Chez Sweeny

My husband travels a lot.  In the summer, when there is no school, my children and I will pack up and go to my parents' house for a few days.  During this new school year we might do it if Bill is gone over a weekend, but that doesn't happen too often.
I love going over to my parents' house.  I'm an only child, and my parents still live in the house I grew up in.  When I'm there, I get to sleep in my old room - which now looks like a page out of Coastal Living- the Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket Edition.  When I'm there, I get to see all kinds of wildlife in the back yard (in Suburbia, Minnesota, if your back yard is wooded, like my parents', you get families of deer, lots of birds and, this year, 30+ wild turkeys to look at).  When I'm there, I get to cook and eat awesome food.

Recently we made grilled leg of lamb and roasted potatoes with individual ciabatta.  

Robin's Lamb Marinade:

1/3 cup ketchup

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 orange juice

garlic

parsley

Roasted Veggies

Beets

Baby Carrots

Potatoes

Onion

Olive Oil

Salt

Served with a ciabatta roll and a great deal of butter.

We also made Eating Well's Easy Salmon Cakes.  These are now a new staple in my house.  SO GOOD!

Cook on the stove first.

Then in the oven.

Oven Fries.

 Creamy Dill Sauce

Served with Braised Peas and Scallions - a go-to vegetable in our house

Hey, Mom and Dad - I LOVE THIS RESTAURANT!!

Sesame Tuna Salad

Oh, Mama.  This is a good one.  We had this for dinner the other night, and I had the leftovers for lunch the next day.  Then I gave my extra cabbage and radishes to my parents so they could make it.  I could have eaten this for days in a row -and you know how I am about leftovers.  The flavors are wonderful and the texture is really satisfying.

Recipe here:

Eating Well's Sesame Tuna Salad

Slicing the snap peas and radish this way was actually really satisfying.

Such good flavors!

Veggies and Tuna

Garnished.  So pretty.

You say Rabe, I say Rapini.

We went a little Greek last night.  Some parts of the meal were more successful than others.  The menu was grilled salmon with fresh oregano and lemon, topped with a cucumber, red onion, tomato salsa, and Broccoli Rabe and Orzo Salad.

The salmon left a lot to be desired.  It was an impulse buy, and I should have taken the impulse to another store and gotten a nicer piece.  It was fine, really, but I love salmon so much that I hate to eat a mediocre piece, you know?  The salsa on top was just to try to tie it in to my salad ingredients and use up the stump of English cucumber and six cherry tomatoes we had laying around.

I've never had broccoli rabe.  It is, apparently, not a popular ingredient in my suburb, as I found it in ONE of the four grocery stores I've tried in the past few weeks.  (Yay, Byerly's!)  It is also called broccoli rapini, if you're looking for it.  And it's totally worth looking for.  I made extra orzo, as I knew I was going to have to fish some out without greens in it for my kids, and the picture above shows that even my portion is a little heavy on the pasta. Not that I minded.

The flavor of this green is really great.  It's broccoli-y and green leaf-y, and blanching it in the water with the pasta really takes the bitterness out of it.  I'd go easier on the feta next time, as every once in a while I got a big chunk and it overwhelmed the dish, and I'll also make sure to take out all the big stalky stems.  The leaves are especially wonderful.  Chop them up and put them all in.  This is a great way to get all those fabulous dark green leafy vitamins.  It will definitely hit our table again.  I may even add more garlic and omit the cheese next time, giving me more leeway with my protein. I really felt they had to tie in, so I used the feta as my inspiration for the Greekness of the salmon, and I think this can be a more versatile side dish.

The Miracle of Fish

Last night I made salmon, peas and scallions and served them with a pre-made grocery deli couscous salad.  Freddy (2) had three helpings of fish.  Molly (4) had two.  And they ate their peas.  I was really excited to bring this couscous home to them, too.  It had big pearl couscous, raisins, sweet potatoes, almonds, scallions and chickpeas.  The dressing was made with  honey, orange yogurt and fig.  Sweet and delicious, right?  They both hated it.  But they had multiple servings of fish, so, I'm ok with that.  There's enough couscous left for me to have as a little snack later.

Tonight I'm making the dish it has taken me three trips to the store to get ingredients for - you'll hear that story soon enough.  When I realized I *still* didn't have all the stuff I needed last night, I was very happy that I had bought the beautiful piece of salmon they were sampling at the store.  Now at least we didn't have to have pizza again.  I decided to shake off my frustration of not having all the ingredients of my planned meal AGAIN, and use it as a fun experiment night.  I tried some flavors I thought would go well with the salmon.  I peeled and sliced a lemon and a red onion, and cut some of the fresh dill I'd bought at the store. (I was totally seduced by fresh herbs at the store and now have a lovely bouquet on my kitchen counter.  Spring IS coming, right?)

I put a tiny bit of olive oil on the fish and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  Then I lay some dill sprigs down and covered that with alternating wheels of lemon and onion.  Pretty!  I brushed a little bit more olive oil on top and broiled it on low for 5 minutes.  Not done - and I decided to ditch the rack and lay the skin side right on my half sheet.  Six more minutes broiled on low, and the thinner section of the fish was almost there.  I switched the broiler to high and cooked it for three more minutes.  Beautiful!  The thickest part of the fish was still not cooked, but I served the part that was cooked, and put it back in on low.  I served it to the adults with a little of the lemon and onion on the plate, but they were really too strong to actually eat.  They gave the salmon a wonderful flavor, though.  By the time the kids needed seconds, the rest of the fish was beautifully done.  There were no leftovers.

So, what did you have for dinner?

Sunday 2/7/10:

Leftover Pot Roast.  

I didn't have any carrots (What?  Who doesn't have carrots?), so I used what I did have: a turnip, half a rutabaga, a parsnip and some onion.  I let the vegetables caramelize in the pan, then took them out and browned the meat, returned the veggies to the pan and added the wine (a half a bottle of a great red called Big Ass Zin), some water and beef bouillon and 2 TBS tomato paste.

I served them with a new recipe for CreamyMashed Cauliflower .  I used jarred minced garlic and it totally overwhelmed everything else.  [Fail] We threw it out after two bites.  But the Pot Roast was truly wonderful.  I ate it for three days.

Monday 2/8/10:

Pork Roast with Teeny Tiny Potatoes and Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

Tuscan Pork Loin recipe found here.

I only had time to marinade for 30 minutes (read the recipe first, Virginia - not just the ingredients!).  I liked it fine, though, I have to say, I would prefer a smaller portion of this with the fat left on, than to do it trimmed and turning it twice while cooking.  The meat was a little rubbery (though I may have over cooked it by two minutes).  It's becoming stir-fry in it's next incarnation.

Teeny Tiny potatoes (sold as such at Trader Joe's) were cooked for seven minutes in the microwave, then put on a baking sheet with halved Brussels sprouts.  I rendered the fat that I trimmed off the pork loin, and drizzled it on the potatoes and sprouts instead of olive oil and salt.  They were cooked at 375 for the last 15 minutes of the pork's time, then I upped the heat to 400 for the 10 minutes the meat was resting.  I like a little more char on the spouts, and could have used 5 more minutes, but my husband said they were perfect.

Tuesday 2/9/10:

Leftover Pork Fried Rice, Pot-stickers, Tempura Vegetables and Edamame.  
Thanks again, Trader Joe's!

Wednesday 2/10/10:
Eating Well Fish Sticks and Cheesy Broccoli-Potato Mash

These were both on my list of new Eating Well recipes for the month.  Recipes are found  here and here.

The fish sticks were really delicious!  Light, easy, moist on the inside, the right amount of crunch on the outside.  I used all bread crumbs, as all my flake cereal had dried fruit in it.  I can't imagine why a person would need a whole cup of bread crumbs and a whole cup of flakes for the breading for this recipe, though.  The other breading ingredients were right on.  Here's what was left in the bowl after I'd breaded everything.  Yikes that's a lot of bread crumbs.  And hardly any egg white left.

Next time, I'd peel the potatoes.  As you can see, when I quartered the potatoes to make the mash, the skins are left whole.  Maybe a smaller dice to steam them, to preserve some of the nutrition, but the skins were super big and a little unwieldy.  Kids loved the fish sticks.  The one who likes broccoli ate the mash, the other couldn't be persuaded, even though his favorite color is green.  Sometimes you just can't make the sale.

Thursday 2/11/10:

Bobbie's Chicken, Lemon Pepper Pappardelle, Asparagus Spears

Oh, Bobbie's Chicken, you're my favorite roast poultry.  Yes.  I love you even more than a perfect salt and pepper chicken. Yes. I pick at you even more than Thanksgiving turkey.  You are wonderful, succulent, flavorful.  Your bones make really really excellent stock.  I love you, Bobbie the sculptor (and Bert, too!).   Thank you for perfecting this recipe.  Found on page 403 of The New Basics, this is one of our favorite standbys. We rave about it every time.

I served this with Trader Joe's Lemon Pepper Papparadelle pasta and asparagus with butter and lemon.  Our four year old liked the pasta until the pepper kicked in.  Then she ate the egg noodles I'd made just in case.  Our two year old ate the lemony, spicy pasta like it was going out of style.  And no asparagus is safe for long at our table.  Mmmm!

Weekend Meal Plan:

We've been invited out tonight (Friday) with some preschool parents and their friends.  Can't wait to meet new people and I'm so grateful to my parents for taking the kids overnight.  Twice this weekend!!

Saturday we'll have chicken leftovers.  I made some acorn squash with lots of butter and salt to make it extra sweet and delicious for just such an occasion.

Sunday is Valentine's Day.  We have reservations at Piccolo.  Last time we were there (for opening night), we ordered and ate the entire menu.  We have two fewer people in our party this time, and I don't know how I'm going to edit my eating.  Everything was amazing.  I hope/bet there will be some new items and specials this weekend, and cannot wait for Sunday to come so I can eat there again.  Please.  If you live in or near Minneapolis, or if you know someone who does, make a reservation on their site or at Open Table and go as soon as possible.  Little bites, huge flavors, great prices, nice wine list, amazing front of house, and exceptional talent in the kitchen.