Sweet Love and Ginger

Entertaining

A Real Dinner Party at Our House

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I want to preface this by saying that our lives are far from glamorous. Chuck and I live in a modest apartment on a dead end road, and aside from being fairly small it is also laid
out pretty horribly. It is warm and charming with lots of updated windows, and cute molding, but everything is pretty boxy and cut off, which makes entertaining hard. Don’t worry we manage. The kitchen is eat-in style, though there isn’t much room for the two of us at the table let alone any guests. We make it work, and improvisation is key. And since cooking for my friends is something that I have always loved to do and simply cannot stop doing; regardless of how impossible it may seem.

I try to have everything close to ready if not already done before anyone arrives; along with the kitchen table clear, because that has to serve as the buffet. The small fold-able table that does triple duty as dining table, craft space, and beer die set up is pulled out just before we are ready to eat, otherwise it’s cumbersome presence takes up too much of the living room. Chuck and I usually take the couch as it is a little low for table eating as well as maneuvering in and out of. We handle it. Then out comes the plates and cutlery stacked neatly on the counter, it has to be self serve because that folding table doesn’t fit everything.

It works, and I haven’t had a complaint yet. Of course that could be because all of our friends are also living in modest, horribly laid out apartments, so they get it.

 

 

Last weekend Chuck and I entertained our friends Alicia and Wil. She was gracious enough to bring chocolate covered strawberries for desert as well as a good white wine. Here is what the menu Looked like: Salad with Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette, Simply Roasted Chicken with mashed potatoes and Gravy as well as Braised Cabbage & Carrots.
Though it sounds like a lot it was all pretty easy to prepare, basically I popped the chicken in the oven, peeled & while they boiled prepared the cabbage & carrots. When the chicken came out in went the veggies, and I made the gravy and mashed the potatoes; which gave the chicken plenty of time to rest before being carved. The salad was just greens rinsed and spun, and the vinaigrette made the day before. From start to finish it took probably 2 hours to prepare, and there was plenty of time to mix a few
drinks, chat with Chuck and take Brody outside 4 or 5 times (he really likes the snow) in between. The perfect end to the week.

 

Simple Roasted Chicken
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 whole 4 lb chicken
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • ½ tablespoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1 teaspoon garlic
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Remove the chicken from all packaging (including giblets) and pat dry with paper towels.
  3. Rub the outside with oil, spices and place breast side up in a shallow roasting pan. (Optional: tie the legs up with kitchen twine and fold the wing tips under.)
  4. Place chicken in the oven and cook for about an hour and 20 minutes, or until the skin is golden and crisp. When poked with a knife or fork in the thickest part of the thigh the juices should run clear. A thermometer also inserted into this part of the chicken should read 165.
  5. Remove the chicken to a platter and allow it to rest for about 10 to 15 minutes.
  6. Carve the chicken and serve.

 

Quick Chicken Gravy

1 cup drippings from roast chicken pan
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 springs thyme
Broth as needed

In a small sauce pan heat drippings over medium heat. Whisk
in flour and spices and cook, allowing the mixture to reduce slightly and
thicken. If it is too thick add broth or water by the tablespoon, whisking
until blended each time.

 

Braised Cabbage & Carrots

3 tbsp butter
5 strips of bacon, cooked & crumbled
1 head of cabbage, shredded
4 large carrots, peeled & chopped
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
½ cup vegetable broth or water
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. In an oven proof skillet melt butter
with bacon, and then add cabbage, and carrots, tossing lightly. Stir in the
remaining ingredients and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes stirring
occasionally until carrots have reached desired doneness. Serve warm.

 

Lemon Shallot Vinaigrette

2 tsp grated lemon zest
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 large garlic clove, crushed
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until well
combined. May serve immediately, or be kept in the fridge for up to 1 week.

 

 

5 Awesome Valentines Day Menus to Prepare at Home

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Valentine ’s Day is a day
for love.

It’s also a day that makes
card stores, candy companies, restaurants and jewelry stores million of
dollars.

I don’t mean to be a Negative
Nancy about the whole thing. Having an extra day to celebrate love is pretty awesome;
I just hate how it’s all about spending money (isn’t everything?).

The last few years Chuck
and I have opted for something a little lower key for the big day. We don’t
bother trying to get reservations; we would have to know what we felt like
eating about 2 months in advance which is simply not possible. We choose not to
do gifts, we have so much already. Instead of all of those things we usually
have a quiet night in with a somewhat fancy homemade dinner, a bottle of wine,
and snuggling on our couch. 

In honor of the holiday I’ve put together a few easy dinner menus, including
the links to all of the recipes on My Recipe Magic. I chose to use My Recipe Magic for a couple reasons. Mainly because of the Menu feature. At the bottom of each recipe is an “add to menu” button, which allows you to collect a group of recipes into one list. Once you have all of your recipes
chosen you can then click on the menu tab at the top, and see them all in one place. From here you can click on the “make a shopping list” button to get a PDF shopping list of everything you will need to prepare your chosen recipes. If your interested you can also see the nutrition values, and points. I mean how convenient is this?

Each of the menu’s below is meant to be a four course meal with a little something for everyone. I know that a lot of people are afraid to put together a meal with all these courses, but there are a lot of ways to make it easy. For starters I tried to choose recipes that were easy to prepare, and quite a few that can be prepared in advance. Give it a shot, and definitely mix and match to create your perfect menu.

Glutten Free

Insalata Caprese // Easy Cheesy Potato Soup // Butternut Squash & Spinach Risotto // Cheese Cake bites

  Chicken

Garlic Soup // Spinach & Apple Salad with Sweet Italian Dressing // Spinach & Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken with Rice // Basil & Strawberry Meringues

Beef

Simple Salad w/ Dijon Vinaigrette // Carrot & Ginger Soup // Blue Cheese Stuffed Steak with Roasted Potatoes** // Flourless Dark Chocolate Cake

Seafood

Crab & Red Pepper Crostini // Spinach Soup // Linguine with Clam Sauce // Triple Chocolate Biscotti & Tea



Vegetarian
Carrot & Beet Salad with Spicy Mustard Dressing // Irish Roasted Shallots // Tortellini with Pesto Cream Sauce // Maple Creme Brulee

Perfect Fall Dinner

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I read a lot of blogs, it’s kind of an addiction, but I figure
that there are worse things I could be addicted to right? I get a lot of food,
cooking and photography inspiration from blogs, I mean who wouldn’t with all
these talented people sharing themselves all the time?

I don’t always share the recipes that I “copy-cat” form my
favorite blogs, mostly because I feel like I’m taking some of their thunder and
that’s kind of lame. However every once in a while I come across a recipe that
simply just knocks my socks off and that I have to absolutely share. This is defiantly
one of them.

I usually love everything on Jenny’s blog anyway, but when I
recreated her Sunday dinner, with my own twists of course, I knew I struck
gold.

I almost always have cooked my pork loin the same way, the way
my mom does, and Momma Chuck, and probably everyone else I know  with rosemary as the main ingredient, and then
roasted for a good long while, until it is cooked through and usually dry (that’s
why there’s almost always gravy with it). I don’t know why we all do this (coincidentally),
but we do, we like it, I mean who doesn’t like rosemary? But once in a while it’s
nice to step out of the box and this recipe yielded a wonderfully tender, juicy
and succulent pork loin that I will definitely be repeating in the future.

Though I stuck right to the recipe for the pork loin I had
to alter the recipes for the braised cabbage and applesauce. The braised
cabbage was basically the same, except I do not have time to let it sit in the
oven for 2 hours, nor the desire to eat up that much energy, plus I like my
vegetables firmer. I also omitted the goat cheese, though it might be a nice
touch, it simply isn’t needed. The result was delicious! I’m also glad I came
across this recipe because aside from coleslaw I’m always stuck on how to use
up leftover cabbage. Just as an FYI the original Recipe can be found here.

Braised Cabbage

1
head of red cabbage, shredded

2 tbsp
of butter

½ cup
of white wine vinegar

¼ cup
of water

2 tbsp
of brown sugar

Preheat
the oven to 350 degrees. In a large oven proof pan melt butter and sauté
cabbage with vinegar, water, and brown sugar for 2 to 3 minutes until it begins
to wilt. Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes, stirring at least once. Serve

warm.

As for the Apple Sauce I just made my own recipe of apple
sauce, clean and delicious. I usually do it in big batches to have throughout
the fall season, so I make it in the crock pot for ease.

Clean Crock Pot Apple Sauce

10 medium apples, peeled & copped

½ cup water

2 tsp cinnamon

1 pinch nutmeg (optional)


Toss all ingredients into a crock pot and cook on high for 4
hours, stirring occasionally. Serves warm or cold.

That other delicious thing I added to this meal, that’s a
German Style Potato Salad that I made simply because I was craving it. It totally
deserves its own post, so you will have to wait another day or two for that
one.

Simple Summer Date Night

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When I think of summer, I think simple, and that was the
theme for this date night.

I didn’t bother with a table cloth, or a flower arrangement.
We ate outside, because it was cooler than inside, and then I didn’t have to
clean the house. I put a fat candle on a plate in the middle of the table and
put a few daisies from the yard around its base. I put our regular dinner
plates down, mainly because I’m not fancy enough to have china, some homemade
cloth napkins, and a carafe of chilled white wine. Then I served dinner.

Summer is a time for little sleep, hard work (for those of
us in construction in the northeast), and lots of playing outside. I wanted
just one special night to share with Chuck, after weeks of dinners on the road,
quick grilled, or over the fire, and looking at my generally un-groomed
stressed out self I wanted to show him how appreciative I am that I don’t
always have to be perfectly manicured, cleaned, and coiffed for him to tell me I’m
beautiful. I did take the time to actually shave my legs, put on some make up
and (gasp) straighten my hair, for the evening, along with cook him a dinner
especially suited to his tastes.

I’m sorry I have no pictures of the night, it was a blog/work
free zone, but I thought that you might like to see what I served to my very
special man on our date night in.

 

Soup: Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Salad: Fresh Garden Greens with Creamy Pesto Dressing

Entre: Shrimp & Parsley Ravioli with Red Pepper Scampi Sauce

Desert: Strawberry & Ginger Sorbet: 2 Cups fresh
Strawberries, 1 tsp ground ginger, splash of lime juice, blended and frozen.  

Virtually everything but the ravioli was made ahead of time
so it was a pretty easy dinner to piece together, and with the sun setting
behind us, and little Brody happily chewing on a bone at our feet it was a
pretty perfect night.

Friends & Grilled Tapas!

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Over the holiday weekend I was lucky enough to have my good
friend Amanda over, whom I hadn’t seen in roughly 12 weeks since she decided to
run a half marathon, which you can read all about on her blog, Tales of a Married Runner Lady.

Since it had been so long I wanted to keep it casual, and
chatty, we had A LOT to catch up on so I wanted to prepare something that would
not get in the way of that. I decided to go with a kind of tapas menu, It
turned out pretty good, there are a few recipes that were fantastic so I have
to share them. The one thing I would have done different is had a bigger table
outside so I didn’t have to keep running in and out of the house. Oh well, next
time.

Let’s start with the drinks, since tapas, are traditionally
Spanish I figured I should probably make a sangria (those who know me know I
pretty much make sangria for everything and need no excuse).

This is an old standby that I use in impromptu sangria
making situations; the directions are for 1 drink, so just multiply for more.

Quick & Easy
Sangria

1 cup red wine
1 oz dry gin
2-3oz seltzer
2 tsp sugar
1 small handful
frozen mixed berries

Place in a shaker and
shake lightly, pour into a red wine glass and serve.

I started with the obvious cheese and crackers, we had this
wonderful cheese that I got from the farmers market in Ithaca the weekend
before. It’s so herby and fresh, I love it. Shortly after the cheese came out
the Grilled Marinated Olives were ready, I also warmed up a small loaf of
sprouted wheat bread on the grill to dip in the olive juices, and it was sooo
good.
Grilled Marinated
Olives

1 cup olive medley
2 tbs extra virgin
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
minced
1 tsp red pepper
flakes
Salt & pepper to
taste

Combine all
ingredients in a small bowl and toss to coat, transfer to a large sheet of tin
foil. Fold into a packet and place on a preheated grill for 5-10 minutes to
warm.

I made a quick Grilled Pear Salad with Shallot &
Vinaigrette Dressing to start us off. The soft red pear was really good and
soft grilled, and the shallot vinaigrette was amazing, so I think I will be
making this a few more times this summer. 

Grilled Pear Salad w/
Shallot Vinaigrette

3 cups mixed greens
1 medium red pear cut
into wedges
1 small shallot,
minced
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp Dijon
1 tbsp Honey
3 tbsp Red wine vinegar

Preheat the gril to
medium high heat, and place the pear wedges directly onto the grill. Grill for
roughly 5 minutes per side, or until the pear begins to carmelize. Set aside to
cool for a few minutes, meanwhile in a small bowl whisk together shallot, Dijon,
honey, and red wine vinegar. Pour over mixed greens and toss to coat. Serve
greens topped with grilled pear. (Serves 3)

Is there anything more reminiscent of spring than fresh pea
soup? I made a very simple Minted fresh pea soup on the stove top that I kept
in the fridge until serving. 

Minted Fresh Pea Soup

1 tbs chopped onion
1 tbs oil
1 cup peas fresh or
frozen
½ cup chicken or
vegetable broth
1 tbsp fresh mint
¼ cup cream
1 tbs chopped fresh
chives

In a small pan warm sauté
onion in oil for 3-4 minutes or until it begins to soften. Stir in peas and
broth and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in mint, cream,
and chives. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Add more cream if necessary.
Place in the fridge to chill for 15-20 minutes. Serve chilled with mint sprig
for garnish (Serves 1)

For the protein portion of the meal I grilled up some shrimp
in a quick and easy scampi sauce. It was so quick and easy, I’m thinking that I
might make them up some time to pair with pasta, for a quick and easy week
night meal.

Grilled Lemon Thyme Shrimp
12 medium shrimp, peeled and diveined
1/2 – 1 tbs of oil
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of red pepper flakes
3-4 slices of lemon
Juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp chopped fresh tarragon
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
Combine all ingrediants in a small bowl and toss. Place in the refridgerator to marinate for 30 minutes. pour out the contents of the bowl onto a large piece of foil and create a pouch. Place on a preheated grill over medium high heat and grill, turning regularly for 8-10 minutes, or until the shrimp are cooked through. Serve warm. (Serves 3)

For the Finale I made a grilled bread pudding. Who would
have thought of such a thing? I stumbled on it somewhere or other and
remembered it when I was trying to think of what to make, so obviously I have
to make it, and I got quite a few compliments, so I think this is another thing
that will be showing up fairly often this summer.

 Grilled Strawberry Bread Pudding
4 slices crusty bread
1 cup cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sliced strawberries
On a heated grill toast the bread for 2-3 minutes a side, and cut into 1-2 inch squares. In a small bowl whisk together cream, sugar, and vanilla and add bread. Toss the bread in the mixture and pour the entire contents onto a large piece of tin foil. Fold the foil into a packet and place on the grill for 15-20 minutes, turning several times. Remove from heat and toss with strawberries. (Serves 3-4)

Finish it up with some more sangria, and a few laughs and
what could possibly make for a better evening?