My new favorite salad dressing

Kind of Lowfat Blue Cheese Dressing

adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger

1/2 cup blue cheese
1/2 cup plain greek-style yogurt (0%, 2%, or full fat as you see fit)
1 Tbsp champagne vinegar
1/2 tsp honey

salt and pepper to taste

Crumble blue cheese with a fork. Add yogurt, vinegar, honey and salt and pepper. Stir to combine, taste, and add extra vinegar, honey and salt as needed to perfect the sour-salty-sweet balance.

Ellie's Chicken with Mango Barbecue Sauce

This week's CEimB pick was selected by Aggie's Kitchen, and I loved it! I've only made homemeade BBQ sauce with a ketchup base in the past, and this was so much more fully flavored than those versions. It makes sense: if you want a vinegar flavor, use vinegar, if you want a tomato flavor, use tomato sauce, not ketchup!! I broiled my chicken rather than grill it, so my dish was missing that smoky flavor. Next time, if I know I can't grill, I'd add a little smoked paprika, or maybe some chipotles to get that smoky dimension. I have lots of sauce left, and can't wait to try it on pulled pork, grilled shrimp, BBQ nachos, and everything else I can get my hands on.

Thanks for choosing a great recipe, Aggie, and be sure to check out everyone else's fun with mango BBQ at Craving Ellie in My Belly!

Mango Barbecue Sauce

adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger

1 small onion

3 cloves garlic

1/2 roasted red bell peppers

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp honey

1/4 cup tomato sauce

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp smoked paprika

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp lime juice

1 ripe mango

3 jalepenos

Saute onion and garlic until translucent, then add red peppers and saute another few minutes. Pour in vinegar, honey, tomato sauce, allspice, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice and some salt and pepper. Let cool slightly, meanwhile, cut, peel and seed mango and remove chile stems. Use less chiles, or discard the seeds and ribs if you want to tame the heat. Add everything to blender and pulse until smooth.

To finish Ellie's dish, I broiled some chicken tenders for 5 minutes on each side, heated the sauce a bit, and drizzled it over the chicken. Spicy, tangy, slighty sweet...altogether delicious!

Quick Marinara

This is quick to prepare, a million times better than anything jarred, and a great base for Italian-American dishes. After a bit of trial and error with diced, whole, stewed, fire-roasted, etc, I've decided my favorite tomato permutation and brand to use are Muir Glen Crushed Tomatoes with Basil. Those anal dudes at America's Test Kitchen agree, by the way.

Andrea's Tomato Sauce

1/2 a small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 a carrot, finely shredded
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tsp Aleppo pepper, or red pepper flakes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 splash dry white wine (like 1/4 cup)

Saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes, add in carrot, cook 3 minutes more, dump in the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Ok, now here's the salsa

This is very good for those times when you can't get your hands on any good tomatoes. Maybe I'm just not as familiar with tomatillos, but they seem more forgiving to supermarket conditions than tomatoes.

Avocado-Tomatillo Salsa

2 avocados

handful cilantro

4-5 tomatillos, papery skin peeled off

juice of 1 lime

2 serranos

pinch of cumin

touch of oilive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Throw everything into the blender or food processor! Taste and tweak as needed. Start with less chiles if you're not a spicy person. This salsa is great with seafood of all kinds, and not bad by itself with tortilla chips. It is a beautiful bright green, and unlike guacamole, it stays green for a few days in the fridge.

Thai Green Curry Paste

I made, or attempted, Thai Green Curry Paste!!!! I think it came out awesome, if not a tad chunky because I was too lazy to properly pestle (or is it mortar?), and not too hard to make, technique wise. The only technique required is pressing the blender button, and cutting junk up, which I already admitted to slacking on. N-E-Way, here's the recipe I put together, culled from the back of the coconut milk can, an email from my brother, and about 3 different online recipes. I originally tried to roast and grind my own coriander and cumin seeds, but the roasting process produced a kick-ass B.O. aroma and I didn't want to put that stuff through my coffee grinder or pepper mill so I just used pre-bottled. It really smelled just like B.O.!!! I'm sure that will be useful to someone, somewhere. Also, lemongrass is awesome, I can't wait to play around with it more, and don't eat more than a couple spoons of coconut milk straight out of the can, I got a tummy ache.

Thai Green Curry

4 Thai green chilies
2 inner bulbs lemongrass
1 cup cilantro stems and leaves
1 hunk of galangal, peeled
6 scallions, only the white part
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp tamari or regular soy sauce
1 squirt honey
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground black pepper
couple tbsp coconut milk (the kind of cooking, not the sweet stuff for drinks)

[Later, you will also need a couple kaffir lime leaves, the rest of the can of coco milk, fresh thai basil, more fresh cilantro, and whatever you want to cook in the paste - I used chicken, bell peppers, baby bok choy, onion and garlic.]

For the paste:

1. Chop up everything chopable and put in food processor or blender.
2. Put everything else in too, eyeballing the coco milk so that there is just enough to make a moist, blend-happy environment.
3. Press the button!
4. Yes, it will kind of look like baby throw up, that's a good thing. Taste it and add more honey if it's too spicy, more chilies if it's not, and more fish sauce if it's not salty enough.

For the dish:

1. Saute your ingredients (I used chicken and veggies) until about 2/3 of the way done.
2. Add paste, saute a little more to release flavors, then add coco milk and kaffir leaves.
3. Let simmer a little more until meat and veggies are done (it was about 5-8 minutes for me)

My brother was very adamant about not including the kaffir in the paste because it can't get broken down finely enough by the blender, but instead using them like bay leaves, when simmering.

Valerie's Best Ever Salsa

My homemade salsa always comes out confused. This recipe is from my friend Valerie, and it is the Best Ever. And yes, she is a real Mexican.

1 tomato
1 white or yellow onion
16 oz tomato sauce
cilantro
garlic
2 jalepenos(more if you like spicy)
salt

Put everything in a blender and blend.


She is going to kill me for using this picture but I think it really highlights her amazing cheekbones.

Tzatziki

I am a sucker for requests, so here you go Raish! But this is one of those "taste it out" dishes where exact proportions do not quite exist. The key is greek yogurt so you don't have to mess with draining, and lots of fresh dill. If you have sour cream in the fridge, a tablespoon or so adds a nice flavor. I like mine without garlic, I've made it with garlic and it masks the delicate flavors of the rest of the stuff.

Tzatziki My Way

1 container Greek style yogurt (Trader Joe's or Fage are good)
1/2 English cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced super thinly
2 handfuls fresh dill, chopped finely
1 tablespoon mint, chopped finely
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
kosher salt to taste
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mix it all up and serve with pita chips! Again, this isn't an authentic recipe, but how I like it. It's a little thinner and more cucumber-y than traditional tzatziki.

I made stock

I made stock. The thing about stock is that, while it takes 5 hours and makes you feel like a resourceful pioneer woman, and/or classically trained fancy pants chef, it's pretty boring, especially via blog. Not sure if I should even bother with a recipe??

2 chicken carcasses, including gizzards

couple onions and carrots, cut in half if you want

all the parsley stems you can find

fennel stalks, just cuz I had them, or celery

S&P

bay leaves

peppercorns

garlic cloves

Boil the hell out of the carcasses, skimming the foamy scum that collects(I googled it, it's protein and gelatin and impurities that will make the stock cloudy and funny tasting later. I always try my best but get bored and annoyed after 20 minutes). Once the scum tide subsides, throw in veggies and everything else and lower to a barely bubbling simmer for 3-4 hours or until you have to leave the house. Strain, let sit, skim the separated fat/weird gelatin stuff from the top and then make the best chicken noodle soup ever.

Scrap Pesto

As I am tired of throwing away 1/2 bunches of parsley and cilantro that go unused and rot, this weekend I threw together the scrap herbs (cilantro, arugula, dill, parsley) lingering around my fridge to make a really good sauce verte/pesto type concoction. I've been eating it all weekend on bread, salad, meat, potatoes and eggs. Plus I feel (hope) that it will last virtually indefinitely because it's suspended in oil and vinegar and salt (?). Anyway, here's what I did.

Bunches of random herbs (total about 3/4 cup)

1 small clove garlic

zest of 1 lemon

1/3 cup olive oil

tablespoon of red wine vinegar

salt and pepper

Chop everything coarsely and throw it all into the mini chopper.

Pulse til smooth.

Within the last 24 hours, I've had it in a great sandwich of french bread, pesto, tomato and Havarti for lunch, added it to some tuna and greens for a salad last night, and mixed it into my scrambled eggs for an omelette this morning.