The old chuck and bung

Well, I've been 29 for a month now, and it seems that the march toward the 30s and that next phase of getting ever lamer (Saturday nights at home in my sweatpants) excitement in the little things seems to be gathering speed.

Take, for instance, this list of things that have brought me moments of true delight lately:

Cleaning out my closet
Changing my car insurance policy (I'm saving big money, people!)
Dairy Queen (OK, this one is not new)
Going to a concert on a Tuesday night, and taking Wednesday off of work so I could sleep in (felt pretty smug about this)
Finding a weeknight dinner recipe that I really liked to add to my regular rotation

But, in all fairness, finding a dinner recipe that is 1. cheap, 2. easy, and 3. tasty is something to get excited about. Am I right? 

Am I right??

I know I'm right. Some nights after work, Adam and I want to eat well, but we just don't want to spend time cooking - and I know we're not alone in this. Maybe we have laundry to do, or dishes to put away, or maybe we've finally picked up our mail for the first time in two weeks and have to sort through the stacks, or maybe we're trying burn through the last few episodes of Dexter season 7 because the final season is starting. You know, adult stuff. It's a blessing and a curse that we have zero good takeout options in our neighborhood, so these types of nights often leave us staring into the fridge, then at each other, then back into the fridge, hoping the issue will solve itself. 

Enter here, this awesome dish of chicken, tomatoes, basil and olives, from Jamie Oliver. Jamie's description of the recipe sums it up perfectly: 

So easy - chuck everything in one tray, then bung in the oven.

Is that not what we're looking for in weeknight recipes? More chucking and bunging, please!

In this recipe, everything is tossed into a pan and roasts for an hour or so - the chicken, tomatoes and chunks of torn-up baguette are infused with garlic, basil and the salty olives. Toward the end, you top the pan with a few slices of prosciutto - tasty and elegant, if you want to go that route. I may leave this off in the future to make this more of an inexpensive go-to meal. 

The best part? Those dang bread cubes; we couldn't stop picking them out of the pan of leftovers, long after dinner was over. They crisp on the top and soak in a little of the juices from the roasting pan on the bottom, and seem to carry the flavor of everything they've touched. Do not skimp on the bread chunks here.

What is on your list of weeknight recipes?

One-Pan Chicken with Tomatoes, Basil, and Olives

Adapted slightly from Jamie Oliver

This seems like a big pan o food, but it's not super filling - there's not a whole ton of meat on the chicken drummies. We made the quantities listed below, and with a big salad, it was just barely enough for a light dinner for two, plus light lunch leftovers for two (with a big salad) the next day. Or maybe we're just big eaters?

One mini baguette, or half of a large one, torn into large-ish chunks

2 lbs chicken drummies (about 8)

2 handfuls cherry tomatoes

Bunch of basil, leaves picked, big leaves torn into smaller pieces

One bulb garlic, broken into cloves, skin left on (I used about 10 cloves)

Handful of olives, pits removed (recipe calls for black olives, I used kalamata)

Olive oil

4-8 slices of prosciutto (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In a large baking dish big enough for the chicken to fit on one layer (I used an 9x13 cake pan), toss in the torn baguette, chicken, tomatoes, basil, garlic and olives. Drizzle with olive oil and toss everything to coat, then set the chicken pieces on the top of everything else.

Place the pan into the oven and cook for an hour total, turning the chicken once after 30 minutes. Chicken should be tender and cooked through. If using prosciutto, lay the pieces over the top of the chicken, and cook another 5 minutes, until prosciutto is beginning to crisp.

Freckled, tousled

I'm still here! It's been a while. I'm back. How are you?

My birthday, Memorial Day and Adam's birthday swallowed me up in the past three weeks, so forgive me, it's been busy. We turned the corner to age 29, and to what feels like summer, too. This time of year is inevitably hectic. Both of our birthdays zip through in the span of nine days, and then march us right into the season of weddings, cabin weekends, camping and general out-of-townness that takes up most of our free hours until the leaves start turning and football Sundays start up again. Welcome to summer, eh? Good thing we live all year for these freckled, tousled moments.

We spent Memorial Day weekend at St. Croix State Park on our first camping trip of the year. We pulled into the park on that Friday afternoon with no reservation, and we were lucky to snag a walk-in site set slightly apart from the overrun loops of the main campgrounds. Our campsite wasn't much, just a shabby little clearing, perched on a small round hilltop with a picnic table and our tent staked at an incline. But, it was quiet and under the stars at night, among a park full of hiking trails and a short walk to the river, which is all we needed.

On Saturday, we took a hike along the river. Now, this sounds lovely, but I can't tell you too much about it because I was too busy flicking wood ticks off my pants and shoes the entire time. Seriously. I knew the grassy trail didn't bode well, but I never expected this. Every 30 steps or so, we had to stop to flick off a tick or two or six. We kept pushing forward, thinking that the trail would have to get better, maybe we would get past the grass onto some pine needles or something for godssake. But it never did.

A good 50 ticks (between the two of us) (and no bites, thankfully) and a near-anxiety attack (for one of us) later, we drove back to our campsite, did a final inspection and cracked open some tall cans of Surly Cynic for a sunny happy hour. Only my favorite beer and the start of a late afternoon campfire could calm my nerves.

Oh, the adventure! Lest I deter you from the great outdoors: the Sunday of our camping weekend was marked with a glorious canoe trip. Or, rather, a glorious float down the river in a canoe while finishing off our beer stash, because the current was so strong that any paddling would have landed us at our destination too soon. So we were content to occasionally poke a paddle into the river to guide the canoe back to the center, and otherwise lay back and munch on Triscuits and laugh at the birds on shore, soak in a quick sunburn in the calm reflection of the river.

Anyway, I've got the great outdoors on my mind. And campfires, dirt under my nails, canoe trips and Starbucks Via coffee packets stirred into hot water in my metal camping mug. I'll tell you about the tinfoil pouches of vegetables and ground beef that we cooked over the fire pit in another post, and maybe the quick french toast that we charred on the grill. Welcome to summer, eh? It's here.

Red Peppers Stuffed with Quinoa and Goat Cheese

Adapted from How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman

This is one of my favorite recipes to throw on the grill in the summer, but you can also bake them in the oven. If you plan ahead and make the quinoa a day or two in advance, these are even quicker to stuff together.

4 red peppers, tops trimmed off, seeds removed
1 cup dried quinoa
6 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup fresh basil, thinly sliced
1/2 cup or so walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, to taste

Prepare the quinoa: rinse quinoa well; drain. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add quinoa and return to boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer until tender, 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Stir into the quinoa: the goat cheese, basil, walnuts and salt. Divide mixture evenly among the peppers, stuffing it in lightly to fit.

To grill: grill at medium to medium high heat for about 30 minutes, until the quinoa is heated through and the pepper is soft and starts to slump a bit. The bottom of the pepper will likely blacken; this is fine, but you can remove this before serving if you prefer.

To bake: bake in 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until the quinoa is heated through and the pepper has softened.

We get by

Lately, I've had this consuming urge to move out of our condo. Caused partly by our car being towed from our own parking lot without warning (oh, us against the world!!). But even more so because, well, doesn't a gal just want to sprawl out in her own backyard with a vodka lemonade when the weather ticks up into the 80s?

If I could, I would pick a little house somewhere - a place where the walls belong to us alone, with no neighbors roaming above, with enough cupboards in the kitchen (and perhaps a double oven). In aforementioned backyard, my garden would overflow with fresh tomatoes and herbs, and the zucchini would stay in check. And in this yard, I would have my sweet, sweet grilling setup. A charcoal and gas grill for sure, and, eventually, a big green egg. Oh, a girl can dream. 

Grilling runs in my family - the only food my dad cooks is over a flame, and my mom trudges through snow to cook outdoors year round. In my last apartment, I had my parents' old charcoal Weber grill. It was a housewarming gift to me from my parents, worn with the countless roasts and chops that both of them cooked over the years on its now-mangled grates.  The lid was a bit rusty, and the wooden handle was dangling by a loose screw, but I loved that thing. I want to have that grill forever. 

When I took ownership of the grill, I kept it in the backyard of the crumbling fourplex I lived in, on a lawn that was rarely mowed. The long grass quarantined my guests to stand in a row on the sidewalk while I leaned over the grill, the grass tickling over the tops of my ankles. Sometimes we would haul out camping chairs and sit around the grill, talking in the warm summer night until the sky darkened and the mosquitos forced us indoors.

I fancy myself quite the griller by now; we've done pizzas and stuffed peppers, smokey barbecue chicken thighs, cedar-planked salmon and whole turkey breasts. Last summer, I worked at a handful of the grilling seminars at one of the cooking schools in town and picked up a few tricks that way. But I fear that my potential is being stalled by our current rental patio, where no Weber shall go. That's right; grills aren't really allowed here. 

We make do, discretely, with a ramshackle portable gas grill that sits low to the ground, requiring you to crouch down when tending to the food and making sure nothing has somehow started on fire over the mediocre flame. But like I said, we make do! Last weekend, we made more meals on the grill than off - turkey burgers, chicken brats, my favorite quinoa-stuffed red peppers that I'll tell you about later, and this simple cod grilled on a foil tray, topped with a fresh pineapple salsa.

Cod is such a delicate fish that I wouldn't typically consider it a great candidate for the grill, but on Sunday when the sun came back out after the rain, I felt like cooking outside. So I made a little foil tray and set the cod inside (seasoned with salt, pepper and a fish seasoning we picked up), and dotted a few pinches of butter around it. I cooked the cod over a medium flame for about 10 minutes, then - to serve - topped it with this sweet and hot pineapple salsa, flecked with cilantro and heated with serrano pepper. The salsa was perfect on the fish, and great on chips, too - I plan to make it for barbecues all summer long.

Now I just have to figure out a way to make my mom's famous barbecue ribs on our little guy, and then we'll really be in business.

Pineapple Salsa
Adapted from Whole Foods

About the pineapple salsa - pick a nice, ripe pineapple to make sure the salsa is nice and fruity-sweet, and use caution with the serrano pepper. The recipe tells you to remove the seeds, but I got a little cocky and decided to leave about half of them in. Be warned! Serrano peppers are not for the wimpy spirit.

2 cups diced fresh pineapple
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 red onion, small dice
1 serrano pepper, seeds removed!
1 lime, zested and juiced (or more)
Good pinch of salt

Stir everything together. Voila! Add more cilantro, lime or salt, to taste. I think it tastes better after it sits for a bit, an hour or so, to let the flavors meld.