Mozzarella pesto red pepper panini with pesto, sun-dried tomato bean soup

 Pandemic pesto. That's what happens when you can't get your usual supply of herb plants early in the season in the middle of a pandemic, so you just combine whatever is in need of trimming that week and make pesto.

I've always made a variety of pesto types, mostly based around one herb type, or at most a combination of two. But necessity led me to discover that basil, dill, parsley and a small amount of volunteer coriander yield a spectacular pesto. It varied a bit each time, but it was always so tasty.

Whatever we didn't go through in a week went into a small container in the freezer. As we slog through winter and I dip further into the freezer reserves, it was time for this pestolicious meal.

 

Pressed mozzarella sandwiches
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Everyday Food November 2003

Ingredients
Sliced country style bread
Fresh mozzarella, sliced ⅜-inch thick (an 8-ounce ball yields about enough for 2 sandwiches
Roasted red peppers, drained and sliced in strips (figure about half a pepper per sandwich
Pesto or tapenade (½ tablespoon or so per sandwich)

Method
Lightly oil one side of each bread slice. Place oil side down on a plate. Spread a single layer of mozzarella on the bottom bread slice. Top with pesto, then red peppers, then another layer of mozzarella. Top with remaining bread slice, oil-side up. Heat in a panini press until cheese has melted. (Lacking a panini press, you can cook sandwiches in a skillet, weighing down the top with a smaller skillet and then flipping over to brown the other side.)

Rating: Fast, tasty, very repeatable. Amazing what a half tablespoon of really good pesto can do for a sandwich.

 

Bean, sun-dried tomato and pesto soup
From the "Cook’s Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking" by Joanna Farrow. If you're only using four ingredients in a recipe, it's best if each one of them pulls their weight. But in this recipe, the pesto pretty much does the talking.

Ingredients
2 cans cannellini or other white beans
3 ¾ cup broth
4 tablespoons sun-dried tomato paste
3 tablespoons pesto

Method
Put beans, broth, tomato paste and pesto into a medium sauce pan and heat through. Transfer 6 ladles’ worth of broth/beans into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Return to pot and cook until warmed through.

Rating: If you've got a really good pesto, you'll have a good, quick-fix soup that's pantry friendly. I probably wouldn't serve it to company just because it's not the lookiest soup, but it's flavorful. It's got a good blend of chunky beans and creaminess from the pureed beans. Pairs perfectly with the panini.

Note: If you don't have a tube of sun-dried tomato paste on hand, you can make your own with drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

Greek vegetable soup

 

No, I have no idea if this is authentically Greek, but the author of the cookbook is, so it's possible. If you're in the market for a substantial soup without resorting to meat, this might work for you.

Greek Vegetable Soup

From “Eating the Greek Way” by Dr. Fedon Alexander Lindberg

Ingredients
¼ cup olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 cups shredded green cabbage
3 carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed
6 cups broth
1 15-ounce can chopped tomatoes
¼ cup fresh parsley
¼ cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over low heat. Add onions and garlic, cover, and let cook until soft but not brown, about 10 minutes. Add the cabbage, recover and cook for another 5 minutes. Add carrots, celery and chickpeas and cook for another 5 minutes or until vegetables are starting to soften.

Add broth, increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add tomatoes and a bit of salt and pepper. Simmer for another 20 minutes.

(If you’re making this ahead, go ahead and store it at this point before reheating later.)

Right before serving, stir in parsley. Top bowls of soup with feta. Serves 10.

Rating: Perfectly fine, and filling, which is handy for days like today when you decide that really, the logical solution is to don the third hoodie. It didn't blow me away, flavor-wise, so on reheating it over a period of days, I tried doctoring it a bit. Red wine vinegar didn't really move the needle. Dried marjoram helped a bit. The thing that finally made it really tasty is when I added a bit of bacon fat, which really defeats the recipe author's point. But when it's just so cold, you need a nice warm bowl of really tasty soup for lunch. And a third hoodie.

Goat cheese-stuffed chicken breasts, two ways

 

I had stocked up on goat cheese before Christmas, but a few plans fell through, so I was left with inventory to redeploy. I decided to try a new recipe, the version with mushroom sauce, which then led me to haul out a former stand-by recipe from back before boneless, skinless breasts became nearly mandated in culinary circles. 

This one would make a perfectly admirable Valentine's dinner entree, especially since you can do the bulk of the prep work ahead.

Chicken breasts with goat cheese and rosemary

From Bon Appetit, December 1995, a recipe attributed to Dave Tyson of Kingston, Wash.

Ingredients
2 teaspoons butter, divided
2 tablespooons chopped shallots
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
3 ounces soft goat cheese
½ teaspoon pepper
2 large chicken breast halves with skin and bones

Method
Preheat oven to 425. Melt 1 teaspoon butter in a small skillet over medium low heat. Add shallots and rosemary and sauté until shallots are tender. Remove from heat. Stir in goat cheese and pepper, and season to taste with salt.

Loosen chicken breast skin enough to create a cavity. Stuff each breast with half of goat cheese mixture. Seal edges of skin down with toothpicks.

Rub remaining teaspoon of butter over chicken skin. (At this point, you can refrigerate chicken for a day before proceeding if you’re trying to make this ahead.)

Arrange chicken on baking sheet or roasting pan. Bake in preheated 425 degree oven until cooked through, about 25-30 minutes. Serves 2.

Rating: Tasty, fast to fix, advance prep option. No wonder it used to be an easy go-to party entree from back when I did that kind of thing.That goat cheese stuffing? I was reminded how amazingly good that stuff is. I'm pretty sure that's going to have to be made on its own and smeared on some crostini very soon.

 

Chicken breast with herbed goat cheese and wild mushroom sauce

Adapted from the “Sexy Forever Recipe Bible” by Suzanne Somers. Any source of a plausible recipe is fine.

Ingredients
3 ounces goat cheese
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
2 teaspoons fresh marjoram leaves, or ½ teaspoon dried
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves or ½ teaspoon dried, plus leaves from 2 sprigs, divided
2 chicken breasts with breastbone removed, skin on
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 clove garlic, thickly sliced
1 cup fresh wild mushrooms
¼ cup white wine
½ cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter

Method
Mix goat cheese with parsley, marjoram and 2 teaspoons thyme leaves. Pull back an edge of chicken skin to form a pocket. Stuff half of goat cheese mixture under skin and smooth back down. Season chicken skin with salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat olive oil in an ovenproof skillet. Brown chicken skin side down over medium high heat. Flip chicken over and brown the other side for about 3 minutes. Put pan in oven and roast for 10 to 12 minutes until cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add mushrooms and leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme. Sauté until mushrooms are golden brown. Add wine to deglaze the pan and cook until reduced by half. Add chicken broth and cook until reduced by half. (This took longer than I expected, so plan accordingly.) Whisk in butter. Season with salt and pepper. Serve sauce over chicken.

Rating: Separately, the sauce and the chicken are fine, although I give the edge to the first stuffed chicken recipe from Bon Appetit. The sauce has merit as a quick mushroom sauce -- on something else. The two just didn't seem to go together, somehow. They were fine, but  the chicken didn't really need a sauce, and if it did, it needed a different one, preferably without mushrooms. So a fine enough meal, but I'll stick with the top recipe.

 

 

Cumin chicken breasts with guacamole sauce, baked cilantro lime rice and frijoles charros

 

The dishes in this meal worked fabulously together, when they finally came together. The chicken and sauce are a pretty fast fix. The rice isn't too cumbersome. The beans, however, I should have started at least a couple of hours earlier, as they took far longer than the recipe indicated to sauce up, so we wound up eating on the installment plan.

But with that caveat in mind, I would definitely make this combo pack again. I'd just start the beans at 2 instead of 4 p.m.

And next time I hope to have on hand the Angry Calabrian mix from ie, which would pair perfectly.

 

 

Cumin-dusted chicken breasts with guacamole sauce

Adapted from Cooking Light, January 2007

Ingredients
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1¼ teaspoon ground cumin, divided
¾ teaspoon salt, divided
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ tablespoon olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ cup chopped green onion
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro (or you could use parsley)
¼ cup sour cream
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 ripe peeled avocado, seeded and mashed

Method
Preheat oven to 400. Combine sugar, 1 teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper in a small bowl. Sprinkle evenly over chicken.

Heat a large, oven-proof skillet over medium high heat. Drizzle in olive oil. Brown chicken on both sides. Place pan in oven and bake for 10 minutes until done.

While chicken bakes, combine green onion, cilantro, sour cream, lime juice, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon cumin, cayenne pepper and mashed avocado in a bowl.

Serve chicken topped with sauce.

Rating: That sauce is super awesome, a crack-like substance that I'm sure could have other uses. The method of cooking the chicken is super easy, fast and yields nice results. If you have a Greenpan, cleanup is a breeze despite what that pan looks like.

 

Baked cilantro lime rice

Adapted from Love and Lemons

Ingredients
1 cup long grain rice
2 cups water
¼ cup butter
1 teaspoon table salt
2 green onions, chopped
Zest of 1 medium lime
½ teaspoon sea salt
1½ tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons olive oil
½ cup finely chopped cilantro
⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Method
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place rice and salt in a 2 quart baking dish, preferably one with a tight-fitting lid, although you can wrap it in tin foil if need be. Bring 2 cups water and ¼ cup butter to a boil. Pour over rice, cover and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until rice is tender and water has been absorbed.

Uncover rice and fluff with a fork. Stir in garlic, green onions and lime zest. Add sea salt, lime juice, olive oil, cilantro and crushed red pepper and stir to combine. 

Rating: Nice. A good complement to the rest of the meal that holds its own. Baking it in the oven frees up some of the cook's attention for tending to the chicken and beans.

 

Frijoles charros

Adapted from Serious Eats

Ingredients
1 pounds dried pinto beans
12 ounces bacon, cut up into small pieces
1 large white onion, diced
1 jalapeño pepper or 2 serrano chilies
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 (14-ounce) cans fire-roasted tomatoes
6 cups broth
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 springs epazote (optional; I didn’t have it so I didn’t use it)
Cilantro for garnish

Method
Soak beans in a large bowl overnight covered by at least two inches of water. Drain and rinse.

Heat bacon in a really large Dutch oven over medium heat until fat is rendered and bacon is starting to brown. Add onion and pepper and cook, stirring often until onion is softened. Add garlic and cook briefly until fragrant.

Add tomatoes to pot, scraping up frond on the bottom of the pan. Add beans, broth, bay leaves, epazote if using, and salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a level that lets you maintain a simmer. Cover and cook until beans are just tender, about 45 minutes to an hour. Uncover and continue cooking, stirring as needed, until beans are creamy and liquid has thickened. This will take approximately forever, at least 1 hour, but it could be 2 or more depending on how much heat you want to apply and how quickly. Discard bay leaves and stir in cilantro.

Rating: Other than the longer-than-expected cooking time, these really weren't much trouble, and they combination of heat and smoky bacon flavor is quite tasty. You can always make them ahead and reheat them, which I did on a weeknight with some fast chicken tinga tacos. 

(I noticed in the comments on Serious Eats that some people never got the pinto beans to tenderize. I let them soak a good 12 hours and they actually softened in that first hour of cooking, so I was pleasantly surprised by that part; achieving sauce consistency took much longer; otherwise I was faced with what would probably have been a pretty tasty soup, now that I think about it.)