Ah, winter. Sometimes, it seems like the only good thing about the season is blood oranges! Oh, I loves me some blood oranges. In fact, I think I’m going to go on a little lunch-time errand and get a big bag of them.

This is an awesome recipe. And really, it seems pretty healthy too. It’s so colorful and tasty. We had ours over some fettuccine with broccolini on the side. But really, I think it would be pretty good with some crusty bread to sop up all the tomatoey-orangey-winey liquid!

You can of course, substitute regular oranges if you can’t get your hands on blood oranges. Like, if I go to the store and buy them all and there’s none left for you…

Halibut Steamed with Blood Oranges, Tomatoes and Olives
Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appétit
2 blood oranges
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
3/4 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup sliced, pitted, olives (I used a mix of feta stuffed green and Kalamata olives)
2 6-8 ounce halibut fillets
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
3 tbsp chopped fresh chives

Cut off peel and white pith from oranges. Cut oranges between membranes to release segments. Collect any juice and set aside.

Heat oil in heavy very large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic; sauté until tender and just beginning to brown, about 8 minutes.

Add tomatoes and wine. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 3 minutes. Gently stir in orange segments and olives. Season mixture to taste with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle halibut fillets with salt and pepper. Arrange halibut in single layer atop vegetable mixture in skillet. Cover and simmer gently until halibut is just opaque in center, about 12 minutes.

Alternately, you could lightly sear one side of the halibut first by heating a little olive oil in a second skillet and giving the fish about 2 minutes on one side and then transferring to the pan with the oranges and tomatoes to finish cooking. This is what I did. Just put it seared side up and only give it about 8-10 minutes to simmer in the sauce.

Spoon vegetable mixture onto plates. Top with halibut. Place feta cheese atop vegetable mixture and alongside halibut. Sprinkle with chives and serve.

Oh, so delicious! I think this is one of my most favorite fish recipes ever.

This is a recipe that we tried about a week ago and it was pretty good. That said, I am not 100% sold on Ellie Krieger yet. Like, I had to pop the broiler on for the last few minutes here to get any color on the salmon at all. It’s called roast salmon but it’s pretty much just baked salmon, imho. The broiler thing was a bit annoying as I had already put the salmon in a on-broiler-safe baking dish and had to switch this out for a baking sheet.

The sauce was quite good, though. Especially after I added an orange to the mix. Make sure you get ruby grapefruits or you will be sad and your mouth will pucker up.

So, while I love the idea of someone on Food Network cooking healthy and delicious food, I’ve not completely warmed up to her. I need to try a few more recipes before making a conclusion, I suppose.

Roasted Salmon with Shallot Grapefruit Sauce
Recipe adapted from Ellie Krieger
2 skinless salmon fillets, 7 to 8 ounces each
Salt & pepper
2 ruby red grapefruits
1 orange
2 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp minced shallot
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
2 1/2 tsp honey
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp thinly sliced basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Season the salmon with salt and pepper, place on a rimmed baking sheet and roast until almost done, about 13-14 minutes. Turn on the broiler and finish cooking salmon for about 2-3 minutes, until there is a little color on the top.

While the salmon is cooking prepare the sauce. Cut off the top and bottom of one of the grapefruits. Then standing it on end, cut down the skin to remove the pith and peel. Remove each segment of fruit from its casing and cut the segments in half. Set the segment pieces aside. Juice the other grapefruit and the orange and set the juice aside. It’s okay, you can co-mingle the juices.

In a skillet, heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the shallot and saute until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the ginger, juices, honey, and cayenne pepper and bring to simmer. Cook until sauce is reduced by about half about, 10 minutes. Add lemon juice and season with salt, to taste. Right before serving, toss the grapefruit pieces and basil into the sauce. Put the salmon onto a serving dish. Spoon sauce over the salmon and serve.

It looks quite pretty on the plate and it was tasty enough for a simple Friday night dinner. I also recently made a recipe with halibut that hopefully I’ll get up by Wednesday that I liked even more, though! Oh yeah and I made a fish chowder the other week. Hmmm, this may turn into a fish-only week of posts.

So, the other day I realize that I have a whole bunch of basil that I need to use, like yesterday. A quick survey of the fridge also shows some ground chicken and a small container of roasted chili pepper flakes from pokpok (the little container that comes with the curry-noodle-chicken soup). Hmmm, I think to myself, I know what I could do — I could go online and find a recipe for Thai Basil Chicken and make that. Do you see where this is going?

I ended up at Thai Table and basically sort of followed the recipe there…well, except for a few things. So, I am in no way claiming that my version is authentic Thai cooking, let’s get that straight right now. If you want that, definitely use the Thai Table recipe!

See, I just used normal basil, way less chili pepper spiciness than called for and I added a bunch of halved cherry tomatoes that, like the basil, were crying out to be used. The result? Very tasty!

Kind of Like Thai Basil Chicken — Except Less Spicy, with Normal Basil and Some Tomatoes Thrown in for Fun
Adapted from a recipe at Thai Table
2 tbsp peanut oil
1/2 tsp Thai red chili paste (roasted if you’ve got it, make it spicier if that’s what you’re into)
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups basil leaves, loosely packed (If you can get actual holy basil, use that), if your basil leaves are really big, give them a quick chop
3/4 lb ground chicken
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp fish sauce
10 cherry tomatoes, halved

Heat the oil in a big pan and add the minced garlic and chili paste. Cook for a few minutes until you can really smell the spiciness and everything looks a little golden, about 2-3 minutes or so.

Add the ground chicken and break up with a wooden spoon. Stir while the chicken cooks. This part will take a few minutes and the chicken will produce liquid.

Just keep cooking and stirring until most of that is reduced. Add the sugar and stir that in, cooking for about 30 seconds. Next, add the fish sauce. Stir. Finally add all of your basil leaves and the cherry tomato halves.

Stir until the basil wilts down a bit, a minute or so, and serve over rice.

***

Wow. Today is a bonus day. The other night I sauteed up some spinach to go with some fish and I started the same way I always do — a little olive oil, brown some garlic, red pepper flakes (just a pinch), a bunch of spinach and some salt.

Then, I got the idea to add about a 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard right as the spinach was getting wilty. Oh my god, so good! Dijon spinach with toasted garlic is the best. Seriously.

PS: It’s frickin’ cold in here, Mr. Bigglesworth.

This is the second recipe that I’ve made out of Nigella Express and I have to admit, for a book I probably wouldn’t have just gotten on my own, it’s track record is pretty good.

I changed recipe a bit using 2% milk instead of full-fat milk and also adding some leftover, sauteed spinach and tomato. The original recipe was just ham and cheese, which is good, but honestly, I really need some vegetables in my brunch meals. But, that just might be me.

I used sourdough instead of multi-grain bread and dill Harvarti instead of Gruyere cheese because that’s also how I roll. This will feed at least 4 people, maybe 6 if you add a fruit salad and other brunch items.

Croque Monsieur Bake
Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson
6 slices sourdough or multi-grain bread
1/3 cup Dijon Mustard
3 thick slices dill Harvarti cheese (or 6 thin slices) alternately, use Gruyere cheese slices
3 slices ham
6 eggs
1 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup 2% milk
4 tbsp grated Gruyere, Dill Havarti or Parmesan cheese
6 slices tomato
1/3 cup sauteed spinach
sprinkle of Worcestershire sauce

Spread the mustard on the bread slices and proceed to put together 3 sandwiches with the cheese slices, ham, spinach and tomato. Cut each sandwich in half, diagonally, so that you have 6 halves.

Squish the sandwiches into a baking dish that is approximately 10.5 X 8.25 inches and 2.25 inches deep. Next, beat together the eggs, salt and milk. I had about 2 tablespoons of cottage cheese in the fridge that I needed to use, so I threw that in here too. I also added the Worcestershire sauce to the egg mixture because I wasn’t really paying attention to the directions. Woo!

Pour the egg mixture over the sandwiches halves and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in the fridge overnight. It’ll soak up a lot of the liquid. The next morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and sprinkle the grated cheese over the bread.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden. I found that after 30 minutes, mine was mostly all done but still a little runny in the middle. I found that slicing and plating a piece and then popping it in the microwave for 1 minute, completely finished cooking any remaining egg and still kept the top all crunchy. Excellent!

I came across the Legume Love Affair event and well, I that sounded fun as I love beans too. Around the house, we sing a song called, “Beans, the Man they Call Beans”, to the tune of the Jayne’s folk hero song on Firefly (Jaynestown episode). There really aren’t any lyrics other than the “Beans, the man they call beans,” part, but trust me, it’s very amusing. Hmmm, perhaps I have said too much.

Anyway, I am a fan of the lima bean. I think it all started as a child — after being presented with a bowl of Campbell’s vegetable soup, I would begin my hunt of picking out all the lima beans and eating those first. When they were gone, I was less enthused about the soup.

So really, it is my destiny to create a recipe for a soup with just lima beans.

Creamy Lima Bean & Tarragon Soup
2 1/4 cups frozen lima beans — don’t bother defrosting
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 1/4 cups chicken stock to cover
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste
Optional: a few sprigs of fresh tarragon

In a soup pot, heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the dried tarragon and mix to combine.

Next, add the frozen beans and the chicken stock. Bring to a boil and simmer about 20 minutes. Add the parmesan cheese and milk. Stir and remove from the heat. Let cool briefly to blend safely.

In batches, puree until smooth. Return to the pot and salt and pepper to taste and rewarm as needed.

Thanks again to the well seasoned cook for hosting a fun event!

This might be my most favorite Brussels sprout recipe of all time. I made this on Friday night to go with some fish (oven roasted cod) and we decided to make more for Sunday night’s dinner. Brussels sprouts haters would probably even like this! It looks like a tasty little salad on the plate. Who doesn’t like a tasty little salad?

This will make enough for two people — double the recipe as needed. The only thing is that the original recipe said to discard the cores, which made me a little sad. I also found that getting the little leaves off was kind of a pain after a while. I may try this next with pulling off some of the big leaves at first and then shredding most of the sprout to use as much of each sprout as possible. The sprouts I used were on the small size — logistically-speaking, this recipe might work best with big sprouts if you want to just use the leaves.

Brussels Sprouts with Lemon & Pistachios
Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp minced shallot
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 lb brussels sprouts, trimmed, leaves separated from cores
1/4 cup shelled pistachios (after shelling, I put mine in a baggie and broke them up a bit)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallot and garlic and stir 20 seconds.

Add Brussels sprout leaves and pistachios, and sauté until leaves begin to soften but are still bright green, about 3 minutes. Drizzle lemon juice over.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

***

Saturday morning, I was trying to decide what to make myself for breakfast (jwa was going on a jog) and I remembered this mini omelet-maker that my mom got me as a stocking stuffer. What the hell, I thought, I’ll give it a try. I gave it a quick spray with non-stick stuff, sauteed a diced yellow bell pepper and a few chopped broccoli florets and beat up two eggs with a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.

Added the egg and a little cheese (Tillamook roasted garlic cheddar) to the pan.

Covered it. Cooked a couple of minutes. Flipped it over and cooked that side for a couple of minutes. Opened it up and –

voila! Breakfast! Along with some blood orange segments, it was quite delicious.

You know, I probably wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but it worked really well. I’m sure I’ll get a lot more use out of it with many more tasty omelets on the days when jwa is out jogging or um, sleeping in.

I had meant to make lima bean soup last night and post about it here, but, yeah, that didn’t happen. Don’t fear though — it will next week. So will some fish of some sort. And perhaps even more as my 2008 goal is at least 3 posts per week.

This leads me to today’s mini-post — a new afghan project. I have been known to get all crafty on occasion, especially in the Winter. For Christmas this year, one of my presents from jwa was a book on squares. 200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws, and Afghans: Crochet Squares to Mix and Match and after some practice, I’ve decided the waterlily square is within my limited crochet skills.

Now, I just need like 100 more of these…

The original recipe called for vanilla soy milk. We didn’t have any so I used fat-free milk plus some vanilla and a bit of honey. I also messed up the ratio — I was doing a half recipe and I accidentally did not halve the whole wheat flour, which was actually no problem. The batter looked and worked just fine. In fact, if I had used the amount of flour that the recipe originally called for, I think the batter would have been too runny. So, the recipe below is exactly how I made my pancakes. Double the whole recipe to feed more than 2-3 people.

Taste-wise, I really enjoyed these. The ginger-peach green tea added just enough flavor in the background to make them interesting, while the texture was rather light and fluffy. These are, of course, healthy pancakes and you can kind of tell that while eating them. So, just, uh add a side of bacon and you’re in business. Oh! And fruit. Fresh fruit. See, healthy again!

Heart Healthy Oatmeal Green Tea Pancakes
Recipe adapted from one appearing in the Orlando Sentinel, which in turn was adapted from WomenHeart’s All Heart Family Cookbook: Featuring the 40 Foods Proven to Promote Heart Health by Kathy Kastan, Suzanne Banfield and the members of WomenHeart
3/4 cup fat free milk
1 flavored green tea bags or 1 tsp loose leaf tea — for this I used Stash ginger peach green which was very good (here’s the loose leaf version)
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp canola oil
1 egg
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Bring the milk and honey to a light simmer (you do not want it to actually boil at all) on medium heat.

Remove from heat and add the tea bag or the loose leaf tea in an infuser. Let steep 3 minutes. It will smell very good. You will be tempted to drink some but don’t — you need the green tea milk for the pancakes! Discard tea bag or remove infuser. Press on tea to get all of the milk out.

Add the vanilla and stir. Cool the tea/milk mixture to room temperature. Stir the infused milk into the oats and let stand 15 minutes.

Whisk together the buttermilk, oil and eggs. Stir in the oatmeal mixture, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Coat skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Place on medium-high heat. Drop batter by 1/4 cups onto the griddle. Cook 2 minutes, or until bubbles appear on the top and the edges begin to look dry. Turn and cook 1-2 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit. Or, as mentioned earlier, bacon.

This makes a great weekend breakfast and will definitely give you enough energy to trudge all over Mt Tabor Park for a nice, if a bit chilly, 2.5 mile walk.

Resolution #1 — post more.
So, here we go. This was our stay at home, New Year’s Eve meal. Yep, instead of going out, we opted to stay in and eat a lot of beef. Mmmmm… I’ve wanted to make beef wellingtons for quite a while and finally, the time was right. Oh, was it right. Deliciously right.

In the original recipe, this was paired with a Madeira, beef demi-glace sauce but I just opted to use some tawny port that I already had and some beef broth. In a pinch, I would think you could also just use a cabernet in the sauce as well. Also, I heeded the advice of those on Epicurious who came before me and instead of pre-baking the beef (seriously?), I just seared it first in a pan. That was great advice and worked quite well.

The best thing about this recipe, though, is it’s make-ahead-ability. We came home from the store on Dec 30th and put the wellingtons together and kept them in the fridge until New Year’s Eve night. Tackling it that way, I’d think this would even be a great main course for a big dinner party. If you’re into sharing your beef wellingtons like that…

Beef Wellingtons with Gorgonzola & Mushrooms
Adapted from Gourmet magazine
2 center-cut beef tenderloins or filet mignons to the fancy-pants (about 6-8 ounces each)
1 tbsp canola oil
4 large mushrooms (about 1/4 pound total)
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp finely chopped shallot
1 tbsp tawny port
1 clove minced garlic
1 large egg
1 puff pastry sheet (from a 17 1/4-ounce package frozen puff pastry), thawed
2 tbsp Gorgonzola cheese

Heat the tablespoon of oil in a heavy skillet and get it really hot. Salt and pepper each piece of meat and sear the steaks about 60-90 seconds on each side (salt and pepper the other side before turning over). Remove from the pan and let cool down a bit.

Thinly slice the mushrooms for the beef wellington and in a heavy skillet cook in butter with shallot, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste over moderate heat, stirring, until mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the port and stir until it has mostly evaporated. Transfer mushroom mixture to a bowl to cool completely. In a small bowl lightly beat egg to make an egg wash.

On a lightly floured surface roll out puff pastry sheet into a square. Cut in half and roll out a bit more as needed to make it big enough to fit each tenderloin.

Put a nice layer of mushroom mixture and about 1 tablespoon Gorgonzola in center of each square. Top mushroom mixture with a piece of beef, pressing it down gently, and wrap 2 opposite corners of puff pastry over the beef, overlapping them. Seal seam with egg wash or just dip your finger in a little water and seal that way.

Wrap remaining 2 corners of pastry over the beef and seal in same manner. Seal any gaps with egg wash and press pastry around the beefy goodness to enclose completely. Chances are, this will not work out exactly as described. There will be some wrapping and then perhaps a pause for a few sketches, calculations or whatnot and more wrapping and eventually, you will end up with a nicely enclosed beef wellington. Hang in there, it’ll happen.

Use any leftover pastry scraps and cookie cutter (or just mad knife skillz) to decorate the top. jwa made a giant eyeball on his.

Wrap up the beef wellingtons for chilling. I set them on a plate that I had lightly floured and covered with plastic wrap. Chill at least one hour and up to one day. Like I mentioned in the intro, we did these the day before and that worked really well.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees with your baking sheet in the oven. When you are ready to bake the wellingtons, arrange them, seam side down, on the hot baking sheet. Brush top and sides of each beef Wellington with some egg wash (you can save your leftover egg wash from the day before) and bake 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden. Twenty minutes should yield beef that is medium rare. You will have to adjust this time based on your doneness preference and the size of your wellington. If in doubt, medium rare is 145 degrees, just give it a quick check with the meat thermometer.

For sauce
5 mushrooms (button or crimini)
1 shallot, diced
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/3 cup Madeira (you can also use plain red wine here or a port)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leave

To make the sauce (and this is doable the day before too), heat a pan with a little oil. If you are super smart, you can make the sauce in the same pan that you seared the beef in. Alas, I did not think of this at the time. I am sad.

Anyway, saute the shallot and mushrooms until soft and add the wine of your choice to deglaze the pan. Next add the broth and reduce by about half, 15-20 minutes. Stir in the thyme; salt and pepper as needed. Refrigerate (if you are making this ahead of time) and reheat with the beef as needed.

Other Optional Condiment
1 tbsp horseradish
1 cup Greek yogurt (regular yogurt will work too — the Greek kind is just extra creamy)

Mix and serve on the side. The sauce was very tasty but I think the horseradish-yogurt was my favorite. What else did we have on the side? Well, scalloped potatoes and braised Brussels sprouts. Then we retired to the couch and rang in the New Year with some season one Buffy.

Oh, next week there will be Beef Wellington. But this week, it’s a lovely Russian Carrot Pie from the new edition of the Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen. And how fitting that January’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge is all about the healthy vegetables. Perfect timing! And, I’m even early. Hooray!

I’m not quite sure what makes this Russian…the dill? The carrots? I dunno, but we liked it. It’s the prefect meal to make before or after something really beefy. Or, you know, if you are a vegetarian, this is just a good everyday meal.

Actually, this used to be my favorite cookbook when I was a vegetarian. I had the older edition and then lost it sometime around when I moved to Arizona. But, I remember living in Indiana during grad school and making a lot of the recipes out of this cookbook with my friend Christy, who now has her hands full with, uh, Hadley.

Great…time for a recipe!

Russian Carrot Pie
1 tbsp butter
1 cup finely minced onion
1 lb carrots, thinly chopped (I used an extra 1 lb bag of baby carrots leftover from holiday snacking)
1/2 tsp salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp lemon juice (about 1 lemon)
1 tbsp AP flour
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
1 egg
3 tbsp fine bread crumbs
black pepper
3 tbsp minced dill
2 tbsp minced mint
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Nut Pie Crust (below)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the butter in a large skillet and add the onion and garlic and cook about 3-5 minutes. Next, add the carrots, salt and lemon juice. Cook until the carrots are soft but not mushy — about 8 more minutes. Sprinkle with the flour, mix well, and cook for about 2 more minutes. Remove from the heat.

Beat the egg with the cottage cheese in a large bowl. Stir in the herbs, some black pepper and the breadcrumbs. Add the carrot mixture (it’s okay if it’s still hot) and combine well.

Spread into the crust and sprinkle with paprika and Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Nut Crust
6 tbsp cold butter
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup finely minced nuts (I used walnuts)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp chopped chives
3-6 tbsp cold water

Use a pastry cutter or a food processor to cut the butter into the flours, salt, nuts and chives. The mixture should get to the point where it resembles course cornmeal.

Add the liquid a little at the time until the dough comes together. I used all 6 tablespoons, but you never know.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap for storage in the fridge. After about an hour or so, roll it out using flour and place into a 9-10 inch pie plate, forming a crust with an edge.

I chose to par-bake my crust — 20 minutes at 375. I used some parchment and dry beans to weight the crust down. After 20 minutes, remove the crust, take out the weights (beans, beads, whatever) and fill with the carrot mixture and proceed.

Thanks again to Sara for a great (and healthy!) Weekend Cookbook Challenge.