Tide over with Sweet Potato, Ricotta and Beet Salad, snack for 1

More continuous kitchen! Like the celery I talked about previously, ricotta cheese is another thing that the grocery store only sells in weird amounts. For example, say you wanted to make ricotta cheese muffins, you only need ½ cup of ricotta cheese, but the smallest container of ricotta you can get is probably about a pound. Now you’ve got all this extra ricotta sitting around, and no more plans for baking it into anything in sight. What to do with it? Something that uses it up, but doesn’t bore you? May I suggest this little extremely yummy and good for you snack, or dinner.

Ingredients

1 Sweet potato or yam

1 large beet

Large dollop ricotta

Splash red wine vinegar

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Parsley

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put a sauce pan of water on to boil. Give your sweet potato a couple fork-pokes and bake it for around 40 minutes, or until easily pierced.

Once the potato is in the oven, peel and slice your beet into thick slices, about ½ inch or so. Boil it for about 40 minutes, the potato and beet should be done at the same time.

Yes, that hot pad has "Maestro at Wok" written on it. I also have "Treble in the Kitchen." They were gifts, yes, my parents are hysterical. I can handle hot things and sing with the Esoterics all I want. Don't judge me. 

The devil's bathtub. A.k.a boiling beets.

Here you can see that my salt and pepper shakers are hugging in the background. They fear the devil's bathtub. Don't worry guys! Later we can shake you upside down, won't that be fun?

Once the beet is drained and the potato is out of the oven and each is cool enough to handle, assemble your snack.

Slice the potato lengthwise and cube the beet. In a small bowl, mix the beet cubes with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar.

Top the potato with a large dollop of ricotta, followed up by the beet salad. If you like, add some chopped parsley. And done!

One Pot Chicken and Vegetables with Leftovers

I've written about a variation of this recipe before. It’s a great example of a recipe versatile enough to use whatever vegetables are available that look good, and are priced right. Or, to simply to use up leftover vegetables hanging around the fridge. Barbara Kafka wrote a wonderful book called Roasting, a Simple Art, wherein she talks about the concept of the continuous kitchen. I love this. To me, it means cooking every day and using fresh ingredients without waste. Always using what was left over from the previous few days and reinterpreting the ingredient to ensure your palate doesn't get bored.

You know that thing? Where the only way a given vegetable is available is in a quantity that you would never use? Celery for example, as just one lady, I am not eating that entire bunch of celery before it goes rubbery. I only need ¼ cup diced celery for a given recipe, why do I have to buy so much? (Okay, I know you can buy individual stalks, but you get my drift, right? RIGHT?) A continuous kitchen addresses this very dilemma. If I plan ahead I can use that celery in a mirepoix one night and plan to make a chicken stock and celery soup later in the week. Then freeze both into portion sizes. No waste=pennies saved=more fresh nutritious food at the ready.

This comes together in about 15-20 minutes, and then roasts for about another 30 minutes. It will yield enough for two full meals and chicken leftovers for sandwiches, salad, tacos, posole, stuffed poblanos, chili, having something to pick on standing in front of the fridge at 11 o’clock at night, bones for a small batch of stock….the list goes on and on.   

Ingredients

A few chicken parts, two bone in, skin on breast pieces used here

2 medium portobellos, or other mushrooms

6-10 new/tiny Yukon gold potatoes, sized or cut to about ¾ inch pieces

2 rosemary sprigs

½ lemon

A few garlic cloves

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Implements

Sauce pan to par boil the potatoes

Roasting pan or pot large enough to hold all ingredients with the chicken in a single layer

Colander

Mixing bowl

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the sauce pan on to boil with enough water to cover your potatoes. Put the roasting pan to heat to medium/medium high on another burner. Wash the potatoes and use a vegetable peeler to remove any gross bits or eyes. Remove the ribs from the mushrooms by scraping with a spoon and cut the stems. Slice them. Remove the skins from the garlic cloves, leaving them whole, and cut the ½ lemon into very thin slices.

I like half peeled, half not peeled. Personality potato; he's the most interesting potato in the world.

One does not have to de-rib the mushroom, but if one doth doesn't not de-rib, thine mushroom will discolor his other food friends and anger me. 

Unwrap the chicken parts, pat the skin side dry with a paper towel and salt and pepper them right there in the packaging, no need to create extra cleanup by putting the raw meat on your counter or cutting board.

I have altogether too many photos of raw meat. I'm only allowed upstairs and I sleep under a turned over wagon and I put a turkey on the toilet is that bad? do doo doo dooooooooooo.

Is that water boiling yet? Is the roasting pan hot? Drop the potatoes into the water and par boil them for about 10 minutes, they’re still going to roast so they should not be cooked through. Swirl some olive oil around the hot roasting pan and gently lay in the chicken in a single layer, skin side down.

Space out for 10 minutes.

Return to the kitchen.

Drain the potatoes. Flip the chicken and turn off the heat. Mix the mushrooms, potatoes and garlic cloves together in a bowl with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour them over the chicken then add the rosemary sprigs and lemon slices.

Roast in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Whoa those mushrooms shrunk a LOT.

Tri Tip and Anchovy Broccolinis for 1

Growing up, my Father used to prepare the same meal almost every night; pan fried round steak, boiled potatoes with margarine and mixed frozen vegetables. That meat was tough and grayish and I thought that’s what steak was, and I liked it. It took me years to figure out how to get that crusty brown outside and rare or medium rare on the inside. You don’t even need an expensive cut, I used tri tip for this recipe. Admittedly, tri tip isn’t the most tender cut cooked this way, but the point here is cooking for one on the (mostly) cheap, without driving yourself insane with too much time and effort. This steak was four-something dollars for two steaks, each big enough for a single serving. I had steak for dinner and lunch the next day, and both times it was better than something I could have bought already prepared.

I really like using this method for cooking meats, it pretty much works for any steak, pork chop or firm fish filet, such as salmon, halibut or swordfish. The only trick is timing the roasting, properly adjusting for thickness of the cut you have. Very thin cuts won’t need roasting at all. Thick cuts, like the inch thick steaks I used here required about 12 minutes in a 375 degree oven after searing.

Both of these recipes have two steps, but only two pans for the entire menu, so the cleanup effort evens out.

Steak with Blue Cheese and Spicy Broccolinis

Spicy Broccolinis

1 small bunch broccolinis, or regular ol’ broccoli

1 small clove garlic

2 tsp anchovy paste, or to taste

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 lemon for squeezing

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Tri tip

Steak

Olive oil, salt, pepper

A few crumbles of blue cheese

Implements

Sauce pan

Colander

Oven proof skillet

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put on an oven proof skillet to heat to medium high. While the pan heats, fill a sauce pan with water and set to boil.

Season the steak of both sides with salt and pepper, for this step I remove the plastic from the packaging, or un-wrap the paper and season right there in the packaging. No need to wash that cutting board more than once if you ask me.

Swirl around a bit of oil in your hot skillet. It should smoke a bit. Immediately add your steak and sear until it reaches a deep brown crust, about 2 minutes a side. Pop those babies in the oven so they gently cook through. About 12 minutes an inch for beef.

Meat in dual tones.

While the meat is in the oven, assemble your ingredients for the broccolinis.

We are broccolinis if you please, we are broccolinis if you don't please. (To be sung, guess the tune? too rando? Sorry.)

Chop your garlic clove and give the vegetables a rinse and trim. Bring your sauce pan with water to a boil and blanch the broccoilinis until bright green and not cooked through. Keep an eye on them, this only takes a minute or so. Drain.

Hey, is that meat done? Take it out of the oven and place it on a plate to rest. Put the same skillet back on the stove top to use again for the vegetables, heat to medium/medium low. Don’t wash it! Those brown bits are yummy! See also: lazy.

Swirl in a bit more olive oil, add the garlic and move it around until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the blanched broccolinis, red pepper flakes, anchovy paste and salt and pepper. Mix until heated through and all incorporated. Remove from the heat and give them a squeeze of lemon juice.

Slice the rested steak and top with crumbles of blue cheese alongside the hot broccolinis.

Fried Chicken, Herbed Mashed Potatoes and Beet Salad with Chimichurri. Dinner for 5.

Do you know how good fresh beets are? They are so great, so pretty, so good for you and so unique tasting. I've been making this beet salad over and over for the last few weeks. I recently had a dinner party for 4 of my favorite people and wanted to share it with them. The rest of the menu, well, it's starch and fried stuff. Just cuz.

It was a Sunday night, a work night for me, so I wanted the menu to be attainable and not crazy - meaning I  wouldn't have to do any work the day before and I could have the whole thing on the table in 2 hours or so.

Ingredients

Fried Chicken
Five legs and five thighs
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup salt, divided
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp cayenne
1 Tbs baking powder
Corn oil

Herbed Mashed Potatoes
5 large russet potatoes
1 cup loosely packed italian parsley
5 or 6+ sprigs of dill, to taste
1/2 stick butter
Splash of milk
Small handful shredded parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Beet Salad
5 fresh medium beets
1 red bell pepper
1/2+ cup loosely packed cilantro
Lime
Salt, pepper, olive oil to taste

Chimichurri 
1 small shallot
1 Tsp minced parsley
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil, salt, pepper

Implements
Gallon zip lock bag, or other container for marinating the chicken
Large skillet for frying the chicken
Large pot for boiling the beets, and then the potatoes
Colander
Large mixing bowl
Small mixing bowl

Let's do this thing.

Place the chicken in the zip lock bag along with half the salt and the 2 cups of buttermilk. Mix it around and marinate for at least 2 hours, or as much as overnight.

Marinating Chicken

Pile o vegetables, lookin pretty 

Purple mountain majesty beets. MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE....wait, what were we doing again?

Put on water to boil, enough to cover the beets. Remove the stems, peel and chop them into 1/2 inch slices. Boil for about 40 minutes, until they are easily pierced with a fork, but still offer a bit of resistance.

While the beets boil and the chicken continues to marinate, prepare the potatoes. Peel and slice them into 3 or 4 chunks each, set them aside. Finely mince the parsley and dill, set it aside.

We are both named Herb

Dice the shallot and parsley for the chimichurri and mix in a small bowl. Add a splash of olive oil and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Set it aside. Done with chimichurri!

I like NASCAR he's a jerk. Gaffigan? Anyone? Oh, this here is Chimichurri

Oh look, wine, nibbly things and table settings. Oh my? (Yes, Wizard of Oz reference, don't judge me.) I lied before, I did do some things the day before, like shopping and setting up this stuff.

The very nice wine lady was happy to help me pick out this Rose so she could get away from a fawning bag person employee type who smelled a little like farts. Also, nibblies*! Napkin folding! YES. *Side note confession, that nibble meat there is pastrami from Whole Foods and was way way way WAY over seasoned. So I fed it my guests to use it up, HA HA HA I MEAN LOVE YOU GUYS, FOR REAL!!

Prepare the skillet for frying the chicken. Pour enough corn oil to come about a half inch up the sides of the skillet and set to low heat to begin warming. Now prepare the coating for the chicken. In a large doubled paper grocery bag, mix the flour, pepper, cayenne, baking powder and remaining salt. Combine well with your fingers. Drain the marinade from the chicken and throw all the pieces together into the coating bag. Seal it up and shake it around like crazy.

Has it been about 40 minutes? Check the beets, they should be about ready. Drain them. Give that same pot a  rinse, refill with water and set it to boil for the potatoes. Go ahead and add the potatoes to the cold water, they don't mind. Once boiling, it'll take about 15 minutes for them to become tender.

Once the beets are cool enough to handle, cut them into 1/2 cubes. Chop the cilantro, dice the red pepper and mix it together with the beets, juice from the lime to taste, olive oil, salt and pepper. Done with salad!

Red and green items, seasoned and about to be mixed

Turn up the heat in the skillet with oil to bring the temperature of the oil to about 375. Or, if you don't have a thermometer, toss in a little cube of bread. If it sizzles and then browns in about 10 seconds, you're good to go.

What about those potatoes? They're probably about done, poke them with a fork to see if they're nice and tender. They shouldn't give much resistance at all. Rise the beet-y colander and drain the potatoes, then add them back to the warm pot back on the stove. Mix in the butter, milk, herbs, parmesan and lots of salt and pepper. They should be soft enough to mix n' mash up with a fork. Done with potatoes!

To fry the chicken, shake off the excess coating as you remove the piece from the coating bag and into the oil. Add all the pieces to the oil in a single layer. Fry without turning for 14 minutes, then flip and fry for an additional 14 minutes. The should read about 170 to 180 degrees when done. Set the pieces on a rack or paper towells to drain.

Hot grease chicken hot tub

Done with chicken! Done with everything!

I like to plate things snug together. Put a mound of potatoes and stack chicen pieces right up close. Add of spoon of beet salad and top it with just a touch of the chimichurri.

Salt and Pepper Baby Back Ribs and Lightly Creamed Spinach, for 1

I never used to think of baby back ribs as anything other than giant slabs of meat smothered in barbeque sauce that’s two-thirds high fructose corn syrup, cooked by a stranger and begrudgingly delivered by someone at any number of chain restaurants. Complete with greasy sheen and wet naps. 

But, you know what? Ribs are pretty cheap when you’re cooking just for yourself and they don’t even need barbeque sauce. As it turns out, they require much less supervision than a steak and they’re a delicious treat for the weekend. Since they do take time, I like planning just such a treat for myself for a Saturday or Sunday dinner.

I’ve seen ribs on sale all over recently, usually for as little $2.99 a pound. Plus, any grocery store with a meat counter (even Safeway, QFC, Albertsons, Walmart, etc.) will cut a slab of ribs into smaller pieces, you just have to ask. It’s the perfect way to buy only as much as you need. I ask for a third of a rack which works out to about four ribs and rings up at less than $4.00.

This Saturday evening I paired the ribs with some very lightly creamed spinach. I always love to say that eating an entire bunch of spinach by yourself is almost as good as working out.

Salt and Pepper Ribs:

1/3 rack baby back pork ribs

Salt and Pepper

Lightly Creamed Spinach:

1 bunch spinach

1 shallot

2 or 3 sprigs of thyme (or not)

1 clove garlic

2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons shredded parmesan or other salty cheese

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Implements:

Small baking dish

Large skillet

Foil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line your baking dish with foil and lay in the ribs. Season the heck out of those babies on both sides with salt and pepper. Cover them tightly with more foil and pop in the oven for an hour and a half.

When an hour and a half is up, uncover them and turn the heat down to 300 degrees. Cook for another hour.

During this phase of cooking, get to cleaning and trimming your spinach and dice the shallot and garlic. Set these aside.

When the ribs complete their final hour, crank up the heat to 475 for about 15 minutes to develop some more color. Take them out of the oven and let them rest while you tend to the spinach.

Cook the shallot in some olive oil using your skillet over medium heat until soft, 4 minutes or so. Add the garlic, give it a stir and add the spinach right away. Sprinkle over some salt and pepper and move it around the pan until it wilts down, but maintains a bright green color, another 4 minutes or so. Remove it from the heat and mix in the cream and cheese.

Slice the ribs. Pile your spinach onto a plate and lay the ribs around. Get napkins. Lots of napkins, and yum!

Blueberry Ricotta Muffins, Breakfast for 1

Blueberry Ricotta Muffins
Makes six muffins

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest from ½ a lime

Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup blueberries

Implements:
2 medium bowls
Standard size 6 muffin tin
Whisk
Spatula
Dry measuring cups
Liquid measuring cup
Measuring spoons

Recipe my own invention.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine and whisk the wet ingredients in one of your bowls, and dry in the other, leaving out the berries for now. The chia seeds may be omitted, but I really like them and they look just like poppy seeds in this recipe. They’re flavor neutral and packed with fiber and omega-3s. I found mine at Whole Foods; just over $6.00 for enough chia seeds to last a lifetime. The baking soda can be substituted by tripling the baking powder.

Wet. Dry. WHOA CHIA SEED CLOSE UP.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and use a spatula to fold everything together a bit. Pour in the berries and fold some more until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be gooey and thick.

Prepare your muffin tin by buttering, oiling, or lining with paper muffin cups. Using your hands, distribute the dough evenly among the cups. Bake for 20 minutes. Set to cool for about five minutes, then turn out and cool completely at room temperature. Eat one. Save the rest in plastic, in the fridge. Voila, breakfast for the whole week. I admit to even eating mine in the car, hardly any crumbs!

Lox, Shiitake and Peas Alfredo for 1

Alfredo Sauce with Extras
1 small shallot
1 clove garlic
7 or 8 fresh shiitakes
4 or 5 thyme sprigs
Splash of white wine
Handful of grated parmesan
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup frozen peas
Handful of sliced lox, about 1/8 a pound

Olive oil, salt, pepper

Parsley

Pasta

A bit of linguine, 2 oz or so dry.

Salted water for boiling

Recipe my own, new job celebrations require cream sauce. 

Set a skillet large enough hold all ingredients to heat to medium. Prep your salted water for cooking the pasta. Dice the shallot, stem and slice the shiitakes. Mince the garlic clove and a bit of parsley and set them aside. Add a bit of olive oil to your now-hot skillet and saute the shallot until softened, 3 minutes or so. Add the shiitake slices and thyme sprigs.

Turn on the pasta water to boil.

Saute the mushrooms until just starting to brown slightly, then add the splash of white wine and reduce until it's almost all evaporated. 

Add the pasta to the boiling water. Cook until slightly under-done, about a minute less than indicated on the box.

With the pasta cooking and the wine now reduced, add the minced garlic clove and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds or so. Slowly add the cream and parmesan and cook gently to melt the cheese. Add the peas, salmon and a few grids of pepper. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir to combine. Pick out the thyme sprigs while the whole mixture heats through. 

Plate and top with more parmesan and the minced parsley.