Week 3, orzo and peas

This week I had friends over so I didn't take many pictures as I was trying to cook fast and cleanup at the same time. The post is also a week delayed.

I know one of my friends who were coming don't like very exotic food so I tried to pick recipes with known flavors. This week's salad was the "Fancy Coleslaw" (pg. 8), with a side of "Peas with Sorrel and Mustard" (pg. 70) and "Baked Orzo with Mozzarella and Oregano" as the main dish. As usual, a few adjustments and replacements were made (some by mistake this time).

Starting with the salad. I forgot to buy the cabbage and this is just the main ingredient of the coleslaw. Luckily, I had a fresh romaine at home and use that instead. I know the flavors are different but the texture and color is pretty much the same. Since there were so many strong flavors in this salad, I would say it didn't make that much of a difference. I also didn't use bell pepper, as I said before, I can't digest it so I avoid eating it as much as possible. This salad takes spiced cashews that are delicious. Mixed with the Dijon, honey, yogurt dressing that wasn't really a chance to miss the cabbage. That salad is really good and has really strong flavors. However, everyone agreed that the tarragon could be removed as it adds a very perfumy flavor that just don't go well with the other flavors.

The peas were the easiest recipe from the book so far. Ok, I didn't prepare the sorrel, I never head about this ingredient before and didn't find it anywhere. I actually got spinach as a replacement but decided not to use it in the end. I love peas but I never get to eat it as my husband hates it and I found out that one of my friend also didn't like it. Well, I was very surprised that this was everyone's favorite dish. The recipe takes a stir fry of green onions and mustard seeds with a Greek yogurt dressing with mustard powder and dijon mustard (I removed the mustard powder). That recipe will be included in my everyday side dish as it's so easy, delicious and the only fresh ingredient required are the green onions.

Finally, the orzo. Orzo is a type of pasta shaped like rice. I had it before but never cooked it before. The recipe is a stir fry with many vegetables that goes to the oven with the orzo, mozzarella, fresh herbs and tomato slices with parmesan on top. It's delicious and one of those recipes that can't go wrong (as any pasta dish). Everybody liked it but there wasn't anything surprising about it, it was mostly pasta with vegetables.

And that's the final plate (no, I didn't really work on the presentation):

Closer to comfort food

After spending a week a little bit under the weather, I needed comfort food during the weekend so I decided to chose recipes with flavors that were known to me. I also had some fresh herbs and organic rainbow carrots from last week that I wanted to reuse.

This weekend's choice were "Watercress Salad with Quail Eggs" (pg. 12), "Curry-Roasted Root Vegetables with Lime Leaves and Juice" (pg. 177) and "Tomato and Almond Tart" (pg. 272). Or I must say... a version of those recipes as many ingredients were changed.

I found all vegetables and main fresh ingredients and the local store and on the next day it was cold and raining, I woke up late and didn't really feel like going on a quest for Kaffir lime leaves and Nigella seed so I had to improvise. 

I started earlier this week and started with the prep (lesson learned). I cleaned, washed, peeled and cut most ingredients before starting. It took me over 2h this week, but I had an incident in the kitchen where some kind of oil/fat dripped on the bottom of the stove and in the middle of the baking, it created a smoke that triggered all fire alarms in the house several times. I had to turn everything off, clean up and start over.

Starting from the salad, the steps were easier comparing to last week, the only real prep was boiling eggs and heating the seeds. Oh, and I didn't find quail eggs. I thought it would be easy since it's a super common ingredient in Brazil and you can find it pretty much everywhere. Not in California. I also forgot to buy basil and couldn't find Nigella seeds so I used more sesame and mint as a replacement.

The prep is also simple, arrange the watercress and herbs with the eggs and ricotta; toss the olive oil and lime dressing on top. That was the easiest recipe.

The curry-roasted vegetables are delicious and my husband's favorite dish from the project so far. I tasted Rutabaga for the first time, an ingredient I never even heard of before reading this recipe. I forgot to take a picture of it alone but it's the round thing inside a bag next to the parsnip and dill on the pic below.

I couldn't find the Kaffir lime leaves and I know this is a very unique ingredient that is hard to replace. I also thought I had curry leaves at home but I actually had bay leaves. So I used bay leaves instead of curry leaves and 1 tsp of lemon extract + 1 tsp of orange blossom water to replace the Kaffir lime leaves. It worked, probably tasted very different from the original recipe but was delicious.

Last recipe was the one I was most excited about since it requires puff pastry. Few ingredients say "comfort food" as much as a buttery, flaky, delicious puff pastry. And it gets better, the first step is mixing butter, eggs, ricotta, spices and almonds for the filling. 

The fire alarm episode happened right during the preparation of the tart so I didn't take any more pictures from now on since I needed to speed up the process as I didn't want to mess up the baking time. 

If it wasn't for the use of the mixer, this would have been the easiest recipe. You just spread the the butter, ricotta and almond paste on top of the pastry, cover with tomatos and olives and bake. The results are just as amazing as it sounds like.

And here is the final dish:

I think that was a great combination. The salad was herbal and bitter with toasted notes. The texture is also great with the eggs, seeds and different greens. The dressing is simple, but it's supposed to be as there are many flavors already. Vegetables were also amazing, spicy as the curry power is the strongest flavor in the mix. The texture of the carrots are softer, parsnip is more consistent and the rutabaga is a bit fibrous but overall there isn't a major difference on the vegetables after they are roasted and seasoned. Finally, the tart is everything it's supposed to be: delicious and comforting.