Tarragon Infused Vodka Cocktails

Tons of Tarragon...

Infused some vodka with tarragon from the garden for 3-4 days.  Very nice bouquet.

Strained into a bottle for keeping.

Muddled fresh tarragon and mint, freshly squeezed lemon juice, a tiny amount of agave syrup, plus the infused vodka - shake over ice.  Add champagne topper (of course) and garnish with fresh tarragon and lemon rind.  Very refreshing.

Mango Cocktail

Tim was musing the other day that we should make a pineapple and vodka cocktail of some sort since the pineapple is so sweet and easy to get here (you can pick one out and have them peel it for you at the store...so easy).  My mouth started watering at the thought, but we didn't have a pineapple at that exact moment.  We did have a ripe mango, though, not yet earmarked for another purpose, so I looked up some mango cocktail recipes and immediately had at it, with delicious (albeit not very photogenic) results:

I ended up using this recipe from The Kitchn... mango puree, lemon juice, vodka, a little simple syrup and soda water.  So good.  Not too sweet, not too thick, extremely refreshing.  An exciting break from our usual, the gin rickey.

For a party I think you could make a big pitcher of the mango/lemon/vodka mix and then have people pour it in the glass and top off with soda water.  Also, I think a flavored simple syrup would do well here- ginger, lemongrass or vanilla, or maybe chili for some spice.  I guess you could do flavored vodka, too, if you wanted. 

Pineapple vodka cocktail recipe coming soon...

Sesame and Panko Crusted Chicken

Tasty, easy weeknight meal:  sesame and panko crusted chicken breasts served over an arugula salad with an Asian vinaigrette.  

The gingery, spicy vinaigrette it split in half at the beginning and serves both as a marinade for the chicken and as a salad dressing.  The crispy sesame and panko crust on the chicken is awesome. 

I added some romaine hearts to the arugula for crunch- I'm pretty sure you could use about any green for the salad.  Be sure to pound the chicken breasts flat so that they cook evenly- you don't want to accidentally burn the sesame seeds while trying to cook the fat part of the chicken breast.

Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad

An tasty, healthy weeknight meal; easily scaled up for lots of people or down if it's just you:

- Cut a head of cauliflower into small florets

- Rinse a can of chickpeas

- Toss both with some olive oil, minced garlic, a handful of cumin, salt and pepper

- Spread on a baking sheet and roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Keep an eye on it. You want it to be browned and crispy, but not burnt...

- Throw on top of a bed of arugula

- Top the whole thing with a simple lemon/shallot salad dressing (lemon juice, olive oil, minced shallots, a little Dijon, salt and pepper)

Vegetable Cream Cheese

I had a bunch of leftover cream cheese after the baby shower... I decided to jazz it up a little bit for Sunday bagel brunch. Loosely based on this Ina Garten recipe, I beat the following veggies into 2 8-ounce blocks of cream cheese:

• about 1/4 cup of finely shredded carrot
• 4 tablespoons minced chives
• 1 large or 2 regular green onions, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced dill
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• a sprinkle of black pepper

So good... Amy said it tastes like it came from a NYC deli. I think that's a pretty good compliment!

Preserved Lemons

Somebody recently over-purchased lemons. I'm not saying who. In any case, we had about 20 lemons lying around and Tim noticed that some of them were teetering on the edge. I needed a quick but tasty way to use up the extra lemons; to preserve them (har har).

I've always had preserved lemons on my list of to-dos. Once fully pickled, the preserved lemons are used in Moroccan dishes like tagines. They're super easy to make (prep lemons, coat in salt, squish in jar, let jar sit); I used the directions from Simply Recipes. I'm excited to try out some of the various options when mine are ready in a couple weeks... maybe this recipe for Israeli couscous with roasted butternut squash and preserved lemons? I'll keep you posted.

Apple Pomegranate Fruit Rolls

I had amassed a collection of various types of apples from the CSA that Tim and I never got around to eating for some reason. Since my beef jerky success, I've been wanting to make use of my dehydrator again.

Apples + dehydrator = fruit roll-ups!I peeled and chopped 3 apples, threw them in the food processor with the seeds from half of a pomegranate and the juice from one orange and half a lemon, pureed. Spread the puree on a fruit-roll sheet (and the extra on parchment paper) and dehydrated for about 4 hours.

Pretty good! I need to find a way to strain the puree to rid it of the pomegranate seeds, but still get all of the apple goodness, as the texture was a little weird. But overall, they were pretty tasty, and I didn't have to add any extra sugar.

Maple/Apple Pork Chops

These maple and apple pork chops were super easy and really tasty. A little sweet from the apple and maple, but the sweetness is tempered by the mustard and lemon juice. The sauce bubbles up and makes a delicious glaze for the pork.Served with roasted sweet potatoes with cinnamon, cumin and chipotle, plus a green salad.