With Will being out of town this week the fridge still has a fair amount of veggies that need to be used up so I only picked up a few things this morning. Was completely surprised to find romanesco today! Looking forward to doing something fun with this fractal patterned/fibonacci numbered broccoli/cauliflower beauty. That was a mouthful wasn’t it? Yeah, sounded better in my head. Anyways!
Do you ever get tired of staring at something in your fridge? I do.
Now I’m not talking about the staples that are always in there but those odd items that seemed like a good purchase at the time or even served a really good purpose. But now they just stare at you every time you open the fridge.
Meet my giant jar of marinated artichoke hearts from Costco.
Now I’m positive I paid a ridiculously good price for these guys and judging by its level, I’ve made a recipe or two that’s used up a sizable amount. They have an incredible shelf life too. I don’t think these expire till mid 2013 and I’ve had them for what? Probably close to two years?
So what is the big deal? It is still there! And I can’t throw them out, that would be wasteful! But I do kind of want to use the jar for storing some dry goods…
Necessity, the mother of invention and it involves some beautiful ingredients. Like artichoke hearts, asparagus, and garlic.
They get all tossed in some olive oil and a generous sprinkle of kosher salt.
And before you know it they are roasted down to nothing but goodness.
See?
If you wanted to you could stop there and just eat the veggies. It is a great combination. But as usual, I wanted something a bit more hearty so why not quinoa and some toasted nuts? It’s full of so much win.
As soon as I was sure I got the last shot I needed, I stopped everything and ate. It was a fabulous dinner.
Recipe by: Elisabeth Norris
Preheat oven 375ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Remove stems from the asparagus, rough chop the artichoke hearts (bite sized pieces), and roughly chop the garlic. Take the veggies and spread them out on the parchment paper. Drizzle olive oil over veggies and sprinkle with salt. Toss well.
Bake for 10 minutes. Turn asparagus and toss. Bake another 5-10 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool a bit. Once cool enough to handle, cut asparagus into bite size pieces.
Add the quinoa and veggies into a medium size bowl. Toss. Split mixture into two bowls and top each with half the toasted walnuts.
Serves 2 as a hearty side.
It is important to use a large pot and lots of water (8-9 quarts) for blanching green beans. Why? Because the larger amount of boiling water you have, the faster it will come back up to a boil after the beans are in.
When using mushroom stems for a mushroom stuffing, after chopping the stems it is a good idea to squeeze the juice out of them. This can be done by placing them in a tea towel and twisting the liquid out. This prevents the stuffing from getting gooey.
Much smaller haul this week. Lots of green!
I was happy to see a ton more english peas at the market. But after shelling them today I was greatly disappointed with the yield. Very small immature peas. I may have to hold back for a couple of weeks till they get a bit more mature… especially when they are $2 per pound. Also curious to see if the price will drop a bit in the coming weeks.
Didn’t need much by way of fruit. Still have a bit left over from last week. I was a wee bit saddened to hear that the satsuma season is coming to an end. But as one season ends another begins!
Last Saturday I found myself making some poached eggs to go over a toasted English muffin for breakfast. I was particularly hungry so I knew I needed something more to pair with it. And it needed to have some flair, not just the usual piece of fruit or yogurt I’m happy to have with breakfast. So the wheels in my head turned and my gaze stopped at the fruit bowl over on the dining room table. Fruit salad! To which I credit my sister-in-law Michelle for bringing fruit salad back into my realm of thought as she served up a strawberry apple based fruit salad several weeks back.
Mangos? Check… they just started going sale for $1 each at the mega mart. Bananas? Yep. Oranges? Yes. The Cara Cara’s add the perfect color balance to the dish! I liked where this was going. Tropical accents for a sunny Saturday morning.
Plain greek yogurt for the binder and a drizzle of honey for sweetness and a layer of depth.
Being satisfied with what I gathered for the salad, I mixed everything together and enjoyed. I intended to make enough to serve two but it ended up being just enough for me.
As good as it was I knew I could do a bit more with it. Like toasted walnuts and coconut! Toasting does a really good job of heightening the flavor profile of the ingredient. Especially with nuts. The gentle heat releases its natural oils. It’s pretty easy too… you can either doing it in the oven or on the stove top. The stop top method is slightly faster (I do it all the time) but I find the oven method does a better job at evenly toasting.
Let’s take a look at what each method produces with the walnuts and coconut.
Oven toasted on left, stove top on right.
It didn’t seem to make a big difference with the nuts, though I think with you are less likely to burn them if you opt for the oven. If you look closely you can see I let them sit a little too long on the stove top method.
Oven toasted on the left, stove top on the right.
Now the coconut? Huge difference! You have to be extra watchful with the coconut too. It turns quick!
It’s up to you how you want to toast them. Or if you even want to toast them at all.
It all comes together nicely in the end. The nuts are mixed in with the fruit and yogurt. The coconut gets sprinkled and the honey is drizzled on top.
I know the final shot isn’t so great. It is kind of amazing how the addition of the yogurt blurred and muted the brightness of the fruits. And the lighting was a beast as well. Oh well, I still have a long way to go in food styling and photography.
Peel and cut the banana, mango, and navel orange into bite size pieces. Place into a medium sized bowl. Fold in the greek yogurt and walnuts.
Spoon 1/2 cup of salad into 4 small serving dishes. Top each dish with a tablespoon of toasted coconut. Then drizzle each dish generously with 1 teaspoon of honey.
To toast coconut, oven method: Preheat oven to 325°F. Line baking sheet with parchment and scatter coconut. Bake for 6 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes. Coconut turns quick so keep an eye on it.
To toast walnuts, oven method: Turn oven up to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment and scatter nuts. Bake for 8 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes.
For stove top method, heat a small pan on medium heat. Add ingredients and stir frequently till golden, about 5 minutes.
Makes 4 - 1/2 cup servings or 2 - 1 cup servings. The latter being the more realistic serving size. But if you are serving lots of other food the 1/2 cup makes sense.