FFWD Skate with Capers, Cornichons, and Brown Butter Sauce

Skate wasn't in the cards for me this week.  I struggled with what to get instead--the internet seemed to agree that there really was no good substitute for skate--and ended up picking catfish.  Not because I thought it was a particularly good substitute, but because I was at a really expensive store and it was by far the cheapest.  I hadn't had catfish since I was a kid (and didn't remember liking it), but we actually really enjoyed it.  I used to feed Charlotte leftovers for her dinner, and then make our dinner after she went to bed.  She's now refusing to eat leftovers (I have no clue how she knows when things aren't freshly made, but she always seems to), so I've been trying to have something fresh made in time for her (early) dinner.  I loved how quick and easy this was, the sauce was absolutely delicious, and Charlotte loved it too.  She claps now when she's happy, and she clapped after eating bites of this fish.  (On the first night.  I tried giving it to her again for lunch the next day and she refused to touch it!)  This is definitely a recipe I'll make again.  I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of fish everyone else ended up using.  I'm betting this sauce would work with a wide variety.

I served the fish with salad (Paul is growing lettuce and we've had salad at every meal for weeks now), crudite, and tarator dip.  I'll be writing about the dip for CCC.  It's made primarily of walnuts and white bread.  Very interesting!

TWD Phylloccine Ice Cream Sandwiches

I like to think that I'm pretty good at sharing (at least that's what I'm going to tell Charlotte when I start trying to teach her about it), but I hate sharing desserts.  Appetizers, salads, and side dishes (even entrees) can be good for sharing, but I love having my own dessert!  I had 7 oz of phyllo in the freezer that I wanted to use up, and it was just Paul and I for dinner, so I decided to cut the recipe in half.  Once the phyllo nests were baked, I decided that I really only needed to eat one a day.  (I think I mentioned that I'm, half-heartedly, trying to lose the rest of the baby weight.)  I thought about making one pretty ice cream sandwich so that I could take a photo and then splitting it with Paul, but then I remembered the above.  So, I just made each of us a half of a sandwich.  I put ice cream on the plate, followed by raspberry salad, and some whipped cream.  I topped it with a phyllo nest and the skewered fruit.  It wasn't quite as pretty, but it still tasted great, and this way we'll have dessert ready for a few extra nights.  I made my own vanilla ice cream for this recipe, replacing the sugar with maple syrup.  I was feeling lazy and used a recipe that didn't call for a custard.  I just mixed the heavy cream, maple syrup, milk, and vanilla, and chilled it before churning.  The ice cream is pretty good (I love the maple flavor), but next time I'll take the extra time to make the custard.  In my experience custard based ice cream is much creamier, and less icy, although if anyone has a different experience (and a recipe to share) I'd love to hear about it.

FFWD Crab-Avocado "Ravioli"

Well, this didn't work for me at all.  I started slicing the avocado with my mandoline.  I got a few pretty slices, but it wasn't sharp enough to cut through the pit.  I tried switching to my sharpest knife, but I couldn't get it to slice through the pit either.  To be perfectly honest, I also didn't try that hard.  Charlotte's 1st birthday was last Friday, so I hosted a family dinner that night and then a birthday party with friends on Saturday.  By Sunday night when I was making this I was sick of being in the kitchen.  So, I took out the pit, sliced the rest of the avocado the best I could, and just made layers.  The next day for lunch I made an even easier version.  I served avocado halves (still in their skin) stuffed with the crab salad.  I thought this recipe was only okay.  I think it may have been the canned crab meat (my grocery store was out of fresh), but i just didn't love eating it.

In the interest of full disclosure, here's a picture of our dinner table.  After making the crab salad, I just put out left over party food (still in the plastic bags) to eat.  What can I say?  We all deserve to be lazy sometimes.  I'm looking forward to trying the skate next week - if I can somehow manage to find skate.

FFWD Salmon Rillettes

I wasn't a fan of the sardine rillettes, was pretty lukewarm on the tuna rillettes, but these I really liked.  In my book it's really hard to go wrong when the main ingredients are fresh salmon, smoked salmon, and butter.  I think next time I'll try the David Lebovitz salmon rillettes recipe that Trevor raves about, but this is definitely a concept that I'll use again.  I'm trying to eat less carbs in the evening (am I still allowed to call it "baby weight" now that Charlotte's one? and did I really type that after a sentence about my love for butter?) and so I ate this on cucumber slices, but I also served some baguette slices for Paul.  Alongside we had some sauteed spinach, and a Lettuce, Spring Onion and Cheese Tart that I'm going to write about for the Cottage Cooking Club.  As I've said many times, when it's just Paul and I we almost never bother with an appetizer course, but this definitely would be a great appetizer if you were entertaining.

FFWD Piperade Stir Fry

I love to cook, but sometimes it's great to have an easy week.  Our friend just gave us his gas smoker, so when I read this was a good side with anything grilled, I decided to have Paul smoke some fish and chicken to go with it.  The dinner was quick (in terms of hands-on time, smoking a chicken takes a few hours), easy, delicious, and relatively healthy.  We're on vacation in Oregon this week, so I'm going to keep this post short.  I'm going to try to read as many of your posts as I can while I'm away, and I'll catch up when I'm home.

CCC May 2014

So...I went a little bit crazy and made all of the recipes this month.  I don't plan on making a habit of this, but we do eat a lot of vegetables and I was very excited to try out my new cookbook.  Overall, Paul and I both think that this cookbook is a winner.  One recipe didn't seem to work (likely my fault), but all of the other ones were relatively easy, came out well, and were interesting takes on vegetables.  I also find it so helpful that the recipes are written in weights.  I've owned a kitchen scale for a while now, and once you get used to it it feels so much easier than getting out the measuring cups and spoons.  It's less dishes to clean, too!  I do keep needing to look up the celsius-fahrenheit conversions for the oven temperatures, but I'm starting to know those by heart as well.  

The first recipe I made from the book was the Roasted Aubergine Boats.  We had them for a Friday night dinner along with cod in coconut curry sauce (I used this recipe but replaced with yogurt with coconut milk) and my very favorite Baked Spinach.  The boats were good, but nothing spectacular.  They were quick and easy, though, and I could see making them again later this summer when eggplants are in season.

Next, I made the Asparagus Pizza with some fresh asparagus that we got in our CSA share.  Paul is very particular about pizza and I knew that this one wouldn't live up to his very particular standards (his dough uses a combination of yeast and sourdough started and has to be made several days ahead of time), so I told him just to pretend that this was a flat bread.  This crust didn't live up to Paul's, but it was much easier, and made a delicious "flat bread."  The crust was thin and chewy, white pizza is my favorite, and I loved that the asparagus cooked directly on the pizza.

The pizza was good, but I think the Spring Onion Galette was better.  Just for fun, I made the rough puff pastry recipe that was in the book.  I think I rolled it too thin and it didn't puff quite as well as store-bought puff pastry, but it was still absolutely delicious and I like that I made it myself.  (Although I don't like that now I know just how much butter is in puff pastry.)  With a combination of red and white spring onions from our CSA share, and some hard goat's cheese, this galette was delicious.  If it was healthier, I could definitely see myself making it a lot more often.  As it is, this is definitely going to be a special treat in my kitchen.

I wanted to make sure that we had plenty of vegetables to go with all of the butter, so with the galette I made Stir-Fried Cauliflower and the Greek-style spinach from another one of my favorite vegetable cookbooks.  I LOVED this cauliflower.  I think I could have eaten the whole bowl myself.  I loved the spices, the jalapeno, and the sesame seeds.  It was also relatively quick and easy.  This is definitely something that I'll make again.

I usually try to avoid things that feel trendy, but I love the tapas/small plates/mezze style of eating this is so popular right now.  It can be a lot of work, but it's always fun and interesting to have a whole bunch of small things to eat.  One night I added some grilled asparagus, pita, and halloumi cheese to four of the smaller vegetable items and called it dinner.  The most substantial part of the meal was the Quinoa with Courgettes and Onion.  I've taken French and am familiar with a lot of the English vegetables names (like aubergine) but Courgette was one I had to look up.  I was pleased to see that it was zucchini.  We enjoy zucchini, and in the summer when Paul and our CSA both grow it, I'm always looking for more ways to use up zucchini.  This was a quick and easy dish that we both enjoyed.  I (stupidly) forgot the pine nuts in the toaster oven.

Next time I'll have to remember them!  On the side, I made the Lemony Guacamole and Carrot Hummus.  I think the Carrot Hummus was our favorite recipe of the month.  I wasn't expecting much from it, but we both thought the flavor was incredible, given the short list of simple ingredients.  I'll definitely be making this one again.  The guacamole I have less to say about.  It was good, but as far as I'm concerned any kind of simple, homemade guacamole is good. 

When I put the Radishes with Butter and Salt down on the table Paul asked if they were for the blog.  I asked Paul if he really thought I would make something like this on my own.  He laughed.  These were surprisingly good, but definitely nothing that I would put together for myself, and probably not something I would have selected from a cookbook on my own.  Paul mentioned that butter wasn't exactly the healthiest pairing for a radish.  I pointed out that radishes were a very health pairing for butter (much healthier than bread!).    Until recently fennel was one of the very few vegetables that I refused to eat.  I still don't love fennel (and still can't stand black licorice), but I'm slowly learning to eat it.  I still like it much better when it's cooked, though.  Raw fennel has a very strong flavor to me.  As raw fennel goes, though, I thought the Fennel and Goat's Cheese was a very nice recipe.   Marinating the fennel in lemon juice really helped the flavor.  I served this with some of the smoked sablefish that we made, and the Pea and Parsley Soup.  I was very pleasantly surprised by the soup.  I used homemade chicken stock which helped a lot, but I thought it was great flavor from just frozen peas and parsley.  I'll definitely make this one next winter, when we need a touch of spring. Right before we left on vacation I made the Courgette and Rice Filo Pie and the Rocket, Fennel, and Puy Lentil Salad for our dinner.  I had a really  busy day planned, so I mixed the filling ahead of time and then quickly made the filo crust, filled it, and put it in the oven before dinner.  I think this was a major mistake.  After sitting for a few hours the salt had drawn a lot of moisture out of the zucchini.  I probably should have just drained off the water, but I thought  the extra liquid might be necessary to cook the rice so I just stirred it all together and put it into the crust.  It didn't really work at all.  After the pie baked the rice had barely cooked at all, and there was tons of liquid left on the bottom of the dish.  The flavor of this was alright, but barely-cooked rice does not have a great texture or flavor!  I'm also not sure if I would have liked this even if the rice had cooked.  It just seemed to need more flavor.  I'll be very curious to see if you all had better luck with this recipe.  The salad, on the other hand, we liked.  Lentils are inexpensive, quick, and healthy, and every time I make them I wonder why I don't make them more.  I liked the idea of using them in vegetable salad, especially since Paul had arugula ready in the garden.

FFWD Smoked Salmon Waffles

My parents have a wonderful, close group of friends that I've known since I can remember.  We spend holidays together, and they feel like family.  When Paul and I got married we registered for a slow cooker and a waffle iron.  At the wedding shower, one friend gave us the slow cooker and the other the waffle iron.  (I honestly can't remember which was which anymore.)  They then proceeded to argue (in a quasi-joking manner) about which was the better gift.  One insisted that you can't be married and young and not be having weekend waffle breakfasts, the other kept detailing all of the practical uses of a slow cooker.  I think of these dear friends every time we use either appliance.  I honestly do use them both a lot, and would be hard-pressed to choose just one of them.  Some months, especially in the winter, I'll get really into the slow cooker and use it every week.  It can be so convenient on days that I work.  However, a good waffle is hard to beat, and as far as I know you really can't make one without an iron.

Anyway, I was glad when this recipe got chosen.  I love recipes that are small twists on familiar favorites.  My photos certainly can't compete with the one in the book--our waffle iron is for Belgian waffles so they weren't as thin and crispy as they could have been, I was too lazy to cut them into quarters, and I totally forgot to buy salmon roe--but these sure did taste good!  We rarely have time for appetizers around here, so we just ate full waffles (sour cream on the side) with salad for dinner.  These were a fun, quick weeknight dinner.  I could definitely see myself making them again.