Baked Pears

The land on my boyfriends (aka his parents) property has TONS of fruit trees on it. In season right now? Pears. His mom seems to think that I eat nothing but, so I'm always sent home with a big plastic bag FULL of them. His dad mentioned, this last weekend, that I should try baking them. Hmmm...I'M GAME!! Sounds SO good, right?

Ingredients

• 2 medium ripe pears, peeled and halved (I didn't peel them. I don't peel anything, pretty much. Peels usually have a lot of fiber)
  
• 4 teaspoons butter or margarine
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons orange marmalade (meh. skipped it. The comments said that other jams were good, but I only have grape right now, and that didn't sound great)
  

Directions

1. Place pear halves, cut side up, in a shallow 1-qt. baking dish (I put little foil place holder things under the skinny half of the pear, so that it wouldnt tip down. We cant be surrendering any butter by having it drip off the end, now can we?!). Place butter in the center of each; drizzle with lemon juice. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over pears. Top with marmalade. Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until heated through (eh...I cooked mine for almost an hour).

Omg the SMELL. It smelled SO good!!I ate these with vanilla ice cream on top. Pre-ice cream, it's actually a pretty healthy dessert. I'll totally be making it again. Like, tomorrow.

Baked Lemon Chicken

I love lemon things!! So lemon chicken sounded pretty legit. And easy. LIKE ME!!! Just kidding.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs (I used panko bread crumbs which, after tonight, I realize are probably actually huge bread crumbs. It would probably be better with a more finely ground bread crumb)
  
• 4 (4 ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Directions

1. In a shallow dish, combine the butter, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Place bread crumbs in another dish. Dip chicken in butter mixture, then coat with crumbs.
2. Place in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish. Drizzle with remaining butter mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until juices run clear.(I went 30-35 mins, which was a bit too much)

Omg SO lemony!! Besides the bread crumbs being a bit too big, it was reeeeeally good. I ate it with cooked broccoli, asparagus (both from the frozen foods section of Trader Joe's), and cous cous. The advantage to cous cous is that, compared to the 30+ mins it takes to make rice or quinoa, it only takes like 5 mins to make. Win.

Lemon for life.

No pics. It just looked like breaded chicken. Pale breaded chicken, thanks to the huge white bread crumbs.

Turkey Albondigas in Broth

I've been craving soup. Not just eating it, but making it. Very bizarre, but whatever. I've been eyeballing this recipe in mah fave cookbook, Isabel's Cantina, since I got it. There's a pic in the book and it's looks all colorful and delicious and meatball-y. This cookbook has yet to let me down (link to the right). GO GET IT.

For meatballs:
8 oz ground turkey
1/2 med red onion, minced (wtf is the difference between minced and chopped?? Smaller? I have no idea)
2 garlic cloves, minced 2 Tbl finely chopped fresh mint
1 large egg, lightly beaten (oops, didnt read the beaten part. No harm done)
1/2 cup bread crumbs or panko
1 tsp salt (recipe says 'kosher salt'....yeeeeeah....)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 Tbl canola or peanut oil (I used oil, since I didnt have these)

For broth
2 Tbl olive oil
1 med yellow onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 med carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 cup dry white wine
3 Tbl tomato paste 1-2 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, finely chopped (I used one, even scraped the seeds out, and it was definitely spicy enough. Good thing the can had like 15 in it. Pffffft)
6 cups chicken broth (I used low-sodium, and it was more than fine. I think regular would make it way too salty)
1 med zucchini

To make the meatballs, mix together the turkey, onion, garlic, mint, egg, bread crumbs, and salt in a medium bowl, using your hands. Form the mixture into small meatballs, about 1 inch in diameter. You should have about 12 meatballs. Roll the meatballs in the flour to coat. If not cooking them immediately, set the meatballs on a platter and cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to cook. This can be done up to 1 day in advance.

To make the broth, heat the olive oil in a medium heavy-bottomed pot over med-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is soft and translucent, about 3 mins. Add the carrots and celery. Continue cooking for a few mins more, stirring well to coat the vegetables with the olive oil.

Add the white wine and simmer for 5 mins. Mix together the tomato paste and chipotle chiles and then stir into the vegetables in the pot. Add the chicken broth and simmer for 20 mins. Stir in the zucchini and cook for about 5 mins, or until tender.

While the broth is simmering, cook the meatballs. Heat the canola oil in a large saute pan (I used my electric skillet. Still not sure about that thing) over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Brown the meatballs in batches until cooked through, about 4 mins (ehhh....mine took more like 10 mins).

When all the meatballs have been browned, transfer them to the simmering broth and remove the pot from the heat.

Serve the soup steaming hot, topped with a sprinkling of chopped mint.

I was a little skeptical of the mint. Mint in meatballs/soup sounds...weird. Then again, I suck at using herbs, so they all sound weird to me. I WAS WRONG. Holy hell, those meatballs were SO good. The mint was great. The broth, like I mentioned about, was nice and spicy (white girl spicy), but bursting with flavor. The whole thing probably took me an hour or so. Not bad!!

Angel Hair Pasta with Shrimp and Basil

When my boyfriend gently suggested that I make dinner for him when he got into town, I laughed. He clearly isn't familiar with my culinary mishaps, despite warning him. Off to All Recipes, I go! As usually, I looked for something with few ingredients and high ratings. I found this, and decided that it looked good enough. Little risky making anything pasta-y for my Italian/Portuguese boyfriend who makes phenomenal pasta sauce buuuut....that was a risk I was willing to take.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
• 1 (8 ounce) package angel hair pasta (aka capellini. apparently)
  
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• 1 pound large shrimp - peeled and deveined (I used frozen. Worked!)
  
• 2 (28 ounce) cans Italian-style diced tomatoes, drained (I bought 4-14.5 oz cans. It was a LOT, so I ended up using 3 and it was still a TON)
  
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add 1 tablespoon oil. Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente. Place pasta in a colander, and give it a quick rinse with cold water.(angel hair cooks in like 2 mins, so next time, I think I'll do this last so that the pasta is still hot)
   
2. Heat remaining olive oil in a 10 inch skillet over medium heat. Cook garlic, stirring constantly, until the garlic is tender, about 1 minute. Do not let the garlic burn. Add shrimp, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes (one of the reviews said that cooking the shrimp twice was too much, so I threw it it after all the sauce stuff and just let it cook in the sauce. Tasted a little 'shrimpy' and I made the mistake of adding the shrimp right at the beginning. I'll add it a few mins later next time, because I think it overcooked a little. Or I'll try following directions and sauteeing it and adding it very last to the sauce. We'll see). Remove shrimp from the skillet, and set aside.
3. Stir tomatoes, wine, parsley, and basil into the skillet. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by half, 8 to 12 minutes. Add shrimp, and continue cooking until the shrimp are heated through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve the shrimp mixture over the pasta. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

This was pretty easy! And it turned out really flavorful, so I was totally pleased. The boy approved, so I'll file it under success! As I mentioned before, the recipe makes a TON of sauce (I used a big frying pan and it was filled almost all the way up and I didn't even use all the tomatoes it called for). Oh! And this was my first time EVER making shrimp!! I was worried that I had overcooked it, but I think it was ok. It still kinda scares me. Well, that and it's a bit expensive for my taste to use regularly.

(The layout and links are all whackadoo in that first paragraph and Blogger hates me so I can't fix it. SORRY)

Warm Spinach Salad

I freaking LOVE warm spinach salad. Spinach? Bacon? Eggs? Heck yes. I just wanted a super basic salad to serve with a turned-out-not-so-great-AT-ALL pasta dish, so I looked up recipes for the dressing and used this one. My salad just had spinach and hard boiled eggs (I put the bacon in the dressing), not all the other stuff in this recipe. Would probably be good, though, if you want to try it.

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey (I added extra honey, a couple tablespoons worth)
  
• 2 strips crisply cooked bacon, crumbled (2 or 4 or 6...)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in shallots and garlic, and cook until softened and translucent, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and 2 crumbled strips of bacon; season to taste with salt and pepper, then cook until hot.
2. Pour hot dressing over spinach and toss to coat.

I halved the recipe because there was only two of us, but kept the 2 strips of bacon (duh). It was quite vinegary/mustardy, so I added a tablespoon or so extra honey to cut that down a bit. Do a little taste test and play with it. The dressing turned out thicker than I remember most warm spinach salad dressings to be, BUT it tasted suuuuper good! Totally outshined the crapastic pasta that I made. Oops!

Irish Breakfast

You know what happens when you mix Jameson and gingers, jello shots, green beer, and Irish car bombs? Not wanting to blog is what happens.

I shall persevere, however, because in the midst of drinking myself into a bumbling green mess, I made a traditional Irish breakfast that would make my ancestors rejoice and my arteries shudder. The only things missing were sausage (decided to just go with bacon. So. Much. Food) and the beans in tomato sauce. I went with pinto beans. California style. We got our breads and white pudding at John Campbells in SF. LEGIT place.

I fried up the bacon first, then fried everything else up in the bacon grease. Perhaps not exactly diet friendly, but it's SO GOOD. Made me want to go back to Ireland. Immediately. Like, now.







White pudding
Bacon
Eggs
Fried tomato
Scones
Potato bread
Soda bread

RAGING success!!

Lomo Saltado

Along with pisco sours, an almost daily staple during our time in Peru was lomo saltado. It's like THE dish down there. Uh...steak AND french fries?! ALL ROLLED INTO ONE?! Count my fat ass in! (not my pic. too lazy to take one)

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen French fries
• vegetable oil as needed
• 1 pound beef tri tip, sliced 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large onion, sliced into strips
• 3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and sliced into strips (I didn't seed mine. Should have. They got kinda mushy)
  
• 1 yellow chili pepper (preferably Peruvian aji amarillo)(have yet to see one of THOSE stateside. I bought a 'yellow chili pepper'. Close enough, right? It was super mild, though. My Peruvian sister in law bought the closest thing she could find when she made it for us, being unfamiliar with gringo peppers, and picked up a habenero. DO NOT DO THIS. You will cry fire.)
  
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 dash soy sauce to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. Prepare the bag of French fries according to package directions.
2. While the French fries are cooking, heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Season the sliced meat with salt and pepper to taste. Fry the meat until just cooked, and the juices begin to release. Remove the meat from the frying pan, then cook the onions, with additional oil if needed, until they are transparent. Stir in the tomato and aji amarillo; cook until the tomato softens. Pour in the vinegar and soy sauce, add the French fries, cover, and cook until the beef is done, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with chopped parsley to serve.

TADA!!!!! Total success. Wasn't as good as is was in Peru (duh), but totally tasty.