Recipe for zen!

pasta with crab, tomatoes, cream, and tarragon (from the frog commissary cookbook--which ROCKS!)

pasta & sauce

1/2 lb fresh cappellini pasta or 1/3 lb dried (angel hair works just fine too)
3 tb minced shallots
1/4 c madeira (hmmm, i think i substituted red wine?)
1/2 c dry white wine
2 tsp minced fresh tarragon or 3/4 tsp dried
1/2 tsp pepper
1 2/3 c heavy cream
1/4 tsp grated lemon peel
1 tsp salt
1 c peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes (or 1 can)

crab saute

1/4 c butter
3 tb minced scallions
1/4 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 c peeled seeded chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 tb lemon juice
1/2 lb crab (canned crab is ok)
1 tb minced parsely

cook pasta, drain, set aside.

sauce:
In a wide saucepan, combine shallots, madeira, wine, tarragon, pepper. Reduce the mixture to 1/4 cup. Toward the end of the reduction, tilt the pan back and forth to avoid burning around the edges. Add cream, lemon peel, and salt. Bring to a hard boil 5 min, stirring occasionally. Stir in the tomatoes and lemon juice and set aside.

Crab saute:
Heat butter in saute pan. Add scallions, tarragon, tomatoes, salt, pepper, lemon juice. Heat until very hot. Add crabmeat and shake gently to heat without breaking up any lumps (if you are fortunate enough to afford lump crabmeat!) Mix pasta with cream sauce, top with crab saute, and sprinkle with parsely. Bon Appetit!!

i own

the prettiest bike in baltimore. i know it's true 'cuz the girl that works at golden west told me so, and hipsters know what's up!
;) lol

Recipe for Stinky Pee

...but oh-so-good.  also from college days, resurrected.

Farfalle with Asparagus in Lemon Cream Sauce

ingredients:

3/4 lb pasta of your choice really.  something that stirs well. grated rind of 1 lemon

1 tb olive oil 1/2 cup milk

2 raw garlic cloves, or 6 roasted garlic cloves 1/4 tsp nutmeg

3/4 lb asparagus (1 bunch) 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c heavy cream 1/3 c parm or parm/romano

directions:

cook pasta, set aside.

heat oil, add garlic & asparagus. saute tossing constantly, ~ 2 min.  pour ~2 tbs water into pan, cover, & cook until asparagus is green & almost tender (<5>

combine cream, milk, lemon rind, nutmeg, salt & pepper.  pour over asparagus.  Bring to a boil.  pour onto pasta, add cheese, & stir until sauce thickens by the cheese melting.

YUUUUUUMY!

too good not to share!

this recipe is adapted from my Thai cookbook, but having just finished a huge bowl of soup, it IS too good not to share with all my adoring fans (...snort!)

Galangal, chicken, and coconut soup

(first off, i don't even know what galangal is, i substitute ginger, and, i am not a fan of coconut.  but coconut milk is ok!)

Ingredients:

4 lemon grass stalks (now available at the safeway on 25th st, of all places!! otherwise, Han-Ah-Rheum, or the thai place off of greenmount & 33rd-ish)

2 14oz cans coconut milk

2 c chicken stock (i make my own veggie stock, it works fine.  and i add more like 3-4 cups, to thin out the soup and make it last longer!)

1" piece of galangal (yup, i use a couple long slices of ginger)

10 black peppercorns, crushed (used a mix)

10 kaffir lime leaves, torn (or the rind of half a lime)

11 oz skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into thin, bite size strips

1 cup button (white) mushrooms, halved if large (i just realized that i'd previously read this as straw mushrooms, they are yummy too!)

1 can baby corn cobs, quartered lengthwise and cut in half to make it easier to eat!

4 tb lime juice

3 tb Thai fish sauce

chopped fresh red chillies (though i just bought some red chili oil & pouring that on top makes it look like thai landing's soup!), scallions, and cilantro leaves to garnish

Directions:

Cut off the lower 2" from each lemon grass stalk and chop finely.

Bring coconut milk and stock to a boil in large pan over medium heat.  Add lemon grass, ginger, peppercorns, and half the lime rind, reduce heat to low and simmer gently, 10 min (actually, longer, since i LOVE the lemongrass taste!)

Strain the soup into a clean pan.

Return the soup to low heat, stir in the chicken strips, mushrooms, and corn.  Simmer gently until the chicken is cooked.

Stir in the lime juice and fish sauce, then add remaining lime zest.

Garnish with cilantro, scallions, chillies or chili oil.

YUM!

Oldie but goodie

...from the college days (made for lunch/kids dinner)

Ingredients

1 package Original Uncle Bens rice (orange box with "23 herbs & spices"--hard to find these days with the surgence of 1-minute rice, microwave rice, etc.)

1 can black beans

1 can (tho i use frozen) corn

1 can diced skinned tomatoes (optional, we used to just do beans & corn)

lotta grated cheddar cheese

Directions

Cook rice accd'ing to instructions.

if using canned corn, throw in oven-safe container with black beans and tomatoes.  I opted to cook the frozen corn in the tomato juice poured off the canned tomatoes, seemed to work fine.

mix corn, rice, beans, tomatoes in oven-safe dish

cover (LOAD!) with cheddar, bake in oven til melted.

fingers crossed kids eat it (or, they'll just go hungry, kidding!)

make do with what you've got, part deux...

sooo, i had a horrendous day but i had planned on making onion soup.  mostly because, i have a bag of onions, and some green shoots were poking out of the bag, so, time to use 'em up, i'm guessing!  also, as usual, i had a ton of veggie stock in the freezer, so may as well use that up too!

Ingredients:

4 onions

about 6 chinese-soup containers' worth of stock

almost 1 stick of butter

fresh thyme

some chardonnay that's been tucked in the back of the fridge forever

sherry

salt

soy sauce 

pepper

(really, that's it?! that's all i need? oh wait, i forgot the piece de resistance....)

baguette (though all they had was an italian with sesame seeds, ah well)

swiss cheese (most recipes seemed to call for gruyere, but close enough.  i had some leftover from making artichoke dip for a super bowl party.)

Directions:

peel, slice onions.  heat butter in pan (cast iron was perfect for this job!!) on high (electric stove, boo.)  add onions, stir around for a bit (~5 min, then it was time to walk the dog to meet the man at the train station).  Turn on low (so as not to burn the house down in my absence).  

Got the baguette and a bottle of red (crucial to my state of mind, opened as soon as we returned!)

onions looked fine, so i "deglazed" (i'm guessing, that's what some recipes called for--i just dumped some white wine in) the onions with the wine.  This is where i added the fresh thyme--i love my barrels in the backyard, that stuff lives all winter long!

Turned the heat back up, moved all the onions into a bigger pot, and added all the stock.  (in retrospect, good thing i had so much stock! 4 onions is a LOT!)

While it was heating, I cut some thick slices of "baguette" and put them in the oven @ 350 on a pan, wrapped the rest of the bread in foil & threw that in too.  Also grated the Swiss at this point, too.

Brought it all to a boil (probably effectively killing any nutritional value of the onions/stock, but all in the name of flavor), but only for a moment.

then added salt (all in all, about 1 Tb salt and 2-3 Tb soy sauce, to taste) and pepper.  It was still missing that tangy bite, and luckily the sherry did it!

By now the bread slices were just a bit browned, took them out, (and the loaf) spooned the soup into a bowl, threw some cheese in, floated the bread (2 slices per bowl) and added more cheese, and put in the oven on broil.  (Also in retrospect, next time i will cut the bread up into more crouton-y sizes, it was kinda hard to cut it into bites sized pieces in the steaming hot bowls!)

After about 2 min it looked ready!

Boy was it yummy!  The man had had some reservations about this alone for dinner ("umm, isn't it kindof , brothy?") but we were both nicely full!  

And, I totally felt like I was reincarnating nights that my friends across the street who now live in Chile made french onion soup.  Awww...

din-din tonight

creative leftovers 1:

Ingredients:

1 grilled chicken breast, microwaved for 1 min to attempt to remove residual lighter fluid flavor due to overzealous dousing, and sliced thin

lotsa pizza mix cheese

pepper jack cheese

Brewer's Art bbq sauce (lucky to have this around! though any sweet bbq sauce would do)

1 kinda crappy pizza crust (last out of 3 from the ones at sold at Eddie's)

1 small onion, fortuitously already chopped a few days ago!

Instructions:

carmelize the onion (i used a hefty pat of the $2-on-sale country crock margarine-type substance) using a bit of brown sugar

while this is hap'nen, mix the sliced chicken with bbq sauce of choice

when onions are almost done, add chicken bbq mix (to continue to try and remove aforementioned lighter fluid taste)

add a bit of salt...spread on chix/onion/bbq mixture on pizza crust, add cheese (of course i used a LOT! yum!) & bake according to crust instructions.

Results:

fairly successful on the removing of lighter fluid taste.  Actually, the pizza kinda kicked ass, and i got to pat myself on the back for using crap that, separately, did NOT sound appealing, but came out quite good!