Entertain the Possibilities

Perfect Pistachio Pesto Pasta

2/26/2016

Pistachio Pesto Pasta

In honor of National Pistachio Day – Friday, Feb 26 – I made a super-easy and deeply flavorful pasta supper using roasted, unsalted pistachios mixed into a pesto. Really good! This deserves a place on your short list of dinnertime options for a crazy-busy weeknight. Heck, it’s a good option for company dinner too. Not the prettiest dish in the world, but a little garnish (fresh mint leaves?) would help with that. It’s all about the accessories, amirite?!

Before you dive into the recipe, why don’t you take a little break – maybe pop a few pistachios as a snack? – and view some of the Wonderful Pistachios commercials at the link here. I especially like the ones with Snoop Dogg, the dominatrix, and the new Facebook emojis. Here’s another fun one:

Keep reading for the recipe and plenty of pix.

I Me Mine

2/25/2016

Mmm... Bacon Jam on egg sammich Photo: Jeffrey W

"I Me Mine,” is what I like to imagine George Harrison would say about this scrumptious-looking example of an egg sandwich, reported to be his favorite food.

Today is George’s birthday; he would have been 73 years old. In honor of “the quiet Beatle,” let’s enjoy a couple recipes for tasty, tasty egg sandwiches (bacon jam optional but definitely recommended) and a rockin’ playlist.

The Ultimate Egg Sandwich – from Just a Taste
Egg Sandwiches with Bacon Jam – from Raley’s

Happy birthday, George!

Double Down for Game Night

2/23/2016

I’m so happy that Game Nights have made a comeback after years of being totally uncool. I’ve been a gamer since way before it meant Play Station, Xbox, and the like – I’m talking Chutes and Ladders, Ouija boards and Trivial Pursuit. Remember those?

Sometimes people turn up their noses at games for grown-ups (unless it’s poker) but I believe that the act of laughing together and not taking ourselves too seriously is a great uniter. When we all look/feel/sound foolish together and isn’t it hilarious – now that’s community!

Chili and charades*. Soup and silliness. Drinks, of course. One recent evening we gathered a group of friends for all of the above. None of the guests knew each other previously but all were fast friends by the evening’s end.

* We didn’t really play charades but the sweet alliteration makes that little fib all worth it.

Keep reading to find out what on earth those photos are at the top of the post! Also recipes, photos, and yes, a Game Players Playlist.

Fish for Dinner: Roasted Cod with Citrus-Tarragon Sauce

2/22/2016

Roasted Cod with Citrus-Tarragon Sauce

The first few times cod appeared among the options for the weekly Hooked on Fish delivery of sustainable, fresh fish I was surprised, having thought that cod was one of the badly overfished species we hear so much about, and in truth, it is. Atlantic cod, that is. Since then I’ve learned about the other species of cod in the genus Gadus: Pacific Cod and Greenland Cod. There are also a bunch of fish that are not from that genus but have “cod” in their names anyway. Whew! That’s a lotta cod.

We received a very good one a few weeks ago – Skrei cod. From the Hooked on Fish website:

Skrei Cod - Line-caught; Norway

This is the beginning of the season for the celebrated skrei (pronounced SKRAY) cod (the word skrei is derived the Old Norse verb a skrida meaning "to migrate"). Beginning in January, millions of cod swim from the nutrient-rich Barents Sea to the northern coast of Norway. There are very strict rules about age and size governing its capture. All skrei is caught by actual family-owned day boats (meaning they leave at dawn and return at night) making the fish super-fresh. Further, it is packaged within 12 hours of being caught. True skrei is firm, somewhat thicker than Alaskan cod, and tender, with an excellent flavor. It also is one of the highest in nutrition of all whitefish. MSC Certified.

The Occasion: Friday night dinner with Ilise and MIL Ina. To accommodate our evening plans we needed a fast, easy, and delicious dish. This one fit the bill perfectly.

How We Prepared It:

Roasted Skrei Cod with Citrus-Tarragon Sauce – inspired by a recipe from Ellie Krieger
Wild Rice Pilaf
Mixed Vegetables

Keep reading for the recipe, photos, and a fishin’ tune for your listening pleasure.

Happy National Chocolate Mint Day

2/19/2016

Mint and chocolate. Two great standalone flavors that bring out the best in each other. Better together indeed.

Let’s explore a few sumptuous recipes. Starting things off right is a classic, Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.

Mint Chip Ice Cream – from David Lebovitz
Andes Mint Cupcakes – from Your Cup of Cake
Mint Chocolate Swirl Bark – from Sally’s Baking Addiction
Mint Chocolate Truffles – from Ree Drummond for Food Network
Chocolate Thin Mint Pie – from Completely Delicious blog by way of Something Swanky

Speaking of Thin Mints, please enjoy this helpful how-to video for making your own version of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies:

Please continue to support your local Girl Scouts as well. I loved my scouting years. There’s an option for donating boxes of cookies to U.S. military troops overseas, in case you’re trying to resist keeping any in the house. Believe me, I understand.

The Supper Club Gets Zesty with Citrus – Part 2

2/18/2016

Duck á l’Orange Photo: Ilise Goldberg

The Supper Club is a group of friends who love to cook, eat, drink, and laugh together – plenty of each occur at our periodic themed dinner parties. Friends and family like to live vicariously around our feasts so we’ll share the stories, pictures and recipes here from time to time. Click here for previous Supper Club posts, and here for the group’s origin story.

Did you miss Part 1? Find it here.

In the previous post we began telling the tale of our latest Supper Club dining adventure – the theme was Citrus. Everyone did a fabulous job with their assigned courses, covering a great many types of citrus. Even when the same fruit appeared more than once the treatment was so different each time that it became a happy surprise rather than “Oh no, not grapefruit again.”

In hindsight I wish I’d been brave enough to try one of the more exotic citrus options, such as Buddha’s Hand or Citrangequat. Click the links and look them up, I’ll wait. (Whistles quietly to self, examines fingernails.) Oh hello, welcome back. Weird, right?!

Citrus Fun Facts: Citrus has been farmed commercially in Florida since the mid-1800s. The first citrus was brought to the New World in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. In the mid-1500s one of the early Spanish explorers, most likely Ponce de Leon, planted the first orange trees around St. Augustine, Florida.

Florida's unique sandy soil and subtropical climate proved to be ideal for growing the seeds that the early settlers planted and have flourished ever since. Today it is a $9 billion industry, employing nearly 76,000 Floridians.

-- Visit Florida and Florida Dept. of Citrus

To refresh your memory from Part 1 of the story, here’s the evening's menu. Today’s post will explore the details of the Main Course and Desserts.

Ellyn – Cocktails: Clementine Negroni; Paloma; Assorted wines

Karen & Kathleen – Appetizers: Fennel and Citrus Salad with Tuna Patties; Brie and Kumquat Chutney Toasts; Lemon-Marinated Olives with Artichokes

Ilise & Ann – Main Course: Smoked Barley, Beet & Grapefruit Salad; Duck á l’Orange; Wild Rice Pilaf; Fennel with Blood Oranges

Greg – Desserts: Lemon Meringue Tartlets; Lime-Basil Macaroons; Blood Orange Polenta Cake; Assorted liqueurs

Continue reading for the rest of the story -- recipe links, photos, and music too.

Fennel and Blood Orange Salad

2/16/2016

Fennel and Blood Orange Salad

Does it ever happen to you that an ingredient you rarely use all of a sudden shows up over and over and over in the dishes that you crave? I’ve seen this fennel-citrus combo in a wide variety of dishes this winter and my taste buds start a’tingling every time.

This recipe, from one of my most favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen, is an especially good variation on the theme. So colorful! Such lively flavors! This is a dinner party presentation dish, less ideal (though not impossible) for a quick weeknight meal. It’s easy but requires some potschke-ing. Totally worth it!

Click the photos to enlarge them and read the captions.

Printable Recipe- Fennel and Blood Orange Salad
File Size:	671 kb
File Type:	pdf

Fennel and Blood Orange Salad
Recipe source: Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Kurt Gutenbrunner via NY Times

INGREDIENTS:

¼ cup hazelnuts or walnuts
1 medium-large fennel bulb, leaves and stems trimmed off
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Juice of 1 lemon (maybe a little less)
2 large blood oranges
1 small shallot, peeled and cut into paper-thin slices
10 mint leaves
1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon lime zest

Cook’s Note: If serving family style or as a featured salad, place the fennel and oranges on a bed of lightly dressed mixed greens, incorporating them into the dish ever so slightly. You can also serve it as a side dish using fewer greens (or none at all).

DIRECTIONS:

Place nuts in dry skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, to toast. Let cool. If using hazelnuts, roll them around in a dishcloth (or, when cool enough, in your hands) discarding any loose skins. Coarsely chop nuts, set aside.
Slice about ½ inch from bottom of fennel and discard (or save for vegetable stock). Slice fennel very thinly on a mandoline or with a knife, starting with the flat bottom side. Toss in bowl with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Trim all peel and pith from oranges. Holding peeled fruit over bowl containing fennel, use sharp knife to cut sections from membrane and let them drop into bowl. Squeeze remaining membrane over bowl to add juices, then discard membrane.
Add shallots to bowl with fennel and oranges. Toss gently.
If serving immediately, continue with assembly instructions. Otherwise, cover bowl and keep chilled until ready to assemble salad and serve. Can make ahead 2-3 hours.

To assemble:

Make a bed of salad greens, if desired. Drizzle ½-1 tablespoon olive oil over greens, toss, and sprinkle just a pinch of kosher salt on the greens.
Pile fennel, blood orange, and shallot mixture on top of the greens, straining out some (but not all) of the fruit juices that gathered in the bowl.
Drizzle ½-1 tablespoon olive oil over the fennel mixture. Tear the mint leaves and sprinkle over the salad. Sprinkle the chopped nuts over the salad. Add fresh lime zest on top. Serve immediately.

Note: The salad holds up well for leftovers the next day, although it is freshest and most delicious on Day One.

Simpsons Sire and Futurama Father Grows Older, Wiser, Yells at Cloud

2/15/2016

Image: Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos

From his beginnings as a sardonic cartoonist (Life in Hell) to creator of TV shorts (The Tracey Ullman Show) to current day status as a multi-award-winning writer, producer, voice actor, animator (and yes, still a cartoonist), Matt Groening has achieved more than most artists ever dream of. Let’s wish him Happy Birthday as he celebrates his 62nd on Monday, February 15th.

And because, this year, it is also Presidents Day let’s dig into this classic Simpsons video clip in lieu of birthday cake. (Especially that kinda-great, kinda-scary Bender cake in the photo above, I don't want to mess with that. I swear it's watching me.)

In case you’re interested – I was – Matt’s favorite foods are Vietnamese spring rolls, Thom Kha Gai soup, and bananas. If you’d like to make these dishes/send to Matt/enjoy them yourself, here are a few yummy-looking recipe links:

Vietnamese Shrimp Spring Rolls with Spicy Hoisin Peanut Sauce – from Bowl of Delicious blog
Thom Kha Gai (Chicken Coconut Soup) – from Bon Appetit
Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie – from Chiquita

The Supper Club Gets Zesty with Citrus – Part 1

2/12/2016

Photo: Karen Wollins

The Supper Club is a group of friends who love to cook, eat, drink and laugh together – plenty of each occur at our periodic themed dinner parties. Our friends and family like to live vicariously around our feasts so we’ll share the stories, pictures and recipes here from time to time. Click here for previous Supper Club posts, and here for the group’s origin story.

One upside to winter in Chicago (and other parts of the Great Frozen North) is the 'simple pleasures' type of joy that citrus from the sunshine states can bring. Biting into a juicy orange is sweeter and more refreshing in a cold weather locale than it ever could be in a place with balmy temps and sunny skies year round. There’s an urgency to that orange in Chicago in January, you see, it becomes more than just fruit, it’s representative of summer yet to come. Eventually. Hang in there, li’l Windy City-ans, have a bite of sunshine to tide you over.

That was the thinking behind the Citrus theme for our recent Supper Club dinner party. Not super-difficult as themes go, but still a nice opportunity to explore the wide variety of citrus out there and create a wonderful meal from start to finish. As it turns out, we all leaned towards the classics and then added a few twists of our own.

How to Supreme Citrus Fruits - Part 1

As with many culinary techniques, we have the French to thank for inventing a method which divides the peel and pith from the succulent fruit beneath, leaving your guests free to indulge in citrus without staining their fingernails. This method is called supreming. It is simple enough to learn and a handy thing indeed for those of us wishing to show citrus to its advantage. A bowl of supremed fruit has a place on even the whitest of tablecloths.

-- The Joy of Cooking

The Menu:

Ellyn – Cocktails: Clementine Negroni; Paloma; Assorted wines
Karen & Kathleen – Appetizers: Fennel and Citrus Salad with Tuna Patties; Brie and Kumquat Chutney Toasts; and Lemon-Marinated Olives with Artichokes.
Ilise & Ann – Main Course: Smoked Barley, Beet & Grapefruit Salad; Duck a l’Orange; Wild Rice Pilaf; Fennel with Blood Oranges
Greg – Dessert: Lemon Meringue Tartlets; Lime-Basil Macarons; Blood Orange Polenta Cake; Assorted citrus-flavored liqueurs. (Dan was absent due to a business trip. We missed you, Dan!)

Continue reading for all the juicy details about the Drinks and Appetizers, plus recipes, pictures galore and a Lemons to Lemonade playlist. Don’t worry – the Part 2 post will be coming soon featuring the Main Course and Dessert.

Afternoon Dance Break – Do the Loco-motion

2/11/2016

Image: Christa Hochneder

The Loco-motion was a popular dance craze in the 1960s promoted by a song of the same name written by Carole King and Gerry Goffen for their babysitter, Little Eva.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to loco-mote for this afternoon’s dance break, but we will explore the Carole King thing a little further.

She celebrated a birthday on Tuesday – Happy 74th, Carole! – and has been celebrated herself quite a bit of late: recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored, and a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree. (source: Wikipedia)

Although she has written star-making music for others throughout her career, her heyday as a vocalist came in the early 1970s with the release of her Tapestry album. Everyone in my peer group not only owned that LP but also wore out the grooves.

So now it’s time for a nostalgic Carole King Playlist. Turn up the volume, get up from your chair, and give in to the soft rock!

Savory Sound Bites: Corn-Jalapeño Mini-Muffins

2/10/2016

Corn-Jalapeno Mini-Muffins

I wasn’t planning to share this recipe with you quite so soon. There’s a bigger story coming, of which this is merely one part, a bite so to speak, and I thought I’d bundle it all together.

But you see, I like you too much. It would be wrong of me to keep these savory morsels away from you for even a moment longer.

So let’s get to it. Go ahead and read the recipe, peep the pictures, and play the slightly spicy tunes from Laneway + Manray.

Then immediately bake a batch of Corn-Jalapeño Muffins for yourself or your loved ones – Valentine’s Day is coming up, after all!

Smoked Barley Salad with Beets and Grapefruit

2/8/2016

Smoked Barley Salad with Beets and Grapefruit

Big fan of salads, right here. Love my leafy greens. Homemade dressing is the bomb, and the endless options for salad mix-ins makes me giddy. So it’s kind of surprising that I’ve never had beet greens in a salad before this little Smoked Barley, Beets and Grapefruit number came into my life. They’re good! Beet greens are as pretty as can be with red veins and stems running through, they taste a little bitter, and the leaves hold up quite well to the simple, slightly sweet vinaigrette.

This recipe brought more than a few surprises in addition to the beet greens discovery, all of them good.

Grains first: You smoke the barley – indoors! On the stovetop! Much easier than it sounds.
Veggies and fruit together. This happens all the time: spinach salad with strawberries; anything green with a tomato on top. Yet it’s a tiny bit edgy when we’re talking beets and grapefruit.
Do-ahead: The recipe offered no make-ahead guidance, but I found it easy enough to prepare everything the day before, refrigerate as separate elements, and assemble the salad shortly before serving.

Continue reading for the recipe, photos, and a really cool song that is a pun-tastic pairing for this tasty salad.

Get Stoked for Bob Marley’s Birthday

2/5/2016

Image: Cat Beurnier for Sugar Daze Bake Shop

Robert Nesta Marley, who died of cancer in 1981, would be celebrating his 71st birthday tomorrow, Saturday, February 6.

A Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician and guitarist who achieved global acclaim for his relaxed, easygoing riddim, Bob became the face of reggae for millions of music-lovers worldwide. He was a complex man: spiritual, militant, ambitious, and sometimes less than kind to his large family. Despite the contradictions I think it’s safe to say he earned his place in history for popularizing reggae music outside of the islands, and as a symbol of Jamaican culture.

Happy birthday, mon!

Sweet Sound Bites: Spiced Orange Drizzle Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Frosting

2/3/2016

Orange and chocolate. Two great tastes, even better together.

We featured these sweet bites on the dessert buffet at our Annual Holiday Open House, and they might make a repeat appearance for Valentine’s Day. They’re that good.

The mini size should mean that I’m saving on calories, but we all know it means I’ll have two. Sorry not sorry.

Continue reading for the recipe, photos, and today’s Sweet Bites Playlist – new acoustic music from We/Or/Me + Joan Shelley. I hope you like these artists as much as I do.

Afternoon Dance Break – P-Funk

2/2/2016

George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, Dallas, Texas, May 4, 2006 - Image: Richard Anderson

Afternoon Dance Breaks - a chance to get up from the desk, crank up the tunes, and dance your fool head off for a few minutes before resuming the daily grind.

Are you feeling funky? Yeah, me too. When it comes to the heart and groovy soul of funk music there is just one collective at the center of it all: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. Make my funk the P-Funk!

Let’s waste no more time. It’s time to get up and get down.

Fish for Dinner: Slow-Roasted Arctic Char with Lemon-Mustard Seed Topping

2/1/2016

Fish for Dinner chronicles my education in the ways of fish-cookery. I grew up avoiding fish other than sticks and was well into adulthood before adding the real deal into my diet (over time and usually at a restaurant). The impetus to cook more fish at home comes from joining a sustainable fish program through Hooked on Fish, like a CSA that delivers boxes of farm-fresh produce but with seafood instead. I’ll tell you what we made and how we liked it, plus a few tips and fishin’ tunes too.

We have been Hooked on Fish subscribers for a year now, receiving more or less weekly deliveries of high-quality, fresh, sustainable fish. I’ve learned a lot about cooking – and eating – a wider variety of fish than ever before. Only a few were duds, which could have been operator error, poor recipe-selection, or maybe I’m just not a fan of that particular fish. (Looking at you, Poached Sablefish in Basil Cream Sauce.)

Most of the fish-cooking experiments were successful and a few were outstanding: Grilled Opah with Mango-Cucumber Salsa & Coconut Rice and Pan-roasted Sea Trout with Roast-Garlic Compound Butter come to mind.

We are now seeing repeats more often on the weekly menu of options, which makes a nice opportunity to try new recipes and revisit the treatments we tried before. For example, this week’s featured fish – Arctic Char, a cold water fish similar to salmon and trout – was done with Asian flavors and posted to the blog last May. This time we’re going in another direction, with mustard seed and lemon – would that be French? Mediterranean? Classic deliciousness, that much I know.

Keep reading for current and past Arctic Char recipes, pictures, and more.