Grilled Asparagus

I'm months behind, and just finding time to post last summer's favorite recipes. Actually Grilled Asparagus doesn't take much of a recipe, as the ingredients are minimal and rather thrown together, but that's part of what makes it so lovely.

Choosing your asparagus for grilling can be a bit tricky. Larger asparagus can be a bit stringy and unpalettable, but if you choose very young, skinny stalks, you'd better be prepared to watch the grill very carefully, or you end up with match sticks.

Asparagus
Olive Oil
Fresh garlic
Sea Salt

Toss or brush the asparagus with the above ingredients, and place them on the grill. Turn them often until they're brown and just before they're crisping up, pull and serve. I've found that I can convince even Asparagus Naysayers to come to my side if I grill it!

Red Beans 'n Rice

I recently had a hankerin' for some down-home, to-die-for, simmer-all-day-long, kick-yer-butt beans and rice. I perused cookbooks and settled on a recipe: Salt pork, tomato sauce, crockpot.

Blyech! I ended up with a giant pot of bland beans to serve over over bland rice.

I grumbled about it on Facebook, and it paid off BIG time. My friend Carla is thankfully on good terms with her ex (my friend also), Bruce. Cajun Bruce! Misplaced-in-the-Midwest Bruce.

Bruce delivered!

1 lb red beans—soak overnight.

Disgard water and add beans to crockpot.

Add:

2 c. chopped celery
2 c. chopped onion
1-2 green peppers, chopped
2 bay leaves (a must!)
2 (at least!) cloves of fresh garlic
salt
water

Let it cook all day with plenty of liquid, until, as Bruce says, "everything breaks up into a sludge of unidentifiable ingredients." Add smoked sausage and simmer a little longer.

Serve over rice with shallots/green onions and Louisiana red sauce or Tony Chachere's cajun seasoning.

This really hits the spot!

Moroccan Pot Roast

Clint and I both loved this recipe, found on myrecipe.com. I made it with beef the first time we made it, then again when a friend had a venison roast that had to be cooked up. I still think it would be best made with lamb, and will try it next time (when I'll also be sure to take photos).

Though I used the same ingredients, I deviated somewhat from the "preparation" that was listed on the website.

I served this dish, meat and vegetables, spooned over couscous.

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 (2-pound) chuck roast
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 yellow onions, chopped
6 carrots, chopped (about 1 pound)

2 garlic cloves, smashed
2 tablespoons ground paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 (32-ounce) box low-sodium beef broth (any broth, in a pinch)
2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Sprinkle each roast with sea salt and pepper, sear about 4 minutes per side. Set aside, into a small roasting pan.

2. Add onion, carrot, and garlic to pan, and cook, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. Combine paprika, cumin, and cinnamon in a small bowl; add to vegetables, and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 more minutes.

Transfer the vegetables to the same pan as the beef, and add broth. Cover and bake 2-3 hours* until fork-tender.

When beef is done, remove to platter, to slice.

Skim fat from vegetables if necessary. Add chickpeas to liquid, and place over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until chickpeas are warm. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Spoon over couscous, rice, or eat as is!

**I cooked this in a clay roaster, which uses a highter temperature, and less cooking time, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

POM Pomegranate Martini

I was contacted a few weeks ago by the POM Pomegranate Juice staff. They were apparently targeting food bloggers, and offered me a free case of Pomegranate Juice. That was it, just "you want some juice?" No stipulations about writing about it or sharing it or cooking with it. Just take it!

Alrighty! After scrutinizing the fine print, I gave them my mailing address. Yay, free juice, coming my way! It was just a few days before the case arrived on my porch, with a little cold pack inside of the box, along with 8 of these cuties:


I don't, actually drink a lot of fruit juice; it's so often chockful of sugar and calories that I steer away from it. When I do drink it, it's usually a splash in a glass of club soda, or Mendota Springs Sparkling Water.

The POM juice is enticing though. My box came with some literature about its benefits, and I, of course, surfed around the net for sources outside the POM company that would back up the claims they make regarding cardiovascular health, antioxidant potency, and prostate health (of which I am currently fine). Remember when my research for wheatgrass benefits turned up "unsubstantiated claims" over and again? Not so for the beneifit of the Pomegranate. Seems like it's a legitimate superfood—like spinach, only not.

Lisa, at Champaign Taste also accepted an offer for free POM juice, and she challenged me to a Pomegranate Cocktail Throwdown. That juice is entirely too healthy for us. Let's add booze.

I surfed around and compared different recipes, and came up with a possible version of a Pomegranate Martini. For my assignment. My project.

Then I gave the recipe to Clint, and said "you have to make a martini for my blog project. Here's the recipe." Seriously, he just mixes a better drink than I do. He can shake the shaker with more strength, or something. His drinks always come out with actual ice crystals on top. He was clearly the man to execute my project.

Staging:

Pomegranate Martini

2 oz. vodka
4 oz. POM pomegranate juice
juice of 1/2 lime
2 Tablespoons simple syrup*
1/3 oz. Triple Sec (or, more than 1/4, but less than 1/2)
lemon for garnish

Shake it up!

For a sweet treat, run the edge of a lemon around a chilled martini glass first, then roll it in sugar. Pour:



Add a twist of lemon:


Then give it here, and let me drink it. This is one very yummy beverage. For a fruit drink, it's not too sweet; the POM is a little tart, and the lime takes the edge off of the other sweet ingredients. It's like a liquid sweet-tart!

I really like the POM juice in any form I drank it: straight up, as a spritzer, and in the martini.

I have to be honest, though, and say that I find the stuff a little pricey, at $3.99 (and more) for 16 oz.

On the other hand, my research showed that POM was much cheaper than most other brands of pomegranate juice:

Yes, that is $1.50 off of the regular price of a 32-oz. bottle; it's normally $12.99. In comparison, $6.50 for 16 ounces, twice what POM costs.

POM wins hands down on the price competition. It's good stuff, and good for you.

I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me (or gives me free juice) but honestly, pomegranate juice by any brand isn't very family-friendly. If you drink 8 oz. a day, every day, to get the benefits stated in the literature, you're looking at a $60 monthly juice habit.

Uh, for just you.

Want to give it to your husband and kids too?

My friend Frugal Mom would be looking at $300 a monthly POM bill if everyone in her household had 8 oz. a day of it. Judging from her screenname, I doubt she'll go for it.

I wonder if the POM people can do something about that?

That said, I'd still opt for the POM juice over a $4.50 cup of Starbucks tea, or be willing to put back a (one, just one!) bottle of wine and take home a couple bottles of the healthier POM instead.

It's an "occasional" drink.

And realllly good in a martini.

*Simple syrup: Water and sugar, 1:1 ratio: boil until sugar dissolves, set aside and let cool. Voila! Liquid sugar!

**I'll let you know when Lisa posts her cocktail!

Low-Fat Caesar Salad Dressing

As of late I've been following Weight Watchers diet program, and I'm only going to tell you that once. I'm continuing to cook and eat good food—not diet food. That said, my future recipes may have a bit of a spin on them. Perhaps the original recipe, and how I prepared it, or what I substituted to make it "healthier."

On salad dressings, then: I haven't met a bottled, low-cal, low-fat salad dressing that I can tolerate yet, and I've tried them all. The ranches, and the vinaigrettes, and the no-calorie spritzes. I use salsa on mexican salads, a splash of balsamic on others. But I wanted a good, delicous dressing that didn't run ramshod over my beautiful salad, transforming it into merely "tolerable." Here's what I came up with:

Low-Fat Caesar Salad Dressing

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 t. anchovy paste
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup of low-fat mayo (I used the type made with olive oil)
• splash of worcestershire sauce
• juice from 1/2 lemon

Mix all of these ingredients together, and stir in:

• 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese

Voila! It's garlicy and tangy and delicious.

This dressing, obviously, is not without calories. I calculate about 68 calories per tablespoon, but a tablespoon goes a long way if you toss the salad in the dressing to coat. With all of the other powerful flavors in the dressing, it might be ok if made with fat-free mayo also.

Barley with Creamy Sundried Tomato Sauce

Since we visited the Iron Barley Restaurant in St. Louis on New Year's Eve, and Clint and I have been experimenting with barley in our cooking. It was served to us on that evening in so many different formats—smoked with tomatoes, in an orzo dish, as a salad—that our eyes were really opened to what a versatile whole grain it is.

I tried to replicate the sundried tomato barley that came with Clint's oak-roasted prime rib, at the restaurant. I didn't even come close, but what I did "invent" was delicious.

(I went the "low-fat" route on this recipe, and used fat-free Half & Half, and low-fat mozzarella.)

Barley with Creamy Sundried Tomato Sauce

*Cook barley separately, and set aside. (See Notes on Barley, at the end of this recipe.)

Onion, chopped
Garlic, chopped
1 portabello mushroom cap, cubed
sundried tomatoes (I used tomatoes packed in oil)
parsley (I used curley)
splash of red wine, if desired
1 c. Half & Half
1/4 c. mozzarella
Parmesan cheese


Saute onion, garlic and mushroom in a little olive oil. Add the tomatoes and parsley, and a splash of red wine, if desired. Cook down til wine reduces.


Stir in the cream and cheeses. Simmer and stir on low until cheeses melt, and sauce thickens .



At this point, I just stir in barley until I find a nice ratio of vegetables to grain. I prefer my dishes to be a little heavier on the veggies and sauce.

Not a gorgeous photo of the finished side dish above, I know, but it tasted mahhhvehlous, dahlink. Give it a try, adjust your veggies and sauces, and let me know how yours turns out!


A Few Notes on Barley

There are different levels of processed barley. I'll just give a quick rundown; if you want more info, click here.

Quick (Pearled) Barley cooks in 10 minutes. It's processed, has outer hulls stripped off, and cooks faster, but it's not as good for you as hulled barley. Think instant/white rice v. brown rice, or instant v. steel cut oats. The 10-minute stuff is fine, but I'm out for high-fiber and more nutrition, and prefer hulled.

I found two different types of Hulled Barley at Strawberry Fields. It is much cheaper than the boxed quick barley, at $1.59 lb. Read the bins! One type of barley takes 45 minutes to cook, while there's another that requires an overnight soaking. I plan most of my meals on the fly, and an overnight soaking doesn't work. I get the 45-minute stuff.

Food Buzz 24-24-24

I was blessed with an invitation, on Saturday night, to join some local food bloggers for dinner at The Apple Dumplin, in Urbana.

FoodBuzz held a contest: 24 bloggers from 24 cities joined to cook or eat out, and then blog about their event, within the same 24 hours. Champaign's own Lisa Morgan of Champaign Taste, was one of the bloggers chosen to participate.

Lisa's theme was "Comfort Food on the Prairie," and she invited local food bloggers to join her in the eating of the Midwestern comfort food, and to discuss that entailed, to us.

I was thrilled to be invited to come along for the event, and to meet other local bloggers. I addition to great Midwestern fare at the Apple Dumplin, I left the meal smiling over how much we covered, conversationally, in 2.5 hours we were there.

We all seemed to grow up from different regions, so our "definition" of comfort food varied a great deal. We discussed Thanksgiving dinners: Homemade noodles on mashed potatoes in some households was unheard of, while it was as important as the pumpkin pie in others. Some of the guests there had never eaten a homemade noodle, and we laughed when one asked the waitress what the difference was between a biscuit and a roll.

We talked about cooking. About our Mother's cooking: "Doesn't everyone think their mother was a fantastic cook, though," Lisa asked. A few of us shook our heads NO, and I was "forced" to regale the table with tales of my mother's soup that my sister and I entitled "Garbage Soup."

We discussed baking, and desserts, and Kitchen-aid mixers. The layouts of our kitchen, and the layout of our dream kitchens. We talked about catering, and restaurants.

It was great fun, and very interesting. I left surprised at how much I learned in the course of the evening, and how we actually stuck to topic. You know...how you go to a book club and no one ever really discusses the book? Perhaps I was expecting a bit more of that.

Oh, we also talked about food photography. For an example of everything done wrong there, here's a photo of the final course of the evening: An Apple Dumplin:



Tsk. White balance is off, who put that shrimp tail on that butter thing, and seriously, clean that spot of caramel off of the edge of the bowl. Presentation is everything.

Or not. I'm sure the lousy photography isn't deterring you from realizing how yummy that dessert is. Be ready to split one, I could only eat half, and packing up the melted ice cream to take the other half to Clint didn't sound appetizing.

This blog has lately been more of a holding place for my recipes for my own personal reference. Lisa has lately motivated me to post here, more often, and was kind enough to include me as a "food blogger" for this event.

I'm going to try to update it so it's a "proper" Food Blog, and make Lisa proud.

Giving LeCreuset a Run for the Money: Crofton Enameled Cast Iron pans

For all of the cooking that we do, I'm embarrassed to admit that I do not have a decent set of pans. Good knives, cutting boards, baking stones, a plethora of gadgets and lots of good ingredients, but my pans are an abomination to cooks everywhere.

Tsk. I'm working on that. As we work on building our new kitchen, we dream about the pans we'll buy, possibly one-by-one until we have a respectable set. Some good anodized Calphalon pans, perhaps.

I drool over LeCreuset enameled cast iron pans. I recently nearly flipped when I read that I'd missed out on a vintage set at the Habitat for Humanity store on University Avenue. Still, I imagine that even if I had gotten to them first, I'd have have been unable to afford even the used set.

It's good though, because look what the cast iron pan fairy left me this weekend:


My sister actually left that enameled cast iron grill pan in my car this weekend. She knows my pans suck, and decided to get my collection started. She told me where she bought that pan, and that there were others to add to my collection, if I was interested.

You won't believe this:

Aldi's!

Yes, our local discount grocery has a series of Crofton brand, enameled cast iron pans, and they're on sale this week. When she told me this, I went immediately to Aldi, and bought the 5-quart dutch oven to match the skillet.

I've done a bit of research on the Crofton pans, and the reports are positive. No warping, no chipping of enamel; everyone seems pretty darn pleased with their Crofton cookware.

LeCreuset 5-quart Dutch oven: $200.75

Crofton 5-quart Dutch oven: $29.99

My initial review, after cooking up one batch of vegetable soup and 1 good winter steak (summer steaks are on the grill, you know): Love them. They heated evenly, and cleaned up like a dream. Be forewarned that they're heavy and require some care and strength to manipulate. I imagine myself giving them away when I'm a little old lady, but I can get a lot of good cooking in between now and then.

Aldi's only has the set in red. I love the red myself, but if you're collecting another color, you're out of luck.

Next blog: My latest food lesson: How to cook a great steak in a cast iron pan.

Seafood Orechiette with Garlic Chips

I'm not sure if I've overlooked orechiette in the local grocery stores, or if I lucked out when I recently found it at ArtMart. Nonetheless, I was eager to try this pasta that I've never cooked with before.

Seafood Orechiette with Garlic Chips

Garlic Chips: Slice cloves of garlic as thin as you can. Fry on medium heat in a pat or two of butter until they crisp up and remove to paper towel. These will keep, to sprinkle on other italian and asian dishes.

Seafood Orichiette:

1/2 lb shrimp
1 lb bay scallops
1 to 1-1/2 c. fish stock (I used fish boullion)
garlic
olive oil
1/2 c. fresh curly parsley, minced (reserve some for garnishing)

Saute minced garlic in olive oil until it begins to brown.

Add shrimp and scallops and cook for about 3 minutes.

Add about 1 cup of the fish stock, and the parsley. Simmer until stock reduces and thickens, add extra stock as necessary. I put a teaspoon of cornstarch into the last 1/2 cup of broth, to thicken the sauce before serving.

Toss sauce over cooked orechiette pasta, and garnish with fresh parsley and garlic chips.

Brussels Sprouts

The brussels sprouts are sliced as thinly as possible, and sauted for a minute or so in olive oil and minced garlic. Serve them just as they warm through, so they're still crunchy & nutty, and not wilted. If you like, a splash of fresh lemon is good on these also.