I made this salmon with spinach creme sauce for Christmas Eve and it was a big hit

 Also very easy to make. I will do it again.

I made substitutions because I didn't have the exact ingredients: my own tomato sauce for the cherry tomatoes which made the outcome redder, half & half instead of heavy cream, and since the tomato sauce was made with basil I omitted the chopped parsley.

The recipe is very adaptable.

 

Happiness is fast and easy roasted red pepper sauce

Fast and Easy Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

1 jar Mezzetta Roasted Red Bell Peppers, drained

1 ripe avocado

2 T extra virgin olive oil

1-2 T fresh lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, pressed

0.5 t salt

0.5 t black pepper

0.5 t crushed red pepper flakes

Add everything to a food processor and blend until smooth. Makes about 2.5 cups. Freeze half and use the rest on cooked black beans, pasta, vegetables, or sandwiches.

Happiness is the 5 magical superfoods an immunologist says boost the immune system the most

Here:

Mushrooms

Ginger

Broccoli sprouts

Garlic

Turmeric

Happiness is Mediterranean Tomato Sauce from Rosso and Lukins' THE NEW BASICS

Mediterranean Tomato Sauce, adapted

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

1 2oz can anchovies in oil

4 cloves garlic

2 28oz cans San Marzano tomatoes

3 T capers in salt, rinsed

1/2 c pitted Kalamata olives

ground black pepper

1) Combine EVOO, anchovies and all their oil, and garlic in a ceramic-coated dutch oven, mash gently and saute over medium heat a couple of minutes. To speed this up I just throw it all in the food processor first to chop it up, then add it to the dutch oven.

2) Add the tomatoes and crush, then add the capers and olives, bring up to heat, then simmer on low covered about an hour, stirring frequently.

3) Before using or storing, grind over some black pepper to taste.

4) Rosso and Lukins use only 35oz of tomatoes but triple the olives, 1.5 c.

We use this on Rosso and Lukins' Mediterranean Hero sandwich from the same cookbook, which is, in my opinion, absolutely fabulous, but is sort of a cheater's Pan Bagnat. We stir together canned atlantic salmon, chopped tomato, and red onion, and place this mixture in a hollowed-out side of an oiled french baguette cut lengthwise (stale is best). You top that with this sauce, then top that with sliced hard-boiled eggs and the other half of the baguette. Then we toast it in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes or so. Before serving we add romaine lettuce, and even avocado. The thing is glorious warm, room temperature, or cold. But this might be more glorious:

Happiness is a tender Italian turkey meatball "shell" during the pandemic

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground turkey

1/2 c milk

1 egg

3/4 c Panko bread crumbs

Seasoning:

1 t salt

1/2 t granulated garlic

1/2 t dried thyme leaves

1/2 t dried oregano leaves

1/2 t whole black peppercorns, or 1/4 t ground

1 t fennel seeds

1 t crushed red pepper flakes

1 T sweet Hungarian paprika

Method:

1) Whisk together the egg and the milk in a large mixing bowl

2) Grind the seasonings in a coffee grinder until fine-ish

3) Whisk the seasonings into the egg/milk mixture

4) Add the meat to the bowl and mix together using a fork or a potato masher

5) Add the bread crumbs and mix together

6) Form "meatball shells" using a fork and a nonstick ice cream scoop, which releases them easily 

7) Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat and add enough canola oil to cover the bottom

8) Fry "shells" in batches about twelve minutes in the oil, flat side first, flipping them half way through

9) Serve with pasta "Orecchiette" if you can find them, for fun, and your favorite sauce

Happiness is red beans and rice, even if you don't have any red beans, just use whatever beans you have

Red Beans and Rice (h/t Rosso & Lukins)

1 pound navy beans, soaked overnight in the frig
2 cups chicken broth or made from bouillon cube
2.5 cups San Marzano tomato puree
2 bay leaves
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t Tabasco sauce
4 andouille sausages
1/2 t salt
1 t granulated onion
1/4 t garlic powder
1 cup white rice, boiled, drained and buttered


1) Drain beans and parboil covered in fresh water in a covered 3 quart dutch oven: Bring to a boil and shut off the heat for an hour, boil it again and shut off the heat for an hour, then bring to a boil for a third time and let simmer for an hour or two on low until the beans are tender.

2) Drain the beans and return to the dutch oven; add the broth, tomatoes, bay leaves, Worcestershire and Tabasco, sausages, salt, onion and garlic; bring to a boil, cover, and bake in a 350 degree F oven for an hour.

3) Boil the rice in 6 cups or so of salted water 15-20 minutes, just like pasta, stirring frequently but gently; drain and reserve rice in a buttered bowl covered in the warm oven (h/t James Peterson).

4) Add more Worcestershire and/or Tabasco to taste, if desired. Serves 3-4 over rice with plenty of beans left over for the morning toast.

Happiness is make-ahead Italian lentil loaf

Italian lentil loaf                                                        

                                                       

2 cups lentils

1 bay leaf

1 cup fine bulgur wheat

1 egg

1 T tomato paste

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

1T extra virgin olive oil

4 oz rapini, blanched and finely chopped

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/4 t black pepper

1/2 t ground fennel seed

1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes, ground

1 t salt

1 t Hungarian paprika

2/3 cup grated Romano cheese

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

Ketchup or tomato sauce

1) Prepare the lentils by washing them. Bring 6 cups water to a boil in a saucepan, add the lentils and bay leaf, return to a boil and cover. Simmer on lowest setting for about 45 minutes. When tender, drain and reserve both the lentils and the cooking liquid to cool. Discard the bay leaf.

2) Prepare the bulgur. Boil two cups of liquid made from the reserved lentil broth in a saucepan, add the bulgur, stir, cover and turn off the heat and let bulgur cook 15 minutes. Then uncover to cool.

3) Whisk an egg in a mixing bowl. Whisk in the tomato paste, onion, olive oil, rapini, garlic, black pepper, fennel, red pepper, salt and paprika.

4) Using a large silicone spatula, stir in the cheese, bulgur and lentils, finishing with the bread crumbs.

5) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

6) Grease two glass bread pans with Crisco.

7) Press the lentil mixture into the bread pans and bake about 40 minutes. The loaves are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

8) At this point paint the loaves with some tomato sauce or ketchup and bake 5 minutes more.

9) Let the loaves cool on the stove top until cool to the touch. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight for serving the next day with more ketchup or tomato sauce and a side salad. The loaves slice evenly and cleanly and servings can be easily reheated in the microwave on a plate and kept warm in the oven as you prepare the salad.

Serves at least six.     

Happiness is a homemade bean burrito, perhaps the best for you and cheapest meal you can make for yourself

I reckon the most expensive thing is the tortilla itself, while the whole shebang is something just north of 72 cents:

Flour tortilla: 33 cents

1 oz. sharp cheddar cheese: 18 cents

2/3 cup prepared pinto beans (13 cents) and basmati rice (4 cents): 17 cents

0.11 oz. spice mixture I prepare from bulk purchased salt, onion and garlic powders, chili powder, crushed red pepper, oregano leaves and cumin: 4.6 cents.

I can season a one pound batch of beans, which makes nine burritos, however I like for 41 cents doing it this way instead of 79 cents for an unadjustable store purchased packet, a savings of 48%.

The price of the beans shown is for a store purchased one pound bag at $1.19. At Sam's Club you can cut this to 63 cents per pound by buying the 12 lb. bulk bag. Per burrito that's 7 cents instead of 13 cents, bringing the whole enchilada down to 66 cents.

The price of a little canola oil for frying is not included.

Toppings are another matter entirely, which with the salsa are really the salad part of the meal.

Happiness is blanched and sautéed Broccoli Rabe with tonight's pasta and sausage

Otherwise called rapini, the whole business is eaten so there is no waste, just the ends of the stems which are cut off before washing and soaking in cold water to freshen and then blanching in salted boiling water. About 4-5 minutes does the trick, in about three batches.

Plunge the cooked rapini into an ice bath in the sink to stop the cooking, then drain on a rack and use immediately, or refrigerate overnight for the meal the next day. They are sauteed in olive oil with garlic and hot red pepper flakes, but with a hot Italian sausage and fresh garlic already in the pasta, I like the greens just in oil. They are loaded with good things. The nutrient balance score is 93 out of 100 and the protein quality score is 98 out of 100 at nutrition data.self.com .

I paid $2.69 for the bunch at Meijer.

Happiness is low-sodium barley lentil soup for lunch

Barley growing in Provence to the right, lavender to the left

3 cups turkey stock from Thanksgiving, made from the leftover bones

6 cups water

3/4 cup green lentils, rinsed

3/4 cup hulled barley, rinsed

2 bay leaves

1 yellow onion, chopped

3 small carrots, chopped

1 large garlic clove, chopped

extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon French sea salt

2 teaspoons dried rosemary leaves

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

 

1/ bring the stock and water to a boil and add the lentils, barley and bay leaves

2/ simmer at a low boil one hour, covered

3/ chop the onion, carrots and garlic and saute in the olive oil until softened, set aside

4/ to a spice grinder add sea salt, black pepper, rosemary and thyme leaves and pulse until powdery

5/ when the barley and lentils are soft, add the sautéed vegetables and the spices to the soup and stir occasionally while simmering, twenty minutes more

makes about eight cups, approximately 310 mg sodium per cup (lentils 15 mg, barley 15 mg, onion 10 mg, carrots 105 mg, salt 2325 milligrams = 2470 mg/8 = 308.75 mg/cup)

Happiness is whole Rainbow Trout on the charcoal grill, at least that's what she said

I went to the fish counter at Meijer. They had two fresh farm-raised whole rainbow trout from Canada on ice in the display case. I said I needed four.

Tyler of handlebar mustache fame went in the back and brought out a sealed styrofoam box. He opened it and dug through the ice and pulled out four one-pounders for me. It doesn't get much fresher.

He wrapped them in freezer paper and tossed them to me so that I could say that I caught them.

At home I prepared a double-banked charcoal fire in the Weber.

The fish went into the big lasagna pan with copious amounts of canola oil to slick them up real well. Then I salted and peppered the cavities.

When the fire was ready the fish went onto the grill, heads over the coals on the one side, tails over the coals on the other. The lid was closed with the vents fully open.

The fish cook in about 9 minutes on a side. Turning the fish is a little tricky. Use two spatulas.

Prepare a garlic lemon butter for serving with the fish. Zest a lemon, chop the zest and place in a large bottomed bowl, press two cloves garlic into the bowl, and add about four tablespoons of butter. Cut it all together using a pastry blender and fill two small ramekins for sharing at your table for four. 

Serve each trout on a large plate after chopping off the head and tail, which you can save for the cats if you like.

Smother with the butter as you eat.

Our guest from France said it was the best trout she ever had.

I'm still blushing.

You'll eat more fresh garlic if you own one of these

The Kuhn Rikon stainless steel garlic press fits the hand well, functions smoothly and cleans up easily with warm water. With it you can quickly press fresh garlic right into your pasta plate, soup, sauce, dressing, marinade or toast! And fresh is best, in all its phytochemical glory.

Happiness is Meijer wild Key West Pink shell-on shrimp and De Cecco fettuccine

After thawing and shelling the shrimp, the shells went into the salted, boiling pasta water for 3 minutes before adding the pasta to make the fettuccine truly "of the sea". I simply pulled the pasta insert out to discard the shells before cooking the pasta.

The shrimp were given a five minute bath in lemon juice, olive oil, pressed garlic, and cayenne pepper before sautéing in extra virgin olive oil during the last five minutes of pasta cooking.

A fresh salad on the side by the lady of the house from our own garden made the meal magnificent.

Three dined fabulously on a Friday evening at home for something a little north of $17 total, not each.

That's livin'. Italian. American. 

Happiness is fast and easy grilled Mexican lime chicken cutlets for fajitas

The recipe is here:

2.0 lbs chicken cutlets (from Omaha Steaks, thanks Gramps!)

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1/8 cup olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Whisk ingredients together in a large bowl, throw in the thawed chicken and marinate up to 2 hours, grill it, slice it and serve it with your favorite salsa in a warm flour tortilla.

Happiness at Easter is Grilled Leg of Lamb

We coated one like this with lemon zest and crushed dried rosemary leaves in olive oil after stuffing knife slits in the fat layer with flat garlic slices made from two cloves. The surface of the whole was also salted with Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

The charcoal fire was made in an 18" Weber grill with the coals to each side behind metal banks specially designed for the purpose by Weber, with a drip pan in the center.

The 4.6 pound lamb leg was roasted in the center of the covered grill, between the coal banks, for 1.5 hours, turned every 30 minutes with a righteous carbon steel pig tail.

It was perfect.

Thanks be to God. 

Happiness is Chef John's roasted Greek chicken thighs with potatoes

Adapted from Chef John at all recipes dot com here.

10 chicken thighs with skin on

1 T kosher salt

1 T dried oregano

1 t black pepper

1 t dried rosemary leaves

1 pinch cayenne pepper

.25 cup lemon juice

.5 cup extra virgin olive oil

6 cloves fresh garlic pressed

4 russet potatoes, peeled and quartered

1. Combine salt, oregano, black pepper, rosemary, cayenne, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic in a bowl. Whisk until blended.

2. Lightly Crisco a large roaster.

3. Dredge each piece of chicken in the spice mixture in the bowl and place each in the roaster. I could have used a little more lemon juice, but .25 cup was all I had. The last two pieces of chicken got shortchanged. Chef John's original recipe calls for less chicken than I used, but mine still turned out just fine.

4. Position the potato pieces around and between the chicken pieces.

5. Preheat the oven to bake at 425F while you tidy up.

6. Roast the chicken and potatoes for one hour.

7. Reduce heat to 350F and roast another 10 minutes.

8. Switch to broil for a few more minutes if additional browning is necessary.

9. Serve chicken and potatoes on a large plate, topped with some of the pan juices if you like, and steamed petite peas and butter.

10. A glass of cold Moscato was perfect with this.

11. OK, two glasses.

It's National Burger Day today, but we made stir-fry by mistake dontcha know

We use a Cantonese style wok with a lower base ring on a gas stove without difficulty

We grill burgers on Sunday evenings like clockwork, but not today!

And to think it was the National Day to celebrate our custom. Oops.

We made stir-fry in the wok because we had accumulated leftovers from . . . the grill!

But not beef! Pork and chicken, mostly.

Here's the basic ingredient list for our stovetop stir fry (you can get by without the celery if you have 1/4 tsp. celery seed):

2 cups leftover cooked meat, like pork and chicken, diced small without the skin or fat

1 cup fresh mushrooms, about 4 oz., diced and then sautéed in butter or oil

3/4 cup diced carrot, about 2

2/3 cup diced onion

1 green onion chopped

2/3 cup diced sweet bell pepper, orange or red

1 cup diced celery stalk, about 2

1 cup sweet baby peas or pea pods

1 can drained bamboo shoots

1 can drained sliced water chestnuts

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 tsp. grated fresh ginger root

3 slices bacon already cooked, chopped

1 cup prepared Jasmine rice in a pan, left covered off the heat (1 cup rice, 2 cups water, a little salt, brought to a boil in a heavy covered pan and then simmered on low for 20 minutes--easy peasy)

1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar

ground black pepper

San-Jay Tamari sauce

2-3 tablespoons Sesame or Canola oil

Here's the cooking order:

Heat oil in the wok OVER MEDIUM

Add carrots and stir

Add celery and stir

Add onion and stir

Add mushrooms and stir

Add garlic and stir

Add sweet pepper and stir

Add black pepper and stir

Add meats and stir

Add fresh peas or pea pods and stir,

And bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and stir,

and cover and steam 3 minutes ON MEDIUM LOW.

Then add ginger and more black pepper

Add 1/4 cup Tamari sauce and the sugar in a pool in the bottom, mix together and stir everything

Add the cooked rice and stir until well blended

Add more Tamari sauce as desired (but you want to keep the mixture on the dry side)

Stir in cooked bacon and green onion

Turn off and cover and prepare to serve immediately 

The 11 additional superfoods taking you to 25 forms of happiness

honey

garlic

extra virgin olive oil

apples

avocados

cinnamon

dark chocolate

dried fruits, such as figs, or apricots, dates, plums and cranberries ad infinitum

kiwifruit

onions

pomegranate

Happiness is Chinese braised beef with 5-spice seasoning you can make from scratch

Chinese 5-spice seasoning


1.5 T anise seed
2.5 t fennel seed
1.5 t ground cinnamon
0.5 t ground black pepper
0.5 t ground white pepper (optional)
0.5 t ground clove
0.5 t ground ginger (optional)

If you use them all it's 7-spice seasoning, right?! The dominant spice is obviously the anise seed.

Put them all in a coffee grinder and pulse until powdery, about 15 seconds.

This was wonderful for a nice Chinese beef braise I made today.

Recipes for that will vary, but I used one teaspoon (t) of the above for about 3 pounds of beef chuck, as well as 6 big cloves of garlic pressed, a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger root finely diced, a bunch of green onions chopped and .25 t hot red pepper flakes (or use a fresh red chilli pepper).

You coat the raw cubed beef with 2 T salted flour in a freezer bag and brown that in a pan in batches in oil. Take your time and do that right and you won't be sorry. The browned meat then goes into the crock pot, after which I very briefly sauteed the mixture above in the fat left in the pan, a couple of minutes.

Then I added 2 cups of beef stock I had ready, made from a bouillon cube, 3 T of Tamari sauce, 3 T of red wine and 2 t sugar to the pan, heating and scraping and mixing until nice and hot.

The contents of the pan go over the meat in the crock pot, then cover it and cook on low at least six hours.

Serve the meat and gravy over Jasmine rice with a vegetable on the side. I chose green peas.

It was so good I wanted seconds and thirds and fourths.

Basil Pesto Update: The Easiest And Best Method I've Found Yet To Make It, The Frozen Way

OK, this is the beginning of May and I've just run out of basil for pesto . . .  from last year.

We grew basil like crazy last season, harvested it and froze it whole in freezer bags as it came due in order to keep up with it instead of trying to make it all into pesto right away. It was a good strategy because we accumulated enough to get us through April. I think the previous year I ran out by Christmas. If you do it this way, the primary benefit is you can eke out more production from your plants by constantly harvesting. Otherwise they go to seed before you know it and they are done.

The routine of making basil pesto this way with frozen leaves every two weeks or so right through the fall, winter and spring had more than this extra production benefit from the plants, however.

For one thing, I was constantly using the freshest olive oil, instead of freezing the oil in the prepared product for long periods.

Two, I didn't have to buy a bunch of little containers which took up a lot of space and were difficult to keep organized in the bowels of the freezer. I simply relied on a smaller number of containers and reused them throughout the season, conveniently stored in a single freezer bag. The basil leaves once frozen in freezer bags store easily by themselves in those bags grouped altogether in a single, larger plastic bag, like a grocery bag.

Three, I had less waste and clean up hassle on a regular basis because at the end of making the pesto, say each fortnight, the hard to clean up leftovers in the blender simply were blended with tomato sauce for my once or twice a week fish pie recipe. If you don't make that you could do the same thing for fresh tomato-basil soup. So I tried to time my pesto-making with fish pie night to speed things along, minimize waste and wasted motion.

And four, extra virgin olive oil doesn't like to be manipulated too much. If it gets hot it breaks down quickly. By using frozen pesto leaves, the whole mixture remains cold in the blender. And when it is done blending it looks almost like a gelato and pours out more neatly cold, minimizing spills.

So here's how you do it.

Add your nuts, salt and pepper, chopped garlic and grated cheese to the bottom of the blender. Then add your crushed basil leaves on top of all that. I simply take the freezer bag full of basil leaves and slam it on the counter a few times to make them easy to pour into a Pyrex measure (and more numerous, hah!). Finally, I add all the olive oil on top of the leaves, letting the measuring cup drain out fully on top of them while I clean up after myself. Then you blend until thoroughly emulsified, perhaps a minute or two. And that's it.

Pesto, presto!