THE SWAP

Poor Shalinee has been out straight lately at work with way too much weighing on her. She has a huge deadline looming for Friday, plus a million other things going on, so her cooking for the swap this week was out of the question. It was also her birthday Tuesday! And so this week was a swapless swap week— I made dinner for Shalinee’s family and she didn’t cook… which we’ve never actually done before… but was exactly as it should be on a week like this.

About a year ago (before we started blogging about the swap), I made “Asian Noodle Salad” from The Pioneer Woman one week for our swap. It turned out to be an incredibly awesome salad that both Shalinee and I absolutely loved beyond belief! Our husbands and kids loved it too. It was a real keeper of a recipe. Probably one of the best salads I’ve ever made (or eaten, for that matter) ever in my life. No kidding! Since I made it for swap that time I’ve made it two or three other times for my family. So, given everything going on with Shalinee this week, I wanted to make something for the swap that I knew she would love. I also wanted to make something super refreshing to help get us through these gray dark freezing-cold-days-of-winter. And so, for this week’s swap I, for the first time in our almost one year of swapping, made a dinner I’ve made before for swap. Here is the link to Ree Drummond’s fabulous recipe:  http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/my_most_favorite_salad_ever_ever_ever_ever/

It is a labor intensive salad (lots of chopping!), but totally worth it. I pretty much follow the recipe, just with a few tweaks. For example, I use baby salad greens instead of spinach. And I like to add shredded chicken to bulk up on the protein when the kids are going to be eating it. I also like to add diced fresh mango. For the swap, because of Alex’s allergies, I made Shalinee’s dinner completely nut-and-seed-free (which meant eliminating the cashews and the sesame oil). This salad is so incredibly delicious! In the summer we eat it totally cold, but in the winter I like to warm up the noodles so that there is a warm-and-cold thing going on together on the plate. Either way, it is absolutely awesome (and slightly addictive!). Braydon and I eat it all tossed up together, but K, O, and M like to have all the items separate on their plates. So, we put all the containers of ingredients out on the table and let everyone “make their own.” The kids love the “sauce” (the salad dressing), and especially like to pour it all over the noodles and chicken. It is all good and I have to admit that I kind of get a huge kick out of seeing my six year old boys devour the “Asian Noodle Salad” dinner and clean their plates completely.

This week I also made a dessert (which we don’t normally do for swap, but this week was an unusual week all around so I went all out). I made the most homey-comfy-wintertime-treat: bread pudding. There is nothing quite like warm and gooey bread pudding with whipped cream on top to bring some comfort on a cold February night. The recipe I used came from MomsWhoThink.com (you can find it here); I’m posted it below. It is really good! I highly recommend that you make it for your family soon (and double it to give one away to your friend who needs it!).

Bread Pudding (copied and pasted from MomsWhoThink.com)

This bread pudding recipe, from an old Amish cookbook, is absolutely incredible. It was copied, loaned out, scribbled on note cards and passed on by grandmothers, great-aunts, beloved neighbor ladies and those whose home cooking reaches the very soul of the family. This is the bread pudding people get dreamy-eyed over. For a lot of us, it’s nostalgia. A yearning for a simpler time when dessert was made from a few common kitchen ingredients. It’s also the way it brings everyone into the kitchen, warm with the smell of cinnamon and vanilla fresh from the oven. Whatever the reason this bread pudding becomes your number one comfort food; savor every bite. It is truly the soul satisfying treat that most people crave. Nothing beats warm bread pudding on a cold or rainy night.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole milk (or 2 cups half & half)
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, depending on taste preference)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups bread, torn into small pieces (french bread works best)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Directions:

1. In medium saucepan, over medium heat, heat milk (or half & half) just until film forms over top. Combine butter and milk, stirring until butter is melted. Cool to lukewarm.

2. Combine sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for 1 minute. Slowly add milk mixture.

3. Place bread in a lightly greased 1 1/2 quart casserole.

4. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Pour batter on top of bread.

5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes or until set. Serve warm.

If you make the sauce to put on top of your bread pudding, adjust the sugar in the bread pudding recipe, change it to 1/3 cups sugar (the sauce has the other 1/3 cup in it).

Bread Pudding Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk
2 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon flour
dash of salt

Directions:

Mix everything together and bring to a boil for 3 – 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Set aside for 5 minutes, then pour on warm bread pudding.

{Serve the bread pudding warm with whipped cream on top!}

I am very happy to start the new year with this swap menu! I made this combination of dishes twice over the holidays, once for my father and once for my brother-in-law and his wife. Both times, all three items a big hit…with kids and adult alike. Hope the J-M’s will find it as enjoyable!

Here’s what I made:

– Salmon with Coconut Sauce
– Green Beans in Fresh Tomato Sauce
– Indianized Mushroom Wild Rice Pilaf

The salmon recipe is from Bal Arneson, who is the Spice Goddess on the Cooking Channel. I usually don’t enjoy salmon made with a lot of spices but Bal’s got it spot-on…the right spices, the right blend, the right amount…the coconut sauce is just heavenly and goes so well with the salmon.

I also made the green beans using another one of Bal’s recipe. This time the modification was to eliminate the paneer, only because I didn’t have any. And I made a desi (i.e., Indian) version of wild rice pilaf. Basically, I cooked the wild rice using a bit more water (1/4 cup more than the 2 1/2 cups called for). While it was cooking, I sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms with some ground cumin, dried fenugreek leaves, salt and pepper. Once the rice was almost done I tossed in the sauteed mushroom mixture and let the rice finish cooking.

Salmon, green beans and rice…with spice!

In the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been semi-“off”-from work (i.e., Winter Break between semesters), and totally-Nanny-less (i.e., with Meera 24×7), I’ve been doing some much needed catching-up with friends. It has been sooooo gooooood. In the craze of our dual-career-&-three-kids life the thing that unfortunately, and so sadly, often falls through the cracks is our social life. One of the many splendid things that Meera and I got the chance to do was to drive over to NJ for a morning and lunch at the Uhrig’s house (Our good friends the Uhrigs have made many appearances on our blog— here, here, and here, for just a few.). The dads were working, the big boys were all at school, and so we were able to indulge in the sweet, sweet calm-and-stillness-and-room-for-plenty-of-mommy-to-mommy-conversation that is a Meera-&-Tae-playdate. Oh my, the loveliness! Stacey made the most deliciously fabulous lunch for us and I was completely smitten with every bite of it. It warmed me heart and soul to have my friend make this special lunch for me. I decided right then and there, and told Stacey so, that I was going to get all of her recipes and make this lovely lunch for dinner for the Swap. And that is exactly what I did.

Here it all is, directly from the source, the fabulous Stacey Uhrig:

Soup – Chiarello’s Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

http://www.food.com/recipe/chiarellos-roasted-butternut-squash-soup-440035

Kale “Chips” – Food and Wine – Crispy Kale

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/crispy-kale-with-lemon-yogurt-dip

Tuna Sandwich – Stacey’s Special

1 Can of White Tuna (no salt added / in water)

Black olives or Capers

Shallots or Red Onion

Lemon

Olive Oil

S&P

Pesto

Multi-grain roll

In bowl, mix drained tuna with chopped black olives, chopped shallots, juice of one lemon (add zest if you want a fuller flavor), and enough olive oil to make it the consistency you like.  I tend to like it very lemony….Season with salt and pepper!  I didn’t give measurements bc I kind of eye ball it….add as much or as little as you like…make it your own! Toast up your favorite roll (I happened to use a multi-grain baguette), slather on your favorite pesto (I had a store bought one in my house, but its awesome with home made as well)…top it with the tuna and voila! Bon Appétit!

The Meal:

– Chicken Kofta (aka Chicken Balls)
– Basmati Rice
– Mango Lassi

This meal is a repeat. I made the Chicken Kofta early in our swap-history and the Mango Lassi was a part of a summer swap meal. Heather informed me that K&O had enjoyed both items in the past; so I decided to make it especially for them, to celebrate their new school!

That being said, Chicken Kofta are a staple in my household. I probably make them a couple of times a month…the kids absolutely love it. I have two different ways of preparing them: One involves saffron (which would be pricey given how often we eat this stuff) and the second is the one I describe below.

And oh yeah, we did holiday pictures last weekend…my camera was out of juice and so I didn’t get to take any pictures of the cooking!

Chicken Kofta

The recipe below serves 4-5.

– 4 tablespoon vegetable oil
– 1 medium onion, chopped
– 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
– Fresh ginger, chopped, in equal amount to garlic
– Good fistful of baby spinach, chopped
– 1 lb ground chicken
– 3 teaspoon salt
– 2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
– 2 tablespoon tandoori masala
– 2 teaspoon garam masala
– ~2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
– 1/2 medium tomato, roughly chopped
– 1 inch cinnamon stick
– Pinch of asteofida (optional)
– Pinch of red chili powder
– 1/4 cup tomato sauce
– Pinch of sugar

Method:
– Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
– Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add half the onions and sautee for ~2 minutes, till translucent.
– Add half the ginger and half the garlic and sautee for another minute. Remove from heat, stir in baby spinach and stir till wilted.
– In a mixing bowl, combine onion/ginger/garlic/spinach with ground chicken, half the salt, half the pepper, half the tandoori masala, half the garam masala, and all of the cilantro. Do not over mix.
– Form mixture into balls, place on baking tray, and place baking tray in oven for approximately 12-15 minutes till juices turn brown.
– While chicken is cooking, place the remainder of the onions, ginger and garlic in a food processor. Add in tomatoes and blend into a paste (will require a couple of splashes of water).
– Heat remainder of oil in new pan over medium-high heat. Add in cinnamon sticks and asteofida (optional).
– Once the cinnamon stick starts to warp, add onion/ginger/garlic/tomato paste. (Watch out for splattering.) Stir and stir often, for 2-3 minutes.
– Mix in red chili powder and remainder of tandoori masala. Sautee for another 2-3 minutes, till oil separates.
– Add in tomato sauce, sugar, remainder of salt and pepper. Add in roughly 1/2 cup water.
– Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 7-8 minutes.
– Mix in remainder of garam masala and cooked chicken balls.  Remove from heat.
– Serve over white rice.

Mango Lassi

During the summer, I make lassi for my kids easily 3-4 times a week. Their two favorite flavors are mango and rose (which I make using rose syrup and rosewater). I don’t have a set recipe for making the lassi. I make it using “andaaz,” which is a Hindi (and also Urdu) word that many Indian mothers use to describe their style of cooking….without recipes, based entirely on experience, intuition and the senses (mostly sight and smell).

So, how do I make my mango lassi? Roughly speaking, I blend equal parts yogurt and milk with a little less than equal part mango puree. Then I blend in some sugar, to taste. After blending this proportion, I will then taste and adjust accordingly. If it turns out too thick, add milk…too thin, add yogurt….too sweet, add yogurt….too tart, add sugar (if mango flavor is sufficient), or else add more mango puree. Clearly not a scientific approach but it works for this Indian mother!

The Verdict

I was very excited about Heather’s meal this week.  Somehow in all the years of cooking and providing food for my children, I had neglected to introduce them to both lasagna and Caesar salad.  Two serious omissions on my part!

And, how did it all go?  Well, Heather’s salad was truly awesome!  Dave and I had it in K&O quantities, by which I mean that I had 3 helpings and Dave had 4!  Seriously good stuff!  As for the kids, they were fairly ho-hum about the salad (weirdos!).  Their enthusiasm was for the lasagna.  Neither could believe “noodles” (their word for all pasta) could be so big…in Alex’s words, “my noodle is humonguch…I love it!”  Thanks, Heather, for both delicious meal and introducing my kids to these staples!

Kyle, Wednesday night, pounding down Shalinee’s Mango Lassi

This week for Swap I made Caesar salad. As a “side” I made Spinach Lasagna. Seriously… this salad is so good that it takes center stage and everything else (even the main entree) becomes secondary. Have you ever made homemade Caesar salad? If not, you’re totally missing out. If you like Caesar salad, you’ll love homemade Caesar salad. And I’ve got the best recipe for it in the whole wide world, I kid you not. Braydon and I have been Caesar salad lovers for a long, long time. We consider ourselves sort of Caesar Connoisseurs. And once the bambinos came into the picture they soon became Caesar salad lovers-and-connoisseurs at very early ages. K & O have been eating it, and loving it, since they were barely two. Meera started even earlier. She started eating it, and loving it, basically as soon as she got a couple of teeth to chew with. At this point the three of them will often order Caesar salad when in a restaurant (only if the restaurant is known by them to have a “good Caesar”; they’ll balk at a “bad Caesar”), and at home they eat pounds and pounds of it (again, only if it is “good Caesar”). I’ve always gone through spurts of alternating between making the dressing myself, buying good versions of it, and –of course—we often order it when out. But recently I’ve come across what I believe to be the planet’s best version of homemade Caesar dressing. Recipe posted below. Note— with permission from Shalinee, I broke the “no pasta” rule that we have for Swap because: a) we both agreed that lasagna is something we wouldn’t ever be able to pull of making on a weeknight, thus it isn’t “typical pasta,” and b) I was really aiming for comfort food this week for Kyle and Owen given that they’re still in massive transition from-their-old-school-to-their-new-school.

This week’s meal:

• Caesar Salad
• Spinach Lasagna
• Store-Bought Good Crusty Bread (we warmed this in the oven until crisp, and then ate it dipped in good olive oil with salt, pepper, and herbs – the bambinos go crazy for bread this way)

Homemade Caesar Salad

Caesar Dressing, recipe from At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach

1 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise

3/4 tsp anchovy paste

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

3 1/2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 medium garlic cloves, minced

3/4 tsp coarsely cracked black pepper

Put all ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk until well blended. Will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

To prepare salad: Toss romaine lettuce leaves with croutons, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and dressing –to taste. Grind some extra pepper on top.

Notes: I usually half the amount of garlic that the Blanchard’s recipe calls for because we don’t like the garlic to be too overwhelming. One of our favorite ways to eat this salad is as a great stand-alone dinner with grilled shrimp, chicken, or steak on top of it! We also love to make Caesar sandwich wraps with this salad (with or without shrimp/chicken/steak).

Spinach Lasagna

I never use a recipe when it comes to lasagna; just kind of wing it every time. This time I used Barilla no-boil lasagna noodles with the following fillings, layered in between— good quality tomato sauce; grated mozzarella cheese; grated parmesan; and a spinach-ricotta mixture. For the spinach-ricotta mixture: I loaded as much fresh dry spinach as I possibly could into my Cuisinart (tons and tons of tons of it jam-packed in there), and ran it until finely chopped. I mixed this spinach with a big tub of whole-milk-ricotta cheese, and a couple of eggs to bind it together. After layering the lasagna in baking dishes, and topping with parmesan, the lasagnas were ready for the Swap. Shalinee and I could then both bake our lasagnas at 375, covered with foil, until bubbly (about 45-60 minutes), then continue baking, uncovered, until the parmesan cheese on top was slightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We loved Shalinee’s dinner. Every time she makes Indian food for us is a special treat. The boys are especially crazy about “Shalinee’s Mango Lassi” (not just “mango lassi”… this is SHALINEE’S MANGO LASSI!). We drank so much of it Wednesday, but there was still just exactly enough left over for the boys to both have a thermos-full in their lunch at school the next day. I can only imagine them trying to explain The Swap to their teacher and classmates!!! Would love to have been a fly on the wall. Anyway, as always, thank you Shalinee!

The Menu:

– Moroccan Chicken & Butternut Squash Stew
– Plain White Rice
– Baba Ganoush (from Wegmans) with Pita

This stew is my attempt to recreate a dish that a friend made for our family when our son was born. The original version did not have butternut squash and it was also made by someone Algerian. So yeah, not exactly the same dish.  Plus, the original was made with love and tons of thoughtfulness…no way to duplicate that.

At any rate, my recipe (below) is a modification of one that I found in one of those recipe cards that they have at the grocery store. I’ve made it twice in the past and my daughter really liked it….so I’m trying again, hoping for a similar reaction.

Moroccan Chicken & Butternut Squash Stew

The recipe calls for harissa, which is a hot red pepper spice paste/sauce used in various parts of North Africa. The only reason I call this dish Moroccan is that the particular brand of harissa I use comes from Morocco. If you don’t have harissa, I think you can easily replace it with a teaspoon of all-spice and some red pepper flakes….and designate the dish from whatever part of the world you please 😉   The recipe below serves 4.

– 2 teaspoon olive oil
– 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
– 1 medium onion
– 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
– 2 cloves garlic, minced
– 1 tsp ground cumin
– 1 tsp harissa paste (more if you like it spicy)
– 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
– 1 diced tomato
– 1/4 cup tomato paste
– 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded an cubed (about 4 cups
– 1/2 cup golden raisins
– 2 tbsp fresh lime

Method:
– Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook till browned.
– Add onion, carrots and garlic. Cook till softened and then add cumin and harissa.
– Add broth, tomato, tomato paste, squash and raisins. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer ~20 minutes till squash is tender.
– Stir in lime juice and serve with plain white rice.

The Verdict:

Overall the Moroccan stew was a success at our house. Alex really truly enjoyed it…never met a raisin that he didn’t love. Kavya ate it…liked it well enough…or in her words, “it’s really actually alright, Mummy.” Dave and I enjoyed it as much as we did in the past.  The heat of the harissa balanced pretty well with the sweetness of the squash and the raisins. An enjoyable meal for sure and worth cooking again in the future.

Heather’s crock pot dinner had mixed reviews…the kids enjoyed it. Kavya was impressed that the chicken was not at all “chewy”. Alex also never met a noodle he didn’t love…so a hit there too. Dave enjoyed the meal while I thought it was alright. Given how easy the recipe is and given the kids’ response (and given the fact that I actually got to use my crock pot, aka dust collector), I might give this recipe another try sometime soon. Thanks, Heather! Also, thanks to your mom for the recommendation!

I own a crock-pot. It was a college-graduation-gift from my uncle. I rarely use it. I think over the sixteen years since I graduated from college, I’ve maybe used the crock-pot sixteen times total. But I am a crock-pot cooker admirer; I believe in the cleverness of cooking with a crock-pot; I totally understand the allure of throwing stuff in there before heading off to work in the morning and then coming home to a yummy-homey-comforting-family-supper. I get it! I just have never quite jumped on the bandwagon. I think the reason, mostly, is this: although Braydon adores this kind of food, it is just not my kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat it (I’ll eat just about anything, from the most mundane to the most exotic — I’m not a picky eater whatsoever), but if I’m the one choosing what to eat and I’m the one cooking it, then there are lots of things I’d choose first over the crock-potty-type dinners. Nevertheless…

A couple of weeks ago my mom sent me an email with the subject line: “Try This!” She sang the praises of this new crock-pot dinner that she’d discovered, and she suggested that I try it for Swap. I’ll admit, when I first looked at the recipe, I thought she was crazy. But she swore that she’d actually eaten it (twice no less!) and that it was delicious and that the Swap Kids (i.e., my kids and Shalinee’s kids) would all love it. Since this was my first Swap recommendation from anyone ever, and since my mother is always right about everything (I swear!), and since I was having a seriously over-extended/stressed/overwhelming week last week, I decided to take the risk and try this super easy crock-pot dinner for Swap. We’ve never used crock-pots for our Swap before, so this was a first. For the J-M’s this was a huge, huge hit! I liked it just fine. But the rest of my family loved it. Particularly Owen, who could not get enough of the chicken.

MorMor’s Crock-Pot Chicken

4, 8,  12 even 16 chicken thighs / or drumsticks. Bones and skin and all. (note: I, Heather, used 6 drumsticks and two large breasts cut in half for each family)
1/2 cup orange juice
1 can whole cranberry sauce
1 package Lipton Onion soup

Cook 6-8 hours in the crock-pot.

I served this with buttered egg noodles and sweet baby peas. I’m sure that Owen will be requesting this dinner many times in the future. Maybe the crock-pot will start seeing more appearances around here!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This week Shalinee’s dinner was a delight for Braydon and I. We really liked it a lot. K, O, and M, on the other hand, in a strange never-before-seen twist, all refused to eat it. They all tried it, and ate tons of rice, but would not eat the stew. My theory is that they had eaten way too much baba ganoush and pita before dinner and were simply no longer hungry. It all worked out, though, because it meant that there were more leftovers for lunches for Braydon and I later in the week! 😉

This week was a no swap week for Shalinee and I. It is Kavya’s 5th birthday week– with her school birthday Thursday, and her big at-home dinosaur party (none of us in either family can wait!!!) on Sunday, there was just too much to do this week… swap just couldn’t fit in. And that is totally o.k. because sometimes it just can’t happen, and that is just real life. I did a Food post this week instead (see below). And now… phew!… onto the weekend (it has been quite a week here in J-M-land… lots of movin’ and shakin’ goin’ on… hopefully will be able to post about all that sometime soon…).

The Meal

– Vegetables and Rice Noodles in a Coconut Broth
– (Store-Bought) Plantain Chips

The recipe for the vegetables and rice noodles dish comes from one of the THREE Indian cooking shows on TV right now.  This is from Anjum Anand; her BBC show “Indian Food Made Easy” airs on the Cooking Channel.  The other two are Aarti Sequeira, who is the host of “Aarti Party” on FoodTV, and Bal Anerson, the “Spice Goddess” also on the Cooking Channel. I’ve DVR’d all three and based on what I’ve seen, I suspect there will be more recipes from these shows popping up in the swap in the months ahead.

This meal is part of Anjum’s Kerela menu.  Kerela is a state in south India.  South Indian food is significantly different than north Indian food (incidentally, I’m from northern India).  Many south Indian dishes use a good amount of coconut and curry leaves (as is the case in this recipe).  This is the first time I’ve seen a recipe for south Indian (savory) rice noodles…so I just had to try.  But I had to modify the process to account for the make-ahead factor…so I hope it works!

To enjoy alongside, I’m sending plantain chips, also prominent in South India.

To Reheat

I sent Heather four parts of the vegetables and rice noodles dish separately. She will have to combine them together when reheating:

– Empty coconut broth into pot and place over medium-low heat.
– Empty pre-sauteed vegetables (minus peas) into pot and simmer cook for 5-7 minutes.
– While vegetables are cooking in broth, in a separate pot, boil water (enough for the noodles).  Once boiling, remove from heat and put in desired amount of noodles.  Agitate and leave in hot water for a couple of minutes (like 3-4 minutes or so) till they have the right cooked texture.
– Add peas to vegetable broth.  Cook for another 1-2 minutes and remove from heat.

To serve, put noodles in a bowl and ladle in the vegetables and broth.

The Verdict

Tuesday: We had the rice noodles and vegetables tonight. Big hit! Both kids actually enjoyed the vegetables more than the noodles! Kavya wanted all the cauliflower and Alex all the broccoli. I think the broth (which they both slurped up) did the trick.

Thursday: Again a series of random events forced us to put off having Heather’s dinner till Thursday night. The salmon was very delicious! I’ll definitely be using this salmon recipe in the future. The kids and the adults all enjoyed all aspects of this meal. Thanks, Heather!

Mustard-Maple Salmon ~~ White Rice ~~ Green Beans with Garlic ~~ Pumpkin Muffins

For this week’s swap I tried fish for the first time. I bought frozen salmon and kept it frozen right up until loading into Shalinee’s cooler. I was happy to hear from Shalinee that it actually stayed frozen. We have now experimented twice with seafood for swap. I think that as long as the weather is on the cooler side (i.e., not the heat of late-spring-summer-early-fall), seafood can work quite well for the swap.

Anyway… this dinner is one of our old-time favorites. I don’t remember when I started making this. I do remember that I originally found the salmon recipe years ago in a Cooking Light magazine (for years I subscribed to that magazine). I’m not sure which issue it was because I eventually lost it. But in 2002 I managed to find the recipe online at CookingLight.com. So I know we’ve been eating this since at least then— it is salmon with a mustard-maple marinade/glaze. It is a very intense flavor, so I always serve it with plain white rice to sort of counter-balance the strong flavors of the salmon. And I usually serve it with fresh spinach sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and salt. Since I knew the spinach would not hold up well for the swap, I made green beans instead (prepared the same way: simply sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and salt).

We also made pumpkin muffins this week to go with the dinner. The pumpkin muffin recipe came from a blog reader, Haley, a few weeks ago when I posted in a swap post about making pumpkin muffins (the post, with Haley’s comment, appears here). Thank you for reading Haley, and thank you for the recipe!!! I wanted to try Haley’s pumpkin muffin recipe because it looked super, super, super easy. Braydon volunteered to make the muffins (he’s a much better baker than I am). At first we weren’t too impressed with these muffins, but they quickly grew on us, big time, and by a couple days into eating them they were completely gone. They were a huge hit with Kyle and Owen, who, by their request, were eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ate almost all of them in less than two days. The recipe made a lot of muffins— we got about 3 dozen muffins out of it— although we gave Shalinee about 1/3 of them, that still means that K & O ate almost a dozen muffins each in less than 48 hours.

I have already posted the salmon recipe on the blog. It appears here, but I’m re-posting the recipe here:

Mustard-Maple Salmon
Ingredients:
3 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 (6 ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
cooking spray
Directions:
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add salmon. Seal and marinate in refrigerator 20 minutes. Prepare grill or broiler. Remove salmon from bag, reserving the marinade. Place salmon on a grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray, and cook for 6 minutes on each side or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork; baste salmon occasionally with the reserved marinade. NOTE: The salmon marinade will become a “glaze” by baking it…  it can be drizzled over the salmon.

————-

Re: Shalinee’s dinner this week… We J-Ms generally truly enjoy anything that Shalinee makes, but it is a special treat whenever she makes us any Indian food. All five of us really liked the noodle dish this week. And the plantain chips were an added bonus (we love plantain chips!!!).

Being that Tuesday was Dave’s birthday, I chose a menu for this week’s swap with three of Dave’s Favs:

– Chicken & Tater Tots Casserole
– Roasted Broccoli
– Chipwich

Chicken & Tater Tots Casserole

This casserole is the only one I make. I am not a casserole person (for one, I’m Indian and never had the stuff growing up) but created this dish in an attempt to recreate the flavors that went into Dave’s childhood favorite meal: Hamburger Pie. Dave’s best friend’s mother, Mrs. Mac, made this dish (and quite often) for the hoard of boys who regularly spent afternoons at her house. Gauging from the dozen or so childhood stories about Dave and his love of Hamburger Pie, it’s safe to say that he was among the biggest fan of this dish.

Now, all I know about Mrs. Mac’s Hamburger Pie is that it contains ground beef and tater tots. So, a few years ago I found inspiration from these two ingredients (substituting the ground beef with ground chicken) and created this dish. Each time I’ve made it, I find it alright but Dave *loves* it…even though, apparently, it’s nothing like Mrs. Mac’s version. Since I’ve started making it for the kids, we found another fan: Kavya.

As for how to make it, I haven’t yet set a recipe down for this. Roughly speaking, it’s basically a pound of sauteed ground chicken mixed with 1 can mushroom soup, one medium onion (chopped and sauteed), one cup carrots (chopped and sauteed), 2-3 tablespoons sour cream, a third of a bag of frozen tater tots, dried thyme leaves, garam masala, one bunch scallions chopped, salt and pepper. The mixture goes in a baking dish with crushed corn flakes on top with a drizzle of oil (or melted butter). The baking dish then goes in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees. And for me, the end result is one happy husband and daughter!

Roasted Broccoli

Dave’s favorite vegetable is broccoli. This preparation is just bite-sized broccoli pieces drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper and then roasted at 425 degrees for ~8-10 minutes. Sometimes, I’ll add some lemon zest, or melted butter, or melted butter with lemon zest…depending on what the rest of the meal looks like.

Chipwich

And as for chipwichs…Dave could (and for a while in college did) survive on them! Again, many stories from Dave’s childhood concerning his love of chipwich. Instead of buying it at my local store, I decided to make (at least a part of it) at home. I used this awesome recipe from the Ree Drummond to make the cookies. The other ingredients (vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles) I picked up from the store.

To prepare the chipwichs:
– Once the cookies are completely cool, scoop some vanilla ice cream (on the flat side) of one cookie.
– Smoosh ice cream with another cookie.
– Cover exposed ice cream with chocolate sprinkles.

The Verdict

Tuesday Night: We had Dave’s Birthday Dinner tonight. My parents came over for the meal too. Dave, my father and Kavya thoroughly enjoyed the casserole (Kavya had 4 helpings!). Dessert was completely over-the-top: We had the chipwichs and then a birthday cake. We don’t usually have any dessert so this was completely unusual…kids were confused but amused by the turn of events. Overall, Papa’s Birthday Party turned out to be a treat only for Papa but also for the rest of us as well.

Thursday Night: For a variety of reasons, we ended up having Heather’s dinner on Thursday night this week. As I suspected, Alex (my lover of all beans) loved the entire meal! He kept saying “Mmm, mmm, mmm, I love cornbread!” This, after he diligently picked out every single bean from his chili and gobbled it up. After finishing his beans and bread….he then proceeded to haggle with Kavya to get all her beans. Kavya started eating the chili but once she got taste of the cornbread, her chili was forgotten….couldn’t get her back on track. She asked to have the bread in her lunchbox for the next day. Dave and I enjoyed ALL parts of the meal…including the yummy veggies. Thanks, Heather! That was great!

This week was one of our staple late-fall-winter-early-spring dinners: Vegetarian Chili and Caribbean Cornbread. We eat this a bunch of times over the course of the colder six months of the year. The J-M bambinos are, literally, being raised on this. I’ve been making it for them from the start. They really, really like this meal a lot. I always serve the chili with various “add-on’s,” four of them always consistent: sour cream, freshly grated cheese, chopped cilantro, and flour tortillas.  We spread these four, and any others I’ve got, out in the middle of the table, and let everyone eat it their own way. Braydon and I like to eat the chili as-is, with a dollop of sour cream, a handful of cheese, and a sprinkling of cilantro. The boys sometimes eat it this way (often stirring the sour cream, cheese, and ciliantro in completely so that the chili ends up actually looking pinkish). But all three kids actually love to eat at least some of it “burrito style” by spooning chili into a tortilla, layering on cheese, sour cream, and cilantro, and then rolling it up like a burrito. And, of course, everyone loves the cornbread—which we actually call “Corn Cake,” because it is so cake-like (and so decadently moist that it is hard to believe it is supposed to be “cornbread”). This meal is a real winner around here and I imagine (hope) that someday when they are adults my three will remember this meal fondly as an anchor-meal in our family dinners.

Vegetarian Chili ~~ I posted this recipe on the blog in March of 2009. Here it is (click!).

Caribbean Cornbread ~~ I just searched and searched our blog to try to find this recipe… I thought that for sure I had posted it before, but apparently I have not! Whoa. You’ve gotta make this recipe! It is the best corncakebread in the world. It comes from a cookbook that I have definitely mentioned on the blog before, one of my top favorite cookbooks of all times, At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook by Melinda and Robert Blanchard. My parents travel to Anguilla every year, and have more than once come back raving about a special dinner at Blanchards Restaurant. One year they brought me back this cookbook as a gift. It is one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received. I love this cookbook! The cornbread alone makes this cookbook a gem. In addition to being a great side with chili, this cornbread is awesome for breakfast – toasted with butter and jam. With a mug of black coffee… YUM! (We’ve been having it for breakfast every day since the swap!) Here’s the recipe—

Blanchard’s Caribbean Cornbread

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 ½ cups cream-style corn
½ cup canned crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese

• Preheat the oven to 325°. Butter and flour a 9-inch square glass cake pan. Whisk together the flour, corn meal, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

• In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. While the mixer is running, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the corn, pineapple and cheese and mix to blend. On a low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix until blended well.

• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown around the edges and a cake tester stuck in the center comes out clean, about 1+ hour.

As for Shalinees swap meal this week…. oh, and Happy Birthday Dave!….. here’s my email to her:

email, from Heather, to Shalinee, Oct 27, subject: swap!

Shal,  We had your dinner tonight. First of all, the dessert was a crazy hit. The three thought they had died and gone to heaven. Especially when the sprinkles were revealed. No joke. The dinner was semi-successful. They all loved the broccoli (I had never made broccoli that way– always have steamed it– so now I’ll be making it that way very, very often!!!). Meera and Kyle would not eat the casserole. Owen and Braydon could not get enough of the casserole (by the way, Braydon LOVED it… I very rarely make casserole-type dinners, but Braydon LOVES them and he had THIRDS of yours tonight!!!!). I was the middle-man… I liked the casserole but didn’t love it. All in all, a good night was had by all here!   xo, hbj

The Meal

– Cream of Tomato Soup with Croutons
– Couscous with Pistou
– Spice-Roasted Shrimp

I am very excited about this week’s swap meal for one simple reason:  Pistou!  It’s pesto for people with nut allergies…or I guess in this case, for people (me) who love people (my son) with nut allergies. I did not know about pistou until I tried this recipe and now that I have…(skipping ahead to the verdict here)…it’s awesome!

Couscous with Pistou

The recipe for the pistou-flavored couscous and spice-roasted shrimp comes from Food & Wine. The original recipe calls for quinoa instead of couscous but I’m trying it this way first. If the kids like the flavors, I’ll try quinoa next time. I learned about this recipe from my brother-in-law, Paul. He made the original quinoa and shrimp dish for his lovely wife, Cat, this summer and they both loved it. So much so that they raved about it on FB. Obviously, I had to give it a try and so here it is…(serves 5-6)

– 1/2 cup (packed) basil leaves
– 4 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley
– 2 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves
– 3 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
– 2 garlic clove, smashed
– 4 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
– 3 cups dry couscous
– 3 cups water
– Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions: In a food processor or blender, pulse the basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme leaves, garlic and cheese. Add 4 tablespoons of the oil; puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. In a saucepan, boil water and lightly salt. Combine the couscous and remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff couscous with fork. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the pistou.

Spice-Roasted Shrimp

– 1 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined (and defrosted)
– 1 teaspoon garlic powder
– 1 teaspoon onion powder
– 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
– 1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
– 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, chopped
– 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
– 1/3 cup canola oil
– Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions: Prepare the spice rub for the shrimp by mixing together the garlic and onion powders, paprika, oregano, fennel seeds, dried thyme, 2 tablespoons of the oil and ~1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. To prepare the shrimp, mix spice rub with shrimp; coat well. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425°. Roast shrimp for 8-10 minutes until shrimp is curled and pink.

Cream of Tomato Soup

This is one of only two soups that are in my repertoire and is ideal this time of year. Because of generous neighbors and our CSA share, we end up with a lot of tomatoes by late summer. I end up freezing a bunch of them just so that I can make this warm and creamy soup when the weather just starts to chill. Plus, a really nice thing about frozen tomatoes: They are super easy to peal. The recipe below serves 8.

– 2 tablespoon butter
– 1 tablespoon olive oil
– 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
– ~1 cup carrots, chopped
– 1 tablespoon flour
– 6-7 medium tomatoes, peeled and stewed (keep juices)
– 1 (14.5 oz) can of chicken broth
– 1 tablespoon tomato paste
– 2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
– 5-6 basil leaves
– Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
– 1.5 teaspoon sugar
– 1/2 pint heavy cream (optional)

Directions: Add oil to saucepan over medium heat. Add butter and melt. Add onions and carrots and cook for 4-5 minutes till soft. Mix in flour and stir constantly for ~2 minutes. Add in tomatoes (juices and all), chicken broth and tomato paste. Stir well and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add in thyme and basil leaves, salt, pepper and sugar. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and (in batches) blend to a smooth consistency. At this point, a lighter version of the tomato soup is done. If you would like a creamier version, place another saucepan over medium-low heat and add in heavy cream. Once the cream is scalding, add in the blended tomato soup and mix well. Cook for another 2-3 minutes and remove from heat.

Swap Logistics

I gave Heather frozen shrimp. To reheat, she will have to

– Defrost the shrimp,
– Mix it with the spices,
– Let sit for ~20 minutes,
– Roast for 8-10 minutes, and
– Serve with reheated soup and couscous.

The Verdict

Tuesday: We had Heather’s dinner tonight. Alex loved the chicken and the acorn squash and ate a LOT of both items. Kavya “painted” her chicken with the mashed potatoes and then ate her artwork. Since she was eating so well, we did not protest her “playing” with her food. Dave and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole meal! Thanks, Heather!

Wednesday: This ended up being a very colorful and flavorful meal. We loved it all! Much thanks to Paul & Cat for the awesome (definitely-a-keeper) recipe!

Thursday: We had Heather’s leftover chicken tonight. I thinly sliced the (already grilled) chicken breasts and then put them in mini hoagies with onions (sauteed with a dash of oregano, salt and pepper and then cooked in a tiny bit of chicken broth). Also melted some cheese on the kids’ sandwiches…went over really well.

I’ve been making some variation of this meal at least once every fall since I moved out of my parents’ house… and my mom made some variation of it every fall while I was still living there! There is nothing like grilled/roasted pork with homemade applesauce – a favorite of mine when I was a child, and now a favorite of all three J-M kids. (Braydon loves it too!) Heavenly fall. But because Shalinee’s family doesn’t eat pork, this time for the swap I did something I’ve never done before: two different meats for the two different families, but both with the same marinade/dry rub and both to be prepared the same way. I don’t have recipes for any of these dishes; I just make ’em up as I go along. But if someone is desperate for a recipe, I’ll try to conjure one up if need be. This dinner was loved at our house (I knew it would be!).

• Chicken Breasts for Shalinee’s family; Pork Loin for the J-Ms. Both prepared the same way—with a dry rub that I put on Monday night. They were ready to be thrown on the grill.
• Acorn Squash with Butter & Brown Sugar. The acorn squash is cut in half, seeded, and roasted until tender, with butter and brown sugar. We eat it with a spoon, right out of the squash “bowl.”
• Smashed Baby Red Potatoes. Made with lots of sour cream, salt, and pepper. Autumn comfort food to the hilt.
• Homemade Chunky Applesauce. We have a beautiful apple/pear/peach orchard right up the street from us. I bought apples there on my way home from work Monday. They had just been picked that day! And I made the applesauce that night. Nothing in it but the apples, some sugar, and a whole bunch of cinnamon.

Shalinee’s dinner the next night was a big hit with everyone except Meera (who spent the first half of dinner throwing couscous all over the floor. and saying, “yuck!” to the shrimp. lovely.). About halfway through dinner we gave up on her and gave her a big bowl of blueberry yogurt. (sometimes it just has to be done, right?). But K & O really liked this dinner… especially the soup. They went crazy for it; each having thirds of it. Kyle loved putting the croutons in it (and insisted on shredded parmesan too). Owen really got into this meal, mixing the couscous and the shrimp into his soup. I think he ate at least two dozen shrimp that night. No joke. And, of course, Braydon and I loved this meal. How could we not?

As a sidenote (sidenote 1 of 3), I’m glad that Shalinee and I finally broke the seafood barrier this week (with the shrimp). Somehow we had developed some sort of aversion to including seafood in the swap (even though both families eat it a lot). I think it stemmed from our fear of seafood not holding up well in the coolers all day and/or for re-heating. But this Shalinee’s shrimp turned out great. I am inspired now to come up with other creative ways to include fish and shellfish in the swap.

Sidenote 2 of 3: With all the extra mid-week time and energy that results from the swap, this week we were able to pull of something that would have been unimaginable pre-swap. On Tuesday, before dinner, Owen and I made pumpkin muffins/cupcakes while Braydon, Kyle, and Meera played outside. Kyle absolutely loves anything pumpkin flavored, particularly pumpkin bread, so we were making this in large part for him. But I wanted to put icing on it for Owen (our frosting/cake/cupcake lover). I used new recipes and… seriously?!… the best pumpkin muffins ever with the best frosting ever (which, much to the bambinos delight, turned them into decadent cupcakes)! Here are the recipes:  Pumpkin Bread (I didn’t make the topping; I just used this delicious batter to make muffins/cupcakes instead of loaves) & The Best Frosting Ever (truly, this is the most amazing frosting! Even Kyle, who doesn’t usually care for icing, loved this! It will be my go-to frosting forevermore from here on out).

Sidenote 3 of 3: Tonight I made Shalinee’s “Basic Udon with Vegetables.” I added bok choy to her recipe, and also threw in the leftover grilled pork from our swap dinner earlier in the week. This was, seriously, a Top 10 Meal for the bambinos. They – all three – devoured it like you would not believe. This is definitely a keeper for us and will, for sure, be made again soon!