Parsley Schmarsley

Ah Autumn is here! The trees are really starting to change at this point, and the weather is crisp and beautiful. I do worry, though, because we have yet to go apple picking or to snag our pumpkin for the year (and I have a great toasted pumpkin seed recipe I really want to try). We did go to a place called the Topsfield Fair last weekend, though. It's New England's biggest agricultural fair and it's only about an hour outside of where we live, so we got out of work and headed down and ate our fair share of fair food (though they didn't have what I wanted most - the chicken on the stick with the pickles in between all deep fried...maybe that's only a Southern thing) and saw New England's biggest pumpkin for 2011, which was 1.6 tons.

While at the fair, we were going through an exhibition/sales type tent and came across this guy doing "as seen on TV" demonstrations for something called a " Swiss Super Peeler" - not that great (or is it?) BUT they also had a Swiss Super Julienner (I doubt that's what it's called) that juliennes veggies in a jiff. Really nice, thin, restaurant style delicious veggies. That's what I'm hoping anyway. As I was walking away I checked my bag and ended up with a peeler, so I went back and exchanged it. I haven't used the thing yet, so who knows if I've been hornswaggled. Although judging by the videos on Youtube, apparently they've been "selling them for 27 years!" Youtube Video. They don't show the julienne veggie cutter though because I guess it's a new product. Well I'll get back to you and let you know how amazingly awesome it is...or isn't.

So last night Aj, my most wonderful husband, made dinner. I had this recipe that I had gotten from the supermarket - it was attached to a coupon (you know, the kind they put on to convince you to buy the product with the coupon because the coupon is way more than you would ever purchase in normal circumstances) and I thought it looked pretty tasty. Sausage & Tomato Rigatoni. I had some turkey kielbasa in the fridge that I wanted to use up, and I thought this looked pretty easy so Aj got the job (although don't get me wrong, he's a good cook and can make things that are quite complicated).

I have to tell you, when I look at a recipe and it says "fresh parsley" I snigger and think to myself why would I buy a bundle of parsley to get 2 chopped tablespoons to top off this recipe? Legitimate concerns, but last night I decided there was DEFINITELY a reason people put fresh parsley into their dishes. See, if I had made the recipe I would have skipped out on the fresh parsley, but because Aj made the recipe and wanted to follow it as instructed he picked up parsley at the grocery store and I'm glad he did! So when you make this recipe, make sure to include the parsley because it genuinely makes a difference.

This recipe is nonetheless doctored; the original recipe calls for the green-bottle Parmesan cheese and Italian sausage, which both got substituted in my version of the recipe.


Turkey Kielbasa & Tomato Rigatoni

• 4 C. rigatoni, uncooked
• 1 package turkey kielbasa
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 Red pepper, chopped into large chunks
• 2 Cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Jar spaghetti sauce
• 2 Tbsp. chopped Italian parsley (Don't ignore it!)
• 1/4 C. Grated Parmesan cheese

1. Cook the pasta and sausage as directed on the packages, omitting salt in the pasta cooking water.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Add the peppers and garlic; cook and stir 2 minutes or until the peppers are crisp but tender.
3. Cut the sausage into 1/4" thick slices and add to the skillet.
   
4. Stir in the spaghetti sauce and cook 4 to 5 minutes or until heated through, stirring frequently.
5. Drain the pasta and plate the servings, scooping the sauce over the top and sprinkling with parsley and cheese.
   

Trout: Stuffed and Baked with Broccoli

Grilled fish is one of those things that just says "Hey - It's summer time. Live it up." Trout especially reminds me of warm days cruising down the White River in Arkansas catching fish left and right in a canoe with my family. I was never really much for fishing. My dad tried to instill a love for fishing in me from an early age but it never quite caught on. Even now I can't sit still for long periods of time if I'm not DOING something - reading, surfing the internet, knitting...anything. No one ever suggested I bring a book to fishing, so naturally, I hated it and found it excruciatingly boring. I mean really... you expect to take a kid to a lake and have them sit there for hours while they wait for something to bite at the wiggly worm on the hook? Unlikely.

To this day I still don't enjoy fishing...most of the time. But trout fishing holds a special place in my heart. I like how the water is clear and quick and cold and rushing past your canoe carrying you along. I like how the fish bite all the time and you can catch more than you can eat. I like the sun and the family and always being on the move. Not to mention trout tastes quite good. Luckiy for the trout, I don't go fishing. Unluckily, they sell trout at the supermarket sometimes. I had trout on my shopping list when Aj did the grocery shopping, and since "trout" is both singular and plural he wasn't sure whether to get one...or two...or five? And he just got one. Which is obviously not enough for two people. Especially when it's as good as this trout was.


So today after I got back from the gym and planted my strawberries in my new topsy-turvy strawberry planter.... I decided to cook trout for lunch. Trout for One. Trout for Me. Yum! The whole thing came out QUITE delicious and I thought I would share the love with you fine folk.

So without further ado...

Baked Stuffed Trout with Broccoli for One

• 1 Trout
• 5-6 Green Onions/Scallions, chopped into small pieces
  
• 1/4 C. Italian breadcrumbs
• 1 Tsp. dried or fresh garlic (I used sliced dried)
• 1 Tbsp. butter
  
• 1 Head of broccoli, cut into florets
  
• Salt
• Olive oil

1. The trout should be gutted. Make sure you rinse off the whole thing in warm water, even if it was gutted at the supermarket. You want the trout to have a fresh, light taste.
2. Smear the inside of the trout with butter.
   
3. Combine the scallions, breadcrumbs, and garlic and mix well. Stuff liberally into the trout.
4. Put the trout into a bread loaf pan and surround with broccoli.
5. Sprinkle liberally with salt and drizzle lightly with olive oil
6. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Lightly cover with tin foil and bake at 375°F for 10-15 minutes. Fish is ready when it flakes and can be easily removed from the bone with a fork. If your fish is frozen at the start it might take longer to bake.

Garlic-Parmesan Pull-Apart Loaves

Holy Cannoli, Batman! Our little part of the world just brought in about 20 inches of snow. It started late last night and lasted until sundown today. We didn't even bother to open my store, and we spent most of the morning drifting in and out of happy-sleep in bed. It's been a good day. Cold...but good.

Down south we LOOOOOOVE snow. Nothing better than a snow storm. The city stops for (no joke) an inch of snow. Schools are canceled, everyone crashes their car into anything within 20 feet. It's glorious. Up here snow is a hated part of life. You tell someone you're looking forward to the snow and they look at you like you have a severe case of leprosy. That's when they know. They KNOW you're from out of town. Because, apparently, not a single soul in New England can find beauty and joy in snow. At first, I didn't understand this...it's so glorious and amazing and white and fluffy and fun! But you know what isn't fun?? Spending an hour and a half snow blowing and shoveling your driveway, and cleaning off your cars. Turns out that's not that great. Oh it's fine at first... until you get close to 2 feet and the plow truck that comes by throws ALL of the snow from the street onto YOUR side of the road, and creates a four foot blockade that you have to shovel down before you can snow blow. Well... then you start to see how SOME people could start to dislike snow.

Up here, if you have a son, he hates snow, because you make him go out and shovel it at 5 AM so you can get to work. And the wind is blowing, and the snow goes up his nostrils, and his whole body gets crusted with icy bits from the blowing snow/wind. And then he comes back in and no one has made him hot chocolate and there's no fire and he has to go to school and that's where the cycle begins. He hates snow...gradually. I mean...he likes it. He likes to skii and snowboard and sled and have forts and fights, but...mostly he hates it. There's an age where you go from liking snow up here to hating it... and I'd say that's about when you're big enough to start shoveling so your parents can quit doing it.

Me, though? I still love it. I'm making up for lost time. The most snow I had in the south was when I was about... a year old (and somehow had a snow suit, can we talk about how weird that is?) Now I love when it comes. I love when it comes on WEEKDAYS too! Weekends are not so good since it hurts my store's business, but Wednesdays...bring it on!!! So yeah, we spent a good hour and a half outside freezing cold shoveling and cleaning off our cars (only to have them piled with 4 more inches when we were done, might I add) , but we also played in the back yard with our dogs and smiled and laughed and had a fire and hot cocoa and marshmallows and hot soup when we came back in. My love for snow is infectious. Truly.

Ah all that marching around in deep snow made me tired and so I've just got a short recipe for you today. I know I've been talking about bread recently and I HAVE made two successful batches of bread, but this one is a much easier recipe I snagged from Pilsbury.com a while back at Thanksgiving. These make a super quick and DELICIOUS addition to dinner. They go great with pot roasts, stews and soups and just food in general!

Garlic-Parmesan Pull-Apart Loaves

• 1/4 Cup butter, well softened
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese (freshly grated if you have it)
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (dried will do if necessary)
• 1 can Pilsbury Grands Jr. Golden Layers biscuits

1. Heat oven to 350°F
2. In a small bowl, stir together butter, garlic, cheese, and parsley.
3. Remove biscuits from packaging. On a baking pan WITH SIDES (butter will run everywhere), make 2 loaves of 5 biscuits each. Set the biscuits on their edges, just touching.
4. Split each biscuit horizontally in half, divide butter evenly between biscuits and spread in between the split layers.
5. Reshape loaf
6. Bake 11 to 14 minutes or until loaves are a deep golden brown and thoroughly baked.

The first tester batch I made of these I used dried parsley, minced garlic from a jar, and bagged shredded Parmesan cheese. It was good but the second time I used all fresh ingredients and it was SO much better. I would highly recommend using fresh ingredients. Bon appetite!

Spinach Stuffed Chicken

Ah, so Thanksgiving is over and Christmas draws nearer. For me Christmas is a time of lights and cute ornaments and delicious baked goodies. Every year for Christmas my mother and I worked hard in the kitchen making our signature Peanut Brittle, chex mix, and a huge assortment of cookies and other baked goods that we gave away in mass quantity to friends and family. Since I've moved out I've continued the tradition year after year. Tons of people on our Christmas list get some of the best gifts we can give - and they don't come from stores. Treats from my kitchen are received with delight, and that makes it worth all the hard work that goes into it.

Tonight we brought home our Christmas tree. I always underestimate the low-ness of our ceiling and it didn't fail that again this year we brought home a tree that is just a wee bit too tall. We'll probably have to nip a bit off the top to get our star on. I'll never forget the first year I moved up here - we got a lovely Christmas tree, splurging since I was only working part time and work was tight for Aj - we somehow managed to get it up the curved stairs of our tiny apartment, and found a nice niche for it in the living room, right next to the window (I am extremely vain and think that the tree should be blatantly visible from the window). It was a great tree. Smelled good, looked good... was up a little too long. By the time the middle of January rolled around the tree hadn't been watered in over a month, the needles were barely holding on and we were just not interested in trying to take it down the stairs and vacuuming up after it all the way down and out the front door. In fact, we were convinced that if we tried that there would be no needles left on the tree when we made it outside.

So we concocted a great plan - we would squeeze it out the window!! Yes, quick relief! Funny thing - trees do not like to be pushed out of 3x3 windows. By the time we got out out of our second story window it slid down the roof and landed with a huge thunk on the ground (Don't worry, Aj was below making sure it didn't hit anyone) and it lost 75% of its needles on the walkway. The other 25% were on my windowsill and living room carpet. Ah, Christmas!

During the holiday season I like to try to temper my huge intake of delicious sweets with some more low-fat options. I was poking around on the internet a month or so back trying to find some good low-fat recipes with flavor, and I stumbled across this Spinach Stuffed Chicken recipe. It's absolutely yum and I've made it three times since I found it (which, for me, is a lot in a 1-2 month period). The recipe had no photos and didn't really have anything else to recommend it to me, but I took a look at the ingredients and knew it would be a winner. This is a fast meal for a night when there's not a lot of time to cook. I served this with garlic and olive oil couscous, and a saute of mushrooms and Japanese leeks.

Spinach Stuffed Chicken

• 4 chicken cutlets (breast meat) or chicken breast cut in half lengthwise
• 5 oz. (frozen) thawed and drained spinach
• 1/4 C. Parmesan cheese, shredded
• 1 scallion (green onion) finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 C. red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. light margarine or spread

1. Put chicken cutlets one at a time between plastic wrap and pound quite thin with a meat mallet or rolling pin. (The thinner the better)
   
2. Rub chicken cutlets with salt and pepper to taste.
3. In a small bowl, mix together the thawed and drained spinach (make sure to squeeze out any excess water), scallions, parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper.
4. On one end of the chicken place 1/4th of the spinach mixture and fold the chicken over, pinching the edges to seal. Repeat with all chicken cutlets.
5. In a nonstick pan, spray very heavily with olive oil nonstick spray and let the pan get hot.
6. Cook the chicken in the pan approximately 6-8 minutes on each side, flipping once, over high or medium high heat.
7. Remove the chicken from skillet and place the red wine vinegar into the skillet for about 1 minute, letting it simmer and thicken a bit.
8. Mix the red wine vinegar with the margarine until melted and pour over the chicken
   

Per Serving: 243 Calories; 5g Fat (18.1% calories from fat); 2g Saturated Fat;45g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 110mg

Tonight I also made a tester batch of a brittle I spotted in Martha Stewart Living's 2010 holiday issue. It turned out pretty good. It's got a slightly scorched, honey taste and a really light and fluffy texture. It was beyond easy to make. I'm thinking it needs a little something extra... Maybe a sea-salt coating or dipping it in chocolate? It could just need a little vanilla extract or butter. I'll mess with it a little more as we go into the holidays, since it was so simple and inexpensive to make. Once I find just the right recipe, I'll pass it on to you guys. I'm going to take it in to work tomorrow and see what everyone thinks of it as it is.

If you want the recipe as MS Living gave it, here is a link to another blogger that gave it a try: Honeycomb Brittle.