Category Archives: Cuisine

Maple & Cardamon Granola

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Posted by Kimmer on May 18, 2009 – 7:50 pm
Filed under Cuisine, Home, Recipes

If you crave a quick yet delish meal for breakfast, you can’t beat homemade granola. This recipe is hella-easy to make; you can substitute the spices, nuts and dried fruit to your taste.  I’ve been making a weekly batch of the stuff for years. Make it once and you’ll soon be able to whip this out in 30 minutes or less.  Goes great with greek yogurt and keeps you full until lunchtime.

Recipe:

4 cups rolled oats (the thicker the better–no instant stuff, please)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cardamon

Equal parts vegetable oil and maple syrup (just enough to coat the oat mixture)

Optional:

1/2 cup nuts

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup dried fruit

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Combine the oats, nuts, spices, and coconut and mix well. Add oil and maple syrup, you only need enough to moisten the mixture, but not too much that you end up with a soggy mess.

Take a large baking/cookie sheet and spread the mixture evenly across the surface.

Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven to toss mixture, place back in oven and bake for 10 minutes more. I prefer mine granola to be on the toasty side, so adjust the last few minutes to your own taste.

Remove from oven and toss in the dried fruit. Let cool and enjoy!

The granola lasts for a week or more; store in a glass or ceramic container with a lid.

Ahhh Lamb, “Je t’adore”

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Posted by Kimmer on November 29, 2008 – 11:57 am
Filed under Cuisine, Home
Yummy, tasty lamb!

Yummy, tasty lamb!

When it comes to food, there is really only one holiday tradition that I care about. And it is not turkey, people.

It is lamb. Glorious lamb.

Lamb in stew, curries, and gyros. And roasted lamb. While digging through my cookbooks, I stumbled across a fabulous recipe for roasted leg of lamb. It is fabulous because of it’s simplicity and would be a lovely main dish for any weekend meal. And if your leg of lamb is large enough, you are almost guaranteed leftovers.

I’ve adapted the recipe, taken from the Time Life Books: Foods of the World series, “Recipes: The Cooking of Provincial France. By the way, if you have any of these books lying around somewhere, you are VERY lucky, as they are out of print. They are great cooking references, offering regional recipes from France, Italy, China, and on and on.

Gigot d’Agneau Rôti

3 to 5 lb leg of lamb
salt
garlic, cut into slivers
vegetable oil
optional: meat thermometer

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Remove any excess fat from the lamb, but leave the fell (the thick, fat layer). Make several quarter inch incisions into the leg and stick the garlic slivers into each cut.

Rub the vegetable oil and salt all over the leg and place it, fat side up, onto a roasting pan. Place into oven, uncovered, and roast for 20 minutes.

Reduce heat to 375 F and continue roasting. Using a meat thermometer will help in this case; about 40 minutes (130 – 140 degrees) for rare, 50 minutes (140 – 150 degrees) for medium, or 60 minutes (150 – 160 degrees) for well-done.

Happy Friendsgiving

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Posted by Kimmer on November 28, 2008 – 8:14 pm
Filed under Cuisine, Home
Mmmm, who doesnt love stuffing?

Mmmm, who doesn't love stuffing?

Thanksgiving day I was invited to a lovely dinner with friends in the Admiral neighborhood of West Seattle. The food was terrific; turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, carrots, and four types of stuffing, to which, I was a contributor.

Herbaceously Cured Stuffing:

6 cups of diced and lightly toasted day old bread (I used a day old herb baguette)
1/4 to 1/2 lb of hot or mild sopressata diced (Salumi, bien sûr)
a handful of roughly chopped fresh italian parsley and sage
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 cardamom pods
2 carrots
1 celery stalk
1 medium yellow onion
broth (I used chicken, but it’s up to you)
copious amounts of olive oil

Place the diced and toasted bread cubes into an oiled, oven-proof dish.

In a large skillet, cook the sopressata to just before they start browning. Remove from the pan, but leave the drippings and set aside.

In the same pan add a few tablespoons of olive oil to the pan drippings and sauté the carrots, celery, and onion until quite soft and translucent. Throw in the cardamom pods and herbs and continue to cook until the mixture gets all nice and melty-like.

Remove the cardamom pods and thyme springs. Return the sopressata to the pan. Add just enough broth to wet the veggie mixture (in moderation people, you aren’t going for soup here..) and cook through. Remove mixture from heat and pour over the bread cubes. Add more broth if necessary so the bread has enough liquid to soak up, but not become soggy. Thoroughly toss the mixture and bread together.

Throw that bad boy into a preheated oven of 400 degrees F for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy your stuffing with 3 other people.