Broiled Salmon Over Parmesan Grits

I am sorry to do another main dish, but some of these are so easy. Maybe it is because if you are having company over, you splurge a little on what you are having (salmon, veal, etc) and the higher quality stuff really doesn't need a whole lot of attention.



Last night I made Broiled Salmon Over Parmesan Grits. Salmon is my fish of choice from the grocery store because it usually is in pretty good shape. Broiling the fish gives it a nice crust and the seasoning seem kind of basic, but that is all you need. The real star are the grits. I love the mushrooms and I think that helps make the dish more elegant. I used 3/4 cup of polenta instead of 1/2 cup of grits...it really ends up being too runny for my taste otherwise.

I know in the picture that piece looks huge, but in my defense, my son had a couple bites of salmon...woo-hoo!

Veal Marsala

Sooo...when I have company, I like to make something simple. I like to be out of the kitchen asap. That doesn't always happen, but in theory this is a GREAT and simple meal that will impress!! I made it in 23 minutes... no really...I did!!

For 2 people...

1/2 lb Veal scallopini

1 thing of mushrooms sliced

2 garlic cloves

1 1/2 cup Marsala

1 bundle of asparagus

juice of lemon quarter

Salt, pepper, and butter/olive oil

Flour, salt and pepper the veal. Saute the mushrooms in some butter, then store in a bowl. Saute the veal for 2 minutes a side adding pressed garlic on second side and place on top of mushrooms. Don't over cook the veal. It will have more time to heat through as the sauce thickens. De glaze the pan with the Marsala and add the veal and mushrooms to simmer. If the sauce isn't thick enough from the flour on the veal (mine wasn't), then add some diluted cornstarch. DONE!

Before I began, I put some asparagus tips in the over at 425 that were covered in EVOO, salt, pepper, lemon, and garlic for the 20 minutes it took to make the veal!

Note the ghost feet prints that C made at school today. Also, we use Marsala...not Marsala cooking wine. You can find it at liquor stores, but now a days I find it at my local grocery store. My camara is horrible, but here is a blurry image of a REAL bottle of Marsala!!

Desserts! Apple Crisp

One of my favorite desserts for the fall is an apple crisp. I have made it for many a dinner party and it always gets really good reviews. I am going to go ahead and say that I like it better than pie. It is certainly easier to make than pie, and more fun to play around with. I have three recipes that I work off of, and the final product depends on what I have around and what I feel like. Here is tonight's version:

- Peel and slice ~7 cups of apples, cut slices in half (I used a variety apples from North Carolina...not sure the kinds, they weren't labeled).

- Mix apples with 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/3 cup Amaretto. Put apple mixture in 8x8 pan coated with cooking spray.

- Combine 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup AP flour, 1/4 cup oats, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 granulated sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/3 cup butter (cut into small cubes) in a bowl. Mix well with your fingers until crumbly. You can use 2 knives or a pastry blender, but I like my fingers. Add 3T chopped walnuts

- Sprinkle flour mixture over apple mixture.

- Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

- Serve warm with Breyer's vanilla ice cream.

Surf and turf!

Again, I am sorry that I am not good at using recipes. I am the consummate younger sibling...ask anyone. Brian and I will not be together for 3 nights, so I wanted to make him something special. I got out our China!! I choose a rib eye and bacon wrapped scallops with a lemon butter creme sauce(c/o my sis). Brian also loves these green beans.

I marinated the steak in pepper, olive oil, Italian seasoning, Worcestershire, and soy sauce. BUT, just a small about. I salt and peppered the sea scallops, then wrapped them in bacon. I grilled the steak for 8 minutes a side and the scallops for 2-3 minutes a side.


Before I put the scallops on I sauteed 2 tbsp of butter in TWO pans. One for the sauce and one for the tiny bay scallops(compare and contrast with the sea scallops). I added two tbsp flour to the butter and a cup of chicken stock. Then added 1/4 cup cream to make it creamy and the juice of one lemon!! The bay scallops just took 5 minutes to saute.


About 1 hour before I put the steaks on the grill, I threw a chopped onion, a couple pounds of fresh green beans and 3 pieces of chopped bacon in a pan with a little evoo, salt and pepper. When I was ready to serve everything, I sprinkled the beans with 2 tsp sugar and 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar.


The dinner was delicious!!! Something about the bacon wrappedness of the scallops is great!! I could take or leave the tiny bay scallops...I didn't even post a pic. The lemon butter creme sauce was GREAT as well!! Thank you kerri!

Major Points Fall Feast

Apples - ding
Sage - ding
Winter Squash (pumpkin) - ding

I racked up the extra credit points with this main dish. These recipes are featured in the later editions of Kerri's Greatest Hits cookbook, but truth be told, I have only made them once before. This is great for a fall dinner. To start off:

Maple-Mustard Pork Tenderloin With Caramelized Apples

2 (1/2 lb) pork tenderloin
Cooking Spray
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
6 T maple syrup, divided
1 T chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
4 medium Granny Smith Apples (you granny smith haters could probably use braeburns), peeled and each cut into 16 wedges

Preheat Oven to 425.

Trim fat from pork. Place pork on broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Combine mustard, 2 T syrup, rosemary, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Brush over pork. Insert meat thermometer into thickest park of pork. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes (um, or more) until thermometer registers 160.

While pork is baking, heat a non-stick skillet over medium high heat until hot. Add apples, and saute 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Reduce heat to low and add 4 T of maple syrup. Simmer 10 minutes or until apples are tender, stirring occasionally. Cut pork crosswise into slices; spoon apples over pork.

*I thought this one was pretty good. I love the flavor of the pork. The apples ended up way to sweet, I would just saute them in some butter, maybe add some apple juice to the pan. Very impressive presentation.


My sides were steamed green beans and pumpkin-sage polenta. The pumpkin gives this a really neat color, but you can't really taste it. I loved the hint of sage mixed in.

Sorry there are no pictures. I arranged everything neatly, held my camera up, and poof, battery died. I hate that!

Chicken with Saffron Rice - Main Course

Another hit from the Jacques Pepin Cooking with Claudine cookbook. I'll mention a couple of things, this took about an hour total to cook but a lot of the actual cooking was hands off cooking, which is nice with a toddler running around. I would make this again, it has a really impressive presentation. Make sure you cook it in a pan with an equal sized lid. I didn't do this and kept having to add water to get my rice and chicken to cook properly, since steam was escaping. This dish was actually featured as part of a four course menu along with the soup I posted earlier.

Chicken with Saffron Rice - 4 servings
4 large chicken legs (if you read farther into the recipe he means 4 leg/thigh pieces)
1 T. virgin olive oil
3 med. onions (about 1 lb), peeled and sliced thin ... I thought this was a little excessive and only used 1
4-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped (2 T)
1 1/2 c. arborio rice (risotto rice)
3 bay leaves
1 c. peeled and diced tomato (I used canned tomatoes with the juice)
1 1/2 c. mixture of green olives, capers, and red pepper (sometimes this is combo is sold as alcaparrado)
1 1/2 T. chopped jalapeno pepper
1 t. salt
1 t. saffron pistils
2 1/2 c. water
tabasco sauce, to taste

Remove the skin from the chicken. Cut the legs in half at the joint so that you have 4 drumsticks and 4 thighs. Heat the oil until hot in a large skillet ( I found a cast iron pan to work really well). Add chicken pieces in one layer and saute over med-hi heat, turning occassionally, for 10 minutes, until they are browned on all sides. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Add onion and garlic to the drippings in the skillet and cook them for 2 minutes. Add the rice, and mix well. Stir in bay leaves, tomato, alcaparrado, jalapeno, salt and saffron. Add the water and mix well.

Return the browned chicken to the skillet, pushing them down into the liquid and rice until they are imbedded in the mixture. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook gently for 30 minutes without stirring. Remove bay leaves before serving.

To serve, place 2 pieces chicken and some rice on each of four dinner plates. If desired, add Tabasco to taste.

A couple of first courses to start things off

I couldn't decide between a couple of first course recipes I hadn't tried yet and made them both for our dinner yesterday evening. We had a soup and salad combo meal but either recipe would make an impressive first course and both came together relatively quickly, other than having to remember to soak my dried beans. Both recipes are from Jaques Pepin's Cooking with Claudine cookbook and both recipes I halved.

Cream of Turnip and Sweet Potato Soup with Leek Julienne - 4 servings

For the Soup:
3/4 lb. purple topped turnips, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 sweet potato (8 oz) , peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
6 oz. white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
3 1/2 c. light chicken, beef, or pork stock - unsalted (I used veggie bouillion and skipped the salt below)
1 t. salt, or to taste

For the Leek Garnish:
1 small leek
1 T. unsalted butter
1/2 c. water

1/4 t. freshly ground pepper
1/2 c. light cream

Place the turnip, sweet potato, and white potato in a pot with the stock and salt (if you are not using bouillion). Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover and cook gently for 45 minutes or until veggies are very tender when pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile prepare the leek garnish. Slice the leek in half (discard the fibrous green tops) and clean thoroughly (leeks hold a lot of dirt so you have to clean in between the layers). Slice into very think strips (julienne). Place the leek strips in a saucepan with the butter and water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 10-12 min, until tender. Set aside in any remaining cooking liquid.

When the veggies in the soup are tender, process it in a food processor or with a handheld immersion blender until emulsified into a smooth texture. Add the black pepper, cream, and julienned leek mixture. Reheat the soup if needed and add additional salt and pepper to taste, if needed.

Cranberry Bean and Tuna Salad - 4 servings

1 lb. dried cranberry beans, soaked for 8 hours
1 bay leaf
1 med. onion, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 t. salt
1 t. herbs de provence
1 1/2 c. cool water
2 cans, tuna in water (6 oz each)
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1/4 c. minced parsley ( I would maybe use a little less next time ... had a strong parsley flavor)
3/4 t. fresh ground pepper
3 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. dijon mustard
8-10 lettuce leaves, preferably from a Boston leaf lettuce head

Place the beans, bay leaf, onion, salt, and herbs de provence and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the head to very low and cook gently for 45-60 minutes, until the beans are tender ... I had to use a little more water halfway through the cooking time. Cool the mixture to lukewarm. At this point most of the liquid will have been absorbed by the beans.

Place the tuna, including its water in a salad bowl. Add the garlic, parsley, pepper, oil and mustard and mix well, breaking tuna into small pieces. Add the beans, discarding some of the liquid if it is excessive and toss gently to mix all the ingredients together. The mixture should be moist but not liquid.

Divide lettuce leaves among 4 plates and spoon bean mixture onto the leaves. Serve at room temp as a first course.