Chimichurri – I Could Almost Drink It!

Have you experienced Chimichurri? It's an Argentinian Sauce, similar to Pesto, but made with a Parsley base.  If you haven't, you must! It was love at first taste for me.  A couple of years ago we went to Eastland Cafe for dinner with friends. In our life, this is considered special-occasion, high-style dining – since eating out in our world usually does not include table cloths, servers, and low lighting.

(I wrote here about the dilemma I face when upscale dining, regarding the salad and main dish courses.)

I struggle with the fact that meat is typically not my favorite part of the meal, and yet it is seen as the main attraction on most menus.  Everything else is simply building up to this apex.  I had difficulty ordering at Eastland Cafe because of this very dilemma.  So, I opted instead to order a salad and some sides.  I felt good about the decision.  I had fried green tomatoes, a beet-topped green salad, a sweet potato dish and something else that escapes me now.  It was all very tasty.  However, I have to report that the highlight of the meal, for me, was the fresh, warm bread and bowl of chimichurri for dipping that was brought at the beginning of our meal.  Oh my....a party for the taste buds! It was so good, I almost drank it.  This began my love (and pursuit) of chimichurri.

I talked to my creative, culinarily friend Rich about it (who happens to be an amazingly creative photographer as well), because I figured he might have a recipe for it.  This summer, he made it happen.  And it was everything I dreamed it to be! He served it poured over grilled flank steak and it was a hit. We all, including the kids, went crazy (Asher went a little crazier than the other kids, but they all loved it). We served it with roasted vegetables, braised purple cabbage and crusty bread.  During the meal we felt compelled to pour the chimichurri over the veggies and dip our bread into it.

We made it the other night and I was able to take a few photos to share with you.  We had a few tablespoons of the chimichurri left.  I saved it.  (If you know me you are not surprised by this). We had some left over pasta noodles in the fridge, so the next day I tossed them together and Shazam! a tasty lunch.  It's delicious on any meat, fish or vegetables.

Chimichurri

borrowed from Simply Recipes

1 cup firmly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley, trimmed of thick stems

3-4 garlic cloves

2 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves (can substitute 2 tsp. dried oregano)

1/2 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp. coarse salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

Finely chop the parsley, fresh oregano, and garlic (or process in a food processor several pulses). Place in a small bowl.

Stir the olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes in a measuring cup.  Adjust seasoning to taste. Pour oil mixture over parsley mixture and stir until well combined.

Serve immediately or refrigerate.  If chilled, return to room temperature before serving.  Can keep for a day or two.

Flank Steak

Flank Steak

Salt and Pepper

Lemon juice
Worcestershire Sauce

Pat meat dry. Sprinkle generously with coarse salt and fresh ground pepper (on both sides).  Dash  Worcestershire Sauce and the juice of a lemon over it (on both sides).

Cook on heated grill over high heat to sear it.  Do not overcook it. 

Rich says the rarer the better.

Chimichurri is so simple.  It takes only a few minutes to make and yet it can transform a meal.

Which, by the way, simple, delicious recipes like this create somewhat of a problem in my life.  Being the tightwad that I am, and loving really tasty food it is hard for me to justify paying $25 for dinner, when it can be made simply at home for a fraction of the cost! And you get to have leftovers! (Not to mention you can do this while wearing your sweat pants).

Collaboration Meals

Summertime-
a season when our meals center around produce – what we find at the farmer's market.

Oftentimes melon, corn on the cob and tomatoes are at center stage.

Getting together with friends is also a favorite aspect of summer supper.  We like it especially when it's casual and easy. One of my favorite ways to share meals with friends is by having what we call A Collaboration Meal.

What's a collaboration meal, you ask?  A Collaboration Meal, which we sometimes call a hodge podge,  or Yours Mine Ours,  is when we get together with friends, bring whatever we have on hand from each of our kitchens, and put it together to make a feast.  One might confuse this with People's Choice, which I wrote about a while back, and it has some similar qualities, but the collaborative aspect of this usually yields a far more exciting menu.  There is something more delicious about eating food that someone else bought or prepared.

our Tapas night- turkey meatballs, garlic pastries from trader Joe's, bruschetta, and a fruity green salad

We have a couple of friends with whom we have done quite a lot of collaborating and have had some great meals as a result.

The planning of these Collaboration Meals goes something like this:
The friend and I are talking on the phone.

Me: Let's have dinner on Thursday night.
Friend: What should we have?
Me: Well, what do you have on hand that we can use as a starting point?
Friend:Let's see...(peering into the fridge) I have 3 turkey burgers,
Me: I have 4 hotdogs,
Friend: I have 3 buns,
Me: oh, I have 5 sandwich rounds, which can work.

fries in the making

Friend: I have some potatoes and can make some fries,
Me: I have some fruit to make a salad,
Friend: Oh, I have some apples, I think.  And I saw a recipe in everyday food magazine for this great dessert I want to try but not sure if my kids would like it.
Me: Oh, make that and I'll bring the cookie dough I have in my fridge to make some choc. chip cookies for the kids.
Friend: Sounds great! We'll come at 4:30!

Done and done! The plan is in place.  And you never can predict what the final product will be, but it almost all of the time exceeds our expectations!  And the sum is always better than the parts.

Sometimes it is more thematic- like "Pasta Your Way" (a couple of different pastas with different sauces, veggies, etc.)

or Tapas night (appetizers as a meal)

and sometimes it's Open Grill (sticking whatever we have that might be grill-able on the grill and serve a smorgasbord).

barley salad

One night we created a Southwestern Salad with tilapia.  We put together our collective greens and lettuces, a ripe avocado and beautiful tomato and my left over texas caviar and brown rice and tortilla chips.  We whipped up some southwestern ranch dressing (out of sour cream, ranch dressing and some salsa) and grilled the tilapia that we spiced up a bit with lime, garlic, cumin, and salt.  My friend brought ingredients over to make a very yummy cornmeal raspberry crumble and it was a delightful feast!

I remember another night we made Kale Chips (because I had been wanting to make them and wished for a partner to venture with me), a few turkey burgers, a few chicken sausages, barley salad that I had made the day before, leftover orzo salad from a couple of days before, a ripe avocado, "s'mores bark"–  (all out of things we each had in our kitchens).

sauteed veggies pitched in between us - for pasta night

Pasta Your Way

Pasta MyWay

We had pasta night last week, where we boiled a couple of types of pasta, made a marinara sauce, sauteed some veggies and prepped some raw veggies and fruit for the kids and dinner was served! 

So, call a friend and look into your freezer, fridge, pantry, fruit bowl...dig deep, as I say, and have a friend do the same. Talk it out and dream up a meal.  It doesn't have to be perfect or even logical.  Sometimes the quirky meals are when we discover new tasty combinations! And it feels so rewarding to use what you have to make a feast.  How resourceful and responsible!

Do you have fun ideas to share with us about how you collaborate to create easy, yummy meals with people?  Please share your ideas with us!

Kabobs

Summertime means Grilling.  One of our favorite meals on the grill is Kabobs (or Kebabs – the spellings are interchangeable, seemingly a difference in origin – Arabic, Persian, etc.). They are a party waiting to happen!  Dinner on a skewer!

8 Reasons Why I Love Kabobs

1. It’s a grill-focused meal, which means the heat is out of the kitchen and outside where it belongs!

2. It’s a fun meal to share with guests because people can hang out around the grill tending it while others are in the kitchen getting the rest of the meal ready.

3. There’s something for everyone with Kabobs!  Whether you are a meat-lover or vegetable-lover, it’s a meal for you. 

4. It’s really versatile – you can use any meat (steak, chicken, shrimp, pork) or vegetable (peppers, mushrooms, squash, tomatoes) or fruit that you want to or that you have on hand.

5. It’s healthy and tasty! (Always a winning combination).

6. It’s an easy meal that doesn’t require lots of recipes, just a lot of prepping.

7. Speaking of prepping, it can be done ahead of time (which is always helpful).

8. Different sauces (homemade or purchased) can add a fun zing and variety to the meal – I’ve done Tzatziki Sauce, Satay Sauce, Chipotle Sauce.

from my 1969 set of skewers that I inherited

I have tried different things throughout the years and there are many approaches and options when preparing kabobs.  Metal skewers vs. wooden skewers; make your own personal kabob vs. community kabobs; all meat on some skewers/all veggies on the others vs. mixed skewers; to name a few. 

Here are some things we have learned along the way:

If you use wooden skewers (which are good if you don’t have enough metal ones or you don’t own any metal ones) it is imperative that you follow the instructions on the package about soaking the skewers before using them on the grill.  Trust us, we learned the hard way.

The time we tried the “make your own kabob approach" it became a messy, raw-meat, confusing-to-label-situation that we forfeited and made community Kabobs.

As far as a varied skewer vs. a segregated skewer- the rule of thumb is to put things on the same skewer that will require a similar amount of cooking time.  I like to include onion on meaty skewers just to add flavor to the meat, however, many veggies cook at a different rate than meat so we more often segregate the veggies and the meats.

Prepare and marinade the meat:

According to THE BEST RECIPE: Grilling and Barbecue* cookbook – by the editors of Cooks Illustrated culinary magazine, after laborious research on kabob marinade research, came to the conclusion that an acidic marinade  (one with lemon juice or vinegar) was less effective in keeping in the flavor and creating a good texture to the meat than an oil-based marinade. And in order to have the nice flavor of the lemon or lime, the most effective technique is to squeeze it on top of the meat when taking it off of the grill after cooking.

*(Side note:  if you have never read this book or magazine, and you like an analytical, research approach to cooking, you must check it out.  I find it to be fascinating and sometimes comical!  They take their cooking research very seriously!)

So, we followed their recipe and it was very tasty!

Marinade:
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
(for chicken, additional herbs--basil, oregano, etc. are welcomed)

2 pounds beef tips &/or chicken breast cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

Lime or lemon for squeezing at the end

Stir together ingredients for marinade.
Place meat in marinade.
Toss to coat evenly.
Cover and refrigerate until well seasoned (1 hour or up to 24 hours).

Prepare the Vegetables (and fruit)
Clean and cut into large chunks:
Bell Peppers
Mushrooms
Zucchini
Onion
Pineapple

Place in a bowl and toss in a drizzle of olive oil until coated.  Season with Kosher Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper.

Skewer the Veggies and Meat onto Skewers.

Grill until meat is well-browned, grill-marked, and cooked at least 8 minutes.  Grill veggies until tender.

 

I like to serve with a rice dish.  Our favorite fast and easy and tasty is the Saffron Yellow Rice.

I also like to serve a green salad with this meal.  Last week we made a Greek salad and I loved scooping up the rice, salad and kabob with the Greek dressing and the Tzatziki sauce.
For my Greek Salad, I included Romaine Lettuce, Shredded Purple Cabbage (from my mom's neighbor's garden), grape tomatoes, diced red onion and Feta (of course).
I would have included cucumbers, olives and banana peppers if I had had them that day.
The dressing is super simple and tasty!


                                                         Greek Dressing:

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup cup lemon juice
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. parsley
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 cup olive oil

Stir together all ingredients except oil.  While whisking vigorously, slowing pour in oil until well incorporated and thick.

                                                                                    

(Last year when we were having a Kabob gathering I asked my friend, Stephanie, to find some fun sauces and she found these recipes from here and there.  Yum! They were all good and something for everyone.)

Tzatziki Sauce- Greek yogurt sauce

2 (8 ounce) containers plain yogurt

2 cucumbers - peeled, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 lemon, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

3 cloves garlic, peeled

Blend or process, refrigerate, and serve cold. Refreshing and delicious!

(We have omitted the cucumbers before and it makes a tasty sauce that my family loves!)

Satay Sauce- Thai peanut sauce

1 (10 ounce) can coconut milk

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/2 small onion, grated

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter, onion, soy sauce, brown sugar, and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove from heat, and keep warm.

Chipotle Sauce- Spicy cream sauce

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

In a small bowl, mix together the yogurt, mayonnaise, and chipotle peppers until smooth. Chill until serving.


Ready, Set, GRILL!!!

Special Fall Dinner

A special fall meal, including some of my favorite flavors of the season, is Pork Tenderloin and Sweet Potato Apple Scallop.  The recipes each have a different history of how they came to our kitchen. 

The Pork: When I was pregnant with Lucy (my youngest child), a few of my son’s school-mates’ mothers offered to bring meals to us when our baby arrived.  We were so thankful and thrilled to have meals brought. (I think providing meals is one of the most wonderful ways to love someone when they have a new child, or are going through any transition or tough time, really.  If you are not already in the practice of doing this I strongly consider you start today!)

One of our favorites was a meal that centered around 2 large pork tenderloins that were marinated and brought to us hot off the grill.  The meat was so flavorful and tender.  My guys went wild and I loved how well seasoned it was.  We quickly asked for the recipe.  Lissa, the giver of the meal, passed it along and we are thankful. It is a simple marinade and then the meat is grilled.  It is a winner every time.  I have cut the butter quantity from the original version and don’t notice a difference (except for less guilt).  The trickiest part of this recipe is guessing which piece of meat to buy (since it is usually bought shrink-wrapped in the store and it is hard to know exactly what you are purchasing). This dish is great year round, but I chose to post it this month because it is nice weather to enjoy grilling and it goes so well with the sweet potato/apple dish that I have been craving.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

5 Tbsp melted butter

1/3 cup soy sauce

2/3 cup worchestershire sauce

2 Tbsp ketchup

2 Pork Tenderloins 

Combine ingredients in a glass measuring cup. Pour over 2 pork tenderloins in a dish.  Marinade meat  in a covered dish for 2 hours or more.  Grill, flipping frequently until a thermometer inserted into the largest part of the meat reads 150-155 (approximately 20 minutes).  Remove from grill and wrap in foil to continue to cook and maintain warmth.  

                                                                     

Our tips with the pork are:

*Use a Meat thermometer to know when it is done!  If you don’t have one, this would be a good tool to purchase.  Rather than guessing or cutting your meat repeatedly to see if it is fully cooked, the thermometer inserted can give you an accurate read that will let you know when the meat is safely cooked. 

*Flip the meat in the marinade a few times during the time it is marinating.  (I have this cool marinating Tupperware container which is really convenient and useful for meat preparing - you can flip the container and both sides have a tenderizing texture).

*Be careful when grilling, because the marinade can easily burn on the pork.  My griller-husband suggests you turn the tenderloin often while it is on the grill to prevent charring. There is plenty of marinade to continue to baste while grilling.

*If you don’t have a silicone basting brush, I recommend you get one, as it is much easier to clean and care for than a traditional basting brush.

*Make more than you think you will need, as it is a little hard to stop eating it. (My 8 year old son ate 7 pieces today when we said, "STOP! ENOUGH!")

Sweet Potato Apple Scallop

For my friend’s 40^th birthday (in October) a couple of years ago, several friends gathered and cooked a meal for her.  It was a lovely occasion and the main dish was pork tenderloin (a more complex recipe than the preceding one).  I was to bring a sweet potato dish and decided that I wanted something a little different than baked sweet potatoes, or a sweet potato casserole or mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Don’t get me wrong, I like sweet potatoes of all varities.

My family loves sweet potatoes at thanksgiving and we have a history of voting on “how we want our sweet potatoes fixed” each year.  I love them all ways…they are just so good! We have been known to have 3 versions of sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner- my sister, who likes the marshmallow topped and the crumble-topped casserole has had the great insight to create a ½ and ½ pan and she scoops her portion down the center in order to get some of each!

But the night of the birthday dinner party, I envisioned a baked apple/sweet potato combo.  I searched around for what I was looking for and found a recipe online and adapted it my liking.  It is tasty, hearty and beautiful too.  It is one of those recipes that can be altered according to your preferences.

Sweet Potato Apple Scallop

4 sweet potatoes

4 medium apples, peeled and cored

2 tsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp orange juice

½ cup cranberries (as per your preference)

1 cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup chopped pecans

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

2 Tbsp butter

Place sweet potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water.  Bring to a boil; cook for 20-25 minutes or until tender. 

Drain and cool.  

Peel potatoes and cut into ¼ inch slices.  

Place in a baking dish coated with cooking spray.  

Cut apples into slices.  Arrange over sweet potatoes. 

Sprinkle with lemon juice.  

Then sprinkle cranberries all around the top.

(You can alternate layering of sweet potatoes and apples, if your pan’s dimensions allow). 

Combine the brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and orange juice; sprinkle over fruit. [If you are making in a pan with 2 layers of each item, I recommend you sprinkle the brown sugar mixture between layers as well as on top, so as to flavor the bottom half as well as the top.]   Dot with butter.  

Bake, uncovered at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until apples are tender.