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.