Leek Fritters

A couple of weeks ago I caught this episode of Good Food with Evan Kleiman where she made these leek fritters I knew I had to try immediately. I only wish I could go around getting all my produce at the farmers market and then have a convenient area to cook right away. Instead, I usually have to haul my stuff on the ten minute walk home, but it's so worth it. These fritters are easy to make and very tasty. As you can see in the video, no measurements are given, but it is pretty easy to eyeball. They don't really need anything than a spritz of lemon juice, but I imagine a nice yogurt dipping sauce would be fantastic with these.


Leek Fritters
(From Good Food with Evan Kleiman)

2 leeks, washed and chopped
1 egg lightly beaten
1 slice of bread soaked in water and then
Freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
Breadcrumbs as needed

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the leeks. Cook until the leeks have softened and sunk to the bottom. Drain well and pat dry.

In a medium bowl, mix together the leeks, egg, soaked bread, and Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper and add breadcrumbs as needed until the mixture comes together.

In a large skillet, heat an inch of olive oil over medium high heat. Form the leek mixture into balls and pat down. Fry the patties for 3-4 minutes per side until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.

Printable Recipe

Green Beans with Lemon and Oil

I'm back! Hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I had a nice time with my mom and sister up in the Bay Area, and I spent part of Sunday cooking up this lovely feast. We had an early dinner that consisted of sizzling shrimp with garlic, halibut with tomatoes (an Esi creation that unfortunately, I didn't get a very good picture of), these green beans, and the chocolate Valentino which I managed NOT to screw up this time around. One of the best parts of this meal was that it was really delicious, but quite simple to put together. My new goal is to have all my mise en place because I think that was a critical element in me having dinner on the table in less than an hour. I really have to remember to practice that more in my cooking. Anyway, dinner was delicious if I do say so myself. There were lots of nice, fresh spring flavors and everything complemented each other well. I suppose since I didn't get a good picture of the halibut, I am just going to have to make it again so I can share it with you.



Green Beans with Lemon and Oil
(From Gourmet, March 2003)

Makes 4-6 servings

1 pound thin green beans such as haricot verts, trimmed
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, divided

Cook the beans in a large pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and immediately transfer to an ice bath to stop the cooking. Drain and pat dry.

Toss the beans with oil, salt, and pepper to taste then add the lemon juice and half the zest. Serve beans sprinkled with the remaining zest.

Printable Recipe

Happy Mother's Day

To all you wonderful mothers and to my own spectacular mother, Happy Mother's Day!!









(Image from Webweaver's Free Clip Art)

Edamame Hummus with Wonton Wrapper Chips

The other night when I got home from work, I was hungry, but not in the mood for a full meal. Since most of my recent meals are some combination of freezer finds and leftovers, I decided to stick with that theme for dinner. I kind of got lucky on this one. I had exactly the amount of edamame and lemon and it was a cinch to put it together so I could get down to the business of watching Gossip Girl. I loved the smooth hummus and the wonton chips were addictive. I misread the original recipe and added the oil to the hummus instead of the wonton chips, but it worked. I may decrease the amount next time though.

I'm flying up north tomorrow to celebrate my mom. Have a fantastic weekend and Happy Mother's day to all you fabulous mothers!



Many people shared concern over those affected by the Santa Barbara fire. If you would like to find out what you can do to help, please click here.


Edamame Hummus with Wonton Wrapper Chips
(From Not Eating Out in NY)

Makes 1 cup of edamame and 24 wonton chips

1 cup frozen edamame
Juice of half a lemon
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup water
12 square wonton wrappers, sliced in half diagonally to 24 triangles
Toasted sesame seeds (optional)
Salt
Cooking spray

To make the chips: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spay a baking sheet with cooking spray or lightly coat with oil. Place the wonton triangles in a single layer on top, and spray or brush the tops with more cooking spray or oil just so that each side is entirely moistened. Sprinkle with the optional sesame seeds if using. Bake for 5-8 minutes, or until the wonton wrappers have curled at the edges and are just lightly browned. Sprinkle with salt.

To make the edamame: Place the edamame in a steamer rack (or build a steamer by putting them inside a bowl; place the bowl inside a pot with 1-2 inches of water on the bottom and a lid to hold in the steam). Steam edamame for 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Combine edamame, lemon juice, garlic, oil and a sprinkle of salt in a blender or food processor and pulse several minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula occasionally. Add the water to help bring it to a smoother consistency as needed — adding more or less. Taste for seasoning.

SugarBomber

It's hot and windy. There is a fire 90 miles away that is blowing smoke and ash in my direction. I'm tired and totally cooked something and don't feel like talking about it.

So let me tell you about something cool that I am now a part of. Last week, CitySearch launched an extension of their website called SugarBomber. If you want to find interesting (and cheap) desserts in your area...or just browse and be jealous of what other cities get to experience, check it out. I am one of their Dictators and I wrote about this chocolate strawberry ding dong from Lemonade and soon it will be posting to the site. If you like desserts and are interested in becoming a Dictator also, click here.

I'll be back tomorrow with a recipe post. I promise.

Real Margaritas

How do you like your margaritas? I prefer them on the rocks with no salt. Also, I tend to favor drinks that are more tart than sweet. It's been a while since I have had a good margarita, mostly because I prefer wine over cocktails, but I found some tequila and triple sec in my freezer so in the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, I had some margaritas with my fajitas. The biggest effort came from juicing the limes. You need a few of them (5-6) to get that half cup of juice. It's so worth it though...none of that premade stuff! I only had gold tequila, but I would recommend using silver if you have it. Either way, they are really good and definitely reminiscent of my beloved kick-ass margaritas from Marix. They are also STRONG so watch out! In a last minute TWIST, I ended up going to Marix and having a wonderful evening with some close friends. It was a great night and I hope you enjoyed yours as well.



Real Margaritas
(Adapted from Ina Garten)

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup Triple Sec
1 cup tequila
1/2 cup club soda, or to taste

Mix the lime juice, lemon, triple sec and tequila. Add club soda to taste and serve over ice.

Chicken Fajitas with Slow Roasted Tomato Salsa

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! What do you guys do to celebrate the occasion? In college we used to just use the day as an excuse to drink all day (as if we really needed a reason). Now that I am responsible adult (please try not to laugh too hard), I just spend the day at work and maybe grab a few cocktails with friends. This year I don't have any plans, but I wanted to eat something festive over the weekend. I also found an almost full bottle of tequila and an almost full bottle of triple sec in my freezer. What goes better with margaritas than fajitas? At my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, Marix, we like to order our margaritas "kick ass" style and our fajitas with no peppers and the onions well done. This past Saturday after I was done volunteering, I made a pitcher of margs and these fajitas. They were so yummy and worth the time browning the onions and making tortillas. Homemade tortillas are so easy to make and taste so much better than the store bought variety. I encourage you to try them sometime. I had just a few slow roasted tomatoes left so I combined them with a few things to make a really delicious and spicy salsa. This was a most excellent way to use up leftover chicken.



Chicken Fajitas

Chicken, cut into strips
Caramelized onions (recipe follows)
Tortillas
Slow roasted tomato salsa (recipe follows)
Shredded cheese (optional)
Sour cream (optional)

Spread chicken and onion mixture over each tortillas. Top with the toppings of your choice.

Caramelized Onions
(Adapted from Simply Recipes)

1 1/2 onions, thinly sliced
Pinch sugar
Pinch salt
Extra-virgin olive oil

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add enough oil to cover the pan. Add the onions and stir to make sure they are all coated in oil. After 10 minutes, sprinkle the onions with salt and sugar and reduce the heat medium-low. Cook, stirring every few minutes for 30 minutes to 1 hour until the onions are rich and brown.

Slow Roasted Tomato Salsa

6-8 slow roasted tomato halves, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
Juice from 1/2 lime
1 jalapeno, seeded if desired and chopped
Kosher salt to taste

Mix everything and let sit 15 minutes to let the flavors come together.

Spring Chicken with Green Marinade

Since I am cooking with a tighter budget lately, one of the things I look for in a recipe is the adaptability of leftovers. Lemme be the one to tell ya. One chicken makes a whole lotta leftovers. Lucky for me, they are really delicious leftovers and can be used in many types of recipes so expect to see many chicken recipes from me this week. First up is the original recipe I used for this young chicken. It's a green, thick marinade made up of all kinds of fresh herbs and one of the best parts about it is that you can adapt the marinade to use whatever herbs you have on hand. For example, I didn't have fresh marjoram, but hottie salad boy at the FM informed me that majoram is basically the same as oregano except less pungent (smart, and deliciously cute...I should marry him!). Anyway, I didn't have fresh oregano on hand so I used a pinch of dried. In true to Esi form, I didn't measure anything so please take these measurements with a grain of salt. I will say that this marinade is very flavorful and makes a wonderful and juicy chicken. I still have to work on my butchering technique, but I think I have my marinade technique down. I served this with some roasted asparagus and a few lemon wedges and it was the perfect light dinner.



Spring Chicken with Green Marinade
(Adapted from Tom Douglas)

1 young chicken, cut into 8 pieces

For the marinade:
1/2 cup chopped scallion, white and green parts
3-4 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
About 1/4 cup olive oil, as needed, for browning the chicken
1/2 lemon, cut into wedges


Marinate the chicken 1 day ahead

Trim excess fat from the chicken pieces. Rinse them under cold running water, pat dry with paper towels, and place them in a nonreactive pan.

Combine the scallion, herbs, garlic, lemon zest, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth, gradually adding the oil last to emulsify. The marinade will be very thick, like a pesto. Pour the marinade over the chicken pieces and coat the pieces on both sides. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To cook the chicken, preheat the oven to 450°F. Heat 2 large sauté pans over medium-high heat with about 2 tablespoons of oil in each pan. If you don’t have 2 large sauté pans, brown the chicken in batches.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, reserving any excess marinade. Put the chicken pieces in the pans skin side down and sauté until the skin is nicely browned.

Turn and brown the other side, adjusting the heat between medium and medium-high as necessary so you don’t burn the chicken. When the chicken pieces are browned on both sides, 8 to 10 minutes total for each piece, transfer them to a roasting pan (my skillets are oven-safe so I roasted them in the pan).

Squeeze the lemon halves over the chicken and throw the lemon halves into the pan. Scrape any extra marinade into the roasting pan. Put the roasting pan in the oven and roast until the chicken is cooked, the juices run clear, and the thigh meat reads 175°F on an instant-read thermometer, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the oven.

Remove the chicken from the roasting pan and arrange on a platter. Whisk the pan juices to break up any clumps of the marinade and drizzle a little over the chicken. Pour the rest of the pan juices into a gravy boat, discarding the lemon halves, and pass with the chicken.

New Orleans BBQ Shrimp

This past weekend, I was supposed to have joined my friends in New Orleans for a bachelorette party and Jazz Fest. Unfortunately I was unable to join. I am sure my friends had an amazing time and my weekend ended up being not so depressing. Tony and I volunteered at Big Sunday (on Saturday) helping out with pet adoptions and I had some lovely cocktails and an amazing dinner (more on that later). To fuel myself for spending the day outdoors, I made this shrimp recipe. I pretended it was one of the things I could have been enjoying if I had actually made it to New Orleans this weekend. It's exactly the kind of food that I imagine my friends have been feasting on for the past few days. Rich and flavorful. Even with only one tablespoon of butter, I found this to be rich, but it is definitely worth it. There are some big flavors and they all work well together. Enjoy this with a nice hunk of bread and a glass of white wine with John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Albert Ayler (whose music reminds me of NOLA funeral marches) is playing in the background. You'll feel like you're in Cajun territory in no time.



New Orleans BBQ Shrimp
(Adapted from Food is Luv)

1/2 pound of raw shrimp, deveined and peeled with tails on
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon of butter
2-3 dashes paprika
Dash cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoons of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Drizzle a thin layer of olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium-high heat. When the skillet is hot, add the shrimp in a single layer and season with salt and pepper. as they begin turn pink, turn them over. when they turn opaque remove from the skillet and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium and saute the garlic, about 2 minutes. Add wine and cook until it reduces to about half. Add the butter, paprika, cayenne pepper, and Worcestershire sauce and stir well. when the butter is melted, toss the shrimp back into the skillet and mix well.

Top with parsley and serve with crusty bread for dipping.

Asparagus, Poached Egg, Prosciutto, and Fontina Cheese Sandwich

Yesterday's bread became today's sandwich. Doesn't it look delicious? It really was. Asparagus seems to be my vegetable of choice these days so when I came across this recipe is wasn't a question of how, but when. As I mentioned, I am going to be doing a bit more budget cooking in the next few weeks and you may see less posts, but one of the keys to keeping me going is my well-stocked pantry. I emptied out my freezer a bit, but I still had a package of prosciutto and since I always have things like eggs on hand, this didn't break the bank too much. Besides, anything to give a chance to practice my poaching skills is welcomed! I found the directions to be a little strange, but took the basic components and broke it down to what I have below. I actually liked that the cheese didn't cover the whole sandwich. The poached egg was really good with the slight garlicky flavor on the toast and there was just enough salty prosciutto to bring it all together. In the interest of saving a few calories and fat grams, I didn't drizzle the sandwich with extra oil, but I didn't feel that I missed anything. This would be an excellent addition to your weekend brunch.


Asparagus, Poached Egg, Prosciutto, and Fontina Cheese Sandwich
(Adapted from Nancy Silverton)

Makes 1 sandwich

4 stalks large asparagus, tough ends broken off
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 slice honey wheat bread (or whatever bread you have, the original recipe calls for sourdough)
1 garlic clove, peeled
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 large egg
3 ounces Fontina or Gruyere cheese, sliced into 4 1/8-inch-thick slices
1 slice prosciutto
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with foil and lay down the thyme sprigs. Toss the asparagus with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast 10-15 until tender, but still firm.

Rub one side of the bread with the garlic clove, and toast until lightly golden. Meanwhile, preheat the broiler

Arrange the asparagus over each slice of bread and place on a baking sheet.

In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil. Turn the heat down to just below a simmer and add the vinegar and a pinch of salt. Crack an egg into a small bowl to check that the yolk isn’t broken. Slowly stir the water in one direction to create a whirlpool effect. Once the whirlpool has slowed down a little, carefully slide the egg into the water against the side of the pan, following the current of the water as you pour the egg in, so that the white envelops the yolk. Poach the egg for 2 to 2½ minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks are runny. Carefully remove with a slotted spoon to a plate to drain. Cupping the eggs in your hand, tip the plate to pour off the excess water.

Place the egg centered over the asparagus. Drape a slice of Fontina cheese over each egg, and heat the sandwiches under the broiler for a minute or so, just until the cheese is melted.

Remove the sandwiches from the oven, and crumble the prosciutto over the sandwich. Drizzle a little olive oil over, sprinkle with pepper, and place a thyme sprig on each sandwich if desired.