Lake Eats

I've said it before and I'll say it again - we love food.  The reason it is so painless for me to spend time putting together a meal is because the end product is so satisfying.  Even when just Flick and I are dining together, dinner is no short ordeal.  We easily spend 45 minutes eating, talking, drinking - and that is on nights when we have a full agenda for the post dinner hours.

With company in town - plan for at least an hour and a half at the dinner table.  Love it.  We just went out and bought a bunch of tiki torches and citronella oil to ward of the mosquitoes and prolong the dinner-time chat out on our back deck in Boulder.  It is the same way at the lake.  When we saddle up for dinner we are going well beyond sunset into the hours of the night when I would normally be getting ready for bed.  How great is that? 

Instead of the normal 5 meals - here are two meal "events" that you can count on to provide you with a great medium for conversation at your next backyard get together.

The first meal is a bit of a one-pot-wonder: the Shrimp Boil.  My brother and sister-in-law have lived south of the Mason Dixon (which, when I Googled it, is not quite as far south as I had imagined, but regardless...) for long enough to be bringing a little southern flare to our gatherings.  They put on a delightful shrimp boil which was delicious and fun to eat (NOTE: if you are taking turns doing dishes, call dibs on this night...trust me).  The shrimp boil involves shrimp, corn, onions, potatoes, sausage, Old Bay Seasoning and a giant newspaper covered table.  Intrigued?  Give this a go - if you have easy going guests who are not afraid to dig in family-style, this will surely be a hit!

Getting ready to chow down!

The second meal was a bit more traditional (in the way it was served) but just as memorable.  We had a feast of steaks, salmon, broccoli slaw, baked potatoes, bread dipped in flavored oil, and strawberry torte for dessert.  Mmmmm.  

The steaks were grilled with a little olive oil, seasoned salt, and crushed black pepper.  We had sauteed mushrooms (slice mushrooms, heat skillet over medium heat and add some butter.  Add mushrooms and saute until softened) as a nice compliment to the perfectly grilled steaks.

The salmon was cooked on a cedar plank - soak the plank for an hour, rub the fish with a mixture of 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper and 1 tablespoon brown sugar.  Lay the fish on the plank and put the plank on the preheated grill (medium heat) for 15 or so minutes or until it reaches 130 degrees.  Serve with this horseradish sauce from Wegmans if possible! 

 

These recipes will be as great individually as they are all together - mix and match, borrow a marinade or cooking technique for a different cut of meat, and by all means, allow yourself some strawberry torte for dessert!

Broccoli slaw?  Yes please!

Strawberry Torte

Back to life...

Beautiful morning on the lake

We are just getting back from what is becoming our annual 4th of July trip to Keuka Lake out in New York.  We were fortunate enough to spend an extra long weekend with the Flickinger side of the family; water skiing, watching dirt track races, celebrating 1st and 30th birthdays, and enjoying good food, wine, and company.  Needless to say, I did not spend any extended amounts of time in front of a computer and therefore, did not update the blog.  We are back on the home front and getting caught up on everything but sleep so here are the recipes for this week: 


We'll start right off with the vegetarian meal: Grilled Farmers Market Sandwiches.  The key to these hearty, veggie filled sandwiches is the bread.  We bought a loaf of par baked ciabatta bread and baked it just before assembling the sandwiches.  Perfection.  What is par baked bread you ask?  Par baking is the process by which you bake the bread until it is done on the inside and then remove it from the oven to cool before it forms the crust on the outside.  This process allows the structure of the bread to form (it looks baked) but suspends the baking process so that it may be completed at a later time.  We bought the loaf at the grocery store, popped it in the oven for about 15 minutes, and BOOM - fresh baked bread.  It is an ingenious process and the best way to have fresh bread for dinner!

Next we had Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Balsamic Reduction (with a side of grilled peaches and wild rice salad).  We used boneless pork loin chops instead of a pork tenderloin.  The sides were really good, even though we accidentally left the "wilds" out of the wild rice salad (they were in with the spice packet which we were instructed to omit in the cooking process).  You can actually buy just the "wilds" at the grocery store - it is basically just a container of long grain black rice.  Interesting - I didn't go for it but by all means!

Flick made my plate look fancy

Delicious summer meal

Taking advantage of the summer produce, we decided to make Snapper with Zucchini and Tomato served with parsley orzo.  What a fresh, summery meal.  The zucchini and tomato "salsa" was a hit with both Flick and I.  We easily polished it all off between the 2 of us so you may want to make a bit extra if you are serving 4 and are with a bunch of veggie lovers. 

Glazed Chicken and Szechuan Noodle Salad was another recipe which pared peanut butter and noodles.  Love this combo.  The salty sweetness of the peanut butter worked really well with the grilled glaze on the chicken.  We used whole wheat spaghetti instead of the Udon noodles.  This was my first experience with whole wheat pasta and I really enjoyed it!  The flavor was indistinguishable from the white pasta (the flavorful sauce probably helped there) and even Flick, the not-so-fond-of-wheat guy, enjoyed it!

After eating wheat pasta and veggie sandwiches, we wanted to work in a little red meat.  To that end, we made up some Basic Burgers.  Not every meal is a planned out recipe in our household (though this blog may make you think otherwise).  On summer nights it is nice to make up some burgers (ground beef, a little dried rosemary and some onion and garlic powder - form into patties and grill to perfection) and pair them with Mac 'n Cheese, a beer, and a seat on the back deck.  I hope you all had a great 4th of July - bon appetite!

Dinner, A-Team Style

You tell 'em Hannibal

I had to do a little extra planning for this week's meals.  Flick was gone with work for a few days so I needed to make sure that I chose meals that were either make-ahead friendly or quick to pull together.  It's all about the planning.  Some days work out better than others, but it always feels good to know that there is a nice meal just around the corner as I am scooting around the house after work trying to get everything done.

Perhaps one of the best summertime meals to fill this role is Penne with Corn, Roasted Poblanos, Avocado, and Tomato.  This recipe requires a lot of prep (read: make-ahead meal), however, it results in a pretty hefty amount of food.  We usually serve it as an entree (sometimes we add some grilled chicken to give it a little more umph), but it would make a fine side dish as well!  When roasting the peppers, make sure you give them time to really blacken up.  It makes the peeling process go much faster:

When it all comes together it is not only a tasty dish, but a pretty one too!

I had to run an audible on my fish dish this week.  I did not have all the ingredients for the recipe I was intending to make (despite sitting down with it to make my grocery list...these things happen), so I did a little experimenting.  The original recipe is Bombay Shrimp Curry with Coconut Rice; we have made this before and both really enjoyed it.  My ingredient snafu came with the rice so I made plain white rice and used the coconut milk in the curry itself.  I found the sauce to be a little too rich for my liking - the coconut milk was much better served as the cooking medium for the rice.  We will go that route for future editions so the recipe I am providing is the original "un-edited" version.

Moving on to the meat segment of the blog - we really worked the "other" white meat this week; pork chops and country ribs both graced our table for dinner.  The pork chop recipe is a very straightforward dry rub that you coat the chops with prior to grilling.  

We served them with rice pilaf and some of our sweet green peas.  Yum!  I was excited about the rib recipe because we do not have ribs very often, and we also do not use our slow cooker as much as we probably should.  It is really great to come home to a meal that is virtually ready to be eaten, however, there is always a little up front work to be done.  For me this means that I just need to do the "cooking" in the morning, rather than when I come home at night.  Despite the morning prep requirements, it is nice to be greeted at the front door not only by a giant Bernese Mountain Dog, but also by the mouth watering smell of BBQ ribs simmering in the crock pot. We had our ribs with some cornbread, slaw, and baked beans.  Our neighbors were having ribs on the same night so we brought over half of the cornbread for them to enjoy with their dinner.  It is nice to be able to share good food with friends and neighbors!

Last, but certainly not least, is another vegetarian dish: Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms.  These are flavored with Balsamic Vinegar - portobellos, tomatoes, cheese and balsamic - you really cannot get much better than that!  The recipe calls for Fontina cheese, which we do not often have on hand and can be expensive, so we sub in fresh Parmesan as a nice alternative.  Flick was home for dinner this night so he ended up pulling it together - the prep time is very reasonable and makes for a nice mid-week meal.

Recipe Facelift

I am pretty excited for the recipes this week because not only are they delicious, but they are posted on my new recipe website, hosted by Recipefy.  I've been using a Google website that I created to store my recipes, but after only 10 weeks of posting I had reached my photo upload limit (really??).  That was going to be a problem.  It took some digging but I came across this site which is basically like Facebook for recipes.  Most people would not be that excited about it, however, I am over the moon.  Yes, it does mean that I have some serious work to do, moving all my recipes over there and updating all the links in the blog, however, it will be worth it in the end to have such a professional looking, user friendly collection.  Onto the food...

Most of the meals for this week were "indoor cooking" meals but there are some real favorites in this set (does it seem like I am always saying that?  I love good food).  Pork Chops with Country Gravy is a nod to the southern style sausage and gravy that is fun to indulge in for brunch every now and again.  It is a white gravy and is so delicious you would be hard pressed to believe it is "healthy".  We serve these chops with mashed potatoes.  We have not tried it yet but if you like sausage and gravy, you could definitely use this gravy to make a nice hearty breakfast.

We followed up this heavier meal with Garlic and Herb Oven Fried Halibut.  We really liked the crunch of the panko on these fish filets.  You can use any mild, white fish - just adjust your cooking times depending on the thickness of the filets.

The grill dish that we enjoyed this week was London Broil with Tomato Corn Relish.  London Broil can be a tough cut of meat so let it hang out in this marinade for awhile and resist the urge to over-cook it.  The relish is the perfect compliment (and a good way to work some veggies in!).

Honey Cashew Chicken with Rice was one of our "new to us" recipes this week.  Cashews are the number one nut in my book.  I do not pick them out of the mixed nuts (anymore) but I do give myself a mental fist pump when I end up with a solid handful that includes a lot of cashews.  Fun fact - cashews grow on trees and the nut itself grows off the end of a "false fruit" - the cashew apple:

Long story short, the richness of the cashews really round out this dish for me.

Finally, we are featuring another Mark Bittman creation - Sweet Potato Chile Mac.  I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical about this dish and probably would have passed over the recipe if it had not come from his collection.  That is the power of good branding for you!  The dish went over very well and Flick actually declared "the guy who came up with this is genius!".  Enough said - give it a try for yourself and see what you think!  We used a pressed sausage (more along the lines of a kielbasa) as opposed to a crumbly sausage and it came out great.

Just throw some cheese on it...

Ellie had her 9 month wellness visit this week.  I know, 9 months already!  She is no small fry either - 75th percentile for both height and weight.  Love it - nothing better than her cute little belly and strong "skiers" legs (no pressure Ellie, I swear).  As we were reviewing her milestones, Dr. B asked how she was doing on solids - "Is she eating all of her vegetables?".  I replied with an enthusiastic "Oh yes, she loves everything she has tried so far - especially if you put a little cheese in it".  Back it up - really Michelle?  Ellie will eat her vegetables as long as they are laced with delicious, creamy, clog-your-arteries, cheese?  I am reminded of a commercial for Flick's favorite salad dressing that has always driven me nuts:

I wonder why the kids in "Hidden Valley" can't get enough of their vegetables (and yes, I do enjoy Ranch dressing)?  Needless to say, Ellie's mashed potatoes and peas did NOT have cheese on them at lunch that day.  She ate them, but gave me the stink eye the whole time.

The urge to add cheese to everything is something that we are very aware of in the Flickinger household.  Many so-so recipes have been miraculously "saved" by shreds of mozzarella or a few shakes of parmesan.  Even meals that taste great sometimes get the "What kind of cheese do we put on this?" question.  Did I mention that we both have high cholesterol?  These days I am really trying to draw out the flavors in recipes that need a little something, rather than just ensuring everything tastes like the cheese of our choice.  The 3 meals for this week that include cheese are supposed to - so if you feel the need, add a little more, but remember that cheese is only 1 of the ingredients.

Since we are fresh on the topic, lets start with the Pizza Margherita.  This was a good one - we used a fresh dough ball from the grocery store and pre-baked it a bit before adding the toppings.  The balsamic finale is the perfect touch and really took this pizza to the next level.

We fired up the grill and broke out the skewers for some Chicken Kabobs on one of our 90 degree days.  You really cannot go wrong with kabobs - there are a plethora of combinations of meats, fruits, veggies, and fish that you can make work.  For this concoction, a little fresh pineapple is great on the skewer with the onions and peppers.    

When it came to fish this week, I went to the grocery store without a specific fish recipe in mind.  I bought what was on sale (Cod) and came home to find a recipe.  Since we have a pretty robust collection of "staple" ingredients, I figured we would be able to come up with something.  We ended up with "Fillets and Spinach with Balsamic Vinaigrette" from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  I should probably use this and the Betty Crocker cookbook more frequently; we always get good results with their recipes.

Turkey Meatball Ruben Subs is a whole new way to use ground turkey in a meal.  I felt as though the meatballs in the original recipe were on the dry side (there were no breadcrumbs, eggs, or milk in them).  One of the reasons I sometimes shy away from turkey burgers/meatballs, is that they tend to be on the drier side, given the lower amounts of fat in the meat.  A dry meatball is not a happy meatball.  There is no reason they cannot be just as good as their beef counterparts, so I tweaked this recipe and they came out a whole lot better - they even stood up well to the microwave when re-heating for leftovers!

We'll round out with Parmesan Polenta with Spicy Sausage.  Make only as much polenta as you will eat in the one sitting; it is much better when made fresh and only takes 5 or so minutes to whip up a batch for the leftover sausage sauce.  Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!!

The All American Blueberry Muffin - Bonus Recipe

Once summer was in full swing back in Connecticut, my mom used to pack us girls up into the car to go strawberry and blueberry picking with my Memere and Pepere.  Needless to say we LOVED everything about these trips - from hanging out at our Grandparent's house to sneaking pounds of freshly picked berries as payment for our efforts.  I am serious about "pounds" and use the term "sneaking" very loosely...if you have ever eaten dessert with me, you know what I'm talking about:

Mom, I am pretty sure Christa ate that chocolate cake...

My mom used to say that they were going to need to weigh us on the way in and the way out of the fields to account for all the fruit we ate while picking.  I can think of worse things to be loading up on!

I have yet to come across a "pick your own berry" farm out here in Colorado.  These days we settle for expensive quarts and pints of berries at the supermarket which definitely do the trick - but nothing beats fruit fresh from the fields.  I guess I better get on planning that garden for next year!

On a recent trip to the grocery store I bought an enormous bag of frozen blueberries (for about 1 million dollars).  On my first Mother's day all I really wanted were blueberry pancakes.  My body knows no limit when it comes to blueberry pancakes - like pizza, cereal, and ice cream, I could eat them all day long and that "you are full" filter would never kick in.  It is a problem.  The great thing about an extra large bag of blueberries is that once the pancake batter runs out, you can whip up a batch of blueberry muffins.  I made these muffins for dessert one night when we realized we were deficient in the sweets department.  They are really quick to pull together and they make the house smell amazing as they come out of the oven.  Fresh is always best, but once they are completely cool, if you wrap them individually in wax paper and put them in freezer bags, you can enjoy them a few weeks later and they are just as good!  We have pulled out frozen muffins for quick snacks in the morning before heading up skiing or off to work and it is always nice to know you have something good on hand.  I didn't get the greatest picture of them (it was kind of late and our kitchen lighting leaves a lot to be desired), but they certainly disappeared quickly in our house!

Hot Pockets

The weather was a little cooler the week that we made these recipes so it was not too bad to have the oven going in the house at night (these recipes queued up the week before we left on our trip).  Our kitchen gets HOT in the summer.  Between the inefficient light fixture that is like a heating lamp over the sink and the non-venting oven...we keep it toasty in that 1970's kitchen.  When we moved in last year it was a warmer than average summer and I was pregnant.  Normally my thermostat runs on the cooler side, however, last year I was a hot mess from the time we started cooking until I went to bed at night (with the windows open and ceiling fan on).  I never drink ice water but our ice trays couldn't keep up with Dozer and I.  Fortunately we had a lot of help with the meals right after we moved in thanks to our amazing families and the time they spent settling us into our new home.  After that we used the grill as much as possible and ate outside every night - meal planning was a little less formal at that point!

Speaking of hot, our first meal, Savory Sausage, Spinach, and Onion Turnovers, flash me back to those microwaveable Hot Pockets we used to enjoy growing up.  My sisters and I really didn't have any problem with chowing down on Hot Pockets (though I always burned my mouth on them...). 

These are pretty straightforward to make and there is no need to get hung up on the shape of the turnover.  Our turnovers never come out looking like turnovers so just shoot for getting the dough sealed up - circle, square, half-moon - they all taste the same and you won't be disappointed!

One recipe that we are enjoying for the second summer in a row is Grilled Zucchini Caprese Sandwiches.   All the cooking is done on the grill and it takes very little time to pull together these veggie filled sandwiches.  I recommend getting some good bread for these as it adds a lot to the meal.

This week we welcomed back Mac n' Cheese alongside a Baked Cod Filet.  For a quick grammatical interlude - as I was typing this entry I went back and forth between "Filet" and "Fillet" before resorting to my old friend, Google, to ensure that I was not misrepresenting the spirit of the meal.  I came across a blog that indicated the terms can be used interchangeably (both mean "a boneless cut of meat") and that Americans and Canadians are the most inconsistent in their usage.  I also happened upon this article published in the Boston Globe regarding the AP's guidance on food related words.  I found it to be pretty amusing and if I ever go pro with my food writing I am going to have some serious studying to do - in the meantime, stash a few of these nuances away for trivia night!

Back to the food: the crumb on the fish is made from Ritz crackers (or Zips if you are like us and buying generic) and lends a nice buttery flavor to the fish.  I cannot wait until Ellie can have Mac n' Cheese so we have a good reason to keep a few (more) boxes on hand.

The summer squashes are starting to pop up in the grocery store at "in season" prices, so we made Baked Ziti with Summer Vegetables.  For the pasta connoisseurs out there, you will notice that those are penne in the picture - any short pasta will do for this recipe (we always seem to have 1/2 boxes of pasta hanging around).  Dishes like this don't need a specific shape so cook up whatever short pasta you are looking to get rid of. 

Finally, Chicken with Lemon Leek Linguine.  I was skeptical at first about leeks and linguine coming together.  It seemed too stringy to work, but the flavors are great and we both really enjoy the mild onion-y taste of the leeks with the pasta and chicken - it is a great summer-time meal.  Keep it cool out there and if you are hanging out with a pregnant woman this summer, by all means, bring her a glass of ice water!