Seared Halibut with Couscous

Holy jeez, it's been way too long since I've posted.  I literally made this dish a couple weekends ago, and in the craziness that is wedding season and raising a soon to be one year old, I never got around to posting.  So here it is.  A nice seared fish along with a side dish so nice, they named it twice.  To those who get the reference, good on you.

Seared Halibut with Israeli Couscous and Pancetta

- 6 oz filet Halibut

-1/2 cup cubed Pancetta

- Chopped Parsley

-1/3 cup Israeli Couscous

-Vegetable Broth

-1/2 cup Summer Peas

-Salt

-Pepper

There were basically three stages to this dish.  First the seared halibut, which was quite simple just that, a piece of seasoned (with salt/pepper) halibut seared in a butter/evoo mixture on high heat and finished in the oven.  Second was the puree of summer peas, which again, you may have guessed it, was simple just over half of the peas I cooked up pureed in the blender to give the dish a little something extra.  The third, and certainly most interest piece of the dish was the couscous mixture.  Started by cooking the couscous in vegetable broth the same way I'd typically cook rice.  Not sure if this is the best way to do it, but I assumed, since I've never made couscous before.  As it was cooking, I cooked up the pancetta in a pan til it was just getting crispy, added in the remaining sweet peas along with some chopped parsley and a bit of pepper.  I then added the finished couscous directly into the pancetta and gave it a good stir.  Basically just as easy as the other two steps.  Putting all three together and you're left with a half way decent meal.  The one thing I did take away from this meal is this.... I need to learn how to plate food more elegantly than just dumping onto the plate.

Father's Day Pancakes (aka Mancakes)

Anyone who knows me will know the following two things about me.  First, I celebrated my first ever father's day as a proud father this year.  And second, I absolutely love pancakes.  So what better way to celebrate the former than by preparing the latter.  I found an excellent recipe for pancakes a couple months back that I've been looking forward to trying, and this father's day was finally the day.  

Bacon/Chive Pancakes

- 8 oz Bacon

- 1/2 cup sliced Green Onions

- 5/4 cups Flour

- 3/4 cups Cornmeal

- 1 tbsp Baking Powder (Not soda....a terrible mistake I've made before)

- 3/4 tsp Salt

- Pepper to taste (whatever that means)

- Cayenne to taste (see above)

- 2 Eggs

- 4/3 cups Milk

- 2 tbsp melted Butter

- 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

Not my usual pancake recipe, I usually prepare the one handed down from my mother, but special celebrations call for special recipes.  I started with the slicing and cooking of the bacon, which I always find the toughest thing to do.  Not because cooking up bacon is particularly hard, but not eating the cooked bacon before using it in the recipe is always a struggle for me.  Alas, one bacon is cooked, I added the onions directly into the pan after removing from heat to allow the onions to just barely cook.  Drained out the fat and set aside for later.  The pancake mix was very straight forward, mixing together all the dry ingredients in the bowl, and then adding in the wet ones and whisking together until blended.  An interesting side note, apparently sugar is considered a wet ingredient.... I had no idea.   After mixing together, I added in the bacon/onion mixture along with about a half cup of grated cheese.  Another round of mixing and then let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes in order to let all the dry ingredients become saturated (not sure if that's the right term).  Cooking the pancakes was again fairly straight forward, plopping down small circular pancakes (about 1/3 cup of mixture per pancake) on a greased frying pan, flipping over once the edges around the pancake start to thicken and bubbles start appearing on the top. 

The plating was a bit tricky, as I wasn't sure whether to add the maple syrup for the shot or not.  As you can tell, I eventually decided on having the maple syrup with (along many practice photos were indeed taken).   The syrup was even a little bit special, as I added a bit of cayenne into the maple syrup and warmed prior to serving.  Gives the syrup a bit of a kick but nothing too spicy.  Overall a fantastic dish, one that will definitely make the rounds again.

Seafood Risotto

As I mentioned during the first risotto post, you could come to expect more risotto in the future.  Without fail, only two weeks after, I was at it again with yet another fancy rice dish.  This time a seafood risotto, incorporating both lobster and shrimp into an asparagus risotto.

Shrimp and Lobster Asparagus Risotto

• Butter
• Olive Oil
• 1 tap Garlic
• Tiger Shrimp
• Salt
• 1 cup Arborio Rice
• 4 cups Vegetable Broth
• Asparagus
• Light cream cheese
• Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Paprika
• Lobster

I won't go into the details of how to cook the risotto as I've very recently gone through that process, so really this is going to end up being a very quick blog post.   Yep, that's pretty much all I'm gonna write about this dish.

Seared Scallops followed by Cherry and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken

For a special celebratory meal, last night I did two dishes.  An appetizer of seared sea scallops on a corn and bacon puree which was then followed up with a cherry and goat cheese stuffed chicken breast.  If I'm not mistaken, I've already done a seared scallop dish on the blog before, so I won't need to go into too much detail about the process of cooking those up.  The stuffed chicken was a fun idea, however mostly made due to the fact that I purchased entirely way too much goat cheese for last weeks dish...  Worked out well though.  For sides, I tried to keep the plates colorful by having creamed spinach as well as a mashed butternut squash.

Seared Scallop with Corn and Bacon Puree

• Large Sea Scallops
• Olive Oil
• 1 cup frozen Corn
• 1 small Jalapeno Pepper
• 1 strip of thick cut bacon
• Parsley for show

As mentioned above, I won't go over the process of cooking up the scallops, rather I'll focus on the puree, which actually won't take too much time at all.  First cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry on medium heat until the fat has melted down.  Then add the jalapeno pepper, which would be diced up prior to throwing in the pan.  I only use the flesh of the jalapeno, as I'm a heat wuss, but I'm sure if you were to add in the seeds it would give this a nice kick.   While this is going on, you sure be cooking up your corn in some boiling water.  Drain out the water, and add the bacon/pepper mixure with juices (aka fat drippings) with the corn into a food processor.  In this case a blender since we don't yet have a food processor (if my wife is reading... this would be a great fathers day gift... ;D).  Blend and add a bit of hot water until the desired consistency is reach.  I'm not too sure what a good consistency is, so I probably made it a bit too chunky, but I'm cool with that.   I dolloped the puree out onto a plate, and placed the seared scallops across adding a sprig of parsley (and a little straggler parsley as seen in the photo) and served.  Big fan of the puree to add a little extra to both the plating and the taste of the dishes.

Cherry and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast

• Chicken Breasts
• Goat Cheese
• Cherries
• Parsley
• Paprika

One of my favorite dishes to make is stuffed chicken breast.  You can literally make it like a million ways, switching out what you stuff it with, how you wrap it. it's just such a versatile dish.  For tonight's (aka last nights) rendition, I used some Maraschino cherries and goat cheese as the filling of choice.  Getting the chicken ready for stuffing for me is always the hardest part.  I tend to cut the breast too thin as I roll it out.  Basically you want to just cut the breast in half and pound it flat, but I always try to go fancy and do a half cut roll out method, which doesn't really make sense and/or work.  So my advice, is to turn the breast sideways, and cut length wise until about a quarter inch and then unfold and pound flat with a meat pounder (probably not the official term).  In the breast, I sprinkled some dry chopped parsley. chopped dried cherry pieces, and plenty of goat cheese.  When doing a stuffed chicken you can never have enough cheese. I then lighted dusted with some paprika and rolled the chickens and tied using some simple twine.  To cook, I seared the chicken in a frying pan to give it a nice color and then popped the pan in the oven until the chicken was cooked through.  I always give the chicken a sear in a frying pan first.  If you just cook straight in the oven, it comes out looking super white and looks like it's straight up under cooked.


Mashed Butternut Squash

• Butternut Squash
• Butter
• Maple Syrup
• Ground cinnamon

A very simple and quick side dish to make.  I cut the squash length wise and placed face down on a piece of parchment paper on a cooking sheet.  I popped the tray into the oven and baked at 375 until the squash was tender, usually about 45 minutes or so.  Once finished, I scooped out the cooked squash into a bowl and added some butter and maple syrup (I don't have the measurements because I didn't really measure.... just went with my gut.... poor choice if you're wanting to recreate something later).  Usually a potato masher, I mashed the squash into a nice consistency and it was ready to serve.  As you may note above, the ingredients list cinnamon as well.  I was planning to use some cinnamon to sprinkle on top to give a nice look and a little extra flavor, but I forgot about it.  Awkward.

Also included in the dish was a nice creamed spinach as well as a cauliflower puree.  I won't go into the details of these, as the post is already getting quite long, and I'm sure these will pop up on future blog posts.

Risotto Primavera

After years of thinking it was way to hard to make myself, I finally decided to try my hand at making risotto.  There are so many different ways to do it, but I finally landed on a vegetarian recipe so that my beautiful wife could also partake in this meal.  Chose a Risotto Primavera, which essentially boiled down (ha ha....foreshadowing) risotto with a bunch of veggies and cheese mixed into it.  Lots of consideration (I'll say too much) went into figuring out what type of rice I was supposed to use in order to make the risotta.  A quick google search will tell you any type of italian short grain rice will work, but I wanted the best.  I scoured the net for blog posts, discussion boards and recipe sites and finally landed on my rice type.  And then all that work went to waste went I went to the store and settled on Arborio because that's all they had......womp womp.   In hindsight, the rice type probably doesn't make that big of a difference (Sorry to any actual chefs who read this and whole wholeheartedly disagree).  End result was a gooey cheesy rice filled with fresh veggies, a dish that could easily serve as a main.  I'm definitely on board to start making more and more risottos.  I wouldn't be shocked it they become a standard side to some upcoming meals.

Risotto Primavera

• Butter
• Olive Oil
• 3 whole Carrots, peeled and diced
• 1/2 Yellow Onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup Cauliflower Pieces
• 1/2 cup Broccoli Pieces
• Salt
• 3/2 cups Arborio Rice
• 3/2 cups dry White Wine
• 5 cups Vegetable Broth
• 1/2 cup Frozen Peas
• 4 Green Onions, chopped
• 4 oz Goat Cheese
• 1/2 Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Sprig of Parsley, for show

This recipe starts with the slight cooking of all the vegetables.  The point is to start the veggies cooking, without fully cooking so that when they get added back in they don't just turn to straight mush in the risotto as it finishes.  Started with the cooking onions and carrots in some butter and a bit of oil, and then slowly added the cauliflower and broccoli pieces (And salt for seasoning) once they were about 1/2 way cooked.  Only cooked the full mixture of a couple minutes, just to get the cooking process started, keeping in mind that once they get hot and taken off the heat, they'll continue to cook and then some more once back in the rice.  I underestimated the cooking time of the veggies, so they turned out somewhat crunch, but I always think a little crunchy is better than a little soggy so I was happy.

Using the same pan, vegetables removed and put on a plate, I got some more butter (sensing a theme with risotto...more butter more butter) and oil going in a pan and threw in the rice.  Getting the rice mixed in and cooking until there was just little dots of white in the middle of the rice.  Then comes the wine, 1/2 cup into the rice, just to loosen things up a little.  After a bit of simmering, I started putting in the vegetable broth one cup at a time and let the mixture boil down (foreshadowing complete).  Kept reducing the broth, adding more, reducing again, until the 5 cups of broth were gone.  I should note here that during my research, I discovered for risotto you should add hot broth, what for I didn't figure out, but I made sure my broth was warming in a sauce pan before adding in.  After adding another 2 half cups of wine and letting reduce down, I added in my green onions, frozen peas and cheese and let it all set in, letting the rice really take shape.  I then added back in the cooked veggies, mixed it all together and let it sit for a couple minutes while I sat debating whether pouring a glass of wine late at night would be a good or bad thing.  Proactive Mark prevailed with a leading argument of work in the morning.

All in all, the dish was really simple to make, the hardest part being simply the waiting game, as getting the 5 cups of broth to absorb into the rice took a solid 45-50 minutes.  Should probably stop making such large portions when I do these blogs I guess.

Beef Rouladen with Shredded Cabbage and Roasted Potatoes

After a short (read: way too long) hiatus, I've finally returned to making some fancy weekend foods and sharing the results with the world.  To my loyal fan(s) out there, apologies for the delay.  This week I kicked off the blogging by preparing a neat German dish of Beef Rouladen.  Having never had or even seen this dish before, one might find themselves asking; why?  Well, short and simple, it popped up on a reddit feed a couple weeks ago, and looked cool while also looking super simple to make.  And I do like simple things that end up looking like they require a lot of work.  All in all, it was a fairly straight forward dish, and I think turned out looking fairly tasty.

Beef Rouladen
-2 slices of beef -Dijon Mustand-Bacon-Paprika-Sliced Onion-Sliced Dill Pickle-1 tbsp Vegetable Oil-2 tbsp Butter-1/4 Cup Flour-3 Cups Chicken Broth-Salt and Pepper

As I mentioned earlier, the beauty of this meal is in how easy it was to prepare.  For the meat, I simply laid the slices of beef out and seasoned with enough salt and pepper.  How much is enough you ask?  I have no idea.  I always seem to put enough that I know I put salt and pepper, without it looking like it's more seasoning than meat.  I then spread on the Dijon Mustard across the beef, and then layered on 2 strips of bacon along the meat making sure that the bacon ends just about a half inch before either side of the meat so that when I rolled the beef it didn't awkwardly stick out.  Next, I spread the sliced onions and dill pickle across the meat, making sure to leave only one slice of dill pickle at the beginning, middle and end.  Didn't want to overload with dill pickle, as I've heard dill can really over power a dish.  I then wrapped and tied the meat into a roll, and proceeded to sear the meat in a hot pot with vegetable oil, just to brown the outside.  Once browned, I then removed the meat and replaced with butter and flour in order to get a nice roux going.  I added in the broth and cranked up the heat to get a good simmer going  and let the gravy reduce just a bit.  I then popped the meat back into the gravy to let it cook for about 50-60 minutes.  

Roasted Potatoes

-2 cups diced potatoes

-Cinnamon

-Brown Sugar

-Avocado Oil

My favorite way to have potatoes.... smothered in sugar. haha.  Really easy recipe here, I simply turned the over up to 450F, tossed the potatoes into a roasting pan with some oil, sugar and cinnamon, and let the oven do it's thing for about an hour or so, or until the potatoes are cooked.  I did mix them around every 10-15 in order to make sure all the potatoes got coated in the sugar/spice mixture, but other than that, these potatoes are virtually hands off cooking.  And super tasty.

For the plating of the dish, I went "all out".  In the sense that I bought a fancy bowl to present it in.  That's right, no more simple plates for this blog.  I laid down a layer of the sauteed green cabbage (Yes, I know I didn't describe the cooking of the cabbage above.... nor will I.  Apparently this recipe stays a secret), and then placed to of the meat pieces front facing and smothered with the gravy it was cooked in.  I didn't know what to do with the potatoes, and I basically just dumped a bunch of them behind the meat.  Probably should have thought it out a little more, but I think the dish turned out looking half way decent.