Summer Islands: Chicken and Tomato Salad

You know, elf tastes just like chicken!

Mystery Science Theater 3000

It has finally gotten warm and wonderful here in Tennessee, and as such, I have been on a huge salad kick.  The most recent salad was a smorgasbord of delicious, summery things, including chicken, corn taken straight from the cob, tomatoes, avocado, thyme and parsley fresh from the garden, and a "ranch" dressing which was augmented to be a little lighter on the calories than a regular ranch.  The result?  A filling, refreshing dish for 4 (or in our case, 2 nights' worth of meals for 2). I think the only thing that might have improved it would have been having the ability to cook the chicken, corn, and onions on the grill.  That said, the oven did a fine job for me.

What you need:

      For the dressing:

• 1/4 cup 1% milk
• 3 tbsp nonfat plain greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste

     For the salad:

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 yellow tomatoes, sliced
• 2 red tomatoes, sliced
• 1 small container cherry tomatoes (the container we bought had a little over 1 cup of tomatoes)
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 2 ears of corn

To start, mix together all of the ingredients for the dressing and set aside.  You can go ahead and stick it in the refrigerator to keep it cool.

Next, brush the chicken breasts with oil, place on a baking sheet, and broil on high for about 6-7 minutes a side, or until it is cooked through.  Set aside to cool.

Turn the broiler off and set the oven to 450.  After shucking the corn, brush each cob with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, wrap each cob in foil individually, and bake for 20-25 minutes.

While the corn is starting to bake, slice the onion, place the slices on an oiled baking sheet, and place in oven when there is about 11 minutes left on the corn's timer.

As the onion and corn are finishing up, slice your tomatoes and avocado, and dice up the chicken breasts.

When the corn is done, cut the kernels off of the cob.

Mix everything together in a large bowl, divide evenly between four plates, drizzle with dressing, and serve.

House Tully: Salmon Tacos

Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.

Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume.

These tacos were easy to make and absolutely delicious!  I'm a big fan of salmon and fish tacos, so I opted to use salmon as the fish.  If you are not a fan of salmon, a milder fish like Tilapia would also work.

What you need:

• 1lb Wild Alaskan Salmon fillets, skin removed
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 20 baby bell peppers
• 1 cup non-fat plain greek yogurt
• Salsa (just enough to put on 8 tacos)
• 8 small corn tortillas
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 4 tbsp lime juice

To start, oil a baking sheet and spread out your peppers on it, making sure they are lightly oiled, as well. 

Broil on high for about 3 minutes, flip the peppers over, and broil another 3 minutes.  

After the peppers have cooled, slice into strips.

Next, mix together the chili powder and paprika and rub the fish fillets with the mixture.  Broil your fillets on high for 4 minutes on each side, or until your fish is cooked and flaky.  Flake the broiled fish with a fork and put it in a bowl.

Mix together the yogurt, lime juice, and garlic.

Spray a skillet with cooking oil, heat over medium-high heat, and cook your tortillas one by one.  Just cook them long enough on each side to get them lightly charred.

In your corn tortillas, assemble the fish, peppers, yogurt, and salsa.  Any salsa will do, but I used some fantastic Cowboy Caviar from Trader Joe's.

At two tacos each, this will serve four people.  I made some spicy rice to go with it, and it made for a very satisfying dinner! 

You Win or You Die: Yak Sambussas and Misr Wat with Injera Bread

I smell like a Yak!

Stargate

One of my all-time favorite types of food to go out for is Ethiopian.  The spices are amazing, the spongy bread you eat things with is perfection, and it's just generally a meal made for sharing and being happy.  That said, the closest Ethiopian restaurant to me at the moment is an hour away, so I haven't been going as regularly as I used to.

Cut to Stoney and I getting a great coupon to Mother Earth Meats, which is a great store in Knoxville, TN that sells lots of different meats.  On this trip, I came home with Ground Elk, Ground Venison, Ground Yak, and some maple-flavored sausages.  The next step was figuring out what on earth to do with all of this ground meat.  Seeing as one of my favorite things to get at the Ethiopian restaurant is the meat sambussa, I decided I would try to make a yak sambussa.  It was an amazing idea and I am thrilled with how they turned out.  To go along with it, I also made a version of Misr Wat, which is a red lentil dish and was also incredibly delicious, especially the next day.  While the spices in both were not quite the same as what I would get at the restaurant, I didn't really expect it to be because I was mostly just guessing at getting the right flavor.  It's my understanding that the key spice in Ethiopian food is berbere spice, which is a spice mix containing all sorts of other spices, and serves as the backbone for many Ethiopian dishes.  I couldn't find berbere spice, so I tried my hand at making my own, which I will detail below.  Consequently, if you try the recipes for yourself, you can either go with my blend, look up berbere spice and try your own blend, or use the real stuff.  Finally, I found a quick-and-easy Injera recipe for the signature bread.  The texture came out similarly, and it was good, but for the true flavor, you would probably have to invest the time to do it right.

"Berbere" spice blend
What you need for the spice mix:

• 1/3 cup chili powder
• 2 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• pinch of salt

Yak Sambussa
What you need for Yak Sambussas:

• 1 lb ground yak meat
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 box phyllo dough sheets (in frozen aisle, thaw 1 roll before using)
• 1/2 spice mix (roughly, I would recommend starting with less and seasoning to your taste)

Begin by heating the oil in a large, nonstick skillet.  Once the oil is heated, add the onion and the Yak, and slowly stir in the spice mixture.  If you are wary of putting too much spice in, put some in, stir, let the yak cook, and then taste it, adding more as needed.  Once your meat it cooked and spiced to your liking, remove it from the pan and set aside.  I actually ended up refrigerating it for several hours in between cooking and making the sambussas, which made it easy to make them later.

The phyllo dough I used came in two rolls of approximately a million paper-thin sheets each.  I thawed one of the rolls, unwrapped it, and cut the whole thing in half lengthwise, which left me with strips that were about 4-6 inches wide.  

Take a strip of 3-5 sheets of phyllo dough (depending on how thick you want the dough - I tried it a few ways, and Stoney and I agreed that 3 was the best number for our taste) and place a blob of meat about 1 inch from one end.  Next, fold it up as if you were folding a flag, so that you end up with cute little triangles.  Make sure to be gentle but firm as you are rolling, because you want the dough to really hug the meat and be tight around it, but you don't want to break the dough.

All folded.  I stupidly forgot to take photos of how to fold them, but it really is just like folding a flag.

Place your sambussas on a greased baking sheet and bake for about 35 minutes.  The sambussas should be a beautiful golden color when you take them out of the oven.  Serve and enjoy!

Yeah, we devoured them.  It was amazing.

Just because I had a sheet left over from a past recipe, I also thawed a sheet of puff-pastry and made a few yak puff pastry parcels.  They were OUTSTANDING.  I loved the sambussas, but the puff pastry really lent a decadent edge to the whole thing and just took it up a notch.  Using the puff pastry kind of takes it out of the sambussa realm, but by all means give it a try.  You will not regret it.  I did not.

Misr Wat
What you need for Misr Wat:

• 1 cup red lentils
• 1 onion
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/4 of spice mix
• 4 cups water

This really couldn't have been simpler.  Melt the butter in a sauce pan.  Add half of the spice.  Add onion.  Cook onion until soft.  Add lentils, water, and rest of spice.  Stir, bring to gentle boil, and then simmer on lower heat until you get a really tasty-looking, soupy mixture.  And that's it.  The lentils, in my opinion, tasted better on day 2, so this may be something you want to make the night before.


 Injera:

While Cooking

Rolled and ready for eating.

For the Injera, I just followed this recipe exactly, and it turned out great!

Jack-Be-Lucky: Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

 -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

In the spirit of St. Patrick, I decided to do a green cabbage recipe last week.  I'm not a huge fan of the traditional corned beef with boiled cabbage and potatoes, so I opted for cabbage leaves stuffed with a cheesy sweet potato filling and topped with a creamy ricotta and butternut squash sauce.  To round out the Irish experience, we paired it with a Guinness.  Sláinte!

• 6 green cabbage leaves (removed from outside of cabbage head)
• 1 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
• 3 small sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1 cup corn (I used some leftover frozen corn that I had in the freezer)
• 1/2 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 bags frozen butternut squash, thawed
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 8 oz. low-fat ricotta cheese
• 2 onions, chopped
• 1 tbsp garlic
• 1 1/2 cup water

Preheat your oven to 375, get a small pot of water boiling, and have another bowl of ice cold water out.  As you wait for the water to boil, add one of the chopped onions and the garlic to a non-stick skillet, and saute until onions are translucent.  Add the corn, cabbage, and carrot to the skillet, and cook another 3 minutes.  Pour vegetables into a bowl, and stir in the cheddar cheese and mashed potatoes.

At this point, your water should be boiling, so immerse each cabbage leaf in the boiling water for 30 seconds, and then immediately immerse it in the ice water.  Now you can stuff your leaves.  I did one roll, so that the leaf was covering the filling, then tucked the edges in, and then finished rolling.  Place your stuffed cabbage leaves in a greased baking dish.

Stuffed leaf

Place squash, water, and the second onion in a pot and simmer until everything is tender, and then blend the squash mixture in a vitamix or food processor.  Stir in ricotta and parsley after blending, and pour the sauce over the stuffed cabbage.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Fresh out of the oven - delicious!

Red Viper Sun-Dried Tomato Polenta & Beans

Beans are evil.  Bad, bad beans.

Doctor Who

What you need:

• 16oz. Tube of Sun-dried Tomato Polenta, cut into small cubes
• 15oz. can butter beans
• 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cups white button mushrooms, chopped
• 1 tbsp garlic
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup shredded Manchego cheese
• 2 tsp Sherry
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat and then add in the polenta.  Cook until it browns a bit (approximately 10 minutes), and then remove and set aside.

Heat remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil and add garlic, pepper, and onion, then add in vegetable broth, and sherry.  Bring the mixture to a boil and then cover, lower heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add in spinach, recover, and simmer for 5 more minutes.  Next, stir in the beans, and simmer for about 10 more minutes.

Remove from the heat, pour vegetable mixture over the polenta, and stir in the cheese.