CRISPY Potluck Night

 We're finally back to somewhat regular potlucks! ... maybe. The last time everyone was over I had them write a potluck suggestion and kept them all in a cup. Now for the next two months I will draw these names out of the cup and we will commence with that themed potluck. The lucky theme this week was CRISPY! For fall potlucks I will not feature recipes but know they are available!

CRISPY [from top left to bottom right]: Potato croquettes, crisp cucumber salad, bacon guacamole, homemade mozzarella sticks, twice baked potato casserole, and baked parmesan crisps.

Twice Baked Potato Casserole by Ryan

Homemade Mozzarella Sticks by Tim

Bacon Guacamole and chips by Romin

Crisp Cucumber Salad with Apples and Cranberries by Natalie

Potato Croquettes by Richard (baked, not fried!)

Fruit Tart with Orange Glaze by Mimi

Rice Krispy Treats by Patrick

Steak Piperade

Mixed colored peppers sounded yummy on our CSA list so I found this recipe to utilize those. The recipe is from my Williams-Sonoma Simple Suppers cookbook (in the Food Made Fast series). These cookbooks are great; they've been featured in this post, this post, and this post!

1 1/2 lb skirt or flank steak
salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
3 red or yellow bell peppers, seeded and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
114.5-oz can diced tomatoes

Brown the steak. Season the steak generously with salt and pepper. In a large frying pan over high heat, warm 1 tbsp each of the butter and oil. Add the steak and cook, turning once, for 4-6 minutes total for medium-rare, or until done to your liking. Transfer the meat to a carving board and tent with aluminum foil.

Make the sauce. Warm the remaining 1 tbsp each butter and oil in the pan over medium heat. Add the onions, peppers, garlic, and thyme and saute until the onion is barely softened, 3-4 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, stirring to scrape up the browned bits on the pan bottom, and boil for about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes and their juice and simmer until the liquid is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Slice the meat. Slice the meat thinly across the grain on a diagonal. Arrange the sliced on dinner plates or on a serving platter, spoon the sauce over the slices, and serve.

Deconstructed Zucchini Lasagna

Zucchini must be in abundance out on our CSA farm. They're cheap! Martha Stewart must've known this too. I received an email from her Everyday Food subscription with the subject "60 Zucchini Recipes."

Here's the link to the slideshow of all the recipes; this is the one that caught my eye though: No-Bake Summer Lasagna. If you visit the site you'll notice our preparation was quite a bit different. I didn't like the lasagna noodles so decided to substitute for short pasta and just have everything thrown together. We also decided not to use the ricotta. The totally different recipe below is what we did!


Ingredients
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/2 lb small tubular pasta, we used penne
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 pints grape tomatoes, halved
2 zucchini (about 1 pound total), halved if large and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon torn fresh basil leaves, plus more for serving

Directions
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook noodles according to package instructions; drain. Reserve some pasta water.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high. Add garlic and zucchini to skillet; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until zucchini are tender, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until slightly broken down, about 3 minutes. Stir in basil.

Add skillet mixture of tomatoes and zucchini to drained pasta in pot. Slowly sprinkle and stir in the parmesan while stirring. If the cheese needs to be loosened, add in some reserved pasta water until desired consistency.

Chicken with Mushrooms and Sun Dried Tomatoes

The last time we visited Costco Patrick wanted some sun dried tomatoes and of course now we have a gigantic jar of sun dried tomatoes. Last week for lunch I served orzo with sauteed peppers, onions, and sun dried tomatoes. With that big jar I didn't even noticed I used some of the sun dried tomatoes! This recipe was included on the jar.

Chicken with Mushrooms and Sun Dried Tomatoes
1 cup sun dried tomatoes (in olive oil) drained and thinly sliced
1/4 cup reserved oil from sun dried tomatoes
4 large boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 cup dry red wine (optional)
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup parsley, minced
1 tbsp softened unsalted butter
1 tbsp flour

In a heavy skillet, heat reserved tomato oil over moderately high heat and brown chicken breasts (season with salt and pepper to taste). Transfer chicken to a separate bowl or plate.** In the remaining oil, saute onion, garlic, and basil until onion is soft. Add mushrooms and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper to taste. Add chicken to skillet and bring liquid to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Transfer chicken to a platter and keep warm.** Cut butter and flour together and whisk into the sauce to simmer, whisking every few minutes until thickened. Stir in parsley and pour over chicken.

After the mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes were added.

**We switched up the chicken preparation. Rather than cooking it in the skillet we baked it with a little evoo, salt, and pepper in a 350F oven for 25 minutes. Then in the skillet we started with the onion and garlic. After the chicken was baked, I cut it up into chunks then placed into the sauce right after the butter and flour had thickened.

Served this right on top of some couscous!

Meal Planning!

With the weekly CSA and more nights off meal planning for the week is finally coming together! I went to the grocery store and got ingredients for 4 nights. Here's a quick peek at what's to come.

Tuesday: Chicken with Mushrooms and Sun Dried Tomatoes
   From the store: onion, mushrooms, tomato paste
   In kitchen stock: sun dried tomatoes (Patrick's pick from Costco), chicken breast (from freezer), garlic cloves, basil, dry red wine, chicken broth, butter, flour

Wednesday: Girls Dinner Date (Patrick is on his own!)

Thursday: Deconstructed Zucchini Lasagna
   From the store: nothing! hooray!
   From the CSA: grape tomatoes, zucchini
   In kitchen stock: Parmesan (bought in a wedge), whole wheat pasta, garlic, basil

Friday: Eggplant Parmesan (We've cooked this before--it's from the blog!)
   From the store: lemon, San Marzano tomatoes, provolone
   From the CSA: eggplants
   In kitchen stock: flour, eggs, bread crumbs, Parmesan, garlic, pesto (made with our basil, almonds, garlic, and evoo)

Since the featured post is pre-picture days here 's Eggplant Parmesan!

 Saturday: Steak Piperade
   From the store: steak, diced tomatoes
   From the CSA: colored bell peppers
   In kitchen stock: butter, onion, garlic, thyme, white wine

SUMMER Potlucks!

Here's a conglomeration of some of our summer potlucks! The summer blues got me a little bit. These were largely loosely themed. Themes included: No Pasta, Simple Supper, Favorite Summertime Dish, Southern Summer Sunday Buffet, and Stacked Stuffed & Topped.I only think I remember which photos correspond with the theme; unfortunately not every theme will have a photo.

No Pasta

Simple Supper

Favorite Summertime Dish

Fresh Chunky Marinara

More tortellini! As we've mentioned in a few previous posts (here and here) we love the easy and quick aspect of prepared tortellini. This week with all the extra summer tomatoes around we made a quick fresh chunky marinara sauce and tossed it with tortellini. Obviously the star of this post is the sauce. We consulted a few different places but primarily we followed the one from Cook's Illustrated The New Best Recipe. Here's what we did:

Ingredients
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 medium garlic cloves, pressed or minced
2 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored, peeled, seeded, and chopped**
1 onion, diced
2 tbsp fresh basil leaves, chopped
salt
splash of red wine

Directions
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute until soft (5-7 minutes); then add the garlic and saute until garlic is fragrant but not browned (1-2 minutes). Stir in the tomatoes; increase the heat to medium-high and cook until any liquid given off by the tomatoes evaporates and the tomato pieces lose their shape to form a chunky sauce, about 10 minutes. Stir in the basil, splash of wine, and salt to taste; simmer for about 10 minutes. Toss with tortellini or other preferred pasta!

**Peeling tomatoes can be a bit tricky. The easiest way is with a boiling method (check out this website for more details) but it's a bit time consuming. I just peeled them with a knife and used my fingers to remove the seeds and squeezed out excess liquid.