Salt and Pepper Salmon with Herbs and Meyer Lemon

I am happy to report that spring is finally making an appearance in New York.  Today was the first day since last fall that I came into work and didn't need a jacket of any sort.  It was marvelous.  And over the past two weekends the farmers' market has been growing more and more populous (both in terms of the number of customers and the number of vendors), which is totally exciting.  Right now the produce selection is still fairly limited, but I bet that in a few short weeks I will be able to buy all sorts of yummy spring veggies.  I can't wait.  With spring approaching, I have been craving lighter fare, like seafood and veggies/salads.  I'm sure if you went back through the blog you could track the seasons relatively well by what I am cooking and right now, I'm all about fish.  We make a lot of salmon at home because it's relatively easy to find at any grocery store and it's a great blank canvas.  This salmon was a riff on our favorite Salt and Pepper Salmon from Tyler Florence.  We had a bunch of Meyer lemons laying around the apartment so we have been on a Meyer lemon kick.  First I made roast chicken breasts with a Meyer lemon and thyme marinade.  Now that I think about it, those two recipes for salmon and roast chicken breasts represent the two dishes on the blog that we make all the time.  We also made a number of Meyer lemon vinaigrettes, but there's nothing new or earth-shattering there.  Since we had the lemons and an abundance of fresh herbs, I decided to make our standard salmon, but top it with a Meyer lemon and herb compound butter.  It was springy and best of all, it was easy.  Once the butter melted down over the salmon it created a really nice delicate sauce.  In a lot of ways think this would be the perfect salmon recipe for people who are on the fence about salmon - you taste the flavor of the salmon but it's layered under the flavor of the compound butter. 

Recipe after the jump!

Lemon Shortbread with Fresh Rosemary

There is a coffee shop near my office called Blue Bottle that has the most amazingly decadent shortbread cookies.  They have two kinds of shortbread - an olive oil rosemary shortbread and a savory parmesan shortbread with fennel (which I will be making the next time we have people over because they are absolutely delicious - recipe available here).  Both of them are buttery and scrumptious, but I was looking for a dessert cookie so I decided to make some rosemary shortbread.  I spent a few minutes searching for a recipe and then came across a few different lemon and rosemary shortbread recipes that sounded promising.  So I picked one, threw together the dough and left it in the fridge to chill.  And then it kept chilling for a few days until I had the time to bake it because Alex cut me off on baking and cooking on Christmas Day since I made fudge that morning (more on that later) and we were already making duck, brussels sprouts, cornbread and salad for dinner.  Suffice it to say that I get a little over-ambitious sometimes and Alex has to rein me in.

These shortbread cookies are exactly the type of elegant little cookies I think should be served at high tea.  Or at a wedding/baby shower.  They are light, fresh and very easy to munch on.  The flavors of the lemon and rosemary are pronounced, but are balanced nicely by the buttery flavor of the shortbread and the crunch of the turbinado sugar sprinkled on top.  Brief side note - turbinado sugar is one of my favorite baking ingredients because it gives you those little bursts of sweetness and that nice crunch on top.  You have to be a little careful when baking with an herb like rosemary because a little goes a long way and you don't want to feel like you are eating a pine tree.  I felt like this was the perfect amount.  I do have one caveat - if you served a platter full of homemade chocolate chip cookies on one side and these shortbread cookies on the other they might be overlooked, but on their own they shine quite nicely.


Recipe after the jump!

Thanksgiving 2012 Desserts - Salted Chocolate Pecan Pie, Peanut Butter Cup Pie and Lemon Curd Tart with Olive Oil

This post is almost ridiculously overdue.  But I forgot my camera at home when I went down to Maryland for Thanksgiving so I had my father take pictures of our dinner.  He helpfully uploaded all of the pictures to my trusty external hard drive, which I then promptly forgot to bring back to NYC with me.  So the pictures languished in Maryland until Dad came up to visit for Christmas and brought my hard drive with him.  Yay!  So I am finally ready to post about the dishes we made for Thanksgiving this year.  Better late than never, right?  And I guess that having a picture of at least one of the items, is better than not having any pictures at all.  Oops.

This salted chocolate pecan pie was my first attempt at making my own pie crust and I think that I really should have added a little more water to make it hold together.  My pie crust needs a little work.  I need to practice making the crust itself and then folding the edges so they are pretty.  For the record, the pie crust looked a little better before we packed it in the car for the drive down to Maryland and Alex squished it with his laptop bag.  Twice.  The filling was really tasty (and rich, which pecan pie should be), although I didn't really get the salt as much as I wish I had.  Also, the pie never really set up.  We baked it for the recommended time and then added a tiny bit more time, but when we cut into it that evening there was some serious oozing.  As for the peanut butter cup pie, I don't think I have ever served a richer dessert.  If you think pecan pie is rich, you have never experienced this peanut butter cup pie.  It was good but it was really sweet and really really rich.  The crust also didn't hold together as well as I would have liked - perhaps I need more butter if I ever make it again?  The lemon curd tart was perhaps my favorite of the desserts.  The lemon curd filling was lovely and I loved the flavor of the olive oil in the dessert.  I thought it was a really nice touch.  But if you are looking at the recipe and thinking about using a 10-inch tart pan instead of a 9-inch tart pan, don't do it.  We unwittingly made that mistake and then had to double the filling because the amount the recipe produced just wasn't going to cut it.  And then our crust was too thin.  Of the three recipes I would be most likely to make the lemon curd tart again (and make it exactly as written).  If I were to make the salted chocolate pecan pie again it would take some additional cooking time and perhaps a different crust...  If I am being entirely honest, I probably wouldn't make the peanut butter cup pie again.  I just think there are better peanut butter pie recipes out there.

Recipes after the jump!

Seared Scallops with Salsa Verde

Alex and I rarely cook scallops.  I know that is hard to believe given that we made these Moroccan-Spiced Scallops with Lentils back in March, but I think that the last time we made scallops prior to that was back in January 2011 when we made this Scallops with Cilantro Sauce and Asian Slaw.  And prior to that...  Well who knows when we made scallops prior to that.  My problem with scallops is that I never like them as much when I cook them at home as I do when I order them at a restaurant.  Esca has amazing scallops - particularly their scallop crudo with just a touch of evoo and sea salt.  Amazing.  But that's beside the point.  Scallops aren't hard to cook at home, but they are incredibly easy to overcook.  And when you overcook scallops they turn into tough little hockey pucks.  No one likes eating hockey pucks.  Some of our scallops were verging on hockey puck territory, but that's what happens when you have scallops of such varying sizes and aren't watching them as carefully as you should.  As far as the salsa verde goes, the flavors were very fresh and clean.  I thought the lemon, evoo, parsley made for a fresh bright and lovely meal.  I'm still certain that I have had better scallops at restaurants, but these weren't bad at all.  I definitely preferred them to the Moroccan-Spiced Scallops and Lentils.

Recipe after the jump!

Hugh Acheson's Pickled Shrimp

Once again I have to thank someone else for finding this recipe.  Alex decided that he wanted to make pickled shrimp so I tasked him with finding a recipe.  We tried pickled shrimp once before (Ashley's Pickled Shrimp and Bayona Caesar Salad) and I thought the shrimp was good, but not great.  So I wasn't totally on board with the pickled shrimp idea until he dug up this recipe from Hugh Acheson.  For those of you who watch Top Chef, Hugh was one of the judges this past season.  Specifically, he was the one with the unibrow (or as Alex called it, the monobrow).  Anyway, he says the most amazing and irreverent things.  For the record, I'm a big fan of him as a judge.  And after this pickled shrimp, I am a big fan of his food.  The shrimp were fresh and juicy - I really liked the combination of lemon juice and evoo.  Alex said that he wished they were a little more pickled (as in he wishes there had been some vinegar in the pickling liquid), but I liked them just the way they were.  We served the shrimp with some crusty bread and an arugula salad and it was a very fresh, light meal that still had a lot of flavor.  By the end of the meal I was mopping up the pool of pickling liquid with my bread.  And if we hadn't run out of bread I would have continued doing so.  I would totally make these again for a picnic or on any hot summer night when the last thing you want to do is turn on the oven or slave away in the kitchen.  The cooking time on these shrimp is totally minimal - 2 minutes and then they marinate in the fridge overnight.  The dish is incredibly simple and tasty, and it lends itself to a really nice summery meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Lemony Olive Oil Banana Bread

I'm not sure how I found this banana bread recipe (I'm going to "blame" it on Tastespotting), nor am I entirely certain what drew me to it.  I have that problem from time to time because I find recipes months and sometimes years before we actually get around to making them.  When I realized that we had 3 bananas that were verging on overripe last week, I set them aside to finally make this banana bread.  I also warned Alex not to touch them because he has a bad habit of eating my banana bread bananas, but that is beside the point. 

My initial thoughts on the first bite I took of banana bread was that the glaze was overpowering and the bread itself wasn't as tender or moist as I would have hoped.  Granted, we were eating an end piece, which is like eating the corner piece of cake - there's always too much icing/frosting/graze for me and it tends to be a little on the drier side than the rest of the cake.  Unless we're talking red velvet cake or carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (or Carvel cake for that matter), I want a very light layer of icing/frosting/glaze on the top of my cake and nothing on the sides.  Otherwise it is just way too saccharine sweet for me.  So I tend to avoid the ends and corners of all square or rectangle cakes.  So I wanted to reserve judgment on the banana bread as a whole until I had another slice.  Then I had another slice for breakfast the next morning and I still didn't love it.  The bread just isn't very tender - which I attribute to the use of whole wheat flour, but you can let me know if you disagree.  And the glaze is still a bit overpowering.  I guess I'm just not into glazes.  Oh well.  It was a fun idea while it lasted and it's not actually a bad banana bread, it's just not my kind of banana bread.  I guess it's back to the drawing board (or at least back to the banana bread recipes we already know and love)!

Recipe after the jump!

Pasta al Limone: Pasta with Lemon Sauce

This dish was one that Alex pulled out of a hat (or off the internet) a few nights ago for dinner.  We had been planning on making something else, until we realized that we had run out of one of the major ingredients.  So this was something of a last second substitution.  And as far as last second substitutions go, it wasn't bad.  It wasn't my favorite, but I didn't think it would be.  And maybe that's beside the point.  It was a perfectly fine and better yet, it was very easy to make.  I think I might have preferred basil to the parsley (or maybe a combination of the two).  My one complaint is that once it cooled down a little it tasted a little oily/greasy.  But overall, not a bad dish.  Not an exciting dish, but not a bad one.  I think if I were to make it again I would throw in some fresh asparagus (when it's in season) for some extra freshness and sweetness.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Branzino with Ladolemono and Sauteed Spinach with Garlic

I was craving a really fresh and light meal for dinner tonight.  While I was at Fairway trying to figure out dinner I was immediately drawn to the whole branzino.  So I had the fishmonger clean and scale two branzinos for me and brought them home.  My original plan was to stuff the branzino with herbs and lemon slices, and then serve drizzled with some really nice evoo and lemon juice (kind of like this Whole-Roasted Rainbow Trout we made about a year ago).  Then I remembered this recipe from my Bon Appetit and decided to make that instead.  For the record, I don't know if they have new writers at Bon Appetit or what, but they had really fantastic issues all summer long.  I haven't made any of the recipes from the September through November issues, but I really need to because we made a number of very successful meals with recipes from the June through August issues!  This branzino was yet another successful dish.  I was worried that the fish wouldn't have enough flavor, but branzino is such a mild fish that it really worked.  The ladolemono (essentially a lemon vinaigrette made with equal parts lemon juice and evoo) and dried Greek oregano gave it more than enough flavor.  It had a lot of zing and freshness from the lemon, countered by the buttery evoo and the fragrant oregano.  And then the fish was very moist and perfectly cooked.  This recipe was definitely a keeper and I can't wait to try it with an actual grill to get that extra element of flavor.  We served the branzino with a very simple sauteed spinach with garlic and lemon juice - fresh and healthy, but flavorful.

Recipes after the jump!

 

Pasta with Lemon, Hot Peppers and Pecorino Romano

To take advantage of the fresh pasta we picked up today from Eataly I decided to make a recipe from one of my Batali cookbooks that I have been wanting to make for awhile now.  There are several Batali pasta recipes and pasta dishes at his restaurants that include jalapenos (or other chilis) - including some that call for lobster and crab that I have been very intrigued by for some time.  This is the first time that we have attempted one of those recipes.  The dish was intended to be made with fresh fettuccine, but since we picked up fresh maccheroni alla chitarra (a spaghetti-like fresh pasta that is forced through a device that looks like a loom or a harp that cuts the pasta into square shapes) we used that instead.

I really liked this pasta.  I thought that the lemon sauce was bright and lemony without being overbearing or too acidic and the sauteed onions were nice and sweet.  The last time we made a pasta with a lemon sauce (Lemon Fettucine with Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes) I thought that the lemon was too acidic and harsh.  Here it was nice and mellow, lemon tempered by the wonderful richness from all that butter.  Alex and I were surprised by how little heat the jalapenos and chili flakes lent the pasta, but I guess our jalapeno wasn't very hot to begin with and once we took out all the seeds it lost any heat that it might have originally had.  Instead of heat from the jalapeno you got a nice mild chili flavor, which I thought was nice.  In the future I might add an extra dash of red chili flakes for just a little more heat, but overall I thought this was a really nice dish.  I liked how the flavors were so distinct from all of the other pastas we have made in the past.

Recipe after the jump!

Chickpea Salad with Lemon, Parmesan and Fresh Herbs

Strangely enough when I was flipping through the April issue of Bon Appetit, this was the first recipe that caught my eye.  I say strangely enough because there are all sorts of exotic and delicious-sounding recipes in there.  Why in the word did I immediately focus on a simple chickpea salad?  To be perfectly honest, I have no idea.  I love chickpeas.  And I love basil.  It just seemed like the perfect easy lunch.  I decided that rather than just serving the chickpeas, I would serve the salad atop a bed of baby arugula.  For my portion I also threw on a nice tuna fillet but Alex is not a fan of tuna fish so that is his tuna-less bowl pictured above.  The dressing for this salad contains the exact same flavor profile as the Lemon Fettucine with Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, and yet I found this salad to be deliciously bright and fresh, whereas I found the sauce for the pasta to be harsh and overpowering.  I think it all comes down to the proportions of the lemon juice with the evoo.  Here there was close to the same amount of lemon juice and evoo.  In the pasta there was a substantially greater amount of lemon juice than evoo.  We also used a better quality evoo in this salad than in the pasta and that definitely made a difference.

Recipe after the jump!

Lemon Fettucine with Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I was sitting at my desk wondering what to make for dinner last night when I saw a really nice picture of "Lemon Spaghetti" on Tastespotting from the blog Plum Pie.  I had been thinking about making some sort of pasta and this just seemed like a nice, fresh, vegetarian option.  Best of all, we had all of the ingredients in the fridge or the cabinet.  So I sent the link to Alex and told him that he was in charge of dinner since I was going to be home late.  When I got home, the pasta was just about ready to serve - all we had to do was toss the sauce and pasta together and make dress the arugula salad.  Alex and I are in disagreement about this recipe.  I feel like that is happening more often of late.  He really liked the pasta.  He loves lemons.  He sucks on lemon wedges  I would never do that.  I find lemons overwhelmingly sour.  Anyway, I found the pasta to be a little... harsh.  Harsh isn't exactly the right word, but I'm not sure what other word to use.  There was a lot of acidity from the lemon juice and the slow roasted tomatoes.  The whole dish just seemed acidic and a little one dimensional for me.  I wish there had been a bit more basil flavor.  And while I generally love crushed red pepper flakes in pastas, I didn't care for them here.  They also contributed to the harshness for me.  And as for the slow roasted tomatoes, I think they would have been better if we had removed the seeds and roasted them for just a few more minutes to dry them out a little more.  I wish I got more of the flavor from the basil.  I didn't think it came through enough for me.  If I could start over from scratch, I would make the Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil instead because I found them to be somewhat comparable vegetarian pasta dishes that you can throw together with your pantry staples, and yet the Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil was just so much better.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Chicken with Olives, Lemon and Garlic

So I will be the first to admit that this roast chicken recipe is more than a little labor-intensive.  It's definitely not a roast chicken recipe where you just throw the chicken into the pan and then forget about it for an hour.  Instead you have to flip the chicken a few times, reduce the heat, stir the onion-olive mixture, etc.  But I love me a good roast chicken and we hadn't made one in awhile, so I thought why not.  I had two recipes pulled to try (one by Ina Garten and this one by Susan Spicer) and the Spicer recipe won out because it didn't involve 4 plus hours of marinating time and spatchcocking a chicken.  Although I think if we had read both recipes fully we would have realized that in the end the Susan Spicer recipe was actually more labor-intensive than the other recipe.  But hey, there's nothing wrong with a labor of love.  And I love roast chicken so I'm willing to work at it a bit.

The biggest endorsement I can give of this dish is that Alex couldn't stop eating it.  Every time I turned around, he was eating more sourdough dipped in the chicken jus, or the onions that roasted alongside the chicken.  I think that he polished off the better part of a red onion and just under half of a very large loaf of sourdough all on his own.  And that was on top of the arugula salad and the chicken breast he ate.  He ate.  And ate.  And then ate some more.  Then he stated that roast chicken with arugula salad and some fresh bread is one of his favorite meals.  Yeah it the chicken takes a little effort to prepare, but it is well worth it.  The chicken breasts were flavorful and juicy.  Alex is going to eat the legs tomorrow for lunch so I can't attest to how they tasted, but I bet they were delicious as well.  And then there was the mix of onions, olives, lemon quarters, and garlic that we roasted underneath the chicken.  The onions were sweet and yet savory and totally flavorful.  Then there were the olives, which provided you with bursts of saltiness in every bite.  You can definitely taste the lemons - both in the chicken itself, and in the chicken jus underneath.  It's such a nice combination of flavors.

Recipe after the jump!

Lemon-Almond Pound Cake

My husband is something of a citrus fiend.  If we need freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice while cooking, chances are that I will turn around to and find him sucking on the remains of the  lemon or lime he just squeezed.  Actually, chances are that he will suck on it, Brady will come to find out what he is eating and then Brady will try to steal it and run away with it.  But since Brady doesn't particularly like citrus he tends to spit out the lemon or lime, pick it back up, spit it back out again, then give it a last lick, before finally giving up.  Anyway, Alex loves lemon poppyseed muffins so I decided to give this Lemon-Almond Pound Cake recipe a try.  I'm always the one who decides that I want to bake and then what I will be baking, so this time I decided to pick something that I knew he would like.  I borrowed this cookbook from a friend awhile ago and I copied down a lot of recipes from it before I gave it back.  I have been sitting on this recipe for some time, but decided to make it last night because it was SNOWING outside (which makes me feel like baking), plus it was Brady's second birthday, which makes me feel like cake.  So we got ourselves a bottle of champagne and I baked a cake, and Brady got some new toys to play with (including a ball shaped like a frog whose toes he has already eaten off).  Sounds like a win for everyone, doesn't it?

This cake is lovely and lemony and light.  It has just the right amount of sweetness to balance out the tartness of the lemon, without turning the whole cake sugary sweet.  I also love the crunch of the almonds.  I think I might prefer the crunch of the sliced almonds to poppy seeds, but I just don't know.  I was a little worried about the lemon glaze, and we did use it sparingly, but it's really nice too.  It would make a fantastic breakfast, a really nice snack and a wonderful light dessert.  Granted, it's not your typical birthday cake, but that's just fine with me!

Recipe after the jump!