New fish recipe number one: Salmon with Pepita-Lime Butter

We want to eat more fish than we have been lately so I went on a hunt for easy fish recipes I think we'll actually eat more than once.

Here's the first recipe we tried, which we had Saturday night. We liked it. I could only get regular pumpkin seeds, not "pepitas" but it was still good. I bought two salmon fillets, rather than getting a big one and cutting it up and taking the bottom skin off. Otherwise, I did everything as instructed.

It was super fast to make. We ate it with steamed broccoli and sugar snap peas and wild rice, as recommended, and it worked well. We'll definitely do this one again.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/salmon_with_pepita_lime_butter.html

Salmon with Pepita-Lime Butter

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons unsalted pepitas (see Tip)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 pound salmon fillet, skinned (see Tip) and cut into 4 portions
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

1. Toast pepitas (see Tip). Place in a small bowl with butter, lime zest, lime juice and chili powder.
2. Generously coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper, add to the pan and cook until browned and just cooked through in the center, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the salmon to a plate. Add the butter-lime mixture to the hot pan; stir until the butter is melted. Serve the salmon topped with the sauce.

TIPS & NOTES

• Pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) can be found in the bulk-foods section of natural-foods stores or Mexican groceries.

Place pepitas in a small dry skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, 2 to 4 minutes.

• Place a salmon fillet on a clean cutting board, skin side down. Starting at the tail end, slip the blade of a long, sharp knife between the fish flesh and the skin, holding the skin down firmly with your other hand. Gently push the blade along at a 30° angle, separating the fillet from the skin without cutting through either.
• 
  

Cinnamon is my friend.

Last weekend I had a sudden, overwhelming need for cinnamon rolls. Over here, they sell them, but they tend to be more pastry-ish than gooey soft, so I decided to try making my own.

I found a recipe for cinnabon-style ones, which I thought would do the trick, but I didn't have any cream cheese on hand (this was a bit spur of the moment), so I used the quick glaze from Paula Deen's cinnamon roll recipe. I made them in my lovely breadmaker, following the additional tips at the top of the recipe, including the extra steps to keep the insides from leaking out of the rolls.

It was incredibly easy - the breadmaker did all the hard work on the dough mode, then I just rolled it out, spread the goo on (half with nuts, half without), rolled them up and stuck them in the oven.

Here they are before:




And after - one pan with glaze, one pan without:






And here they are, in action:


I didn't quite roll them up tightly enough - so they were a bit loose and floppy when I transferred them to the pan (which is why they look a bit abstract, rather than nicely round in the "before" picture above), and they did pull apart a bit when they baked. Putting the glaze on reinforced their structural integrity, especially once it cooled and solidified a bit.

They kept really yummy for about 5-6 days, in a plastic container. I froze half the batch without the glaze, so I'll try defrosting and then glazing the next time I get the urge. I'm also running another test - I've frozen one with glaze, to see how it holds up.

As another test in alternate breakfast foods beyond bagels, today (Sunday the 7th), I made the Cinnamon Raisin Bread recipe in Joy of Cooking. I substituted dried apples for the raisins and used the breadmaker again for mixing the dough. It turned out pretty well, though again I didn't roll it tightly enough, so the swirl didn't go around enough times, and it pulled apart so there is a big hole running through the bread. I didn't quite get the shape right for my loaf pan, and had to moosh it in, which probably didn't help. But it tasted pretty good and was really easy to do. I love my breadmaker!

Catching up: the rest of the recipes.

I actually achieved my single New Year's Resolution for 2009, though I didn't keep up with blogging about it, which will surprise no one. (You might remember that the blogging wasn't part of the resolution, just a technique to help keep it, so I of course don't feel that the lack of blogging negates the success of the resolution itself.)

But today, on the last day of the year, to close off the resolution, I'm going to try to at least catch up a little bit by listing the other recipes I've tried this year.

The belated recipe posting means that I'm interpreting the resolution as a total of 24 new recipes in 2009, rather than a set of two per month. I actually think that I probably ended up doing two per month any way, but since my last posting about it was recipe number six back at the beginning of April, I don't think I'm going to remember all the ones I've tried between then and now, nor when exactly I made them.

But I can remember a lot that happened in the spring and over the summer, especially since I know that I got my Essentials of Slow Cooking and Vegetables Every Day cook books at the end of March, so I would have been trying recipes from there in April and beyond. Some of them I know vaguely when I did them - like I remember doing Carnitas in August, and the list below is in roughly chronological order. Plus I tend to try a series of recipes from a cookbook back to back. I can of course definitely remember the whole host of things I tried for Christmas (I got a cook book for my birthday from Mom and Dad and I bought myself my first Christmas-themed cookbook).

I'm just going to list all the recipes below - if you want more information about any of them, just ask. I can give you the full details of how it worked out and any lessons I learned. Although I don't remember exactly when I tried them, I can remember how they all tasted!

I've linked the first mention of each cook book to their page on Amazon (I'm too lazy to link every single mention), so you can see where all the recipes are coming from. If you want any of the recipes, let me know.

Between April and November:
7. Jambalaya with Shrimp, Chicken and Ham from Essentials of Slow Cooking (this is different from the other jambalya recipe I make, and more like what I understand traditional recipes to entail - and it's really good)
8. Tuna with Tomatoes and Olives from Essentials of Slow Cooking (this actually doesn't involve the crock pot at all, but it's really easy and yummy, though you do need to like tuna steaks and olives)
9. Spanish Chicken Stew from Essentials of Slow Cooking (which is different from recipe number four - and if I remember correctly, a lot easier)
10. Zucchini, Corn and Red Pepper Saute from Vegetables Every Day
11. Carnitas from Essentials of Slow Cooking
12. German Potato Salad from Joy of Cooking (very good)
13. Pulled Pork from Essentials of Slow Cooking
14. Cole Slaw from Essentials of Slow Cooking (this was my first time making it from scratch!)
15. Summer Coq au Vin from Essentials of Slow Cooking
16. Broiled Portobello Mushrooms with Asian Flavors from Vegetables Every Day
17. Chicken, Leek and Corn Soup with Chilli from Riverford Farm's recipes online (we buy our organic vegetable box from them - this recipe is really good)
18. Cabbage Gratin with Cheese, Bacon and Potato from Riverford Farm
19. Turkey and Stilton Pie from some random magazine
20. Leek, Potato and Cheddar Jalousie from Riverford Farm (I had never heard of a jalousie before, but from what I made, it seems to be just like what over here they call a "slice" as in "chicken slice" or "beef slice" which is savory flaky butter pastry with stuff inside it)
21. Pumpkin Cheesecake from Joy of Cooking

November:
22. Pumpkin Bread from Joy of Cooking
23. Parker House Rolls from Joy of Cooking (you can't buy them over here so I tried making them myself - they were good - and I used the bread maker which was a lot easier)
24. Pumpkin Pie from Joy of Cooking (I really don't think I've ever made one before -though I did cheat and use pre-made pastry, which I rolled out)
25. Ed's Victorious Turkey Hash (with leftover Thanksgiving turkey) from Nigella Christmas
26. Vanilla Sugar from Nigella Christmas

December:
27. Poor Niece Melissa's Humble Attempts at Re-creating Aunt Di's Bittersweet Chocolate Frosted Layer Cake from All Cakes Considered
28. Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies from Nigella Christmas
29. Christmas Morning Muffins from Nigella Christmas
30. Naughty Senator Cake (a peppermint chocolate rum cake) from All Cakes Considered
31. Sticky Gingerbread from Nigella Christmas (really, really yummy - I don't know how I've lived without gingerbread before now)
32. Orange Loaf with Dried Cranberries and Pecans from Joy of Cooking
33. Southern Cornbread from Joy of Cooking (I've only ever made the Northern one)
34. Yule Log from Nigella Christmas
35. Seasonal Breeze from Nigella Christmas (it's a mixed drink, non-alcoholic)
36. Xmas Zinger from Nigella Christmas (ditto)
37. Redder than Red Cranberry Sauce from Nigella Christmas (which is pretty much the same as the recipe from Joy of Cooking, which I also tried but won't list separately - they're both so easy I'm definitely sold on making cranberry sauce from scratch for Thanksgiving and Christmas)

I think there are some others - I'm pretty sure I tried a chicken cacciatore from the Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook, and there are some alternate bagel recipes I've tried - but I can't remember at all when I made them, so I'm leaving them out.

So it works out at three a month, plus one to grow on...not bad!

Slate's got my (bagel's) back.

Still not about the toaster, which is still coming, and will totally be worth it, but...

I had one of those "hey, that's me" moments while reading Slate today. I was flipping through their headline articles and came across an article about the cost effectiveness about home baking. It's quite a good article, and quite interesting - the author, Jennifer Reese, actually did a fairly comprehensive cost comparison of six different foods she regularly eats. But the best bit is this:

Bagels
There's so much mystique surrounding bagels (water vs. egg? How should you shape them? etc.), I doubted my attempts to bake them would amount to much. But aside from shaping the dough into tidy rings, which I find unaccountably impossible, bagels are one of the quickest, easiest breads you can make. I tried five different recipes, from Jewish cooking guru Joan Nathan's to the fabled Montreal bagels, which are heavier and sweeter. But the one I fell for, and have now baked a half-dozen times, is from Bernard Clayton's New Book of Breads. These are "Jo Goldenberg's bagels," named for a restaurant-deli in Paris (figures) where they were once sold. You can start these chewy, flavorful bagels at 8 on a Sunday morning and serve them to brunch guests at 11. They will be awestruck.

Cheaper than store-bought? Dramatically. If you break down the cost of Clayton's recipe, it works out to 23 cents per bagel. Moreover, if you use bulk yeast, which you should if you do much baking, the price drops to 15 cents. By comparison, one of Thomas' so-called "bagels" is 45 cents. A fresh bagel from Noah's in San Francisco: 75 cents. At H&H Bagels in New York City: $1.20!

Better than store-bought? These are by far the best bagels I've ever eaten.

Make or buy? Make.

I have two main thoughts about this.

Number one, I have actual acknowledgement that it is impossible to get smooth rings, which no one ever mentions in recipes. I've never been able to do it, so I've felt somewhat inadequate in that I've never been able to do it. So at least someone has come out and said it. Phew.

Number two, she's totally backing up my feeling that bagels are way easier to make than commonly thought and are way better than buying. 

So don't just take my word for it - take Jennifer Reese's too. 

(I've now even added it as a "thing to go" when we all get together! Yay, I'm now officially obsessed. Woo hoo!)

Recipe number six: Cauliflower tortellini cheese.

Another really easy one - it's definitely a theme I have going when it comes to cooking in the middle of the week. This may look a bit familiar, since it uses a lot of the same ingredients as recipe number five. I'm assuming that the fresh stuffed pasta and sauce are as common over in the US as they are here - they're really easy to pick up, which makes this dish even easier to make.

Preheat the broiler.

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add 1 large head of cauliflower, trimmed and cut into small florets.

Cook for 3 minutes and then add a pack (300g/11 ounce) package of fresh cheese tortellini (or other stuffed pasta). Cook for a further 3-5 minutes - whenever the cauliflower is tender.

Drain well, reserving 100ml/1/3 cup of the cooking liquid, and tip into a large gratin dish.

Heat 500g/2 cups(??) of cheese pasta sauce in a pan.

Add a pack of fresh baby spinach leaves and the reserved cooking liquid and stir until the spinach wilts.

Pour the sauce over the pasta and cauliflower and scatter with about 1 cup of halved cherry tomatoes.

Tear/grate about 150g/1 cup of mozzarella cheese and scatter over the top.

Broil for 5 minutes or until golden and bubbling.

Taste scores

Mark: 7

Jessica: 8

Ease of preparation: 10

Do it again? Yes.

Recommend? Yes, and I think I like this one better than recipe five - it's really similar, but the cauliflower - pasta mix is interesting, and yummy. Not exactly healthy, since it's heavy on the cheese, but the spinach helps...

Recipe number five: Cheese and tuna pasta bake.

This one is not very exciting, but it's quick and easy, which is something we like! I've adjusted it a bit from the original version - we've had it twice and the second time I added more tomato and cheese, which I think made it better - the approximate measurements from the second time are below.

Preheat oven to 375.

Cook 3 cups of fusilli pasta (or whatever noodle you like).

Meanwhile, heat 1 TB olive oil in a pan. Add 2 finely chopped red onions, and saute until soft.

Add a bag of spinach (300 grams - I have no idea what this is in cups or ounces!) and cook until wilted.

Drain the cooked pasta and add to the onion and spinach.

Stir in 2 cans of chopped tomatoes and two cans of tuna chunks. Season with salt and pepper.

Transfer the mixture to an oven proof dish. Top with about 8 ounces of mozzarella cheese (grated or sliced, depending on what kind of mozzarella you use).

Sprinkle with breadcrumbs.

Bake about 20 minutes until piping hot and bread crumbs have browned.

Taste scores

Mark: 6

Jessica: 6 (like I said, not very exciting!)

Ease of preparation: 10 (the only thing easier is picking up the phone and ordering pizza).

Do it again? Yes, and we already have...

Recommend? I would - but be warned, it isn't bland, but it's only a couple of steps away...

Recipe number four: Spanish-style chicken.

This was from a little while ago, but I wanted to catch up, and not lose track of the new recipes I'm trying as part of my New Year's challenge. I think I cut this out of a magazine, possibly one from a supermarket - I'm not sure. I have a blank book that I paste random recipes into, and this is just one of those. I made a couple of amendments, and I've also converted the metric to normal using my favorite online converstion site (which even has conversions for butter, which is just amazing!)

Spanish-style chicken

Serves 6

Whole chicken, about 1.6kg/3.5 lbs

50g/3.5 TB butter, softened

1/2 TB paprika

Large pinch saffron

6 tomatoes, quartered

4 chorizo sausages, skinned and sliced (this is a bit flexible - it says four, I bought two packages - each package had one chorizo that was maybe a foot long, but curved around in a horseshoe shape, maybe an inch in diameter? that's a really rough memory!)

2 cans butter beans, drained

6 garlic cloves, peeled

fresh flat leaf parsley (I think I forgot this when I did it)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2. Mix paprika and saffron into the butter with salt and pepper and rub all over the chicken skin (it seems like a lot of butter at this point, but it is worth it!). Place chicken in a roasting pan and put in the oven for 1 hour and 25 minutes (for a 1.6kg bird - adjust accordingly depending on size of chicken)

3. About 40 minutes before the chicken is meant to be done (so for a 1.6kg bird, this is about 45 minutes into the cooking time), take the chicken out of the pan and set aside, while you add the tomatoes, chorizo, butter beans and garlic cloves to the roasting pan. Place the chicken on top and baste well.

4. Continue to roast for the remaining time, basting occasionally.

5. At the end of the cooking time and when the chicken is finished, remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for about 10 minutes. Mash the tomatoes slightly into the sauce. Sprinkle with parsley (if using). Carve the chicken and serve with the chorizo-bean-tomato sauce.

It's pretty straightforward, and most of the time involved is the roasting time for the chicken. I can see how it can be adapted to make it even easier - using chicken breasts, for example, but I guess you'd just have to make sure that the tomatoes and chorizo had time to cook. The chorizo goes all crunchy and it's just really nice with the beans and tomatoes. It didn't seem too fatty to me, but it is pretty rich!

Taste scores

Mark: 7 (Mark says it was tasty but there are other things he likes better)

Jessica:  8

Ease of preparation: 8 (having to skin the chorizo is the only thing that keeps this from scoring a ten - I don't know if you could get away with not skinning at all...) 

Do it again? Yes

Recommend? I think so - if it isn't too rich for people...

Recipe Number Two: New York Bagels.

Today was the day that I made bagels, from scratch, for the first time.

After much hemming and hawing, I settled on the recipe at cdkitchen online. It seemed to be not overly complicated, but not overly simplified either. I substituted brown sugar for the malt powder, since I couldn't find any at our local store. I think you can get it from places like Whole Foods, and I'll keep an eye open for it, but it didn't seem like the end of the world that I didn't have it.

I also used the egg wash, as suggested by one of the reviewers. I went completely plain, no toppings, just so I could test out the basic recipe first and then start experimenting after that, depending on the outcome.

The outcome? Pretty good!

They came out a little dark, but that was mostly because of the egg wash I think - they weren't burnt, and I don't think I would have wanted to cook them for any less (I did the minimum suggested time - 17 minutes). They also all lost their holes - there were still indentations at the top, but when I cut through, it was all solid. I don't really know how that happened - they seemed ok when I put them in the oven. I guess I need to just widen them out a bit right before I put them in.

At first when I cut them open they kind of looked like they were going to taste like every other bread item I've ever baked. (For some reason, no matter what bread recipe I use, it always ends up tasting exactly the same.) But the taste test proved that not quite the case - it definitely tasted like a bagel. Maybe not really really bagelly, but still a real bagel. And the crisp crust from the egg wash on the outside was very nice - a definite improvement over the store bought kind.

All in all, I'd say it was a success, taste-wise, and we'll see how they are tomorrow, toasted. I was amazed at how not-work-intensive they were - probably about 90 minutes from start to finish, if that, and a lot of that was just waiting time while they were rest or rising or baking. The boiling was a bit weird, since it's the first time I've ever boiled bread or dough or anything like that, but it took no time at all. The only thing that took any effort whatsoever was the mixing and kneading. The mixing wasn't bad because I used my electric mixer with a dough hook and the kneading is enjoyable. Not bad at all, and with a bread machine I'm sure they'll be a piece of cake. Bagel.

Taste scores

Mark: 8

Jessica: 7 (I think I can get it closer to bagel nirvana)

Ease of preparation: 7

Do it again? Yes, definitely but with improvements: try to keep the hole, try toppings and/or possibly blueberries, even if it means I get harangued by bagel purists. I may also try this other New York bagel recipe. It is pretty different from all of the other recipes I looked at, and does crazy stuff like use potato water, so it may just be the thing to make a super duper New York bagel rather than just a kind of normal bagel. We'll see. And I will try to find the malt syrup/powder, just in case it actually does make a difference.

Recommend? Yes, definitely. I now firmly believe that everyone should make bagels from scratch, at least once!

Bagels.

I've been thinking about my next new recipe and I've got the crazy idea to make bagels from scratch. I always complain about how you can't get good bagels over here, especially outside of London, so I thought I'd give it a try. I've always thought that bagels were probably impossible to make - you have to boil and bake, for crying out loud - but I've done a little research and I think it just might be possible. 

Although the first shock was that there IS NO BAGEL RECIPE IN THE JOY OF COOKING. I couldn't believe it. The Joy of Cooking tells you how to make anything and everything. But it wasn't there. It's just not in it.

So I looked online, and there are some recipes and some commentary, and indeed some videos on YouTube, though I haven't actually watched any of them. I'm going to try one of the New York bagel recipes. Everyone talks about wanting to try an egg bagel recipe, but I'm not sure I want to go there just yet, and I'm not really sure what the difference would be anyway.

I might try it this weekend, depending on whether or not I can find malt powder, which seems to be important. One of the reasons I thought about trying to produce my own bagels was so I could have a blueberry bagel, which you really genuinely can't find outside of London, unless you order them online, which is very pricey (and you have to order in lots of 72 bagels!!!). But as I was researching, I ran across a blog post from a native New Yorker about how everyone outside of New York is eating faux bagels or "bagels" (which is the way New Yorkers seem to refer to these monstrosities when writing about them online) and that things like blueberries and sundried tomatoes are just ridiculous. So although my alternate preferred topping of "everything" is acceptable by New York standards, I think this time I'll probably stick with a plain bagel recipe before I branch out.

I'll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with something to chew on from the aforementioned blog post, about blueberry bagels in particular:

"A bagel, you see, isn't meant to be a muffin with delusions of donuthood."

Recipe Number One: Beef Adobo.

For this one, since it came from a book, I won't post it here, but if it sounds good and you want to try it out, let me know and I can email it to you, or put it on Spark.

Beef Adobo

Category: Crockpot main dish

Prep time: about 20 minutes

Cooking time: 8-10 hours on low

No picture due to the brown-ness of the dish - thought it might look unappetising when it was actually quite good!

The recipe involves cubed beef with sliced onions in a sauce involving garlic, beef stock (I used a cube), soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and bay leaves. It doesn't have any vegetables involved, so it's best served with a salad or vegetables on the side. We ate it with brown rice as well. I actually forgot to add the green onions that you're supposed to serve on top, didn't even bother with the julienne carrots (I just can't make those happen, no matter how I try), and narrowly missed adding the lime juice, which goes on at the end, so an already simple and unfussy recipe can become even more so if you just want to use what's in the house.

We really enjoyed it - it's not too heavy, and was really yummy. A definite keeper - a nice way to begin!

(Scores are on a ten-point scale, ten being the best and one being the worst.)

Taste scores

Mark: 8

Jessica: 8

Ease of preparation: 8 (had to brown the meat, so it wasn't just a chuck-it-in-the-crock-pot, but pretty easy still).

Do it again? For sure!

Resolution.

I wasn't going to make any New Year's resolutions this year, since like a lot (most?) of people's mine would kind of fade away after a month...or sooner. So I'm not quite sure how it happened, but some time on Friday a resolution popped into my head without my realizing until it was too late and it was formed. But it's kind of a nice resolution, and I think I might actually stick to it, especially since I negotiated it downwards with myself, once I realized what was happening.

After all that preamble, it's not very exciting, but I've decided to try two new recipes a month. They don't have to be healthy, but they can be, they don't have to be a specific type (e.g. "for dinner" or "crockpot recipes") or satisfy any other criteria; they just have to be new. And two a month seems pretty achievable - even considering my current laziness quotient and the ebb and flow of my interest in kitchen.

And since I've learned via julietpink that goals are assisted by the process of public declaration-group monitoring, I'm saying it out loud, and committing to tracking the recipes on this blog. 

So today is the first day, and the first recipe is in process is happening today - in the crockpot, to be exact, bubbling away as we speak. It's Beef Adobo and I'll let you all know how it goes. I was also planning on actually posting the recipes as I go in case any one wanted to try it out, but then I started thinking about copyright infringement (since it is unlikely that I'll be making up any of these new recipes from scratch, so they're all going to be from published books, I imagine, except for the ones from the Internet, which I can of course link to) so now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do.  I also can't decide if I should post the recipe BEFORE I try it, so if anyone wants to play along they can, or if I should post it after I try it, so I can say how good or bad it was and save other people the trouble. 

So of course, as you can see, I'm spending more of my time debating the minutiae of the objective I've set for myself than I am actually doing it...which should not surprise anyone. But it is there, happening, in the kitchen, so I've at least achieved the first step out of 24, before talking it to death.