protein in each cup of cooked quinoa are complete proteins. That means it contains all 8 essential amino acids, all necessary for tissue development and healthy body function. Basically, quinoa is awesomeness incarnate.

There's only one problem...

It tastes like bird seed smells.

I might be named after a bird but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to eat like one.

Nonetheless, Mr. TA is currently training for a marathon in April, and as such we're trying to maintain a diet that keeps him nourished and energized, but doesn't make me a big fat cow. Sorry, as much as I like going to the gym I'm not running a marathon. I would die.

Really.

Die.

Enter quinoa. Great source of nutrition, itty-bitty footprint on the caloric scale. (I just thought of that scene from Aladdin where the Robin Williams says, "Great-Big Cosmic Power! Itty-bitty living space. I loled.) I decided that I had to discover some way to cook it to make it more palatable to my non-bird-seed-loving tastes and developed this.

It's good.



Quinoa with Braised Greens

1 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
10 oz. baby spinach
1/2 yellow onion, chopped fine
2 slices applewood smoked bacon, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock

In a small saucepan with lid rinse quinoa until water runs clear. Drain completely. Add 1 1/2 cups chicken stock and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Cover, reduce heat to low, and let sit 20 minutes undisturbed. Meanwhile, in a large skillet brown the bacon over medium-high heat. When browned and starting to crisp stir in the onion and cook until beginning to soften. Reduce heat to medium-low and add the spinach in bunches until it all fits. Add 1/2 cup chicken stock and cover. Let cook for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and cook until most of the braising liquid evaporates. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve over the quinoa.

Steak-Stuffed Manicotti

It seems that typically manicotti is filled with a near flavorless, texturally-nightmare inducing amalgamation of ricotta, Parmesan, and if you're lucky some herbs and salt. I'm not a big fan. While I love ricotta as much as the next bird, I prefer it to be mixed in with something of substance to provide a break in the rather gag-inducing texture - or baked in a cheesecake, you'll get no complaints from me on that one.

And so I embarked on a journey to fill a pasta shell with a stuffing of substance, one that would peel through the doldrums of stuffed pastas with it's ring of tummy-filling awesomeness. My manicotti manifestation would transform the world with it's revolutionary play of textures and flavors!

Or I saw an advert in Gourmet for stuffed shells and they sounded yummy.

One or the other. You decide.

I decided to go a very non-traditional route with these babies for really no other reason than that I wanted to use up some of the food I already had in the house. I much prefer that than running out to the grocery store to buy all new ingredients.

Blech.

Be resourceful people, we're in a recession here.



Steak Stuffed Manicotti

Serves 2

6 1/2 oz steak
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced
1 cup frozen chopped collard greens, thawed and drained
1 clove garlic
1 1/2 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, in small dice
2 oz mozzarella cheese, in small dice
1/2 avocado, mashed
6 manicotti shells, boiled and drained
1 cup marinara sauce, preferably homemade
1 oz Idiazábal cheese, finely grated

Preheat oven to 375 F

Chop steak into 1/4 in dice, it's easier if it's partially frozen. In a skillet over medium heat melt the butter. Cook the shallots until softened, add steak. Season to taste with salt and pepper. When steak is cooked about half-way through add the collards. Allow to cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a medium mixing bowl. Add minced garlic, cheddar, mozzarella, and avocado. Combine thoroughly. Using a teaspoon, or your fingers (which I prefer), fill each manicotti shell, taking care to fill completely but without tearing the delicate pasta. Lay side by side in rectangular casserole dish. Cover with marinara sauce and grated Idiazábal. Bake for 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve immediately.

Beef and Barley Soup

Psst!


Psst!

Yes, you - in front of the computer in your bathrobe nomming on those Cheetos!

Want to hear the easiest recipe ever for a great tasting meal...that's actually good for you?

Of course you do!

No, there's no need to lick off all that cheesy powder of doom - you're fingers are stained bright orange with the proof of your winter-time indiscretions. There's no hiding it now.

But seriously, this may not be the most glamorous soup in the world, but for the amount of effort required it should be carried through the streets, hoisted over heads, and loudly applauded by crowds great and small. Barley is low in fat and high in awesomeness.

Or you can just make some really friggin' easy great tasting beef and barley soup and save all this horse-crap for something else.

Meh...hyperbole is fun.



Beef and Barley Soup

10 oz. steak, cubed (you choose, I use eye of round)
2 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
3 ribs celery, washed, trimmed, and chopped
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup pearl barley
8 cups beef stock (or 8 cups water and 2 1/2 tablespoons boullion)
salt and pepper to taste

Get a pot. Put it on the stove over medium heat. Add everything all at once. Put the lid on. Simmer for 1/2 hour. Remove cover. Simmer for 15 minutes further. Eat with tasty warm bread and butter.

Don't burn your mouth on the awesomeness.

Tidbits from December

I'm a delinquent.

I know.

Because I'm lazy.

As is evident from my complete lack of posting.

Because I'm a delinquent.

I know.

The holidays themselves weren't particularly stressful. Actually getting to our destination, however, really was. Mr. TA and I were going back East to see family, our flight arriving in Baltimore. We were to leave our tiny airport, connect in San Francisco, arrive in Baltimore around midnight and be done. Easy peasy, right? Not so much. We arrive at the airport, bright eyed and bushy tailed (except that I detest flying. I'm claustrophobic. The thought of being crammed in a tube with a bunch of gross, dirty people I don't know makes me a basket case.) with plenty of time to board our plane.

Except the ticket agent can't find our reservation in the computer. At all.

Oh yeah, because that's not a disconcerting way to start off a trip. Not at all.

After about 5 minutes, and some jerk anxiously toe tapping away behind us (no doubt petrified at missing his flight that didn't depart for over two hours - jerk) she finally finds us. After several anxiety-inducing "Well that's odd." and "Hmm, isn't that strange?" comments she does locate our reservations. But only for one portion of the flight. Hmmm. Not great. But, in all fairness, it's something that's happened to me before. Our airport is very small, only offering flights to a very few select locations. I've experienced this before, not receiving seating assignments until arriving at a larger airport, and I was a little anxious, but having oberved this previously and it working out fine, I put it out of my mind.

That is, until we arrived in San Francisco.

We had a two and a half hour layover, but with no seating assignment we were worried about not getting our flight at all, so we immediately rushed to the ticket counter for our departing flight. To be greeted by the rudest ticket agent in the entire universe. I think if this airline had bitch training this guy must have been the star pupil. After witnessing him get into a heated verbal altercation with a very short, bald man demanding his attention, Mr. TA and I overheard that the agent was refusing to help anyone waiting in line. He was servicing the flight to New York that had just left that particular gate, and though he had the ability to help those leaving for Baltimore, he refused. What a nice chap. Christmas season has really got this guy in the spirit, eh? We were to wait until the staff arrived that was assigned to the Baltimore flight. The staff that arrived at boarding time. 40 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave.

To make an extremely long story short - we didn't get on the flight. The lovely not-to-be-named airline (rhymes with Tunited Tair) had egregiously overbooked the flight by more than a dozen people. Isn't that lovely? Oh no, it's not a technical malfunction. Of course it's not the weather. Nope, it's just an extremely greedy airline that allows seats to continually be sold on flights that no longer have them available. Aren't they nice? It was a lovely conversation.

We ended up staying overnight in San Francisco at a rather nice hotel, had a lovely dinner, a nice breakfast the next morning, and a mediocre lunch at the airport the next day - all on their dollar. Plus a free upgrade to first class for our flight, plus two free roundtrip tickets to use within the next year.

Now, when most people heard that part of the story, they say, "Oh, well at least that made up for the inconvenience."

I completely disagree.

Sure, the free stuff was great. Sure the free flights are going to let me see my sister twice this year. But you know what would've been really great? Actually getting on the damn plane in the first place.

I think this would be a good time to point out that I am one of those "It's the principle of the matter" type-people. Sure, the airline more than compensated us for our trouble. But there never should've been any damn trouble in the first place. How dare a company knowingly sell a service that they know they can't provide? They knowingly inconvenienced hundreds, possibly thousands of people, just to what? Increase their available capital? Sure, on our flight to Baltimore there were only about a dozen people who got bumped. But the next day, on our flight into Dulles, there were over a hundred people, that's a right 100 people, that were bumped off of that flight. Just a few days before Christmas. There were whole families stranded. Women were in tears. It was truly a disgusting display of greed by this airline. I know for a fact that I will never voluntarily patronize this company again.

But, in the end, we made it to our destination unscathed. Tired, yes. Grumpy, yes. In desperate need of a change of clothes, yes. But unharmed. And the two weeks away were long, but nice. I'm a big homebody, so being away is at once relieving and disconcerting. I relish my privacy. I like my bed. I like doing my own thing whenever I want. I like deciding in the middle of the day that I want to go for a four hour hike or try out some crazy new recipe. I like cursing until the walls practically bleed and yelling at the TV (internet news broadcast, for us) whenever I think someone's a moron. Which is often. And not something appreciated by people whose house you are staying in. So it was nice to be home.

Now that that is over with, here are some photos from the last couple weeks that I don't feel like doing individual posts on.

First up is the most delicious steak I've ever put in my mouth.

Ever.



MiL and sFiL were kind enough to ask me to cook dinner for their anniversary, brave souls that they are. I've been known to thoroughly muck things up when cooking in other people's kitchens. Thankfully that didn't happen this time. Except for burning the ever loving crap out of my finger whilst mashing a potato.

Don't ask.

But seriously, doesn't this baby just make your mouth water?



These are the filet mignons available at Whole Foods. Yes, the ones that are $27 per pound. It's worth it. Get some. They're prepared using this method. If you are a meat lover, or even someone who only occasionally enjoys red meat like myself, then you are seriously doing yourself a disservice by not trying this out. This steak was a perpetual mouth-gasm. No lie. If you put steak sauce on this I will hunt you down with a meat mallet.

I paired it with some sautéed green beans and some Yukon Gold potatoes, Jacques Pepin style (or at least they are according to that brunette harpy). It was delicious. Except make sure that when you squish the potatoes you don't get burning hot potato flesh all over the knuckle of your middle finger. Because it hurts really bad. And it makes a huge blister. Not that I would know, or anything.

Up next are some tasty Vegetables Provençal prepared by the MiL.



I'm not sure what was in them. I know it was layered zucchini, yellow squash, tomato, and some carrots with cheese and other stuff. I wasn't paying attention. I was on vacation. Being lazy. And someone else was cooking for me. Good food. Yay. (Just so you know, that's a typical thought strain for me. 'Good food. Yay.' I'm a simple creature.)



They were tasty vegetables. Needed some salt, but I think everything needs some salt. So that may have just been me.

Next in line were some fresh shrimp rolls I made for New Years Eve.



We did a sort of Hors D'oeuvres dinner. MiL made some crab stuffed mushrooms and some kind of bacon-roll thingy. I was lazy and just made these. I stole these from Jen on use real butter. Hers looks better than mine. Because she's like the kitchen goddess. Get her recipe here.

I had seen these a while ago on her blog and wanted to make them, except when I was at the store buying ingredients I couldn't remember what all was in them. So the orange-y component I remembered ended up being julienned carrot instead of supremed grapefruit. Go me. But they were still delicious.

I used a vegetable peeler to take nice long, thin slices from an Engish cucumber, marinated them in a little rice vinegar, and then rolled up some shrimp (using Jen's straightening technique), avocado, carrot, and clover sprouts. They were out of this world delicious. Eat them. You'll love them.



And this is the Soy-Dijon marinated salmon referenced in this post.



And so wraps up my leftovers from December. Next up is a review on some tasty chocolates. That I tasted weeks ago.

I'll get to it eventually...

Garden Vegetable Risotto

How often do you travel to a relative or friends, or really any place you aren't free to cook your own meals, and are inundated with cheap, processed foods with caloric contents that negate all your trips to the gym for the last 8 years? I know it happens frequently, and though my family isn't too bad about it, and for some it's due to an infrequent access to reasonably priced produce, I often find myself longing for my own kitchen to whip up something fresh and healthy that won't cause my arteries to cringe in horror.

One place Mr. TA and I frequent is the MiL and sFiL's house in the D.C. area. Blessedly the MiL is just as concerned about putting healthy food on the table as I am, coupled with a palate that commonly outreaches my own. It's a pretty happening place to be.



Last night the MiL was kind enough to whip up a soy and dijon marinated King salmon with a Garden Vegetable Risotto. If there's any other way to taste this much spring in a dreary winter on the Eastern Seaboard I am unaware of it. There's obviously no shortage of root vegetables in the winter, and with the addition of some tail-end-of-the-season zucchini and winter hardy parsley this risotto just screams of warm, breezy days and sunshine on your face.



If winter's already starting to get you down, do not fail to ring in your January with this baby. It will assuredly get you through the bleak, snowy winter to the spring budding trees, fluffy bunnies and sunshine and rainbows.


Plus snuggly puppies.

And unicorns.



Garden Vegetable Risotto

1/2 lb. baby spinach leaves
1 quart chicken/vegetable stock, more if needed
1/3 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 leek, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 small zucchini, diced finely
1 cup arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 tablespoon flat leaf parsley, minced, for garnish
grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish

Wash spinach and chop roughly. Heat stock in sauce pan on stove to just below a simmer and keep warm. Melt butter in heavy bottomed, shallow pan. Add onion and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until softened. Stir in carrots, leeks, celery and zucchini. Season with a pinch of salt and some pepper to taste. Cook 5-7 minutes or until nearly tender. Stir in the rice and cook until the butter has been absorbed and looks transparent. Add the wine, and stirring constantly, cook until all has been absorbed. Add in the spinach and the the stock, a ladleful at a time, cooking until absorbed before adding more, until rice is tender and creamy. This should take 20-25 minutes, and do not hesitate to use more stock if needed. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.