When we started looking at the holidays this year, we were not certain what we would do for Christmas Day itself, or if we would go somewhere. Since we had not made plans, and Mom and Dad were not going anywhere either, I decided to cook.

With Mom and Dad coming over, I decided to make something with meat. I don’t cook (or eat) meat much any more, but I haven’t gone full vegetarian yet. I looked around Whole Foods for what looked good and settled on chicken. I picked up a whole chicken and decided a roasted chicken would be good for the holiday.

  
When trying to figure out how to cook the bird, I fell back on tried and true methods. I butterflied the chicken so the breast and thighs would cook evenly and not result in under done or dried out meat. I made a rub/marinade/seasoning of rosemary, garlic, salt, orange and olive oil. I mixed those together well and spread the mix under the skin of the chicken and over the whole bird. I let this sit in the fridge this morning then rosted the bird at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. I will say, it was a pretty bird, and it actually tasted pretty good. 

  
To go with the chicken, I made some old favorites – sweet potato wedges, Brussels sprouts and a kale/quinoa salad that I love. I didn’t do anything fancy, but I think it all came together well. (especially the salad – I think that was my favorite part of dinner.)

   
 
  
Mom made dessert … Mom always makes good desserts and her (with the exception of pies) are generally a bit fancier than mine. For today, Mom made a trifel – a strawberry and lemon dessert that not only looked beautiful, it tasted great.

  
 Rosemary Orange Chicken

• 1 ~3 lbs chicken
• 3 sprigs rosemary, chopped fine
• 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
• 1 teaspoon salt
• juice of 1/2 orange
• zest of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Chop the rosemary and garlic. Mix together with the zest of the orange, salt, juice of 1/2 orange and thenolive oil. Mix well. Butterfly the chicken then detach the skin from the breast meat. Rub the orange rosemary mix over the chicken, under the skin, and stretch the skin back over the chicken. Rub the chicken with the remaining mix. Cover (I use a large zip lock bag) and refridgerate until ready to cook. 

Set out while the oven heats to 400. Spread the chicken on a roasting pan on rack so the breast is plumped a little and the legs splayed a little. Roast for about 40 minutes or until the juices run clear. Let rest for five mintutes before carving.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Enjoy the full moon tonight.

Every now and then I get a taste in my mouth that I can’t get rid of. I start to crave a food and that craving won’t go away until I eat that particular food. Sometimes it’s as easy as a piece of cheese, or a brownie, but other times its complicated. Other times I want something difficult to make or hard to acquire. In the last few weels I’ve wanted a savory pie. Specifically I’ve wanted the Chicken, Ham and Leek pie from England but there are a dozen reasons why that isn’t happening. I’m not in the UK and I haven’t been cooking meat lately so that sort of put the pie out of reach.

So what is a girl to do? Improvise. I decided to go for a savory pie, but a meatless version. I scoured recipes  (most of which contain mushroom and I’m just not there yet) and decided to try my hand at my own version of a vegetable pie.

I decided to go with fall/winter flavors. Butternut squash, parsnips and potato made the base. I chose leeks for the onion  like portion of the filling and rounded everything out with carrots and frozen peas. I do need to adjust the ratios for next time, but there will definitely be a next time.

Recipe:(the altered version )

• 1 1/2 cup butternut squash
• 1 leek, white and light green part, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup parsnip
• 1 cup carrots
• 2 small, white sweet potatoes
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 2 teaspoons flour
• 1 sheet puffed pastry
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Chopped the butternut squash and potato into 1/2 inch dice. Cut the parsnips and carrots on a diagonal. Mince the garlic and cut the leeks as you would an onion.

Coat the butternut squash and potato in a little olive oil and season with salt. Roast in a 400 degree oven about 15-20 minutes until the squash can be mashed with a fork and the potatoes are just about tender.

Heat a little olive oil in a pan and cookeep the leek and garlic for a few minutes. Add the carrott, parsnip and aboutique 1/4 cup of stock. Season with salt. Cover and reduce the heat to medium low and coom until the vegetables are soft. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into 8 or 9 inch cake pan. Add the squash and potatoes and mix everything together.

In the same pan, add 1 teaspoon oil and heat.  Add the four and stit until it begins to toast. Add the remaining vegetable stock and whisk until the flour is incorporated. Bring to a boil and coom until the stock begins to thicken.

Pour the stock over the vegetable mix in the pan. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry just enough to cover the top. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from  the oven and let rest for five minutes.

This has been a leftover special weekend. I have food I have to use up so I figure out something to make with it. Yesterday was the kale salad, today, enchiladas. 

Every now and again Bob and I find ourselves with leftover cheese from our cheese club box. (Yes, we are still doing those because we love them and we love supporting our local cheese shop. Louise is always so helpful and honest – if a cheese is ok, but not great, she tells you. If a cheese is on the edge, she tells you – and if it is too ripe, she will replace it.) Normally we eat all if the cheese in a few weeks, but sometimes we just don’t get to it. So … I make something with it.

Today I decided on cheese enchiladas with spinach. I though about plain cheese enchiladas but I did want some vegetable in there and spinach is easy. 

  
I started with a modified version of Emeril’s enchilada sauce. My version uses butter in place of oil, vegetable broth instead of chicken, and less chili powder and tomato paste. I do start with a roux, add the spices, add in the broth then the tomato paste. It works and is my basic red sauce for Mexican dishes. 

  
I decided to blanch the spinach, press it and chop it. I wanted the spinach in the enchiladas, but I wanted the cheese to be the star of the show. I also use flour tortillas because I like them way more than the corn ones. Yes, I know corn is healthier for you, but if I’m not going to eat it, what’s the point? 

  
These came out particularly good. The cheese was a mix of two cow cheeses on the inside and a little cheddar on top. Little cheese, little spinach, little sauce, and we have lunch. Bob liked the “cheese to other stuff” ratio and was glad the cheese was the main flavor. Best part about these – lunch tomorrow!

  
Recipe

Sauce

• 2 cups vegetable broth
• ~1/8 cup chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2.5 oz double concentrated tomato paste
• Pinch of salt

Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Once melted, add the flour and stir to combine. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the roux is bubbly and a caramel color. Add the chili and cumin and mix well. Add the vegetable broth and stir to combine, removing any lumps. Add the tomato paste and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and let boil for one minute, stirring frequently. Remove from heat. 

Enchiladas 

• 2 cups shredded cheese (whatever you have in hand and will melt)
• 6 Flour tortillas
• 10-12 oz spinach
• Enchilada sauce (see above)
• Shredded cheese for topping

Blanch the spinach. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Have a bowl with ice in it and a slotted spoon ready. Add the spinach in large handfuls (about 3 ounces each) to the water and blanch for about twenty to thirty seconds. Remove from water, place over the ice to stop the cooking and repeat with remaining spinach. Once all of the spinach has been blanched, squeeze out any water and chop.

Preheat oven to 350. Coat the bottom of a glass baking dish with sauce to prevent sticking. 

To assemble: coat each tortilla, both sides, with sauce. Place a good amount of cheese, about two to three tablespoons, along the center of the tortilla. Add 1/6 of the spinach on top of the cheese, then roll the tortilla up and place fold side down in the prepared pan. Repeat until all tortillas are used. 

Spoon sauce over the enchiladas then top with more grated cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake about 20 minutes. The cheese should be melted and the enchiladas hot through. 

Serve immediately.

It’s rare that I have leftover ingredients in my fridge. I don’t keep a stocked pantry or buy groceries without knowing exactly what I am making with them. This leaves people confused at times but I’ve found that it works for me. I buy less, but more frequently and have far less food waste than I did when I bought what was on sale and then figured out what to make. (I also have everything to make a dish so no last minute grocery runs or major changes to what is for dinner.) It’s not necessarily convenient, but it’s been working for a few years now and I like it. 

Last week I went to the farmer’s market and picked up veggies for the week. While I made my dishes with the food I bought, I actually had leftover ingredients that I needed to figure out what to do with. Specifically I had a half a bunch of kale (yes, I actually like kale), Brussels sprouts, and half a butternut squash. I thought about making pasta and throwing everything in, or a risotto, but none of that sounded appealing. I decided to scour the Internet and see if I could come up with something tempting, and I definitely did.

I have a few “go to” blogs and websites that I use for recipes or inspiration, but I came across a new one Two Peas and Their Pod. There I found a recipe for a salad that used all of my leftover ingredients. Kale, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, cheese that I have in the fridge and a homemade dressing that is quick and easy. I’m not a huge fan of pomegranate so I left that out and substituted apple since I had one on hand. I also substituted sherry vinegar for the apple cider vinegar, but otherwise kept the ingredients the same. 

  
One other change I made was in prepping the kale. Rather than massage the kale with extra salt, I poured a little bit of the dressing into the kale and mixed to coat the leaves. I let this sit for about 15 minutes while the butternut squash and pecans cooked. This let the vinegar work on softening the leaves and took out the extra salt. I added the remaining ingredients right before serving, added most of the dressing and tossed again. It worked perfectly. 

  
I am definitely adding Two Peas and Their Pod to my recipe searches. This salad was incredibly good and while my pictures aren’t nearly as pretty, the taste and texture was fantastic. I also followed the candied pecan recipe for the nuts in the salad and they may be Bob’s new favorite snack. 

I lov a good, gooy Mac n’ cheese. The warm pasta, the melted cheese, the crunch of breadcrumbs on top. It’s comfort food at its finest. Except when it doesn’t work right. Don’t get me wrong, even not great mac n’ cheese is good, but this batch wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.

  
I’ve always made my Mac n’ cheese with a roux base. The toasted flour gives a great nuttiness to the dish, but while talking to Louise at our local cheese shop she mentioned they had recently switched to a cornstarch version. Apparently it gave a lighter texture to the Mac n’ cheese than the roux bad. So I scoured recipes on line and found a few different versions. 

  
I didn’t pick a recipe to follow, but I did use one aspect of a few of the recipes to try – toss the shredded cheese in cornstarch before adding it to the milk. This should keep the cheese from becoming stringy. So … One pound of traditional elbow macaroni (Bob’s request), two cups milk, about three cups shredded cheese and some seasonings. Everything looked pretty perfect going into the final stage – baking. Lots of sauce, good flavor and cooked, but not over cooked pasta. I was so excited.

  
But … I needed more sauce. Or to not bake the macaroni. Something. The flavor was fine, but it was like the cheese disappeared. It just soaked into the pasta and the dish didn’t have the creamy oozy consistency you want from comfort food. I’m pretty sure I need to double the sauce – or add another cup of milk and another cup of cheese at the very least. I will go back to the traditional roux version, but will keep the cheese coated in cornstarch. I will probably skip the baking step next time too – I love the crunch the baking gives it, but I would prefer the creamy texture to the crunch. 

All in all it was pretty good, and I know what to change for next time. 

I will be the first person to admit that I haven’t been terribally creative in the kitchen lately. I’ve relied on old favorites and our Hello Fresh boxes to feed Bob and I. Neither one of us is complaining, but I just haven’t made any thing interesting in a while. This weekend, after a marathon of The Great British Bakeoff (which had its name changed for US television to The Great British Baking Show for some odd reason) and with it finally feeling like fall I found some inspiration. 

I have a few heavier, comfort food dishes planned for this week, so I decided to start with a lighter salad. But it is fall and that means some of the dark greens, like kale, are in season. I love the magic kale salad but also wanted something light, but packed with goodness. I also found a quinoa salad that looked good, but not exactly what I wanted. So I decided to take bits from each, combine them and experiment.

  
I started with making the quinoa. I used a sprouted rainbow quinoa since I wanted the color and that is what the grocery had. While that was cooking, I cleaned and chopped half a bunch of kale. I decided to not go for a full bunch since the quinoa would add some bulk to the salad. From there I chopped up a little bit of dried mango (a small handful total once chopped) and a handful each of walnuts and almonds. 

  
For the dressing I use basically the magic make dressing with a few changes – I dropped the balsamic to two tablespoons and added one tablespoon of sherry vinegar. I also used plain rice vinegar instead of seasoned and was generous with the salt and pepper. 

  
Once the quinoa was cooked, but still had some liquid in it, I added about a quarter of the dressing to the pot and mixed it in well. I let that finish soaking while I poured the rest of the dressing over the kale mix and tossed. I let that sit for thirty minutes then added about a cup of the quinoa, tossed again and refrigerated for another thirty minutes. No cheese, no lemon, no herbs for this salad. I figured if I needed to add them in later, I could. 

  
I loved this result and I didn’t miss the cheese, although I do love the creaminess it gives in the original magic kale salad. The sherry added the right note and the dried mango was a nice change from the cranberries I usually use. A good transition salad for summer to fall. 

  
Recipe:

• 1/2 bunch kale, chopped
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• ~1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• ~1/4 cup chopped almonds
• ~1/4 cup chopped, dried fruit
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the quinoa

Chopp the kale, dried fruit and nuts. Mix together in a bowl.

My  the remaining ingredients  to make the vinegrette. Once the quinoa comes off the heat, pour in about 1/4 of the vinegrette and mix well. Cover, off heat, until done.  Fluff with a fork. 

Mix the remaining vinegrette in the kale salad and toss to combine. Refrigerate for thirty minutes. Add the quinoa, toss again and refrigerate for another thirty minutes. Serve immediately.