This meal was hot. But delicious and very easy to make.
Here’s what you need –
Melt the butter and Sriricha sauce together. Add garlic and cook for one minute. Cook the shrimp in the garlic sauce mixture. Add in mint and basil until wilted. Serve on top of arugula, rice, pasta, whatever fancies you.
Enjoy with a glass of milk. You’ll need it.
Julia Child was the reason I gained 5 pounds last summer. That said, I had to give up cooking from Mastering the Art of French Cooking until the weight fell off. Almost a year later and we’re finally back to our starting weight… which meant time for chicken with cream sauce!
(Don’t worry, I’ll eat her cooking in moderation now, so I can make it more often and post the recipes).
Chicken with paprika and onion cream sauce is one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever created in my kitchen. It was the first recipe I ever cooked of Julia’s and a favorite I come back to. I’ve altered it slightly (no one needs to use 9 tablespoons of butter!). Here’s what you need –
Preheat the oven at 400 F. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Add a few drops of lemon juice to each breast and rub in a sprinkle of white pepper and salt. Flip and repeat.
Drop the minced onions in boiling water for one minute. Drain, run cold water over them and drain again. In a heavy casserole, cook the onions with the salt, paprika, and butter over low to medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the onions are translucent but not brown.
Arrange chicken in the covered casserole (on top of everything) and pop into the oven for 10 minutes. The chicken will feel springy to the touch when it’s done. Place on a plate and cover.
Place the casserole over a burner on low to medium heat again and add:
Stir frequently until the sauce thickens (about five minutes). Plate the chicken and pour sauce over.
I served this with an arugula salad which consisted of arugula, roasted chopped almonds, olive oil, lemon juice, Romano cheese and pepper.
Julia recommends serving this chicken with artichoke. So, I decided to make my first artichoke. To do so, pull the stem off the bottom and trim down with a knife, trim the leaves and drop into a bowl of cold water with a teaspoon of vinegar (to help preserve color).
While the artichoke is soaking, bring water in a large sauce pan up to a boil. Add a dash of salt. Toss in the artichoke and cook for approximately 30 minutes or until soft. Remove and eat with the leftover cream sauce.
Feast!
Baked tilapia with dill and lemon. Served with steamed broccoli and carrots and a baked sweet potato. Boring but filling!
Boston was hot today. We’re talking 90 degrees, potential (severe) thunder storms and humidity that forces you inside at 2 PM. Unsure about the weather, we decided to stay home today (with lots of morning and evening walks). It was the perfect excuse to crack out the latest issue of Bon Appetit and make some grub.
We decided on grilled pork tenderloin with cherry salsa served with a side of sauteed greens. I halved the pork recipe since it was supposed to serve 6. If you make a side dish, the half recipe (the one I’m including below) will definitely serve 4.
Here’s what you’ll need –
One thing to note about this recipe, it’s helpful if you prepare everything in advance. Then there’s no scrambling as you go through each step.
Combine 1/4 cup cilantro, half of the shallots, 2 tbsp lime juice and vegetable oil in a bag. Toss in the pork tenderloin and marinate for 15 minutes at room temperature. Every few minutes pick up the bag and move the loin around.
While this is marinating, pit and halve your cherries, add to the cilantro and shallots. Add chile pepper, 1 tbsp lime juice and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and let this sit in the fridge so that the flavor meld together.
If you do not have a grill (like myself), you can do this on the stove. Remove the loin after its done marinating and heavily salt and pepper it. Heat your stove to medium high heat and spray with Pam or another cooking oil. Throw on your meat.
Turn the meat every minute or so. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 145. Remove from the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Don’t cut it open! You will lose all the wonderful juices that makes this melt in your mouth.
While the pork tenderloin is sitting, make your sauteed greens. I recommend doing the prep work before hand (chop everything!) and then just throw it together quickly.
Here’s what you’ll need –
Chop up your swiss chard, and separate the stems from the leaves. Chop onions and garlic. Heat olive oil on high heat. Add onions, chard and garlic. Cook until onions are soft and add leaves to the dish. Cook for 3 – 5 minutes until leaves are wilted. Serve with a splash of lemon juice.
Cut the pork tenderloin into thin slices and top with cherry salsa.
End of the week usually means all of my meat is frozen, my vegetables mostly used up and inspiration zilch. My go to in these moments is always stir fry – you can put whatever you want in them, and as long as you have a good sauce to hold it together, you’re golden.
One of my favorite sauces to make is Szechuan sauce. It’s tangy, can be spicy if you want it to, and super easy to make.
Here’s what you need –
Combine ingredients and use as a dipping sauce, stirred in at the end, or a marinade. Last night I marinated 1/2 lb of shrimp in the sauce.Veggies included broccoli, carrots and corn.
The food blogosphere has been raving about this sauce for years. A coworker of mine even gave it a try and a recommendation. When I was in the grocery store last weekend, I whole canned tomatoes were on sale and the light bulb went off in my head.
This is literally the easiest sauce recipe known to man (other than jarred) and it is amazing. Here’s what you’ll need –
In a large sauce pan, combine the tomatoes, butter and onion. Heat on high until it starts to simmer, then lower the temperature and let it simmer for 45 minutes. Occasionally crush the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Salt to taste at the end.
James and I both agreed, this would be even better if you threw in a bay leaf, and maybe a splash of red wine. Either way, it’s still amazing and super simple. Serve on top of pasta, rice, quinoa….
It’s official, we’ve signed up for a CSA this summer. Prepare yourself blog, the vegetable attack commences June 15!
There’s a pasta shop in the North End that I live for – DePasquale’s. It’s family run, and some of the most amazing food you’ll try. They make a mean pesto, amazing sauce and breath taking pasta. We’re talking raviolis stuffed with prosciutto and fig, squid ink fettuccine and more.
We made a stop this weekend and picked up some lobster fettuccine. Delicious. Since you can’t serve lobster fettuccine alone, we decided to pair it with shrimp in a brown butter sauce.
Here’s what you’ll need –
Start boiling your water for the pasta. In a large frying pan, melt the butter and continue to heat on medium until it starts to brown (about 5 minutes). Add parsley. Add shrimp and cook through (about 3 minutes). Chop asparagus into bite size pieces and add to pan.
During this time you should have probably added the pasta to the boiling water. If it’s fresh, it’ll only need about 3 minutes to cook. Drain and add the pasta to the shrimp. Toss and coat with butter.
Bova’s in the North End provided dinner tonight. Italian meat and asparagus and prosciutto calzones. Yum.
Bon Appetit recipe here – Soba Noodle Salad with Salmon. I pretty much followed the recipe to a T but baked the salmon instead of pan frying (ugh, sticky fish no thanks!). We omitted the sesame seeds and avocado as well, though I’m sure it would have been delicious.
As James said to me the other day, “Our meals have been significantly improved since we started receiving Bon Appetit in the mail.”
Touche.
Chompzone 