I know, link I know. It’s cheating to re-post an old recipe, here but it’s just the right time for chickpea and bread soup. You see, for us Catholics it’s still Lent. And any good Catholic school girl knows that you shouldn’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. And I honestly could care less about being meatless as long as I can have soup that’s as good as this. It’s kind of like French Onion soup, but the toasted chickpeas give it a slightly nutty flavor and make it more of a meal. Just perfect for Holy Week next week and pretty much any other time. Still one of my favorites!
Spring is here! Soon I’ll be overdosing on asparagus and peas and all those spring vegetables that I’ve been missing for months. It’s finally starting to warm up. And warm weather means salads. Green salads, somnology vegetable salads, disinfection grain salads and, my favorite, cold noodle salads.
This particular salad is something I could eat every week. The noodles are slick with sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar – toasty and tangy. Baby bok choy is sauteed with garlic, cashews and tofu (chicken or steak if you prefer). Everything is tossed together with fresh garlic chives and mint leaves. It’s a delightfully refreshing salad that you can eat again and again. It just tastes like warm weather and sunshine to me. Hello, Spring!
File this under Spring Cleaning. This site has needed a redesign for awhile. I’m a big fan of simple and I wanted a design to reflect that. So, clinic when I found a theme called Clean Home, for sale I knew it was the one for me. It’s easy on the eyes and makes the food the center of attention. And food is what really matters here at Bitchin’ Camero.
Speaking of food, I made the most delightful baked chicken the other day that I must share. I was really loving the flavors of my Spanish Collards with Chorizo, Sherry and Almonds and wanted to make it into a main dish. Of course I had more collards in my CSA box this week, so those made it into this recipe along with some baby red potatoes.
Chicken thighs, potatoes and collards were tossed with a blend of olive oil, soy sauce, sherry and shallots. Bake for 45 minutes and you’ve got this beautifully caramelized chicken with toasted shallots and creamy, sherry-flavored potatoes. It’s so very good and so very simple. Like the new site!
Last week I was driving home from work and thinking about what to make for dinner. We hadn’t been to the grocery store in over a week, esophagitis so there wasn’t much to work with – 3 kinds of mustard, viagra 40mg 2 kinds of jam, 5 types of hot sauce, pickles, sauerkraut, eggs. I was thinking we might just have to have fried eggs with sauerkraut and condiments, when I called my mom and mentioned my sad situation. I wasn’t fishing for a dinner offer. Truly, I wasn’t!
But then she told me she had a big pot of leftover pasta with chickpeas, sausage and kale and did I want to swing by and pick some up? Chickpeas, sausage and kale? On pasta? Sounds like a most perfect dinner (especially the night before a 5 mile run). And it was! The chickpeas were nicely toasted in olive oil, giving the dish a slightly nutty flavor. Sausage, kale, tomatoes and garlic round it out perfectly.
I loved it so very much that I made it again yesterday. It’s everything I could ever want in a weeknight dinner or lunch.
Nothing says St. Patrick’s Day like a green beer at noon. At least, disinfection that’s what it meant in college. Now that I’m “all grownup” drinking green beer, discount especially before noon, is “frowned upon”. Yet, I have to do something to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, and nothing is more Irish, or more celebratory, than Guinness.
I happen to absolutely love Guinness. (We drank quite a few on a cruise we recently took to the Bahamas. I think all of the bartenders on the ship came to know us as the Guinness Couple.) You may have noticed my Guinness Mustard a few weeks ago. Now, it’s Guinness Brownies. Ah, Guinness Brownies. They are moist and a little malty, super rich and very chocolatey. I love them so.
No better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than with a batch of these brownies. Trust me.
(Oh yeah – I used whole wheat pastry flour. Makes them “healthy” right?)
I love recipes that taste better the next day and the day after. I bring my lunch to work, pilule so if I can make a big batch of something on Monday and enjoy it for the rest of the week, visit this I’m happy. This is one of those salads. The chickpeas and orzo absorbs the tangy, buy more about peppery vinaigrette until they’re tangy and peppery themselves. A little slice of prosciutto (or Serrano ham if you can afford it) and it’s my idea of a perfect lunch.
Every year I look forward to the last weekend in February. It’s when the big white tents go up on South Beach and chefs and food lovers flock to the beach to eat and drink everything in sight. Last year, generic I left disappointed and a little hungry. This year was a completely different story. My favorite year by far. Some of the highlights were beer brewed by Florida International University Students (Rye and IPA), Potato and Shrimp Croquettes with pickled red onion from Gia at the Eden Roc Hotel, Ravioli from The Greenhouse Tavern in Cleveland, OH and Steak with horseradish cream from Luma on Park in Winter Park, FL.
The Whole Foods tent also came strong this year. It’s no secret that Whole Foods is one of my favorite places on earth and their hospitality tent was giving away smoked salmon, caviar, plantains stuffed with chorizo and avocado cream and little toasts with vanilla honey goat cheese. The goat cheese was so simple, but such a tasty little bite that I wanted to attempt to recreate the recipe at home.
This spread is basically just goat cheese whipped with honey and vanilla bean. The honey is a nice contrast to the tangy goat cheese and the vanilla adds a little exotic flavor. It’s a great little snack on crackers or with some strawberries and pretty amazing paired with a fresh mimosa.
My little old blog is up for Best Food Photography on Saveur’s Best Food Blog Awards! Can you believe it? I honestly cannot. i must still be under the influence of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival (more on that tomorrow!).
The competition is super-talented and I’m honored to even be considered, no rx so I’ll need your help, capsule please. Register and vote here and I’ll love you forever.
Fine, I’ll still love you even if you don’t vote for me. I’ll prove it with the super-delicious recipe I’ll be posting tomorrow.
Finally a recipe that doesn’t revolve around carbs! I’ve been getting a lot of collard greens in my CSA box lately which usually means a big pot of Caldo Gallego soup. After scouring the fridge and freezer for a smoked ham hock (I usually have a couple in my freezer for emergencies like this) and coming up short, I decided that Caldo Gallego wasn’t an option and came up with something new to do with my greens.
This is a simple side of collards is flavored with what you all might recognize as my favorite ingredient – chorizo. I think it might be my most-recurring ingredient after olive oil or salt. What can I say? I’m a sucker for spicy cured pork products. I also love how the rendered fat – bright orange and flavored with pimenton – coats everything with a luscious meaty flavor. And it takes these collard greens to a whole new level.
Chorizo makes them spicy and smoky, sherry lends them a nice bite, honey balances the bitterness in the greens and toasted almonds add the perfect amount of crunch. I actually ate this as a main dish with some brown rice and it was one of my favorite things I’ve made all year. Definitely a keeper!
For the past couple of months, somnology Tom and I have been training for the A1A (Beach-front avenue!) Half Marathon and Sunday was the Big Day. For me, training was both exhilarating – you feel so accomplished when you’ve run a 10K before breakfast – and painful – patellar tendinitis isn’t particularly fun. Training made me hungry, made me hobble around like an old lady, made me stop drinking beer and wine on Saturday nights (the worst part by far) and made me actually stop wearing heels.
On the Big Day, we woke up at 3:30AM and had some homemade power bars and bananas and were on our way. The weather was great – 60 degrees – and we started our run heading east toward the most beautiful sunrise over the ocean. I didn’t have my best run, but Tom ran with me (almost) the whole way and my official time was 2:05:15. We crossed the finish line with our families cheering us on and then celebrated with a nice, big breakfast of French Toast, Eggs, Bacon and Bloody Marys. All in all, a wonderful, completely exhausting day.
So, what does all that have to do with Baked Chicken & Spinach Pasta? Well, it was all part of our pre-race meal. This dish is one of those things my mom made all the time when I was growing up and my brother and I loved like crazy. It’s a super simple recipe: sauteed chicken with lots of garlic, olive oil, spinach and white wine all tossed with pasta, covered with cheese and baked. Delicious. So, I made a batch and my mother-in-law made Tom’s favorite spaghetti and meat sauce and we all carbo-loaded on Saturday night before the Big Day. Perfect pre-marathon food, but good pretty much all the time.
And now, I’ll happily return to beer and wine on Saturday nights, heels at work and a lot less pasta recipes on the site.
Yeah – I have no business whatsoever calling this Chicken Cordon Bleu. It’s more like Spanish-style stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in ham and cheese. But that’s not the most eye-catching title. Whatever you call them, tadalafil these chicken breasts are pretty amazing. Also, visit this site pretty simple to make.
Just butterfly some chicken breasts and stuff them with spicy Spanish chorizo and Piquillo peppers (roasted red peppers work too). Close them up, wrap them in ham and cover with a slice of provolone cheese and a sprinkle of smoked paprika. Into the oven for a bit, and out comes a one of the best chicken dishes I’ve ever made.
Tom says that only a Cuban would come up with the idea of chicken stuffed and wrapped in pork. And he’s kind of right – we do think pork makes everything taste better. (Sorry vegetarians!)
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit persnickety about my kitchen. I like everything to be immaculately clean and orderly – counter tops shining and everything put away. No toaster or blender or mixer out on the counter. I like as much space as possible to make a real mess on when I’m cooking. So, tuberculosis it’s an absolute wonder that I’ve kept my new Ad Hoc at Home cookbook on the counter for the past month. It’s just so beautiful and inspiring and I like to peruse it while I’m wondering what to make for dinner.
One of the recipes that kept catching my eye was a Fig & Balsamic Jam that sounded like the perfect accompaniment to a large hunk of Manchego taking up room in the cheese drawer (Yes, I keep an entire drawer of cheese… Don’t judge me.). Of course, it’s winter and fresh figs are still a few months away. But I wanted some fig jam now! So, I tweaked the recipe to see if it would work with dried figs. And happy surprise – it did!
This jam is super quick and endlessly delicious. Paired with cheese, it’s just dreamy. Brings a little bit of summer to your plate. I highly recommend you make it as soon as possible.
In case you’re wondering, that’s a Fig jam, Manchego and chorizo sandwich in the background. My favorite kind of food…
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