Winter BLT

Last fall before our first frost I picked all the green tomatoes from our garden & turned them into green tomato jam.

We'd never had green tomato jam before & weren't really exactly sure what to expect & what it would taste good with. Matt mentioned he had seen a winter BLT on a menu recently that used tomato jam so we decided to try ours that way.

We started with some toasted sourdough then put mayo on one side & our green tomato jam on the other.

Then add the warm crisp bacon & some fresh baby spinach. Sweet & salty crispy goodness!

I think we were both surprised by how much we like the flavor of the green tomato jam. To me its reminiscent of chutney. Matt said the sandwich he saw originally also had brie on it. Notsure I want brie on my BLT but I do think the jam would be fabulous with cheese though I'm imagining a good cheddar... yum, grilled cheese with green tomato jam! Now I'm off to have another one of these BLTs for lunch

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Food 365 January and Weekly Menu

Well, I made it through the first month of my Food 365 for 2010. I have to say the Food 365 is much easier than my other two 365's I'm doing this year!

1. Wine Braised Chuck Roast, 2. Frozen Pizza, 3. Potluck, 4. Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup, 5. Making some liquid gold, 6. Quinoa & Mushroom "Risotto", 7. Thai Curry Soup, 8. Beef, Barley & Winter Vegetable Soup, 9. Chocolate Covered Bacon Toffee, 10. Pork Tenderloin with Pears, 11. Thomas Keller's Chicken Pot Pie, 12. Steel Cut Oats, 13. Southwestern Beef Stew, 14. Asian Meatballs Over Peanut Fried Rice, 15. Pasta with Spinach, Beans & Bacon, 16. Chicken Biryani, 17. Tamale Making, 18. Lamb with Balsamic Sauce, 19. Whole Grain Rye, 20. Jansson's Frestelse, 21. Bún, 22. Corn & Chorizo Chowder, 23. Churros, 24. Ad Hoc Pan Seared Duck Breast, 25. Potato & Chorizo Tacos, 26. Miso Glazed Salmon, 27. Red Bean, Sausage & Rice, 28. Rösti with Baked Egg, 29. Making Ravioli, 30. Winter BLT, 31. Dark M&Ms

On to Menu Planning Monday...

Roast Chicken

Warm Lentil Salad with Duck Confit

Tortilla Soup

Duck Confit Pizza

Wild Rice Waffles with Chicken & Mushroom Sauce

Beef Roast

Chicken & Sweet Potato Curry

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Rösti with Baked Eggs

This was a dish we had high hopes for...

I mean basically its cheesy hash browns with an egg on top, what doesn't sound good about that. Unfortunately, we found it a little disappointing & I don't know why. At first I thought I didn't care for the taste of the turnip in it but that actually really grew on me & Matt liked it from the start. Maybe it needed a different cheese. (I can see cheddar being really good.) I think onions would add a lot more flavor instead of the chives. It did definitely need more salt & mixing the egg in with the potatoes helped too.

To be upfront I did make a few changes. The original recipe called for frozen hash browns, I grated a fresh potato instead. I probably put in twice as much turnip as needed but I didn't want to have half a turnip hanging around. Other than that I stuck pretty close to the original recipe other than making 2 servings instead of 8.

I think this idea has promise but needs some tweaking.

Rösti with Baked Eggs
(adapted from Cooking Light Jan/Feb '10)

5 T plain yogurt
1 1/2 t all-purpose flour
1 russet potato, peeled & grated
1 small turnip, peeled & grated
1 1/4 oz Gruyere cheese, grated
1 T unsalted butter, melted
2 T fresh chives, chopped
1/4 t salt
pepper
pinch of nutmeg
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease two 1 1/2 cup ramekins.

Mix the yogurt & flour together in a medium bowl. Add the potato, turnip, cheese, butter & chives, stir to mix. Add the salt, a few grinds of fresh pepper & the nutmeg. Stir to blend everything. Divide between the two ramekins. Place on a baking sheet & then put into the oven Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly.

Remove from the oven & make an indentation in the top of each dish with the back of a spoon. (We found a small ladle worked well for this.

Break one egg into each.

Return to the oven & bake for 8 more minutes or until the egg whites are firm. (Ours were taking forever to firm up so we broiled them for a minute or two.)

2 servings

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Red Beans, Sausage & Rice

Sometimes there is nothing more comforting than a bowl of slow cooked beans over rice.

Matt has been talking about making this for two weeks & we finally got around to it last night. It was freezing cold outside so I ate a big bowl of this in front of the fireplace & it warmed me right up.

This is super simple to make but it does take time, though most of that time is hands off. You want your beans to cook low & slow until they are tender & creamy. The creaminess of the beans plays so well with the texture of the sausage & rice. The seasonings are pretty basic, it didn't even need salt, but our andouille was flavorful & had a bit of spice to it which adds a lot to the soup. If your andouille isn't as spicy or you like thing hot add a little more cayenne & some hot sauce.

Red Beans, Sausage & Rice

2 T olive oil
2 yellow onions, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 red peppers, seeded & diced
12 oz andouille sausage, cut in half length-wise then into half moon slices
1 lb red kidney beans
1/4 t cayenne pepper
3 bay leaves
Hot cooked white rice

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, peppers & sausage. Cook until the onions are translucent, stirring often. Add the beans, cayenne & bay leaves then enough water to cover everything by about an inch. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover & simmer for about 2 hours or until the beans are tender. Stir from time to time to keep the beans from sticking to the bottom. Add more water as needed. Once the beans are tender, remove the lid & cook until creamy.

Serve over hot white rice. Add hot sauce if desired.

6 - 7 Servings

Note: I think you could easily make this in a slow cooker though since I haven't tried it I'm not sure of the timing.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski

Miso Glazed Salmon

Lookie, here we are eating more healthy for us oily fish. Though salmon cooked like this makes eating healthy easy.

We had a lot of miso left over from making soups in the last couple of weeks & since we need to get more fish in our diets Matt suggested using it in a glaze on salmon. What a good choice. The sweet & salty taste of the glaze tastes so good with the salmon and look at how beautiful it is, all shiny & brown & everything. Plus how much quicker can you get than mixing three ingredients together & then broiling a piece of fish for 10 minutes?! Broiling the salmon left it perfectly flaky & moist.

I tried an experiment with the side dish. I cooked some Kashi 7 Whole Grain Pilaf in our rice cooker & threw a knob of fresh ginger & a garlic clove in with it. I was hoping the flavors of the garlic & ginger would infuse the pilaf while cooking. Hoping is the optimal word here, the pilaf smelled great while cooking but you couldn't taste the ginger or garlic at all, bummer.

Miso Glazed Salmon

2 t red miso paste
4 t brown sugar
2 T soy sauce
2 6-oz salmon filets
chives, chopped (optional)

Heat broiler on high & set rack about 6 inches from the flame.

Mix the miso, brown sugar & soy sauce together until well blended.

Spray a little cooking spray on a baking sheet. Place the salmon on skin side down. Coat the top with some of the miso glaze.

Place under the broiler & cook for about 10 minutes until flaky & tender, re-coating with glaze 2 or 3 more times during cooking.

Place on plates & sprinkle with chopped chives (optional).

Serves 2

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2010 Kathy Lewinski