Lemon Chicken

Chuck, the chef de cuisine for this particular chicken recipe, says "It's easy to make and tastes good, but nothing special. Not a 'wow'"

I'd say it's a decent week day main dish that uses pantry staples.

Pavlova Magic!

In honor of Amy's last DC meal, and to steel her for the barrage of Aussie delights she'll be eating at her first Australian Christmas, I made a pavlova topped with passion fruit puree and sliced strawberries.

A pavlova (or "pav") is basically a giant meringue- egg whites and sugar- all poofed up and slowly cooked to make a crackly mound with a soft, marshmallow-esque center. The tartness of the passion fruit puree really compliments the sugary meringue.

I could have made the pavlova from scratch- it seems pretty easy- but Amy had given me a container of an Aussie pav shortcut: Pavlova Magic, the equivalent of American boxed cake mix. It was pretty foolproof, if not magical, once the internets converted the directions from Celsius to Fahrenheit for me.

The best part about Pavlova Magic, though, is that it comes in this weird egg-shaped packaging. It's like all of the '80s era L'eggs pantyhose packaging died and went to Australia to be reincarnated as Pavlova Magic containers:

Ina's Lemon Fusilli with Broccoli and Arugula

About 5 heads of broccoli, a bunch of arugula, and a whole bag of lemons were crowding up the fridge, so I chased down this well-reviewed Ina Garten recipe that included all of those ingredients and put it to work.

Ina's pasta salad was really good, although probably not an everyday meal since it had so much cream in it. The creamy lemon sauce was simple, but really flavorful.

Whole-Wheat Crust Pizza with Arugula, Prosciutto, Tomato and Mozzerella

Made these tasty arugula and prosciutto pizzas last week using the basic whole wheat dough from Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day... tasty, although a little poofier than I would have liked. I think I didn't preheat the pizza stone long enough because I was in a hurry.

Parmesan Polenta (with sausage and tomatoes)

I tried my hand at making polenta again, this time with delicious results. 4 ingredients, totally simple, but super creamy. I recommend using a whisk, not a fork as recommended by the recipe.
Served with Italian sausage cooked with garlic, dried basil, a can of diced tomatoes, fresh parsley.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Coffee Cake

Even after turning some of my leftover Thanksgiving cranberry sauce into an appetizer, I had a ton left. This time I tried swirling some of into a basic sour cream coffee cake... and I still have like three cups left. Oy.

Came out pretty good, despite a tragic glazing incident:

Roasted Vegetables with Pomegranate Vinaigrette

Martha and Andrea cooked this recipe from the November issue of Martha Stewart Living a couple weeks ago and gave it two (four?) thumbs up... I don't think Martha Stewart has posted the recipe online yet, but I found this blog that had done a version of it. We had sweet potatoes and Romanesco cauliflower from the CSA, and some uncooked Brussel sprouts left over from Thanksgiving, so we gave it a try. Chuck had the day off, so she rocked the recipe.

Delicious! The pomegranate flavor compliments, but doesn't overwhelm the veggie flavors. Plus, the recipe is beautiful: great array of colors, and the Romanesco cauliflower is pretty much the coolest looking vegetable ever. I love the bright green color, and the shape is amazing. Natural geometry.... Wikipedia tells me it's a logarithmic spiral. Awesome.