Allez les Bleus – You’ve Been Chopped

Posted by Tricia in Main Courses and tagged with CHopped, food network, shrimp, Sriracha, World Cup, zoodles, zucchini, zucchini noodles June 18, 2014

I wish I could tell you that I haven’t posted in a while because I have been so wrapped up watching the World Cup. If I were to say that, I would definitely earn some points in The Hub’s book. He literally has the schedule memorized, has installed I don’t know how many new apps on his phone to track scores and standings, and cut our San Diego getaway weekend short because he had to be back home to watch France’s first game. Never mind that the hotel had a gazillion TVs – all of which were tuned to the World Cup. Nope, there’s something special, I guess, about watching it in a fellow Frenchman’s living room with 15+ other screaming and cheering Frogs.

The Cup Mania is so intense with him this year, that he went so far as to order cable. The family who hasn’t had cable in over 6 years, whose children don’t really even know what cable is, now have it just so one man can watch grown adults kick a ball around.

The upside for me? Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, don’t say it too loudly, but with cable also comes the Food Network. I literally feel like I am on a permanent vacation. I can watch the Food Network whenever I want . . . . not just when traveling and staying in hotels. So the small people in this house may be a bit impressed by the World Cup thing, but they are now INFECTED with the Food Network. The Medium Little One has taken to critiquing every meal I put on the table a la Geoffrey Zakarian. Just today the Little Little One was playing in her pretend kitchen and asked me how many minutes she had left on the clock. And the Big Little One is trying to figure out how we could have a Chopped Party with a couple other families using only one kitchen.

There you have it, the highlight of our Summer so far: A father obsessed with soccer, a mother obsessed with food, and kids just newly exposed to cable trying to navigate the thrill of it all.

Yet, none of this should overshadow the thrill of the family’s newly acquired vegetable spiralizer. I am a spiralizing fool! Don’t stand in my kitchen too long or you might find an appendage starting to spontaneously ribbon off. A recent creation with the spiralizer was this Sriracha Shrimp Over Zucchini Pasta.

I started by spiralizing about 3 medium large zucchini. The little hands just love to help with this part.

Then I spread the spiralized zucchini out on a couple of layers of paper towels, sprinkled with salt, and let them sit for about 5 minutes. This helps to release excess liquid so you don’t end up with a soggy mess.

While the “noodles” were basking on the paper towel, I put a pot of water on to boil and set to work on the shrimp. I mixed my Sriracha sauce, tomato paste, brown sugar and salt and pepper in a little bowl.

I warmed some olive oil in a large skillet and sauteed up some chopped shallots. I added in the Sriracha mixture and my shrimp. I let it cook until the shrimp was just pink.

I tossed my zucchini noodles in my pot of boiling water for 1 minute. Yep, only 1 minute. Any longer and you will have mush. I drained the noodles and reserved a bit of the cooking water.

I added some butter and a bit of the reserved cooking liquid to my shrimp and then placed the noodles on a platter and crowned them with the shrimp.

I guess some people call these lovely little zucchini noodles Zoodles. I prefer to just call them noodles and my kiddos are none the wiser. Luckily for me, I wasn’t chopped after serving this for dinner. I think they kind of know that they’ll starve should they ever decide to “chop” me.

Here’s the complete recipe for Sriracha Shrimp Over Zucchini Noodles.

9 Simple Ingredients – Curried Zucchini Soup . . . oh, and a Skillet Peach Cobbler

Posted by Tricia in soup and tagged with cobbler, curry, dessert, peach, peach cobbler, peaches, soup, zucchini, zucchini soup July 10, 2013

Just in case that last post had you reeling from ingredient and preparation overload, here’s a simple little number to balance it out. And yes, we’re sticking with the curry theme.

I’m an experimenter by nature. In the kitchen that means that I rarely do repeats. But this soup was so tasty that it will definitely be making regular appearances at the table.

On a separate note, this week was unofficially “peach week” at our house. One friend stopped by bearing a whole bag of delicious little peaches. The following morning, we awoke to another bag of peachiness left on our front doorstep by another friend. Well, when that many peaches just show up unsolicited, you really have no other option but to make cobbler. I wasn’t too happy with my first attempt – a pretty traditional recipe that got good reviews on Epicurious. Not to be defeated, or to sell the peaches short of their full potential, I tried again. This time with a Skillet Peach Cobbler. Winner, winner, cobbler dinner! The clan was unanimously very much in favor of my quest for cobbler perfection. After all, why wouldn’t they be? They got peach cobbler for dessert two nights in a row!

So first for the soup and then I’ll let you in on the cobbler.

The greatest thing about this soup is that I literally threw it together in 20 minutes. I started by chopping a whole onion.

I heated some oil and sauteed the onion, and then threw in some garlic and curry powder. I then added 3 medium zucchini and a russet potato along with 4 cups of water. I brought it all to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

I left everything just sit on the stove at this point while the Hubs was off collecting children. When everyone was accounted for and whining for dinner, I brought the soup back to a simmer and then pureed it in the blender until it was smooth. I then added in a half a cup of half and half. Done! (BTW, the original recipe I was working from had no mention of half and half. But I looked at the soup and the soup looked back at me and we just both knew some half and half was needed. BUT . . . if you are looking to cut calories, fat or dairy, just skip that step and I won’t think any less of you.)

Oh, and please don’t judge me based on the ice cubes in my rosé wine – so gauche, I know. But the Hubs brought the bottle home after collecting kids and we didn’t have time for a proper chilling.

Now on to the cobbler . . .

I’ll spare you the explanation and let you imagine it through this photo collage. I think a big part of its deliciousness came from the fact that it was a skillet cobbler. I essentially melted a half a stick of butter in the skillet before adding the batter and then scattering the peaches over that. The peach preserves, blobbed about around the fresh peaches, also gave this dessert a great flavor. And if you’re going to go through the effort of making this little number, don’t skimp on the preserves. Bite the bullet and buy the good stuff. I personally love this St. Dalfour brand pictured in the collage.

I just need to point out the pudgy 4 year old hand stirring the batter. She was my sous-chef for “Peach Cobbler Take II”. Oh and I guess I should also add this photo for your entertainment. The peach peeling was slow going given that the ratio went something like this. One half for the bowl, one half for the Wee One. Good thing we had so many peaches!

Want the complete recipes? Here they are.

Curried Zucchini Soup, adapted from Martha’s Great Food Fast cookbook

Skillet Peach Cobbler, from Epicurious

Eggs for Dinner – Zucchini & Sweet Potato Frittata

Posted by Tricia in Main Courses and tagged with Eggs, frittata, Recipe, sweet potato, zucchini May 17, 2013

Egg recipes. Sometimes they are winners and sometimes they just don’t measure up. Sometimes the ones that sound “dinner-ish” just end up tasting like breakfast in a thin disguise. If you have ever seen the move Julia & Julia, you’ll remember the classic omelette scene. I love that scene because I gave up on the perfect omelette long ago. I really think it’s a patience thing. It starts out as a nice omelette and before I know what’s happening, and before I can control my spatula, it has turned into scrambled eggs – “messy eggs” I believe is the more chic term used in some brunch places. My sister-in-law, on the other hand must be a very patient gal. She can cook an absolutely perfect omelette.

So having abandoned ship on my omelette skills, I have explored lots of other egg options. I went through an egg casserole phase. I had a stratta phase (a little too bready and heavy for me). We did an “oeuf a la coq” phase. And also a frittata phase.

This particular frittata recipe I almost passed over because I somehow couldn’t imagine the flavors coming together. But something kept drawing me back to it. Well am I ever glad I gave it a whirl. The texture and melding of flavors was great AND I learned a new little technique that may just help me creep back into being a contender against my sister-in-law’s perfect omelette.

I started this one off by peeling two medium sweet potatoes and slicing them into pretty thin rounds.

I then heated some butter in a large skillet and sauteed the sweet potatoes until they were starting to brown nicely.

While these were sauteeing, I sliced up a medium zucchini – again in pretty thin rounds.

After the sweet potatoes were evenly browned, I added the zucchini to the pan, along with some chopped fresh basil, and continued sauteeing for about 4 more minutes.

Personally, I “paused” my recipe at this point because I was juggling soccer practices, water polo practices, and other crazy schedule challenges. I just left this waiting on the stove until all eating mouths had returned to the nest.

I then beat 8 eggs with a whisk – making sure to get as much air beat in as possible.

I brought the zucchini and sweet potatoes back to a warm temp and then poured the eggs over. I let things cook on low for about 10 minutes until it was well set. Only the top still looked a little goopy.

I heated up my broiler and then popped the whole skillet into the oven to finish off the top (my newfound omelette finishing trick).

I served this with a slice of cantaloupe and a green salad – a nice light meal.

The sweet potatoes really carried this dish and made it very dinner-like. The only thing I would change next time would be to make two frittatas instead of just one. It was devoured in no time and small people were asking for seconds. Luckily we had a copious dessert to follow.

For the complete recipe, click here.

This recipe adapted from The Paleo Diet Lifestyle