Time to Experiment: Squash Blossoms

I saw these gorgeous squash blossoms at the farmer's market a few weeks ago. Tyson mentioned that he had liked them, so I brought a good half pound. I asked his sister for some recommendations on what to do (since the only recipes I really found online involved deep frying, which doesn't really fit my cooking style right now). She recommended stuffing them with cheese and rice, drizzling some oil over them, some salt and pepper, and then bake. Sounded easy enough...

The results were, well, just so-so. I think I cooked them well (baked in a 350 oven for about 20 min). I pulled the stamens out as directed, stuffed them, twisted the delicate leaves, drizzled extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled with salt and cracked pepper... And it looked pretty darn cool.



Where I went wrong was the stuffing... I was trying to be all healthy and crap, which is fine when I know what I'm doing, but here I was in uncharted (for me) territory trying to be all clever and waist-friendly. The stuffing mixture consisted of: pearl barley (because I was out of brown rice), lowfat cottage cheese (because I didn't want to go to the store to get ricotta), a small handful of leftover cheese blend (parmesan, asiago, provolone, and fontina), and some egg white. And salt and pepper of course.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this little failed experiment since that's what learning is all about. Moral of this story: sometimes you gotta put good tasting food in your food to make it taste good. This just didn't work for me. Next time I think I'd try basmati rice, manchego cheese, some ricotta, and a whole egg. Now doesn't THAT sound tasty?

An unexpected side dish

I was having one of those really-wanna-cook-but-have-no-clue-what-to-make kind of evenings. Tyson and I had talked about some sort of fish and quinoa... you know, keepin' it light and healthy. Our options for a side dish were one or more of the following: white zucchini, crimini mushrooms, frozen sweet cut corn. So, I decided to throw them all together.

diced the zucchini
quartered the mushrooms
tossed them into a saute pan together w/ some olive oil
(revision for next time: saute zucchini on high heat first to avoid steaming them in the mushroom liquid. not a fan of steamed squash texture, though it tasted good)
added the frozen corn, quickly tossed, and served with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon.

we thought it was an interesting collection of veggies. I wouldn't serve this at, you know, my dinner with the Queen, but it worked for a different little weeknight veggie side dish.

Shrimp + Baby Artichokes

Boiled some baby artichokes with outer leaves removed for 10 min. Quartered them. Then I sauteed the following over high heat:

thawed frozen shrimp
2 cloves chopped garlic
a swirl of grapeseed oil
dash of salt
artichokes

When the shrimp pinked up, I took it off the heat, finished with a generous squeeze of lemon and some cracked pepper.

Yummy dinner.

Tom Yumminess

When I'm under the weather, or in this case, whining like a baby because of a reflared back injury, I totally crave really tangy, clear broth. Lately it's been visiting the pho place on a multi-weekly basis. But this time, I wasn't about to hobble down to the car and off road to my pho (you can pick up in this back alley, which is really nice because you don't have to get out of the car, but you do have to drive over some potholes so cavernous they really should be considered man-made lakes).

So I raided my fridge. My week old basil caught my eye, and in a stroke of creative genius, somehow thought I could do a makeshift Tom Yum in 10 minutes or less. So here are the ingredients I tossed together, then brought to a boil, and lowered to a simmer for like 30 seconds. Then it was in a bowl and in my mouth. Not quite tom yum, but I'd have to say, it hit the spot.

 

I should just call it crack.

My newest dish was originally inspired by the idea of paella, but the more I think about it, really has very little to do with paella anymore. Except that I could probably eat both dishes non-stop, to the absolute extreme of fullness, and then possibly one bite more. Tyson calls it the "Spicy Chicken Sausage Barley Peas Thing".

My recipe for SCSBPT.

Pearl barley
chicken breast, chopped
spicy andouille chicken sausage
frozen peas
italian parsley
chicken broth
dash of white wine
cayenne, paprika, cumin, salt, saffron

Chop sausage, saute on high heat in a little oil to get a nice char. Set aside. Brown chicken in the same yummy sausage oil drippings pan. Coat with cayenne, paprika, cumin, salt. Set aside. Using the same pan, toss in the pearl barley and a dash of white wine to deglaze pan. Add chicken broth and let barley cook as long as it needs to (I like my barley nice and firm, usually a 3:1 ratio of liquid to barley, cooked for about 25 min?) When there's just a little simmering liquid left in the pan, toss back in the sausage and chicken, along with chopped italian parsley, peas, and a few saffron threads. Cook down the rest of the liquid. Season/spice to taste-- in my case, I went a little overboard with the cayenne, and it was awesome.

Warning, I ate it for dinner and breakfast, and Tyson ate it for lunch, so luckily it's gone and I don't need to eat any more of it now.

(btw- a previous version of this had a couple of scallops thrown in, and mostly arborio rice, which made me think of paella... this is a healthier, cheaper version)

(and another btw- made that Indian dish from yesterday's post again... this time, just a couple of heaping spoonfuls of 2% fage greek yogurt. awesomeness.)

chicken saag yogurt something or other

I thought it would be fun to cook some Indian food. Tyson's downstairs neighbor is an amazing cook, so his apt oft smells like all sorts of yummy Indian flavors. So I thought I'd give it a whirl. (mind you, I know nothing about cooking Indian food)

Ingredients:
Trader Joe's curry simmer sauce
boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into small pieces
frozen spinach, thawed and drained
greek gods plain nonfat greek yogurt

So I threw it all together (you know, browned the chicken first in a bit of grapeseed oil, simmered in the sauce and spinach, and then added the yogurt at the end). The yogurt tartness was way overpowering (I was sort of just trying to get rid of it), so I mixed in some Stevia (my go to natural no calorie sweeter, a post in itself), some cayenne for heat, a dash of cumin for smokiness, and tumeric because, well, everything has tumeric in it. Not great, but better.

So there you go. My version of chicken saag yogurt something or other. I think in the future I would try a smaller dose of lowfat yogurt. Or even, gasp, full fat stuff. Other suggestions?

Oh yeah, served over TJ's Garlic Naan aka toasty heavenliness.