Brussel Sprout and Mushroom Ragout with Herb Dumplings

I am much more interested in new things than I am in relying on the tried and true.  I am completely brand un-loyal.  I hate watching a movie or reading a book more than once, unless I really can't remember what it's about.  I think that watching the same reruns of Seinfeld and The Office over and over on TBS is a complete waste of my time.  And I hardly ever cook the same dish more than twice.

Gluten-Free Quick Bread with Walnuts

Yesterday I had planned to make a quick bread recipe that a reader submitted as a comment to Whole Wheat Nutty Quick Bread post.  But when I got to the grocery store there was no whole wheat pastry flour.  Yes, I could have walked two blocks to the next grocery store or just used regular whole wheat flour, but instead I was tempted by a gluten-free garbanzo-fava flour.  PJ has considered going off gluten, and even though he has not committed fully to it yet I thought that having a really good gluten-free loaf might make it seem less scary!

Design-Your-Own Whole Wheat Muffins

Schools were closed again today for a snow day, giving me time to blog about these delicious muffins!  The recipe is a basic whole wheat muffin, but the beauty is that you can completely customize them by adding your favorite fruits, mashed vegetables, nuts, or seeds.

I made a double recipe so we can keep some in the freezer.  For the first batch I made banana walnut and for the second sweet potato with cardamom.  PJ liked the banana better and I liked the sweet potato, but they are both really good.

Chicken Udon Noodle Soup

When I started making this recipe I thought, "I see what we're doing here - we're making chicken noodle soup."  I'm familiar with a good chicken soup recipe because my mom makes a really good one and I make it myself when I'm feeling sniffly or sneezy.  But as I started reading the recipe, I soon began to worry: no carrots or celery? no matzah balls??  and we're adding soy sauce???  It's amazing how switching out just a few ingredients gave this chicken soup a completely different feel. I packaged up the leftovers in pyrex containers to bring in to work for satisfying lunches.

Onion Tart with Mixed Greens

This recipe is a combination of two great French foods: pissaladierres and gallettes.  It is topped with caramelized onions like a pisaladierre, a type of pizza popular in southern France that is topped with caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives.   However this is not made with pizza dough like a pisaladierre but instead rests on a flaky pastry crust  like a galette, which is a flat, free-form, rustic tart.

Tilapia over Swiss Chard and Cannelini Beans

I just found this recipe for swiss chard with cannelini beans on the Williams-Sonoma website.  You might not expect it, but they have an amazing recipe collection which I highly recommend.  The author suggested serving it as a sauce for pasta or over polenta, but when I saw it I immediately thought it would be great served under a fillet of fish.  I prepared the tilapia similarly to the meuniere method I used for the sole a few posts ago.  It came out to be a really nice dish.  It reminded me of something very fancy I had in a five course meal at Ten Tables Restaurant in Boston, but this version is really pretty inexpensive and also fairly easy to make.  I prepped all the ingredients before I left for work so it only took about 25 minutes  when I got home.  Feel free to substitute whatever fish looks best at your market.  For an extra special presentation, make some polenta and serve it beneath the bean mixture, but it really is so elegant without it too that it doesn't seem worth the extra effort to me.

Happy Valentine's Day! Recipe: Stir-Fried Red Cabbage and Winter Squash

PJ's stomach is still not completely healed so I'm trying to get creative to make stir-fried vegetables as exciting as I can.  This combination of red cabbage and bright orange butternut squash is so visually pleasing and really tasty, too.  Next time we have it I'm going to make it with chicken though since I make a similar cold red cabbage and chicken salad that is really good, and PJ still isn't crazy about tofu.  I found this recipe when I was going through the archives of the recipe section in the New York Times.  I realized that the same recipe was actually published twice under different names in 2008 and 2010.  I figure that if this is the recipe they republish when they are out of other good things to write about that it has to be pretty good!

Special Occasion Sole Meuniere

Tonight I told PJ to be nice and hungry when I got home because we were having special occasion sole meuniere.  What was the special occasion, he wanted to know?  The fact that we're having sole tonight!

I just started eating fish a couple of years ago and I hadn't tried sole yet.  When I went to the fish counter today I realized why - $17.99 a pound!  But the fish monger convinced me that I would like it so much more than flounder or tilapia so I decided to go for it.  It really was so so good!  The fillets were thick and held together nicely while sauteing, and the finished product was flaky and flavorful, but not at all fishy.  The fish was cooked with a Meuniere sauce, which is classic French sauce of brown butter and lemon and pairs really nicely with sole.  I served it with boiled sliced potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts.

Baking and banking on a SNOW DAY!! With a recipe for All-Bran Strawberry-Banana Muffins

It's a SNOW DAY!!  PJ and I are both off from work so I have the whole day to do a little banking and baking.  First, to the bank where we deposited almost $100 in coins that have building up over the years!

How do you all handle your extra change?  Not to be pretentious, but I don't personally have an extra change problem.  Whenever I buy something I pay in cash and try to give exact change, and it seems to work out pretty well for me.  PJ, however, doesn't have a devoted space in his wallet for change so first it piles up in his pockets, then it begins to spill out piece by piece onto the floor, and finally it is gathered up and thrown into an electric change machine that I bought him a few years ago.  The change machine puts it into the paper rolls and then we bring it to the bank, which probably only happens once every year or two.  I guess it's working out okay, but I'm curious to know if anyone else has a better system?

Dress-Me-Up-Or-Down Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

I walk through Union Square daily now to get to work which means many impulse stops into Whole Foods.  Last week I stopped in for a snack of a deliciously creamy squash soup that was thickened just by pureeing its vegetables and contained no butter or heavy cream.  It really hit the spot for me, but after paying nearly $4.00 for about a cup of their soup I vowed to save some money for the coming week by making a batch of my own.

Lena's Favorite Blueberry All-Bran Muffins

Lena is my beet-loving sister who inspired the golden beet and trout appetizer (posted below) that I made in honor of her engagement to her loving fiance, Matthew.  Since the engagement which was only a few months ago, she has proven to be an excellent bride-to-be in my opinion.  The wedding isn't until August but she already has inspiration for all kinds of good wedding things like colors, jewelry, invitations, and shoes.  Did I mention that I am carrying the important title of Matron of Honor for this wedding?  I may not have, since I tend to be pretty modest about it, but it's true!  Lena at first suggested we go with Person of Honor as my title, which to me sounds more like an award for someone who survived as a POW or took a bullet to save her platoon.  I don't know, maybe she thought matron was unflattering for a pretty young thing like me, or maybe she didn't like the idea of my tending to her at every moment (which I plan to do, btw), but I think I pull it off nicely so MOH it is.