Fish with garlic-almond-caper sauce

Sole with garlic-almond-caper sauce

From Eating Well

Ingredients

¼ cup flour

4 tablespoons sliced almonds, divided

1 egg white plus 1 tablespoon water

2 fillets of sole or flounder

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon thinly sliced garlic

½ tablespoon capers, rinsed

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Combine flour and 2 tablespoons almonds in a food processor until almonds are finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper. Place on a large plate.

Heat canola oil in large skillet until hot over medium high heat. Dip fish fillets in egg white wash. Dredge in almond flour mixture. Cook the fish about 4 minutes a side until golden brown and flaky. (This is the only cooking it gets, so cook it until it’s done). Remove to serving plate.

Add olive oil to skillet. Saute garlic and remaining almonds and cook on retained heat until fragrant. Add capers and lemon juice. Season with pepper. Serve sauce over fish.

Rating: Fine fast way to serve fish, with a nice sauce. The almonds give the fish some texture. Dave was highly in favor.

Blueberry bran muffins, no waiting

The original recipe was accompanied with a photo of pints of blueberries. I can kind of see why. They aren't the lookiest.

I found this recipe after originally intending to bake another. I’d bought wheat bran and fresh blueberries to make a recipe in the paper, only to read it more carefully and then bounce off. It was going to take up to 45 minutes of baking time for muffins (?!), and muffins that were reduced-sugar and bran-filled at that. I’ll wait 45 minutes in the morning only for something super delicious and decadent. But since I had an entire package of bran to use, I turned to the Internet, and the ever-reliable Ina Garten for this recipe, which bakes in a normal amount of time for muffins.

Blueberry bran muffins

Adapted from the Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients

1 cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon cinnamon

7 ounces Greek yogurt (I used a 5.3 ounce container of vanilla Greek yogurt and a heaping tablespoon of sour cream to make up the difference)

½ cup sugar

½ cup baking oil

½ cup honey

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2½ cup wheat bran

1½ cups fresh blueberries

Method

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners or butter the cups.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix yogurt, sugar, oil, honey, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in dry ingredients until just incorporated, then do the same with the wheat bran. Fold in blueberries.

Scoop batter into prepared muffin tin. (The recipe called for using a rounded 2¼ inch ice cream scoop, which I do not own. I can tell you that if you divide the batter evenly among 12 muffin cups, you will have muffin cups filled pretty much to the brim or a bit beyond, whichever measuring device you use.) Bake for 22 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the muffins are golden brown (although really, they’re bran muffins; they start out life golden brown). Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Rating: Definitely a good Sunday morning breakfast candidate. Eminently inhaleable, despite being bran muffins, and well worth waiting the limited amount of time for. While possibly more healthful than some other varieties, they don’t have that dry health-food taste. Dave scarfed four of them, which possibly defeats the healthy nature of them, but he’ll run it off. They’re fast to fix, and as an added bonus for the brain geeks out there, the recipe is super easy to remember with four dry ingredients that use a ½ teaspoon and two that go into the wet that use a ½ cup. I’ve got an apple-oatmeal coffeecake recipe like that; memorable recipes appeal to those of us who want to go on autopilot on a Sunday morning and not be slowed down by having to check a recipe. 

I appreciated something warm at breakfast, because we lost our spring overnight after a string of nice days. But I know spring is on the way sometime, and so are the birds. Check out this map of migrating humming birds.

Chicken with red-wine mushroom sauce and barley risotto

These recipes started life joined at the hip at the instigation of the cookbook. I suggest they be served separately with greater happiness. Certainly it was the best barley dish I'd ever tasted, and it shouldn't be buried under the red-wine sauce.

Chicken stewed with red wine and mushrooms

Adapted from “The Athlete’s Palate Cookbook,” in which a bunch of chefs come up with comparatively healthful meals designed to fuel athletes. I say relatively, because the stuff athletes can burn off is a different standard than I aspire to. Note that the chicken dish is a two-day affair.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground coriander

1/8 teaspoon ground salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of ground nutmeg

8 chicken thighs

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 leek, white part only, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups wild mushrooms, sliced

2 cups red wine

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 cup canned diced tomatoes

2 bay leaves

 ½ cups chicken stock

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley, divided

 

Method

Mix sugar, ginger, cinnamon, coriander, salt, pepper, cloves and nutmeg together. Rub into the chicken mixture. Refrigerate overnight.

Bring chicken to room temperature. Heat oil in a large deep skillet over medium heat until brown on both sides. Remove and set aside. Add onion, leek, garlic and mushrooms to the pot. Cook until vegetables are softened. Deglaze the pan with the wine, scrapping up the brown bits. Add tomato paste, tomatoes and bay leaves. Simmer until mixture has reduced by a quarter. Add chicken back to pot and pour in broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Remove lid and raise heat to medium high, cooking for another 15 minutes or until liquid has reduced to a sauce. Add half of the parsley to the sauce. Serve chicken with sauce and sprinkle with remaining parsley.

Rating: Tasty. The sugar-spice mixture treatment is intriguing, and has future possibilities.This is a Sunday night type of supper, given the lead time it takes from start to finish. I'd suggest serving it with polenta, unless you care about the health quotient, in which case quinoa or brown rice would do the trick. It needs something absorbent that's not too assertive.

Barley risotto

Adapted from “The Athlete’s Palate Cookbook”

 Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small carrot, diced

1 celery stalk, diced

2 tablespoons chopped onion

1 ¼ cups pearl barley

½ teaspoon chopped fresh sage

½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

½ teaspoon chopped fresh chives, plus 1 teaspoon for garnish, divided

4 to 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon butter

Method

Heat olive oil in saucepan. Add carrot, celery and onion. Saute over medium heat until softened. Stir in barley to coat. Add herbs. Heat 4 cups of broth and add enough to cover the barley. Stir frequently. Continue adding broth to cover when liquid is nearly absorbed, and continue frequent stirring. This can take quite some time, much longer than for regular risotto, about 45 to 50 minutes. Add additional broth if needed until barley is tender and creamy. Stir in Parmesan and butter. Serve topped with the fresh chives.

Rating:This was surprisingly tasty. I say surprisingly because I had kind of a bad attitude about this recipe going into it. I'd figured out from another barley risotto recipe I'd seen recently that we were looking at a fairly sizable time commitment, to which this recipe didn't allude. Plus, it called for stirring the risotto constantly, and really, if you're stirring one dish constantly for most of an hour, it better be the main dish, not the side dish. But it certainly didn't merit that kind of attention and turned out wonderfully creamy despite being barley and not being stirred relentlessly. I'd be willing to make it again, just keeping in mind that it's not a fast, fuss-free side dish.

 

Red quinoa pilaf and other red grain adventures

These days I’m seeing red everywhere: red quinoa, red rice, red lentils. They’re now the hot darlings instead of the redheaded stepchildren. But do they taste any better? Well, sometimes. And sometimes it’s just a more expensive way to buy something. But they do look pretty.

Cooked red rice has a nutty flavor and hefty texture

I like everything about red rice but the price. It’s got that nutty flavor that brown rice has, but it cooks in much less time and is less likely to try to boil over and make a mess of the stove. Nutrition-wise, it’s got lots going on, certainly a big step over the white variety, although slightly different from the brown-rice variety. A viable alternative to pretty up a recipe, if you can find it and stomach the price.

Uncooked, above, and cooked, top, red quinoa has the looks edge.

As for lentils, well sometimes you want green for the color, and sometimes you want red. For flavor, I kind of give the red a slight edge. Quinoa? I’m not sure I can tell that much difference flavorwise; the red I tried did seem to have a slightly better texture, but that might have been due as much to preparation method as its inherent nature.

Red harvest quinoa

Adapted from “Whole Grains: Easy Everyday Recipes” from Betty Crocker

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked quinoa (either red or white will do)

1 tablespoon butter

¼ cup chopped red onion

1/3 cup chopped celery

½ cup chopped apple

1½ cup stock

½ cup orange juice

½ cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Method

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add quinoa, red onion, celery and apple. Cook for five minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add stock and orange juice. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over medium low heat for 15 to 20 minutes until liquid is absorbed and quinoa is tender. Fluff with a fork.

Stir in cranberries, nuts, salt and Parmesan. Garnish with parsley. Serves 8 pathetically, 4 generously, and makes 6 company-size servings.

Rating: Tasty, with a nice texture and good mix of flavors. There’s enough chew factor to let you know you’re eating something, without being overbearingly grainy. Definitely repeatable. The red quinoa makes this prettier than I suspect it would be with regular quinoa (can I even believe that’s a thing?), but either would work flavorwise.