Pistachio Pesto Potato Salad

Ahhh, the ever-present summer picnic and BBQ staple - Potato Salad.

I gotta be honest, I feel like I've been blog-free for so long that I've forgotten how to type!  I was so excited to be able to actually participate in this month's Daring Cook's Challenge despite all the craziness.

Boyfriend and I were invited to a BBQ last weekend and it hit me, "OMG, I'M MAKING POTATO SALAD!"  Boyfriend was confused at my excitement, especially since the invite also read, "you bring the booze, we'll provide the food."

I didn't care what the invite said, I was bringing potato salad dammit!

And I knew just what little twist I'd put on it to make it "mine": Pistachio Pesto.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been doing a ton of "pantry cooking" in preparation for what will soon be known as "the move that never happened."  One night, I wanted to make something quick and simple, yet fresh reminiscent of spring, so I threw the only nuts I had (pistachios), some garlic, Parmesan, lemon juice, olive oil and basil into the food processor and gave it a good whiz.  I tossed the resulting pesto it with capellini, white beans and sauteed swiss chard.  It was AWESOME.

So here goes, my rendition of a healthy potato salad - PISTACHIO PESTO POTATO SALAD (ha! say that 5 times fast!)

Blog-checking lines:Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

The first thing to do was to make the pesto.  I've made pesto from just about any herb-nut-cheese combination and I gotta admit, they were all pretty amazing.  My love of pistachios might have taken this version to the top o' the pile for me though.

Pistachio Pesto:
2 cloves garlic
1/2 C toasted pistachios
1/4 C grated Parmesan
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 large package of fresh basil
1/2-3/4 C extra virgin olive oil, depending on your tastes
salt and pepper, to taste

1) Add the garlic, pistachios and Parmesan to the food processor and whiz it around to finely chop everything.
2) Add the basil, lemon juice and some of the olive oil, then whiz it around again for a few seconds.
3) With the motor running, slowly pour the remaining olive oil into the processor in a nice stream until the pesto comes together.  Some people like their pesto with lots of olive oil, I prefer mine more "dry"... add and taste until it fits your personal preferences.
4) Add salt and pepper if it needs it and give it one more spin to mix thoroughly.
** Make ahead: You can easily prepare this up to 3 days ahead of time and keep it in the fridge, or store it in the freezer for longer.

Potato Salad:
2lbs small potatoes (I used Yukon Golds), chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/4 C rice wine vinegar (any acid will do, this is what I had on hand)
Pistachio Pesto
2 sweet Italian red peppers
1 C white beans, cooked (or you can used 1 can of drained, rinsed beans)
1 1/4 C nonfat plain Greek yogurt (feel free to add more depending on how "creamy" you like your potato salad)
1/4 C mozzarella cheese, shredded

1) Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the potatoes.
2) Roast the red peppers, peel off the charred skins then dice into 1/4" pieces

3) Once the potatoes have cooked to al dente (beware the mushy potato!), drain into a colander and sprinkle with the vinegar.  The potatoes will soak it in, giving them a little flavor and adding some depth to the final dish.  Let the potatoes cool to room temperature before adding the other ingredients.
4) Once the potatoes have cooled, add the remaining ingredients and mix using a spatula, trying not to break up the potatoes too much.
5) Allow the potato salad to rest for a few hours so that the flavors can come together.  If you have time, let it go overnight... it is wayyy better the next day!

With a little chiffonade of basil on top for garnish

We never actually made it to the BBQ (it rained all day... sad), but we grilled up some hamburgers anyway and had a nice indoor picnic while we watched the Bruins pummel the Canucks in an exciting Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Sports.  Burgers.  Potato Salad.  #WINNING

Cold Soba Noodles and Veggie Tempura

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

When I was a vegetarian, every time we would go to a Japanese restaurant for lunch or dinner, I would always order tempura vegetables.  I loved them, especially the sweet potatoes.  I was always curious how they cooked the vegetables perfectly encased in a crunchy, slightly fluffy batter.  Ohhh, and with the dipping sauce... om nom nom.  The eternal trick was always trying to bite a large piece of sweet potato or zucchini in half, after dipping it in the sauce, while tenuously holding it with your chopsticks.  And trying not to dribble the sauce ALL. DOWN. YOUR. CHIN.

Minds out of the gutter people.

Clockwise from the top: snap peas, sweet potato, shrimp,
mushrooms, and red bell peppers in the middle

I was so glad that tempura was part of the challenge this month because I may have never tried it otherwise.  Not nearly as hard as I anticipated.  (that's what she said!).

Great, now you've really got me going.

Moving on.

The directions in the challenge were spot-on and I felt that luckily, my chopstick-skills were up to snuff.

For the Soba:

12 oz Soba (buckwheat) noodles
2 qts water

1) Cook the noodles in a pot of boiling water, approx 7-10min, read the package.  Wow, that was easy wasn't it?
2) Once they are done, drain the noodles and rinse under cold water to cool and remove the extra starch.  Keep them in the colander covered by a damp towel until you're read to use them.

Mentsuyu (the noodle sauce):

2 C Kombu dashi (I just heated some nori in hot water and then filtered it, lazy me)
1/3 C soy sauce
1/3 C mirin (sweet rice wine)

1) Put mirin in a sauce pan and heat gently.  Add soy sauce and the dashi soup stock (or if you're lazy like me, the nori soup stock).  Bring to a boil.  Take off the heat and cool.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Tempura
1 egg yolk
1 C iced water
1/2 C flour, plus extra for dredging
1/2 C cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
vegetable oil, for frying
ice water bath, for the batter
cold, sliced vegetables/fish:

• sweet potato, peeled, sliced and blanched
• carrot, peeled, sliced
• green beans
• snap peas
• bell pepper, sliced
• mushrooms
• eggplant, sliced
• zucchini, sliced
• shrimp, shelled

1) Place ice water in a mixing bowl.  Lightly beat the egg yolk and gradually pour into the iced water, stirring (with chopsticks!) and blending well.  Add flours and baking powder all at once, mix with the chopsticks until loosely combined.  The batter should be runny and lumpy.  Keep the batter cold by placing it in the ice water bath.

2) Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan (320F for veggies, 340F for seafood).

3) Starting with the veggies, use your chopsticks to grab a veggie, then dip it into a shallow bowl of flour, then into the tempura batter.  Slide the veggie into the hot oil, trying not to overcrowd the pan and drop the temperature of the oil.

4) Place the finished tempura pieces on a wire rack or paper towel to drain. 

5) Continue frying the other items, frequently scooping out any bits of batter to keep the oil clean.

6) Serve immediately with dipping sauce (recipe below)

Spicy Dipping Sauce:

3/4 C soy sauce

3/4 C scallions, finely chopped

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1/2 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp English mustard powder

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

salt and pepper, to taste 

2 tbsp water

1) Put all the ingredients in a covered container.  Close the lid and shake the S^&T out of it until the solids (sugar, salt, mustard) are dissolved.  Add and shake in the water and re-season if necessary.

Serve the tempura and soba noodles for dinner.  Pat yourself on the back for making something that seemed so hard and was actually quite easy.  Pop open the special bottle of saki that you bought just for this occasion and make a toast.  To Soba!  To Tempura!  To Laura!

Huevos Benedicto

"Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan, and Homemade Sundried Tomato and Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie num num."

Eggs Bene is like, my favorite brunch food.  Seriously.  I make some version of it almost every weekend that we are home in Boston.  I've already done a post about "traditional" Eggs Benedict with homemade English Muffins, so for this month's Daring Cook's challenge I decided to go back to my Arizona days and whip up something with a little more spice.  And I didn't have any english muffins.  And it was raining.  And I'm obviously terrible at planning ahead.  Thank god I keep a stash of polenta (cornmeal) in the pantry.

Starting from the bottom, homemade cornbread....er, polentabread, topped with jalapeno-infused refried black beans, sliced avocado, tomato, and a perfectly poached egg.  Some salsa verde instead of hollandaise and a sprinkle of cojita cheese finish the dish.  Om nom nom. 

Sorry its a little blurry.... Santa, I'd like a tripod :)

Rise and Shine! Lobster Souffle

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

On one hand, I was super excited for this month's challenge, I've never made a souffle!..... On the other hand, I knew it would be a challenge... both because I've never made a souffle nor do I own a souffle dish.

But hey, what's the point of joining the Daring Cooks if not for the challenge, right?  

The recipes that were included in the challenge all seemed so delicious (watercress souffle, crab and artichoke souffle, chocolate souffle!)... but I really wanted to put my own spin on it, and what better way to show off New England (and make everyone super-mouth-watering-ly jealous) than with a Lobster Souffle?

I followed the basic souffle recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking (thanks Julia!) but added some lobster juice and body/tail meat to the milk/egg/flour base.  A quick warning should you try this one day: it came together much more quickly than I anticipated and I was very glad I pre-measured and chopped all my ingredients ahead of time.

Ingredients (for 2 entree souffle's)

1/2 C grated pecorino cheese (I substituted, the original calls for parmesan)

1 small shallot, diced

1 C 1% milk

1 1/2 tbsp butter

1 1/2 tbsp flour

1 tsp tomato paste (more for color than flavor)

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cracked black pepper

2 egg yolks

3 egg whites

1/2 C chopped lobster & its juices

2 tsp chopped oregano

My mise en place:

MtAoFC in the background....

1) Pre-heat oven to 400F and place rack in the bottom third.

2) Butter and "cheese" your souffle dish (coat the sides/bottom with a thin layer of cheese)

3) Heat the remaining butter in a saucepan, add the shallots and cook until soft (2-ish minutes)

4) In a separate saucepan, heat the milk and lobster juices until warm but not scalding.

5) Add flour to the butter/shallot mixture and stir for a couple minutes until the flour just barely starts to brown.

6) Off heat, add 1 C of the the hot milk/lobster juice mixture to the flour/shallot mixture and whisk to incorporate and thicken.

7) Back over a low heat, whisk in all but 1 tbsp of the cheese, salt, pepper, oregano and tomato paste.

8) Off heat, add the egg yolks one at a time, whisking to incorporate after each addition.

9) Let the souffle base sit while you beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.  I used my KitchenAid with the whisk attachment, but a regular electric mixer will work fine.  I didn't use cream of tartar (not due to some weird aversion, I simply don't have any) but I used a  splash of lemon juice instead.

10) Stir 1/4 of the egg whites into the souffle base to lighten it, then carefully fold in the remaining whites, trying very hard not to break them down too much.

11) Pour this delicious mixture into the souffle dishes (or soup bowls in my case), sprinkle with the remaining cheese and put in the oven for 30min. 

Julia's recipe says to turn the stove down to 375F once you put them in the oven, so that's what I did.  I also tried very very very hard not to open the oven door lest my souffles collapse.  I'm sure I looked like a maniac as I squatted near my oven door, beer in hand, giggling like a school-girl as I watched my beautiful souffles rise.  I tried to take a picture, but it turned out like this:

So puffy!!

Me thinks I need to clean my oven....

After I pulled these amazing smelling concoctions out of the oven I took a picture as fast as I could while watching them deflate.  Its true, the souffle waits for no one.  Puffy or not, these babies were Mmm Mmm Good!  Even though I put relatively little lobster into each of them, the flavors really came through wonderfully.  Next time I think I'll add a little nutmeg and maybe try to get my hands on a proper souffle dish (I'm hoping they won't collapse as quickly, but that might be a pipe dream).

Can you tell how much they've already deflated?

Boyfriend LOVED it and subsequently asked me, "So, is this considered a healthy or un-healthy dinner?".  I smiled and replied, "Let's just say we won't be having these all that often.  I think the butter alone counts for almose half of the calories in the dish."  He thought about it for a minute, then just smiled and said, "So good honey... really really good."  I'll take that compliment, thankyouverymuch.

Daring Cooks Challenge - Canning & Preserving

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

In case you didn't know, I've been super-busy this month, with travel every weekend in addition to the start of the school year & teaching responsibilities.  Whew!  

At least I was able to complete my Daring Cooks Challenge this month, using fresh apples from my CSA (great timing!)

Apple Butter

2 lbs peeled and cored apples, roughly chopped

2 tbsps honey

1/4 C apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

a pinch of nutmeg

Add the apples, honey (or sugar) and vinegar to a saucepan over medium heat.  I didn't use as much sweetner as the recipes called for because my super-fresh apples were already pretty sweet (thanks Stillmans!).  I let that cook for 20 minutes or so until the apples looked more like apple sauce than individual apples.  I then added the spices and used a stick-blender to incorporate everything and smooth out my sauce.  

Let that cook for another 30min or so until you have a thick, dark brown, tasty apple butter.  The trick is to plop a spoonful of the apple butter onto a cold plate and see if it releases any juices.  If it holds its shape and doesn't ooze everywhere, you have yourself some fruit butter!

I will start posting more often as soon as my schedule calms down (and I get a new computer... my personal one died... sad).  Enjoy!