Friday, September 30, 2011

Lemon Garlic Hummus

Welcome back, readers! I hope you all enjoyed Chef Deanna's post, she will (hopefully) make regular appearances here on the Fork and Dagger!


Today's post is a healthy snack-time favorite: Hummus! I've been getting sick of buying hummus that tastes like lemon furniture polish, so I decided to make my own!


It's very simple, with very strong flavors, and no tahini (which is very high in calories, so we lightened this up a bit!) Enjoy!


Adapted from AllRecipes.com
Ingredients:

  • Olive oil (Start with 1/4 -1/2 cup, and increase as necessary for desired texture)
  • 3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 cups chickpeas, drained (and rinsed. It'll foam and get sudsy when you rinse it. Gross huh?)
  • 2 teaspoonsful minced garlic 
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:

  1. Put the garlic and a small amount of the olive oil into a food processor, and blend until smooth. (You don't want to bite into a chunk of raw garlic. Or maybe you do, to each their own!)
  2. When the garlic is well blended, add the chickpeas, lemon juice, salt, and more of the olive oil. Process until smooth (adding more olive oil / lemon juice if necessary for texture and flavor)

Serve however you usually serve hummus! Pita chips, veggies, on a sandwich, whatever your heart desires! 
Yumm! Smooth and tasty!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Steak with Sweet Potato Puree


Hello, this is Deanna! Who the heck is Deanna, you ask?! To answer your question, I am a friend of Chef Megan. We both work to expand our knowledge of drugs at URI College of Pharmacy when we're not busy making delicious food.

Lately, I've been very busy with rotations and haven't had time to contribute to this fine blog. But then I thought to myself, "Self, no more excuses!" So alas, I am here to share a recipe with you.

Much like the Elias family, I enjoy a carnivorous diet. I also enjoy foods that look fancy on a plate. This is how my steak with sweet potato puree recipe was born.

Ingredients (serves two hungry people):

Two nice hunks of steak (choose your favorite cut!)
Olive Oil (enough to cover your steaks without them becoming drenched and drippy)
1 large Sweet Potato
1 cup Milk
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 pat butter (about 1/2 to 1 tablespoon)
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

1. Start off by peeling the sweet potato and cutting up into 1-inch chunks.

2. Throw the chunks in a sauce pan, and cover the pieces with equal parts of milk and heavy cream (or half and half, if that's what you happen to have in the fridge). The amount of milk and cream you need is very dependent on the size of your chosen potato, so just use enough to ensure that all of your sweet potato chunks are submerged. Add about 5 grinds of salt and 5 grinds of pepper.

3. Simmer potato mixture until the potatoes are soft (lid on for 1st half, lid off for second half). Once soft, throw the whole mixture in the blender! Blend until nice and smooth. If it is still too thick to blend at this point, feel free to add some extra milk or cream. The end mixture should be thinner than mashed potatoes, but not so thin that it's runny and weird.

4. Pour the puree back into the sauce pan. At this point, you can add the pat of butter and season to taste with more salt and pepper. Set on the back burner until your steak is ready.

5. Trim the fat off the edges of your steak. Unless you're a person who enjoys eating the fatty bits, get rid of them, they'll just slow you down when it's time to devour your meal.

6. Rub steaks with olive oil, and then season with salt and pepper. I use a very generous helping of both salt and pepper.

7. Preheat your cast iron pan (or whatever device you would like to use to cook these lovely steaks on...I just love cast iron pans and grills...but my grill was stolen on Labor Day weekend, so I had to go with the pan). Make sure the pan is nice and hot before you throw on the steaks.

8. Cook steaks to your desired level of done-ness. Then remove them from the pan and let them rest for a few minutes.

9. While your steaks are resting, reheat your sweet potato puree to make sure that it is nice hot for plating.

10. You are now ready to assemble your plate, puree on the bottom, steak on top! Enjoy! If you'd like a meal that is a little more balanced, serve this with a lovely salad. I went with Romaine lettuce and blue cheese dressing (with those lovely little dried cranberries on top).


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Chicken and Corn Chowder

Welcome back summer? It is a delightfully warm night tonight, compared to how the last few have been, don't you think? (Well, you in New England. Those of you not sitting pretty in the Northeast, I have no idea how your weather has been. Just pretend you're here!)
I planned this meal a few nights ago when it was chilly! And I mean, it was really brisk. I even had to break out the bunny slippers, and that means business.
So the type of dinner doesn't exactly match with the weather - this is more of a fall/winter stick to your ribs type chowder, but it was delicious none-the-less!




(And if you're pinching pennies like I persistently seem to be, it was also a very inexpensive dinner! Less than $10 per serving!)


So if you're feeling chilly, winter-y, or just corny, sit back and enjoy my chicken and corn chowder!


Ingredients (serves about 8)
Of course there were only four of us. And it more or less all got eaten. But that's my family for you. Shh...

  • Bacon (8 strips, chopped roughly)
  • 2 small onions (or 1 large. I'm not picky with proportions) diced
  • 4 and 1/2 tablespoons flour
  • 4 and 1/2 cups milk (we kept it light and used 1% milk, but you can use whole if you want it a little thicker)
  • About 22 oz chicken stock
  • 4 ears of corn (slice the corn off the cob and keep the corn and cob separate)
  • 2 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 3 springs fresh thyme
  • rotisserie chicken  (take the chicken breasts and shred them with a fork... or chop them if you want it more chicken noodle soup style)
  • Salt and pepper as desired
Directions:
  1. Brown the bacon in a large pot, and cook on medium high until brown (maybe 5 minutes or so) 
  2. Enjoy the delightful smell of cooking bacon
  3. Add the onions and cook until soft (you can also use this time to drain out some bacon fat if you want)
  4. Add the flour and stir constantly until the flour turns golden brown (DO NOT BURN THIS! a) smells bad, b) might ruin the dinner)
  5. Slowly add the chicken stock, whisking constantly.
  6. Whisk in the milk
  7. Add the corn COBS (not the corn), the thyme, and the diced potatoes.
  8. Simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring regularly to move the cobs around and add flavor
  9. After 15 minutes, remove the cobs and the thyme, and add the corn and the chicken.
  10. Heat until the chicken and corn are heated through, maybe about 5 minutes.
Brown the bacon and soften the onions...

After adding the thyme, potatoes, and corn cobs 
Serve with some oyster crackers! (Not those thin stupid hexagonal ones. You need the puffy, New England/Cape Cod oyster crackers!) Add salt and pepper as you like it!
I think I could just eat these for dinner, and be happy.
And there you go, from my kitchen to yours, a yummy, easy, sort of healthy, not so expensive, dinner.
Enjoy!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Chicken Souvlaki

Well, it's the last official weekend of summer, and as a tribute, we made one of our favorite summertime meals: Souvlaki
Little linguistic lesson: "The word souvlaki is a diminutive of σούβλα souvla 'skewer', itself borrowed from Latin subula." (Thanks Wikipedia! The more you know ~)

So for those of you who haven't figured it out - Souvlaki is Greek Shish-Kabob, and it is quite delicious. Served on a salad or a bed of rice, with some grilled or roasted vegetables, souvlaki tastes like the essence of summer. Souvlaki can be pork, beef, lamb, or chicken, and the below marinade goes well with whatever meat you choose. We chose chicken, but let your heart (and stomach) guide your way! :)

Ingredients: 
  • MEAT. (Well, if you're a vegetarian, I'm sure the marinade would go well on tofu or whatever it is you enjoy. I KNOW it goes well on vegetables.)
  • Olive oil (we use about 1/2 cup, but there is no precision in the marinade. Add or subtract ingredients as you see fit)
  • Lemon juice (use the juice of about 2-3 lemons. Use your best judgement, some lemons yield more juice than others. Try to get a 1:1 ratio of lemon juice to olive oil)
  • Minced garlic (How much garlic do you like? We like enough to ensure that no vampires ever come near us. About 4 cloves or so, minced or crushed up nicely!)
  • About 1 tablespoon (heaping) of oregano
  • About 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I think? We use about 10-20 grinds of our pepper mill. Like pepper? Go crazy)

Directions:
  1. Make the marinade as follows:
    1. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice before adding anything else. It helps to make the marinade a more even emulsion, as opposed to separating out.
    2. Add the garlic, oregano and pepper.
    3. Whisk until properly mixed
  2. Dice the meat into cubes.
  3. Marinade the meat (I bet you didn't see that step coming) **The longer you can marinade the meat, the better it will taste. It's more or less that simple. We let the chicken marinade for about 6 hours today**
  4. Preheat the grill on high (See, the grill is what makes it taste like summer)
  5. Skewer the meat *Note: if you are using wooden skewers, soak the skewers in water for about a half hour before grilling so they don't burn*
  6. Grill the skewers until they are at the level of doneness that you prefer
We served ours with vegetables that we chopped up and roasted in the oven (at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes), and some rice pilaf. Oh, and rolls. Because that is what we do in our house. Bread, bread, carbs, and bread.

You can also choose, if you'd like, to skewer the vegetables in the same marinade and grill them. Warning: I've learned that when you grill little tomatoes, the inside stays roughly the same temperature as the center of the sun for about 4 hours after they come off the grill. Reader, beware.

Anyways, enjoy your last weekend of summer, and if you want to remember what summer tastes like in the heart of winter... it's never too cold to grill.
Enjoy your little skewer of Greece! Opa!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Simple Salmon

Hello! It is a beautiful night out, so I used that opportunity to... cook indoors.
I love grilling food as much as the next girl, but after working from 8 am - 9pm today, I wanted something quick and delicious that I could enjoy from the comfort of my own kitchen.



Enter (on stage right) my mini George Foreman Grill
I bought this awhile back when I moved into my own place at school. $18 bucks and worth every tiny penny!


As mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to be healthy, so I decided to grill up a scrumptious piece of salmon. 
I'm a new salmon eater, so when I found an easy recipe that worked, I stuck with it. I don't need any fancy sauces or rubs, and put some wasabi near me and my tongue lights on fire just thinking about it. The following is a very very easy, but delicious way to cook up a piece of salmon.


Ingredients:

  • Salmon
    • I should mention that when I went to Shaws, they had bright red, delightful looking Sockeye Salmon. I didn't know what this meant, but it looked wonderful (and more importantly, was on sale), so that is what came home with me. For other inquiring minds, Sockeye is a type of salmon native to the North Pacific. I like to think this salmon lived a good life before it ended up on my plate.
  • Olive oil (I'm normally not a stickler, but try to use good olive oil. You'll actually be able to taste it!)
  • Sea salt
  • Cracked black pepper
Directions:
  1. Preheat the grill (The beauty of the George Foreman is you just plug it in and wait for the light to turn off. If you are cooking on a big boy grill, preheat to medium-high)
  2. Drizzle olive oil on the side of the salmon with the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (as you see fit)
  3. Place the salmon skin side down on the grill, then oil and season the fleshy, red, delicious side. (If you are using the George Foreman, leave the lid up for a minute or so. That lets the skin crisp up nice without overcooking the salmon).
  4. After a minute or so, close the lid. Cook for a total of about 6-8 minutes. (On a real grill, flip about halfway through) Try not to cook for longer, or else the salmon dries out, and really, that lovely Pacific Sockeye gave its life in vain.
  5. Definitely squeeze lemon over it - I'm not putting this as an option. It's too tasty to skip this!
A nice quick, easy dinner. Served with a potato and spinach that I cooked up in the microwave. Yum yum in less than 15 minutes. Enjoy!
Tasty omega-3 goodness!


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Simple Poached Eggs

Another update so soon? You are really all very lucky that I have nothing to do today. So good morning!
I wanted a simple breakfast today, a poached egg and some toast. However, I've never made poached eggs the old fashioned way. We usually use a microwave egg poacher such as this little guy: Egg Poacher!
It's a very efficient egg poacher, but either the yolks are too hard or the whites are too runny. (I know, I'm like the Goldilocks of the egg world. But come on, life is too short for bad eggs).


So I googled around different recipes, and came up with the following, which yielded perfect, old-fashioned, poached eggs! Enjoy!


What is a breakfast without feta cheese? Or coffee in a homemade coffee mug (Thanks Joanne Zatzkin!)
Ingredients:

  • Egg(s) (WHAT. I know, probably the most shocking ingredient here)
  • Water
  • Dash of white vinegar (helps the egg stay together and look nice)
Directions:
Many different websites talked about measuring the temperature of the water, or messing with the temperature settings throughout the cooking process, but being lazy, that was too much work for me. I found the following to work nicely!
  1. In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil.
  2. Once boiling, throw in a dash (maybe 1 - 2 teaspoonsful) of vinegar
  3. Lower the heat to a low simmer, and swirl the water to slow the boil a bit.
  4. Crack the egg(s) into a small bowl. (Each egg gets its own bowl)
  5. Lower the small bowl into the water, and gently tip the egg into the water. (If you are doing more than 1 egg, wait 10-15 seconds before adding each egg)
  6. Cover for 4 minutes, then remove the egg(s) with a slotted spoon.
Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Grilled Shrimp on the Bah'bie (+ Remoulade)

Hello readers! (Reader? Whoever you are reading this, hello!)
Tonight's dinner was based upon (okay, basically a copycat of) the Outback Steakhouse's Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie (R).
However, I didn't want to violate any sort of trademarks or anything, so I threw a Boston accent on it, and voilé! Grilled shrimp on the bahhhh' bie :)



Back on the healthy kick (let's see how long this lasts! Goodbye Red Velvet Cheesecake)
The shrimp is served with a WONDERFUL remoulade sauce that is relatively easy to make. So below, please find (and enjoy) the grilled shrimp rub and the accompanying sauce!

Remoulade Sauce:
Ingredients (serves 4):
  • 1 cup of mayo
  • 2 tablespoonsful stoneground mustard
  • 4 teaspoonsful milk
  • 2 and 1/2 teaspoons horseradish (not horseradish spread - entirely different!)
  • 2 teaspoons minced celery (roughly, we probably erred more on the side of 3)
  • 2 teaspoons minced white onion (again, maybe 3)
  • 2 teaspoons minced green bell pepper (3 again.. sensing a pattern?)
  • 1/2 teaspoonful white vinegar
  • 1/2 teaspoonful paprika
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon parsley (we used freeze-dried, you can also use fresh!)
  • pinch of salt
Directions:
  1. Mix in a small bowl
  2. Cover and chill 
*Note: making this sauce ahead of time and letting all of the flavors come together is very important to the taste!*


Grilled Shrimp on the Bah'bie
Ingredients:
**Caveat!: The portions of shrimp rub below are intended to coat maybe about 6 shrimp. Multiply out the amounts as deemed necessary by your hunger for tiny crustaceans :) **
Layered before I mixed it all up
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon sugar (We were pretentious and used raw organic cane sugar. It is how I pretend to be fancy in my spare time)
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • A dash of ground allspice

Directions:
  1. Preheat grill to high (We used a George Foreman grill because it's raining and a little cold)
  2. Skewer shrimp (if on a real grill). 
  3. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle seasoning on both sides. 
  4. Grill 2 to 3 minutes on each side
  5. Serve with lemon and remoulade sauce (and other lovely sides. As you see, we served it with carrots, beans, and wild rice. Also, a dinner wouldn't be a dinner in the Elias house without crusty bread... mmmmm)

Well, enjoy folks. We sure did.

Oh also, I feel I should warn you. While looking up if a shrimp was in fact a crustacean (it is.) I discovered this website: God Hates Shrimp .  Apparently eating this dinner was an abomination or something. I took my chances, good luck to you all.

I will be starting clinical rotations again on Friday, so hopefully I can keep up with this.
Happy eats, and try your best to avoid eternal damnation!