This is a kind of recipe mash-up. A lamb tagine recipe (with the wonderful & amazing spice-paste-rub stuff) and a chicken tagine recipe with the tomatoes and broth and oven cooking. And wow, good call to mix the two recipes togetther! This was WONDERFUL — all caps wonderful. I wrote it down right after dinner so I would remember exactly what I did.

Let’s see, what else? I did not make this in an actual tagine (*hint* *hint*) but a big, heavy, ovenproof, wide skillet. That worked well. I also used some of a spice mix I got at Penzeys — Rogan Josh. It has ginger, paprika, cumin, garlic, etc…so if you don’t have that specific blend, you can just add a little of those spices or omit it, it was only a 1/2 teaspoon. I was really just looking for an opportunity to use it. It smells so good. I wind up with so many little jars of spice blends from Penzey’s because they all smell so good!

Obscure ingredient alert: I actually had sundried tomato paste! If you don’t, I’m sure you could just use regular tomato paste. I’ve also included the recipe for the couscous I made to accompany the tagine and a harissa yogurt sauce below.

Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas & Golden Raisins
Adapted from two recipes by Bobby Flay — one for Chicken Tagine and one for Lamb Tagine
2 lb chicken thighs and drumsticks (I used about 1 lb bone-in, skin on drumsticks and about 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs — this was a good combination!)
6 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 handful chopped cilantro
Pinch of saffron threads
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 white onion, diced
1 leek, cleaned, trimmed and sliced
Optional: 1/2 tsp Rogan Josh seasoning
2 cups chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup golden raisins

Mix together the garlic, honey, olive oil, cilantro, saffron, paprika, cumin and tomato paste in a large bowl. Rub the mixture all over the chicken and cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 5 - 8 hours. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or a tagine over high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper on both sides and place in the hot pan, in batches if needed; cook until golden brown.

Remove chicken to a plate or bowl. Make sure you get up all the garlic pieces and crispy cilantro bits.

Return the Dutch oven/tagine to the stove and add the onions, leek and Rojan Josh seasoning and cook until soft. Add the stock, tomatoes, cinnamon stick, tomatoes, chickpeas, and raisins and bring to a simmer.

Nestle the chicken (and any accumulate juices) down into a tagine or Dutch oven. Cover and cook in the oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken is tender. Do not remove the lid to check on the chicken until after the 45 minutes.

Garnish with chopped clinatro and serve harissa sauce on the side.

Harissa Sauce
1/2 cup 2% fat Greek yogurt
1 tbsp harissa paste

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl and let stand at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator before serving. This is awesome stuff. Do not skip it!

Almond, Orange & Pomegranate Couscous
1 cup couscous
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
2 green onions, sliced
salt

Bring the chicken stock, pinch of salt and olive oil to a boil. Add the zest, green onions and couscous. Stir. Add the almonds and pomegranate seeds to the top. Turn off the heat and cover for 5 minutes.

Fluff with a fork and serve with the tagine.

Okay, this is seriously the best thing I have done with a pork tenderloin in like, years. Oh my god. Make this now. It was so good in fact, that I didn’t even get a decent picture of it for the title shot here. I just took it to the table and that was the end of that. So, above is a shot of the wine that we had for dinner. A zinfandel. It was good too.

The original recipe used bone-in pork chops but I substituted a pork tenderloin. I also did this indoors as opposed to outside on the grill, mainly because I was lazy. No matter, jwa & I were still rewarded with a delicious pork meal! I don’t really know what else to say about this except, uh, use fresh sage in the vinaigrette and get a spoon. Because you will be tempted to slurp that all up before the pork is even done.

Roasted Fennel-Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Sage-Lemon Vinaigrette
Adapted from the cookbook, “Grilling for Life” by Bobby Flay
Sage-Lemon Vinaigrette
3 tbsp chopped fresh sage leaves
1/4 c fresh lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 shallot, coarsely chopped
1 tsp honey
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

Fennel-Spiced Pork Tenderloin
2 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 pork tenderloin, about 1 pound
1 tsp olive oil

For Vinaigrette: Combine the sage, lemon juice, zest, shallot, honey, salt and pepper in a blender and blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in oil and blend until emulsified. Set aside until needed.

For Pork: Heat your grill to medium-high. You can also sear this in a pan and then finish cooking in the oven. If you are going to do that, then preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

Place the fennel seeds, salt, and peppercorns in a spice mill and process until finely ground. Alternatively, combine the spices on a cutting board and crush them with the bottom of a heavy pot.

Brush pork with oil and season on both sides with fennel mixture. I used about 3/4 of the mixture, next time I will probably just rub it all on.

Grill the pork until slightly charred on both sides and cooked to medium-well, 4-5 min per side. If using a stovetop/oven approach, sear the pork on all sides (about 5-6 minutes total), then finish cooking in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. You are looking to pull the pork out of the oven with an internal temperature of about 150 degrees F. Transfer pork to a place, tent with foil and let rest about 10 minutes.

To serve: slice pork on a bias and drizzle with some of the sage-lemon vinaigrette, serving the remaining vinaigrette on the side. We had this with some goat cheese polenta and roasted carrots, fennel and garlic.

I can imagine drizzling this Sage-Lemon Vinaigrette on all manner of things — chicken, fish, pasta, yourself. Anything really.

So here’s a Barefoot Contessa recipe I came across about a month or so ago, when I found the Lentil and Sausage Soup recipe. I am always looking for a new idea for granola makin’, so I decided to give it a shot. I did read through the reviews on the Food Network site and a lot of people said the bars (for these were originally Granola Bars) would not stay together and made good granola. There you go — granola.

Since I didn’t necessarily want these to stay in bar form (I wanted the crumbles!), I omitted the butter. A little healthier too. However, there is a lot of honey in this recipe, but it’s not like you are going to sit and eat all of this in one sitting. Unless you are jwa, and then who knows? It could happen…

I added dried lavender because why not? And also, I like the combination of lavender and honey.

Fruit & Nut Granola with Lavendar
Adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten
2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup assorted nuts — I use chopped whole almonds and pecans
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
2/3 cup honey
2 tbsp light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp dried lavender
1 cup assorted dried fruit (I use cherries, blueberries & cranberries)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or spray an 15 by 10-inch baking dish (or somewhere around that size — like a pyrex lasagna pan) and line it with parchment paper.

Toss the oatmeal, nuts, pepitas, and coconut together in a bowl and then pour out onto a sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Watch these…they could get darker than you want. Check after about 8 minutes to make sure nothing is burning.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

Add the honey, brown sugar, vanilla, lavender and salt to the bowl with the warm oats and wheat germ mixture. Add the dried fruit and stir well.

Pour Spread the mixture out into the prepared pan. Wet your fingers, if needed and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown.

Cool for about 30 minutes and then break apart into nuggets of granola.

Store in an airtight container until you eat it all — maybe 4-7 days.

This is one of those meals that is so simple yet so good, that you can’t believe you didn’t make it before or that you don’t have it for dinner a few nights per week. It’s from The New Spanish Table and I promise, the next few posts WILL NOT be from that cookbook. Really. But, it’s such a wonderful cookbook! But no. I will restrain myself.

Here, I had just scored some figs from Limbo and was needing something to do with them. This was the perfect solution!

Grilled Chicken with Fresh Fig Salsita
Pollo a la Brasa con Salsita de Higos
8 to 9 smallish ripe but firm fresh figs, trimmed and cut into thin wedges
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced (I used a sweet onion instead)
3 tsbp medium-dry sherry
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
kosher or sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, rinsed and patted dry
1/4 cup lightly toasted slivered almonds
1/4 cup finely sliced fresh mint
Salt

Place figs, onion, sherry, vinegar and olive oil in a bowl; toss to mix. Let stand for 30 minutes.

Get your grill ready or heat up a grill pan.

Mix the minced garlic, rosemary, 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper and then add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to make a paste. You can also crush all of this up in a mortar and pestle. Or use a knife and crush it into a cutting board to form the paste.

Brush the chicken with the paste. Grill the chicken until lightly charred and cooked thoroughly, 6-8 minutes per side. Brush a few times with remaining paste while cooking.

Transfer chicken to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. You can either slice the chicken breasts on the diagonal for serving or leave whole. When ready to serve, add almonds and mint to the salsita, toss to mix, and add salt to taste.

Plate a chicken breast and top with some of the salsita. I would feel remiss here, if I didn’t say that you could add some cheese, just as a garnish if you will. I think a little goat cheese would be amazing with this!

Okay, next, my new favorite granola recipe! Also, in house news — the siding is completely done and the paint prepping has begun. Hopefully, we’re looking at the whole project being done no later than next week. We’ve also changed weather patterns just in time for the painting and now we are getting rain. So, we’ll see…

The other day, I found myself with a container of ricotta that needed to be used. The weather wasn’t really cooperating for something with pasta, so I set out to find a recipe for something a little different. I came across this one and thought, “Oh! I can use my oven on a 95F degree day!” and decided to make some muffins. Because I have no sense.

Anyway, I got these baked before it got too terribly hot out and was rewarded with delightful, melt-in-your-mouth, lemony, blueberry, almond-y muffins. Now, I normally make pretty healthy muffins but these are not those kind of muffins. These are ricotta cheese + butter kind of muffins. Sometimes, you just need to shrug and grab that stick of butter.

I used a jumbo six muffin cup pan. The recipe should also make 12 regular-sized muffins. In fact, with my bigger muffins, I had a little leftover muffin batter that I baked in a smaller dish. Oh and the almonds and sugar on the top is delicious, don’t skip that part if you can help it.

Lemon Ricotta Blueberry & Almond Muffins
Adapted from the recipe, Nonna’s Lemon Ricotta Biscuits, by Giada De Laurentiis
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup blueberries (I was a little under, between 3/4 and 1 cup)
1/3 cup almonds, either sliced or whole almonds that you have crushed up a bit
1 tbsp raw sugar for dusting the tops of the muffins (you can also use regular sugar)

Spray 6 large muffin cups or 12 regular-sized muffin cups with butter/flour spray. You can also line the cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend.

Using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup sugar, butter, and lemon zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the ricotta.

Beat in the egg, lemon juice, and almond extract. Add the dry ingredients and blueberries. Stir just until blended. The batter will be very thick, almost like a scone dough.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle the almonds and then the raw sugar over the muffins. If you have any extra muffin batter, put in in a small, buttered & floured, oven-safe dish and bake that along with the muffin pan.

Bake until the muffins just become pale golden on top, about 20-25 minutes.

If you are using the 6 jumbo muffin cup size, it will be closer to 25 minutes. Cool slightly in the muffin pan.

Serve warm or at room temperature.