I'm a sucker for anything free

When I'm being a good girl and watching what I consume on a daily basis, SparkPeople is my best friend. They've retained that status because they published a free cookbook today featuring 10 recipes that will feed families of 4 for under $10. I'm a sucker for anything that's free and they want SparkPeople members to spread the word, so here's the link:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/10recipes.pdf

Healthy eating!

A little bit more than haiku

OK ... so my post about the Daily Soup cookbook? Yeah - it was supposed to be a little bit more than the notes that I jotted to myself when I was considering said post. Imagine my surprise when the bastard published. Sigh.

Anyway - I found "The Daily Soup" by Leslie Kaul, Bob Spiegel, Peter Siegel, Carla Ruben and Robin Vitetta-Miller in the bargain books section of Barnes & Noble one night when Ryan and I were out. Because I was on a soup kick at the time and a quick glance at the recipes showed me that I was getting a lot of bang for eight bucks, I went ahead and bought it. And man do I love it. The book is divided into sections - i.e. - bean soups, cream-based soups, stocks, tomato, potato, etc. If a recipe has meat in it, the side notes indicate what steps a person can take to make it vegetarian.

This book was awesome - I'll be sharing a recipe for their Roasted Garlic Soup in the near future. There's something to be said about a soup recipe that calls for a head of roasted garlic. And that is ... HEAVENLY!

Curry-laden goodness

My first attempts at making curry were pretty damn pathetic. I credit part of my problems to my Scandinavian upbringing and the other part? I'm not sure - all I know is that I wanted to find a simple curry recipe that tasted really good and didn't require a lot of work. With help from our friend James, I finally found one that's pretty tasty.


Simple Curry

1 lb. of beef, pork, venison or curry, cubed into bite-sized pieces (**note, I've used this recipe with pork and venison chops - I'm on a kick to clean stuff out of my freezer.)
1/2 onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T. curry powder (I'm currently using a blend from World Market. I hear that Penzey's has a very good curry mix.)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained (I use the juice in cooking rice)
1 can, chickpeas, drained
1 container, Greek yogurt (I've been using full-fat Fage yogurt ... heaven)

Sweat the onions and garlic in a little bit of olive oil or butter. Add your cubed meat and brown. When meat is brown or darn near that point, add tomatoes and chickpeas. Sprinkle with curry powder and stir in yogurt. Cook until heated through. Serve over rice.

I'll be the first to admit that this is a super-easy bastardized version of curry, but it's cheap, it's easy and I think it's relatively healthy. Kind of. Tasty - definitely.

Cookbook Review: The Daily Soup

love the stocks
love the simplicity
love the writing
love the book

A Proper Dinner

I had to apologize to my beloved Ryan the other day because I've noticed that I've become somewhat obsessed with one-dish meals. And there's nothing wrong with one-dish meals, but he's a man and there are only so many times that he probably gets excited about a new soup recipe.

So I decided to make Ryan a proper dinner the other night and tried one new recipe and a standby that I knew that he would particularly love: Walnut Crusted Chicken Cutlets and Roasted Baby Red Potatoes.

The Walnut Crusted Chicken dish came from Delish.com. That's MSN's new "foodie" haven that draws from various magazines affiliated with MSN, as well as occasional features on celebrity chefs. I don't specifically go to Delish, but every once in awhile when I connect to the internet and look at MSN's homepage, they'll feature a food category and being the recipe addict that I am - I have to take a peek.

Although this was a very simple dish, it took me a bit out of my comfort zone because I have never cooked with panko breadcrumbs and any time I do a chicken dish, it's a pretty basic set up: Chicken meets pan, chicken gets cooked thorougly and is then enjoyed. Ryan and I both loved this recipe and I could see where this breading would also be awesome with fish.

Walnut Crusted Chicken Cutlets

• 1/2 cup(s) panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)
• 1/8 teaspoon(s) ground red pepper (cayenne)
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup(s) walnuts, toasted and cooled
• 1/4 cup(s) fresh parsley leaves, loosely packed **I omitted
  
• 1 large egg white
• 1 teaspoon(s) Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 pound(s) chicken-breast cutlets, thinly sliced **this ended up being two large chicken breasts
  

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Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. On large dinner plate, combine panko, ground red pepper, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. In food processor with knife blade attached, blend walnuts and parsley until nuts are finely chopped; toss with panko mixture until well blended. Set aside.

3.In pie plate, whisk egg white and Dijon until well mixed.  One at a time, dip 1 side of each cutlet in egg-white mixture, then into walnut mixture to coat side evenly; press firmly so mixture adheres. Arrange chicken on baking sheet.  Bake chicken 10 to 12 minutes or until topping is golden-brown and chicken is no longer pink throughout. (**I cooked it for a little longer just to be on the safe side ... about 15-18 minutes.)


Baby Red Potatoes

This recipe is loosely inspired from a Paula Deen dish.

15 baby red potatoes, quartered
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
1 T. dried rosemary
1/2 tsp. salt
olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wash and quarter the baby reds, placing them in a baking dish (I used my 9x13 cake pan.) Mince garlic cloves. Add garlic and other seasonings on top of potatoes, drizzle with olive oil, stir to combine. (Weird Shelley Note: When adding the rosemary or other dry herbs (oregano, sage, thyme - whatever), I read somewhere once that you're supposed to rub them between your hands to release the flavor. You probably don't have to, but I love the smell of rosemary so I do anyway.)

I am terrible at cooking baby reds and hate it when they are underdone, so I err on the side of extreme caution and bake 'em for about 30-45 minutes, until they are fork tender. I also shake the pan occassionally to ensure they are cooking evenly.

Fear Conquered! Panko breadcrumbs

When all of the World Markets in Minnesota closed, everything in the stores went on sale. Although I was very sad (no more dark chocolate with sea salt in driving distance for me), I took advantage of some of the sales that they had in their grocery aisle. I found this bag of panko breadcrumbs for a little bit over a dollar. What's the big deal? Well - I had heard about panko but never really got how it was different from the other breadcrumbs that you buy at the grocery store. The difference? Panko breadcrumbs are made out of bread without crusts, making the crumbs lighter and airier. (Got that from Wikipedia. Rock.)

Itty Bitty Chocolate Chip Cookies - 101 Cookbooks

When I was painstakingly chopping/shaving the bar of expensive, artisan, bittersweet chocolate needed for these cookies, the thought struck me ... it is so obvious that I do not have children and have actual time to dawdle and make this recipe. So simple and easy? Oh hell no. Delicious? If these cookies were a sin, I'm paving the highway to hell with Scharffen Berger chocolate.

Like the "who knew tequila could go with popcorn" recipe, this comes from 101 Cookbooks, run by Heidi Swanson - something of a guru in the American natural food movement.

Ryan loves chocolate chip cookies. I liked this recipe because it included walnuts and oatmeal. It also included molasses, which is an underutilized staple from my pantry. I was also intrigued to see what 12 dozen cookies would look like resting on my counter, but like all recipes - I have no clue what I screw up to end up with less than they claim I should be making.

On the "pain in the ass" scale, this one breaks the range at an 11 (it took me 20 damn minutes to chop up all the chocolate - sure I was making dinner at the same time, but c'mon ... 20 minutes?), but the minute that I bit into one of these and tasted the hint of molasses, along with the subtle crunch of the natural sugar I used. Holy crow ... I could have cried these tasted so good.

Itsy Bitsy Chocolate Chip Cookies

by 101 Cookbooks - Heidi Swanson

5 ounces good-quality semi-sweet chocolate bar (Scharffen Berger 62%)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour **HS used whole wheat pastry flour ... I used all purpose flour and it turned out fine.
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup walnuts, very, very finely chopped (by hand)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
scant 1 cup natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
scant 1 tablespoon unsulphured molasses **HS uses organic, I used the bottle of Brer Rabbit that's been taking up shelf space since the 1990s. OK - only since the beginning of the century, but you get the point.
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup large-grain sugar (for ex: turbinado)

Preheat your oven to 350F degrees. Finely chop the chocolate bar into 1/8-inch pieces, more like shavings really. (Pain in the ass factor - 11.)


In a mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients except for sugars. Set aside.

Using a mixer (or by hand) beat the butter until fluffy. (I did it by hand - must be something of a martyr in me this evening.) Beat in the sugar and mix until it is also light and fluffy. Add the molasses, then the egg, mixing until both are well incorporated. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mix and stir by hand until the ingredients barely come together into a uniform dough. (This is pretty darn important - I kind of half-arsed this step and my first batch of cookies didn't get enough flour in them, so they spread out all over and stuck to the pan. Still tasty ... but once I really got the flour mixed into the cookies, they baked so much better.)


You're going to take impossibly tiny chunks of dough (HS takes 1 tsp of dough and divides it in half ... I did this for a little bit but then figure out the approximate size for tiny cookie goodness) Place two inches apart on baking sheets. Gently flatten each dough ball and then sprinkle the top of each cookie with a pinch of large-grain sugar. Bake for 7 minutes. Remove from oven, cool for a bit on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

Makes about 12 dozen tiny, bite-sized cookies.