Two Hungry [Artichoke] Hearts

We were watching Sandwich King the other day on Food Network, and Jeff was whipping up a grilled artichoke sandwich with a roasted garlic ricotta spread.  All of the components sounded great, so we took them, and morphed them into a delicious grilled salad.

Start by roasting your garlic.  It takes about at least 30 minutes for it to roast, so you'll want to start with this step so it can caramelize and soften while you prepare everything else.  I peeled away some of the outer layers of the garlic skin first.  Then, you'll want to slice off the top of the head so the cloves are exposed.  Drizzle olive oil over the top, and sprinkle on some salt and pepper.  Wrap up the garlic in foil and place it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until it is fragrant and soft.

While the garlic is roasting, you can start preparing everything else.  We wanted to make the salad a little more hearty, and we had a couple chicken breasts on hand, so we simply seasoned with salt and pepper and a little oregano, and threw them on the grill.  The romaine heart was quartered, and a whole can of quartered artichoke hearts were drained.  The romaine, artichoke hearts, and a red bell pepper all received a liberal brushing of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Then we threw them on the grill.  The romaine and artichokes only took about 5 minutes, while the pepper took about 10 minutes.  You want the pepper to get nice and charred so you can easily peel the skin off.

Once they've cooled down enough for you to handle, give your romaine a rough chop.  Peel the skin off your pepper, and slice it into thin strips.  Add this all to a bowl with your grilled artichokes.  For some freshness, we tossed in some mixed greens and thinly sliced red onion.  You can also toast up some pine nuts to top your salad, for some added crunch.  Now just plate your salads, and add the sliced chicken on top.  For dressing, we just drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the top.

Now, don't think I forgot about our roasted garlic.  When it's soft, and sweet smelling, pull it out of the oven, and squeeze out your cloves.  They should be a golden brown, and nice and soft.  Using the side of your knife, you should be able to smoosh the garlic into a paste.  You can add a little salt to add some coarseness and help  assist you in making the paste.  Then just add your garlic to a bowl with ricotta, parmesan, and lemon zest.

Mix it all together so it's well mixed, and you're ready to spread it on some crostini, topped with fresh basil.  The velvety ricotta with the sweet roasted garlic was the perfect compliment to our grilled salad.

The [Baba] Ghanoush is Loose

I always love a good dip...French onion, buffalo chicken, salsa, hummus, spinach & artichoke...the list could go on and on.  The great thing is that these dips are usually pretty easy to make at home, and you can tweak them to your preferred tastes.

Baba ghanoush is another one of my favorites, and you won't believe how easy it is to whip up.  We had a bunch of Turkish eggplants from our share and this was the perfect use for them.  I started by cutting off the stems, and cutting each eggplant in half.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper and each half, and place cut side down on a baking sheet.  Along with the eggplant, I threw a few cloves of garlic onto the pan as well.  Pop these babies into the oven and let them roast until the eggplants are tender and the garlic has that nice, roasty sweetness.  This took about 30 minutes for me.

Once they're done, let them cool a bit so you can handle them.  Then just scoop out all the meat into your food processor.  Throw in the garlic, and add the rest of your ingredients; equal parts tahini and olive oil, and a splash of lemon juice.  Then just blend it all together.  If you don't have a food processor, you can easily use an immersion blender to puree everything.  Add salt & pepper to taste, and you're done!  I went a little crazy with the garlic, and it was a bit overpowering, so we added a little extra olive oil and some paprika to tone down the garlic flavor.

Then we just cut some pitas into wedges, brushed them with olive oil, sprinkled on some salt and pepper, and popped them in the oven to crisp up.  Voila!  Homemade pita chips!

The perfect vessel for your baba ghanoush!

Outdoor Flicks & Picnics!

As you may have seen on Facebook last night, we had a delicious summer picnic spread that we enjoyed while taking in an outdoor movie (if you didn't see it, you should "Like" our Facebook page!).  One of the things I love about summer in DC is that on any night of the week, you can see an outdoor movie.  Most neighborhoods are jumping on the wagon, and you're sure to find at least 1 movie each week that you want to see.  As foodies, we had to go above and beyond a bucket of fast food chicken or prepared food from the grocery store.  We prepared an awesome spread for movie without going overboard like this:

One of the things I'm not a huge fan of when it comes to summer in DC, is the sweltering, humid weather.  As soon as I step outside, I feel sweaty and gross, and the last thing I want to do is stand over a stove, or in front of a hot oven.  The perfect solution is a cold soup!  And since we picked up a ton of tomatoes in this week's share, gazpacho was the natural choice.

For a little guidance, we found this recipe.  As always, we put our own spin on it.  But to get you started, gather all your veggies, a good knife, a big bowl, and get to chopping!  Make sure you collect all the seeds and juices that may leach out from your veggies as you're cutting them.  That will help thin out your soup.  I left the skins on all of the veggies, except for the cucumber.  He was the only guy that got peeled.  Because we're both huge fans of garlic, we added about 5 cloves.  And since we had a jalapeno on hand, we chopped that up, as opposed to using hot sauce, as the recipe called for.


Once you're done chopping, you'll have this beautiful bowl of fresh summer veggies!  The recipe instructs you to just get your hands dirty, and squish all the veggies together, but I don't think that's an ideal method, considering the peppers and onion aren't as soft as the tomatoes.  Plus, we wanted more of a soup consistency, as opposed to a chunky salsa consistency.  So I pulled out the immersion blender and got to work.  It didn't take long to break down all the veggies either.

Here's where you really need to taste and add seasonings, as needed.  I started with salt, pepper, and juice of half the lemon.  I started out conservative on the lemon but ended up using the whole thing.  Give it another whirl with the blender, and taste again.  If it's not spicy enough, add another jalapeno, or a splash of hot sauce.  I also threw in the balsamic and red wine vinegars, olive oil, and a splash of worcestershire sauce to balance out the sweetness of the tomatoes.


To top it all off, we threw in a bunch of fresh cilantro and parsley.  Again, blend it all up and taste it to make sure the flavor is right where you want it.  Then just pop it in the fridge to chill until you're ready to eat.


No tomato soup would be complete without a grilled cheese sandwich to go with it.  But we couldn't just go with any ol' grilled cheese.  We had to step up our game for all of you! So we chose a nice baguette for our bread, some prosciutto, humboldt fog cheese, and some arugula.

As with any other sandwich, just start building.  I failed to put cheese on both sides of the bread initially, and they wouldn't stick together, so it's in your best interest to do this right off the bat.  The humboldt fog is a mold-ripened goat cheese, but it has a little less tang and a little more smokiness than a typical goat cheese.  It's somewhat soft and crumbly, but it was easy enough to spread on the bread, and melted into the meat and arugula.  With your sandwiches assembled, melt some butter in a pan, and get to toasting!

If you're packing these treats up for a picnic, let the sandwiches cool down a bit before wrapping them in foil, or putting them in a plastic container.  You don't want them to sweat and get all soggy.

All that was left was to pop some popcorn (truffle parmesan popcorn, that is!), throw a couple beers in the cooler, and a couple peaches for dessert!

Oh My Cod!!

We've been eating a lot of meat lately, so we thought it'd be a good idea to lighten things up and have some fish tonight.  With the dill from our share, we decided to make a lemon dill beurre blanc sauce.

We started by sauteing a couple cloves of garlic and half a shallot.  Once these were fragrant and translucent, we added a cup of white cooking wine, and just let it boil for a bit.

Once the liquid has reduced down almost completely, and the shallots and garlic are glossy, whisk in your butter.  As the butter melted, we also added in the dill, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

At this point, your sauce is pretty much done.  Just season it with salt and pepper, and set it to the side.

For the fish, we kept things simple and seasoned it with lemon zest, lemon salt, pepper, cumin, dill, and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Then just pop those babies into the oven at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes.  We used cod fillets, and they came out perfectly cooked and flaky.  But you could use any other mild, white fish.

To complete the meal, we sauteed up some spinach with a little garlic, onion, and red chili flake.  The spiciness of the spinach balanced out the rich, tangy beurre blanc sauce.  It was a light, quick meal, perfect for any summer night.

Whole Roasted Chicken

Tonight we tackled a whole roasted chicken for dinner.  It may seem like a daunting task, but in reality, the oven does all the work.  We ventured over to Trader Joe's to pick up some groceries for the week, and picked up our bird.  The nice thing is that they have whole organic chickens that are already brined.  Whether you brine it yourself or buy a pre-brined bird, brining is the way to go.  It helps keep the meat really moist and delicious.

So once we got our bird home, Justin got to work on him, giving him a nice rub down with some butter and Kosher salt, making sure to get some of the butter under the skin as well.  Despite the brining, you still want to liberally salt the skin.  This too will help keep him moist.  And the butter helps brown the skin so it's nice and crispy.



While Justin was massaging the chicken, I got to work chopping up all the veggies to make a nice little bed for him.  We went with leeks, celery, half an onion, and some carrots.


I also got together the aromatics that we stuffed into the cavity of the bird.  These included a whole lemon, sage, rosemary, thyme, garlic, and half an onion.  Then you just stuff it all inside the cavity.

Once everything is stuffed inside, you want to close the cavity by tying the drumsticks together.  We'd consulted Ruhlman's Twenty prior to roasting to see what Mr. Ruhlman suggested, and to keep the meat moist, he recommended either stuffing the cavity or closing the cavity (he also recommended the liberal use of salt).  Doing so prevents the hot air from circulating through there and drying the meat out from the inside.  We figured we'd do both, to keep the meat moist, and add some additional flavors.

Once he was all tied up, we placed him on his bed of veggies so he was nice and cozy, and placed him in a 450 degree oven for about 45 minutes.  Justin has a convection oven, so he cooked a bit faster than if we were using my regular oven.  If you want to check your bird, the telltale sign of doneness is when the juices run clear.  After about 45 minutes, our bird was pretty much done.  We wanted to crisp up all of his skin, so we flipped him, and put him back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Mmmm...look at that delicious, golden brown, crispy skin!  Just like any other meat, you'll want to let your chicken rest for a good 10 minutes before you start carving him.  So while our guy rested, I added a little butter, and some fresh thyme, sage, rosemary, and fresh cracked pepper to the veggies.  I also took a wedge of lemon that had been in the cavity, and squeezed some of the juice over them.  Then it was time to eat!

The meat was so juicy and moist, with hints of the lemon and herbs that we'd stuffed inside it.  The skin was perfectly crisp with just a hint of salt.  The veggies still had some bit to them, and were a perfect complement to the bird.  We also baked up a sweet potato and topped it with some pancetta and green onion.  So if you're looking for an easy, one pan meal, you should definitely try roasting a whole chicken.  Plus you'll have leftovers for later in the week!

Let's Dish on our Fish...

Wednesdays can be a tough day to get motivated to cook dinner.  You're bogged down at work, already looking toward the weekend.  Although fish is more of a Friday thing this time of year, trout and spinach were all that remained of our share, so tonight that's what we did.  We got a late start, but luckily tonight's dinner came together in a matter of minutes.  No joke!

Justin was in charge of the sauteed spinach.  He started by chopping up some garlic, onion, and the shitake mushrooms from the share.  Into the pan they went with a little butter, where they cooked down for a few minutes, until the onions and garlic were soft.  He also added a dash of red pepper flakes for some heat.

Once that all cooked down, he added the spinach, and a little white cooking wine to deglaze the pan.  It took just a few more minutes for the spinach to wilt down.




While Justin took care of the spinach, I got to work on our whole trout.  Since we had some lemon, onion, and cilantro to use up, we decided to stuff our little guy with all of those tasty ingredients, along with some garlic and ginger.

 

Before stuffing him silly, he got a sprinkling of salt and pepper on both sides of his skin, and inside.  Then I filled his belly with the garlic, ginger, some of the sliced onions, some of the lemon slices, and about half of the cilantro.  I also made a little bed of lemon and onion for him to rest on, and to serve as a little blanket for him.

Into the oven he went for about 7 minutes on each side.  The flavors melted into the fish, and the skin got a bit crispy.  We topped him off with the remaining fresh cilantro.  So in about 20 minutes, we had a delicious meal.  We also had the leftover polenta with kale that we made the other night.  I think it was even tastier as a leftover!  But if you're looking for a quick meal to throw together mid-week, or any day of the week, try this out.  The flavors of the lemon, ginger and cilantro were subtle, but they were there.