saucy tomatoes

After all of the delicious Super Bowl weekend treats floating around, it's nice to start the week with a light and crisp salad.  Enter my new favorite lettuce...mâche.  If you haven't tried it, it's a really lovely French lettuce - NPR actually did a story on mâche a few years ago, who knew it was all the rage!

To really have success with this salad you should have a mandolin handy.  If you don't have one, it's not the end of the world, you just need to be extra careful to shave the radish and the celery root very very thinly. 

Salad Ingredients:

(serving size 4-6 salads)

14 oz package mâche

1/2 cup sunflower sprouts

4 radish (shaved paper thin)

1/2 celery root - about 1/2 cup (peeled and shaved paper thin)

Seeds from 1/2 of a pomegranate (about 1/4 cup)

1/4 cup pistachio 

1/4 cup shaved parmesan 

Freshly grated pepper

Rinse the mâche and sunflower sprouts really well.  I also trimmed the ends of the sunflower sprouts to clean them up a bit.   Sunflower sprouts are soooo good!  One of my favorite little additions to a salad.

Celery root is a funny little root.  It certainly doesn't look very cute from the exterior but boy oh boy does it taste good.  Again, you'll want to use your mandolin or a super sharp knife to get the celery root super thin.  To remove the hard exterior, just cut it off using a sharp knife.

Once the celery root is shaved, shave the radishes super thin too.

Cut your pomegranate in half, remove the seeds and clean them up a bit.  Put them aside until it's time to put the salad together.

Dressing:

Juice from one blood orange

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp whole grain mustard

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Pinch of salt

Pinch of pepper

Mix all of the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.  

Now it's time to assemble the salads.  I plated each salad instead of having one big bowl.  Start with the mâche, add the sunflower sprouts, shaved celery root, radish and top with shaved parmesan.  Dress very lightly with the blood orange vinaigrette, add the pistachio and pomegranate seeds and finish with fresh cracked pepper.

This is a really lovely, light and crisp salad.  Enjoy!

I'm not into cutting corners when it comes to cooking, but every once and awhile, it's ok.  The Super Bowl is just around the corner and I want to make something delicious yet easy.  I also wanted something with a New England flavor, my husband being a Patriots fan and all!  So, I opted to use pre made puff pastry dough instead of making my own...and I'm ok with that.  They taste really good.

Ingredients:

2 puff pastry sheets (thawed)

4 oz of cream cheese (1/2 cup softened to room temperature)

1/4 lb fresh crab meat - I used dungeness crab (1/2 cup)

1/4 cup ricotta cheese

1/4 cup diced scallion

1 egg yolk

3 slices of applewood smoked bacon

Pinch salt

Pinch pepper

Thaw your frozen puff pastry dough by following the directions on the box.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and cook your bacon.  The key to a nice thick slice of bacon is cooking it on low heat.  Take the bacon out of the pan once it begins to brown slightly on the edges.

Grab a large bowl add the ricotta, crab meat and cream cheese to the bowl and mix well.  Add your diced scallion.

Add the scallion and egg yolk to the cream cheese and crab mixture and stir it all up.  Once everything is combined, set the mixture aside while you work with the puff pastry dough. 

The puff pastry dough is surprisingly easy to work with.  Once it is thawed, just lay it out on a lightly floured surface and begin cutting the dough using a medium size cookie cutter.  You'll have some extra puff pastry which you can use creatively in another recipe if you wish!

Once you've cut out all of the pastry dough circles, and you should have enough for 9 or 10 little bites, simply place about 1-2 tbsp of the crab, cream cheese and ricotta mixture on one of the rounds.  Place a second puff pastry on top of the mixture and press down lightly.

Place the assembled puffs on a lightly greased cookie sheet and place in the oven on the middle rack.

Bake the puffs for 15-17 minutes or until lightly brown.  Let cool slightly, serve and enjoy.  I sure did!

I have a new obsession - kimchi fried rice. This recipe is another inspiration from my recent trip to Hawaii. The sourness of the kimchi paired with the the sweetness of the fresh pineapple is fantastic.  A great vegetarian option too.

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked white rice (preferably day old rice - prepare 2 cups dry rice to make 4 cups cooked)

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp sesame oil

2 cups kimchi

1/4 cup green onion (diced)

1/2 cup onion (diced)

1/2 of a fresh pineapple (about 2 cups diced)

1/2 cup frozen peas

pinch salt 

pinch pepper

This recipe is really quite easy.  Prepare your rice a day in advance if possible.  Then start by dicing up all of your veggies and the pineapple and put it all in a large bowl.  You're only going to use half of the pineapple, so while you're at it, why not make a few daiquiris to pair with your kimchi fried rice!

Now it's time to get the kimchi ready.  If you've never opened up a jar of kimchi, get ready!  I was pretty overwhelmed with the smell of the delicious, yet pungent fermented cabbage and other lovely veggies.The brand I bought was really good, I found it in the refrigerated section of my local whole foods. 

Take about 2 cups of kimchi and dice it up, just as you did with the pineapple and veggies.  Add the kimchi to the bowl of diced veggies.

Heat your coconut oil and sesame oil over medium-high in a large pan.  Even better, use a wok if you have one. Once the oil is hot, add all of your veggies, pineapple and kimchi and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add your frozen peas. 

Next, add the four cups of cooked rice and mix well with the veggies.  Once the rice and veggies are combined, press the rice with the back of your spoon so that it is compressed and flat.  Let the rice cook without stirring for about 1 minute, stir and scrape the rice off the bottom and repeat.  Continue this menthod until the rice begins to show golden brown bits.

It should take about 10-12 minutes to fully