The Daring Cooks Make the Zuni Cafe Ricotta Gnocchi

The Daring Cooks have begun! An offshoot of The Daring Bakers, group members strive to hone our skills by tackling one cooking challenge each month. For this inaugural challenge, our founders Lis and Ivonne chose the Zuni Cafe ricotta gnocchi from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, by Judy Rodgers. I was thrilled to try the challenge because we dearly love gnocchi and though I’ve never been to the Zuni Cafe, I’ve heard wonderful things about it and have had the cookbook on my shelf for some time.

The ricotta cheese makes this gnocchi lighter than the traditional Italian potato gnocchi and the flavor reminded us of a very light omelet. Because we have plenty of chives and sage in our garden, I added both to the gnocchi and use more chives for garnish, a combination we thought worked well. We usually toss gnocchi with our homegrown basil pesto or sun-dried tomato pesto, but this time I decided to keep it very simple and made a browned sage butter. Read more

Greek Burgers and Tzatziki

While I don’t want to sound trite, I must say the first of May caught me off guard. I can’t believe it’s May, the school year is almost over and the kids will be out for almost three months, it’s time to register Top Gun for kindergarten, and summer is almost here. But that also means it’s grilling time around our house, actually more grilling time since we like to grill year round, we just happen to do it more often in the warm months. Really, I like grilled food in January but I don’t like freezing my fingers while making it!

Burgers are one of Builder Guy’s favorite foods, so we grill up a batch every once in a while. Some times I just want a slice of sharp cheddar and good barbecue sauce on top, but other times I like to play with the toppings: guacamole with caramelized onions, chimichurri, chipotle salsa, roasted red peppers with some kind of gooey cheese. The sloppier the better. And I happen to like tzatziki on my burgers, especially with arugula or an arugula pesto. Read more

Weekend Gardening: What Survived the Winter In Our Outdoor Garden

Herbs. That’s pretty much it. We cooked with our sage, parsley, and thyme throughout the winter. We didn’t get the cold frames finished in time to have a successful  winter garden, but that didn’t stop me from trying. We got one little leek and one tatsoi plant, but the cold frames are ready for next winter and we hope to have much more. The arugula picked up some kind of pest late in the fall that sapped the life out of it before we could get a second harvest, but we’ll plant more this weekend. The saffron never bloomed but did stay green the whole winter, so it probably had too much water last summer. I’m moving all the corms to a new location away from the beds we water so hopefully they will flower in the fall.

We will also transplant all of the herbs to their new home in a raised bed and plant some more cool weather herbs (dill, cilantro) as well as spring vegetables and fruits (two kinds of peas, eight kinds of greens and lettuces, shallots, strawberries, blueberries, and hopefully some rhubarb) in the other new raised beds.

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Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread

Cornbread is a staple of Southern cooking, and it made regular appearances at our family table when I was growing up. I don’t remember my mother ever diverting from her standard cornbread recipe; it was always the same warm, comforting bread we enjoyed with beans and other foods.

Last week I planned to make a pot of spiced up beans using the ham bone from a recent Sunday dinner, and I wanted a spicy cornbread to go along with the beans. I used equal amounts of flour and cornmeal, but instead of buttermilk for the liquid I used plain yogurt, which gave a wonderful taste and texture. We only used one jalapeño this time, but I think we would use another next time for a little more kick.

I wish I could say that the jalapeños came from our garden, but we’ve run out of the stash we grew last year, though the scallions came from the pot I started in September and still have going in the kitchen. I just snip off the green part and leave the white in the ground, and they keep growing back. We’re planting scallions in our raised beds this year, so hope to have plenty of them.

This is my contribution to Grow Your Own, a blogging event that celebrates the dishes we create from foods we’ve grown, raised, foraged, or hunted ourselves. I am hosting this round, so please send your post to me at andreasrecipesgyo AT gmail DOT com by March 30. If you are new to the event, you can read more about the rules for participating at the Grow Your Own page. Read more

Jambalaya with Shrimp, Chicken, Andouille, and Ham and a Giveaway

I don’t have any Creole or Cajun relatives (that I know of), so for authentic recipes I turn to some of my favorite cookbooks. Emeril calls this particular recipe his “Clean Out the Ice Box and Freezer” Jambalaya, my kind of food, particularly now because after the holidays and fall harvest we have a freezer stuffed full of…stuff. After going through it a week ago we renewed our commitment to using up some of the stash and cleaning it out over the next month, which will of course make room for more stuff. The cycle never ends.

The recipe is pretty straight forward, but I made a few modifications as a I went. First of all, I couldn’t believe it had no celery and I added some anyway. The recipe calls for a mix of dark and white meat, but since Michael doesn’t care for dark meat I used only white meat. I also used brown rice instead of white rice and reduced the oil to 1/3 cup. Not much of a difference in the amount of oil, I know, but I think the recipe turned out just fine. And because this was dinner for all of us, I cut back on the cayenne so the boys could enjoy it too. Michael made up for the lack of heat by pouring some hot sauce onto his servings.

This is an easy dish to prepare, and it’s practically a meal in a pot. Add a green salad or other green vegetable and you are set. Read more

Slow Cooker Turkey Breast and Gravy

Christmas Day is one day out of the year that we really like to relax with the kids and still have a traditional meal while keeping it easy. Ham with all the trimmings is a Christmas Day meal for my family, while Michael’s family does turkey. This year our compromise was to do turkey on Christmas Day and ham on New Year’s Day.

In keeping with the easy and relaxing theme, we decided to cook a whole turkey breast in the slow cooker, which gives a tender and juicy bird and keeps the oven available for baking rolls or pie or whatever else might be on the menu. My inspiration for this recipe comes from Elise’s mom, who makes a great turkey. We’ve used her recipe the last two Thanksgivings with success, and I adapted it for a slow cooker turkey breast.

On Christmas morning I walked out to the garden and cut some sage, thyme, parsley, and oregano, all of which flavored the bird and the gravy. Read more

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