Vegetable

Summer Meals: Grilled Vegetables, Smoked Salmon Pops & Lemon Cupcakes

by liz · Jun 8, 2018

The best summer meals are inspired not only by the seasonal produce freshly picked from the fields, but also the smells and tastes of long, hot days and vacations. Lazy sunny days at the shore and thirst-quenching fruit and citrus and herb gardens baking in the sun all influence what we’re eating. As these dishes start popping up in restaurants and backyards across the country, all you have to do is find the right wine, then sit down and dig in.

I love this grilled Mediterranean vegetable plate above from Trattoria Uliveto in Orcutt, California. A great vegetarian summer meal.

The taste of the sea, perfect for a summer meal: mussels + clams from Trattoria Uliveto.

I ♥ tomatoes: cherry tomatoes with olive oil + cured pork plate above from Trattoria Uliveto.

Food pops are everywhere! These are salmon pops above, also known as smoked salmon lollipops.

Smoked Salmon Lollipop Recipe

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 oz sour cream
lollipop sticks
smoked salmon, cut into medium slices
caviar (or black sea salt)
chives, chopped

Whip cream cheese and sour cream (or crème fraîche) together, form into little balls and push the stick in. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, wrap each one in smoked salmon, dip in caviar and top with chopped chives. If you can’t find caviar, you could try black sea salt to get the same look and level of saltiness.

Smoked Salmon Pops

Author: Liz Dodder

Recipe type: Appetiser

Prep time: 15 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Food pops are everywhere! These are salmon pops above, also known as smoked salmon lollipops.

Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 oz sour cream
lollipop sticks
smoked salmon, cut into medium slices
caviar (or black sea salt)
chives, chopped

Instructions

Whip cream cheese and sour cream (or crème fraîche) together, form into little balls and push the stick in. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, wrap each one in smoked salmon, dip in caviar and top with chopped chives. If you can't find caviar, try black sea salt to get the same look and level of saltiness.

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Summer meals: Lemon Rosemary cupcakes from Central City Market

Lemon goes well with herbs in summer desserts: Lemon Rosemary cupcakes from Central City Market.

Don’t forget the rosé to perfectly complement your summer meal and enjoy those hot days, late sunlight and great vacations!

White Chicken Chili Recipe: It’s Not Complicated

by liz · Feb 2, 2018

This past Valentine’s Day, we decided to have a chili cook-off. It seemed like a much better idea for this romance holiday on a cold winter night, especially with our particular relationship statuses; “it’s complicated” seems to be most popular in our group’s social media circles.

This White Chicken Chili recipe was my submission. I love it for its creaminess, the spicy cumin taste (I actually added a bit more cumin than in the recipe) and the boost of greens with the Spinach. I also added a little cheese on top, and some folks also topped theirs with raw onions and sour cream. Wine pairing note: this soup goes great with Chardonnay.

I’m not sure if my chili won the cook-off, but it was the first pot to be emptied! It took the chill out of a cold night and it warmed our bellies and our hearts. And it’s not complicated.

White Chicken Chili Recipe, from Meals.com

Ingredients for 8 servings:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 to 1 1/2 cups mild salsa verde
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, drained
1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, drained
1 cup water
1/2 cup loose-pack frozen corn
1 can (12 fluid ounces) Evaporated Lowfat 2% Milk
1 cup fresh spinach leaves
Baked tortilla chips and light sour cream for serving (optional)

Directions:

HEAT oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook on each side until golden. Transfer chicken to plate; cover.

ADD onion to same saucepan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add garlic; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in cumin and coriander; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in salsa verde, cannellini beans, pinto beans, water and corn. Cook for about 10 minutes or until hot.

CUT or shred chicken into bite-size pieces and add to saucepan along with any accumulated juices on plate. Stir in evaporated milk and spinach; cook for a few minutes just until heated through and spinach is slightly wilted. Serve topped with crumbled tortilla chips and dollop of sour cream.

White Chicken Chili Recipe

Author: Meals.com

Recipe type: Entree

Serves: 8

Try this delicious low-fat version of white chicken chili!

Ingredients

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1½ teaspoons ground coriander
1 to 1½ cups mild salsa verde
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, drained
1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, drained
1 cup water
½ cup loose-pack frozen corn
1 can (12 fluid ounces) Evaporated Lowfat 2% Milk
1 cup fresh spinach leaves
Baked tortilla chips and light sour cream for serving (optional)

Instructions

HEAT oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook on each side until golden. Transfer chicken to plate; cover.
ADD onion to same saucepan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add garlic; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in cumin and coriander; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in salsa verde, cannellini beans, pinto beans, water and corn. Cook for about 10 minutes or until hot.
CUT or shred chicken into bite-size pieces and add to saucepan along with any accumulated juices on plate. Stir in evaporated milk and spinach; cook for a few minutes just until heated through and spinach is slightly wilted. Serve topped with crumbled tortilla chips and dollop of sour cream.

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Celebrate Drink Wine Day with Drunken Pork: One-Pot Meal

by liz · Dec 15, 2016

It’s National Drink Wine Day! This holiday is in the same week as International Syrah Day (it was Wednesday if you missed it), which makes for a long week if you’ve celebrated properly. I thought pairing wine with a dish for this post would be a good idea, but then thought using the wine in the dish was even better. I also wanted a one-pot meal to warm up my house and my belly in this cold weather we’re having.

I love one-pot meals, and decided to create something with wine, also pork, winter root vegetables and lots of red wine. The result is what I call Drunken Pork or Red Wine-Braised Pork: a big pot of hearty, spicy goodness for the winter months (don’t worry, the alcohol cooks off, so the dish is not really drunk). This dish, with red wine on Drink Wine Day will be the best pairing I’ll make all year.

Some tips:

Use any combination of winter root vegetables you like; get the freshest ones at your local farmer’s market.
Pick a red wine that goes well with chocolate, like Syrah or Zinfandel.
You can make your own dry rub using more exotic spices like cumin and smoked paprika.
For a gorgeous twist, use a knife to poke holes in the pork loin, then insert thin slices of garlic and carrot (this will show when slicing the finished pork, see end of post for a photo).

Red Wine-Braised Pork or Drunken Pork

Ingredients for 8-10 servings (shown above):

2 Tablespoons Instant Beef Flavor Bouillon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
4 pounds pork loin or pork loin roast, tied with cooking string if desired
6 carrots, peeled, cut in half and thinly sliced (or 2 cups peeled baby carrots, thinly sliced)
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 beet, diced
1 turnip, diced
½ cup diced celery
1 dried Ancho or New Mexico chile
2 bottles red wine
1 cup (6 ounces) Semi-Sweet Chocolate morsels
1 Tablespoon each dried oregano and thyme leaves, rubbed between fingers to release flavor
8 fresh thyme sprigs, for garnish

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375° F. Combine bouillon, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin and stir.

CUT thin slits all over the pork loin; insert some carrot and garlic slices into the meat slits. You will have carrots and garlic left over.

HEAT Dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat. Sprinkle bouillon mixture over pork loin; pat with hands. Turn loin and repeat until all sides are coated.

Add pork to Dutch oven. Cook on each side until browned, searing each side of the loin (shown above). Remove from Dutch oven.

ADD olive oil and onion to Dutch oven; cook, stirring frequently, for 3 to 5 minutes or until softened and translucent. Add beet, turnip, celery and leftover garlic slices. Cook, stirring frequently, until edges are browned. Add leftover carrot slices; cook until slightly softened (photo above). Add dried chile.

REMOVE Dutch oven from heat; add pork loin back on top of vegetables. Pour in wine or wine/juice combination, chocolate morsels, dried oregano and dried thyme (you may have to adjust the amount of liquid depending on the size of your Dutch oven). Stir for about 1 minute or until morsels are melted; cover.

Bake, checking for doneness near end of cook time, for 2 hours or until center of pork is no longer pink.

To serve, slice pork and top with vegetables and sauce (notice carrot slivers in pork in photo above). Garnish with fresh thyme.

Final step: pair with Syrah, Pinot Noir or Gamay. Pour and enjoy!

Cooking with Wine: Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto Recipe

by liz · Dec 14, 2016

Every so often, you stumble upon a Chardonnay so refreshing and unique, so unlike typical oaky-buttery-California Chardonnays, that you want to drink it, cook with it, maybe even bathe in it.

Alta Maria’s 2009 Chardonnay from Santa Maria Valley is half steel-fermented and half oak-fermented, with a creamy freshness and lemon-lime quality that makes it just as perfect in a rustic dish in front of the fire as a on a warm summer day in the garden. And cooking with wine is just as important as drinking or tasting wine.

Cooking with this Chardonnay adds something special to the dish: a little more citrus, good acid and lots of flavor. And don’t forget to pour a glass to pair the wine to sip with the dish! It’s the perfect pair to either of these winter Chardonnay recipes: Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto below and Chardonnay Roast Chicken with Santa Barbara herbs.

And for dessert, here’s my other favorite way to use winter squash…and summer squash and fall squash and…

Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto

Author: Liz

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed, peeled winter squash medley
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves minced fresh garlic
2 cups organic vegetable broth
2 cups Chardonnay (2009 Alta Maria Chardonnay)
1 ounce pancetta or prosciutto
1 medium finely chopped onion
1¼ cups uncooked Arborio rice
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herb mix (like lemon thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, lavender)
Juice of 1 lemon
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup (1 ounce) shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine squash and 1 tablespoon oil, tossing to coat. Arrange squash in a single layer on baking pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until squash is just tender. Remove from pan; set aside.
Heat a large heavy-bottom stock pot over medium heat. Add pancetta to pot; cook 5 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently. Remove pancetta and set aside.
Add remaining olive oil to pot, then add onion; cook 3 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and rice; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add ½ cup wine; cook 1 minute or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Continue to add remaining wine and broth, ½ cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth is absorbed before adding the next (about 20 minutes total). Stir in squash, herbs, cheese, lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
Top with pancetta.

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Cooking with Wine: Roast Chardonnay Chicken Recipe

by liz · Dec 12, 2016

I love French food and wine…and I love eating and drinking local. These two loves inspired me to create a local version of a typical French dish: oven-roasted chicken with vegetables and herbs de Provence. Of course, this is using local Chardonnay – in the dish…and in my glass.

In a Santa Barbara County garden you can find rosemary, lemon thyme, basil and chives. And garlic, of course! Also, fennel is a bountiful crop on California’s central coast, which you can usually substitute for celery, instead of a traditional mirepoix (French base of onion, carrot and celery). Browning the chicken before roasting gives it a richer flavor than more simple roasts and the end result is a savory, delicious one-pot meal that pairs perfectly with the subtle body and flavors of Alta Maria Chardonnay.

Also, try this Winter Squash Chardonnay Risotto.

Roast Chardonnay Chicken with Santa Barbara Herbs

Author: Liz

Recipe type: Main Dish

Prep time: 6 hours 20 mins

Cook time: 80 mins

Total time: 7 hours 40 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 4-pound chicken
3 cups Chardonnay (2009 Alta Maria Chardonnay)
1 cup olive oil, plus 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
8 cloves garlic: 6 whole, 2 diced
3 tablespoons chopped mixed fresh herbs (like lemon thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, marjoram) or 1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs
2 lemons: 1 sliced, 1 juiced
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Salt, to taste
1 small onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
1 small green cabbage, cored and quartered

Instructions

In large bowl, combine the Chardonnay, 1 cup olive oil, diced garlic, herbs, lemon juice, pepper and salt. Place chicken in the mixture. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for 6 hours. Turn occasionally.
Preheat oven to 450°F. Heat remaining olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions, carrots, fennel and garlic cloves and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. When the vegetables are caramelized, spoon them along the sides of the pan.
Remove chicken from marinade and add to the middle of the pan. Sear each side until slightly brown, about 3 minutes per side. Arrange the quartered cabbage around the sides of the chicken and pour the marinade into the pan over the chicken and vegetables.
Cover the pan with a lid and roast in the oven for 60-70 minutes, until the chicken is done (meat is cooked through when cut, leg separates easily from the body, or 170 degrees on meat thermometer). Remove lid and let it rest at room temperature 10 minutes.

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Roast chardonnay chicken with santa barbara herbs recipe

Make Leftover Mashed Potatoes into Holiday Tapas

by liz · Dec 5, 2016

If you’re like my family, you have mashed potatoes at every holiday meal. They are a classic. We like to keep the skins on, then mash them with garlic, cream cheese, milk and butter to make them creamy and tangy…and delicious.

I wanted to find a way to make these favorite mashed potatoes into another dish, with a different flavor. I decided to use this Potato Pancakes with Applesauce recipe as a base, but replace the applesauce with a tapas-meets-middle-east tapenade. You can add diced leftover ham to the tapenade, or serve this alongside the ham. (And of course, you can also serve it with applesauce as in the original recipe – this would be great with ham too!)

For the tapenade, you’ll need:

1 jar Kalamata olives
1 clove garlic, diced
orange zest + orange pieces from 1 orange
1/2 cup orange/tangerine juice
1/4 cup olive oil
fresh basil, chopped
salt & freshly ground pepper
cooked ham, diced (optional)

Chop the olives and cut the orange pieces in half, then combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Set aside. Mold leftover mashed potatoes into golf-sized balls.

Pour enough cooking oil into a large skillet to cover bottom with thick film. Heat to very hot but not smoking, and drop potato balls in. Flatten immediately. Fry for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden brown; flip and brown other side, as shown above.

Drain on paper towels. Serve with tapenade (photo above). Or, try the original recipe and serve with applesauce and sour cream.

Braised Cabbage You’ll Want to Eat Every Day

by liz · Dec 1, 2016

This week I got the most gorgeous pointy head of green cabbage I’ve ever seen. It was so becoming I kept it out of the crisper drawer so I could lovingly admire it every time I opened the fridge. I thought about my head of cabbage often, wondering what would be the best way to cook it. My friend the Comedienne cooks my favorite cabbage as a side to her best baked chicken ever – or should I say an under, since it cooks under the chicken, absorbing all the juices and drippings. It’s delicious.

But this cabbage deserved to be the star of the show, the main event. I remembered Molly from Orangette describing how much she liked eating cabbage; she cooked it with hot sauce and she could eat it every day. I wanted to make cabbage like that.

I searched her site and found 2 more cabbage recipes (braised) – a stove-top braised recipe for red cabbage and an oven-braised recipe for green – so I switched out the cabbage color to make my own stove-top braised green cabbage with CSA carrots and a poached egg. I used my sweet, sweet head of green cabbage, substituted one of my favorite white wines for the chicken stock/water, opened some good sea salt, and finished it with artisan olive oil from Santa Barbara wine country.

Molly was right; I could eat this cabbage every day.

Ingredients

¼ cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced into rough ⅓-inch slices
1 large carrot, sliced into ¼-inch rounds
1 medium head green cabbage, about 2 pounds
1-2 cups good-quality dry white wine, enough to cover cabbage halfway
Sea salt
⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes or other spice mix (or Sriracha sauce to finish)
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and carrots and cook until onions are translucent and slightly golden. Add cabbage, wine, salt, and seasoning. Cover pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the cabbage is very soft but not falling apart, about an hour.
Allow the liquid to cook off, so that the bottom caramelizes a bit. Stir the cabbage to incorporate the browned cabbage. Serve immediately.
Top with poached egg and Sriracha sauce if desired.

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Read the results of this eating-more-vegetables-in-season experiment: