Asparagus and goat cheese pasta

We've been eating a lot of asparagus around here.

I bought a couple of bunches of thin asparagus stalks at the produce market this week. I wanted to make an asparagus pasta, so I looked through a few cookbooks for inspiration. I decided to go with a recipe from the Everyday Food cookbook. The recipe only has six ingredients, it doesn't get much easier than that.

Hot fettuccine is tossed with a combination of goat cheese, grainy mustard and pasta water to make a rich and creamy sauce. Asparagus, fresh dill and toasted pine nuts are added to the mix. The whole thing is seasoned with salt and pepper, then it's ready to serve. Like I said, it's as simple as can be, but also quite delicious.

The only change I made to the recipe was that I used whole wheat pasta. I'm not really a goat cheese person - I like it in certain applications, but sometimes I find it a little overpowering. In this case, the goat cheese was quite mild and was nicely complemented by the mustard and dill.

Blueberry crumb cake and cheddar dill scones

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Thursdays are breakfast days in my office, which means that each week, one of us is assigned to bring breakfast for everyone. It’s almost always bagels, with doughnuts thrown in now and then. When it’s my turn to bring breakfast, I like to do something a little different if I have the time. This was my week to bring food, and I decided to do some baking. I don’t really like to eat sweet things in the morning, so I made both sweet and savory options.

The sweet option was blueberry crumb cake, from the Everyday Food cookbook. I thought it would be a more unique take on your typical blueberry muffin. This cake was quite simple to make, and benefited from a delicious streusel topping. I used frozen blueberries, which worked out well. The blueberries are tossed in a bit of flour first so that they don't sink to the bottom of the cake. A small amount of allspice adds a nice background flavor.

For the savory option, I made cheddar dill scones from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook. I can’t even remember the last time I made scones, it’s probably been years. I had no trouble with these, and tried to put up my blinders when it came to the fat content. So. much. butter. cream. and cheese. But let’s not think about that! These scones are full of fresh dill, which is one of my favorite herbs.

The verdict? I would definitely make the coffee cake again. The scones were good, but in my opinion, not worth the calories. That being said, the scones disappeared faster than the cake. I think that people were a little relieved not to see bagels for the 5th week in a row!

Chicken with prosciutto and sage

If you asked me to name my favorite cookbook, I’d be hard pressed to come up with just one. I have so many, and they all serve their purpose – how do you compare a bread baking book to a book about thai food? However, there is one book that gets used more than any other, and that’s the Everyday Food cookbook. I refer to it so often that the binding is broken and the pages are falling out. It’s just good, simple food that can be prepared in a reasonable amount of time. There are no specialty ingredients required, and most of the dishes are relatively healthy. I’ve made dozens of recipes from this book and they’ve all been great.

My latest success was chicken with sage and prosciutto. Chicken cutlets are topped with a sage leaf and wrapped in a slice of prosciutto. The cutlets are dredged in seasoned flour and sautéed until golden brown. The chicken is finished with a simple pan sauce of white wine, chicken stock, butter and sage. I went with the suggested side dish of spinach with golden raisins.

This was quite good, and on the table in less than 30 minutes. It doesn’t get much better than this when it comes to quick and easy weeknight cooking.

Fennel and orange salad

It's a coincidence that I made this fennel and orange salad from the Everyday Food cookbook on the night when I watched the latest episode of Top Chef. The winning dish on Top Chef included the same ingredients of fennel, oranges and olives. One of the judges remarked that this is a classic and delicious flavor combination, and I tend to agree.

This salad is really simple and makes for a unique and refreshing side dish. I shaved my fennel into thin slices using a mandoline, and tossed it with orange supremes, halved nicoise olives and parsley leaves. The dressing is simply orange juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. I think the nicoise olives worked really well in this dish, but you could use kalamata olives instead. If you wanted to dress this up for a special occasion, I think a combination of navel and blood oranges would be really attractive.

An asian inspired dinner

A few weeks ago, I bought a container of miso for this green bean recipe. At the time, I figured it would take me a while to find enough uses for the tub of miso. In fact, it didn't take long at all, the miso is gone! This recipe for miso and wasabi marinated flank steak was definitely a winner. An added bonus is that it used up some of the wasabi powder that's been languishing in my spice drawer. The recipe is really simple: flank steak marinated in miso paste, wasabi powder, mirin, white wine and rice vinegar. I didn't have mirin, so I used all white wine, and marinated the steak for about 10 hours.

After the steak came out of the marinade, I seasoned it with salt and pepper and cooked it on a grill pan. I sliced the steak thinly against the grain, and served it with steamed brown basmati rice and carrot sesame salad. I've been using this technique for cooking brown rice, and I think it produces a superior end result. The carrot sesame salad is from the Everyday Food cookbook.

Carrot cupcakes

My husband happens to love carrot cake. Me? Not so much, although I do love cream cheese frosting. I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from when I made Ina's coconut cupcakes, so I decided to make some carrot cupcakes. I used this recipe from the Everyday Food cookbook. These cupcakes were really simple to put together. They didn't rise much, but a generous swirl of frosting made them not look so flat. Even I liked these cupcakes - the cake is very moist and light, which just a little bit of walnuts and coconut in the batter. Sometimes carrot cakes can be very dense from all the add-ins. The toasted coconut on top adds a little bit of sweetness and crunch. All in all, a nice treat to make when you want something simple and don't want to go to the grocery store to purchase a bunch of ingredients.

Cranberry upside down cake

I still had half a bag of cranberries lingering in the freezer, so I put them to good use by making this cake. The recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. When making the recipe, I thought the cake might come out too sweet, but the sweet/tart balance was perfect. The bottom of the cake pan is coated with butter and a spiced sugar mixture before the cranberries go on top. This creates a spiced cranberry syrup that soaks into the cake. I think it would be good served with vanilla ice cream, but I just served it as is.

Chocolate swirl gingerbread

We've been having cooler weather and some rain around here, so I thought I'd start off the fall and winter baking season with some gingerbread from the Everyday Food cookbook. This recipe is special because it incorporates chocolate. Melted chocolate is swirled through the batter to create a nice visual effect and added flavor dimension. This recipe literally came together in minutes, I sped up the prep time by melting both the chocolate and butter mixture in the microwave. I would recommend serving this cake warm, with a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I know the recipe says vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream, but I think the chocolate ice cream nicely complements the chocolate in the cake.

Curried zucchini soup

This recipe is from the Everyday Food Cookbook. This soup was so easy to make, and the ingredients were really cheap! A combination of onions, garlic, curry powder, zucchini and potato are cooked together and pureed in the blender. The potato gives this a really thick and creamy texture without adding any fat. The garnish of toasted almonds adds crunch. I made this a day in advance and it reheated beautifully.

Pear Custard Pie

This recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much, mostly because I'm not a huge fan of pears. However, when I saw that my grocery store had pears on sale, I decided to give it a try. I made this for the first time on Friday night, and it was so good that I made another one yesterday. I even made a second trip to the store for more pears! The prep time for this recipe is very minimal, and I think the custard base would work well with other kinds of fruit - apples and berries come to mind. The only change I made to the recipe is that I used vanilla sugar instead of regular granulated sugar.

Cream of asparagus soup

This recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. Shallots are sauteed in butter, and flour is added to the mixture to create a thicker soup base. Fresh asparagus, water, salt and thyme are added to the shallots and the whole mixture is brought to a simmer. Once the asparagus is tender, the soup is transferred to a blender and pureed until smooth. Lemon juice and heavy cream are stirred in at the end. The nice thing about this recipe is that it made enough for me to freeze a few servings. To freeze this soup, omit the lemon juice and cream. These ingredients should be added in when you reheat the frozen soup.

Parmesan stuffed chicken breasts

This is a great recipe for a busy weeknight when you don't feel like doing a lot of prep work. A mixture of breadcrumbs, lemon zest, parsley, parmesan, salt and pepper is pressed under the skin of bone-in chicken breasts. The chicken is roasted in the oven at 450 for about 30 minutes. It's simple, but delicious. I made my own breadcrumbs out of focaccia and used parmigiano reggiano cheese.

Rhubarb crisp

This recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. I have to say, as much as I've been enjoying this cookbook, this dessert wasn't my favorite. It was good, but not great. My first issue was with the amount of sugar in the rhubarb filling. I think it was excessive, my rhubarb was swimming in about an inch of sugar. I ended up removing some of the sugar so that the rhubarb was evenly coated, but not sitting on a mound of sugar. My other issue is that I don't think there was enough sugar in the crumb topping, The topping tasted mostly of butter and flour. I think I'd make this again, but next time I'd add an extra tablespoon of sugar to the topping, and reduce the amount of sugar in the filling.

Cashew chicken

This recipe is great for a weeknight when you want a quick and healthy dinner without a lot of effort. The main ingredients in this recipe are chicken, garlic, green onions, cashews and hoisin sauce. I added sliced shiitake mushrooms and carrots to make it a more complete meal. This was on the table in about 15 minutes, and I served it with steamed basmati rice. You could add other vegetables if you like - broccoli or bell peppers would be nice.

Penne with salmon and peas

Yet another recipe from my favorite cookbook of the moment, Everyday Food. The recipe actually calls for farfalle, but I already had penne in the house so I used that instead. Cooked salmon is combined with pasta, peas, lemon juice, lemon zest, butter and mint. The lemon zest really adds a lot of flavor. I used wild sockeye salmon and roasted it instead of the steaming method suggested in the recipe. Don't chop the mint until the last second, it discolors very quickly.

Everyday Food - pork tenderloin with mustard sauce

This recipe is so simple. Step 1 - cook a pork tenderloin. The recipe says to cook it in the pan, but after I browned all the sides I put the pork in a 400 degree oven. I took it out when the thermometer registered about 147 degrees and let it sit for about 7 minutes. Step 2 - make the sauce. The sauce is made in the same pan that the pork was cooked in - sour cream, dijon mustard and grainy mustard are mixed with the pan drippings. I also added a little salt to the mix. Step 3 - slice pork, top with sauce. I thought this needed a little color, so I added thinly sliced chives at the end. I served the pork with parmesan mashed potatoes and sauteed swiss chard with a splash of balsamic.

Everyday Food - shrimp with green curry cashew sauce

This recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. I had cilantro in the fridge and the end of a bag of cashews in the pantry, so I thought this recipe would be a good choice. It was fantastic, I highly recommend it. The sauce is what makes the recipe, you could even use it on chicken or fish. This could be served as an appetizer or a main course.

Everyday Food - hot and sour soup

I love hot and sour soup. I always insist on ordering it whenever I go to a chinese restaurant. When I saw this recipe in the Everyday Food cookbook, I decided it was time to learn to make it myself. It was actually really easy! Chicken broth is seasoned with soy sauce and red pepper flakes. The sour flavor comes from rice vinegar which is mixed with cornstarch to create a thicker soup. The recipe calls for thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms and tofu - I added in a can of shredded bamboo shoots. An egg is lightly beaten and poured through a slotted spoon into the soup to create threads. I finished this off with a splash of sesame oil and sliced green onions.

Everyday Food - turkey cobb salad

For some reason, I don't often think to serve salad as a main course. I saw this recipe in the new Everyday Food cookbook and decided to try it out. Roasted turkey breast, bacon, tomatoes, avocado, hard boiled eggs and blue cheese are arranged on a bed of shredded romaine. The lettuce is tossed in a dressing of red wine vinegar, olive oil and dijon mustard. I used a danish blue cheese and Hobbs applewood smoked bacon.

Everyday Food - pasta with lentils and arugula

I just got the new Everyday Food cookbook and I really love it! This is the first recipe I've tried from the book. Orecchiette pasta is tossed with cooked lentils, caramelized onions, arugula and tomatoes. The lentils and pasta go really well together. I used a small brown italian lentil.