Pam's Sublime Turkey Burgers

Sometimes you just have a good idea and have to implement it. The inspiration for this recipe came from the fresh mint growing in our garden. I have used mint before in turkey burgers, and remembered that I also have drizzled said burgers with lemon juice. I took this idea to the next level by making my own mayonnaise using lemon-infused olive oil.

For two burgers I used:

1/2 lb. ground turkey
a few dashes each of salt and pepper
about a dozen fresh mint leaves, minced
a few shakes of crumbled feta cheese

Patties were hand formed and cooked on the stovetop.

For the mayonnaise I used

1 uber-fresh local egg gifted by a friend
1 dollop of lemon-infused olive oil
1 dollop of basil-infused olive oil
a few shakes each of salt and pepper

The ingredients were put in the blender and mixed until emulsified. The result was a bit heavy on the olive oil taste, so I added some more salt until there was a better balance. 

Burgers were placed on sesame buns and topped with the mayonnaise.

We enjoyed this on the back deck with some white wine and potato chips. Bats and birds helped to create an ideal atmosphere. The evening was complete when we got to watch the best back-yard lightning-bug show so far this season.

Turmeric-Black Pepper Chicken with Asparagus

 

A search for what to do with some leftover asparagus led me to this recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages. Everything was cooked in my indispensable cast-iron skillet.

After cutting chicken breasts into small pieces and tossing with a mixture of flour, turmeric and salt I cooked them with some oil for three minutes on each side. Chopped asparagus was added and then a mixture of water, honey, and pepper. Lastly some rice vinegar was added.

A relatively quick, easy, delicious, and nutritious weeknight dinner.

Smashed Potatoes with Bacon, Greens and Cheese

December 30 was National Bacon Day. Luckily we had some bacon and I found this simple "no recipe" for Smashed Potatoes with Bacon, Greens, and Cheese recipe using some of the other ingredients we had on hand. We used bacon, cheddar /gruyere, kale, and avocados to make this colorful, flavorful, and easy lunch. 

Berry Clafoutis

The recipes in the New York Times Cooking Pages often have names that tell the main ingredients (e.g. Roasted Salmon with Miso Cream; Uncooked Tomato and Mint Sauce with Poached Eggs). Clafoutis, however, was a mystery to me. Since I have harvested a lot of berries (both blueberries and blackberries) from my yard this summer I was on the lookout for berry recipes so I investigated this Julia Child egg-based dessert. 

This was rather easy to make. The eggs, milk, and 1/3 c. of sugar were blended together. A small amount was put in a pie plate and then heated on the stovetop until it began to harden. I imagine this step wasn't absolutely necessary. Berries and more sugar were added, then the rest of the egg batter. It was all placed in the oven at 350 and baked until ready. Mine took longer than the 50 minutes called for in the recipe. I find this is often the case when I bake. The final touch as a sprinkling of powdered sugar, which really does enhance the flavors.

This was a not-too-sweet treat, with a definite egg-y flavor.

Chicken Salad

A few weeks ago while James was in Brazil (and I was on my own) I thawed, poached, and shredded two chicken breasts. Although I only needed one breast to prepare Chilaquiles, I cooked both simply because they came in a package of two. Once the superfluous breast was shredded I put it in the freezer to use later.

Often in the summer I like to have cool salads for meals, so last week I took the prepared chicken out of the freezer, thawed it and made a chicken salad. I decided not to follow any recipe and let the ingredients I had on had be my guide. 

The chicken was mixed with two dollops of  sour cream, about 1/4 c. chopped red onion, and some salt, pepper, and dried basil. At this point I gave it a taste test and determined that it was a bit "onion forward"  so I found some prepared cranberry sauce in the refrigerator and added about two tablespoons. The sweet/tart flavor softened the harsh onion for a lovely flavor combination. We made sandwiches with the salad and had some roasted potatoes on the side.

Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

 The description of this New York Times recipe begins "Skillet cookies are perfect for lazy nights when everyone wants something sweet but no one wants to work that hard for it." This really was much easier and faster than making a batch of cookies. I will probably never make regular chocolate chip cookies again. I had everything I needed in the pantry, and the cookie baked beautifully in my indispensable cast-iron skillet. Some friends had invited me to dinner and I offered to bring dessert. This was well received, especially when topped with vanilla ice cream - after all it was National Ice Cream Day!

photo from New York Times Cooking Pages

One-Pot Vegan Tomato Basil Spinach Pasta

 

This recipe comes from The Ordinary Vegan  webpage. The print out I have is dated June 24, 2015. I found it stuffed between some other things on my cookbook shelf. I have no recollection of how I originally came across this recipe, but when it fell into my hands recently I realized I had everything I needed to make it, so I did. 

 

Although the recipe calls for linguine, I used some tri-colored bow-tie pasta we bought recently at a fancy-schmancy food store while we were traveling in the mid-west. The preparation was easy and quick. Just about everything went into the pot at the start, even the dry pasta. The pot was covered and the liquid was brought to a boil, then reduced to a simmer. The only real prep work was slicing the onion and garlic cloves. The only thing that went in later was the spinach, which was added after seven minutes of cooking. Since this is a vegan dish it did not call for any cheese, but we like cheese so we added a bit of feta to each of our plates.

This had a very peppery flavor, which we both liked. From start to table was about 25 minutes. Easy, quick, delicious.

Hot Chicken Salad

 Sometimes the most important reason that we pick a particular recipe is that we already have all the ingredients to prepare it. So it was for Hot Chicken Salad. We had some chicken thawing and using the New York Times Cooking search feature found a recipe that didn't require a grocery store run. Having just done some major Costco shopping neither of us were interested in going to the store again. 

The chicken breasts were cut into small pieces and cooked on the stovetop in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, then tossed in a bowl along with celery pieces, mayonnaise, shredded cheddar cheese, slivered almonds, diced onion, lemon juice and salt and pepper. This was then placed back into the skillet, topped with crushed potato chips and baked at 350 for 32 minutes. This turned out a bit saltier than I would have liked, perhaps I over salted, or maybe it was the potato chips. In any case, we ate every bit of it.

Cod Almondine

A visit from our Chicago-dwelling adult child always necessitates a fresh-seafood dish. We selected the Roasted White Fish with Lemony Almondine from the New York Times cooking pages for his most recent return. This was simple to prepare, and packed a lot of flavor. Cod filets were placed in a 450 degree oven with a bit of butter for about 10 minutes. While the fish cooked 6 T of butter were browned on the stovetop, and then almonds were added along with lemon juice, lemon zest, and chives along with some salt and pepper. The almond sauce was poured over the cooked fish and served. Roasted potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms were served on the side.

Scrambled Eggs with Mushrooms in Miso Butter

When our adult child was visiting recently he made us a meal featuring noodles and miso sauce. We still had some of the miso paste so when this recipe from the New York Times Cooking pages showed up on my Facebook feed I put it on the schedule for this week's dinners.

 I halved the recipe for the mushrooms and scrambled only four eggs as only two of us were eating. This was quick and easy. I tried the method described for giving the eggs a "custardy finish" which worked well. James and I both liked the eggs prepared this way. We will never go back.

Pretty Easy Pasta

Sometimes the most important thing I'm looking for in a meal is what I can prepare without buying any additional ingredients. Yesterday was snowy and I had no desire to go out for any reason, but especially not shopping. 365 Ways to Cook Pasta to the rescue! We had a partial box of spaghetti so I flipped through some recipes and found Spaghetti with Walnuts and Parmesan which I was able to prepare in less than 15 minutes.

While the pasta cooked I coated the bottom of my indispensable cast-iron skillet with olive oil and minced and sautéed a garlic clove. After about a minute I added 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and sautéed a few more minutes. Once the pasta was cooked and drained I mixed the contents of the skillet into the pasta and added shredded Parmesan cheese and some dried parsley. Simple, fast, and delicious. James and I were both impressed with the especially nutty flavor.

Pasta and Poppies

We had bought a large bag of spinach leaves at Costco last week in order to make a family favorite: Mashed Potato Casserole (which is detailed on this post) while our adult child was visiting. There was still an awful lot of spinach so we had been looking for ways to use it before it spoiled. I found this super simple recipe in our good ol' 365 Ways to Cook Pasta. 

There are only six ingredients in this one: butter, garlic, spinach, poppy seeds, fettuccini, and shredded Parmesan cheese. 

While the pasta cooked, I crushed a garlic clove and added it to 4 T of melted butter in the indispensable cast-iron skillet and sautéed. The spinach was went in next and cooked until wilted, then 1 T of poppy seeds was added. Once the pasta was cooked it was tossed in a bowl with the spinach mixture, topped with the Parmesan and served with some crusty bread. I imagine this would pair well with a buttery Chardonnay, but we had it with Malbec because...Malbec.

Photo added by James, who did nothing for this meal except shopping
and eating, but who wanted to give this post a bit of color.
Lacking a photo of the meal,   I found this other
poppy reference, with Miss Judy Garland.

Pam's first fried rice

Serendipity is sometimes what brings us to try something new. This week it was a recipe on my Facebook feed from New York Times cooking that featured fried rice with bacon. I heavily modified this to something I could make without doing any additional shopping. We had leftover cooked rice and some uncooked bacon. The recipe also calls for cabbage and scallions, which I did not have so I did not use. 

I began by cutting the bacon into small pieces and cooking in olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. When the bacon was cooked I removed it and then put in 4 minced garlic cloves which I sauteéd for about a minute and then added them to the bowl with the bacon bits. 

Next I added some olive oil to the pan and then spread the rice in a layer on the bottom of the pan. I added Worcestershire Sauce, salt, and some ground ginger. I let it cook until it became crispy, then stirred it a bit and let it cook just a bit more after re-spreading it then folded in the bacon and garlic along with some sliced carrots and frozen peas. 

As the rice was finishing I quickly cooked four over-easy eggs. The rice was divided onto two plates and two eggs were placed on top of each.

We were pleased with the meal. Easy, nutritious, delicious.

Yellow Squash Fritters

At the last Farmer's Market of the season James and I bought some yellow squash. Usually I make a yellow squash casserole with them, but I hadn't tried any new recipes in a long time so I went to the trusty New York Times Cooking Page and adapted the recipe for Summer Squash Fritters with Garlic Dipping Sauce. I actually followed the recipe pretty closely; I just didn't make the dipping sauce, and didn't use zucchini - only the yellow squash I bought. The recipe calls for beer in the batter, which really did enhance the taste. We topped them with sour cream in lieu of the dipping sauce. We liked these and will make them again.

Peaches in Red Wine

Yesterday was National Red Wine day, of course as avid Malbec fans virtually every day in Red Wine Day at our house, nevertheless, we decided to celebrate by stepping up our game with a red wine cocktail. I had saved the Peaches in Red Wine recipe from my Facebook feed earlier in the week. It was fortuitous that we had two chilled peaches already in our refrigerator. 

The recipe calls for two cups of red wine for serving 4-6 people. We both had a good laugh about that. Two cups serves two people at our house! I measured the wine into a mixing bowl and added 1/4 cup of sugar, a pinch of black pepper, a shake of nutmeg, and two shakes of ground ginger. I stirred everything together and chilled for an hour. Meanwhile I peeled the peaches and cut into wedges. After the wine chilled I put the cold peach wedges into wine glasses and then poured the wine over them. 

A cool treat for a beautiful day - enjoyed on our front porch.

Chicken with Walnuts

A quick recipe from a classic cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book) this used several leftover ingredients that I had in my refrigerator including two half bell peppers (one green, and one orange) and 3 scallions. 

I started by slicing two chicken breasts into about 20 pieces and then slicing the peppers, and scallions. Everything was set aside while I made the sauce which consisted of what was left in my bottle of soy sauce (the recipe says 3 T), 2 t cornstarch, a bit of port wine (in lieu of cooking sherry), a sugar cube, a bit of ground ginger, salt, and crushed red pepper. 

Using my indispensable cast-iron skillet I first sautéed the chopped vegetables for two minutes on high heat with orange-infused olive oil (I chose this flavor cooking oil because the recipe lists kumquats as an option for serving). The veggies were removed and then a cup of chopped walnuts were given a turn in the skillet for one minute. They were removed and then the chicken strips were cooked in the skillet. Once they were cooked through (it only took a few minutes) the sauce was added and then the vegetables and walnuts were put back in. Everything was covered and cooked together for another minute. 

We had some leftover lemon rice with almonds which we heated in the microwave oven and served with the chicken. 

An easy, delicious, and nutritious weeknight meal.

Easy Honey Mustard Mozzarella Chicken: Têm

 This was the title of a recipe Pam read to me as we made the Friday mid-day transition from "we have plenty of food so we don't need to shop for dinner" to the making of an actual plan.

My response was, "I like every word of that title!"

She then read the ingredient list, answering herself with "Têm!" after every word. This is a bit of family lore, dating back to my dissertation travel in Rondônia in 1996. A neighbor who enjoyed sharing a lot of foods with me invited me to cook a big meal in his kitchen. I would need ingredients that I had not yet seen in the area. As I asked him about each thing I would need to make a chicken and pasta dinner, he would nod solemnly and pronounce "Têm!" -- "They have it!" This sounds so much better in Portuguese, so it is how we share the good news that what we need is on hand. (That meal, by the way, became a minor legend. During a return visit in 2000, people would stop me in the street to ask me if I could cook for them again.)

But I digress. We had everything mentioned in the title of Easy Honey Mustard Mozzarella Chicken, plus the additional ingredients: lemon, pepper, and above all: bacon.

This is another recipe that it is taking me longer to describe than it might take a reader to prepare. I began by putting the rice on to cook as a side dish, and then following the recipe almost to the letter. I used a splash of lemon with the ground pepper, since our jar of lemon-pepper was in the other kitchen. And I used some nice fresh mozzarella, which I shredded/crumbled. The only thing I will do differently next time is to put the bacon on earlier in the process; the thick slices we use could not really crisp in 10 minutes. 

Lagniappe

When I don't think a dish will make for a good photo, sometimes I take a photo of the ingredients, or of the dish in progress. Other times I will poach a photo from the recipe website. In this case, just trust me: this is more delicious and easy than it is photogenic. It just looks like melted cheese at the end. The website has 70 photos. I scrolled through half of them before I concluded that there are a lot of ways to make this look ugly. 

Cilantro Lime Rice and Beans

There's not a whole lot more to add to this post, once one reads the title. The recipe showed up on my  Facebook feed, posted by a friend. I remembered it on Friday when we were looking for an easy meal for dinner. Serendipitously, we had part of a lime, as well as some cilantro left over from a meal we prepared earlier in the week. Since the only other ingredients listed (besides rice and beans, of course) were water, salt, and olive oil we were good to go. I used the basil flavored olive oil we found at Fieldstone Farm Market (a great grocery store we recently discovered in Marion, MA). 

The recipe can be found here. I used my indispensable cast-iron skillet for this one-pot meal.

Food and Fellowship

Fellow Unitarian Universalists (along with many other church goers) are familiar with the coffee hour fellowship that follows Sunday services. This informal gathering is probably more important to some than is the formal service. Zoom church makes this difficult, and even our masked in-person meetings are happening without the "after" part, as we forgo eating and drinking together in the name of public health. Our first Sunday service of the new year (a "Zoom only" affair) sought to rectify this missing piece with "Breakfast Church". Since this had to be strictly BYOB we found a fun recipe to try with thanks to the New York Times Cooking Page. Although we had previously made Dutch Baby with Bacon and Runny Camembert, the simple Dutch Baby was, well, simpler. With just a few basic ingredients, a blender and a hot oven we had a tasty breakfast treat in about a half an hour - and it looked really cool, too. We sprinkled the puffy pancake with some powdered sugar, and added a few teaspoons of apricot jelly. We shared stories and enjoyed our respective meals via our online gathering. Breakfast at Casa Hayesboh is, of course, always paired with fresh roasted, fairly traded, organic coffee. For Breakfast Church we also imbibed some mimosas.

Dutch Baby hot out of the oven!

New Year's Eve dinner - Fettuccini with Chicken and Mushrooms

Welp, 2021 closed much the same way that 2020 did, so as we entered our third year of pandemic James and I spent a quiet evening at home. We managed to stay up until about 10:30 before we decided we'd had all the Netflix excitement two baby boomers could take. We did however, have a lovely meal before we settled in to the boob tube.

We selected Fettuccini with Chicken and Mushrooms from one of the oldest cookbooks on our shelf - 365 Ways to Cook Pasta. The recipe was selected because we had chicken and mushrooms in our larder. It calls for a mix of white button, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms. I only used the first two of these. We had purchased some white mushrooms for another recipe, and the shiitake came from a log James insisted we take with us from a shiitake mushroom farm we visited on Martha's Vineyard - our last trip before the country shut down in March 2020. The log was supposed to have been soaked that spring in order to cause the mushrooms to come out, but that was never done, so were were pleasantly surprised to find a 'shroom growing out of the log earlier in the week. I plucked it to use in our last meal of 2021.

The accidental shiitake mushroom

The recipe itself was of a rather straightforward chicken/pasta/creamy-tomato-sauce variety. Peas were also added to make it a complete meal in itself.