Brussel Sprouts!

When thinking about tasty sides to serve with dinner, I'm pretty sure most people think of brussel sprouts, right? Yeah, neither do I. In fact, I can't say I really ever tasted any that I liked until now. This is an über-simple tasty way to prepare these healthy, what I now consider to be under-appreciated, veggies. So simple, I'm not even going to list measurements; just wing it!

Brussel Sprouts

brussel sprouts (duh)
butter
salt
pepper
fresh grated parmesan

Prepare the brussel sprouts. When picking out your brussel sprouts at the store, I was advised to look for the smaller ones whose leaves are still pretty tightly packed, as these will have a fresher, less pungent flavor. To prepare the brussel sprouts, remove the outer leaves so that you are left with leaves laying tight - ideally you'd like them to stay together when you cook. Trim the stems to clean it up, but leave enough to hold the leaves on. Then cut each in half, lengthwise.

Cook em. Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Once the butter is hot, lay each brussel sprout half cut side down in the pan in a single layer, and cover. Cook like this for a few minutes (up to about 5). Essentially you are looking for the outer leaves to turn a bright green and for the cut side to be nicely browned in the butter. I then flip them over and stir them in the butter gently to get good coverage.

Serve! The brussel sprouts are ready for eating now! Serve them up, sprinkle with a little freshly grated parmesan cheese, and enjoy!

Fresh, small brussel sprouts

Trimmed and sliced

Placed cut side down in butter 

Flip when leaves are bright, and bottoms are browned

Topped with parmesan, and ready to eat

Cream of Carrot Soup

This is a pretty simple recipe for making a carrot soup that is perfect for a cold rainy day. Because it is such a mild soup, it is pretty easy to add in another flavor or some heat without messing the whole thing up. Starting with a basic cream of carrot soup recipe, I added in a roasted hatch chili pepper to provide the kick I was looking for. Let it rain, let it snow, and let's go make some soup!

Cream of Carrot Soup

6 large carrots, coarsely chopped
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 chili pepper (I used a hatch chili)4-6 cloves of garlic, halved
2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp pasilla chili powder (or you can substitute ground cumin)
salt and cracked pepper to taste

Roast chili pepper. When cooking with a gas stove, I like to just roast the pepper over a burner until the skin is nicely charred. Then I use a knife to scrape off all the char, and chop up the cooked pepper (trying to avoid most of the seeds). 

Cook vegetables. Add the carrots, onion, chili, garlic, and chicken stock to a large pot and bring to a boil. Cook until carrots are soft when pierced with a fork, 10-15 minutes.

Blend. Either using an immersion blender (much easier) or a conventional blender, puree the vegetables and stock until you have a pretty smooth consistency. 

Reduce. Combine with the cream and pasilla powder, and simmer until reduced by about one fourth. Season to taste with salt, and serve with cracked pepper. 

Makes about 4 servings.

The goods

Roasting the chili

Cook the veggies

Garnish with pepper

Spargelsuppe

Two years ago this month, I took a trip to Europe with two friends (Connie and Doug) to attend our friends' wedding (Alex and Monika). When the three of us first arrived in Berlin, we went looking for a place to eat and stumbled upon an empty restaurant after quite a lot of walking. Apparently, this time of year is the season for white asparagus, and it seems like every restaurant in Germany was serving some form of it as their "special". This particular establishment was serving it in soup form - the most common, by far - under the name Spargelsuppe (literally Asparagus Soup.. mind-blowing, I know). Anyway, I think that Connie, Doug and I agreed that this ended up being the best version of Spargelsuppe we had on the trip, so I attempted to re-create the flavor. So far, this is the closest recipe I've come up with:

Spargelsuppe

1 lb white asparagus, peeled (like a carrot) and chopped into 1-inch pieces, tops discarded

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 cup cream

1 cup stock (I prefer chicken, but vegetable would probably work fine)

1/4 cup white wine

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp finely chopped sage

1 tsp sugar

dash of fresh ground nutmeg

salt, pepper

Peel, chop, and cook the asparagus. It is important to peel white asparagus because it has a layer of fibrous "skin" that is tough to chew. Generally speaking, a once-over with a carrot peeler will do. Bring 3 1/2 cups of salted water to a boil. Add the chopped asparagus pieces and sugar, and boil, partially covered, until tender - about 20 minutes. 

Warm the cream and broth. While the asparagus is cooking, combine the cream, stock, onion, and sage in another saucepan, and warm over medium-low heat. Try not to let it boil - we just want it warmed up enough to cook and soften the onion a bit. 

Blend cream mixture. Once the asparagus has finished cooking, scoop out about half of the pieces, and add them to the cream mixture. Using an immersion blender, blend the cream mixture until smooth. 

Combine. Once the cream mixture is blended, combine with the asparagus water and remaining pieces and add the wine, juice of half a lemon, a dash of fresh ground nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Whisk everything together and warm over medium heat until most of the foam on top has left (blending the cream usually produces a bit of foam on top, so I found that heating the soup, stirring periodically, until the foam is mostly gone is a good amount of time for this step).

Garnish. For a quick garnish on top, I fried up the extra sage leaves in some butter. They added a tasty little crisp to the soup. 

If all goes well, you'll be left with a surprisingly crisp, light soup that's perfect for a cool spring or summer evening. 

Makes 3-4 servings, depending on your appetite. 

Wonton "Pasta" with Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese

I seem to be using butternut squash a lot these days.. I think it is mostly due to how easy it is to prepare and its versatility. In this case, the simplicity of the dish really makes it stand out as "post-worthy". As you will surely notice, there is nothing difficult about this recipe and it would be very easy to play around with (stuffing the wontons with different fillings, for example). All the flavors below just seemed to "work" when I tried it, so that's what I'm posting. 

I like the lightness of the wonton wrappers as compared to pasta. This light texture calls for a light sauce like brown butter, otherwise the wontons would be over-powered (like if a thick alfredo sauce was used).

Butternut Squash & Goat Cheese Wonton "Pasta" in Brown Butter

1 butternut squash

1 package of goat cheese

fresh rosemary or sage

1 package wonton wrappers (one squash will make roughly 40)

unsalted butter

Roast the butternut squash. Preheat oven to 375˚. Cut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Make a few slices in the skin on the backside of each half and lay cut side down on the baking sheet. I place some sprigs of the fresh herbs under the halves to add some flavor. Bake until very tender, approximately 45 minutes. When you can handle the squash (preferably while it's still hot), use a fork to scrape out the inside into a bowl. 

Assemble the wontons. On parchment paper, lay out a portion of the wonton wrappers (I usually work with roughly 10 at a time). Don't let the wrappers sit out too long before using, as they will dry out and be more difficult to work with. I go so far as to close up the package while assembling each batch. Place a small scoop of butternut squash and a bit of goat cheese into the middle of each wonton wrapper. Close the wontons by wetting two edges of each square and folding them closed, making sure to trap as little air as possible inside. How you fold them up after this is up to you - I tend to fold them into little square envelopes. At this point the wontons are ready to be cooked or frozen! Simple, eh?  

To cook, lower them into boilding water and let cook for about 3 minutes, or until they float. The wontons generally sink when first placed in the water, so you want to be sure that they don't stick to the bottom of the pot, which they tend to do quickly and easily.

I like to serve mine in a simple brown butter sauce. To make the sauce, simple melt some butter in a pan over medium heat (how much depends on how many people - I do 1/4 cup at a time for myself). Throw in a few sprigs of the same fresh herbs that were used while roasting the squash, and simply keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally so the butter does not burn. The butter will start to turn a golden color while cooking (in case you were wondering, the milk solids in the butter are toasting, causing the color change and aroma). Be careful not to over-cook and burn the butter, as it can change quickly.

Pour the brown butter over the wonton pastas, and you have a simple, tasty dish!

Here are a few pictures of the process:

 

Roasting the butternut squash

The squash filling after scrapped out of the skin

Wonton wrappers laid out with goat cheese

Added the butternut squash

Closing them up

All folded, ready to cook or freeze!

Added rosemary (or sage) to the melted butter

Browned butter

I like to put a little of the butter in the bottom of the dish so the wontons don't stick

Real close-up

Voila!

Meatloaf!

This ain't your mama's meatloaf. I was minding my own business this afternoon, casually watching Food Network in the background, when Bobby Flay's Throwdown came on. They were making meatloaf. It looked good. So I decided to make some! So off I went. I noticed at the end of the show that Bobby lost the competition, so I figured I had to come up with my own. I've never made meatloaf before, so it's kind of like I had a clean slate to work with! The result was a flavorful, moist, and rich meatloaf! Let me tell you.. I WILL be making this again, and I WON'T be changing a thing. :)

Balsamic Glazed Meatloaf
Stuffed with mozzarella, basil, and roasted tomatoes

For the roasted tomatoes:
sugar plum grape tomatoes (20-25 or so)
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
fresh thyme

For the meat mixture:
1 medium sweet yellow onion, finely chopped
1 orange bell pepper (or red or yellow), finely chopped
5-6 cloves garlic, crushed/chopped
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 lb ground beef (80% or 85% lean)
1 lb ground bison
2 eggs
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
1 tbsp minced fresh thyme
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 lb mozzarella cheese, sliced
5-6 large basil leaves

For the glaze:
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Make the roasted tomatoes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut each tomato in half lengthwise and lay cut-side up on a foil-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt, ground pepper, and thyme leaves as you see fit. Roast in the oven until tomatoes are soft and bubbly, about 15-20 minutes.

Cook the vegetables. Heat up a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes to the pan. Saute until vegetables are cooked through, about 5 minutes. Set aside and let cool.

Prepare the meat mixture. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, parsley, and thyme. This will ensure that the herbs are distributed evenly throughout the meat. Add the meat, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup ketchup, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, and cooked vegetables, with salt and ground pepper to taste. Mix with your hands until evenly blended.

Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees.

Assemble the meatloaf. Place roughly 1/2 of the meat mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper in the size and shape of your meatloaf. Line up the basil leaves down the middle of the meat, followed by the mozzarella, then topped with roasted tomatoes. Use the remaining meat mixture to cover the stuffing. In a separate small bowl, prepare the glaze by whisking together the ketchup, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Brush the glaze over the entire meatloaf.

Bake uncovered for about 1 hour. Let sit for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Here are a few pictures of the process:

 The ingredients
Note the wine: pretty much essential for an enjoyable evening ;)

The tomatoes, ready for roasting

Almost done roasting..

Veggies ready to saute

Meat mixture

Layering the basil and mozzarella

Followed by the tomatoes and the rest of the meat

Brushing the glaze over the formed loaf

Fully glazed

Fresh out of the oven

Look at the gooey cheese!

Butternut Squash Tartlets

This week, the Leftover Wine Club in my building met to finish off some, well, leftover wine (duh!). I wanted to bring something fun to snack on, so I looked at what was in my kitchen for ideas. I had a butternut squash sitting around - who doesn't - so I figured I'd use it! I found the basic tartlet recipe online, and changed a few things to my liking (particularly the use of phyllo dough instead of making pastry dough, cause who really has time for that??). From what I could tell, it went over well.. I know I enjoyed them.

Butternut Squash Tartlets

1.5 lb butternut squash

8 oz cream cheese

2 eggs

½ cup heavy cream

½ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tbsp chopped fresh sage

Phyllo dough

Melted butter

Grated cheddar cheese, as needed (approx 8 oz)

Roast the butternut squash. Preheat oven to 375˚. But squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Make a few slices in the skin on the backside of each half and lay cut side down on the baking sheet. Bake until very tender, approximately 45 minutes.

Prepare the filling. In a medium mixing bowl, whip the cream cheese with a hand mixer. Add in the eggs, cream, nutmeg, and sage. Blend until well-mixed. When the squash is done roasting, scrape out the inside, adding it to the cream cheese mixture.  Blend until well-mixed; it should be a thick liquid consistency. This filling can easily be refrigerated a day or two before using.

Make and fill the phyllo cups. Layer five or six pieces of phyllo dough, brushing melted butter between each layer. Cut into pieces slightly larger than the cups in the tin you are using (mini-muffin tin, small square silicon mold like this one from Sur La Table, etc). Lightly brush the tin or mold cups with melted butter, and mold the phyllo pieces into each cup. Place a bit of grated cheddar in each cup, then fill them the rest of the way up to the edge of the phyllo with the butternut squash mixture.

Bake in a 375˚ oven for roughly 10 minutes, until the filling is puffy. Serve warm.


This recipe made enough batter for me to fill 50-60 squares.

Here are a few pictures from the process:

 

 Cut phyllo dough
 

 Formed cups in the silicon mold
 

Added a bit of cheddar

The filling will be a consistency similar to pancake batter
 

Filling the cups

Almost done!
 

Perfection!

Hello

I like to cook. My goal is to post interesting recipes on here as I make them. So here goes nothing...