Saturday

EAT YOUR VEGGIES!

Tuesday, August 23

One of my favorite things to make for dinner after a trip to the Farmer’s Market is a vegetable plate with lots of different colors, textures, and flavors. Fortunately, my husband is not one of those meat-and-potatoes guys, but to add some extra protein, I usually try to make one dish with eggs in it. For today's menu, I chose corn pudding, which allows me to use the sweet, sweet corn that is so delicious right now and the monstrous basil in my backyard. I use The Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for Sagoponack Corn Pudding (Barefoot Contessa Family Style), halved, and I bake it without fooling with a water bath. With fresh corn right off the cob, really sharp Cheddar cheese, and fresh basil, it melts in your mouth with a perfect blend of sweet and savory. Tonight, I served it with Roasted Asparagus, which I like with a splash of lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of salt and pepper roasted at 400 degrees just until it turns bright green, and Spinach-Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes. The bread crumbs in the tomatoes also go a long way to make this meal filling. It is, in our estimation, straight-from-the-garden-delicious. So delicious, in fact, that we were in such a hurry to eat it, we forgot to snap a picture! Sorry…we’ll try to do better.

Sagoponack Corn Pudding

½ stick butter

Fresh corn kernels from about 4 corn cobs

1 small yellow onion, chopped (about ½ cup)

2 large eggs

½ cup milk

½ cup half-and-half

¼ cup yellow cornmeal

½ cup ricotta cheese

2 T chopped fresh basil leaves (more if you have it)

½ T. sugar

½ T. kosher salt

½ t. freshly ground black pepper

6 ounces of shredded extra-sharp Cheddar cheese (reserve some for the top)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the butter in a large skillet (I use a heat-resistant one that can go right in the oven). Sauté the corn and onion over medium-high heat until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, and half-and-half. Slowly add the cornmeal and ricotta cheese. When well-combined, mix in the basil, sugar, salt, and pepper. Add to the corn mixture and mix in the Cheddar cheese. Sprinkle the top with more cheese. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the top is brown and the center is set.

--Adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style, Ina Garten, 2002.

Because the corn pudding has to cook the longest, I assemble it first and place it in the oven. Then, when I have the tomatoes ready to go in, I turn the heat up to 400 degrees and watch the corn pudding carefully. When it’s brown and done, I take it out and cover it tightly with aluminum foil to keep it warm. Next, I place the asparagus spears in the oven, to cook while the tomatoes are finishing. As soon as the asparagus goes in the oven, I get the bread ready: arrange slices of a baguette on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with thin slices of Parmesan cheese (I use a vegetable peeler).

Spinach-Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

Filling (for 8 large cherry tomatoes):

½ cup fresh white bread crumbs

1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

½ cup spinach leaves, washed and chopped

1 tsp. fresh basil leaves

¼ cup ricotta

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 green onions, chopped

Mix together filling and set aside. Cut the tops off of the cherry tomatoes and remove the seeds and juice (I do it with my fingers). Stuff each tomato liberally with filling. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, until tomatoes are almost collapsing. The spinach filling is excellent in omelets or stuffed in a loaf of French bread, if you have some leftover. I saved about 2 tablespoons for the frittata I’m planning to make next week.

Grill-licious

Monday, August 22

Grilling is one of those summertime pleasures that, when summer’s over, I always feel I haven’t indulged in enough. My husband is excellent on the grill, and it’s so quick—plus I usually wind up with much less mess in the kitchen. If I remember to marinate the meat, we can usually throw dinner together in about half an hour (after the grill’s been fired up, of course). We have heard great things about gas grills, but we are traditional (and poor), so we use the old-fashioned charcoal method. I love the smoky flavor the coals give to whatever I cook.

This chicken recipe derives from leftover tequila in the house and a margarita sauce I once watched a chef at the Brick Oven (a restaurant where I worked in college—sadly, it no longer exists) fix for tilapia. If you have margarita mix on hand, I know it would be good in place of some of the orange juice; we just didn’t have any when I got ready to mix up the marinade.

Grilled Margarita Chicken

For the marinade:

½ c. tequila (I use whatever is cheapest; we only use the good stuff for real margaritas)

3 lbs. chicken breasts

2-4 cloves garlic, depending on the size of your garlic (the stuff I bought at the farmer’s market last week is tremendous, so I only used 2)

Juice of one orange and three limes (if you roll them on the counter a few times, putting a good bit of pressure on them, they will yield more juice. Cutting them into wedges instead of halves helps too.)

1 T. chili paste (I used the Sambal chili paste I bought at an Asian market, but any hot chili sauce would do)

2 t. Kosher salt

Ground pepper

2 t. honey plus extra for drizzling

1 t. cumin

Olive oil and orange juice (or margarita mix) to cover

Mix together everything but the olive oil and orange juice (I do it right in the baking dish, or whatever I’m putting the chicken in); then place the chicken in the dish and turn several times until it’s good and coated. Drizzle with more honey and pour over equal parts olive oil and orange juice/margarita mix until the breasts are just covered. Marinate at least a few hours, preferably overnight. Grill over a medium fire for about 20 minutes, turning frequently to prevent it from getting too black on one side.

I served the chicken with a version of Sara Foster’s Apple and Avocado Salad from Fresh Everyday and grilled corn. I assemble the salad right on the plate, as the chicken and corn are cooking. I use spinach instead of watercress, and place one layer of torn leaves on the plate. Top with sliced avocado, chopped mint leaves, green onions, and chopped green apple. Instead of mixing up a separate dressing, I drizzle equal parts lime juice and olive oil on each salad and top with a good dose of salt and pepper. Finish with a good handful of crumbled feta cheese. The lime in the chicken and in the salad dressing is a nice pairing.

For the Grilled Corn, I like it simple. Wrap cobs in aluminum foil, dotted with pats of butter, and cook for about 10 minutes. I like sweet summer corn very plain, seasoned only with salt and pepper (and of course the butter); I also like it crunchy, so if you prefer yours cooked more thoroughly, just leave it on the grill a little longer.

Set aside the leftover chicken breasts; you will need 2 for the Taboulleh chicken salad, and then you should still have 3 or 4 left. I will probably use them for quesadillas next week, so I wrap them really well in plastic wrap and place them in a large Ziploc bag. That way, they won't dry out in the fridge.

Welcome to Weekly Dish! My good friend Jessie, who is expecting her first child in about a month, recently asked me for some recipes and tips for planning menus that would be both cost-effective and worth eating. I love good food, and especially since I've been married, I've worked hard to find a way to cook delicious dinners at night without spending exorbitant amounts of time or money. On this blog, I will record my menu plans for the week, some recipes and time-saving tips, and brief descriptions of how the dinners turn out. I do a lot of experimenting, but if a recipe turns out badly, I will tell you!

Planning: My first step to stress-free meals is to plan well. My food week always begins on Saturday, when I survey my fridge and pantry to see what I already have, make a trip to my local farmer's market to see what looks good, and then return to plan my week and make my grocery list. Now, I know this takes time, but when I first married, I tried to think about dinner on my way home from work, or to wait until I got home to see what we had. We ended up eating a lot of take-out. The time I spend planning my menu on Saturday frees me up during the week to follow the menu on the marker board without thinking about it. Now, it's my Saturday morning ritual, and I enjoy it.

Grocery Shopping: I always buy too much and the wrong things if I don't take a list. I have gotten in the habit of organizing my list by sections of the grocery store, so in the top left-hand corner I write down any produce I need; in the middle, pantry items; the right-hand side, meat and dairy; and bread products at the very bottom. This helps me to navigate the grocery quickly and efficiently--if I don't need any baking items or canned vegetables or snack food or whatever, I avoid those aisles altogether. I also try to avoid huge stores like Wal-Mart; the prices are sometimes better, but I always wind up spending more money. I usually make about one Wal-Mart trip a month for things like paper towels and cleaning supplies; food I buy once a week at the local grocery just down the street.

Use It Up: The second thing I learned to help me save time and money is to try to find uses for all the food I buy. I hate a cluttered refrigerator, and my mother taught me not to waste food. So I try to incorporate any leftovers into the next week's menu. For instance, this week, I am making Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes, and I know I will have more stuffing than I need. So, at the beginning of next week, I will probably use the leftover stuffing for an omelet or a pizza. I also will buy ricotta cheese for the stuffing, of which I will only use about half, so in the next couple of weeks, I will try to find a recipe that uses ricotta.

Planning Menus: I try to mix it up a lot because I love to experiment, and when I first started, I spent way too much money on groceries. Sure, we were having chicken one night, beef the next, shrimp the night after that, etc., but my weekly grocery bills were too high. So, now, I try to pick one or two main ingredients and center most meals around them. Chicken is an easy one because it's versatile and relatively inexpensive. That doesn't mean we have chicken every night, of course, but we will maybe 3 out of the 5 nights. Fill in with a non-meat pizza, pasta, or egg dish here and there, and you have a whole week's worth of meals. I also have some basic recipes that use up leftovers well: frittatas, risotto, pizza or calzone, quesadillas or enchiladas, soup, and main-dish salads all work well with whatever you have in your fridge. I use these basic recipes often, experimenting with different flavors and textures.

I try to cook five nights a week, and we eat leftovers or takeout on the weekend. Of course, life is busy, so I try to be flexible; if I planned a labor-intensive soup for a night when I don't get home until 8, I substitute something else on the list or throw together some sandwiches and fix the soup another night. Or, if we end up going out during the week with friends, I might cook on both Friday and Saturday nights. It just depends on what's going on that week.

On the site: Each week, I'll post the menu to the left and write daily about what I'm cooking. On Saturdays, I'll explain the method behind my menu madness, how I came up with my list and what I plan to do with any leftovers. I will be cooking a week ahead of the site, so the menu for this week will actually be what I cooked last week. That way, I can make sure I have my photos and recipes ready to go at the very beginning of the week. Monday's recipes will be posted late Sunday night, and so forth. I am new to the blogosphere, so if something on the site isn't working right, please let me know by email. Also, if you have a recipe you'd like me to try or an ingredient you don't know what to do with, feel free to contact me by email (weeklydish@gmail.com). I love to try new things.

Let's get cooking: This week, the corn, enormous cherry tomatoes, and earthy new potatoes at the Red Stick Market caught my eye, and the chicken at Calandro's (my neighborhood grocery store) was on sale. I have been wanting to try the Chicken Taboulleh Salad in The Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook because my sister-in-law, Hannah, highly recommends it. Instead of waiting until I'm having the salad, though, I'll go ahead and cook all of the chicken at once. One of my favorite ways to cook a whole package of chicken breasts in the summer is on the grill. So, I'll start with a grilled chicken recipe, pair it with a complimentary salad and some yummy grilled corn, and use the leftover grilled chicken for the Chicken Taboulleh later in the week. I'll fill in with some vegetable recipes and add salad and bread and be done. After a quick trip to the grocery to pick up what I need, I'm all set for the week. Tune in to see how it all comes together.