Fennel and Apple Salad

Salads dont get any easier than this. Even better it has no pesky lettuce in it so it will even please you lettuce haters out there. This has become my new go to recipe for using fennel, which I usually dont love raw. But between the sour apple and the mustard the fennel becomes much less intense and works to bring together all the flavors nicely.

My other recent discovery was this Shiraz and Mourvedre blend from Penfolds. It manages to be rich, dry, and just fruity enough all at once. And for $11-ish a bottle it drinks like a much pricier wine. Ive had to resist the urge to open a bottle of it every night this week.

Fennel and Apple Salad

1 bulb fennel, sliced thin
1-2 tart green apples (depending on how big your fennel bulb is), sliced thin

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon mustard

parsley


Slice very thin equal portions of fennel and tart apple and toss in a bowl.

Whisk together oil, vinegar, and mustard then toss over salad.

Top with parsley.

Recipe from Mark Bittman in The New York Times.

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Vegetarian Mexican Salad

This is me trying something new in the hopes of posting more often.

When I cook something unfortunate or something that didnt work for me Im going to post it and link to the recipe in case you want to give it a try and in the hopes youll have better luck cooking it than I did.  Maybe you will cook it and love it then tell me where I went wrong.  I make plenty of mistakes I just dont usually take the time to post about them unless they are particularly epic.

And when I make something fabulous that was amazing but the recipe was perfect Ill just do an easy cheater post and point you in the direction of the talented blogger that created it.  This Mexican salad which is a knock off of a dish at Chipotle restaurant is a perfect example.  It comes from the Healthy Irishmen Blog  where chef Gavan Murphy, and sometimes his wife, post fabulous healthy recipes using fresh organic produce.  They  have some great recipes to browse through and aside from the potato and bread dishes most of his recipes are French diet friendly.

The recipe for Vegetarian Mexican Salad is especially worth checking out.  This is the kind of salad that always looks appealing at restaurants but I never think to try to make at home where I can control the fat and salt content.  Now that I know how I will be making this beauty all summer.  The super spicy and tangy dressing is my favorite part but if you arent into breathing fire youll want to take the amount of peppers down a notch.  I also cheated to make this salad even easier by buying some jarred salsa (because the fella wont eat raw tomatoes and I was lazy), mashing an avocado on my lettuce rather than making guacamole, and then sprinkling organic canned corn and some cilantro on the salad rather than making the corn salsa. And if youre on the weight loss phase youll want to skip the corn all together since it has a high GI but there are so many other tasty things on this salad you wont be missing anything.

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Vegetarian Crockpot Chili

Its been a busy week so there has been a lot of crockpot action going on in my kitchen.  Yesterday the fella threw this chili together for about the millionth time and I couldnt believe I hadnt written about it yet.  Its tasty and a great low fat/high protein meal. 

Aside from the basic seasoning and the inclusion of beans you could add whatever you have in the kitchen to this recipe to create whatever chili youre in the mood for that particular day.  Its a very forgiving recipe and beans hold up great in the crockpot so you really cant go wrong.  If you dont like spice you could skip the chipotles or go for a milder jalapeno.  Feel free to use whatever combination of beans you have around.  We used kidney and cannellini beans since we had a bunch left over from the pottage earlier in the week (Im terrible at estimating how many dry beans to cook in order to get the amount of beans I need for a recipe.)   But were also fond of a combination of black beans and chickpeas.

I like to top this with a little sour cream or yogurt and cilantro to add a little something extra to it while still sticking to the vaguely southwestern theme.  But if you wanted to be naughty some melted cheddar cheese on top would be amazing.  So go crazy and treat yourself to a meal  that cooks while youre at work.

Vegetarian Crockpot Chili

2 tablespoons oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon cumin 

2 tablespoon chili powder 

2 teaspoons oregano

2 tablespoons soy sauce 

1 28-ounce can tomatoes (or about 1 pound fresh tomatoes chopped) 

2 cups vegetable broth

1 6-ounce can tomato paste 

2 chipotles with some of their sauce, chopped

2 14-ounce cans black beans, drained

2 14-ounce cans red kidney beans, drained

salt and  pepper, to taste 

sour cream or yogurt, as topping

cilantro, as topping

Sautee the onion, garlic and red pepper flakes until the onion is soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the chili powder and cumin and cook for two more minutes. 

Place the onions along with all the remaining ingredients, except sour cream and cilantro in the crock pot, stirring to combine.  Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Top with sour cream and cilantro just before serving.

Recipe made much more interesting from boring original over at  About.com

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Curry Glazed Chicken Legs and Walnut Apple Salsa

By now we all know Ill use any excuse to put curry on anything so curried poultry with a side of apple salsa screamed “make me now” and “oh my god perfect cold weather meal” all at the same time.  The original recipe called for duck legs which Im sure would have been delicious but Im simple and cheap so substituted in less fatty and far less pricey chicken parts with just as amazing results. 

And as the fella, the chef, and I found out before our wacky wine party last weekend this is the perfect recipe to make just before a get together because it is the gift that keeps giving.  The fella and I ate the chicken and a bit of the salsa for dinner the night before, the three of us ate the left overs, there was a gloriously large amount of salsa left over to serve the guests with some blue corn chips, and the curried chicken fat that we poured off the meat got added to a polenta the chef threw together.  Which isnt even to yet mention how amazing all of the parts of this meal were. 

The spicy tender lightly curried chicken is crispy and delicious.  The salsa is mind boggling in its greatness.  Its just spicy enough and the crisp apples mixed with the crunchy walnuts is something we all loved so much we were slapping our foreheads at not thinking of it before.  Walnut and apple salsa may be my new favorite condiment.  I cant recommend it enough.  And that polenta the spicy chicken fat went into was amazing not to mention purple.  I highly approve of all things purple.  But thats for Jacob to blog about (the polenta not my fetish for purple objects.)

 Curry Glazed Chicken Legs

4 to 6 chicken legs

3 cloves garlic

2 minced jalapeños

2 teaspoons curry powder

2 tablespoons minced ginger

1 orange, zested

Salt and pepper to taste

Extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup lime juice (from about 4 limes)

1 cup chicken stock.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse and pat the chicken legs dry with paper towels.

Using a food processor blend the garlic, jalapeños, curry, ginger, zest and a large pinch of salt and pepper. Stir in enough olive oil to make a paste, 2 to 3 tablespoons.

Rub the paste into the chicken legs, season with salt and pepper and place in a large roasting pan. Roast for 1 hour to render the fat. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Pour off the fat and reserve for another use (such as creating a spicy chicken and blue corn polenta.)

Pour the orange juice, lime juice and chicken stock over and around the duck pieces and cover the pan loosely with parchment paper or foil. Return to the oven for 45 minutes to tenderize the meat.

Transfer the chicken legs to a platter. Scrape the edges of the pan with a spoon to incorporate the caramelized bits into the juices. Strain. Taste the pan juices and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as needed. Keep warm. Just before serving, crisp the duck in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Spoon the pan juices over the duck legs and serve with walnut apple salsa.

Walnut Apple Salsa

1/4 cup lime juice (from about 2 limes)

2 tart apples, peeled and cored

1 small onion, finely diced

A handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced, seeds reserved

1 poblano pepper, seeded and minced

2 tablespoons grated ginger

1 tablespoon agave nectar

Salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted.

Pour the lime juice into a medium bowl. Finely dice the apples and toss with the onion in the juice.

Add the cilantro, peppers, ginger and agave nectar, tossing until well combined. Season with salt to taste. Add back some of the reserved jalapeño seeds to adjust heat of salsa.

Just before serving, add the walnuts.

Original recipe from New York Times Magazine.

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