Poached Tuna with Kumquats and Jalapenos

This dish takes less than 15 minutes from start to finish.  It's great for a work night. I served it with some couscous from a box.  I put it in a pot to cook before I began my prep work on the tuna and they finished at about the same time.  Don't overcook the tuna!  This batch was 2 minutes on one side, 3 on the other since my steaks were a little on the thick side.  The tangy kumquats and hot jalapenos play nicely together.  If you think the jalapenos at your grocery store might be on the more mild end, get a serrano instead, the spiciness is really important.

Sous Vide Beer Brats and Potato Salad with Basil-Citrus Dressing

Here's a really simple sous vide recipe with a really complicated side dish!  I loved this bratwurst.  It was perfectly tender and the beer flavored it really well.  I seared it for just a few minutes to make it look nice and add a bit of texture.  I should warn you that because it's cooked at a low temperature, the alcohol doesn't cook out.

The potato salad is fantastic!  And pretty.  And I don't really like potatoes that much.  I think the cherry tomatoes make this salad particularly awesome, their acidity goes nice with the creamy dressing.  The citrus is not overwhelming, the ratio in the recipe is just right. For once I didn't add extra and I'm glad. The original recipe also called for roasted carrots, but I left those out because I don't like cooked carrots very much.  Honestly, I think adding them would make the salad too busy.  This salad involves a lot of prep work and it has to sit in the fridge for a bit so it's not good for a work night meal.  We ate the whole batch in the same night so I don't know if it keeps well for the next day.  I'll definitely make both the brats and the potato salad again!

First Attempt at Sous Vide: Lemon-Thyme Boneless Pork Chop

The halibut recipe I posted prior to this was actually my second time using the immersion circulator.  The halibut looked prettier and tasted better.  That's not to say that the pork chop wasn't good.  It was.  But, the fish dish is more impressive.  This boneless pork chop was my first attempt.  While it was tasty, the marinade wasn't as flavorful as I wanted and the pork chop looked like zombie meat until I seared it.

I used the Food Saver quick marinator attachment and that may have been the reason the pork wasn't very flavorful.  The marinator is supposed to do several hours of marinating in a few minutes by sucking all the air out of the container.  I accidentally broke the seal while I was moving the dish and that may have caused the problem.  Or the quick marinator is a gimmick that doesn't really do anything.  Or it was because I had to cut my marinade with a little chicken broth. I won't know until I try it again!

I have descended into full blown cooking nerd mode. (Saffron-Scented Halibut)

I spent most of high school and college avoiding chemistry.  Then I got into cooking.  My husband bought me an immersion circulator for Christmas!  I didn't know that there was a model that could hook on to an ordinary large pot instead of a giant plastic tub.  It looks more like lab equipment than a cooking tool. I've always been curious about cooking with one because I watch way too much Iron Chef America.  The Anovo immersion circulator is very easy to use.  I'm using it here with a pasta pot and some tin foil. One of the first things I wanted to try out was fish.  This is saffron-scented halibut with tomato compute and zucchini.  It was fantastic!  The zucchini was cooked through, yet still crunchy instead of mushy and gross.  The tomatoes had the right amount of softness.  The fish was perfectly cooked.  It was moist, flaky, and evenly cooked.  The saffron sauce had the right amount of zing from the oranges but it didn't overpower the flavor of the fish.  This dish did involve a good bit of prep work but total cooking time for everything was 17 minutes.

To make the meal, I attached the immersion circulator to my pasta pot, set it for 140 degrees F through its very simple touch screen interface, and covered the pot with tin foil.  The instruction manual emphasized that covering the pot is necessary and suggested tin foil if a special lid wasn't available.

I feel a bit like a mad scientist.  

Big White Chocolate, Almond, and Cranberry Cookies

This recipe means it: these cookies are big!  1/4 cup of dough for each cookie.  Even though they contain enough butter and sugar to stop your heart, they are amazingly good.  So, break out your colored Kitchenaid mixer that you got for your wedding and use once a year because these cookies are worth it! This recipe was a bit out of my comfort zone because it contained more than five ingredients.  It also reminded me that baking soda is actually used in cooking instead of only for being left in the back of my fridge for several months as a deodorizer.  ("Replace after three months"? I think David Tennant was still The Doctor when I put mine in there).

Tablespoon added for scale.  

Chicken with Olives and Oranges

About a year before I got into cooking, my mom got me three books with the best recipes from Bon Appetit magazine.  One of the recipes I made a lot was chicken with olives and oranges from the January 2005 issue.  The first few times, it was actually pretty bland and my attempts to make it more flavorful didn't exactly work.  So I took it out of my regular rotation and hadn't made it in years.  Back in May when I was cleaning out my cookbook army, I found the Bon Appeitit book and decided to try it again.  This time, I added some new tweaks and the result was a pretty tasty meal.  That said, I should have served it with a salad or something.  By itself it's not a large amount of food.

The trick to improving the magazine's recipe was to add a bit of lemon juice and some extra olives.  I halved the recipe to make it for two people but didn't halve the amount of olives.  I also seasoned the chicken with more black pepper than usual.  The result was a tangy, salty (in a good way, it wasn't overkill) chicken dish that is relatively healthy.  The recipe below is heavily adapted from the original.

Spicy Sausage Ragu in the Slow Cooker

I'm back from falling off the face of the earth!  I was super pregnant at the time of my last post.  As a result of having a new baby around, most of my dishes over the last two months have been of the "what can we make really, really fast?" variety.  Most of them were tried and true quick favorites.  We also had a freezer full of pre-made food donated by friends and family, which is *awesome,* especially during the first few weeks when painkillers and coffee are food groups.

Since I'm on maternity leave, I decided to experiment with my slow cooker.  I bought a copy of The Italian Slow Cooker and used a recipe from it for the first time last week.  Generally, if the first recipe I try from a new book in my cookbook army isn't very good, it takes a long time for me to use the book again, I guess I'm judgy that way.  The Spicy Sausage Ragu was a huge success!! Not only did my husband and I love it, there was enough left to freeze!

It doesn't look pretty, but trust me it tastes fantastic!!