Sun Dried Tomato White Bean Dip

April 29, 2011 by

This week has felt exceptionally erratic and I find myself longing for the weekend more than usual.  I have lots of little annoying things looming- a massive pile of laundry, store returns, and a dirty bathroom, but we’ve got some fun stuff planned too.  Tonight we have a long overdue date night scheduled at Rosa Mexicano, Saturday I’ll be attempting my first quiche (full report to come next week), and Sunday we’re having an early dinner with friends at the recently opened DC location of Hill Country.  The weather is also supposed to be glorious.  Not this sticky humid DC summer weather we’ve had this week (even though its April), but true spring 70 degree weather.

Unlike last week, I haven’t been too busy in the kitchen.  Except for this dip.  My food processor has been cranking out a lot of this white bean and sun dried tomato dip.  We’re quite fond of it.  I think the sun dried tomatoes provide just the right bite against the creamy beans, and a white bean dip is a nice alternative to our relentless hummus routine.  And with only a handful of ingredients, it couldn’t be simpler to make.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sun Dried Tomato White Bean Dip

1 15 oz can white cannelini beans (reserve 2 T of liquid from can)

one head of garlic, roasted (instructions here)

7 sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, roughly chopped

olive oil

s+p to taste

Set aside 2 T of liquid from can of beans, drain and rinse remaining contents.  Placed sun dried tomatoes in food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  Then add in beans, roasted garlic cloves, freshly cracked paper, reserved liquid, and 2 T olive oil.   Blend until well combined.    If dip seems dry, add a bit more oil, blending and adding more until it reaches a creamy consistency.  Serve immediately or store covered in fridge up to one week.

3 Comments

Roasting Garlic

April 26, 2011 by

There’s something about roasting.  Last week I roasted a chicken and the aroma had such an impact on my mood, you’d think I’d just returned from a week long spa retreat.  I felt so calm.  A few days later I roasted a head of garlic and the same thing happened.  I entered a roasting induced state of bliss.

So if you find yourself at a low point this week and don’t have time to roast a chicken,  I recommend the following steps:

1.  Find yourself a nice head of garlic.  One that’s really fresh and has big cloves.  Then preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Take the garlic and slice the top off.  This should expose most of the cloves, but not all.

3.  Place the headless garlic on a small piece of foil and cover with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

4.  Wrap up your garlic to form a little garlic package.

5. Place the package in the oven, let it hang out in there for 40 minutes.  Perhaps catch up on this show.

6. When done, remove from oven, unwrap, and let cool.  Once cooled, pull apart the cloves, gently squeezing out the cooked garlic.

7.  Mash the cloves with a fork to make a paste.  Roasted garlic is mildly sweet, buttery, and nutty in nature.  Spread it on toast, put it in dip, put it in salad dressing.

5 Comments

Scenes from Easter Sunday

April 25, 2011 by

The Easter holiday always serves as a strong reminder of how much I favor brunch celebrations. Brunch provides the perfect balance between sweet and savory dishes, as well as an excuse to sip champagne at 11 am.  Throw in brightly colored eggs, my favorite flowers (tulips), and children so excited over Easter eggs you’d think there was gold in them, and you have the perfect spring holiday.

6 Comments

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo

April 22, 2011 by

I love when a group of people just click; when conversation flows so easily that three hours after dinner has been served folks are still chatting away, sipping their wine, and nibbling on the odds and ends left on the table.  I’m lucky to have such a group a friends very close by.  By close by I mean literally across the street.  One is my former roommate, the second is my old roommate’s former roommate, and the third is the second’s current roommate (who were roommates in college).  A lot of roommate connections.

Our  group is full of skilled cooks, so we always dine in.  These evenings are extremely laid back, to the point where my outfits often closely mirror pajamas. After gorging myself at the apartment of two of the girls last week, I only felt it right that I host the next dinner.  I’m on a perpetual hunt for dinner party appropriate dishes- things you can make ahead that aren’t too fussy, but still provide something special for your guests.  Despite the fact that this orzo recipe has been sitting in a cookbook on my shelf for years, I only recently discovered it.  Given the results, it will definitely be a summer staple. Coincidentally, I also think it would make for an excellent Easter brunch dish.

I’m headed to Boston to celebrate the holiday with my family and some long time family friends.  I don’t know what it is about Easter candy, but I seem to favor it the most out of all the holidays (perhaps it’s the pastel colors?).  As I shared with my mother earlier this week, just because I’m 25 doesn’t mean I still don’t require a box of Peeps to myself.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home

Serves 6 dinner size portions

1 lb orzo

1 1/2 lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails on

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)

1/2 cup olive oil

3/4 cup chopped fresh dill

3/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 chopped red onion

1/2 chopped scallions

1 English cucumber, unpeeled and diced

1 1/4 cup good feta cheese, small dice/ crumbled

s+p

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Set a large pot of water, 1 tsp salt, and splash of oil to boil.

Once boiling drop in orzo and cook til al dente (8-9 minutes).  Meanwhile  whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and several grinds fresh black pepper.  Once pasta is cooked drain, pour into serving bowl, and toss well with dressing. Set aside.

Lay shrimp on a baking sheet, drizzles with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roasted for 5-6 minutes. Shrimp will be light pink when done cooking.

Add the shrimp, chopped herbs, scallions, onions, cucumber, 1/2 tsp salt, and several grinds black pepper to the orzo. Toss gently to combine.  Next add the feta and fold carefully into the orzo.  Set aside at room temperature for an hour to allow the flavors to blend or store covered in the fridge until ready to serve.  Dish can be made one day ahead.  Remove from fridge 1 hour before serving and taste to adjust seasonings.  You likely will need to add a bit more lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

2 Comments

Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

April 20, 2011 by

After writing Monday’s post, it got me thinking about chocolate chip cookies. Truth be told, I don’t love them.  If faced with a plate of cookies, I’ll go for a peanut butter or sugar cookie over a chocolate chip.  Beyond that, ever since I started making Compost Cookies, I’ve had little desire to make any other kind of cookie. You see, I am completely and utterly addicted to any confection that has the salty sweet component.  Kettle corn, chocolate covered pretzels, fleur de sel caramels- yes please.

The thing is,  I like my salt.  I detest when food is under-salted, and I tend to be pretty strong minded when it comes to determining how much salt something needs ( you’ve been warned).  Therefore, it’s no coincidence that one of my favorite food bloggers is Ashley of  Not Without Salt. If there ever were a kitchen mantra for me, that would be it.  Given Ashley’s attention to this crucial ingredient, I am very trusting of her recipes- including this one.   A simple cookie recipe at its core, it’s the cooking process, sugar combination, and sea salt (of course), that makes these chocolate chip cookies extraordinary.  To access the recipe, see the link to Dana Treat’s post* at the bottom of Ashley’s post.  Read Dana’s description and you’ll be even more convinced to cease all searches for the best chocolate chip cookie.

*Like Dana, I rolled my dough into logs, wrapped each one in plastic wrap, and let it rest in the fridge for a bit before slicing and baking.  By the 3rd roll I had more than enough cookies, so I decided to freeze the 4th.  It’s homemade slice and bake!  Lastly, watch your cooking time.  I found mine reached a chewy perfection by baking them for 9-10 minutes, letting them rest on the hot baking sheet for 2 minutes, and then placing them on a cooling rack.
6 Comments

Bread Baking Weekends

April 17, 2011 by
I think it comes down to two- chocolate chip cookies, and Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread.  These two food items likely represent the most blogged about topics by food bloggers.  Every food blogger has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, and someone- yet again- produced amazing results using Jim Lahey’s bread baking technique.  I am guilty of the former (I’m still working on the cookies).
I’ve made Lahey’s bread exactly three times, and each time I’ve used a different flour combination.  This third time around, using a combination of bread flour and whole wheat flour, produced my best loaf to date.  Lahey’s recipe was made famous by its simplicity.  Despite its simplicity, there are few things as gratifying as baking a really phenomenal loaf of bread.  Cleaning out your closet is neck and neck (that also went down in our apartment this weekend).  The smell of freshly baked bread emanating from this beautiful boule sitting in our kitchen, and four shopping bags stuffed full of items leaving our apartment just equates to sheer bliss.  Sheer bliss, I tell you.For instructions on making this bread, see the original NY Times article.  Instead of using 3 cups all purpose flour, I used 2 cups bread flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour.  I’ve made it before using only all purpose flour and produced beautiful results.  Use what you have on hand, it seems you can’t go wrong!

3 Comments

Vietnamese Coffee Popsicles

April 14, 2011 by

We live across the street from what is supposedly one of the best Pho restaurants in the DC area, Pho 75. Pho 75 was actually the first place I ever had pho. Brandon’s friends are unusually big Pho fans, to the point that one of them coined the phrase getting on the “pho train,” to communicate to their co-workers that they were going to Pho 75 for lunch. True story. If you’ve never had it, pho is a hot noodle soup, served with thin slices of beef, and topped with fresh bean sprouts, jalapenos, thai basil, and lime.

So why am I talking about pho and showing you pictures of popsicles? Well, aside from serving up hot noodle soup, they serve coffee. With each cup individually brewed, Vietnamese coffee is extremely dark and thick, almost syrupy in nature. The signature sweetener for their coffee is sweetened condensed milk. A thin layer coats the bottom of each cup and the coffee is poured on top. When stirred together it creates this incredibly rich and candy-like beverage, unlike any average cup of coffee. This cup of jo also transforms well into a delicious frozen treat, thanks to David Lebowitz’s ingenious idea.

These pops served as the perfect recipe for breaking in my new popsicle mold (best Amazon purchase ever). With only two ingredients, they could not be simpler. Depending on the size of your molds, you may need to increase the recipe- I doubled mine. You could also use decaf coffee to turn these into a show stopping summer dinner party dessert.

7 Comments

Scenes from Sunday Brunch

April 13, 2011 by

This past Sunday we had brunch at Bayou Bakery, a relatively new restaurant in our area.  I’d been for lunch and was totally won over by their pimento grilled cheese sandwich, so I was  fully anticipating their brunch to be a knockout.

Their beignets were amazing, a delightful powdered sugar mess.

Despite their focus on Southern food, their granola was some of the best I’ve ever had. Super sticky and crunchy, almost caramelized in nature.

They’re clearly capable of a mean latte- a crucial brunch skill.

And lastly, the biscuit breakfast sandwiches.  Their biscuits were everything you hope for- buttery and moist.  But the contents?  I was completely dismayed by their use of pre-cooked eggs.  Talk about a brunch faux pas.

3 Comments

Deviled Eggs

April 12, 2011 by

When we were little, and we had one of those miserably hot and humid summer days, my mom would make what she called a “cold dinner.”  Cold dinners meant no hot dishes.  She couldn’t bear to turn on the oven when it felt like 100 degrees, so dinner consisted of things like cucumber salad, open faced sandwiches, melon wrapped in prosciutto, and deviled eggs.  I love deviled eggs.  I realize they may not be the most popular appetizer- there’s egg, there’s mayo- there’s really no getting beyond that.  So if you don’t like them and we happen to be at a BBQ or cookout together, you can leave them to me.  And if you do like them, I’m a firm believer that no matter what recipe you use, you should always include a hint of mustard, paprika, and finely chopped onion.

Today’s no scorcher but I’ll eat deviled eggs any day of the week.  These guys don’t require much prep, so they’re ideal for those lazy weeknight dinners when I’d much rather be watching TV than cooking.  Excuse me while I catch up on Brothers and Sisters.

Deviled Eggs
5 eggs
2 T mayo
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 T minced red onion
1/2 T parsley
paprika for topping
Place eggs in a medium size sauce pan,  and fill with water (enough to cover the eggs by one inch).  Set over high heat, cover, and bring to a rolling boil.  Once boiling, turn off the heat, keep pot covered, and let sit for 12 minutes.  Once finished cooking, drain water and run eggs under cold water to cool.  Once cool enough to handle, peel eggs, rinse under cold water, and pat dry.
Next, cut eggs in half lengthwise.  Place cooked yolks in a bowl with remaining ingredients and stir well to combine.
Distribute yolk mixture evenly among egg white halves.  Sprinkle generously with paprika, and place in fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.
11 Comments

White Bean and Tomato Pesto Pasta Salad

April 10, 2011 by

I had every intention of cooking dinner for my guests this weekend, but my time in the kitchen didn’t go far beyond scrambled eggs and toast on Saturday morning.  We ended up eating out both nights, so the ingredients I purchased for the meal I intended to make weren’t put to use until this evening.

I am a religious lunch packer.  I eat out for lunch maybe 3 times per month?  It varies, but most weeknights I’m filling tupperware for the next day (a thrilling life I lead).  It helps that I have a stellar group of gal pals at work who all bring their lunch too, and we often eat as a group. We just moved into a new office last week and our kitchen is pretty swank. It’s no restaurant, but it’s still somewhat of an escape.  We even have a TV!  Though they can’t locate the remote, so lunch time viewings of the Food Network are on hold for now.

So this week I’ll be packing the meal I was supposed to make for my guests. I spotted some gorgeous basil at the grocery store recently and grabbed it to make pesto.  I added in white beans and tomatoes to make for a heartier meal. This salad can be served at room temp or slightly chilled, which makes it great for meals on the go or a casual dinner for company.

White Bean and Tomato Pesto Pasta Salad

Serves 4

1 lb small pasta (small shells, fusili, farfelle, or gemelli)

3 medium tomatoes diced

1 can Cannellini beans drained and rinsed

1/2 grated parm

s+p

Pesto Recipe- Ina’s recipe is my go to for proportions.  I find 3 cups of basil per pound of pasta works well.  Her recipe calls for 5, but I simply do roughly 2/3 of the remaining ingredients. I used all Walnuts instead of adding in pine nuts, as that’s what I had on had, but you could use all pine nuts, or even Cashews- all those types work well in pesto.

Cook pasta according to box instructions, just until al dente.  Drain, toss with a little olive oil and salt, and set aside in a large bowl.  While the pasta cools, make the pesto.  Once pasta has cooled slightly, toss with pesto.  Then toss in tomatoes, beans, and additional parm.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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