Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cabbage and Pine Nuts

Food and Wine strikes again.  Actually, no, they pretty much hit a home run with this one.  Isn't the English language funny?  Strike out means something totally different than strikes.  At any rate, I was reading the magazine in the car on the way to work (yes, I ride in with my hubby if I have no out-of-the office appointments) and saw this recipe.  At that point I was the owner of a mongo bag of brussels sprouts from Sams.  Now, I'm the owner of HALF of a mongo bag.  I may make this again to use up the bag.  This was that good!

The recipe says to serve immediately so I rushed to make sure the pasta and the veggies came out at the same time.  Not to worry.  This is VERY forgiving.  We ate it warm the first time and cold for lunch the next day.  I almost liked it cold better because the flavors had had an opportunity to blend and the cranberries had plumped right up.  The ingredient list and directions look a bit intimidating.  It's not as tough as it looks like it might be to put together.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cabbage and Pine Nuts

Ingredients:

1 lb brussels sprouts
1/2 c pine nuts
6 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
3 T fresh lemon juice
2 T honey
2 t Dijon mustard
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t ancho chili powder
1 1/2 lbs cabbage - red or green
1/2 c dried cranberries
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 oz Parmesan or Romano cheese, thinly shaved

Directions:

Trim the ends off the brussels sprouts then quarter them.  Toss them with about a tablespoon of olive oil. 

Roast them at 450 for about 15 minutes.  They'll turn a lovely golden brown as they caramelize. 

You can either set these aside and heat them back up with the garlic or prepare the rest of the recipe poste haste and not have to reheat these.

Either roast the pine nuts in the oven for about 3 minutes or toast them in a small skillet on the stovetop.  Be careful because they burn quickly!

Now, it's time to make the dressing.  Whisk together the lemon juice, honey, mustard, cayenne and ancho chili powder.  Then, whisk in 1/4 c of the olive oil.  Set the dressing aside for the flavors to blend. 

Toss the cabbage, cranberries and pine nuts together in a large bowl.

 

Heat the remaining olive oil in a medium sized skillet if you're reheating the brussels sprouts, a small one if you're not.  Slice the garlic very thinly. 

Saute it until it's golden brown.  If you're reheating the brussels sprouts, add them just before the garlic is done.  Stir constantly so the garlic doesn't burn.

Time to put it all together.  Add the garlic and olive oil plus the brussels sprouts and the dressing to the cabbage mixture.  Toss it well and serve.

Sweet Potato Gratins and Beet Gratins

I waxed euphoric over the individual potato gratins.  Please, allow me to add sweet potatoes and beets to that list.  This is a recipe that has so many possibilities.

Here's a link to the original post:  Individual Potato Gratins. 

Basically, you slice red potatoes VERY thinly and layer them in muffin tins with salt, pepper, garlic and a bit of finely grated cheese.  Then, you top them with a tablespoon of cream and bake them.  They're beyond wonderful.  We've now had them at least four times...  Connie asks for them and he's not a huge fan of potatoes. 

Once we tried the individual potato gratins, Connie and I brainstormed.  Basic ingredients, liquid, cheese, seasonings...  Two of our top choices were beets and sweet potatoes.  Now, the problem with both of them is that they aren't typically a size that can be easily mandolined and fit into a muffin tin.  So, when we tried these I had a choice between cutting rounds that would fit and wasting a good bit of potato or beet OR cutting pieces and filling the muffin tins.  My Scotch heritage won out.  Go figure.  They still tasted fantastic.  They just didn't stand beautifully on their own once they were taken out of the muffin tins. 

How did we make them?  In both cases, we used blue cheese with cream.  I added some chopped walnuts to the beet gratins:

My guess is these will be great with a lower calorie option like chicken stock or a mix of chicken stock and some white wine.  I'm also dreaming up different combinations.  Like greek lemon potatoes.  Or, mediterranean with some kalamata olives.  I just bought a new bag of red potatoes so a remix is on the menu!

Roasted Cauliflower

Girls Night Out has an annual holiday party at Judy's house.  I'm not sure whether the highlight is the conversation, dinner or gift exchange.  But, it's always wonderful to see my friends and catch up on the latest.  Judy's husband, Carl, does the entree and we all pitch in the other dishes.  This year I signed up for a vegetable thinking roasted broccoli would be wonderful.  Then, a couple of days later, Renee wrote back and said she'd bring a broccoli salad.  Well, I figured I had plenty of flexibility so would bring something else.  Friday afternoon got here and I'd still not decided what I was going to take.  Not only was I running out of time for the decision, but I was going to have maybe an hour to go to the grocery and prepare the dish.  Our favorite carrots were an option.  The recipe is from Melissa d'Arabian on Food Network.  But, my tastebuds kept coming back to the roasted cauliflower we love.

How often have you had a dish and it's totally changed the way you think about an ingredient?  I know, not very often.  Every once in a while there's that break through that takes an ingredient from ok to OMG!  This is one of those dishes.  Best of all, it's easy.  As in VERY EASY!  And, stunning.  Every time I serve it everyone ohh's and ahh's.  Just what every hostess wants to hear!!  My favorite way to cook cauliflower was in cauliflower cheese soup.  But, I wasn't terribly fond of cooked cauliflower otherwise.  It just didn't have enough oomph.  This does.  It's so packed with flavor that your tastebuds do a happy dance.  I got the recipe several years ago from a wholesaler whose mother is a fantastic cook.  So, thank you, Matt!!

The grocery had only really small cauliflowers so I picked up two, thinking that'd be plenty for 10 of us with a bit leftover for Connie and me.  Um, that was my first mistake.  This dish was inhaled!  We got home and I turned the oven on, tossed my coat over a chair and started prepping.  Ok, so the prepping is pretty darned easy.  Got that finished and put the cauliflower in the oven and ran upstairs to clean up for the party.  Took the cauliflower out of the oven, put the dressing on it, covered it with a couple of layers of foil and out the door we went.  Connie was dropping me off on his way to play bridge and he'd pick me up afterwards.

Now, for the funniest part of the story...  Judy and Carl live in a lovely duplex on what used to be Fort Benjamin Harrison.  Theirs is one of oh, maybe twenty buildings - all of which are pretty identical.  So, we turn onto their street and we kind of know which house it is but they do all look alike.  Then, we see some of the other gals on a porch.  Cool.  We're there.  I grab the cauliflower and Connie's got the wine and the gift for the exchange.  Head to the porch.  Pangga's knocking on the door and ringing the bell and nothing.  The dogs are barking up a storm.  I kept saying I wasn't sure this was Judy's house because I didn't remember wall paper in her front room.  And, the decorations on the porch looked different.  But, everyone else kept insisting we were at the right house.  I finally convinced Connie to go around back and check the back door.  He came back around hooting and said he'd looked in and the dogs weren't Carl and Judy's and the kitchen didn't look the same.  So, we went next door to Judy's :-)  And, when the owners of the house next door got back home a few minutes later, they came over and joined us for a drink and a good laugh!

On to the recipe.  Fortunately, we made this for ourselves a couple of weeks ago.  I took a couple of photos then.  It works equally well with half a head of cauliflower as you'll see in the photos.  Or, if you're in a real rush you can break the cauliflower into florets and roast it that way.  But, for the sheer magnificence of presentation, do yourself a favor and cook a whole head the first time.  Toss the leftovers (if there are any) in a salad.  Or, just eat them as is the next day for lunch like I do. 

Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients:
1 large head cauliflower
olive oil
lemon juice
olive oil
capers
parsley, finely chopped

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 450.  Core the cauliflower making sure you don't cut too far in and cause the head to fall apart.  Slather it with olive oil.  Put the cauliflower in an ovenproof baking dish.  Once the oven reaches 450, put the cauliflower in the oven. 

Bake it for an hour.  It'll get wonderfully mahogany brown.  While it's roasting, mix your dressing.  As soon as the cauliflower comes out of the oven, spoon the dressing over it.  It'll spit and hiss a bit as it absorbs all that wonderful flavor. 

Turkey, Brined and Roasted

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  I'm so thankful for all of my blessings.  The love of my life, Connie.  I'm so lucky to have met him.  An incredible family.  I only wish we could see everyone today.  Friends.  Amazing friends.  A career I love.  The best clients ever.  Living in this wonderful country and in a city where there is so much to do and the quality of life is great.  My furry critters.  Cooking and all the wonderful friends I've met through blogging. 

Raise your hand if your favorite part of Thanksgiving eats is the leftovers.  That's what I thought.  There are a lot of us out there.  Those who aren't going to be eating Thanksgiving dinner at our own homes but cook a turkey anyway.  For the leftovers.  Yes, for those scrumptious sandwiches with turkey, jellied cranberry sauce, mayo and lettuce.  For turkey tettrazini overflowing with mushrooms and pimento in a savory sherry cream sauce.  Yes, for leftovers. 

Somehow, I couldn't just cook a turkey and turn it into leftovers.  We had to have our own Thanksgiving dinner - albeit a bit early.  Connie remembered boiled turnips from his kidhood.  He's from 100% Irish stock and assures me that boiled vegetables were the norm for most of his grandparents.  I asked if he'd be ok with root vegetables roasted instead of boiled.  Sure, he said.  So, I tossed a rutabaga, a couple of parsnips, a turnip and a handful of baby carrots with some olive oil, cranberry vinegar and shagbark hickory syrup and roasted them at 500 for 20 minutes.  They were yummy!

And, since Connie's not particularly fond of cornbread, I made dressing with enriched white bread, celery, onion, butter, sage, rosemary, thyme and lots of parsley.  Mom'll bring her dressing to my brother John's today and I'll be a happy camper. 

Last but not least, I made his favorite cranberry compote.  You'll have to wait til tomorrow for that recipe :-)

Back to the star of the show.  If your goal is leftovers, you want the turkey to be extra juicy.  It's usually nice and juicy when you carve the bird.  But, for leftovers it's mucho critical.  Therefore, I tried brining the bird.  I clipped Alton Brown's recipe from the Food Network Magazine and another recipe from the Indianapolis Star.  Then, yup, I did it my way.

Food Network says that Alton Brown's recipe has been their most popular Thanksgiving recipe on the website for the past six years and has gotten more comments than any other recipe.  I can see why.  If you want to go see Alton's original recipe, it's on the Food Network site.  If you want to see the original recipe from the Indianapolis Star, hopefully they'll have it posted soon.  I tried to find the link but it's not there yet.  Or, I can scan the recipe in and e it to you if you'd like. 

Here's how I combined the two:

Brined Turkey

Ingredients:
1 12-14 pound frozen turkey

for the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
8 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 c packed dark brown sugar
1 T black peppercorns
1 T allspice berries
1 T chopped candied ginger
1 lemon, thinly sliced
cold water to cover

for the aromatics:
1 red apple, quartered
1 onion, quartered
1 cinnamon stick
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage

to coat the turkey:
canola oil

to baste the turkey:
1/2 c butter
1 c red wine
1 can jellied cranberry sauce
1 small frozen orange juice concentrate

Directions:
Thaw the turkey in the refrigerator for 2-3 days prior to brining it. You need to make the brine a day before you're going to use it. 

To make the brine, combine everything but the water in a large saucepan.  (Nota bene:  I was at the office and only had a microwave oven.)

Pour in water to cover plus a little and bring to a boil.  Stir well.  You want the salt to dissolve totally.  Refrigerate the slurry until you're ready to use it.  A day before you're going to roast the turkey, take it out of it's packaging and remove the giblets.  Rinse the turkey well - inside and out.  Put it in a large stockpot.  Add the brine slurry

then add cold water to cover.  Refrigerate overnight. 

To roast the turkey, you start by preheating the oven to 500.  Remove the turkey from the brine and rinse it well - again inside and out.  Place the turkey on a roasting rack inside a pan.  Steep the apple,onion and cinnamon stick by adding them to a cup of water and microwaving on high for five minutes.  Add them to the cavity with the sage and rosemary.  Tuck the wings under the turkey.  Coat the turkey with canola oil.  Roast the turkey on your lowest shelf setting for 30 minutes.  If you have a probe thermometer, insert it into the thickest part of the breast.  Reduce the heat to 350 and bake until the internal temperature reaches 161.  When I reduce the heat, I start basting.  To make the basting sauce melt the butter and the jellied cranberry sauce.  Add the wine and orange juice concentrate.  This baste makes a very rich gravy.  It doesn't taste anything like your normal turkey gravy.

Here's Connie carving the bird:

With a quick funny story about the compost bowl that on the counter next to the turkey.  During youngest stepson Matt's first visit to our home, he was asked to empty the compost bowl into the compost bin in the back yard.  He breezed back into the house tossing the bowl up and down.  I enlightened him to the fact that the bowl is an antique.  It was my grandmother's.  He says, "You put trash in an antique?"  I said, "It's out on my counter and I want the trash bowl to look as little like trash as possible."

Last but not least, here's our dinner:

Fried Green Beans

I can't remember EVER making anything deep-fried in my life.  First off, it seems like a tremendous waste of oil and second, I thought the calories would go through the roof.  Well, based on the amount of oil that was left on the paper towel when we drained these, most of the oil stayed in the pan.  I think this recipe came from the Food Network magazine.  It's got a black background with white printing and they tend to do that.  I guess it's a way for a page to look different but in my opinion, it's a way for a recipe to be barely readable!!!  Not only that but I can't read the initials I put on recipes to tell me where it came from.  Or, maybe I cut it out before I started posting from magazine recipes.  I don't know.  (addn:  Sommer tells me this was in the most recent Everyday with Rachael Ray.)  At any rate, ranting aside, this was a fantastic recipe.  We're planning on trying it again but doing it with eggplant, okra, zucchini and green beans.  I may add a second dipping sauce next time too.  Marinara?  Soy sauce based? Garlic?  We may have to try several and do a taste test to see which is better!  I'll be that I'll find some good ones on Foodbuzz!!  Just a note, this is a great appetizer but be ready to NOT be hungry for dinner :-)

Deep Fried Green Beans

Batter:
2/3 c beer
1/2 c flour
2 T cornstarch
salt and pepper


Aioli:
1/2 c Hellman's olive oil mayonnaise
2-3 T fresh, chopped tarragon
2 t dijon mustard
1-2 clove(s) garlic, finely chopped


2 c vegetable oil
1 pound green beans, trimmed

Mix the ingredients for the aioli and refrigerate.  Mix the ingredients for the batter then allow the batter to sit for 10 minutes.  Heat the oil until a drop of batter immediately bubbles back to the surface.  Working in batches, roll the green beans in the batter, then use tongs to gently drop them into the hot oil.  Turn them once during cooking.  (Note: that's easier said than done!!)  Once the batter is nice and crispy and brown, remove the beans from the oil and drain them on paper towels.  Serve hot with the aioli.  Connie even interrupted his jigsaw puzzle to munch on these wonderful beans!

adapted from Everyday with Rachael Ray