Crisp Panfried Potatoes (Home Fries)

 

Home fries are one of my favorite things to make on breakfast night.  Above is a picture of two different types of new potatoes bought at the farmer's market over the last couple of weeks.  They were delicious.   They do require patience, and even though the recipe calls for peanut oil I have used vegetable oil on several (if not every) occasion.

Here is the full recipe.

HTCE pg.341-342

The HTCEV version has even more variations then big red!

Fresh Tomato (or Fruit) Salsa

I always argue with myself over writing a post with no picture or posting the bad picture that I do have.  As you can see above, the later option won.  My husband loves this fresh salsa and asks for it every time we have any dish of the mexican variety.  In the picture above I do not have any cilantro, but that is one of our favorite ingredients.  I would suggest making this ahead of time if you can so that the flavors have a chance to meld together.

HTCE p.23
Full Recipe

Braised Chard with Olive Oil and Rice

Let me start off by saying I don't care for greens.  My husband is a veggie-vore and loves anything green, but I just have a hard time getting past the often bitter taste.  Well, this recipe was a winner!  A truly great starter recipe for those of us who don't like the pungent taste of greens.  My three year old asked for seconds and my 14 month old gobbled all her's up!

The only reason I'm even cooking greens is because we joined a CSA this year.  Colvin Family Farms to be specific.  This week in our box we got a whole bunch of rainbow swiss chard.  Now, I've never eaten or cooked chard before but I knew where I could get a recipe, my good old red friend, HTCE. 

 

You'll want to start off this recipe by washing your chard well and shaking it off in the sink before wrapping it up in a kitchen towel to dry off a bit.  The recipe instructs you to cut out the ribs, but I learned long ago from Rachel Ray that is never necessary!  Just hold the dark green by the stem and make your other hand into a claw.  Use your claw hand to strip the leave from the stem.  Voila!  No cutting stems out of individual leaves!

Now, line up all those beautiful stems, give them a trim and then chop away.  I hear you can use the stems like celery in other dishes if you just want to use the leaves for another recipe.

Frying the stems in olive oil with carrots is a key step!  The carrots in the finished dish have great texture.  We served our rice next to fish sticks:

HTCE p.285
Full Recipe
Nutrition: 4 servings, 217 calories, 18.3g fat, 13.3g carbs, 3g protien

Applesauce

HTCEV p. 419

Recipe: Applesauce

Rating: ***

Making applesauce is something I never thought I would try. Two simple things inspired me to do it:

1. The fact that my sister and I made jam ourselves. If nothing else, that experience has gotten me really questioning what I can make myself and why I choose not to.

2. I had a bunch of apples that I wasn't eating. They were sitting in my hanging basket, threatening to begin to rot any day now.

3. (reason to do it once I was inspired) Mark Bittman had some amazing suggestions of things to add to applesauce. After thinking that I may do it, I read the list and was totally on board. Cayenne in applesauce? Consider my interest peaked.

Behold: The makings for applesauce!

I only had five apples and the recipe calls for five pounds. But the recipe is just apples and water so I didn't think it would be that big of a deal. I also had to peel them all by hand since I don't have a food mill. Not having a job and having a fairly slow afternoon ahead of me, this task wasn't really daunting. Besides, I found my pairing knife and wanted to try it out.

Not much to say about this recipe besides that it could not be easier. Since I made half and am now looking at about three servings, I do wish I had more apples and had doubled or tripled the recipe and taking on canning with it. There's always next time.

My comments on this recipe is that the final product wasn't very saucy. I put the amount of water recommended and in the end I got something more of the texture of mashed potatoes. Nothing wrong with that and maybe with a food processor it would have been better. Still, it's something I would make again.

Carmelized Onions

This recipe is a perfect example of how when I think I know how to cook something, really Mark does it a little bit better. When caramelizing onions I usually add the oil or butter at the beginning and then they take FOREVER to cook. Well, enter Bittman. He cooks his onions in a dry pan for 20 minutes before adding the oil just so that they don't stick to the bottom. I only did one onion tonight and I was ready to add the oil in just under 15 minutes. Result? They were delicious!! 15 minutes still might seem like a lot, but if you start them first by the time you get the rest of your dinner together (tonight it was hot dogs in the grill pan with frozen peas) they will be ready.

HTCE p.325
HTCEV p.329
Full Recipe 

Grilled Nut Butter and Banana Sandwich

Today I was looking for a mid-afternoon snack and I wondered if Bittman ever used Nutella in any of his recipes. I didn't find any Nutella recipes, but I did find this wonderful suggestion: Grilled Nut Butter and Banana Sandwich. This recipe is found in a table called "7 Other Grilled Sandwiches" and it follows the Grilled Cheese recipe. I used normal sandwich bread and Nutella as the nut butter. I also added marshmallows for some extra goodness. The result? Pure goodness. The marshmallows were melted and the bananas and Nutella were warm and delicious! The next time I don't have time to make crepes but I want a sweet snack, I will think of this sandwich.

I never would have thought of grilling my stand-by peanut butter banana sandwich, but after reading this suggestion I can't wait to try it. Adding chocolate chips and marshmallows to that sandwich sounds great too!

Even though I'm not typing out the recipe I'm going to label this as a "full recipe" because if you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich then you can make this sandwich.

HTCE p.167
HTCEV p.734

Fast Tomato Sauce, with or without Pasta

I love this recipe!! I even wrote a whole post about it on my "Favorite Things" blog. The only change (as you can see in the post) that I make to this simple recipe is that I add garlic and red pepper flakes at the beginning and then Italian seasoning at the end (instead of the fresh herbs). I also usually add meatballs (as you can see from the picture) to satisfy my meat-eater husband. Once you eat this homemade sauce you will never buy Ragu again!

To make this a pot-luck worthy dish make the recipe with a pound of pasta as the recipe indicates. Toss the pasta and the sauce in a 13x9 dish and top with shredded mozzarella. Place the entire dish into a 350 degree oven until the cheese melts. This dish looks as good as it tastes!

I have yet to try any of the 20 variations that Mark lists because I love the basic recipe so much. Maybe one day I'll read how to make this great recipe better and try one of them out. Until then I'll enjoy this sauce on pizza, pasta, chicken parmigiana, etc.

HTCE p.502
HTCEV p.445 

Basic Wild Rice Variation: Wild Rice with Chestnuts

This is one I tried for Thanksgiving and it was a total flop! It was fun to roast the chestnuts and get them out of their shells (something I'd never done before) but the rice didn't cook all the way. Maybe I should have tried the easier way to cook rice, but I was going for fancy. This one called for vegetable stock instead of water and told me to check the rice mid-way through cooking. Now I may be one of those people who never cooks rice on the stove, but I know you're not supposed to lift the lid! So I lifted, the rice wasn't done, wasn't hot enough, I added more broth and boiled it too much so the bottom burt and I had already added the chestnuts so they turned to mush.

It was good so I would probably want to try again, but I may just use my rice cooker this time. :)

HTCEV p. 567
HTCE p. 494

Potato Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

 

This is the potato salad without eggs (because frankly I forgot to add them). 

My husband is not a fan of mayonnaise based salads and since I love potato salad (and frankly all things potato) this created a problem in our marriage. Enter Bittman and this wonderfully flavorful potato salad that does not include mayo. This salad instead uses the mustard vinaigrette from page 201 (HTCEV p.763) and it is so good! The best part is that it does not require refrigeration and you could bring it to a picnic and not worry about it tasting gross or going bad.

I do add an two eggs to the boiling water (Simple Addition #8) so that the eggs and potatoes boil and cook together. Simply delicious!

HTCE p. 189
HTCEV p.68

Stir-Fried Vegetables

One night I found myself needing to empty the fridge of some extra vegetables before they went bad. What better way to use them all than to stir fry them all together!! Vegetables shown: spinach, carrots, onion, broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, red bell pepper, and mushrooms. This is one of the most colorful dishes I have ever made! I just used Mark's advice and cooked the harder things first and added the softer things at the end. I started with the sesame oil, instead of at the end as the recipe suggests, but finished the dish with soy sauce and white rice.

I like my vegetables a little crunchy, so I didn't let them cook as long as I could have, but If you're using frozen or fewer crunchy vegetables, you could adjust the time as needed.

7 Seasonings or Crunchy Bits to Add to Stir-Fried Vegetables:

Here I added some walnuts because that was what I had. What a great idea! They added just a little bit of flavor and yet another pleasant crunch.

HTCE p. 241
HTCEV p.242-243