savory | a whisk and a spoon

Everyday Dorie: Ponzu Chicken

May 22, 2020 at 12:01 am | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things | 7 Comments
Tags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory

I should call this particular Ponzu Chicken the “pandemic pantry version.” I made a few fiddley-dos to get this dish on the table for dinner, but I don’t think they strayed too far from the original. Ponzu sauce is the star of a spicy marinade that flavors chicken breasts. I had neither ponzu nor chicken breasts. Hmmm…I did have boneless, skinless chicken thighs (which I prefer anyway) and I know how to concoct a faux ponzu from tamari, mirin, and mixed citrus juice. I went with it and marinated my thighs for for several hours before cooking them up in my cast iron pan. I gave the thighs a bit more time than breasts would have taken, and made sure they were cooked through by checking their internal temp. I poured the leftover marinade straight over the thighs in the pan (rather then transfer them to a plate) near the end of the cook time, and basted the meat with it as it came to a boil and reduced down to a sticky glaze. I had some leftover veggies from Chinese take-out the night before and some fresh ramen noodles in the fridge to serve with it…a yummy hodgepodge.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see what else the group made this week. Next time, we’ll go back to making the same recipe as a group.

Everyday Dorie: Western Frittata

May 8, 2020 at 4:22 pm | Posted in breakfast things, cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 9 Comments
Tags: breakfast, eggs, everyday dorie, savory

I have made many versions of this Western Frittata since getting the book Everyday Dorie— most of them were not even very Western. I also have many photos of the many versions and I don’t even exactly remember what I put in them. I think this particular one is probably more of an Italian Frittata…looks like I used sun-dried tomatoes, red peppers and pesto. I can’t be sure because there are so many things you can do with a frittata. It’s a lot like the Ginger Fried Rice we made, in that it’s a fridge-raiding, use what you have, get rid of bits and bobs kinda thing. It’s perfect for what’s going down right now, and I mix it up on the regular now that I’m making breakfast for two every.single.morning.

I have a small cast iron pan, so I do roughly a half-recipe of Dorie’s frittata, except instead of four eggs I only use three because I prefer them a little thinner and they cook a little quicker.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to what everyone made this week.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Cocktail Puffs

May 5, 2020 at 8:11 pm | Posted in DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory, snacks

In addition to my daily afternoon tea time, I have daily pre-dinner apéro time. That sounds fancier than it is– last night we had popcorn– but the point is that I’m on the look out for some good savory snacks. Cocktail Puffs are in the “cocktail cookies” section of the book and, filled with anything from olive tapenade (my choice) to pesto to cheese, they sounded promising with a half-glass of wine.

The full recipe makes 50 puffs. Even if NYC is quarantined through summer, I don’t know if I can deal with that many! I need some snack variety, so I made just a quarter recipe. The dough is a snap to do in the food processor, and a combo of cold yogurt and butter, plus one fold of the dough, makes it flaky. It’s also soft and requires a lengthy chill time. I know my focus is not the sharpest these days, but I had to read the instructions like 5 times to figure out how the heck to form the puffs. There was a lengthy description of measurements and the cutting of strips, and, as a visual learner, I wished for an illustration. But I think I got it in the end and I was totes ready for a cocktail after that.

When I pulled my puffs out of the oven, I dusted them with a little paprika. I liked them…they were flaky and savory…but I would have liked them a little bigger. They were thimble sized, and I wish they had been double that to get more puff and filling. Also, I couldn’t help but think that they’d work just as well with bought puff pastry. On the flip side, it probably means this dough would be good used in other ways, too, so maybe I’ll give that some thought.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us anytime!

Everyday Dorie: Lettuce Soup

April 10, 2020 at 11:30 am | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things, soups, veggies | 10 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, savory, soup

This month for Cook the Book Fridays we’re using what we have and making anything we’d like/are able to from Everyday Dorie. I do my absolute best even in “normal” times to not throw out food and, at one point many months ago, had made mental note of a recipe for Lettuce Soup in the book. I thought it would be a good way to repurpose some limp leaves if need be. Fast forward to now and, with limited trips to the grocery store, I bought a three-pack of romaine hearts. By the time I got down to the last of the three, it looked more ready for lettuce soup than for salad!

I did have to make a few “use what ya have” mods to my batch of soup. The recipe uses three types of onion: regular, shallot and scallion. I just went with a bit more yellow onion in the base and cut up some chives to garnish it before serving. I could tell, given the ingredient list, that this would be a thin soup, one that my husband would not have found substantial enough for dinner. I had one lonely medium-size potato on the counter so I diced it and added it to the pot when the broth went in to simmer. The cooked potato acted as a thickener when I blended the final soup later. Dorie also calls for two types of lettuce…I had the romaine, but not the butter lettuce. I did have a little spinach, though, and I threw in just a handful, which had the added benefit of boosting the green color.

A little goat cheese, some garlic oil and those chives dressed up my lettuce soup, along with tapenade toasts on the side. It was a good dinner and a satisfying way to use things that needed using. For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see what everyone else made this week.

Everyday Dorie: Ginger Fried Rice

March 13, 2020 at 4:03 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, veggies | 7 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, savory

This Ginger Fried Rice is a quick and tasty homemade version of a favorite take-out treat. In fact it’s better, because it’s fresher, less greasy and has more veggies. If you have some leftover cooked rice, this is a great way to use it up, along with those stray bits of this and that you might like to clear out of the icebox. Dorie says it’s a good recipe for fridge-raiders, a group I normally belong to, although in this particular case I did need to go out and get some stuff.

I went with Dorie’s suggestions for onions, garlic, baby bok choy and shrimp. I took a total cheat on the cabbage and carrots and bought a bag of coleslaw mix, which contained both and saved me the step of having to thinly slice them. Egg is a must in my fried rice (in fact if I order it out, I usually ask for extra egg), so I pre-scrambled a couple of them before getting along with the rest or the stir fry.

There’s a kick of fresh grated ginger, of course, to flavor the dish, but also a sweet and spicy sauce of ponzu, gochujang and honey. I don’t have any poznu in the fridge, but I do have soy and bottled yuzu juice, so I used a mix of that. I actually have to admit that I never measure anything for a sauce like this. I just get the general idea and then add the ingredients to taste. My taste buds told me this needed some sesame oil, so I added that to my sauce, too.

This is one I’ll make over and over again. For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Balsamic Chicken with Baby Potatoes and Mushrooms (Sheet-Pan Supper)

February 28, 2020 at 8:45 am | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 6 Comments
Tags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory

Balsamic Chicken with Baby Potatoes and Mushrooms is a recipe that’s right up my alley. I make some sort of sheet pan supper or tray bake with chicken thighs or sausages and veg quite often. It’s easy (basically hands off after you toss everything together), there’s little to wash up and, my gosh, is roasted stuff good.

Here, you toss together little potatoes, mushrooms, garlic cloves and a shallot with thyme, rosemary, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and s&p. Scatter that stuff over a sheet tray and then do the same with some chicken legs, nestling them among the veggies. Then it’s everyone in the oven for 45 minutes while you have a glass of red wine and a snack. I actually just used chicken thighs and not legs (with drumsticks attached) for this. And I didn’t oil the thighs before I put them on the tray. I simply seasoned them and coated them in the vinegar, because I feel like chicken thighs render out quite a lot of fat on their own. I did go into the oven at the halfway point to turn the mushrooms and potatoes, but I put the chicken on the tray skin side up and left it that way for the whole bake to get a sweet and crispy skin.

This was really good. I’m glad my husband isn’t into noticeable garlic pieces because, to me, the whole roasted cloves were a prize. I squeezed them out onto my plate and mixed the sweet garlic goo into everything else. Yum.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Chickpea-Tahini Salad

February 14, 2020 at 8:08 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, salads, savory things | 9 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, salad, savory

Happy Valentine’s Day– nothing says “I love you” like a salad! I’m really not kidding, especially if it’s a super-tasty one, like this Chickpea-Tahini Salad. Quick and easy to make (if you use canned chickpeas like I did) and really flavorful, this is my kind of lunch. Just take chickpeas, red onion, red pepper and herbs and mix them up in a lemony, garlicky tahini dressing with all the good spices. Grab a fork and enjoy.

I scaled back the recipe to use just one can of chickpeas. Even so, I had leftovers, and the next day I mixed in some canned tuna, celery and cherry tomatoes. Also yum, and my extra dressing was great drizzled all over a shawarma-ish chicken and Israeli salad pita sandwich thingie I made for dinner the other night.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Pasta with Cabbage, Winter Squash and Walnuts

January 24, 2020 at 9:49 am | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, pasta, savory things, veggies | 5 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, pasta, savory

The first bowl of pasta we made this month from Everyday Dorie was a bright, fresh, herbaceous thing. Our second– this Pasta with Cabbage, Winter Squash and Walnuts– is the cozy kind that begs for a glass of red wine by the fire. It’s vegetarian (although I couldn’t help but think some crispy bacon sprinkles would be a pretty good addition), and not heavy, but the flavors and ingredients definitely have the cold weather vibe. I used delicata squash and swapped out the green cabbage for a small bunch of lacinato kale.

Like the first pasta, this one is glazed rather than sauced. Here, the glaze is a sweet and sour agrodolce that’s simply made with honey and cider vinegar in the pan the veggies are cooked in. Dried cranberries give the dish another sweet-tart dimension and toasted walnuts at the finish give it some crunch. I liked this very much, and appreciate that the strong veggie to pasta ratio…just enough spaghetti to twirl around your fork, but the focus is really on the squash and cabbage.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Everyday Dorie: Pasta with Shrimp, Squash, Lemon and Lots of Herbs

January 10, 2020 at 8:25 pm | Posted in everyday dorie, groups, pasta, savory things | 7 Comments
Tags: everyday dorie, pasta, savory

Some nights after work I come home and do a throw-together pasta situation for dinner. Not a long-simmered Sunday sauce, but quickly cooked odds and ends from the fridge that will all taste good together mixed up with with some noodles. This Pasta with Shrimp, Squash, Lemon and Lots of Herbs is along those lines. I had to go out and get a zucchini to make it, but I had all the other stuff on hand…some shrimp in the freezer, lemon, herbs and butter in the fridge and cherry tomatoes on the counter. I actually had some homemade pappardelle in the freezer that I was looking to use up, but if I hadn’t, I would have just grabbed a box of dried pasta from the cupboard.

I’m always scheming to save steps and (especially) save cleaning a dish or two. Rather than cooking off the shrimp and zucchini separately as the recipe calls for, I started with the squash and then added the shrimp in with it near the end of cooking, just before finishing the “sauce” (really more of a buttery glaze) with the rest of the ingredients and marrying it with the cooked pasta. This was delicious–fresh and not heavy. It will be great in the summer when the squash, tomatoes and herbs are at their peak but it was a nice, bright winter surprise, too.

For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Puffed Grain and Miso Cookies

January 7, 2020 at 8:26 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 Comments
Tags: baking, cookies, savory

I buy rice cakes on the regular and usually use them as a vehicle for hummus, nut butter or smashed avo, but it had never really occurred to me that I could make my own version, with add-ins so tasty I could enjoy them just on their own. To be fair, these are Puffed Grain and Miso Cookies, not merely rice cakes, and they have a lot going on, even though they come together in a snap once you have all the ingredients. I was sort of hemming and hawing about having to buy both a bag of puffed rice and a bag of puffed barley, as the recipe calls for…then I spotted a box of Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs, decided seven grains would be even better than two, and went with that instead. I stirred in sesame seeds, cashews (instead of peanuts) and a mix of dries berries and raisins, along with the miso, brown rice syrup and sesame and olive oils. They bake in muffin cups into light, crispy-chewy, sweet-salty little rounds. No bland or stale rice cakes here!

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!