What Did You Eat?

Weekend Herb Blogging: Fresh Thyme and Garlic Soup

It's Weekend Herb Blogging, the brain child of the lovely Kalyn.   Every weekend bloggers are corralled over at her site, Kalyn's Kitchen.  So, head over there to see all the herbal possibilities. My herb of choice for this weekend was an easy decision to make.   The fresh thyme in the produce section was the best I've seen in months.  And I wanted to make something simple, but full of flavor.  So here it is, Fresh Thyme and Garlic Soup, easy to make and great fun to eat.  The recipe calls for four large heads of garlic, which can astound people.  Part of the fun in serving this soup is telling people how much garlic they're eating and watching their surprised reaction.  They can taste its presence, but it doesn't shout GARLIC. 

Cider-Braised Chicken And Cabbage

Happy St.Patrick's Day!!  I'm Irish-American (as well as Scottish and Native American).  My mother always fixed corned beef and cabbage for us, which was OK. Truth to tell, I'm not a big fan.  I did like the corned beef hash made with the leftovers, however.  Several years ago, a friend from Ireland informed me that corned beef and cabbage is never eaten on St. Paddy's day in Ireland. It's purely an American invention. That absolved me for not making corned beef in honor of my Irish roots!  Great.  Instead, I usually make colcannon, which is food of the gods in my book. But, yesterday I made this authentic Irish pub recipe of Cider-Braised Chicken And Cabbage instead. 

Wild rice and walnut salad

Once again, my Green's Cookbook by Deborah Madison delivered big time!  I've yet to find a disappointing recipe in it, and regard it as my  most reliable resource when I want to prepare a meal that tastes good.     My grand plan is to make every recipe in the book, in part because I'm curious to see if there's actually a bad recipe in the book.  I think not.  One recipe I've always wanted to try is Wild Rice And Hazelnut Salad. It calls for hazelnut oil and hazelnuts, which I couldn't find at my grocery store. Apparently, they stock them at Christmas, but not the rest of the year.  People only want hazelnuts on holidays? I don't think so.  I substituted walnuts and walnut oil, and it was delicious. But, I want to try it with hazelnuts someday.

Spaghettini with uncooked watercress

This was a very busy day and I really didn't want to cook at all.   But, I decided to try a recipe from At Home With Michael Chiarello, a lovely food porn type cookbook I received as a gift some time ago.   I enjoy reading this book, but have never fixed a single recipe in it.  The recipe, Spaghettini With Uncooked Watercress, looked wonderful and seemed just the kind of pasta dish I love to eat.  And Michael Chiarello, the cute guy on The Food Network, promised this recipe was very fast to make, about 8 minutes in all.  Well,  I've heard that before and it rarely works out that way.   And it didn't this time either.

Weekend Cat Blogging: yard patrol

Upsie begins her yard patrol.  First she stops and admires the fava bean plants. Still no beans!  What's the problem?

Exhausted after all that hard work, she takes a break under a tree rose.

Upsie says to go over to Clare's house at Eatstuff and see all the other kitties!!!!

Weekend herb blogging: Seared tuna with tomatoes and basil

It's Saturday, so that means Weekend Herb Blogging has arrived.  One of my favorite combinations is tomatoes and sweet basil.  And I'm a long time tuna fanatic. Seriously, I have eaten so much tuna in my lifetime, I must have ingested pounds of mercury over the years. I should be able to take a person's  temperature by sticking my finger in their mouth.  This recipe for seared tuna with basil and cherry tomatoes grabbed my attention as soon as I saw the picture in Martha Stewart Living.  If you head over to Kalyn's Kitchen  you will see the other herb bloggers linked to her site.  Great recipes can be found there.

Braised chicken, caramelized onions and morels

I love morels, but it has occurred to me that they might look a little odd to people unfamiliar with them.   One friend told me they looked like wrinkled slugs.  When I first offered my husband morel stew, he looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked suspiciously, "What is that?"  It was the same look Kevin McCarthy had in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when he saw alien pods from outer space taking over Earthling bodies.  Morels do look a little X-Files.  But once you fall under their spell, you'll think how good they taste when you look at them.  They'll look adorable--and expensive.  I received a bag of dried morels and used some of them in a dish I created when my pantry was a little bare.   That's why it's always nice to have dried mushrooms, because they turn a plain dish of chicken and onions into something a little special.   

Fit Fare

I do try to incorporate healthier meals in my diet. Honest!  The Well Fed Network has a new blog called Fit Fare, which is up and running.  You'll find a variety of interesting articles on healthy eating there.  I made a delicious (well, I thought so) edamame salad, and the recipe for it is on Fit Fare right now.  I'm sure this will help me stay motivated in my quest to eat a clean and mean diet.

Any bets?

Black bean and chicken tostadas

Most tostadas that I eat in restaurants are much too big.  You order one and they bring you a plate with a tower of food. Only a truly reckless person would pick up one of these behemoths and eat it, as it was originally intended.  Instead, you eat down through layers of food with a fork before you hit the tortilla, which is often a soggy mess.   To me, these are salads sitting on a tortilla.   I like a real tostada, simpler and smaller, the kind you can eat out of hand as easily as a hot dog.  Being able to bite into one and experience the mouth feel of all the layers, with the crisp tortilla, is what makes them special.  They're very simple to make.  The ingredients can be placed on the table for people to build their own tostada.  Frankly, I love "building" food. Whether it's building a burger, a taco, a pizza, or a tostada, it's fun.   It's the closest I'll ever get to civil engineering.

Weekend Cat Blogging

Upsie models her latest hat.  "Does this make me look fat?"

"As soon as the female human goes into the other room, I'm going to leave a hair ball in her shoe."

Go over to Clare's Eatstuff and see all the other cat bloggers sharing pictures of their furry friends!