December 22, 2024

Salmon with Dill Cream Cheese Sauce

May 29, 2015 by

Salmon Dill Cream Cheese Sauce

I’m still struggling to find a good name for this recipe.  Two weeks ago, I had an omelet that had smoked salmon inside, and was topped by a cream cheese dill sauce.  It was so good!  It was like my favorite way to eat a bagel – without the bagel!  So I played around at home, eliminating the omelet factor in the equation, and got straight to the point—Salmon with Dill Cream Cheese Sauce!

Eat this with a salad or some roasted broccoli or asparagus.  The sauce recipe makes about half a cup, which is more than you’ll need to feed a family of four.  But fear not, it won’t go to waste!  It’s great on those same roasted vegetables, baked potatoes, and even as a dip for carrots (let it chill in the fridge for this, and maybe add a little more plain yogurt or diced green onion.)

Salmon with Dill Cream Cheese Sauce
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

  • about 1.5 pounds salmon fillets
  • drizzle of olive oil
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 heaping tablespoon cream cheese
  • 1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
  • 1 heaping tablespoon plain yogurt
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried dill (or use 1 teaspoon or more fresh dill)
  • salt and pepper
  • capers and diced red onion to serve

Directions:

  1. Heat the oven to 400*F.  Line a baking dish with parchment paper (optional, but it makes clean up much easier).  Lay salmon in baking dish in one layer – you may need to use another dish, or you can even use a sheet pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Bake for about 14 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, cut lemon in half and squeeze it into the bowl of a food processor.  Scoop in the cream cheese, mayo and yogurt.  Pulse to combine.  Add in dill, salt and pepper, and blend again.  Taste, adjust seasoning, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
  3. To serve, spoon a little sauce over the fish, and garnish with lots of capers and red onion.

Explore, experiment, enjoy! — Dana

To view even more of Dana’s unique recipe, you can visit her at Frugal Girlmet!

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Chimichuri Sauce

March 13, 2015 by

Chimichuri Sauce

Here’s the thing:  You probably cook for your family a lot.  Or maybe you’re cooking a chicken breast for one.  Doesn’t matter.  What matters is:  Sometimes, you overcook the meat.  I know, it happens to the best of us.  (Okay, especially me, since I have a fear of giving my kids undercooked meat that gives them food poisoning.)  So what do you do?  Trash the whole thing?  NO WAY.  I’m frugal.  I scrape the black off toast.  So when you get dry chicken – or fish or beef or pork or even tofu – you sauce that thing.  Enter Chimichuri Sauce.

It sounds spicy, right?  It’s not.  It’s a milder, slimmer cousin to pesto.  Aside from being healthy for you (olive oil, parsley, garlic, and vinegar are all great for your health) – this sauce is mild enough to dress up any protein, and macho enough to save the day.

This photo is of my Chimichuri Sauce over chicken thighs.  (Yes, I cook A LOT of chicken thighs.)  Try it on beef (like the Argentinians do), chicken breasts, or the salmon filet I may or may not have just overcooked in the oven for dinner …

Chimichuri Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup parsley
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian herbs (or just dried oregano)
  • 3 tablespoons vinegar (or use lemon juice in a pinch)
  • optional:  hot sauce, diced jalapeño, or chile powder, to taste

Directions:

  1. In a food processor or blender, combine all ingredients.  That’s it!  Serve cold or at room temperature over protein of your choice.

Explore, experiment, enjoy! — Dana

To view even more of Dana’s unique recipes, you can visit her at Frugal Girlmet!

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Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce

January 16, 2015 by

Toum

My sister had an addiction.  Drugs?  Alcohol?  Gambling?  No.  She was addicted to toum.  Toum is the thick, creamy garlic sauce she was eating at her favorite Mediterranean restaurant.  She talked about it.  She bought tubs of it to take home and put on home-cooked food.  And when she moved to a different city, she craved it.  She just sent me a recipe for it on Facebook this week, and I decided to try it.  I present to you Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce!

The original recipe is here, and there is a lot of information and background on the sauce.  Unfortunately, the recipe makes a huge quantity, and I didn’t want to commit to using 4 cups of oil on a recipe I’d never tried before.  So I made my own, much smaller batch, which is what I’m listing here.  There are only four ingredients, and you probably have all but one in your house right now.  Use fresh cloves of garlic, fresh lemon juice, sea salt or Kosher salt (not iodized table salt), and grapeseed oil.  Grapeseed oil is readily available and not expensive.  It is very pale in color and has a very mild taste.  (Some comments in the original recipe mentioned that olive oil can make a bitter sauce, so I think it’s best to avoid it.)

As you can see, I made it by hand with my mortar and pestle.  Whew, what a workout!  If you have a small and powerful blender, use that.  I have a large food processor that is great at mixing up dough, and not good at making small batches of anything.  Either way, it’s all about technique:  just like when you make mayonnaise, you MUST add the oil a tiny bit at a time, or else your emulsification will break and you’ll have a sad, oily mess.

This sauce is friendly and gets along with all savory foods.  Yesterday I took a spoonful, shook it up with another spoonful of olive oil, a little lemon juice, and a drop or two of honey and made a delicious salad dressing.  Last night I made a wrap with grilled chicken and lettuce, and used the garlic sauce instead of mayo.  This morning I put a dollop of this garlic sauce in my breakfast bowl of fried eggs and roasted broccoli.  Right this minute I am eating the last of the batch of garlic sauce, mixed in with leftover quinoa, chicken, and vegetables.

Quinoa with Toum

…and now it’s gone.  I think I see why my sister buys it by the tub!

Toum – Lebanese Garlic Sauce

Ingredients:

  • six large cloves of garlic
  • half of one lemon
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or Kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup grape seed oil

Directions:

  1. Cut the hard root end off the cloves of garlic, and cut out any bruises, brown spots, or sprouts.  Get the prettiest cloves of garlic you can find!
  2. In a mortar and pestle, mash them up.  If you are using a small and powerful blender or food processor, mash them up!
  3. Add a sprinkle of salt and a little squeeze of lemon and mash some more.  Then add about a teaspoon of oil.  If you are using a blender, you can keep the blender running as you let the oil in the top, in a very fine trickle.  If you are using a mortar and pestle, add a teaspoon and mash until it’s blended in.
  4. Take it slow.  Add a sprinkle of salt, a squeeze of lemon, and a touch more oil.  Alternate oil with salt and lemon.  Slower!
  5. Eventually, it should all come together into a creamy, fluffy blob of sauce.  If it just won’t come together, or you feel like you have too much oil, you can add another clove of garlic and another squeeze of lemon.  But if you take it slow, you’ll get it.

Explore, experiment, enjoy! — Dana

To view even more of Dana’s unique recipe, you can visit her at Frugal Girlmet!

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Roasted Vegetables with Buttermilk Herb Sauce

March 21, 2014 by

Roasted Vegetables with Buttermilk Herb Sauce Resize

Did you have a fun and festive St. Patrick’s Day?  We didn’t do too much to celebrate.  (I have a little Irish in me, but no freckles!)   I did make a cabbage dish on Monday, leaving me with half a head of green cabbage.  I love roasting wedges of cabbage, but I wanted something a little more assertive, so I decided to make an herb dressing for them.  Add in some other roasted veggies, and I came up with this recipe for Roasted Vegetables with Buttermilk Herb Sauce.

Buttermilk is not something I grew up with, so I can’t really say much about it.  It does have a pleasantly sour taste that adds complexity to baked goods (think pancakes) and sauces.   If you add a lot of dill and pepper to this recipe, you’d have something very close to ranch dressing, but without all the chemicals and preservatives in bottled or packaged varieties.  I used parsley because that’s what I had but I’d like to try it next time with a big handful of tarragon.  If you grow your own herbs, this is the perfect canvas for trying new flavor combinations!

I served the sauce over roasted cabbage wedges and roasted golden beets.  Here is a list of other vegetables I think this would taste good on:  carrots, leeks, green beans, baked potatoes, and Brussels sprouts with bacon.  I served this with balsamic-glazed salmon last night, and you know what?  The sauce went great on the fish too!  I had a little sauce left over, so this morning I used it to make chicken salad for my husband’s lunch.  Find your own way with this delightfully green and springy sauce—start here!

Roasted Vegetables with Buttermilk Herb Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 4 beets
  • olive oil
  • 1/2 head green cabbage
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 3 tablespoons plain yogurt
  • 4 green onions
  • handful of fresh herbs:  use parsley, tarragon, dill, or a combination of these
  • 1 clove garlic or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • squeeze of lemon if desired (I used a big squeeze – okay, two big squeezes!)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400*F.  Prepare the beets for roasting:  Wash them and remove any greens from the top.  In a large rectangle of aluminum foil, place the beets, root tip facing up, in the middle.  Drizzle with a little olive oil, maybe a tablespoon total.  Wrap up the beets in the foil and place in a pie plate or Pyrex bowl.  Bake for one hour or until they give when you push on them.  Set aside to cool.
  2. While the beets are baking, prepare the cabbage: Cut out the core of the cabbage, then cut the cabbage into 4 wedges.  Place them on a foil-lined baking sheet and drizzle each wedge with about 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil.  After the beets have been in the oven for half an hour or so, add the cabbage.  Bake for about 15 minutes, then flip them over and bake again for about ten minutes.  (The time will vary depending on your oven, your cabbage, et cetera.  You want the cabbage to get golden and a little crispy at the edges, but not too dark!)
  3. While the vegetables are cooking, combine buttermilk, yogurt, green onions, herbs, and garlic in a food processor.  Taste it…need more garlic?  Go ahead!  Add salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon if you like and blend again.  Taste to make sure it’s yummy, and then put in the fridge until ready to serve.
  4. Skin the beets:  once they are cool enough to handle simply slip the skins off with your fingers.  If you are using red beets, you may want to wear gloves, since they will turn your fingers pink!
  5. On each plate, lay down a wedge of cabbage and a beet cut into quarters.  Serve the hot veggies with the cold buttermilk herb sauce.

Explore, experiment, enjoy! — Dana

To view even more of Dana’s unique recipe, you can visit her at Frugal Girlmet!

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GCH: What’s on Your Plate? – Spaghetti Sauce (with a Bonus!)

December 17, 2012 by

A very long time ago—when I was a teenager—a gracious, lovely woman taught me how to cook “nuttin’ fancy,” as she put it. Nonnina, my high-school sweetheart’s gramma, took me to her side and instructed me in all things Italian…and not just the food! But food she DID teach me! Mostly we cooked in the basement—her summer kitchen. When I asked her why, when we just had to carry the finished dishes back upstairs, she would tell me “ ‘Cause I’m-a not gonna stink up-a da house!” 😉 We made pasta of all types, cookies, meat dishes, desserts, soups… and spaghetti sauce or, as Nonnina called it, “gravy.” So today, I give you ‘Spaghetti Sauce’ wishing I could throw a kiss to Nonnina for ALL that she schooled me in (and taught me about love)!

2012-12-15 23.12.04

Spaghetti Sauce

Makes 13+ cups

1# ground beef
1# Italian sausage meat
2 tablespoons good olive oil
1 medium-large sweet (Vidalia) onion, chopped small
3 tablespoons minced garlic (jarred)
1 cup good red wine
2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes with seasonings
1 (28 ounce) can tomato puree
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
3 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
1+ cups beef broth
2 tablespoon each dried basil
1 teaspoon each dried thyme, oregano
2 teaspoons kosher salt,  1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

In a large saute pan over medium high heat, brown meats together. When cooked, set aside in a large bowl including the juices. Pour the olive oil into a stockpot (6 quart size or so), heat over medium heat, and add the chopped onions. Cook for 5-6 minutes ‘til soft but not browned; add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Then pour in the wine and cook ‘til the wine is almost evaporated; 3-4 minutes or so.

At this point, pour in all of tomato products stirring well as you add them. Pour a small amount of the beef broth into the cans and swirl around (Nonnina-style) to get as much tomato product out of the cans as possible, and empty into your stockpot. Also add the cooked meats along with any accumulated juices. Stir in your seasonings; don’t forget the brown sugar! When the sauce starts coming to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low.

All you want the sauce to do is simmer. Cook for 30 minutes or so. It is important every 5-6 minutes to give a thorough, quick stir up from the bottom of the pan. This is a thick sauce and you wouldn’t want to have it stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. (Nonnina ALWAYS insisted that, when you remove the lid to stir, quickly tip it up flat so that the condensation doesn’t drip into the ‘gravy.’ Why? The water will dilute your sauce…and we don’t want that! Just pour it into the sink and quickly replace the lid.)
That’s it! You have now made ‘gravy!’ (And your house must smell fantastic!)

If not serving immediately, let cool a bit and then package for storage. I put approximately 2 cup portions into freezer bags (I use the type that have a wider sealing ‘zipper.’) If you lay them flat in the freezer ‘til completely frozen, they can then be stored anywhere in the freezer taking up little space!

And now for the Bonus!! 🙂

Bonus? What bonus? The bonus, friends, is a lasagna recipe using the Spaghetti Sauce! Putting lasagna together is SIMPLE! Try it; I think your family will be impressed! Gather your ingredients…this goes quickly.

2012-12-15 22.40.44

Lasagna

2 boxes “no-boil” lasagna noodles (you will have some extra)*
16 ounces shredded cheese, such as mozzarella, provolone
2 ounces parmesan (freshly grated is preferred)
4 cups of spaghetti sauce (preferably the ‘gravy’ you just made!)

for the cheesy mixture:2012-12-15 20.38.01
3# ricotta
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
2-4 ounces parmesan
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Now, combine the cheesy mixture together in a large bowl. Then, using a 9X13 pan, begin assembling your lasagna (see * below):
Pour about 2/3 cup of your spaghetti sauce onto the bottom spreading around. [Tip: I find that a soup ladle is approximately 1/3 cup so I just use that as my ‘measuring tool.’] Lay down 4 no-boil lasagna noodles. Just overlap them slightly to fit.
Top with 1/3 of the cheesy mixture; spread. Add 2 ladles of sauce.
Add 4 more noodles, 1/3 of the cheesy mixture, 1 cup of shredded cheese, 2 ladles of sauce.
Add 4 more noodles, 1/3 of the cheesy mixture, 1 cup of shredded cheese, 2 ladles of sauce.
Add 4 more noodles, 2 ladles of sauce, the balance of the shredded cheese and the parmesan.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 50-60 minutes, ‘til bubbly. Remove foil and bake another 5 minutes or so. Remove from oven…let sit for 15 minutes before cutting to firm up. As Nonnina would say, “Mangia! Mangia! (Eat! Eat!)” And she would toss a kiss up to God! <3

* I use the Barilla brand. The trick to using these noodles is to make certain that the noodles are covered with sauce and the cheesy mixture! And certainly you can use traditional lasagna noodles that need to be pre-cooked! If you do, just reduce the amount of sauce you place between layers as you build your lasagna dish.

God loves you! and I do, too.
<3 coleen

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