Yay, Friday!
How has your week been? Mine’s been up and down, but mostly up. I’m excited for the long weekend and am
glad that the sun is shining. We
don’t have any crazy plans, but I’d like to have an afternoon picnic, go for
ice cream, plant a few flowers, and chill the heck out. What about you? Any weekend
traveling plans?
Too many Fridays have passed since we last talked about
food. My apologies on that
one. To make up for it, I’m power posting three great spring recipes that are super easy and versatile.
Here we go:
COMPOST COOKIES
Some people call these “Kitchen Sink Cookies” but I sort of
like the word “compost” because that is essentially what the batter, and
sometimes the cookies, look like.
If you’ve ever lived with Tory or stayed with her during a
training camp, it is likely that you have had compost cookies. She’s so good at them.
Before leaving Florida, I decided to clean out the shelves
this way instead of packing up my leftover baking ingredients or throwing them
out. Luckily Em and I had an
eight-hour road trip the following day to deal with them all.
Compost cookies are exactly what they sound like. They are fast, easy, last minute,
throw-whatever-you-have-in-your-pantry-in-a-bowl cookies. And they are delicious.
But seriously, put anything you want in them – that’s the whole point.
Road Trip Compost Cookies
1 ½ stick butter
1 ½ cups sugar
1 large egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
¼ cup cocoa
1/3 cup oats
2/3 cups shredded coconut
¾ cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
Preheat oven to 375.
In a large bowl cream butter and sugar and then add the egg
and beat until smooth.
Add vanilla, honey, and maple syrup and stir until combined.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, soda, salt, cocoa, and
oats.
Gradually mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
Add coconut, chocolate chips, and sunflower seeds and stir
until uniform.
Bake 13-15 minutes.
CARROT RISOTTO
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| via heatherchristocooks.com |
The risotto is a teeny bit more labor intensive, but it’s
worth every minute. Not to
mention, it made our whole apartment smell delicious. We had it with turkey meatballs and homemade tomato sauce,
but it would pair well with just about anything; chicken, fish, steak, tofu,
you name it.
Another great thing about this recipe is that it calls for a
cup of white wine. I mean if
you’re going to open the bottle .. you might as well have a glass while you
cook.
Also, the pictures from the blog are far more appetizing
than mine. Don’t be discouraged if
your food doesn’t look beautiful all the time. It still tastes good, I promise.
Carrot Risotto
6 cups chicken stock
3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, small diced
2 cups grated carrots
1 ½ cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
1 tbsp fresh mint, finely juienned
1 tbsp fresh chives, minced
Kosher salt
In a medium saucepan, bring chicken stock to a
simmer.
Meanwhile, melt the butter and the olive oil together
in a large sauté pan.
Add the onion and sweat until tender over medium-low
heat, about 5 minutes.
Add the Carrots to the onions, and sweat another 2 minutes.
Add the Arborio rice and cook with the onions and carrots
until the rice is translucent on the outside, and opaque in the center- about 3
minutes.
Add the cup of white wine, and using a wooden spoon, stir
and stir, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pan.
This is where you begin to add the chicken stock, a cup at a
time, to the risotto. (It works best if you have the two simmering pans right
next to each other.)
Just keep stirring. As the stock is cooked into the rice and
it begins to dry out, ladle more in.
Just keep ladling stock in and stirring until the stock is
gone and the rice is tender. This usually takes about 20 minutes.
When the rice is tender, remove the risotto from the
heat.
Stir in the cheese and then season to taste with Kosher
salt.
Add the mint and the chives and stir well.
Dish up with a garnish of shredded parmesan and a sprinkle
of herbs. Serve hot.
PERFECT BRUNCH POTATOES
These puppies came out on Mother’s Day and they are pretty much
my new favorite brunch item. The
recipe is from the May edition of
Canadian Living and is actually called
“Roasted Accordion New Potatoes”.
They were amazing with eggs and bacon, but would be great
with roasted chicken or just about any kind of savory meal. I am 100% making them again.
Roasted Accordion New Potatoes
24 mini yellow potatoes, roughly 2lb, scrubbed
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
In a saucepan, cover potatoes with cold salted water and
bring to a boil. Reduce heat to
med-high for about 10 mins (until the tip of a knife can easily pierce the skin
of the potato).
Drain and let cool to room temperature.
- make
ahead – can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 24 hrs
Using a sharp knife and without cutting all the way through,
cut ¼ inch thick slices crosswise across each potato, leaving bottom intact.
- if
you’re having trouble keeping the cuts uniform, you can place the potato
on top of two skewer sticks to keep it in place and give you a stopping
point. I started this way,
but found that I could go faster without it. The real trick to just to have a really sharp knife!
Toss with butter, thyme, oil, salt and pepper.
Bake, cut side up, on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet
in bottom third of 350 degree oven until golden and shriveled. Roughly 1 hour.
*FYI - I totally forgot to pick up thyme at the grocery store, so I improvised with dried rosemary and sage. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
I think that about covers my food adventures of late. What have you been cooking up?
Have a wonderful, sunny and relaxing
long weekend if you're at home, and if you happen to be in Europe racing at a Canoe/Kayak World Cup event .. then good luck!
