Do you think maybe, watching DVR'd cooking shows while working out on the Elliptical is a bad thing? Today I caught a dated Molto Mario where he made a salad with a frittata. It's called:
Frittata Salad: Frittatine Verdi in Insalata it sounded wonderful. But I didn't give it a second thought as I didn't have a lot of those ingredients on hand. After exercising I watched another stored episode where he stuffed a veal roast--saved that idea for the winter!
However, when I went foraging through the fridge for lunch fixins' I thought of the frittata and wanted a salad with eggs. The herb drawer proved to be a big disappointment today, so much for Mario's inspiration. So I grabbed Arugula, two Eggs, Sun-Dried Tomato Gouda Cheese, a small remnant of Parmesan Reggiano, and a Cantaloupe. Still not sure where this is all gonna fit, and at the last second before closing the fridge door I grabbed bacon. Cause everyone says everything is always better with bacon. Also the left over piece of French Baguette, which is hard as a rock! Think like a "Chopped" market basket of ingredients! I was up for the challenge!
First I rub the baguette with water and tightly wrap in foil. Preheating the oven to 375 and prepping the bacon, I decide not to go the brown sugar route and used freshly ground Black Pepper. Pressed the pepper into the bacon placed on small rack on small sheet pan and put into the oven along with the bread.
Thinking of what to do with the eggs I plan to add Fines Herbes from the dried collection to the lightly beaten eggs. Heated butter and olive oil in nonstick skillet and added eggs gently pushing the edges to the center until a nice "pancake" is formed. Drizzle on some shredded parm, flip the frittata when I feel the center is almost completely set and finish less than one minute later! Set this on the cutting board to cool before cutting into strips. Why? Because Mario said frittata's are good warm, room temp and even chilled.
The Cantaloupe is cut in half, one half wrapped and stored for later use, the other peeled and cut up into pieces and served as a side dish to the salad rather than in it. Since now I've decided to grab a lemon and make a quick vinaigrette with lemon, dijon mustard, fines herbes, black pepper and what else? Bacon Drippings! Cause everything goes better with Bacon!
Plating--Sliced the Frittata into strips tossed with arugula and chunks of the still warm bacon and a drizzle of vinaigrette. Two slices of Sun-dried Tomato Gouda and several very thin slices of the crunchy baguette. I was using the soup and sandwich plates we have from IKEA, for this so I placed the melon chunks in the bowls and sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. I know, never heard of seasoning your Cantaloupe? This is the way we ate it at home with biscuits and butter, and it was perfect following to the peppered bacon and pepper in the vinaigrette! See, a peppery theme!
Lunch was greatly appreciated and once again the opportunity to utilize ingredients on hand saved a trip to the store in the heat! Now I need inspiration for dinner!! To quote a chef friend: "...chef advantage, we can always come up with something!" Thanx for that tidbit Christine!
Last night I started with the Trader Joe's Ciabatta Flatbread and some desire for Mexican flavors. Next I pulled together a quick homemade salsa with black beans, orange bell pepper, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, drained canned diced fire roasted tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice.
After that I marinated shrimp in lime juice, olive oil, cilantro, garlic and jalapeno. Sauteed the shrimp quickly in hot pan.
Brushed the flatbread with olive oil, spread the salsa over the bread, topped with shrimp sprinkled with chopped scallions and cilantro then shredded Mexican cheese blend.
Awesome: Mexican Shrimp Pizza!
Pulled out of the oven added more chopped Scallions and Cilantro!
On the side we had Corn, Tomato, Cucumber, Radish & Avocado Salad over Romaine.
Recipe free, but a little bit labor intensive, yet a great light summer dinner! Worth the effort, leftovers very welcome for lunch today! The leftover salad was served like a salsa with grilled chicken breasts for tonights dinner.
Can't even begin to think of how many times I've purchased figs at the Natural Food Market in Forest Hills, or Fairway in Red Hook, Brooklyn, or anywhere I stumble across them, and put them in the fridge and forgot about them until they were well past their prime! It's probably the one ingredient that I've thrown out unused more times than any other! Though, I must confess that this is one area in which I have improved greatly. I buy less for "experimentation" just because I saw it! Or maybe I've just gotten better at follow through in using things quickly after purchased.
Anyway I purchased a plastic container of figs the other day where they are sitting individually separated, think egg carton! This promotes freshness as when they are touching each other in those little berry baskets if one decides to over-ripen before you separate them the whole inventory is doomed!
On Saturday I used the first of them to make Fresh Fig and Goat Cheese Naan "Pizza" for a yummy Saturday Lunch. You can read about it on The Amateur Gourmet's Community Blog here.
So today I set out to use the rest but am bored with the typical: fig and goat cheese on arugula; fig and prosciutto; fig tarts; etc. This spurned me to search the Internet for some fresh fig recipes that I've never heard of, or much less tried. I must have found 40 that called for chopping and mixing with goat cheese and stuffing chicken breasts! Also found 100's using dried figs, even though I put in Fresh Figs for my search!
Then I found one that really piqued my interest. It is on a blog called Kitchenelly and the specific recipe with detailed prepping pics is here. My search was looking for fresh fig and chicken breast recipes. This one came up from October 2009 and intrigued me immediately. I liked the idea of the combination of ingredients salty and sweet. I probably would never have thought of using Capers (undrained, no less) with Honey in the same recipe. Capers, wine, onions, garlic, figs sounded fine. As did Wine, onions, figs, honey. Now add Stilton and Rosemary to either but to both? I really needed to try this to see what's up with this combo!
Only went to The Natural today, after all it is Sunday, and the stores are crazy busy. They didn't have plain Stilton, only mixed with apricots or cranberries or walnuts. Standing at the cheese counter mulling over my choices I remember reading a few decent recipes using Blue Cheese so I selected a Buttermilk Blue Cheese from the good ol' USA. I figured that the other ingredients were an eccentric blend how far off could this cheese be?
At home, a quick taste test of the cheese proved to be an excellent Blue Cheese, the buttermilk tang works so well you find it hard to distinguish from the tang of the blue veins.
Pulled the dish together easily using 3 very small boneless, skinless chicken breasts and the remaining 6 figs. The smells were awesome. I didn't reduce the quantity of sauce makings proportionately to the lesser amount of chicken and thusly did not have to baste more than twice during the 20 minutes in the oven. Pulled the chicken and other solids from the sauce and reduced to a medium bodied gravy/glaze and served over the chicken breasts, figs, onions, etc. On the side was Riced Potatoes w/olive oil and parsley and a salad of Baby Arugula, Matchstick Radishes, Sea Salt and a drizzle of Miso Salad Dressing. A french Baguette and a bottle of King Estate Pinot Gris and we'll call it another fabulous dinner @ the NY Huff's!
