Making Pesto With Morgan

Morgan is a wee bit shy and doesn't like for me to post photos of her.  I think she'll be okay, though, with this little pic of her presenting the yummy pesto that she made with me.

Homemade Basil Pesto

2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup walnuts
3 peeled and roughly chopped garlic cloves
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese or a combination of the two
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Use the measurements as guidelines and adjust the amounts to suit your taste.

In a small saute pan or skillet, toast the pine nuts and walnuts over medium heat, shaking constantly, for a few minutes to give them a nice toasty flavor, but being careful not to let them burn ... the difference between toasted nutty goodness and blaring smoke alarm is, oh, about a second, haha.  Let the nuts cool until they can be handled easily.

Put the basil, pine nuts, and walnuts in a food processor and pulse a few times to roughly chop.  Add the garlic cloves and pulse a few times.

With the food processor running, slowly stream in the olive oil.  Stop processing and scrape down the sides of the food processor with a spatula.

Add the grated cheese and pulse just to combine.  Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper and pulse to combine.

Let the pesto rest for a few minutes, especially if you're using Kosher salt, which has larger granules than table salt and needs some time to dissolve.  Then give your pesto a quick pulse in the food processor, taste it, and add more olive oil, salt, or pepper if necessary.

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

Spaghetti squash is a tasty, low-carb option to use in place of pasta.  I'm not gonna lie to you, it absolutely does not have the same flavor and consistency as pasta; it is, however, yummy and satisfying.  You can mix it with leftover tomato sauce and top it with cheese to make a great low-carb meatless casserole.  This is a nice Meatless Monday kind of main dish if you're trying to reduce your carb or animal protein intake or cook on a budget.  And a big bonus for my family is that our young'uns like it and every serving provides them a couple of their daily servings of veggies as well as some calcium.

I don't have exact measurements to give you for this recipe.  I used two fairly small spaghetti squash, a few cups of leftover tomato sauce, and enough grated Mozzarella cheese to cover the surface of the mixture, and cooked it in an 8-by-8 baking dish.

For the tomato sauce, here's a recipe for a quick and easy weeknight tomato sauce or use your favorite recipe.

There are several ways to prepare spaghetti squash.  You can Google "how to cook spaghetti squash" for info about different prep methods.  I chose the method where you cut the squash in half lengthwise before baking.  This requires a very, very sharp chef's knife or cleaver and some muscle; having a strong hubby to hack through the squash for you is highly recommended (muchas gracias, mi amor!).  After you cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds and pulp.  If you're patient, it's worth separating out the seeds to roast in the oven, just like pumpkin seeds.  They're super-yummy!

Line a baking sheet with foil and spray the foil with nonstick spray.  Put the squash halves cut side down on the foil and bake at 375 degrees until you can easily insert a fork right through the skins and the flesh, about 30 to 45 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a while, then use a fork to scrape the flesh from the squash.  The flesh will shred into spaghetti-like strands as it's scraped.




Shredded spaghetti squash


Mix the squash and tomato sauce and put it in a greased casserole dish. 

Cover with a nice, thick layer of grated Mozzarella. 

Bake at 375 degrees until the casserole is hot and the cheese is ooey-gooey melted, 20 to 30 minutes.

Broccoli Cauliflower Cheese Soup




This twist on broccoli cheese soup is creamy, cheesy, and pretty darn nutritious.  It has just a touch of butter and flour, only enough to allow the cheese to melt without separating, and it has milk instead of cream.  The primary thickener is the cauliflower.  Our gradually-becoming-less-picky kiddos like this soup, and it provides them lots of veggies and calcium ... winning!!!

For the cheddar in this recipe I highly recommend the Cabot extra sharp white cheddar available at Wal-Mart.  I know, it's totally counterintuitive to think the best cheese comes from Wal-Mart, but this is our family favorite for taste, smooth melting, and reasonable price ... go figure.

One other recommendation, and it's about specialty ingredients.  It's seldom necessary to invest in specialty ingredients.  For instance, the cheapest black peppercorns will taste great as long as they're freshly ground and I love Lawry's seasoned salt more than any higher-priced version I've ever had.  Once in a while, though, a specialty ingredient really makes the recipe, well, special.  I think that's the case with this soup, where I used Penzeys toasted granulated onion (no, they don't pay me anything to tout their products; boy, don't I wish).  You can of course substitute regular onion powder, but the results just won't be quite as toasty yummy good.

Broccoli Cauliflower Cheese Soup Recipe

3/4 pound broccoli crowns
1 head of cauliflower
cloves of half a head of garlic
2 cups stock (see note)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup lowfat milk
1/2 pound grated extra sharp cheddar cheese
2 teaspoons toasted granulated onion
salt and freshly ground black pepper
splash of Sherry (optional)

Note:  The best stock for this soup is a smoky one, such as a stock made from smoked chicken or ham bones.  Use the best stock you have available.

Procedure

Rinse and drain the broccoli and cauliflower.  Trim away the very ends of the broccoli stems and any leaves.  Cut the florets off the stems and roughly chop the florets.  Set the chopped florets aside.  Roughly chop the broccoli stems.  

Cut the cauliflower head in quarters and cut away the stem/core and leaves.  Rough chop the quartered cauliflower. 

Peel the garlic cloves.

(Remember to throw all the veggie trimming "discards" in your freezer bag for making stock later.)

Veggies prepped and ready to fulfill their soup destiny

Fill a large heavy-bottomed stockpot with water, add a few big pinches of salt, and bring to a low boil.  Add the broccoli stem chunks, the cauliflower chunks, and the garlic cloves.  Boil gently until all veggies are very tender and can be easily pierced with a fork, about 20 minutes.

Once you have the broccoli stems, cauliflower, and garlic boiling in the salted water, bring the stock to a boil in a large saucepan, add broccoli florets, and gently boil while you complete the remaining steps.

When the broccoli stems, cauliflower, and garlic are tender, drain them through a strainer, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Put the heavy-bottomed stockpot back on the range; you're going to use it again.  Process the broccoli stems, cauliflower, and garlic in a food processor or blender until smooth, working in batches if necessary, and adding a little of the cooking water if necessary.

In the heavy-bottomed stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat, add the flour, and whisk for a couple of minutes to cook the flour.  Whisk in the milk and continue whisking until the mixture thickens like gravy.  Add the cheese a handful at a time, stirring to incorporate.

When all the cheese has melted, pour in the stock with the broccoli florets, add the toasted granulated onion, salt and pepper to taste, and Sherry, if using.  Simmer for a while before serving to allow all the flavors to blend.

Makes roughly (very roughly) 2 1/2 quarts of soup.

A Pause To Admire Nature's Beauty

This beautiful anole took a stroll across our patio railing.  Check out his beautiful scarlet throat.

Succulent Roast Chicken

This is a simple recipe for roast chicken.

1 3-5 pound brined chicken
10 or more garlic cloves, peeled
1 lime, cut in half
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Spice rub of your choice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cover a shallow sheet pan with aluminum foil (for easy cleanup later).  Spray both sides of a baking rack with oil (also for easy cleanup later), using your Misto sprayer or a Pam-type cooking spray.  Set the baking rack on top of the foil-lined sheet pan. 

Stuff the chicken cavity with the peeled garlic cloves and the lime halves. 

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and plenty of your choice of spice rub.

Rub the oil/salt/pepper/spice rub mixture all over the chicken and under the skin.  Truss the chicken.   While this isn't absolutely necessary, it will give you a prettier, more evenly roasted chicken.  I'm no expert on trussing techniques.  Basically you want to pull the wings in tight to the body of the bird and tie the tips of the drums together.  You can do a Google search for "trussing a chicken" and find some good instructional YouTube videos that can demonstrate far better than I can.

Place the trussed or un-trussed chicken on the baking rack and put it in the preheated oven.  Roast for 30 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and roast in 30-minute increments until done, checking the temperature of the chicken every 30 minutes with an instant read thermometer.  The USDA recommends an internal temperature of 165 degrees for poultry.  One of the great things about brining your poultry before roasting is that in addition to making it more flavorful it also allows it to retain tenderness and juiciness so you can easily roast it to a safe temperature without drying it out.

Morgan's Cream of Cauliflower Soup

This soup received an enthusiastic seal of approval from my stepdaughter Morgan.  I used homemade smoked chicken stock (made with the carcass of a chicken my hubby smoked) and Penzey's toasted, granulated onion powder, which gave the soup a smoky, toasty flavor and a golden brown color.  Store-bought chicken stock and onion powder would make a really good soup too.  Just use the best ingredients you have available.

This recipe makes enough soup for a starter course for 4 people.

Morgan's Cream of Cauliflower Soup

1 head of cauliflower
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 cup half-and-half
big splash of sherry (optional)

Cut the cauliflower into quarters.  Trim and remove the leaves and core (don't forget to toss them into a freezer bag for making veggie broth).  Roughly dice the cauliflower quarters into chunks.  Boil the cauliflower chunks in lightly salted water in a saucepot until very tender, about 10-15 minutes.  Drain.

Meanwhile, as the cauliflower is boiling, melt butter in a large, heavy saucepan.  Add the flour and cook and whisk for several minutes to cook the flour.  Whisk in the chicken stock, several grinds of black pepper, and onion powder.  Stir in the cauliflower.  Simmer 5 minutes to marry the flavors. 

Carefully puree the soup using an immersion (stick) blender.  Alternatively, you can cool the soup for a while and puree it in a blender, then return it to the saucepan.

Add half-and-half and sherry and simmer another 5 minutes, then serve.

Chicken with Asiago, Prosciutto, and Sage

This recipe is slightly adapted from this recipe from the blog Dinners for a Year and Beyond.

Chicken with Asiago, Prosciutto, and Sage


serves 4-6


2 pounds of chicken breast tenders, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
flour
salt and pepper
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 pound asiago cheese (shredded or sliced into thin strips)
1/2 pound thin prosciutto slices
2/3 cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons minced fresh sage
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
whole sage leaves (for garnish)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

First sprinkle chicken all over very lightly with salt and set aside for a few minutes while you measure and prepare the other ingredients.

Sprinkle salted chicken with pepper and dredge in flour, shaking off excess.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter with the olive oil in large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken breasts and saute until brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side.  Lay the chicken pieces in a rimmed baking sheet and set the saute pan aside; you'll be using the pan with any remaining drippings for the sauce.

Sprinkle or place most of the cheese over the chicken pieces, then drape prosciutto slices over each chicken piece, and finally top with the remainder of the cheese.  Bake until the cheese melts and the prosciutto gets slightly crisp, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile add wine, minced sage, and remaining 2 tablespoons butter to skillet.  Boil until sauce is reduced by half, scraping up brown bits.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice.

Transfer chicken pieces to serving platter.  Top each with a sage leaf, drizzle pan sauce over, and serve.