TGIF Cilantro-Lime Dressing

This recipe comes from allrecipes.com. This dressing is a little on the sweet side, but I imagine it would go well over a salad with grilled chicken, roasted corn, black beans, avocado, red onion, and cilantro.

Ingredients:

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped

1 clove garlic

3/4 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root

1/4 lime juice

1/3 cup honey

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 cup packed cilantro leaves

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions: Place the jalapeno pepper, garlic clove, and ginger into a food processor or blender; pulse until the jalapeno and garlic are finely chopped. Pour in the lime juice, honey, balsamic vinegar, and salt, add the cilantro leaves; pulse a few times to blend. Turn the food processor or blender on, and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until incorporated unto the dressing. Season to taste with salt before serving.

Caldo Verde and Pesto-Asiago Crostini

We got a massive head of curly kale this week. We're eating it in massaged salads as usual, but we thought it might also be nice to cook it in a soup. Caldo Verde is a hearty, spicy Portuguese soup. The recipe is here, from epicurious. The crostini recipe we made up, and ingredients/directions for that are below.

Caldo Verde:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1/2 pound chourico or linguica (smoked Portuguese sausage) or kielbasa, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound russet (baking) potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

6 cups water (Adrienne's Note: the comments to this recipe suggested substituting water with chicken stock, which I think is a good idea)

1 pound kale, stems and center ribs discarded and leaves very thinly sliced

Accompaniment: piri-piri sauce or other hot sauce

Directions:

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 5-quarter heavy pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then brown sausage, stirring often, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Add 2 tablespoon oil to fat in pot and cook onion and garlic with 1/4 teaspoon each or salt and pepper over medium heat, stirring often, until browned, 7 to 8 minutes. Add potatoes, water, and 1 teaspoon salt and simmer (Adrienne's Note: use medium heat), covered, until potatotes are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Mash some potatoes into soup to thicken, then add kale and simmer, uncovered, until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in sausage and cook until just heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Drizzle with remaining tablespoon oil and season with salt and pepper.

Pesto-Asiago Crostini

Ingredients:

day-old baguette, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

pesto

grated Asiago cheese

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Smear each round with pesto. Place each round onto cookie sheet and sprinkle Asiago cheese over the rounds. Bake until golden brown, about 10-12 minutes.

Lup Cheong Fried Rice with Arugula

Another clear-the-fridge-out recipe. Lup cheong is like Rachel from Glee: the overbearing ham that shouldn't be showcased as the main ingredient but is just too damn good.

Ingredients: 2 lup cheong links, sliced on the bias 1/4 inch thick

1/4 cup diced onion

2 cups old and hard rice

1 tbsp shoyu

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp ginger-scallion-cilantro pesto (recipe here)

1 1/2 cup arugula, chopped

sriracha sauce, to taste

black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Heat a pan over medium heat. Cook the lup cheong in the pan until they are dark and translucent, the fat having rendered out, about 5-10 minutes or so. Set slices aside. In the rendered fat, saute the diced onion until translucent. Into the onion and oil mixture, crumbled in the old and hard fried rice. Season with the shoyu, sesame oil, and ginger-scallion-cilantro pesto. Mix well. Add sriracha and black pepper to taste. When the rice is well spiced, add in the lup cheong slices and the arugula until both are just heated/reheated through.

Mint Juleps

The Kentucky Derby isn't for a few more weeks, but you can practice being a degenerate at home in advance. This recipe comes from Walker Percy. "You need excellent bourbon whiskey; rye or Scotch will not do. Put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampen it with water. Next, very quickly-- and here is the trick in the procedure-- crush your ice, actually powder it-- preferably in a towel with a wooden mallet, so quickly that it remains dry and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside the glass, cram the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand. Finally, fill the glass, which apparently has no room left for anything else, with bourbon, the older the better, and grate a bit of nutmeg on the top. The glass will frost immediately. Then settle back in your chair for half an hour of cumulative bliss."

Mushroom Pasta in Herb Cream Sauce

This is one of my "throw-it-all-in-there" improv recipes.

Ingredients:

2 cups dry egg noodles

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 minced garlic clove

3 cups button mushrooms (raw), with stumps removed, mushroom heads sliced

3 tbsp parsley, chopped

1 tbsp assorted other herbs, minced (here: sage, oregano, and thyme)

2 tbsp olive oil

lots of black pepper to season to taste

pinch cayenne

pinch nutmeg

1/4 (or more) grated parmiggiano reggiano

Directions:

Boil enough water to cook the 2 cups of egg noodles. Salt the water.

In the meantime, heat up a sauce pan over medium heat. Add to this sauce pan 1 tbsp of olive oil and the minced garlic clove. Saute until the garlic clove is fragrant (about 2-3 minutes). Throw in all of the mushrooms and salt and pepper them. Drizzle another tbsp of olive oil over the mushrooms, because they will have absorbed all of the oil that was in the pan. Cook for five minutes or until soft and brown. The mushrooms will shrink from 3 cups in volume to 1/2 cup. Set mushrooms aside.

In same sauce pan, heat up 1/2 cup of heavy cream over high heat. When cream boils, turn heat down to low and simmer until cream thickens, stirring frequently. Add salt, pepper, 1 tbsp of the chopped parsley, pinch cayenne, and pinch nutmeg. Sauce will thicken in about 10 minutes. Towards the end of the ten minutes, throw in another tbsp of parsley and the tbsp of other herbs. Throw in 1/4 cup grated parmiggiano reggiano.

When the pasta is done, toss it with the cream sauce. If the pasta and the sauce are still too watery, turn the heat up to medium and continuously stir the pasta, cream sauce, herbs, and mushrooms until the sauce thickens up again.

Serve hot, with more grated parmiggiano reggiano. Sprinkle the remaining tbsp of parsley over the dish as garnish. Pepper liberally.

Ginger-Scallion-Cilantro Pesto

This recipe comes from Grouprecipes.com.

Ingredients and Directions:

(all of these ingredients get thrown into a food processor and pulsed until done):

3/4 to 1 cup macadamia nut oil (I used Oils of Aloha);

1/2 cup chopped scallions;

1 cup loosely packed cilantro;

1/2 cup unsalted macadamia nuts;

3 tbsp chopped garlic;

1 tbsp chopped garlic;

the juice and the zest of 1 lemon;

salt and pepper to taste.

Adrienne's Notes: This would taste good on a grilled white and flaky fish like monchong or mahimahi. I was going to pair it with some roast duck we got (kind of like a cold ginger chicken sauce), but the taste is not like that. The grittiness of the ginger bits pairs well with the crunch of the macadamia nuts.

Curly endive salad with warm bacon vinaigrette

This recipe is from Michael Lomonaco (with the sub-recipe for croutons omitted).

Ingredients:

1 lb sliced bacon, cut crosswise into one-inch pieces;

2 tbsp chopped shallot;

1 tbsp Dijon mustard;

1 1/4 cup white wine vinegar;

Fine sea salt;

Freshly ground black pepper;

1/2 cup olive oil;

1 head (about 1/2 lb) curly endive or 2 heads frisee, cut into bite-sized pieces, well washed and dried

Directions: Warm a saute pan over low heat. Put in the bacon and saute until the fat is rendered and the bacon is crispy, about 8 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate to drain. Pour off and discard all but 2 tbsp rendered fat from the pan. (Leave more drippings in the pan for a richer dressing.) Add the shallots to the pan over low heat, stir in the mustard and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Slowly whisk in the oil to make an emulsified dressing. Put the endive into a salad bowl. Drizzle the dressing over the greens, add the bacon, and toss. Divide the salad among 4 to 6 salad plates and serve while the dressing is still warm and fragrant.

Adrienne's note: The dressing is way too watery and vinegar-y! The salad itself is great- curly endive, bacon, and other special additions suggested by the chef (toasted walnuts and bleu cheese). The next time I try it, I'll use a different tangy vinaigrette-- maybe an apple cider vinaigrette.

My question to cooks out there: Is the ratio of oils to vinegar correct here? I usually see 1 part vinegar to 2 or 3 parts oil. In this recipe, the ratio is reversed: about 2 to 3 parts vinegar to 1 part oil. Should the recipe read "1/4 cup white wine vinegar" instead of 1 and 1/4 cup white wine vinegar?