Bouchons au Thon

I spent Friday night staying up way too late reading the best book. It's called A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg (writer of the Orangette blog).

This girl can write. And she can cook and bake. If I wasn't totally a fan before from her blog (I was), I totally am now after reading her book. Now I can't stop reading old posts from her blog! This is how I discovered that on one of her old posts dated Sept 22, she mentions that her birthday was 8 days ago....that would make her birthday Sept 14, 1978...exactly the same day I was born. That's weird, right? Anyways, I loved her book and had to make Bouchons au Thon after reading about them.

Molly describes Bouchons au Thon as tasting "like what I imagined France itself would taste like, if it were small enough to fit in my mouth." You can read about them and see the recipe here (this post is nearly identical to the chapter in her book).

These are baked "tuna cupcakes" made with canned tuna and gruyere cheese. I served them with MORE radishes, fresh spinach, and sunflower seeds sprinkled with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Bon appetit!

Homemade Larabars

Have you tried a Larabar yet? They're supposedly all the rage with health nuts on the east coast. Larabars have about three to six ingredients (and you can pronounce all of them) depending on the flavor, and are all natural, raw, unprocessed, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, vegan, and kosher.

There are lots of websites out there that have homemade Larabar recipes so I decided to try my own - almond coconut flavor. Very delicious and it took me less than 10 minutes to make the batch. Will definitely be doing this again!

Homemade Almond Coconut Larabars

12 oz container of pitted organic Medjool dates (about 12-15 dates)

1 cup chopped raw almonds (approx - see note below)

1 cup unsweetened coconut (approx - see note below)

Chop the almonds in a food processor and put in bowl with coconut. Pulse dates in food processor until totally chopped. Wet hands and add dates to almonds and coconut until well-mixed. Line loaf pan with saran wrap and spray lightly with oil. Again, with wet hands to avoid sticking, press mixture into pan and refridgerate to set. Cut into desired size pieces.

I have found that I can make this into 12 small square bars and it's filling enough for breakfast with coffee (that's half of the bar in the picture above).

Note: I don't measure very often so I hope all 3 or 4 of my readers aren't trying to follow these recipes exactly. I think it was about a cup of each but it could be a bit less of each. If you're going to try this at home, start with less and add more until you get the desired consistency.

Raising the Bar

How do you improve upon perfection? In this case, it's focusing on quality of ingredients.

My mind has been very preoccupied with the radish appetizer I made Thursday night for my spring dinner menu. Today I took it to a whole new level and turned it into lunch.

In a couple of short stops today at the amazing Mill City Farmer's Market and the incredible Seward Co-Op, I was able to procure certified naturally grown radishes from Burning River Farm, creamy chevre from Stickney Hill Dairy in central MN, and nutty hearty multigrain bread from Rustica Bakery.


Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone tell you that the quality of ingredients doesn't matter. From these few ingredients I was able to make one of the best lunches I've ever had. The radishes aren't bitter at all, they are almost sweet and when I sliced them on my mandoline they oozed out a little milky moisture showing how fresh they are. I cut the bread thick so the sandwich would be substantial enough for a meal and it's chewy texture was the perfect match for the crunch of the radish and the smooth creaminess of the chevre. Speaking of the chevre, it was so good I didn't even bother adding herbs or lemon juice as I usually do with goat cheese. I did add some snipped chives for color but I realized I had forgotten salt and pepper after I had eaten half my sandwich. It didn't even need it. That's how good these ingredients are.



Meals like this make me daydream that I live in Europe, I like to think that this is how they eat every day. I'm looking forward to continuing this local and seasonal trend as the summer of 2009 progresses...green and lean all the way!

Spring Dinner Party

The best and tastiest way to be green and lean is to eat seasonal foods. I wanted my spring dinner party to highlight the best of spring's fruits and veggies.


First up: a simple, elegant, and beautiful radish appetizer. This is my new favorite warm weather lunch. Take a sliced baguette, spread on a layer of any soft cheese (cream cheese, boursin or alouette brand soft cheese, or my favorite herbed goat cheese), add thinly sliced radishes, and sprinkle with chives, salt, and pepper.



Main course: sauteed spring veggies (asparagus, snap peas, and shallot) and sesame seed coated scallops. This looks beautiful, but unfortunately I oversalted the dish and it was nearly inedible. I almost didn't want to post this because I only want to post good-tasting meals, but I think if it were prepared correctly, this would be really great.



Dessert: vanilla bean ice cream topped with roasted rhubarb. To roast the rhubarb, toss it in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes with the juice of an orange or lemon, 3-4 tablespoons sugar, and 2 vanilla beans. Also goes great with greek yogurt for breakfast with a steaming hot cup of super dark coffee.

Cran-Feta Turkey Burgers

I'm jonesing for nothing but bad, bad foods lately. I swear I nearly put a frozen pizza in the oven last night. Which would have been a disaster because I'm terrible at portion control when it comes to pizza. But I'm getting pretty darn good at making healthier substitutions.

So for my pizza craving, I used a multi-gran FlatOut and topped it with lettuce pesto, sliced tomato, fresh mozzarella, and kalamata olives. Much tastier AND leaner than a nasty frozen pizza!

Tonight the craving was for nachos. Or really anything crunchy and salty. After some thought, I made a batch of edamole. Perfect.

For my entree, I made my all-time favorite burgers - cran/feta turkey burgers. They were sweet from the cranberries, salty and tangy from the feta, moist from the onion, and all around fantastic. They taste like junk food, but really there's nothing too bad in them! I'm not going to pretend this is any kind of elegant picture or meal, cause it's not at all! But it hit the spot big time.

Cran-Feta Turkey Burgers

1 pound ground lean white meat turkey

1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped

handful crumbled feta cheese

1/4 yellow onion, grated

Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together, form into 4 patties, grill a few minutes on each side until cooked through.

Freezer Dinner - Succotash

Something about the warm weather makes me feel the intense need to cram as many colors as possible onto my plate.

On this lazy, hazy Memorial Day I spent two hours trying to decide if I wanted to make anything for dinner or if I wanted ice cream instead. It's truly a testament to the amazing powers of this blog that I actually preferred to make dinner, and a lean one at that! It's always fun to make a healthy and tasty meal without having to go grocery shopping.

I had one goal for my succotash, I wanted it charred and crisp/tender, not soft. So they key was a screaming hot skillet, very little oil, and absolutely no salt until the end. I learned from the Food Network that adding salt softens everything and draws out the water. That's not what I was going for here - so ix-nay on the alt-say.

The other key to this dish is lima beans, and I used frozen ones. Lima beans are fat-free, low calorie, and high in fiber and protein. The bag also tells me they are an excellent source of vitamin C - who knew? I just like them because they're big and kind of meaty.

Succotash

red onion, diced

red bell pepper, diced

1/2 bag frozen corn

1/2 bag frozen lima beans

salt and pepper

red wine vinegar

good quality feta cheese

paprika

Crank the heat on the stove and let your pan heat up. Add a tiny splash of olive oil and the onion. Cook until you see a nice char on the onion, then add the red pepper, corn, and lima beans. These will also start to char, or at least heat through (depending on how much ice is on the frozen veggies/beans it may be too watery to char anything else). Add salt and pepper to taste and a splash of red wine vinegar to deglaze the pan. Top with crumbled feta and a dusting of paprika for more color and spice.

Guest Blogger - Colin

Here is another guest blog entry, with "chef's notes" from the man himself. Enjoy! -A

On the Arctic Char: This is the tastiest damn fish on the planet. I grilled it on a cedar plank, because it's yummy that way. The fish was topped with coarse sea salt, pepper, Hungarian paprika, dried oregano, and lemon juice. That is all you need know.

On the clams: First I sweated some shallots and fennel in olive oil. I've never cooked with fennel before, but it seemed like it would work. Add white wine, bring to a boil, then devour the tasty bivalves right quick.

On the bruschetta salad: Roma and cherry tomatoes, lots 'o basil, half a bulb of garlic, 3-4 tablespoons of capers, roasted red peppers, red pepper and pepper --with diced fresh mozzarella thrown in. And... yummy.