seared lemon chicken with potato and artichoke

this is adapted from cook's illustrated and a magazine article about healthy dishes.

cook's says to have a perfect seared chicken, bake chicken breasts in a tightly covered dishe for 30 to 45 minutes at 275.

so i did.

then you whisk together (for 2 breasts):

1 T melted butter
1/2 T flour
1/2 t cornstarch
ground pepper
and i added some italian seasoning

after the chicken is cooked, blot it and brush it with the mixture. Heat 1 T olive oit to smoking and sear, 3 min per side, in a pan you've already (here's the other recipe) browned 1 small chopped onion in 1 T olive oil, that has been set aside.

so when the chicken is cooked on one side, add 1 small red potato that has been cut in slices. turn the chicken over, and add 1 can of quartered artichokes, the cooked onion, and one lemon sliced thinly. cover. cook ten minutes. add grated parmesan to the chicken.

the lemon flavor is fab.

Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans

Adapted so wildly from this recipe that they’re no longer on speaking terms

Now, I’m going to have to insist that you make your own pesto. Okay, I can’t insist, but I do highly recommend it. Even the best store-bought stuff lacks the flavor wallop of making your own — they may look green, but turn out to be mostly oil — and with basil inching its way towards Greenmarkets, it’s more delicious than ever to make your own. Brightening the flavor with vinegar and a good helping of salt and pepper keep this from bland-dom (a critique of many pesto potato salads), and the green beans provide the perfect antidote to those carb-phobic types.

Serves 10

4 pounds small Yukon gold or red-skinned potatoes, quartered
1 pound green beans, cut into one-inch segments
1 to 2 small garlic cloves, peeled
2 bunches of basil (about one ounce each)
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
6 tablespoons (or more to taste) mild vinegar, such as champagne, white wine or a white balsamic
1/4 cup chopped green onions (scallions)
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
Parmesan cheese to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 10 minutes. Add beans; cook four minutes longer. Drain well and let cool, then transfer potatoes and beans to a large bowl.

Meanwhile, discard the stems from the basil and wash and dry the leaves. Puree them in a food processor with garlic, drizzling in enough olive oil that it gets saucy. Season the pesto with salt and pepper. [Alternately, you can swap this step with one cup of prepared pesto, but seriously, I think you'll be missing out.]

Toss the beans and potatoes with pesto. Stir in vinegar and pine nuts and season with salt, pepper and/or additional vinegar to taste. Finally, shave some wide flecks of parmesan over the salad with a vegetable peeler.

Serve immediately, or make this up to two hours in advance. It can be stored at room temperature.

Pimento Cheese Bisque

Savannah Sweet Potato Bisque
Moosewood Restaurant



The Savannah Sweet Potato Bisque is served at Moosewood Restaurant for $4.99. This recipe is for a serving size of two.

This is a collection of 2 recipes, one of which has 2 parts:
West Indian Red Beans
Coconut Rice
Savannah Sweet Potato Bisque

Moosewood Restaurant has served this soup in one version or another since the 1980’s. Moosewood called it "Pimiento Cheese Bisque" back then. In the restaurant kitchen, the bisque is sometimes made with pimientos and sometimes roasted red peppers. White potatoes can substitute but a deeply colored sweet potato makes it look beautiful.

Bisque Ingredients
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup diced sweet potato
1 cup diced white potato
2 cups vegetable stock or water
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar
1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, cubed
1/2 of a 4 oz jar pimientos, chopped
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Steal This Recipe® step-by-step Instructions
1) In a saucepan, cook the celery and onions in the oil on medium heat, stirring occasionally
2) When the onions are translucent, add the sweet and white potatoes, stock or water, cover and simmer until the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes
3) Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the cheeses, allow to soften a few minutes
4) Puree the soup in an immersion blender, blender or food processor with half of the pimientos
5) Add the rest of the pimientos and salt and pepper to taste, if the soup is too thick add milk, water or stock
6) Reheat gently but do not boil

Pimiento Cheese Bisque. Reprinted from Sundays At Moosewood Restaurant. Moosewood Collective. Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

fish chowder from diana's recipe exchg

Since this recipe comes from St. Cloud, I believe the connection is through Mary.

can be made in one medium stock pot on the stove; it is super easy and very tasty!!

1- lb fish fillets, sliced - cod, tilapia work well.
2- large onions diced or 3 smaller
4-5 potatoes- diced or sliced
3-cups water
1-can corn
salt (or seafood seasoning such as Old Bay)
pepper
basil
2-tablespoons butter
1 can evaporated milk (use skim or low fat to reduce calories)

Sauté onions in pan with butter until translucent- add potatoes-water and spices and cook for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are halfway cooked.
Add corn, fish and cook another 15-20 minutes or until fish is flaky.
Add evaporated milk ( and a little extra regular milk or 1/2 -1/2 to stretch if you wish)
Cook until just starting to boil.

Good with a nice crusty baguette.

Enjoy!

Elizabeth Anvary
Commercial Sales Executive Wells Fargo Insurance Services
400 S 1st Street Suite 210 St. Cloud, MN 56301
Phone: 320-259-3124
Cell: 320-492-3657

lettuce and potato soup

This is what the French do with the outer leaves of lettuce that are too tough for a salad. The soup is good hot or cold.


From The New York Times »

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 leek, white and light green parts only, sliced and rinsed well

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds (2 large) russet or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced

6 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock, or water

A bouquet garni made with a cleaned leek green, a bay leaf and a few sprigs each parsley and thyme, tied together

Salt to taste

5 ounces lettuce leaves, washed and coarsely chopped (4 cups)

Freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley or chives for garnish

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium heat and add the onion and leek. Cook, stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and the garlic and cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the potatoes, stock or water, and bouquet garni, and bring to a simmer. Add salt to taste, cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes.

2. Stir in the lettuce leaves and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes. The potatoes should be thoroughly tender and falling apart.

3. Using an immersion blender, or in a blender or food processor fitted with the steel blade (working in batches and covering the blender lid or food processor with a kitchen towel to prevent the hot soup from splashing), blend the soup until smooth. If you want a smoother, silkier texture, strain the soup through a medium strainer, pushing it through the strainer with a pestle, spatula, or the bowl of a ladle. Return the soup to the heat, add lots of freshly ground pepper, taste and adjust salt. , Heat through and serve, garnishing each bowl with chopped fresh parsley or chives.

Note: If serving cold, add a dollop of plain yogurt to the garnish.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Advance preparation: The soup can be made a day ahead and reheated. You can also freeze it for several weeks. Whisk well after thawing.

My Alice Waters' Saturday

Green Garlic Soup
from Chez Panisse Vegetables
As we researched recipes and information for our Garlic article we stumbled upon recipes for green garlic. Much of the information we gathered came from a newsletter called Food & Farm notes written by Terra Brockman. Terra's brother is Henry Brockman who is proprietor of an organic farm (Henry's Farm) in Illinois that produces over 500 varieties of organic produce. We thank Terra for her work and her recipe contributions.


green garlic photo by: gourmetsleuth.com

I N G R E D I E N T S
1 pound green garlic (about 8 to 10 plants)
1/2 pound Henry¹s new potatoes ***I used almost 1 lb of fingerling & yukon gold from the farmers market***
2 medium onions
1/4 pound unsalted butter
Salt
2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock

I N S T R U C T I O N S
Cut the garlic into thin rounds or half-circles. Unless very tough, the lower foot or so of the stem and leaves are fine to use. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Peel and chop the onions into small dice. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot, add the onions, and cook slowly until translucent and tender. Salt, and add the garlic and potatoes. Cook these together for 5 minutes, then pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook the soup until the potatoes are tender. Check the seasoning. This soup can be served rustic and chunky, or puréed.

and dis one too hedda

Grilled Marinated Potato Slices with Whole Green Onions and Romesco Sauce by Marlena Spieler from Yummy Potatoes: 65 Downright Delicious Recipes (Chronicle Books, 2007) Serves 4 to 6
Save in del.icio.us Rate this recipe E-mail to a friend		Slices of meaty, earthy potatoes, preboiled for inner fluffiness, brushed with an extra-virgin olive oil marinade, and grilled to utter crispness. Barbecuing slabs — steaks, really — of lightly boiled, marinated floury potatoes gives a delicious result, like no other. Serve with whole green onions if you like, and Romesco Sauce, the traditional Catalan accompaniment to the onions.
		convert Ingredients For the Romesco Sauce 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, as needed 3 to 4 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs 3 to 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled 1/4 cup dry-roasted almonds 3 tomatoes, fire-roasted (from a can is fine; otherwise, roast over a barbecue or under a broiler until the skin is charred and the tomatoes collapse) 1/2 to 1 red bell pepper, fire-roasted 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chile powder, such as ancho or New Mexican 1/2 teaspoon Spanish sweet paprika (pimentón) About 1/4 cup tomato juice (from the tomatoes you have used, or bottled) 1 to 2 teaspoons sherry vinegar Salt For the potatoes 1 1/2 pounds large baking potatoes, such as russet, peeled Salt and pepper 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves Juice of 1/2 lemon 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, as needed 1 bunch green onions, trimmed to tidy up the rough ends Romesco Sauce
Buy the Book		Method
		Make the Romesco Sauce 1. In a heavy skillet, heat a tablespoon or two of the olive oil and toast the bread crumbs until they are lightly golden and crisp. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. 2. In a food processor, purée the garlic, then add the almonds and purée them into a fine-ish mix. Add the bread crumbs and whirl again; it will be a gritty mixture. Add the tomatoes, red bell pepper, chile powder, and paprika, and whirl together until it thickens; add enough of the tomato juice to give it a juicy, creamy consistency, then gradually add a few tablespoons of the olive oil, as desired. It should be a thick, emulsified sauce. 3. Add the vinegar and salt to taste, and whirl again. Add a few tablespoons of cold water if the mixture needs smoothing out, or another slosh of vinegar or tomato juice if the mixture needs either a tart edge or a tomato sweetness. Chill until ready to use. Make the potatoes 1. Parboil the potatoes in salted water to cover, at a gently simmering boil, until they are half cooked: tender on the outside but a bit crunchy when you reach the center. Drain and set aside. 2. When cool enough to handle, slice the potatoes lengthwise into steaks about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick, taking care to keep the potatoes in big thick slices; do not let them fall apart unnecessarily or they will fall through the spaces on the grill of the barbecue. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme, and lemon juice, and then drizzle lightly with olive oil as needed. Set aside. 3. Heat the barbecue or stovetop grill; when hot, barbecue the potato slices and whole green onions until they are charred here and there, and tender but not overcooked. 4. Serve the hot grilled potatoes and green onions with the Romesco Sauce.

campy food to love

Lori's Skillet Smashed Potatoes Recipe

November 29, 2007 | by Heidi

I recently spent a weekend in the backwoods of Mendocino County. Let me emphasize that when I say backwoods, I'm not kidding. We're talking a few miles off the nearest paved road where a high-clearance 4x4 is a necessity, past numerous cleverly-rigged hydroponic hippie buses (this is clearly where old buses go to die), beyond a pack of car-chasing, fang-toothed guard dogs, and eventually down into the riverside sanctuary that is my friend Lori Narlock's cabin. Before I get into the details of our weekend, I'll just say (feeling more than a bit guilty), I hardly lifted a finger all weekend - Lori cooked for our cabin of six females, meal after delicious meal. Today I'm going to feature her skillet smashed potato recipe - first because they were delicious, and second to demonstrate how equal part thoughtfulness, experience, and prep work can culminate in delicious meals, even under rustic conditions.

How rustic you might ask? As I was packing that was exactly the question I kept asking myself as well. I had a few clues based on the flurry of pre-trip emails - including snippets of information like this:

"The cabin is very rustic. There are two bedrooms with one bed each and then two-single beds in the living room....There is no real electricity. We mostly read, play scrabble, drink copious amounts of beer and wine and gab by day and lantern."

And then:

"Please bring clogs or other slip on shoes for using at night if you need to
get up and use the loo--there have been a few creepy crawlers show up every now and then."

I later found out that creepy crawlers=scorpions. Lori's sister Lisa also chimed in with the following:

"Let me please add that this is not a "Tahoe" cabin, and any slippers or such that you wear around the cabin may very well get filthy - so I would leave your favorite white slippers at home."

So, if your imagination is prone to run amuck like mine does - I was preparing for a weekend in the rain, in a shack (moon through the slats in the roof, spiders through the gaps in the floorboard), huddled by a stove in a Theodore Kaczynski-style shelter. Something along the lines of an overgrown outhouse. This is what's going through my mind, and I was completely up for it. I mean, there was no tent involved, so this was going to be an upgrade for me any way you look at it. You can imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I walked into this....

The cabin sits on a huge plot of land owned for generations now by the Narlock family. The cabin was built by hand, and an amazing amount of t.l.c. has gone into it. Pictures of the family line the walls, as well as artifacts various family members have contributed. It's the kind of place you're immediately comfortable - complete with wood-burning fireplace, the sound of the river in the backdrop - and the stove! Can you believe the beautiful stove?

Lori put this family treasure to good use over the course of the weekend, but before I get into that, let me back up a bit and say - it's great to have a host who also happens to be a food writer. I'm sure many of you are familiar with Lori's work on books like The Food Lover's Companion to the Napa Valley, The Wine Lover's Guide to the Wine Country, Smoothies, The Niman Ranch Cookbook , and Cocktail Food. She's fantastic and talented on every front. Watching the way she pulled together meals for us in the cabin (no electricity, water that takes an hour to boil) was fascinating - and it gave me all sorts of cooking/prep ideas for future "rustic/camping outings"....in part because she was so smart about how and what she prepped before she even got to the cabin.

For what she was serving up, Lori's meals were coming together with barely a bead of sweat from her brow (or at least she made it look that way). So I started asking her about some of her tricks for cooking at the cabin. The skillet smashed potatoes were a great example. She pre-boiled the potatoes and brought them that way - In the morning, just before breakfast she smashed them into a big skillet with some olive oil and salt - in a few minutes they were crispy and brown on the outside, hot on the inside, and the perfect complement to the frittata she threw together. I also have to mention the pasta she made for dinner later that night - outrageous amounts of garlic (in a good way), tons of shredded zucchini, and grated cheese. She'd boiled off the noodles the night before we got the cabin. Do you know how many times I've struggled boiling noodles over a camp stove? You don't even want to know. Her pasta was delicious - the noodles weren't mushy or sticky at all. Maybe I can convince her to guest post about it when we come around to zucchini season again. Lori had all sorts of great shortcuts like this that never compromised the end dish.

So, here's how she made her skillet mashed potatoes. Imagine all the things you could drizzle or sprinkle on them. Thanks for the recipe and the great weekend Lori! I'll sleep with the scorpions any time...

Lori's Skillet Smashed Potato Recipe

The great thing about these potatoes is that you can boil them off (pre-cook) the night before. they come together in just a few minutes just as you are ready to serve the rest of your breakfast or brunch.

one small bag of small potatoes (yukon golds, fingerlings, or something similar)
salt & pepper
1 - 2 tablespoons olive oil

Start by placing the potatoes in a large saucepan. Add a teaspoon of salt and cover with water. Don't peel the potatoes, because the skin helps keep the potatoes together. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and cook at a low boil until they are tender enough to slide a knife in easily. It is important not to over-boil them, for golf ball size potatoes about 10 minutes or a little less. Drain the potatoes and refrigerate until you are ready to brown them in a large skillet.

Heat the olive in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Keep in mind it needs to be big enough to hold the potatoes, which double in size when they are smashed. Smash each potato with a masher or the bottom of a heavy glass. Season with salt and pepper and cook until crisp, and them turn and cook the other side. Sprinkle with chives, fresh herbs, whatever and serve.

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