KrisNeely, Author at Ant & Anise • Page 7 of 15

Chimichurri sauce

¡Olé!

With this gorgeous summer weather the last few weeks (can you believe it?) my tastes have turned to south of the border flavors. Specifically, chimichurri sauce.

I’ve seen chimichurri pop up on several menus lately and it’s a taste I love, tangy and vinaigrette-y.

Okay yes, it’s true, I do like some creamy sauces. In fact, Béarnaise is probably my most favorite sauce in the world, ever. If I get a chance to order it out, I do. (I’m also very lucky that Bob makes a great Béarnaise sauce too.)

But mostly, when it comes to sauces and dressings, I’m a vinaigrette kind of girl. And that’s vinaigrette on the side, too. Yup.

Chimichurri is one amazingly tangy fresh herb explosion. I’ve been thinking of it as pesto’s bad-ass cousin that goes great with a simple grilled steak (no surprise) but it really shines when the whole meal has a Latin twist, like with steak tacos.

I could be saying this because I’m on a bit of a taco kick right now. Bob and I recently got around to trying La Taqueria on Cambie, and we’re officially hooked. Also, lately we’ve also been catching up on a lot of episodes of Breaking Bad, which is filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

These tacos are far different from the ones I remember having as a kid. Mom would get a package of Old El Paso taco shells and we’d fill them with ground beef (probably seasoned with Old El Paso spice mix), tomato slices, shredded cheddar cheese and shredded lettuce.

And then, one or maybe two bites into it, the hard taco shell would explode into shards. The tomatoes would slide out the top and the ground beef would drip out the bottom, until all you were holding was a remnant of taco shell and a few shreds of cheese and lettuce. It was fun though. I mean come on, eating with your hands is always fun, right?

No, these are quite different tacos: Fresh, soft tortillas that don’t crumble. Steak instead of ground beef. And oh-so-tangy chimichurri sauce. They still are super messy, and leave us licking our fingers after every bite. A perfect summer dinner.

Aside from steak tacos, there are a lot of ways to use chimichurri sauce. Here are some ideas:

sauce for grilled meat, chicken or fish
sauce for grilled vegetables
dipping sauce for bread
spread for sandwiches, on its own or combined with mayo
sauce for pasta: reserve some cooking liquid from the pasta to thin it out a little

Chimichurri Sauce

Yield: 3/4 cup

There are a ton of variations on chimichurri sauce out there, but this is one I put together that we particularly liked. The cilantro and lime juice are less traditional, but go well with a Latin-themed meal. Feel free to substitute all parsley for the cilantro and use red wine vinegar for a more traditional chimichurri -- either way it still packs a punch!

Ingredients

1 cup lightly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup lightly packed fresh oregano leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 tablespoons red wine vinegar or fresh lime juice
kosher salt to taste

Instructions

In a food processor with the blade attachment, place the parsley, cilantro, oregano, garlic, shallot and chili pepper flakes and process until combined.
Scrape down the sides of the processor with a spatula, then add 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 3 tablespoons of vinegar/lime juice Process until combined.
Add a little salt and taste for seasoning. If you want a little more tang, add the other tablespoon of vinegar/lime juice. If you want a runnier sauce, add the other tablespoon of olive oil.
Pour sauce into a serving dish.

Notes

You can make this the day you're serving it, but it also keeps well in the fridge for about a week. We found the garlic flavor intensified after a few days.

Carrot Apple Breakfast Cake

I’m on a quest to find a quick, nutritious breakfast.

Let me qualify that a little. There’s a few other criteria it has to meet, along with being fast and good for you: It has to have some protein in it, it needs to taste good alongside my morning coffee and, ideally, it should be free of gluten.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, not really.

On the breakfast-y protein front there’s eggs, cottage (or other) cheese and yogurt. I like eggs well enough, but I don’t want to eat them every day. I do like cottage cheese, especially with fruit, but it doesn’t match very well with my coffee. And yogurt? It’s never been my favorite texture, unless copious amounts of granola are mixed into it.

Fussy, I know….

Garlic scapes and mushroom crostini

Ah yes, garlic scapes. This is only the third summer in my life that I’ve run across them, because of the CSA.

Working with ingredients that I don’t seek out regularly is partly why I love getting a weekly surprise box of vegetables every summer. It’s a challenge to make something good — as in, wow I want to make this again — when a key ingredient is unfamiliar.

Last year I made a garlic scape pesto, and eventually used it in a summery pasta dish with some prawns. (Truth be told, I found the pesto way too garlicky right after I made it. It hid in the back of the fridge for at least two weeks before I worked up enough courage to use it.)

This week when the scapes arrived in my veggie box, I thought I’d try a different tack. I mean, scapes are part of the garlic plant. They’re pungent. Maybe not as pungent as the bulb of the garlic, but there’s no mistaking that it’s garlic. So what, then?

…

Roasted salmon with ginger lime glaze

Summer is almost here.

I want to say it’s here! it’s here! because I love sunshine, warmer weather, and the more relaxed pace that comes around this time of year. I always say, any day that it’s warm enough to not wear socks is a good day.

But this morning it rained, and the air is still stubbornly chilly once the sun disappears behind a cloud. (I’m still wearing shorts, but I had to bundle up with a heavy jacket to tame the goosebumps on my arms.)

With summer coming on I’ve been trying to work more seafood into meals. I typically fire up the barbie when I want to cook any kind of fish, because I hate the lingering smells that come from cooking fish in the kitchen. But a good way around this — especially when it’s a drizzly June day, and the last thing I want to do is hover over the barbecue in the rain — is to roast salmon in a hot oven. …

Quinoa porridge: comfort food with the power to soothe

Mom’s breathing, which had been labored for several hours, got shallower, and the space between breaths took longer. With my hand on her forearm, I watched her face and listened as her breathing slowed even more. In, out, pause. In, out, pause. Then in, out, longer pause. In, out, longer pause.

And then, just like that, she stopped breathing for good. I waited a few more seconds, but that was it. The last breath. And the end of a very long, incredibly painful journey through Alzheimer’s disease.

That was on March 29, Good Friday. And that is why you haven’t seen much going on at Ant & Anise lately. My mom, Ann, is Eve’s sister. Or was, I should say. I’m not used to the past tense with her just yet….

Oven dried apples and pears

When we were talking on Saturday, you mentioned that meditating for only a few minutes a day can help increase grey matter in your brain. I know it’s a good practice, but I’ve found it challenging to sustain it daily. Your comment got me thinking again.

First, that I will try, again, to build meditation into my day. Every day. (I started on Sunday morning with 7 minutes and am up to 10 already. Yay! This TEDx video is adding to my motivation.)

It also made me think that small investments in time can often yield benefits that endure. I thought of getting together with good friends, or exercising for just half an hour. Both of those make me feel better and last well beyond the actual time spent.

Oven drying apples and pears is the same: A little effort goes a long way and gives a generous result. (Rather like the slow roasted tomatoes you introduced me to.)

The oven drying takes just under an hour, plus a few more hours to completely dry. Mostly it’s not active time, just a matter of being around so you can keep an eye on the fruit slices while they’re in the oven.

And what you get are compact slices of amped-up apple and pear, concentrated flavor in a sweet, chewy bite. Delish.

They can be used a number of ways. So far I’ve tossed them on top of green salads and stirred them into hot cereal. (The cereal was particularly good.) They would jazz up a cheese plate, particularly if a cambozola or roquefort were involved. And I bet they would be heavenly dipped in some dark chocolate. Oh yes, dried pear and chocolate. Now that’s a thought I can meditate on.

Recipe Tip: You’ll find a number of techniques for drying pears and apples – like soaking the fruit in water with lemon juice added, using a greased pan or oiled oven rack to place the fruit on. What I found worked best is an extremely simple approach, with no oil or lemon involved. Here are my suggestions:

Use firm fruit. It’s easier to get the slices thin and produced a better (drier) result. I used a Granny Smith apple and both Bartlett and Bosc pears.
If your slices are thin enough, you won’t need to brush them with lemon juice or soak in a water/lemon juice solution. (I brushed half of the pear slices with lemon juice but couldn’t see any difference with the plain ones once they were dried.)
Unless you’re particularly seed averse, don’t bother coring the fruit. Leaving the seeds in is easier, and they look quite pretty.
Use parchment-lined baking sheets, and place the slices directly on the parchment – no oil required.

Oven dried apples and pears

Ingredients

1 crisp apple and 1 firm pear

Instructions

Preheat oven to 200°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Slice the apple and pear crosswise into thin slices, about 1/8” thick. If you have a mandoline this is a good time to enlist it. If you don’t (or if it’s in storage like mine is) use a sharp chef’s knife.
Place the slices evenly on the parchment-lined baking sheet and place in the oven. Let the slices dry for about 45-60 minutes. It’s a good idea to check them at the 45-minute mark, as the thinner slices will start to get toasty brown then.
Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let them cool for 5-10 minutes. Carefully peel the slices from the parchment, and transfer to a cooling rack to finish drying. This may take a few hours. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

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