Roasted garlic chicken soup with white beans and rosemary

I had planned to make chicken with 40 cloves of garlic for dinner, but it was one of those drizzly, dreary Oregon winter days that just begged for a soup. So I compromised, combining the chicken with 40 cloves of garlic with one of my favorite soups, chicken with white beans and rosemary. It's a pretty natural match. The roasted garlic melts into the soup, creating a silky texture and mellow, smooth garlic flavor. I go easy on the rosemary so the garlic can shine. For me, the perfect broth texture for a soup like this is thick enough so the vegetables and chicken don't sink to the bottom, but thin enough so it's nothing like stew. Adding a little flour is key, and adds to the silkiness.

Ingredients

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1.5 lb)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 2 heads of garlic
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 tablespoons oil (olive or vegetable, or some combination thereof), plus some for drizzling over garlic
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cans white beans (I used one can of small white beans and one can of cannellini), rinsed and drained
• salt 
• pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
•  

Directions
Heat oven to 350. Cut the tops off the head of garlic so the cloves are showing. Place in aluminum foil or on a baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes, or until the cloves offer no resistance when poked. Remove them from oven and let cool.

Bring broth to simmer over medium heat. Add wine, and bring back to a simmer. Gently simmer the chicken in the broth until it's barely cooked through. Remove and set aside to cool. Keep broth simmering.

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat and add carrots and celery. Cook until vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes. Add flour and stir until the flour coats the vegetables and isn't raw anymore, about 2 minutes. Add mixture to broth and stir until well combined. Add beans.

Peel garlic and chop coarsely. Add to broth. Cut chicken in bite-sized pieces and add to broth. Add rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Let the soup simmer for another 10-20 minutes for the flavors to meld. Or longer, if necessary.

Orange Jell-O Shot Slices

You know how sometimes restaurants garnish breakfast plates with orange slices? Well, if I had a restaurant, I would garnish all plates with orange jello shot slices. I could list all the reasons why these are awesome, but I'm pretty sure it's obvious.


Ingredients
4 Oranges (or grapefruits or limes or lemons...but oranges are the easiest to work with)
1 cup liquor of choice (you could go with the standard vodka, or get creative)
2 packs orange jello
hot water


Directions
cut oranges in half so you can see the cross section. Being careful not to puncture the rind, cut around the edge with a knife and scoop out with a spoon. You can save the innards for something else, but they aren't needed for this project. Situate orange halves in a casserole dish or something else they can't tip over in. Make room in your refrigerator for casserole dish.

Dissolve jello in 1 1/2 cups boiling water. Cool to lukewarm then add liquor. Pour liquor mixture into oranges, filling to top. Refrigerate until completely firm. Cut oranges into wedges and serve.

Warm Potato Salad with Cilantro and Toasted Cumin

I love potato salad. But I hate the potato salad most people love, thanks to my intense dislike of mayonnaise. So I usually substitute sour cream and yogurt for the mayonnaise, but I'm always on the lookout for new ways to make potato salad that don't involve anything creamy. This recipe from thekitchn.com bears little resemblance to regular ole American potato salad, but its fantastic in its own way. And it's also a lot faster, since you don't have to chop up all the celery and pickles and such. I've adjusted the recipe to my taste a bit—I used a variety of fingerling potatoes instead of red potatoes, cut back on the olive oil and added a bit of vinegar and cayenne pepper for an extra kick.


2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 pounds red potatoes, chopped into roughly 2-inch pieces
1 bunch cilantro, stems trimmed and removed
3 large shallots
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons whole cumin
1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper
grated parmesan (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat. Stir in 2 tablespoons of kosher salt. Add the diced potatoes and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are tender but not yet mush. Drain and return to the pot.
Chop the cilantro roughly and stir it into the hot potatoes. Slice the shallots thinly and stir them in too.
Pour the olive oil oil into a small skillet and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is quite hot, stir in the 1 1/2 tablespoons of whole cumin seeds. Cook for about 45 seconds, stirring frequently, until the cumin and oil smell toasty and the cumin has darkened slightly. Pour the contents of the skillet over the potatoes (watch out, as some of the seeds may pop as they hit the cooler pan). Stir thoroughly.
Juice the 1/2 lemon and stir the juice in as well. Season to taste with black pepper, and any additional salt, if needed. Spri

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nkle with parmesan. Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Tomatoes

Everyone should have a go-to recipe for potlucks and barbecues. Not that you can't ever bring something different, but the security of having a delicious dish you can put together in a few minutes without thinking too much about it sure is nice. This quinoa salad has been my go-to recipe for a couple summers now. I  freshen it up by changing the ingredients slightly each time--sometimes I'll throw in some grilled veggies, or avocados, or whatever else I have on hand that looks like it would fit in.

I adapted this recipe from one at epicurious.com. Two teaspoons of lime zest AND two tablespoons of lime juice was a bit too limey for even my tastes, so I've scaled back on the lime and added some other spices to give it a more interesting mix of flavors. Also, the directions on epicurious for cooking the quinoa seemed really finicky--they want you to cook it in water, then drain it, then steam it with a towel over the top. I've had great success cooking quinoa exactly as I cook rice, and you can't tell the difference.

Ingredients

• 1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1  can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2  tomatoes, diced
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 avocado, diced (optional)
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta (optional, but delicious!)
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Soak quinoa in cold water for 15-30 minutes, then rinse. Heat 1 1/2 cups water to boiling, then add quinoa and cover with tight-fitting lid and reduce heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn off heat and leave the lid on for 5 more minutes.

While the quinoa is cooking, mix the lime zest, lime juice, butter, oil, sugar and spices in a large bowl. Add cooked quinoa and stir gently to coat the quinoa in the dressing. Add other ingredients. This can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature, and makes a great leftover or a filling for wraps.

Chinese Steamed Buns (Char Siu Bao)

Steamed buns remind me of the first Christmas I spent with Jason, which was also the first time I'd eaten steamed buns. We drove 12 hours over icy roads to get to his parents' house, but it was totally worth it. Not just for the steamed buns, of course, because I had a fantastic time with his family, but these pork-filled beauties are so tasty it may well be worth driving 12 hours to get them. That first time, Jason's mom, Lily, made them with leftover ham from Christmas, and they were super tasty. On later visits, she showed me how to make them with diced pork ribs—totally different yet equally delicious.

This recipe is versatile, and you can make adjustments if you don't have one of the seasonings. Or you could add something new, if you think it will complement the seasonings. It does take some planning, since you'll need to make the ribs a day in advance. You could make it all the same day, but you'd have to start pretty early. Plus, if you make them the day before, you can have ribs for dinner that night, and steamed buns the next! For the dough,  I use packaged steamed bun mix from our local Asian food market. I guess I could try making it from scratch, but they are delicious as they are, so why bother? You will also need waxed or parchment paper for this recipe, as well as a bamboo steamer, which you should be able to get for under $20 at an Asian food market.


Ingredients for the ribs (alternatively, you could just use leftover ribs from another meal):
1 1/2-2 1/2 lb. package of country-style pork ribs (I prefer boneless)
5 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons cooking sherry
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated (or 1/2 teaspoon powdered)

Place in a baking or roasting pan and cover with foil. Roast at 300 degrees until tender, about 2 hours. Check occasionally to make sure there's a little liquid in the bottom of the pan. Add a bit of water if necessary. Remove from the oven and chill. When you're ready to get started on the buns, remove the fat from the ribs and chop up the meat, in about a 1/2-1/4 inch dice. Alternatively, find someone else to do this part for you, because it's greasy and time-consuming.

Mix up the steamed bun dough according to package directions, reserving two tablespoons of the dry mix (or whatever the package says) for your filling. The dough has to rest for about 15 minutes, as I recall.

While the dough is resting, season your filling. If you are using leftover pork ribs that you did not make specifically for steamed buns, bump up the seasonings a bit. This is also a good place to be creative--I never season them quite the same.

Ingredients for the filling
Diced pork ribs
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sherry
1 tablespoon hoisin
2 tablespoons Mae Ploy (sweet chili sauce)
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely grated
black pepper to taste
Dry mix, according to package directions (if you forgot to reserve some, add an equivalent amount of corn starch)

Mix all filling ingredients together.

Assembling the buns
Cut waxed or parchment paper into 4-inch squares. Roll dough into long log, and cut it with a knife to divide into 12 equal pieces. Sprinkle a bit of flour down, and roll a piece into a circle, about 4 inches in diameter and 1/2-inch thick. If you can manage to make it thinner on the edges than in the middle, fantastic.

Now would be a good time to start heating water for steaming the buns. In a wok or large pan, heat 3-4 inches of water over medium high heat. When water starts to boil, turn it down so it's just at a simmer.

Place about two tablespoons of filling, or as much as you think will fit, in the middle of the circle. Dip your finger in water and run it around the edge of the circle. This will help the dough seal. Grab one edge of the dough between your thumb and forefinger and pull it up to the center of the bun, folding it to one side at the top. Continue around the circle this way, sort of "pleating"the bun as you go. If it doesn't look great, don't worry--it'll still taste great, and the dough puffs up a lot when you steam it anyway. The important thing is to get the dough to connect in the middle, even if it isn't completely sealed.

Place finished bun on square of paper, and put it into the bamboo steamer. Continue making the buns until you've filled up the steamer. The buns shouldn't touch each other. I have a two-shelf steamer and put three buns per shelf, so they cook in two equal batches. When your steamer is full, put the lid on and place it over the simmering water. Cook for 20 minutes. You'll know they are done when they look fluffy and delicious. Serve with soy sauce for dipping.

Penne with Bacon, Tomato and Feta

Bacon, check. Feta, check. Fast and easy, check. This is pretty much the best pasta ever. I adapted this recipe from Bon Appetit, making it even easier and tastier (in my opinion, at least!).

Ingredients
8 oz. bacon, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 cup red wine
28 oz. can diced tomatoes, or equivalent amount of fresh tomatoes
16 oz. package penne
3/4 cup (or more!) feta, crumbled
1/2 cup fresh basil (optional, but definitely recommended), chopped
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan to garnish

Directions
Start heating salted water for the pasta.
Fry bacon in a large frying pan over medium heat until crispy, stirring frequently. Drain on paper towels. Remove most of bacon grease, reserving about a tablespoon. Add garlic and red pepper flakes to pan and fry over medium heat until fragrant. It won't take long. Add wine and swish around to get all the bits of bacon unstuck. Add tomatoes. Let simmer while you start the penne cooking.

The penne will need to cook until it's al dente, about 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, the sauce mixture should have thickened up slightly. Drain the pasta, put it back in the pot, and add your sauce, along with the feta. Stir it around until the feta is nice and melty. It will still be kind of chunky since feta doesn't melt well. Taste a little and add salt and pepper. Right before you serve it, add the basil and bacon. Serve with Parmesan.

Pork and Turkey Meatball Banh Mi

I've never liked meatloaf. Something about a big hunk of hamburger meat mixed with breadcrumbs and eggs just isn't appealing. And ever since my husband drew a correlation between meatloaf and meatballs, I haven't liked meatballs either.

Fortunately, I discovered Pork Meatball Banh Mi in a recent issue of Bon Appetit, and with a few modifications, meatballs are once again an enjoyable food for me. I thought the meatballs made with all pork were bit rich, so I substituted ground turkey for half the pork the second time I made the recipe. Also, I did not have the patience to wait for meatballs to cook, so I turned them into tiny patties, which got done a lot faster.

The original recipe called for a spicy mayonnaise as a condiment for the sandwiches, but since I hate mayonnaise too, I made a spicy avocado cilantro lime sauce. Sort of like guacamole, but less thick and more spicy.

I didn't have any daikon, and didn't feel like driving across town to get it, but I added cucumbers and cabbage with delicious results.

Sandwiches

• 2 cups coarsely grated carrots
• 2 cups coarsely grated peeled daikon (or use cucumbers and cabbage...or all three!)
• 1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 4 10-inch-long individual baguettes or four 10-inch-long pieces French-bread baguette (cut from 2 baguettes)
• Thinly sliced jalapeño chiles
• cilantro

Meatballs

• 1 pound ground pork (substitute half or all of pork with ground turkey)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil (Thai basil is good, if you have it)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
• 1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (such as sriracha)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil

Spicy Avocado Cilantro Lime Sauce

• 1 avocado
• 1/4 cup cilantro, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce
• juice of 1/2 small lime
• 1 teaspoon sriracha chili sauce, or to taste
• salt to taste

Toss first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour, tossing occasionally.

Preheat oven to 300°F. Mix meatball ingredients (except for sesame oil) and form into small patties, about 2 tablespoons each. Heat sesame oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of meatballs. Sauté until brown and cooked through, turning meatballs often and lowering heat if browning too quickly, about 15 minutes. Transfer meatballs to another rimmed baking sheet. Place in oven. Repeat with remaining meatballs.

For sauce, blend ingredients in food processor until smooth. Taste and add more chili sauce or salt to taste. There isn't really a way to mess this up, as long as you don't overdo the salt or spice.

Cut each baguette or baguette piece horizontally in half. Pull out enough bread from each bread half to leave 1/2-inch-thick shell. Spread avocado sauce over each bread shell. Arrange jalapeños, then cilantro, in bottom halves. Fill each with 1/4 of meatballs. Drain pickled vegetables; place atop meatballs. Press on baguette tops.

Chicken and Cheese Soup with Green Chilies

This has been one of my favorite soups for years. It's kind of like a tortilla soup, but heartier and with cheese. The recipe comes from the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon (best name ever). I've modified it somewhat by adding black beans and a few other things.

6 cups chicken stock
1 lb. boneless chicken breasts or 1 to 2 cups cooked, diced chicken
3 tomatoes, chopped
2-3 fresh green chilies, chopped
(or substitute one can of Ro-tel and one can of diced green chilies for the tomatoes and green chilies)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1/2 to 1 whole fresh jalapeno, diced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle sauce or powder (optional)
1 can black beans
1/2 cup flour
1 cup milk or half-and half
12 ounces grated sharp cheddar
salt and pepper, to taste
chopped cilantro for garnish

Boil chicken breasts in chicken broth until cooked through. Remove chicken and strain broth back into the pan. Let chicken cool, then dice.
Add tomatoes or Ro-tel  to chicken broth and bring it back to a boil.
Meanwhile, saute onion in butter and oil in a large skillet until translucent. Add garlic and chilies and let cook for another 2-3 minutes, then add spices. Blend in flour, a bit at a time. Gradually add milk or half-and-half and stir until smooth and thickened.
Put a ladle of chicken broth into skillet and stir. Then add skillet's contents, along with the black beans, to soup pot and cook at a bare simmer over low heat, stirring often, for 15 minutes.
Slowly stir in the grated cheese and cook until it's blended and fully melted, about 5 minutes. Add chicken and cilantro, and season with salt and pepper. Add hot sauce if it's not spicy enough.

Serve with more cilantro, lime wedges, avocados and lots of tortilla chips.

Pitas stuffed with spicy sauteed chickpeas with beef and cilantro

Everything is better encased in dough. Calzones, apple turnovers, corndogs...
This recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen for spicy sauteed chickpeas with beef and cilantro sounded really good, so I turned it into the filling for my stuffed pitas.

I adapted the chickpea recipe slightly.
Filling
1/2 lb. low fat ground beef
4 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp curry powder 
2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground chipotle chile powder, more or less to taste, or use a diced chipotle chile from a can or other hot sauce
1 1/2 tsp. minced garlic
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in a large deep frying pan over high heat, then add ground beef, crumbling into pieces as you put it into the pan. Use a metal turner to stir and break up the meat while you start to brown it, about 3 minutes. When meat is fairly broken up, add chickpeas. Keeping heat high, saute meat and chickpeas together until meat is well browned and chickpeas are quite brown and starting to pop, about 10 minutes. (If the mixture starts to stick turn down the heat a tiny bit.)

Add ground cumin, ground chipotle chile powder, and minced garlic and cook a minute more. Add reserved cooking liquid (with added stock if needed to make 2 cups). Scrape the bottom of the pan with turner to loosen any browned bits, season with salt and pepper, then reduce heat and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5-10 minutes.

Turn off heat, stir in chopped cilantro and 1 T olive oil. Taste to see if it needs more salt or pepper.


Pita dough
This recipe is from 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood.


Scant 4 cups flour
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup sugar (superfine, if you have it)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon yeast
1 1/4 cups water


Mix sugar, yeast and water together and let sit until it's foamy. Add olive oil and salt. Mix in flour in increments until dough is just slightly sticky to the touch. Let the dough rise for an hour.


Making the stuffed pitas
Divide dough into pieces the size of golfballs. Roll out a circle of the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Put a couple spoonfuls of filling in the middle of one half of the circle, then fold the dough over to make a half-moon shape. Seal the edges. Put the stuffed pitas on a lightly greased cookie sheet and let rise for another half hour. Bake at 400 until lightly browned.


Serving
I served these hot with a tzatziki sauce. They are a good leftover, and taste fine cold or heated up in the oven or a toaster oven.

Triple-Chocolate Mousse Cake

I made this recipe from Cook's Illustrated for Christmas dessert. It's a good thing I got a Wii Fit for Christmas, because I feel personally responsible for making sure none of the cake goes to waste.

It's not a difficult recipe, but there are a lot of steps (most of them involve mixing heavy cream with various types of chocolate), so I'm just linking to the recipe.

This cake is both light and rich, and goes really well with coffee.

Chicken Pot Pie

There is perhaps no kitchen-related disappointment as great as that of an almost-empty Crisco container. The initial disappointment is the lack of Crisco for my pie crust, but the sadness comes later when I realize exactly what happened to all that Crisco. I ate it.

Anyway, I was able to scrape up enough of the shortening to combine with butter and make crusts for two chicken pot pies and one apple pie. An all-butter crust doesn't have the crispiness, an all-Crisco crust doesn't have the flavor. So I compromise by using half of each.

I like to make two pot pies at a time because I can freeze one and have it for dinner in a couple weeks. Pre-baked, it takes a couple hours to heat up in the oven and tastes just fine.

This is not so much of a recipe as it is loose guidelines. You can add other veggies. I like the simple combo of potato, carrot, onion and celery.

This recipe will fill two pies.

cook 4-5 chicken breasts in 4 cups of chicken broth (I made my own from a leftover rotisserie chicken). Set chicken aside to cool. Strain broth into another bowl.


for the filling:
3 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 celery stalks, diced
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
4-5 medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3-4 large carrots, diced
chicken broth
3 tbsp heavy cream
salt and pepper

Use your favorite crust recipe, or this one I adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook:

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup shortening
ice water

Stir together flour and salt. Cut butter into tablespoon-size chunks and add it to the flour. Cut it in a few times with a pastry cutter, then add the shortening and use your pastry cutter until shortening and butter are the size of small peas (or lentils?). Add water a couple tablespoons at a time, gently mixing with your hands between each addition until dough comes together. Of course, don't overwork it.

Using the pot the broth was cooked in, heat the butter over medium heat until foamy. Add onions and celery, and saute until soft. Add garlic and saute for a little longer, then add flour and stir it around until no white is showing. Add wine and stir some more. Add broth, potatoes and carrots. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. The mixture should be the consistency of slightly thin gravy. Add cream, salt and pepper. The filling should be slightly salty--the potatoes will absorb it as they cook.

I make this with a full bottom and top crust, but I've also used Stovetop stuffing as a sort of crumbly topping with good results.

Bake pies on the bottom rack at 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes, or until bottom and top crusts are golden. A good way to keep the top crust from burning is to put a pizza stone on the rack above.

Mojito sorbet, pina colada sorbet and more

When it was 100+ degrees this summer, I found the best way to cool down was with a refreshing sorbet, made even more refreshing by the addition of rum.

I used my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, which made it super fast and easy. Also, this is a recipe where you can't go wrong...taste it halfway through freezing, and if you don't it adjust the ingredient amounts.

Mojito sorbet

juice of 1 lime (or more, to taste)
1 small bunch mint
1 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
rum to taste

Boil water, remove from heat, add sugar and mint. Steep mint for 5 minutes then discard. Mix ingredients in a bowl or pitcher, add more sugar, rum or lime to taste (you can also throw in some limeade if you're too lazy to squeeze limes. Just cut back on the sugar, or get rid of it altogether.) Put in refrigerator or freezer until cold, but not freezing.

Pour mixture into ice cream freezer and freeze according to directions. It takes about 20 minutes to get to a good thick consistency.

Pina Colada Sorbet
I must say, that of all the liquor sorbets I've made, I prefer the pina colada sorbet by far. It's got a lovely smooth, creamy texture and it's incredibly easy. I tried making it with fresh pineapple that I pureed and cream of coconut, but I found the texture fibrous. Maybe I should've strained the pineapple and just used the juice.

But why go to the trouble when R.W. Knudsen's pineapple-coconut juice works just as well and tastes just as good. Pour a bottle of cold pineapple coconut juice in the ice cream maker along with rum and sit back while your sorbet mixes itself.

Chicken Quiche-adilla

Terry, my carpool buddy, is always bringing delicious food to work for us to sample. Last Monday he brought two quiches: chicken quesadilla and bacon arugula. While the bacon arugula was tasty, the chicken quiche-adilla, as I renamed it, was wonderful. The jalepenos provided just the right amount of heat, and the rotisserie chicken stayed tender and flavorful. I generally like quiche, but sometimes it just seems like you might as well have eaten scrambled eggs because it's so eggy. Not so with this one. Jason said it reminded him of a pot pie, one of his favorite foods, and I was glad of that because maybe now I won't have to make him pot pies, which are way more time-consuming than this. Or maybe I'll start making my pot pies with a tortilla crust too. Enamored with the success of creating pies inspired by other food items, Jason has requested a Tater Tot Pot Pie. But I'm not sure about that. Not everything can be baked into a pie. Or maybe it can.

Terry said the recipe was probably from Cooks Illustrated, but Jason found it at grouprecipes.com, where it goes by the (boring) name of Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla Pie.

Chicken Quiche-adilla

1(10") flour tortilla,burrito size
1 rotisserie chicken, skin discarded, meat shredded in bite size pieces (about 3 cups)
/2c finely chopped fresh cilantro
1/3 cup drained, jarred pickled jalapenos,chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
salt and pepper
2 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450. Grease 9" pie plate. Press tortilla into prepared pan and spray lightly with cooking spray.Toss chicken, cilantro, jalapenos, 1 cup cheese, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper in large bowl till combined. Spoon over tortilla.
Whisk eggs, milk, flour, baking powder and 1/2tsp salt in bowl until smooth. Slowly pour over filling, then sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake until surface is golden brown,about 20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Notes: I was alarmed by the large amount of flour at first, but it worked out just fine. The cilantro I had was brown and goopy, so I omitted it. But really, cooked cilantro doesn't have much flavor anyway. I would suggest chopping up some fresh and sprinkling it over the pie when you serve it.

Bacon explosion: The love story of a man and his meat

strawberry margarita pie

I've always loved including liquor in food, mostly because when I was younger I could get my mom to buy the liquor for me if I promised to make her desserts like Black Russian cake or strawberry margarita pie. Now I have to buy my own darn liquor, but this pie is worth it. Plus I have most of a bottle of a tequila left, with which I can make real margaritas to accompany the pie. I can't remember exactly where I got this recipe. I think I adapted it from one of my mom's cookbooks that featured products by name, e.g. "Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk." But it's so hard to remember through the sweet tequila haze. This recipe is nothing more than a guideline--I've never really measured ingredients for it, but it always turns out fine, so adjust to taste.

Strawberry Margarita Pie

crust
1 1/2 cups pretzel crumbs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup sugar

combine pretzels, butter and sugar and press into pie pan. Bake at 350 until crust begins to brown, 7-8 minutes. Watch closely to prevent burning. Cool completely.

filling
about 1 pound strawberries, fresh or frozen
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup tequila (or to taste...the more tequila you use, the softer the frozen pie will be)
juice of 1-2 limes, depending on how much you like lime
1 tablespoon triple sec if you've got it (you probably won't miss it)
1 cup heavy cream (or two cups Cool Whip, if you must)

Blend everything except for the cream until smooth. I used my immersion blender, but you could use a blender or hand mixer. Pretend you're making a milkshake. At this point, you could drink it, but it's much nicer frozen.

Whip cream separately, then fold into strawberry mixture. Taste and add lime juice and tequila until it's a creamy version of your favorite strawberry margarita. Pour filling into cooled crust and freeze for several hours. Serve with a tequila garnish.

Green Curry

While it's easier to use a store-bought curry paste, making your own is definitely worth the effort, especially if you have a food processor or a mortar and pestle. I use a recipe I've adapted from Thai Home Cooking, which also has recipes for other curry pastes. I like my curry to be flavorful but not so spicy, and it's easy to adjust this recipe to your tastes.
Here's the ingredients you'll need for the paste:

2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, chopped
2 stalks of lemongrass, inner white part only, chopped
2 teaspoons lime zest
1/4 cup chopped cilantro stems
1/4 cup chopped shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons turmeric
small Thai chilies to taste (I use 2 and it's plenty spicy; the original recipe calls for 40)
2 cups Thai basil leaves

Toast the spices in a small frying pan over medium heat until you can smell them. This doesn't take long, so watch out for them burning. Grind them to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle.

Put all the other stuff in a food processor and process. I like to give it a few whirls with the tougher ingredients (lemongrass, garlic, shallots, ginger) before adding the basil. Add the spices at the end. If your mixture is too dry to process, add a few squirts of lime juice from that lime you zested.

The paste will last up to 4 days in the refrigerator, but it can be frozen as well.

You can use this paste for any dish calling for green curry paste, but I usually make green curry with chicken. Here's what you'll need in addition to the paste:

2 cups coconut milk
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
about a pound of boneless skinless chicken breast, thinly sliced
1/2 cup Thai basil leaves
various vegetables--I use a couple zucchini and onions, sometimes eggplant or potatoes
lime juice and salt to taste

carefully open the can of coconut milk and spoon off the thick coconut milk on top. You should get 1/4 cup or so, depending on the brand. Heat the coconut milk over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until it separates. If it doesn't separate, add a little oil. Add green curry paste and fry for two minutes. Add chicken and cook until meat is opaque. Add remaining coconut milk and whatever vegetables you're using. Cook for about four minutes, or until your vegetables are soft enough for you. Add lime juice and salt, and throw in the Thai basil leaves at the last minute. I like to serve this over jasmine rice. It'll serve at least four people.

Pizza pizza

I ate a Red Baron pizza for dinner tonight, which reminded me I still needed to write a post about the pizza I made a few days ago. Not that my pizza and the Red Baron pizza had that much in common. I mean, I used a white sauce, while his was tomato all the way.
I think the crust is perhaps the most important part of a pizza--it's the foundation, for gosh sakes. For my crust, I use a recipe for ciabatta bread that I adapted--the original was difficult to work with and had way too much salt.

When I make pizza, I start pretty early in the day, say around 11 a.m. That's when I throw together 3/4 cup water, 3/4 cup flour and a tablespoon of yeast. It looks about like this:

About four hours later, it looks like this:
That's when I mix in another 3/4 cup water, two teaspoons of salt and two tablespoons of olive oil. Then I just dump in some flour, about a cup at a time, and mix it with the Kitchenaid until it's still kinda sticky, but not so much that it sticks to my hands.
Then I let the dough rise for about two hours, punch it down, let it rise two more hours. Then comes the fun part: choosing the toppings for the pizza. This time, I went with a sort of a basic alfredo sauce, with some roasted garlic thrown in to liven things up. On top of that went Italian sausage, bacon, sweet Italian red pepper, olives, pineapple and mozzarella. When I got the mozzarella out of the refrigerator and noticed half of it was moldy, I was a little concerned. But hey, you gotta have cheese on a pizza. Unless, of course, you're vegan. I just cut off the green parts and grated up what was left. Here's the pizza going into the oven:

And here's the pizza, just moments before it was devoured:
Red Baron, you can kiss my ass.

Applebutter

So, last weekend I made applebutter. It's kind of old news now. I'm not going to say too much about it, except it took FOREVER. And by forever, I mean it cooked for more than 12 hours and it still wasn't quite as thick as I wanted it to be. But it sure turned out tasty!
Here's the ingredients I used:
10 pounds apples
about 2 cups of sugar
a tablespoon of cinnamon
a few dashes of cloves and nutmeg
a squirt of lemon juice
about 2 cups of water

I cut up the apples in chunks and threw them in a pot with the water, seeds, peels and all. After they were nice and soft, I ran them through my Kitchenaid food mill attachment. At that point, I had a lovely applesauce. Then I put the sauce back in the pot with the sugar and spices and waited. I had started this project at about 11 in the morning, and by midnight it was still pretty runny, so I put it in the fridge and heated it back up in the morning. Oh, at some point I also ran an immersion blender in the sauce, which made it nice and velvety.
I finally got tired of waiting and decided to go ahead and can it up. With my brand-new pressure cooker, I canned about 9 half-pint jars using the boiling water method: Basically, I sterilized the jars, filled them with applebutter, put the lids on, and put them in boiling water for 15 minutes. I can't wait to do it all again next time I pick apples. Really.