With no time to grind my own beef this week, I settled for the pre-packaged variety (read: bland) to make these lemon and herb sliders. Hello, spice rack!
Tag Archives: parsley
Made This Just for the “Halibut”
Get it? ”Halibut”?
Anyways, another great fish purchase thanks to my new friend at the seafood counter at Whole Foods was a lovely piece of halibut. When asking for suggestions, the fish guy said that anything you can do to salmon, you can pretty much do to halibut. Added bonus for those who aren’t salmon or “fishy” fish fans: halibut is supposed to taste less “fishy” than salmon.
At the end of the workday, I realized I had this filet of halibut to cook, but didn’t quite know what to do to it. After a quick google search before I shut down my computer, I found a recipe for a lemon butter parsley sauce. I took a few (ok, a LOT) of liberties with the recipe, and came up with my own (and unmeasured) recipe, that includes:
- Some butter
- A clove of minced garlic
- Some finely chopped parsley
- Fresh squeezed lemon juice
- Some dried basil
- A lemon slice (just one is ok. Ignore the 3 extras in the picture below:))
Heat all of the above ingredients (minus the lemon slice) in a saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted:
Pour the sauce over the halibut, skin side down. Broil for 10ish minutes, or until fish flakes easily from the thickest part. While I’m a fan of anything I can broil (usually means it cooks in 15 minutes or less), I found out that my oven, well, not so much. I live in an apartment building with “charm” (which essentially is a euphemism for “old” and “dilapidated”), and the kitchen appliances aren’t much newer. So when I set the oven to broil, my entire apartment filled with smoke (there wasn’t even anything in the oven yet?!) I also found out the hard way that my smoke alarm does indeed work. While I had the oven preheating, I was jumping up and down trying to fan my smoke alarm in a pathetic attempt to turn it off before the sprinklers went off (and the fire department came to visit). Thankfully, I didn’t burn my charming apartment building down, and I didn’t have to bother the handsome men of the LAFD.
As ridiculous as that scene was, the overheating oven and smoke-filled apartment were totally worth it. The sauce is perfectly light (in spite of it being butter-based). I love the zing of lemon and the crisp hints of parsley. And the lemon slice and sprig of parsley work wonders in covering up the part of the fish that I tested mutilated for doneness.
Goes great with a lemon-dressed salad (not pictured). I just took some mixed greens, a bit of olive oil and a smidgen of balsamic vinegar, poured on some extra lemon juice and topped with a bit of salt and pepper. The olive oil, vinegar and lemon worked surprisingly well together. All in all, a wonderfully lemony summer dinner.
Sautéed Shiitake and Crimini Mushrooms
A quick veggie side dish with fresh produce from none other than my beloved farmer’s market. I found a gorgeous mushroom stand at the market with a dozen or so different species of mushrooms. Overwhelmed (and unable to pronounce most of them), I stuck with ones I knew and grabbed a few crimini and shiitake mushrooms. Not surprisingly, I bought them without any inkling of an idea of what to do with them. But they were awfully pretty.
Realizing they had been sitting in my fridge for a few days and would probably go bad soon, I came up with this nifty little recipe:
- Approximately 3 medium crimini mushrooms
- Approximately 2 shiitake mushrooms
- A few sprigs of parsley (much less than what’s in the picture here. I got a little overzealous:))
- 1 medium or 2 small cloves of garlic
- Olive oil (I didn’t measure…I just poured some into the skillet)
Heat up your skillet, drizzle with olive oil, and add sliced mushrooms:
Once the mushrooms are slightly browned, add minced garlic and chopped parsley. Don’t let the garlic cook too long, or it becomes bitter.
All in all, this took less than 15 minutes from me looking in the fridge and remembering I had bought mushrooms, to the final plate:
I happen to adore garlic, so the amount I suggested might be a bit too much for your taste. It surprisingly didn’t overpower the inherent taste of the mushrooms, nor did the generous amount of olive oil I poured on…
So next time you find yourself scouring your fridge, get creative with any leftover veggies you can sauté, douse with olive oil or season with fresh or dried herbs. No sense in wasting a produce impulse purchase:)
Tip: store your mushrooms in a brown paper bag in your fridge (thanks to the mushroom guy for this trick!)
MA! The Meatloaf!
No words necessary to explain this post’s title. A simple YouTube link will suffice.
I typically steer clear of meatloaf…especially the mystery meat-ish variety you slather with ketchup. But when I saw that this recipe had sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese, I was intrigued. And hello, it’s from Giada. I have yet to try one of her recipes I didn’t love.
Ingredients! (sans toasted pine nuts I tossed into the meatloaf later)
Have you ever seen a meatloaf so colorful?
Adding the actual meat (which is actually ground chicken, not ground turkey) and remembered the pine nuts just before putting everything into the oven:
Love that some of the cheese bubbles up and gets niiice and crispy on top:
Look at all the deliciousness packed into the loaf. Parsley! Sun-dried tomatoes! Pine nuts! Finally, a meatloaf I actually enjoy. No ketchup necessary:)
I found that using the full amount of salt the recipe calls for made the loaf a bit too salty for me. Half probably would’ve been just right. The sun-dried tomatoes and parsley are lively additions to a typically boring dish. Bonus: you can slice the loaf up into individual servings and freeze them. A much better version of a frozen dinner!
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Turkey Meatloaf with Feta and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Inactive Prep Time: 5 min
- Cook Time: 45 min
Level: Easy
Serves: 4 to 6 servings - Ingredients
Vegetable cooking spray
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup chopped garlic and herb-marinated sun-dried tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced, optional
2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons whole milk
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound ground turkey, preferably dark meat
Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Spray a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, stir together the bread crumbs, parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, if using, eggs, milk, feta, salt, and pepper. Add the turkey and gently stir to combine, being careful not to overwork the meat.
Carefully pack the meat mixture into the prepared pan and bake until the internal temperature registers 165 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice. Put on a serving platter and serve.
Chicken and Ricotta Stuffed Bell Peppers
I had 2 gorgeous yellow bell peppers (add these to my list of impulse purchases at the farmer’s market) and decided to attempt stuffed bell peppers entirely sans-recipe. I pulled together some ingredients I had around my kitchen and came up with this:
Ingredients
1/4 lb ground chicken
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 sprig oregano
1/2 cup ricotta
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
2 tbsp chopped italian parsley
2 bell peppers
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Preheat oven to 400°. Brown chicken on stovetop and add dried basil. Toast oregano in a tiny bit of olive oil in pan.
Mix chicken, oregano, ricotta, toasted pine nuts and chopped italian parsley in large bowl.
Slice off tops of bell peppers, remove seeds and ribs. Stuff peppers with chicken mixture, place in glass baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 30-40 minutes.
Ta-da! The finished stuffed pepper:
Fresh oregano is a very potent herb. A tidbit of info I wish I had considered before getting a little overzealous with the parsley and dried basil. Over-seasoning aside, the ground chicken and ricotta mixed together is superb, not to mention, yellow bell peppers are nice and sweet. Next time, I’m going with just one herb and not three so I don’t have to pick out the excessive parsley and oregano pieces:)