I didn’t feel like going out and lighting the barbecue as I had just put the cover on it, expecting rain tonight or tomorrow.  I thought I’d try the George Foreman Grill for this and it worked great! (Note: I do not have the one with the removable plates but I would get that one were I to get a new one.)

• 2-4 Tbs Penzey’s Sate seasoning
• 2 Tbs water
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 1/4 cup peanut oil
• 2 Tbs rice vinegar
• 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in 3/4″ cubes

Mix together the water and sate seasoning and let sit a few minutes to blend.

If you’re using wooden skewers, throw those in the sink and cover with water and let soak. This is probably less important on the George Foreman grill but very important if you grill them with a live flame.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the chicken to the sate seasoning and water, mix well, then stir in the chicken. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour, preferably two. I only did an hour.

The chicken will only take a few minutes to cook, maybe 4-5, so estimate how long it will take you to skewer the chicken and start some rice going at some point. I made saffron rice in the rice cooker and it came out great.

Put the chicken chunks on the skewers while the grill is heating. Cook 4-5 minutes.

Serve with some dipping sauces if you’d like. I used a bottled Thai peanut sauce that I had around.  This one would probably work good:

• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 3 Tbs hot water
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 2-3 tsp plum sauce

These would work well as appetizers at a party but we served them for dinner, with saffron rice and a green salad.

Tonight we used it on some burritos made with some leftover bbq’d steak, black beans, and sliced avocados.

• 2 large beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• a handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• a few good squirts of lime juice
• 2 small cloves of garlic, minced
• salt to taste

Stir and mix, taste and adjust seasonings as per your tastes.

laying out the wrap

My eldest packed this for lunch for her first day of school. We bought some wraps and spread flavored cream cheese (chive and onion in this case but we often just use the “veggie” one), baby spinach leaves, grated carrots, chopped olives and turkey.

Spread the cream cheese on the wrap first, then lay out the ingredients you like. For mine, I added some Major Grey’s chutney.

Roll it up tightly starting at one the narrow end. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate if you’re going to slice it up.

It’s somehow more appetizing when cut into smaller pieces but that’ s strictly optional.

We serve these as appetizers at large holiday dinners to tide folks over until the big meal. We like to add some spicy stuff to some and keep a few vegetarian. Add sliced red peppers if you like ‘em and any thing else that sounds good!

We packed these for lunch today and my eldest thought they were good. I found them a bit bland but I think it’s because of the wrap we used rather than the ingredients. I like things with a bit more kick to them that she does though so for kids who like things plainer, these are great.

I grew the tomatoes and basil and bought the mozzarella and olive oil.

Layer slices of fresh tomatoes and mozarella, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sliced slivers of fresh basils (or whole leaves of basil if you really like basil!).

• 4 – 5 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 -2 Tbs chopped fresh basil
• 1 -2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1-2 Tbs capers chopped (or use some black olives)
• 12 thin slices from a French bread baguette

Mix the cream cheese and the basil.

Mix together the tomatoes, onion and capers.

Lay the slices of bread out on a cookie sheet and broil until lightly toasted on one side. Flip the pieces over and spread the cream cheese over the untoasted slices. Put back under the broiler a minute until softened. Top each slice with a spoonful of the tomato mix.

Devour.

For each head of garlic, cut the tips off to open up the cloves.  So if you don’t grow garlic, you may wonder “What are the tips?”  The opposite of the root end!  Basically, the cloves grow up into a point and the green shoots rise up out of the ground from the pointy end. So the tips you want to cut off come to a point. (And if you haven’t grown garlic, try it!  it’s so easy! Where I live, in the SF bay area, we plant towards the end of October and harvest towards the end of June. Each year, I set aside my largest heads to replant so I basically haven’t bought garlic in however many years I’ve grown it. I’ve yet to run out before the next crop is ready.)

So preheat the oven to 375 and cut enough off the tips of the bulbs to expose most of the heads. Find a baking dish just large enough to fit all the heads you want to bake. Rub a bit of olive oil along the bottom of the dish and place the heads cut side up in there. Pour just a bit of olive oil across the top of each head.  Bake 20-30 minutes, testing that the cloves are done by poking a toothpick into the exposed side. They should be soft.

Use in dishes like Potato Soup with Roast Garlic, use for a softer garlic bread, make a fantastic baked Brie appetizer by spreading some roast garlic, olive oil and pine nuts across the Brie, barbecue some fish with roast garlic and butter and lemon juice in a foil pan, mix in with some mashed potatoes, …  The options are nearly endless!

What’s your favorite way to use roast garlic?

Stuffed Radish Roses

First the radishes.  I was told to trim the ends, then cut a deep X in the tops almost down to the bottom, then soak them in ice water for a few hours so they’d open up. They never opened up.    So I just cut some slivers off to provide an opening in the center for the stuffing, which is a cream cheese and blue cheese mix.  This stuffs about 20 radishes.

• 3 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
• 2 Tbs crumbled blue cheese
• 1 Tbs milk (but I actually forgot this !)
• a few dashes of salt, maybe 1/8 of a tsp
• 1 Tbs minced fresh parsley

Stir together then spoon into the center of the radishes.

Pesto Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

Use your favorite pesto recipe if you have one then mix with the ricotta cheese. Here’s what I did:

• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp salt
• a few dashes of pepper
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 20 cherry tomatoes

Use a food processor to blend together the basil, parsley, Parmesan, salt, pepper, olive oil and garlic. If you don’t have a food processor you can use a blender but will need to stir often. If you don’t have either, chop it all up really really fine.

Mix the pesto with the ricotta.

Make an X in the bottom of each tomato cherry almost to the top. Gently spread it open and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Spoon the pesto-ricotta mix into each tomato.

Now, that’s what I was supposed to do!  But I somehow reversed which stuffing went into which vegetable and so ended up with some pesto-stuffed radishes and cream-cheese stuffed cherry tomatoes. Let me just say, they all taste great so feel free to intermingle as you see fit!

That’s what I get for trying two new recipes under pressure!

Marinated olives a la Mark Bittman.

My lemons all froze last winter and I’m just now waiting for the most pale yellow ones to fully ripen, so rather than the pulp he calls for I just added a few teaspoons of bottled lemon juice. To make up for that, the rosemary was picked from my rosemary bush just before adding to the olives. This was one of two appetizers that got the most compliments.

The other was from Real Simple. It doesn’t seem to be online yet so I’ll post it here.

Olive Oil Dip with Vegetables

1/2 cup green olives, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients and cook over low heat a few minutes. The recipe called for “smashed” garlic cloves but next time I’m chopping them, so you can eat them easier.

Serve them with dipping vegetables of your choice. I used sliced red peppers, jicama, carrots, green onions, and endive.

I had hummus right next to this and frankly the combination of a bit of each was to die for!

Rub the papery skins of a few heads of garlic, but don’t remove it all as you want the head to stay together.

Slice 1/2″ off the top to expose the garlic cloves. Put them in a small baking dish, cut side up, pour a bit of olive oil on the top and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Add enough hot water to make 1/8″ depth in your baking dish. Cover the dish with foil and bake at 350 or 375 for 25 minutes. Take the foil off and bake another 15 minutes or so, until the garlic is very tender and golden.