Thyme-scented roast chicken + chopped salad

This last week, I found a recipe for this wonderful-looking, complex salad from The Sprouted Kitchen. This is another cooking blog that I have grown to love and also treat as a mentoring blog, similar to The First Mess. It has a few of my favorite things (a.k.a. quinoa, sweet potatoes, and apples), so I had to try it. Thus, I was trying to think of what I would make with it, so I perused through some of my cookbooks for ideas.

Lately, I have been all about making things that I could easily buy pre-made at the store. Or using ingredients that have an easy substitute, but instead pushing myself to not use the substitute, such as using actual cardamom pods not ground cardamom spice. So when I saw a recipe for roasted chicken from Nordstrom Flavors, it was just the ticket.

I had never roasted a whole chicken before. I don't know why. I guess I was afraid of what I might find inside. (Ha ha.) I think it's similar to my not really wanting to deal with a whole fish. Eyeballs, skin and scales...it just frightens me a little. It's just a little too close to the real (alive) thing. Well, now that I have kind of embarrassed myself (and am now sort of accountable to tackling a bigger challenge in the future), we should talk more about the chicken.

Are there meals or foods, or even specific scents that just remind you of someone or somewhere? I think a lot of people could list such examples. For me, roasted chicken reminds me of Nana, my grandma on my mom's side. When I was little, I can remember her roasting chicken. I don't know how she did it; I was too young to have any comprehension of the ways of cooking, but I remember it smelled so good. Furthermore, I remember my favorite part was the crispy chicken skin. The funny thing is I don't tend to gravitate towards fatty things or fatty parts of things. I trim the fat off everything. But chicken skin is one thing I can't stay away from. It's just so nostalgic. It's perfect. She would always give me the chicken legs to gnaw on; it was my favorite part. That and a cold can of 7-Up from the garage refrigerator with a straw. It was the greatest.

I guess this chicken, my first whole roasted chicken, is dedicated to Nana. I miss her and am sometimes caught off guard when I am reminded of her through random, little things. Like this.

Thyme-scented roasted chicken

As adapted from Nordstrom Flavors - An Artful Celebration of Food

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

Extra-virgin olive oil for preparing the roasting rack

1 bunch fresh thyme, about 25 sprigs

10 garlic cloves

1 whole chicken (about 4 1/2 lbs.), preferably organic

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, quartered lengthwise

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil roasting rack and place in a roasting pan. Chop enough thyme leaves to measure 1 tablespoon; reserve stripped stems and remaining sprigs. Mince 3 garlic cloves; cut each of remaining 7 garlic cloves in half. Season cavity of chicken with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Stuff cavity with reserved thyme stems and sprigs, garlic halves, and lemon quarters. In a small bowl, stir together oil, remaining 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, chopped thyme, and minced garlic. Spread oil mixture evenly over the outside of the chicken. Place chicken, breast side down, on the prepared rack in the roasting pan. Roast chicken for 30 minutes. Turn chicken, breast side up, and reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Continue roasting until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of a thigh without touching bone reads 170-175 degrees F, about 1 hour and 10 minutes more. Remove from oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes. Carve and serve.

Chopped salad with quinoa, sweet potatoes, + apples

As adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen - A Tastier Take on Whole Foods, who "barely" adapted their recipe from the November 2012 issue of Food & Wine

Serves 6.

Ingredients for salad:

2/3 cup quinoa, rinsed

1 lb. sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 large apples (granny smith, fuji, honey crisp, etc.), diced

8 cups packed baby greens (spinach, arugula, kale, red romaine, etc.)

1/8 cup flat leaf parsley

1/4 of a medium red onion, thinly sliced

Ingredients for dressing:

1/4 cup good-quality apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons whole-grain dijon mustard

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Drizzle olive oil in a pot and add quinoa to toast over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add 1 1/3 cups water and bring to boil. Turn down to simmer, cover, and cook for about 15-18 minutes until all liquid is absorbed. Fluff quinoa and cool (be sure to place in a cool place - don't want your greens to wilt when you add the quinoa later). On a rimmed baking sheet, diced sweet potatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake in upper third of oven for about 30 minutes, until golden. Remove and allow to cool. In a large bowl, whisk together cider vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and pinch of salt and pepper. Add cooled quinoa, potatoes, apples, greens, parsley, and onion. Toss to coat. Serve immediately.

Note: everything can be prepared in advance, kept in bags, and then tossed together when time for dinner, lunch the next day, etc.

I loved this salad. Again, as previously mentioned, it is complex with so many textures and flavors. If you're not a big fan of apple cider vinegar (it can be pungent), you may opt to use some other type of vinegar, such as red wine vinegar. Sara, from The Sprouted Kitchen, used this as a holiday salad; I definitely think it would be wonderful for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or any other time of year for that matter. Give it a try. 

And the roasted chicken. There's nothing like a home-roasted chicken. The flavor is immense and wonderful. I'll be making it again. And you should too. Cheers.

Week Three: Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Sautéed Apples, Tomato Basil Soup, and Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas

We're still cookin'. It was a great week.

Spiced Pork Tenderloin

with Sautéed Apples

As you may recall, we've been rolling in apples over here...from our Iced Oatmeal-Applesauce Cookies from Week One of my new meal planning adventure, to our actual homemade applesauce from Week Two. And believe it or not, we still had apples left to spare. I was lucky to find a perfect fall dinner recipe (with apples) pretty quick into my recipe research for this week.

This awesome recipe came from the November 2012 issue of Cooking Light, so very current, evidently.  Find the recipe here: Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Sautéed Apples. They recommend using Braeburn or Gala apples (whose red peels are very pretty in Cooking Light's picture of the recipe), but I just went ahead and used what I had on hand. The combination of apples with the thinly sliced shallots is really good. Furthermore, the flavors in this dish are really delightful and cozy for a cold, fall evening. Coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, apple cider...okay, so this is pretty much dessert for dinner. But good for you...? Ha. No, but really, this is true. I also served this dish with sautéed green beans.

So. Since we're talking pork. How done is done? As in, how pink or not pink should your pork be? It's funny, because people usually error on the side of overcooking something versus undercooking. But for some reason, I tend to do the opposite. I am so terrified of overcooking things! I don't know what it is! I just hate when my chicken is dry because I sautéed it for too long. Or my cookies have a gritty crunch to them because they continued to brown/cook after I took them out of the oven. Do you hear me, or do you hear me? So what do you do? You look it up on the internet. And apparently the USDA standard for pork is 145-degrees, which was lowered from 160-degrees not too long ago (much to the happiness of many professional chefs (I mean, I think so, but I probably shouldn't say since it's not like I'm best friends with Michael Ruhlman or Anthony Bourdain)). But there's a good idea for you none the less: 145-degrees for pork.

Tomato Basil Soup

with Grilled Cheese and Ham Sandwiches

Since Nordstrom's Split Pea Soup was so tasty, I thought I would give another one of their soups a try. Seriously, when did Nordstrom become known for something more than clothes and whatnot? I've been pretty impressed with their recipes after I was gifted one of their cookbooks last year for Christmas.

Well, I thought this recipe that I found was actually one of Nordstrom's recipes...from one of their cookbooks. But after perusing the internet, I realized that this is someone's interpretation or imitation of some amazing tomato soup made at the Nordstrom Cafe. Long story short, I found this recipe from someone's blog through Pinterest. Find it here: Tomato Basil Soup. 

The flavor is really good. Make sure you use real good quality canned tomatoes, such as San Marzano tomatoes; can't go wrong. You know what they say, always use good quality ingredients, especially if there are very few ingredients being used.

So, I'll just be honest and say that I sort of felt like I was eating really good marinara sauce while eating this soup. The writer and creator of the recipe said to leave a little texture to the soup when pureeing it with an immersion blender, and let's just say I think I left plenty. I would recommend not as much next time around. However, that being said, the flavor was fantastic and this soup was great with grilled cheese and ham sandwiches.

This is the greatest bread for grilled sandwiches and French toast.

It sort of feels like cheating using canned tomatoes, but hey, that way you can make a good tomato soup all year round. Plus, you don't have to wait or try to find perfectly ripe tomatoes, which is hard sometimes. And goodness, don't make tomato soup with tomatoes that are not truly juicy and red, and pretty much falling apart. I've done that before. You'll end up with orange tomato soup. Not so great. Nice and ripe canned tomatoes. Great.

Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas

Yes, I realize it's not actually summer right now...

I happened to find and tear out this recipe at the same time as the pork tenderloin recipe above. So, this one is also from Cooking Light. Find the recipe here: Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas. Using frozen corn makes this a year-round option, but there's nothing like fresh corn on the cob. So I bought frozen corn on the cob, but it was a little strange. Kind of soft and not the same as fresh corn on the cob. Probably won't do that again. Luckily, the flavor was good and the lack of crisp-tenderness that I was wanting wasn't all to evident once stirred into the rest of the dish. Who knows, maybe I overcooked it and that was the problem. But I'm the one who never overcooks anything, remember? He he.

I've made tostadas like these before with the corn, zucchini, and red onion. It really is a great flavor combination. Plus, some good salsa verde just tops it off. Yum. The flavors and textures are just so wonderful.

A great, spicy salsa for dishes like this.

We made it easy and just made tacos (warmed our tortillas instead of toasting), but either way is delicious. Goodness, you could make burritos with this too. You could make a kind of fresh Mexican pizza. Ha ha. Okay, maybe that would be weird, but what I'm getting at is the is a great chicken and vegetable mixture.

That's it for now. Have a good weekend!

Week Two: Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew, Pasta with Light Turkey Ragu, Tortilla Soup, Applesauce, and Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats

We are cookin' over here! I don't really know how something as boring as "meal planning" could get me so excited about cooking. I don't know about you working folks out there, but sometimes making dinner isn't the first thing you really want to do after a long day at work. Let alone, making up lunches to take to work the next day after you do dishes from dinner, when you really just want to relax or maybe exercise or hangout with your husband.

Now, I've realized it's not the cooking that I dread doing after work. It's the stress of, "oh, shoot, I need to run to the store because I don't have that on hand" or "wow, I wish I would have realized that this recipe takes like 4 hours to make and we won't be eating until 9 o'clock tonight." That's the thing! If you set aside a little time over the weekend or on Monday to plan out the week and grocery shop, you save yourself so much stress. Plus, it gives you more opportunity to eat more healthily and less of an inclination to grab take-out for lunch. And the idea of being able to pull good menus to use that I have from the past sounds just great.

Lentil and Sweet-Potato Stew.

Alright. So, Lentil and Sweet-Potato Stew. This was really delicious. And again, a recipe I found on Whole Living, one of Martha Stewart's websites. I know, I know...I keep going back to it, but all the recipes are so good! And this stew was no exception. Mildly spicy, with a subtle curry flavor, and packed with vegetables including sweet potato (evidently), onion, carrot, celery, and green beans. I almost considered adding some sort of meat, but I figured that the sweet potato and lentils would make it hearty enough, and they did. This soup stands alone.

When it comes to my next recipe, I have a confession. I do not have a Pinterest account (yet), because if I did, I would spend way too much time browsing recipes, home decor, arts and crafts, and whatever else happened to strike my fancy. Therefore, I have resorted to browsing through recipes only and I am already addicted. Now you may find a wide range in terms of quality when it comes to recipes on Pinterest, but there are also many gems which I simply take a screen-shot of and save for later. He he.

Now that you all know about the values of Pinterest, we can talk about the Penne with Light Turkey Ragu. So simple, and very tasty. Ground turkey, leeks, oregano, basil, tomato...delicious. I love leek; such a great vegetable. The recipe calls for penne, but I just used the pasta I had on hand which happened to be a mix of whole-wheat and regular rotini.

Tortilla Soup with Black Beans.

My third dinner recipe this week was Tortilla Soup with Black Beans, another Whole Living find. This is so easy, but definitely more than satisfactory. I added some ground beef, which I had been saving in the freezer for a time like this, and I'm glad I did. My mind must have been elsewhere when I was making this, however, because I neglected to add spices until towards the end of cooking, and then I forgot to squeeze fresh lime over the soup before serving. Oh well. I think my version will be better tomorrow after marinating in the refrigerator all night, and we still have limes. Ha ha. But even so, it was really delicious and a great go-to weeknight soup. We crushed our tortilla chips over our individual bowls right before serving, so as to prevent tomorrow's leftovers from being full of soggy chips.

To top it all off, Tim and Amy visited us last weekend, and were so kind as to bring us a big bucket of farm-fresh (I believe, Jonathan...?) apples and a watermelon. They even brought us pumpkins they had grown, which was so cool because we were considering getting pumpkins the day before but didn't. So, what to do with a bucket of apples? First thing we thought of was applesauce. My mom makes some great applesauce. Actually, she made an amazing batch with some Gravenstein apples that Tim gave us last year. So I thought she would be the best person to seek applesauce-making advice from.

She uses an adapted version of Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. Basically, wash, peel, and quarter apples (you can leave on peels or reserve some peels to put in the pot, then sieve out later (Julia says they give flavor and body to the sauce)). Place apples in a heavy-bottomed pot with fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, and a little cinnamon. Cover and set over low heat (this is key); the apples will slowly soften, rendering juices. Stir and mash frequently until tender, about 30-45 minutes. At this point, if using apple peel, you can push the sauce through a sieve, return to pot, and add some sugar and vanilla extract, cooking a little longer.

I, being an amateur, just kind of threw some peels in with my peeled apples, thinking I would just pull them out later. But they kind of got mashed up too. Oh well. We skipped the sieving and ended up with some delicious, chunky applesauce. The apples were not quite as tender as I would have liked (I think we man-handled the apples a little too much with aggressive mashing), but Zack thought it was perfect and our friends enjoyed it too. Oh, and we used brown sugar instead of granulated sugar.

And lastly, our dessert of the week was Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats, another Pinterest find. We made these to take over to our friends' house on the evening of Halloween. So festive, so tasty. It's amazing what a little pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg will do for a traditional treat.

Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats.

Well, that's all for Week Two. Cheers.

Foods of late summer's past...

Well, it's been awhile. Again. People seem to be asking me if I'm still cooking, and despite the inaction on the blog, I am! Really.

Summer was a bit crazy. Work of course (that's one thing that's different from when I was in school). Not working, but real work. Grown-up work. And then we had a sort of spur-of-the-moment move that ended up not being quite as quick and easy as we initially thought it would be. But the good news is we now have a new kitchen to play in! Packing all our kitchen equipment and utensils in is a bit of a puzzle, but it's working for us.

Above photo courtesy of Evelyn Kritler.

There were also some lovely trips down to Oregon and to the coast with my family for our annual trip to Arch Cape. We had fun cooking for the family again this year, but the food pictures are definitely lacking from that week of the summer, unfortunately. However, Zack had an incredible cooking endeavor...think homemade marshmallows. Uh yes. He had talked about it for awhile and I'll admit, I was kind of like, "whatever." Call me crazy, but I am not the hugest marshmallow fan. When we have s'mores at the coast, I'd rather just eat the graham crackers and maybe a couple pieces of chocolate. Ha. Well, let's just say...huge success. And Zack's cool factor increased even more so after that trip.

Pearl barley risotto with corn, parmesan, basil, and sliced turkey breast.

The photos you see here are just a scattering of some yummy things we made in August and September. My first risotto (with pearl barley), which consisted of a lot of standing in the kitchen whilst stirring. There was also some killer chicken salad, a recipe for which I need to re-find in a library book that has been returned. We had some really tasty grilled sandwiches; one had ham, thinly sliced granny smith apple, and swiss cheese. Lots of muffins..."French toast muffins" (which didn't really taste like French toast, but were very delicious), banana chocolate chip muffins (best banana muffin recipe I've found thus far), and blueberry cornmeal muffins (which was just a must taking my corn obsession into consideration).  Whole wheat penne with skinny asparagus and tomatoes. Salmon with a cilantro sauce and carrot quinoa to name another. I'm telling you, Costco has wild salmon fish fillets (packaged separately and frozen), and it's a good way to go. Pull out a few fillets at a time and it's always fresh. We just got some halibut, so you may see some creations with that coming soon.

Healthier chicken salad sandwiches.

Ham, swiss, and granny smith apple grilled sandwiches with succotash.

"French toast" muffins.

Banana chocolate chip muffins.

Blueberry cornmeal muffins.

Whole wheat penne with skinny asparagus, tomatoes, and basil.

Salmon with cilantro sauce and carrot quinoa.

Moving on. I'm on a new endeavor. Meal planning. Okay, I know this is making me sound ultra-organized and maybe slightly obsessive compulsive, and I was thinking the same thing until I read this Seattle Times article titled How to create a customized meal plan. And yes, this article is probably geared towards families or people with kids, but whatever, what they talk about is really helpful.

Now I'm not going crazy with this, but I have extracted a few great ideas from this article. It makes a lot of sense to create a sort of "weekly menu" and then save these menus (if they turn out to be good) to re-use in the future. I mean if you think about it, sifting through recipes and really planning for meals takes time. Especially if you are trying to eat healthily, and even more so if you shop at multiple places to save money and/or to buy fresh. So obviously this could get really boring if you just use your old menus and don't continue to search for new ways to cook and new ingredients to try. But I'm not too worried about that. Be back soon. Cheers.

Apple Pie

I didn't really grow up watching or helping my mom make pie crust. Or any other pastry doughs for that matter. They actually scare me. Handle them too much, and all your perfect "pea-size" pieces of butter become mush. Don't mix enough, and you might as well have just cut your stick of butter into two. Good grief. It seems like the most finicky thing ever.

Therefore, I recruit Zack when it comes to things like this. Because he grew up watching his grandma handle dough and crust and whatnot. But I do have to say, after making our first pie together, I feel confident that I could make a good pie in the future. I mean, you really just need a good pie crust recipe and then you can fill it with whatever you want!

This crust is the one my mom always uses. It's a pie crust recipe meant for a lattice-top peach pie from Cook's Illustrated. It's flaky and delicious. We filled the inside with lots of thinly sliced granny smith apples, fresh lemon juice, white sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of vanilla extract. And it was a success. Maybe there's more pie in our future and hopefully in yours. Cheers.

Do you like the "Z" on top? :)