Pan Seared Halibut and Cannellini Beans with Anchovy Herbed Vinaigrette

 

That recipe name ! What a mouthful ! This dish has a bunch of flavours that make for a real mouthful. The vinaigrette looks sparse, but it has so many powerful ingredients! In small amounts, they pack intense power. In addition, the beans have stealth to them. They have the garlic and shallot flavours that have gently infused their way into them. And the fish ... it was heavenly. With its crispy top and perfectly salty flesh, it is a real treat! SB and I have not been eating a lot of fish lately. For whatever reason, I have been craving it. I'm so glad I splurged and bought this halibut.

This was SUCH a nice dinner ! We had it with a side of steamed broccoli florets. 

Stormy Day Dinner

It's all about a warm pot of baked beans today, but these aren't the usual New England style baked beans. These have a bit of a spicy twist. Perfect with a pan of cheesy jalapeño cornbread. This dinner took the chill out of our first ice and sleet storm of the season.

White Beans with Italian Sausage and Escarole

A good stew is a thing of beauty. This particular stew is healthy, relatively low in calories, filling, and a small enough batch that it doesn't grow 'old' on the palate. The recipe makes enough for two hungry souls with a bit left over for lunch in the next day or so. A good meal that doesn't overstay its welcome!

Black Bean Salad with Shrimp and Pickled Onions

This salad has such interesting colors, temperatures, and textures. A lime vinaigrette binds things together. Add a piece of crusty bread for mopping up the juices and you have a wonderful summery meal. To boot, the pickled onions can be doubled and used to top sandwiches or grilled meats or fish. They're that tasty and incredibly simple to make.

Start the salad early in the day by making the pickle brine and then briefly cooking the onions in the brine before placing them in a jar and refrigerating them to chill and crisp up. Peel and devein the shrimp and marinate in olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the fridge also.

When it's time for dinner, warm the bread. Drain a couple cans (or one large one) of black beans, rinse and set in a warm salad bowl, toss them with the lime vinaigrette, sear the shrimp, crumble the feta, and chop the scallions and cilantro. Simple, fast and perfect for a hot day when you don't want to be in the kitchen for any length of time !

Here's the recipe.

Roasted Butternut and White Bean Salad

A cool vegetarian option for a lazy evening in front of the ball game ... it's Red Sox season and we're timing meals around 'first pitch'. This easy supper was a way to have a meatless meal and work the fresh herbs that are coming on strong in the gardens. Paired with some of the first fresh lettuce greens, it made for a perfect springtime meal.

Jazzed Beans and Rice

I loved the light on those red kidney beans when I dumped them in with the jasmine rice. What can I say? Added spices and diced vegetables to the mix and we had us a big old bowl of spicy red beans and rice the other evening. Our neighbors made shrimp tacos, margaritas, and a hot cheesy salsa dip to start things out. And then? We whiled the evening away on their deck sipping drinks and Coronas and knoshing the best Tex-Mex meal ! There is NOTHING like having good neighbors ... just sayin'.

Three Bean Chili and a Snow Day ...

Here's a basic chili recipe to pass on to your friends (or kids) who are just learning to cook. It's an easy recipe for kids to cook (with supervision, of course) and it was perfect for a warm up the house project today. This weather would be fun and exciting if it were not April 4th ... but it IS April 4th and this snow has crushed all the crocus and the first daffodils and frozen the little wood hyacinths solid. And that's all I will say on this snow day ... except that the chili is darn good for lunch! I had mine with oyster crackers to crunch with each bite. Gnashing of teeth here ... 

Giada's Hearty Italian Stew - IHCC's Potluck and Projects

So often, these days, my life revolves around my current sewing project. For whatever reason, sewing has begun to take a more important role in my creative life. I've been sewing to complete a quilting legacy project that I've had in mind for my children and nieces and nephews, but also for different charitable projects that I wish to support. Sewing takes a lot of time, folks ... so I have found myself looking for easy dinner recipes that give SB and I some leftovers for lunches. I've also been using simpler one dish meals that can be knoshed at our spots on the couch or in front of a baseball game or out at the table on the back porch. I'm not sure how SB feels about this departure from our usual formal dining table/candle light experience. He's pretty supportive, though, when I spread a new quilt out before him and ask his opinion or gush at the results.

Black Bean Salad with Shrimp and Pickled Onions

This is an extremely fast and easy salad that is put together in the half hour it takes for the pickling brine to do its magic on the purple onions. While the pickled onions absorb the spices and tang, the black beans are drained and rinsed. Limes are juiced. The cheese and cilantro are prepped, some garlic is thinly sliced, and the shrimp are peeled and de-veined. Two minutes before you want to sit down to dine, do a fast pan sear of the shrimp in olive oil and slivered garlic, toss everything together and serve the pickled onions on the side. Delish!

I apologize for the picture quality ... eating at nine o'clock at night makes for poor available light when photographing. I had to quickly capture the salad plate before Kate, my oldest sprout and I fell on the salad like wolves! We'd spent the day at an art museum and came home late to sip wine and throw together a quick, healthy supper. I'd been telling her about a new cook book that was all about different salads, so we stopped to pick up the ingredients for this one.

Re-Fried Bean Stuffed Poblanos with Queso

Need an easy dish to share at a summertime patio party? These peppers were a cinch to make and travelled nicely to the pool party we hung at over the weekend. The colors are great in this dish. I didn't photograph the finished dish, as we all know what a cheesy topping looks like, but at this point in the prep, I had to snap a photo because the peppers were so pretty and perfect. 

One More Bowl of Soup, Please!

Here's a soup for a cold raw day ... one that went really well with a plate of cheesy nachos and a cold beer. Everyone here in Fitzwilliam is crabbing about another snow storm that is threatening southwestern New Hampshire. There's a severe case of cabin fever going around the grey cottage ... wishing for a thaw and hoping that we get a long warm snap so that the drifts melt and the stone walls reappear! We are ready to see some forsythia and crocus blooms! Until then, though, the first paperwhite blossoms have poked their faces out to say, "Hello!".

Come on Springtime!

Dinner With The Recipe Club

A little light reading with cookies included ...

IHCC - Fast Pantry Supper

Disclaimer: This is not my pantry. My pantry is better stocked ...

Channeling Nonna ... Ranting On Kitchen Creativity

 

So .... the dishes and background suck given the food colors ... get over it. Our grandparents had to! That's exactly what I said to myself, as I shot this gorgeous plate of food ... and the food is what it's all about ... right?

This post involves small chapters (or free association interludes) that unfold to the food on that plate...

Musing on a Sunny Summer Morning ... and a Seasonal Soup

The march is on ... this morning we woke to a thrum of katydids and cooler, dry air. The heatwave that has been crushing the Eastern seaboard seems to be passing and a change is in the air. Autumn ... yup, that's Autumn rattling the bugs and bringing on a cool morning breeze. The sky is changing from that deep summertime azure to a more washed out blue. The roadsides are lined with feathery chicory blossoms and the fields beyond are beginning to turn bright yellow with late summer's goldenrod. I can practically hear the school kids groaning about summer's demise and the onset of another year of classes, but the boys up the street are racing up and down our dirt road on their bikes, screaming and whistling at each other and making our Corgis howl and hoot. Timmy and Christopher clatter their bikes back and forth out front of the house, defiantly in denial of summertime's end. It's a joy to hear. Their rambunctiousness is a perfect counterpoint to the almost hypnotic background sound of the crickets and katydids.

IHCC - Ottolenghi's Chard, Squash, and Chickpea Sauté

I wish I could say that  I was completely in love with this particular recipe ... which is a shame, as the freshness of the chard was terrific! And had I followed my instincts instead of the recipe, I might have been raving right now, instead of delivering a 'meh' review of Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for a warm sauté of chard, winter squash, and chick peas. It all 'went South' when I added the yogurt dressing over all that fresh and beautiful chard, squash, and chickpeas - far too much tartness for my taste.

I think I want to make this again and have the dressing on the side, as a dipper for an accompanying flat bread. I really think that a warm bread alongside this vegetable dish would make for a perfect meatless meal - much more authentic than having it sit beside a medium rare steak, as I did this evening.!

Sundried Tomato and Garlic Hummus

I remember sitting in a small restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire a while back, blythly knoshing on bread sticks and hummus and thinking that it was the perfect snack. I was having the hummus as a starter with a glass of wine, waiting for my lunch entree to arrive at the table. Thinking back now, I think I'd have been able to make another glass of wine and a side salad a meal with a few more bread sticks and a slightly larger bowl of that gorgeous snack my entire lunch! I got thinking about that hummus yesterday, as I was making the breadsticks for our soupy supper.

So, today, I decided to make my own jazzier version of that hummus recipe and have it for lunch ... voila!

The Summer Kitchen ... in Winter

I went for a ride yesterday and then parked and walked in the woods for a bit ... before the roar of snowmobiles let me know that I was about to be engulfed by engines and exhaust and the spinning of metal belts and flinging of mud and snow. Then, I retreated back down the path and on further down the road.


There was a yeasted whole wheat crust rising at the house, so I was on a bit of a time table for walking, but it sure was a pretty day for a quick jaunt.


I found this summer kitchen sitting next to an old house down the road ... what colors next to the whites and greys of winter woods!  The light in the woods was really wonderful because of the cloud cover ...

Maple Baked Beans

I love kitschy kitchen goods, so you can just imagine my glee when I ran across this little bean pot on Ebay ... nothing screams 1960's retro like this little baby. Needless to say, I got it for a song and now, it needs some spicy beans to give it a proper welcome to the grey cottage.

I found a new take on baked beans in Ina Garten's barefoot contessa at home cookbook. She got the recipe from the boys of Stonewall Kitchen and it does smack of their forward thinking. I mean, really ... ginger, Chinese hot chili and garlic sauce, maple sugar, and ketchup ? These will be some kind of spicy beans that turn the traditional Yankee baked bean supper on its proverbial ear.

Cook's Illustrated - Black Bean Chili

I swear I make so many soups and stews that I should start another blog that's devoted to just those types of recipes! I make so many soups and stews that I'm running out of different bowls to use when I photograph a serving for a post! The women in the area consignmnent stores know me now and aim me in the direction of new stock when I walk through their doors! No kidding! One gal calls me 'the dish and platter girl' ...I suppose it could be worse...

These are the latest little finds ... they hold just about a cup and half . Perfect portion for a nice hot lunch ... don't you think? If the truth be told, they're probably salad bowls or dessert bowls, but I will use them for my soups and stews! They look pretty with my ancient Corningware plates. Yes, they were a good buy. To boot, I found some silverplate spoons and the sweetest little pickle fork ... yup, I'll be dressing up the photos a little bit from the usual dishes and spoons!