This is another simple yet delectable dish that I came across while trying to dig up some new recipes with Peyton (our pescatarian) in mind. This is a dish that can be thrown together quickly from ingredients that you can easily keep on-hand. As long as you have some canned cannellini beans and crushed tomatoes in your pantry and some frozen shrimp in your freezer, you're in business.
Archives for November 2012
Riz Au Lait
Now that you've polished off the last of the pies, cakes and crumbles left over from your Thanksgiving feast, it's time to replenish your dessert larder with a new treat. God forbid you go more than a day or two without a holiday worthy sweet in your house this time of year….what would the neighbors say?
You might think from the name of this recipe (Riz Au Lait is French for rice with milk) that it's all about the rice….it's not. This dish is all about vanilla and cream, the rice acts only as a mechanism to deliver these two stars to your taste buds and to provide a little texture. This is not the rice pudding of your youth, the cold, gummy cup of misery that the lunch ladies served up on occasion. That dish was cold rice soaked in low-fat milk and sugar, this one by contrast delivers plump grains of short rice luxuriating in a bath of warm, sweetened cream and vanilla. You follow?
It's snowy whiteness is so enticing that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is the dish that Mrs. Claus uses to fatten Santa for his long, cold journey on Christmas Eve. Yeah, this dessert is sinfully rich and should therefor be served is appropriately small portions (unless of course you're looking to Santa-size yourself). In fact, it's so rich that it's one of those dishes that warrants a mention on the Q & A form presented at your annual physical.
Jack-O-Lantern Soup
No, this isn't a belated Halloween post just uncovered from beneath the pile of crap on my desk. This is a soup I crafted out of two left over sugar pumpkins that received a last minute stay of execution from Jack Skellington himself. You see, this year we bought three smallish pumpkins for seeds and to be converted to Jack-O-Lanterns to display for the exactly ZERO kids that visit us for "Tricks or Treats" on Halloween night (I don't even know why we bother). I topped and cleaned out all three of the pumpkins, then carved one into a fearsome looking squat demon of a thing, the other two I set aside for the girls to carve. Sadly, they never got around to carving theirs (too busy costuming for their candy confiscation tour, I guess), so ferocious ghouls they were not to be.
Apple Cranberry Crisp with Hazelnut Topping and Creme Anglaise
With just under a week to go before Thanksgiving, it's time to start training for the big day. I'm not talking about kitchen time trials where you block out cooking times for your various dishes to make sure you have the oven and burner space to pull everything together in a timely fashion.
No, I'm talking about deliberately increasing your food intake over the next week to prepare your body for the onslaught that is the Thanksgiving feast. Just as you would never dream of running a marathon or swimming a mile without some serious conditioning, don't kid yourself into thinking that you can survive Thanksgiving without some pre-feast indulgence.
Fish Sticks with a Twisted Tartar Sauce
The idea for these sticks came to me while shopping at BJ's Wholesale today. I was perusing the frozen food section for some fish filets that were individually frozen so that I could have an easy and healthy non-meat alternative always on hand for Peyton. As you may recall, she is our resident pescatarian and on nights when the rest of us are eating meat, I need to be able to offer her some other protein with her meal. Soy based "fake meat" proteins will only get you so far, and shrimp apparently is getting a bit overdone around here as well, so individually frozen fish filets were on my shopping list today.
Sweet Potato Pie
I've made countless pumpkin pies over the years, but this was my first dance with a sweet potato version. I was expecting it to be nearly identical to all the squash pies I've made over the years, and while it looks just like a pumpkin pie, and has a similar texture, in many ways this is an entirely different beast. For me, this darling was head and shoulders above any pumpkin pie I've ever made, and in fact, now that I've found this recipe I'm not sure I'll ever go back to the pumpkin pies of my youth.
Fall Root Vegetable Puree
Here's a quick side dish to help you take advantage of all the tasty Fall produce showing up in the markets these days. It's also a great one for getting your kids to try some new veggies like turnips, rutabagas, or parsnips. It would take a great deal of arm twisting to get my kids to try one of those "weird" white veggies, but blended with carrots and sweet potatoes as they are here, it was a piece of cake.
Crispy Lemon Chicken with Zatar
This chicken dish is the real reason I started making preserved lemons at home. Ana Sortun, one of my favorite local chefs (she's the owner and chef at Oleana in Cambridge, MA), and also a fellow LCB alum, has had this wildly popular dish on her menu from the very start. Like Gordon Hammersly's Herb-Roasted Chicken, and Joel Robuchon's Pomme-Puree, it has become a dish so popular with her guests that she dare not pull it from her menu.
