Cool Cucumber Salad w/Sour Cream Dill Dressing | Everyday Food

Is there anything better on a hot night than a cool dinner. I love cucumbers, they have always been one of my favorite vegetables, or are they technically a fruit because they have seeds, or is it a gourd because they grow in a vine and root from the ground? I think it's technically a fruit.

Growing up my Nana used to take cucumbers and slice them thin and then splash a little vinegar on them and sprinkle them with salt and we'd eat tons of them like that. So cool and refreshing. I saw this recipe in the latest issue of Everyday Food, and it looked so light and refreshing, I knew I had to try it. One thing I will say about this recipe is that it needs to be eaten almost immediately and left overs cannot be kept, so only make what you need, or what you will eat in one day.

Recipe:
1/2 c reduced fat sour cream
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
coarse salt and ground pepper
4 to 6 Kirby cucumbers, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced (I used two)

1. In a medium bowl, combine sour cream, lemon juice and dill. Season with salt and pepper, and whisk well to combine.

2. Add cucumbers, and toss to coat. Garnish with more dill, if desired. Serve or refrigerate, covered up to 4 hours.

Rating = So Damn Good

Low Low Fat Strawberry Banana Bread

So, I had a banana that was just about to give off hoards of fruit flies, some strawberries that had lost their sheen, and a husband who apparently has a date with some swimsuit catalog photographer who won't eat any baked fattening foods right now, and is constantly walking around the house with his shirt off asking me to look at his "almost" six pack, his stance complete with muscle man flexing groaning sounds. What to do, what to do?

A while back, like in September, I made a healthy apple bread from a recipe I got out of Healthy Cooking magazine and it was great and super low fat. I decided to use that recipe as the base for this, but use the strawberries and bananas instead of the cut up apples. What I ended up with was a great bread. It was flavorful and moist and healthy, the only thing I may have changed was to use frozen cut up strawberries instead of fresh ones. I say this because the strawberries have so much moisture in them, that the next day the cake was a little soggy around the strawberries, and I was afraid that the loaf wasn't going to keep. So you know, we ate the whole bloody loaf within two days. Is it still guilt free if you eat the whole thing?

I like this recipe so much that I am thinking about making it again with banana and frozen blueberries which I think would ROCK!

2C flour
1/2C brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4C unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 C sliced strawberries
1 mashed banana

Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly spray an 8 x 4 in loaf pan with non fact cooking spray. In a large bowl combine flour, brown sugar, baking soda/powder and cinnamon. Stir in applesauce, banana and vanilla and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in strawberries. Spread batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Makes 10 servings.

Rating = So Damn Good

Green Chicken Curry | Everyday Food

I knew when I got the latest issue of Everyday Food this week and found this recipe among its pages that I would make it before the week was over. Another thing I now know is, I'm a pussy, or at least I have pussy lips because this recipe burned the lips off my face.

Remember the chicken enchiladas with green sauce that I made a few weeks ago and how I complained about how hot they were and that I needed to drink multiple glasses of water while I tried to eat one freaking enchilada? Well, this blows the shit out of those. As I ate it, my mouth burned and my nose ran and I just couldn't take it anymore. The thing that sucked is it tasted so good, I just couldn't handle the heat. CB had two helpings, he said he loved it, and he loved the flavor, but I knew once I saw the beads of sweat break out on his forehead that his typical third helping would never happen, it was also at this point that he abandoned his glass of wine, reached across the table and grabbed my glass of cold water and chugged it. When done he simply said, "that shits hot."

The recipe calls for 1 to 2 tablespoons of Thai green curry, I think I used closer to two tablespoons, a mistake I will not make again. The next time I make this, I will use 1 tablespoon or less in order to actually be able to ingest it. If you don't know what Thai green curry is, it's not curry powder, its a mixture of Chile peppers (hence the heat), coriander and apparently other ingredients that heighten the "hotter than the hinges of hell" properties of the paste.

Recipe: Green Chicken Curry Everyday Food June 2007 Issue
1 cup long grain white rice
1 tbsp corn starch
1 can (14.5 oz) reduced sodium chicken broth
2 tbsp vegetable oil
12 ounces green beans stems removed (i used snow peas)
1 medium onion halved and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 to 2 tbsp Thai green curry paste
4 roasted chicken breasts cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can (14.5 oz) coconut milk (i used reduced fat)
1 cup torn fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp fresh lime juice (i used the zest of the lime too)
coarse salt

1. cook rice according to package instructions. meanwhile place cornstarch in a small bowl; whisk in 2 to 3 tablespoons chicken broth until smooth (reserve remaining broth). set aside.

2. heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. add green beans and onion; cook tossing frequently, until they begin to soften, 5 to 7 minutes.

3. add curry paste to green beans and onion in skillet. cook, stirring and scraping bottom of skillet, until paste is slightly darkened, 3 to 4 minutes. add chicken, coconut milk, cornstarch mixture, and reserved chicken broth. simmer until vegetables are tender and sauce is slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes.

4. add basil and lime juice (and zest). season with salt stir to combine; serve over rice. WITH A BIG GLASS OF WATER.

Rating = So (FUCKING HOT) Damn Good

Roasted Red Pepper Gratin

I made this side dish for my mother's day dinner and everyone raved about it. The casserole dish was licked clean and everyone wanted more. It was the simplest dish to make and it was probably the most popular of the night, so make it damn it.

Recipe:
2 red bell peppers
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c fresh white bread crumbs
1 garlic clove finely chopped
1 tsp drained bottled capers
8 pitted black olives roughly chopped
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Place peppers under the broiler. Turn occasionally until they are blackened and blistered all over. Remove from heat, place in a plastic bag. Seal and let cool.

2. When cool peel the peppers. Halve and remove the seeds and cut into large strips.

3. Use olive oil to grease a small baking dish. Arrange pepper strips in the dish.

4. Scatter the remaining ingredients on top, drizzle with the remaining olive oil, add salt and pepper to taste. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the bread crumbs have browned. Garnish with fresh herbs and serve immediately.

Rating = So God Damn Good

Sage Wrapped New Potato Skewers

I'm Irish. I love potatoes. The two go hand in hand. CB has been known to look at the table at Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, what have you, and exclaim, "how many ways can you people cook potatoes?" Well, there's home fried potatoes, scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, I feel like the Bubba Gump of potatoes. However you never hear me say to CB, all you Italians and your pasta, how many types of pasta do you people need. See, you just don't hear that.

This is such a pretty way of presenting what can otherwise be a dull side dish. The sage does go from a very vibrant green when just picked, to an almost purple when heated through.

Recipe: Makes 5 skewers

20 tiny new potatoes, peeled
10 large sage leaves
fresh chopped parsley
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Boil potatoes until just soft enough to pierce all the way through with skewer.
2. Cool potatoes and toss with olive oil, parsley and salt and pepper
3. Place one potato on skewer, take sage leaf and pierce with skewer at the very base of the leave near stem, do not push down skewer yet, add second potato, wrap sage leaf over potato and pierce with skewer at the top of the leaf and push down onto potato, and then move the two potatoes down the skewer. Do this twice with each skewer, so each on has two sage leaves and four potatoes.
4. Wrap in aluminum foil and bake at 400 degrees for twenty minutes.

Rating = So Damn Good

Conquering My Fear of Yeast..Cranberry Pecan Bread

I don't like working with yeast. I don't know why. I think maybe its the whole proofing stage, and the hot water, and the general term "yeast" and the possibility that my bread may never rise because I have inadequate yeast. I don't know, but I'm going to try and conquer it. I started with this recipe because it looked pretty simple, whisk, mix, knead, blap de bloo done. Let me just tell you, when I looked at the directions quickly I thought that they said to knead the dough 10 times, au contraire monfrair, it said knead the dough for ten fucking minutes. My little arms had hit lactic acid build up by minute five, kneading, kneading is hard work, and I don't care to do it again. So after endless kneading of the dough I was then instructed to fold in the raisins and pecans, which together measured about 1 1/2 cups. I couldn't get half the stuff in there, every time I added some, turned the bread over and then tried to knead it in, the raisin and pecans would fall out of the dough ball. I finally resorted to making little holes with my fingers and then pushing the pecans in one hole, and then the raisins in another and repeating that process over and over again until I thought I have "inserted" enough.

The picture above is what the dough ball looked like before I let it sit to double in size, which thank Christ it did, after all that kneading and elbow grease I probably would have just thrown it out the window if it didn't rise. After baking and getting the tell tale hollow sounding thump on the bottom that lets you know the bread is done I was disappointed in the final outcome because it was so extremely dense. Like, brick dense, like people with soft teeth should probably skip this bread kind of dense. What did I do wrong, why do all of my breads come out weighing a ton and take 75 chews to get one bite down? Can someone tell me the secret to lighter bread?

Recipe: makes one loaf
2 3/4 c lour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
scant 1 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1. sift flour and salt into a bowl, cut in the butter with a knife, then stir in the yeast.
2. gradually add 3/4 cup tepid water to the flour mixture, stirring with a spoon at first, then gathering the dough together with your hands.
3. turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
4. knead the raisins and walnuts into the dough until they are evenly distributed. shape into a rough oval, place on lightly oiled baking sheet and cover with oiled plastic wrap. let rise in warm place for 1-2 hours, until doubled in bulk. preheat oven to 425F.
5. uncover the loaf and bake for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 375 and bake for 20-25 more minutes.
6. transfer to a wire rack, brush with melted butter and cover with a dish towel. cool before slicing.

Rating = Damn Good