Ciabatta Chicken Sandwiches

These are so good, especially on homemade ciabatta bread. But, if there's one thing this summer taught me it was that making ciabatta is a little bit of a pain. Not that anything about it is really hard, but you run your stand mixer on high for like 20 minutes. Seriously, just buy some nice quality ciabatta from your local bakery.

Ingredients:
2 ciabatta roles
4 chicken tenders
salt and pepper
1/4 c. pesto sauce
3 to 5 T. mayonnaise
1 avocado, sliced
2 to 3 small Roma tomatoes, sliced

Directions:
1. Split roles in halves.
2. Salt and pepper chicken tenders. In a pan over medium-high heat, cook tenders until juices run clear.
3. In small bowl mix pesto and mayonnaise. Add more mayo if you like, but I like mine pesto-y. Smear onto ciabatta roles.
4. Place chicken one half, avocados and tomatoes on the other.
5. Put halves together and take a giant bite. Enjoy.

Pumpkin Curry Soup

I whipped this up tonight in the amount of time it took me to bake a couple loaves of bread (which, for those of you who haven't made my bread, takes 30 minutes). It was delicious! I could tell my husband was skeptical but one bite and he was sold! SO! Here goes.

Ingredients:
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1 can pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 can light coconut milk
2/3 c. chicken broth
1 t. ginger
1 t. cinnamon
3/4 t. curry powder
dash salt
feta cheese (optional, but highly recommended)

Directions:
1. Put carrots in a sauce pan with about an 1/8 cup water. Steam until soft enough to mash (about 10 minutes). Use potato masher to mash in pan. (If you don't want any lumps at all, you can puree it in a blender, but I like a little substance personally.)
2. Add pumpkin, coconut milk, and broth. Stir to incorporate. Add seasoning. Turn burner to low and allow the soup to warm completely through.
3. Serve with feta crumbles for a sweet-salty scrumptiousness.

Banana Oat Smoothie

This makes a great quick breakfast smoothie. I was drinking them almost daily for a while, just to break up the eggs-and-toast nightmare routine. (Okay, it wasn't really a nightmare--I like eggs and toast--but seriously, every day?)

Banana Oat Smoothie with cinnamon instead of cocoa.

You can play around with this quite a bit--try different greens, or some spices like nutmeg or cinnamon (those are really good in this, actually, with or without the cocoa powder). It's fairly forgiving because of the oats, banana, and cocoa powder. Together, they cover a multitude of flavors. (And when it looks like chocolate, even little kids will drink it!)

This recipe makes one good-sized mug full.

Ingredients:
1/3 c. oats
handful of spinach, rinsed
2 Romain lettuce leaves, rinsed
2 bananas
1/3 c. milk (or nut milk or whatever you prefer)
1/2 t. cocoa powder

Directions:
1. In blender, grind up oats until very fine. Add spinach and lettuce and grind again until greens are pureed. (A bit of liquid goes a long way in this, so if they're taking their time, pour in just a teeny bit of water or milk to help it go down.)
2. Add remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth.

Honey Apple Pie

So my mum was visiting for a few weeks and stocked us up with fresh apples and awesome cider. A great way to move into a new house, if you ask me. She bought a bag of fancy Macs and utilitarian Macs. Well, why go through the trouble of buying utilitarian Macs if you're not planning to make a pie, right? So we got into the new house and decided, on our second day, to do just that. But I had neglected to pick up any sugar or brown sugar. All we had was some raw honey. So, we looked up the exchange and decided to kind of just wing it.

Woah.

This pie has a distinctive taste--it's definitely honey in there--and is not too sweet. We didn't have any cinnamon, so we made do with only a bit of nutmeg. The honey seemed to really bring that flavor out! It was great! Like I said, we made it with McIntosh apples, but we saw some people had made something similar with Granny Smiths which are very tart. (Although, they also had brown sugar in theirs, so that would sweeten it up quite a bit.)

I started out with this crust recipe--which is the only one I ever use. It's the best, quite frankly. And sorry, no pictures! I was too excited!

Ingredients:
6 to 8 medium McIntosh apples, peeled and sliced
1 c. raw honey (if it's not raw, it's more runny, so maybe do a bit less than a cup, but not much)
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 c. flour
butter

Directions:
1. Make crust. Preheat oven to 425.
2. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients except butter together. (I let mine sit while I roll out my pie crust so the flavors can blend a bit.)
3. Pour into pie shell. Dot with a few small tabs of butter. Top with top crust and cut some vents in the top. Cut and seal the edges.
4. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for 40 to 50 more minutes.

Enjoy!

Parmesan Sole

Last weekend we ate out at a little pub in Monterey--sorry, I don't remember the name--but my husband got Parmesan cod. It was excellent, and we figured it couldn't be that hard to recreate, so when I was shopping on Monday I picked up some white fish. This is sole because it was significantly cheaper than the cod, but doubtless you would simply use the same method to cook any crusted white fish. It was melt-in-your-mouth soft and smooth. And the leftovers were pretty great too!

Parmesan Sole
1 stick butter, separated
1/2 c. Italian-style bread crumbs
about 1 c. grated Parmesan cheese, separated
4 fillets sole
1/4 c. milk, half-and-half, or cream
cracked black pepper

Directions:
1. In a large, deep fry pan over medium-low heat, melt 1/2 stick of butter. In a wide, shallow dish, mix bread crumbs and 1/4 c. Parmesan. Pour melted butter into a separate wide dish. There should be enough butter left in the pan to coat the bottom. Return pan to heat and turn up to medium.
2. Coat each sole fillet in butter, then in crumb mixture. Use your finger-tips to lightly pat the mixture onto the fillets. Place in pan and fry until cooked through, carefully flipping once--about 4 minutes on each side. (The muscles should easily separate when touched with a fork and the meat will turn white.)
3. In a small saucepan, melt remaining butter. Add milk and whisk. Continue whisking vigorously while adding remaining Parmesan. Sprinkle in freshly ground black pepper.
4. To serve, spoon some sauce onto each plate. Carefully lay a fillet on top. If desired, top with additional sauce.

Pear and Feta Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

I try to have one meal a week be a nice big salad. Sometimes I just toss whatever is in the fridge that needs to be used onto a pile of leaves and we pour some balsamic vinegar over the top and call it good--I'm not alone here, am I? Other times I actually think it through and try to make something nice, dressing and all. Tonight, I am proud to say, was of the latter kind. This salad could also be served as a side, obviously. Just omit the chicken and make it on a slightly smaller scale (unless you're one of those who eat the way they should--you know, with half the plate being greens.)

Pear and Feta Salad

1 chicken breast

2 T. oil

8 oz. salad greens (I used baby spinach and red lettuce), slightly chopped if necessary

4 or 5 white mushrooms, rinsed and sliced

1 large celery stalk, chopped

3 small Bartlett pears, chopped

1/2 red onion

handful crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

1. Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Place chicken breast in pan and cover. Cook for 4 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. 

2. Meanwhile, place all remaining ingredients in salad bowl. Chop cooked chicken and add to the salad. 

Citrus Vinaigrette

1/4 c. olive oil

1/4 c. citrus vinegar, like Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar (which I just bought, and so far enjoy)

1 clove garlic

1 T. Dijon mustard

dash of salt

dried thyme

dried basil

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together until fully emulsified. Pour over top of salad and toss lightly.

Fresh Strawberry Salad

I made this for dinner tonight and it has a light, fresh taste and was a delightful side to the quinoa-stuffed zucchini we had as our main course. It would actually make a great summer salad.

Fresh Strawberry Salad
Ingredients:
4 oz. baby spinach, rinsed
4-5 sprigs fresh basil, rinse and stems removed
6 large strawberries, quartered
juice of 1 lemon
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:
1. Place spinach, basil, and strawberries in a serving bowl.
2. In separate bowl, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Pour over top of salad. Toss if desired (I didn't bother) and serve.