Chicken Salad with cherries and almonds (AKA the lightbulb came on about organization)

Good morning

In the quest to become more organized while cooking, and, not waste as much food, I had the brilliant idea this weekend that when I bought foods that lent themselves to the sous-chef treatment, I would pre-prep them the minute I got home and put them in containers. 

I have been so much better in the past year about buying non-processed foods.  I wasn't all that bad before.  For instance, I almost never would buy frozen packaged foods, but, I did buy more boxed food than I do these days.  I still buy canned foods but I figure those have minimal processing especially if you label read. 

However, buying fresh means you gotta start eating them right away.  And not lose interest in them.  My theory is that I'd buy all this good stuff, but since my food planning is non-existent - primarily "last minute" ideas, I'd open the fridge, see everything still in wrapping (like celery, cauliflower, rotisserie chicken) and pass it over in favor of something easy.

So, tada.  My Sunday afternoon, after a lovely brunch with friends, consisted of food shopping and when I got home, a glass of chardonnay and some food prep.  In addition to making my crock pot mac and cheese (posted yesterday) I also chopped and bagged the celery, chopped and stored the fresh mango, and shredded the rotisserie chicken.  All in containers, waiting to be used.

And just now, moments ago, I decided to make easy chicken salad for a sandwich at lunch.  Pulled out the chicken, ready to go.  Pulled out the celery, ready to go.  I buy dried cherries like they are going out of style, and I always have almonds and walnuts handy.  The almonds are toasting. 

A little fresh lemon, some mayonnaise (not from scratch, that will be another time), and it's all tossed together.  I'm hoping this organization will pay off - I hate wasting food. 

Recipe:

Rotisserie chicken, shredded
Chopped celery (as much or little as you like)
Handful of dried cherries
Toasted Almonds
Mayo
Lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Toss it all together.  I imagine some onion would have been good, too.

For contrast, here was one item from the fantastic Sunday brunch at Orso:

Bacon Sticky Buns!

Vanilla. Roasted. Pears.

This recipe came from Smitten Kitchen!  I only used one pear and I didn't have any vanilla beans handy so I used bottled vanilla.  I eyeballed her recipe and cut down the amounts, but not very precisely.  Even if you don't like pears, this is sure to please. Drizzle the sauce over whipped cream.

Here is her recipe:

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 vanilla bean
1 1/2 pounds slightly-under-ripe, fragrant, medium pears, peeled if desired, halved though the stem and cored
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place the sugar in a small bowl. With a thin, sharp knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise in half and scrape out the seeds. Stir the seeds into the sugar.

Arrange the pears in a large baking dish, cut-side up. Drizzle the lemon juice evenly over the fruit, then sprinkle with the sugar. Nestle the vanilla pod among the fruit. Pour the water into the dish. Dot each pear with some butter.

Roast the pears 30 minutes brushing them occasionally with the pan juices. Turn the pears over and continue roasting, basting once or twice, until tender and caramelized, 25 to 30 minutes longer (if the pears are small, test for doneness after 35 or 40 minutes of cooking; a paring knife poked into the thickest part of one should meet with no resistance).




http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/12/vanilla-roasted-pears/

Peachy Keen

I recently made a blueberry/peach cobbler that is posted on Smitten Kitchen. 

Peach Blueberry Cornmeal Cobbler


For the fruit
1 1/2 (about 4 cups) pounds peaches, pitted and cut into slices*
1 pint (about 2 cups) blueberries, rinsed and dried
2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt


For the biscuit topping
3/4 cup (3 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup fine stone-ground cornmeal (yellow or white)
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).Toss peaches with blueberries, sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon and salt in the bottom of a 2-quart ovenproof dish.

Make the biscuit dough: Stir together the flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into the dry mixture with your fingertips, a fork or a pastry blender. Stir in buttermilk with a rubber spatula until a wet, tacky dough comes together.

Plop spoonfuls of the biscuit dough over the filling; don’t worry about covering entire surface. Bake until the cobbler’s syrup is bubbly and the biscuit tops are browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool slightly and scoop it into bowls. Top with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, of if you’re having an accidental run-in with this cobbler before noon, plain yogurt.


http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/07/cornmeal-drop-biscuit-peach-blueberry-cobbler/


(NUMBER TWENTY-ONE in 2010)

Rustic Apple Tart

Two new recipes in one week. Will I hit 52 new meals this year?  It will only be my third attempt, after all.

Last night I bought the ingredients for the below.  The Waldorf Salad (that I did not know I was making until later) was such a hit I decided to look for more apple and walnut recipes.  I found this one (link and recipe from the site, below).

Tonight, I made it.  I didn't root around looking for thyme, that may have made a little difference.  I also cheated and used refrigerated pie crust. 

Ingredients

1 Pâte Brisée (tart dough) for a 10-inch tart (see all butter crust recipe) or 1 packaged, flat pie crust
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese (or blue cheese)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
2 Tbsp maple syrup
2 large granny smith apples (or other good cooking apples such as jonagold or fuji), peeled, cored, chopped
1 teaspoon of lemon juice (optional)

Method

Toss the walnuts, gorgonzola, thyme, chopped apples, and maple syrup together in a medium size bowl. As you are working with the apples (chopping them, mixing them in with the other ingredients), if you want, you can squeeze a little lemon juice on them to help keep them from discoloring. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap while you prepare the crust.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out pastry dough to 13-inches, at an 1/8 of an inch thickness. Place pastry dough on a rimmed baking sheet. (Rimmed because the pastry will leak butter during the cooking process.) Mound the filling in the middle of the rolled out dough, and spread out evenly to 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches from the edge of the dough. Pleat the edges of the dough over the filling.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until crust is nicely browned. If at any time it looks like the walnuts are getting a little burnt, you can lightly tent a piece of aluminum foil over the center.

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apple_walnut_gorgonzola_rustic_tart/

(NUMBER SEVEN in 2010)

Talking to strangers...

See what it gets you - a good healthy recipe!

[Edit - apparently the below is a modified Waldorf Salad recipe.  Oops - here I thought it was so clever]

A week or so ago I happened to stand in line at Wegmans near a jolly couple.  They were obviously the kind of shoppers and cooks who paid attention to the ingredients they bought and were healthy eaters.  The conversation started when she was unloading her cart and told me some tips on cooking with less salt. 

It quickly segued into a recipe for a meal that she found in weight watchers which I believe may actually be vegan.  She recited it to me and lo and behold, I remembered it.  I made it today, finally.  It's actually quite good!

1 fuji apple
1 granny smith apple
1/2 c chopped red onion (I probably had more)
A few handfuls of cranberries - I bought dried raisin/cranberry mixed together.
A cup of chopped celery - again, that may have been a little more than the recipe but it was fine.

Mix the above, and toss with just a touch of mayo and then sprinkle lemon juice on top and toss some more.  The mayo in my fridge was about 10 months expired (oops) so no mayo for this chica.  I did use lemon juice though.

Finally, just before you dig in, sprinkle walnuts on top.  THIS is key - they definitely added to the taste.

This turned out very well!  I would not call it dinner per se, but, a good snack. It was a very late lunch (just finished it) so dinner may be take out, after all that.  But this was goooooood.

So you see, talking to strangers can be a good thing.

ps.  you want to be sure you have the right mix of onion and in fact I'd probably scale back on the onion.  Either make sure it's exactly 1/2 c or even less.  I had a second helping and this scoop had a lot more onion.  Almost took my breath away.

(NUMBER SIX in 2010)

Heavenly salad dressing!

Last week (in 2008) I googled strawberries and oranges (since I have a bunch of both right now) and a wonderful salad dressing came up (the salad recipe itself has the strawberries and oranges).
Below is what was written, and far below is what I did - and I bet my version is better.
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons EVOO
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
Whisk and drizzle over romaine lettuce/strawberries/cut up orange and sprinkle with real parmesan cheese. Sliced red onion optional.
What I did:
1 tablespoons lemon juice (I ran out, drat!!)
1 tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons EVOO
NO Dijon mustard (I thought I had some in the fridge, it was horseradish mustard - so, nothing at all)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
So slightly less lemon and no dijon. Used fork to whisk.
My salad was below:
Arugula
an entire avocado, sliced up.
a good hunk of leftover rotisserie chicken, also diced
I had some strawberries in the fridge that had thawed and I had poured sugar on them so they were nice and juicy.
I mostly just used the strawberries, was not liberal with pouring the juice on the salad. Just enough to taste.
Pour all of salad dressing on salad, use chicken pieces to mop up remainder still in bowl.
HEAVEN, JUST HEAVEN. Especially as I got nearer the end and the bits and blobs of the strawberry juice mixed with the dressing itself.