Pip's Plate

Roasted potatoes are really easy and this roasted potato recipe is packed with flavor. I used a spice blend that was premixed from Lund’s/Byerly’s grocery store but you could buy one like this or check your local grocery store to see if they have something similar. The key ingredients are sea salt, lemon and herbs. You want to make sure there is salt in the seasoning; if there isn’t, you will probably want to add 1 teaspoon of sea salt to this recipe.

Serve these potatoes with your favorite roasted chicken. I served it with Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce and Green Salad with Olives and it was superbly matched.

Mediterranean Roasted Potatoes
serves: 6

Ingredients
6 medium yukon gold potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons Mediterranean seasoning

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375 degress F.

2. Cut potatoes into 1 1/2 inch chunks (about 6-8 pieces per potato). Mix with olive oil and Mediterranean seasoning then place on a roasting pan.

3. Bake in oven for 45-50 minutes or until crispy brown.

Note: if you’re making this with the Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce recipe, you can add the potatoes at the same time that you start the 45 minute timer at the end of the chicken. The timing will be perfect.

This salad recipe is really simple and quite tasty. It takes less than 5 minutes to make and it packs in the flavor. Serve this alongside Roasted Chicken with Mustard-Thyme Sauce and Mediterranean Roasted Potatoes for a complete meal.

Green Salad with Olives
Serves 6

Ingredients
8 oz salad greens
1/2 cup mixed pitted olives
1/2 bulb fennel, sliced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Directions
1. In a salad bowl, place salad greens, olives and fennel.

2. To make the dressing, whisk together 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar.

3. Pour dressing over salad and mix to dress.

recipe from epicurious

Today is my boyfriend’s birthday. And for such a celebration of him turning the ripe old age of 26 (a youngin, I know!) we’ve taken the day off from work. We’re having a couple friends over tonight for some Korean/Japanese food.

Keldon is from Hawaii, so we *must* have Spam! Did you know Hawaii is the largest consumers of Spam? Thank you, WW2 & Hormel.

Plus, with this menu we can use a lot of the great produce we got at the Kingfield Farmer’s Market this Sunday: cucumbers, zucchini, green onions.

This is what we’re planning:

Korean Beef Bulgogi rolled up maki style

Chicken Katsu rolled up maki style

Spam Musubi (hooray! it’s Spam!)

Kim Chee

Green Onion Salad

Zucchini Ribbon Salad with this Asian Dressing

Cucumber Salad

I suppose I’ll be making some sort of guava or passion fruit martini to go along with this, but I have yet to come up with something. Stay tuned.

And of course, I have to rival the Spam cake I made last year…. so there will be a surprise revealed later.

Here is another recipe included in the baby shower menu for my friend last week. It’s a Pip’s Plate original, and we sort of winged it last Sunday. It turned out incredibly yummy – this recipe is a great way to jazz up plain boring grilled asparagus.

We served this alongside Grilled Turkey, Bacon and Blue Cheese Sandwiches.

Lemony Grilled Asparagus with Goat Cheese

makes: 12 servings (6 pieces of asparagus per person)

Grilled Asparagus

3 bundles of asparagus (enough for 6 spears per person)

juice of 1 lemon

3 T olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Garnishes

1 lemon for zesting

3 oz chevre goat cheese

Directions

1. Prepare the asparagus by bending it from each end to determine the ripe part of the asparagus. Snap off the woody ends – you don’t want to eat these.

2. Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Dress the asparagus and let marinate in a plastic bag for at least 20 minutes.

3. Heat grill to medium high heat. Put asparagus directly onto the grill. Cook for about 8 minutes, turning occasionally to avoid burning.

4. Remove from grill. You can place them on a platter or you can put them on individual plates for serving. Either way, once the asparagus is on a plate, use a microplane grater to zest the lemon over the asparagus. You should use the entire lemon. Then, take the chevre and crumble it on top of the asparagus.

I’ve never made homemade sausages before, but these were very good and I will make them again. These sausages are formed into patties, so I didn’t have to bother with the casings and all of that.

I made these for a book club brunch, and they were met with rave reviews. Because these are so lean, you may need to use more breadcrumbs than what I’ve listed here – just work with the consistency until it will form a patty. I know they look somewhat like crab cakes or fish cakes, but there’s nothing fishy about them – just herby savoriness.

Turkey Sausages with Apricot Mustard Sauce

Makes: about 2 dozen 3-inch patties

Time: under 60 minutes

Get the recipe when you Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite foods in the summer time is corn on the cob. I remember as a kid, my mom would give me and my sisters a paper bag and all the corn to sit on the back porch and shuck away.

It might be a bit early for corn on the cob and I spent a little more on it just to have it the other night. But it was totally worth it. The first nice day of 75 degrees in Minneapolis was begging for a grill out. So why not grill corn on the cob? It’s really easy and you can grill it while your burgers cook so you don’t have to go back into the house.

Chili Lime Grilled Corn on the Cob

Makes: 4 servings (easily doubled)

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

4 corn on the cob, shucked

1/2 T adobo chili powder

1 T salt

1/2 T fresh ground pepper

1/2 stick unsalted butter (you may not use all of it)

4 slices lime

Directions

1. Heat grill to medium-high heat (around 375-400 degrees).

2. To make the seasoning, combine the adobo chili powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl. (If you have a shaker, make a lot of this and keep it for use throughout the summer.)

3. Place corn on the cob on the grill. Cook for about 8-10 minutes, turning every few minutes to ensure even cooking. The corn will blacken in some places – this is ok.

4. When the corn is done, remove from the grill and place on a serving plate. Set out the butter, limes, and seasoning. To finish the corn on the cob, butter the corn, then squeeze a lime over the corn, then sprinkle some seasoning over the corn. Now enjoy!

This recipe is a great side dish to serve with Garlicky Green Turkey Burgers and Strawberry Citrus Salad for a complete quick and easy grilling meal.

The latest issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a ton of great recipes in it, and this Strawberry Citrus Salad caught my eye and I just had to try it. It…is…AMAZING.

Talk about simple food being the best: this recipe has only 4 ingredients and it is packed with flavor. I think this would be pretty good over ice cream too…but I’m just sayin. Plus – it’s a super healthy salad.

Strawberry Citrus Salad

from Bon Appetit May 2009

Makes: enough for a small gathering (8-10 servings or so)

Time: 15 minutes prep + 30 minutes to marinade

Ingredients

2 packages strawberries, washed, cored and quartered

3 large navel oranges, segmented and cut into large chunks

3 T fresh chopped mint

1 T brown sugar

Combine everything together in a bowl, and let it sit for about 30 minutes to marinate and get mascerated goodness. I enjoy this salad by itself or as a simple dessert. In fact, it’s really good after a plate of fried eggs and turkey bacon.

This is a perfect side dish to Garlicky Green Turkey Burgers and Chili Lime Grilled Corn on the Cob for a complete quick and easy grilling meal.

I went to my first LAN party a couple weekends ago at a coworker’s house. (Before you skip on to the next post, YES, there is a recipe included here.) It was SO MUCH FUN. Aside from the fact that a group of us play shoot-em-up video games over the lunch hour every day at work, it’s so much more fun to spend at least 8 hours playing on a Saturday. Yes, I officially reached geek status with this event. And I’m OK with that.

I said I’d bring something over and decided to make spring rolls (which were mediocre so I’m not even going to include the recipe here) and the recipe I’m about to talk about.

These were quite good, and you can make them gluten free if you want. Just use a gluten free flour. These were great because they were easy to eat in your hand but not greasy. These would be great as a brunch item too.

The recipe calls for a regular size muffin tin. If I were to make these again, I would make them in a mini muffin pan so there were more. In this case, I would cut the zucchini smaller instead of sliced, but keep a few sliced ones for the garnish.

Little Zucchini and Basil Fritattas

Total Time: 35 min

Active Time: 15 min

Makes: 12

Ingredients

2 T dry breadcrumbs*

2 T olive oil

2-3 cloves garlic, thickly sliced

2-3 zucchini, sliced into 4mm-thick rounds

8 eggs

8 basil leaves, sliced

3/4 cup grated parmesan

100 g feta (preferrably marinated)

1/2 cup self-rising flour**

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Butter a 12 hole nonstick muffin pan. Dust each hole with crumbs then tap out the excess.

Place the olive oil in a large skillet. Gently head the oil over medium-low heat for 1-2 minutes until the garlic starts to sizzle. Remove garlic and discard.

Increase heat to medium-high. Fry zucchini on both sides until golden. Drain on absorbent paper.

In a large bowl, lightly whisk eggs with a fork with the basil, salt and freshly ground pepper (enough to cover the surface of the mixture) until just combined. Stir in the Parmesan and flour until combined.

Divide the fried zucchini and feta throughout the muffin tin. Place 12 pieces of zucchini aside as a garnish.

Pour the egg mixture into each muffin hole (about 1/4 cup) and top with a slice of zucchini.

Gently tap the sides of the muffin tray to ensure the mixture has spread throughout the muffin hole.

Bake for 20-25 minutes – until the the fritattas feel firm when gently pressed and spring back.

Remove from oven and allow them to settle in the pan for about 10 minutes before gently easing them out.

based off of this chow.com recipe

*I typically bake in stoneware, so I don’t need to grease anything. I skipped the breadcrumb step altogether. If you don’t have stoneware, I use rice breadcrumbs as a GF alternative.

**Use gluten free flour here instead if you wish to make these GF.

This is another recipe from the weekend menu for the Creative Retreat.

Grilled Chile Pineapple

serves 8

1 whole pineapple, peeled, cored, and sliced lengthwise into long sticks

1 T chili powder

1 T cayenne powder

Preheat grill to medium high.

Prepare pineapple by mixing the chili powder and cayenne together then rub onto pineapple. Grill for about 8-10 minutes, turning halfway through.

This might have been my favorite recipe out of the whole weekend of the Creative Retreat. It was SOOOO good. And no modifications needed from the original epicurious recipe. Even better.

Israeli Couscous with Roasted Tomatoes and Olives

from epicurious

serves 6

For roasted tomatoes and dressing

2 pt red grape or cherry tomatoes (1 1/2 lb)

3 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup warm water

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

For couscous

2 3/4 cups chicken broth (use vegetable broth if making vegetarian)

2 1/4 cups pearl (Israeli) couscous

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup Kalamata or other brine-cured black olives, pitted and chopped

1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

Roast tomatoes and make dressing:

Preheat oven to 250°F.

Halve tomatoes through stem ends and arrange, cut sides up, in 1 layer in a large shallow (1-inch-deep) baking pan. Add garlic to pan and roast in middle of oven until tomatoes are slightly shriveled around edges, about 1 hour. Cool in pan on a rack 30 minutes.

Peel garlic and purée with oil, water, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and 1/2 cup roasted tomatoes in a blender until dressing is very smooth.

Make couscous:

Bring broth to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan and stir in couscous, then simmer, uncovered, 6 minutes. Cover pan and remove from heat. Let stand 10 minutes.

Spread couscous in 1 layer on a baking sheet and cool 15 minutes.

Transfer couscous to a bowl and stir in remaining ingredients, dressing, roasted tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste.

Cooks’ note:

• Roasted tomatoes, dressing, and couscous can be made 1 day ahead and kept separately, covered and chilled. Bring to room temperature before proceeding.