Seventy-second Post ~ Curry Lamb Shish Kebabs with Wild Rice

Tonight I had my friend Jess over for dinner. We had decided (based on a random facebook post) that tonight would be all about lamb. She'd bring a red wine, and I'd create an entrée. So one afternoon when I needed a break from studying, I brainstormed some ideas and sketched this meal out. Here's what you'll need:

For the marinade:

~ one clove crushed garlic

~ curry powder

~ soy sauce

~ white wine

~ apricot jam

~ thyme

~ honey

~ bay leaf

For the shishes (read this post for my rant on the linguistic wrongness of "shish kebab"):

~ lamb tenderloins (or, as it turned out, butterflied leg of lamb)

~ onion

~ yellow pepper

~ garlic

~ baby bella mushrooms

~ dried apricots

For the rice:

~ Uncle Ben's fast-cook recipe long grain and wild rice. Follow the directions and just as it's getting ready to sit and steam for 5 minutes, toss in a good couple handfuls of dried cranberries. This can be made right as you begin cooking - it can steam for a while until you're ready to eat.

I was surprised to learn that lamb tenderloins are not a regularly stocked item; turns out I've just gotten lucky each time I've gone to Wegmans and gotten them previously. This time I found butterflied leg of lamb, and was told by the helpful staff that it is tougher than the tenderloins, but if I plan to marinade it, it will be good. So I made the marinade ahead and let it sit in it for over 24 hours. The end result was super flavorful, tender lamb.

Here's how I made the marinade.

In a sauce pan, start some white wine and olive oil heating up. Add a good swirl of soy sauce and several whole sprigs of thyme and the bay leaf. Add some curry powder. As it starts to seriously simmer, add a few tablespoons of apricot jam and then some honey to taste. Crush in a clove of garlic last of all.

Let it sit and cube the lamb. Put it in a bowl and when the marinade is room temperature, pour it over the lamb. Saran wrap it and let it rest in the fridge over night. In the morning, stir it around and cover it and put it back in the fridge for the day.

Once it's time to get cookin', slice up the pepper and onion while you simmer the mushrooms in some white wine, salt and EVOO. In a separate pan, caramelize the onion with some oil and sugar. When the fire alarm goes off, splash in some white wine (which solves a lot of kitchen problems) and add the peppers. Let them sautee until just tender. Let everything sit and cool in prep bowls. Preheat your toaster oven. When you're ready, skewer your shishes with apricots, lamb, mushrooms, peppers and onions. Place in a pan and pour the remaining marinade over the top. Broil until the lamb is cooked to your liking. We liked ours medium-rare, so it didn't take too long! Serve over wild rice.

Jess and I enjoyed this meal with a Peruvian merlot by Santa Rita. It was spicy and fruity and had a luxurious, velvety finish that paired beautifully with the meal. Naturally, girl-talk paired perfectly with this meal as well, so it was, all in all, a perfect evening!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Forty-third Post ~ Cornish Hen with Wild Rice and Mushroom Stuffing and Fingerling Potatoes

I've been wanting to make a Cornish hen for a while for two reasons: Reason 1: It just seems like it would be fun to make a Cornish hen. Reason 2: My mom and I cooked some up years ago together, and I thought it would be fun to come home on a Friday armed with two birds and a bag full of ingredients and surprise her with a home-cooked dinner made from my own original recipe.

So this week, in strategizing my meals, I realized that I'd be making a box of Uncle Ben's rice to go with my pork: BAZINGA! Instant stuffing. This was my moment. This was my chance to test my poultry prowess.

So here's what you'll need to make what I had hoped would be (and I guess still kinda was) an easy-peasy-one-two-threesey Cornish hen:

~ Cornish hen (obviously)

~ Cooked long-grain wild rice

~ Fresh herb of choice (rosemary is in season in my refrigerator at the moment)

~ Spoonful of jam (you know how much I love apricot)

~ One scallion

~ Handful of mushrooms (I used washed baby pearls)

~ Fingerling potatoes (not familiar? Go to Wegmans. My mom and I discovered them over break and tried them out eagerly, not knowing what to expect. Weroasted them with a pork loin and, oh, were they good. Slightly creamy in texture, each color yields a slightly different flavor. I'm a fan.)

On your chopping block, chop up some mushrooms, one scallion, and one small sprig's worth of rosemary needles. Start a little olive oil and white wine heating up in a pan. Add everything with a dash of salt. Add a good helping of the wild rice and stir everything around a bit. If you made the rice like I did for yesterday's dinner, you've added ginger and cinnamon to the rice as it cooked, so all of these aromas will meld together beautifully. Add a spoonful of apricot jam. As it looks evenly heated, take it off of the heat.

Pierce the fingerlings and place them on a piece of parchment in a pan. Over pan, place a cooking rack. Open the package containing your hen.

:: PAUSE ::

Giblets. Did NOT know Cornish hens came with giblets. Unlike other kids, I was the one picking the giblets out of the stuffing - out of the pan of stuffing - so I could get extras. I love them. So even though this was not on my agenda tonight, I really could not simply toss away all that savory, vitamin-packed goodness. So I got out a second pan and melted some butter and cooked up the giblets. Once they were done I added the stuffing and stirred it all around a bit. If I had known Cornish hens came with giblets, I would have done them first, then sautéed the rest of the ingredients for the stuffing and only had one pan to wash. Live and learn.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So, now that the stuffing is done, rinse off the hen and stuff it. Secure the closure with a toothpick. Years of watching my mother stuff turkeys (we have about four a year) has given me a good sense of how much stuffing can fit in a bird - and that you can always, always, ALWAYS find room for more to fit SOMEWHERE.

Place the stuffed hen on the cooking rack over your fingerlings. The juice that drips off of the bird will give a nice savory taste to the potatoes.

Bake for between 35 minutes and an hour (depending on the size of the hen), checking here and there. Work on schoolwork, wash dishes, play with puppy, check email, etc. I am becoming a huge fan of "hands-off" dinners that have to be left alone for a while. When the juices run clear, it's ready to go!

:: PAUSE AGAIN ::

My apologies for the multiple pauses. But this tale merits telling. So I poked it a few times with a knife, and all juices ran clear. Onto my plate it went. First slice, and it was evident that I had obviously not poked deep enough. So back into the oven it went with the stuffing spread out on a pan (which I had already consumed in forkfuls by this point - one of the many benefits of testing out a recipe before you make it for other people: if there's going to be food-borne illness-related death as a result of your cooking, at least only one person has to die). Out onto my plate it went, and I flipped it over this time (more meat to be found opposite the backbone; never was one for chicken anatomy) and the juices ran pinker than ever. Back into the oven. In the mean time, I ate the stuffing and the potatoes, which I figure, HAD to be done. Out came the chicken. At this point, I was pretty much full with the stuffing and potatoes, and had become so paranoid about the meat that I ate a few bites but then foiled the rest up and put it in the fridge to reheat and eat the next day Here's the moral of the story, folks: Invest in a meat thermometer.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So, while the chicken proved to be a bit of a logistical challenge, I can quite honestly and shamelessly say that the wild rice and mushroom stuffing was probably one of the best things I've cooked yet. So there is still hope for my mother's surprise meal.

I paired tonight's dinner with the last of the Pepperwood Grove's Pinot Grigio. It gave a nice acidic company to the herbs and fruit overtones in the stuffing and chicken, and in my opinion, was a natural pairing.

Yours in the love of good food and wine, and not letting the chicken win,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Forty-second Post ~ A Quick Rejuvenation for Leftover Pork

The other night my mom and I got a pork tenderloin from Wegmans. It was a honey mustard marinade, and quite honestly, we were a little underwhelmed with the mustard quality and a little overwhelmed with the black pepper. We agreed that we liked other Wegmans pork marinades (teriyaki RULES) but this one was a bit lackluster.

I got the rest of it as leftovers, and decided that this "leftover treatment," tried and true on other such meats, just might tone down the pepper and enhance some of the other more subtle flavors. It certainly worked for me.

So now, fine readers, I pass this trick on to you. I believe it would work well on pretty much any white meat, marinated or un-marinated, flavorless or flavorful.

Here's what you'll need for a pork-or-poultry-pick-me-up:

~ Brie

~ Jam of your choice (I think apricot jam and brie are a match made in heaven)

~ Fresh herb of your choice (tonight I used rosemary, but thyme works just as wonderfully)

Set your oven or toaster oven to pre-heat on 350. Prepare your side (I made Uncle Ben's Wild Rice fast-cook recipe and added a healthy dose of ginger and cinnamon) then the meat. Here's all you do:

Lay the meat slices out on a sheet of parchment paper (or tin foil). Lay one sprig of your fresh herb of choice over the meat. Next, set an ample slice of brie on top (I used Wegman's medium brie, which has a perfect texture for baking) and top it off with several spoonfuls of jam. Pop it in the oven for about 5-10 minutes, until the brie is melted.

Serve with your side, and enjoy a whole new take on leftovers!

I had an Italian Pinot Grigio with tonight's dinner, and to be honest, I felt it went better with Friday's dinner of mussels in tomato and wine sauce than with tonight's dinner. I'm starting to find that Pinot Grigio is kind of a "red wannabe" - it pairs well with those meals that you might normally think to grab a red for - tomato based sauces, parmesan-heavy, any seriously savory dinners go well with a Pinot Grigio. The subtle fruitiness kind of got lost against the apricot jam, and the brie disappeared next to the wine's solid structure. I think a chardonnay would have suited this meal better - but, hey - you live, you learn, you blog!

Yours in the love of good food and wine (and the rejuvenation of leftovers!)

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.