Best Brussels Sprouts Ever!

So, I'm back in true Fits & Starts fashion. I segued away to a week in homage to Corgan's first birthday, and now I return to the good ol' randomness.  Here is a fantabulous recipe that we eat all the time.  Enjoy.

You will notice that we in the Bankey house love our veggies.  There must be something fresh and green at every meal!  Our favorites are roasted asparagus, broccollini, bok choy, and brussel sprouts, and we pretty much do the same thing to all of them, and they are scrumptious.  Corgan is quickly following suit in her love for all things veg.  She even went to town on a raw bell pepper the other day :)

My future foodie!

Best Brussels Sprouts Ever

Brussels Sprouts

Pine Nuts

Olive Oil

Cavender's Greek Seasoning (not pictured)

Trim the ends of your cleaned brussels sprouts (who knew it was with an 's'? I've been saying brussel sprouts my whole life!), then cut them in half lengthwise. Save any leaves that fall off!  We even pull off a few extra leaves, and you'll see why later.  Toss in about 1/2 cup of pine nuts, and mix with enough olive oil to coat.  Spread the sprouts out on a cookie sheet, then season with the Cavender's.  You can also use Adobo or any other seasoning mix you like.  They would probably be good with just salt and pepper, too, but we are serious about our Cavender's use in this household.  

There's the Cavender's!

Place the sprouts on the middle rack of a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Stir them around about half way through.  You want to keep them in until you start getting nummy brown bits all over the place. 

The inside of the sprouts should be perfectly soft, while the outside (and all those flaked off leaves) will have a nutty crunch.  You will never turn your nose up at brussels sprouts again.  Stay tuned for the recipe for the frittata.

Black Eyed Peas and New Year's Wishes

Is it possible for 2012 to be as freakishly awesome as 2011 was?  I'm sitting here watching my almost-one-year-old fling blueberries and strawberries all over the kitchen at 7:00 AM on my day off, and I can't help but reflect on what a joy the past year has been.  2011 brought us the best gift of all, our daughter; a long-term goal, we bought our first house; and positive moves at both our jobs.

2012, the challenge has been extended...do you accept?  Can you possible be better than the best year ever? We will see.  To help you along, we in the Bankey household have taken the extra precaution of ingesting black eyed peas.  All in the name of 'good luck' for you.  Yes, we spiced them up.  Yes, they were good.  Yes, we thoroughly enjoyed them. Now it's your turn to make it a great year.  2012, you're on!

Here is Corgan eating her New Year's black eyed pea.  She loves black beans and red beans, but for some reason isn't a huge fan of the one that can look back at you.  She ended up eating half of it, and since she's so tiny, this should cover her in the good luck arena for the year.  Here's to hoping.

After Corgan went to sleep (at 6:25 PM!), Stuart and I started cooking our New Year's Day meal.  We made rib eyes, sauteed spinach with garlic and lemon, and serrano spiced black eyed peas. Nummers!  What Stuart will never tell you is that he can cook.  He tricked me for the first few years we were dating into thinking that he couldn't cook anything worth eating.  His first meal in his first apartment was microwaved, buttered hominy from a can.  It was all a ruse! He can cook people!

What doesn't say 'Happy New Year' like giant honkin' slabs of red meat?

Everything sizzlin' away on the stove.  Yes, we know we should've done the steaks on the grill, but we were too lazy to buy propane.  You can get mad at me later.

End result: a scrumptious meal with a great bottle of wine, and yes that is homemade tarragon compound butter topping the steak.  It was a great way to bring in the New Year, and to celebrate the great year that we just completed.

Salmon Spinach Linguini

It's a wonderful thing when my husband feels inspired to cook.  I mock him all the time that he can't seem to do anything simple when it comes to food, but when he does it's amazing! We had just had the in-laws over and Mark, Stuart's dad, noticed my container garden out back.  I had some spinach that was ready to go, but I hadn't realized it. Stuart and I created a recipe on the fly to use it up, and it turned out AMAZING!  My only suggestion would be to have about 3 times more spinach.

Salmon Spinach Linguini

a bunch of spinach

1 cup shredded parmesan

3 cloves garlic

2 Tbsp butter

white wine

1 salmon fillet

1/2 package linguini

1/3 cup pine nuts

olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Before you do anything else, you need to pan sear your salmon.  Melt the butter in a medium hot pan, and sear the salmon on both sides until it's cooked all the way through.  It should brown nicely.  Set it aside on a small plate.  It'll be room temp when you eat, but it's still fabulous. 

Put your pasta into salted boiling water according to the package directions.  While the pasta is cooking, toast your pine nuts in a dry pan (you can see them above), and saute your chopped garlic.  Stuart cooked the garlic in the same pan and same butter as the salmon until it had just started to brown.  It was golden and delicious, but not like the apple. (True foodies will get that one.) 

Right before your pasta is done, stir all the spinach into the pasta water.  This will wilt the spinach, and if you've salted the water, it will season the spinach as well. Strain the pasta/spinach combo, and return the pasta directly to the pot.  IMMEDIATELY add your shredded parmesan and drizzle on some olive oil.  Stuart used a micro plane so it was extra fine and melted perfectly.  Also stir in the butter and garlic.  Plate your pasta in a pretty little bowl, top with half the salmon fillet, and sprinkle on the pine nuts. Voila!  An amazingly simple, healthy dinner.

.....what did we do with the wine, you ask? Yeah...we drank that.

A Christmas of Firsts

This year was a special year for us.  It was Corgan's first Christmas, our first Christmas in our first house, and the first joint Piedfort/Bankey Christmas.  It was a mad house, but we had such a great and wonderful time.  Everyone showed up early for Christmas breakfast (Dad made biscuits and gravy!), and we sipped on mimosas.  I made my tarragon scrambled eggs, and apparently Philip (Stuart's brother) had to ask if they had gone bad.  He'd never seen green flecks in scrambled eggs before! Poor Philip.

My brother Chase and I makin' bacon!

Everyone brought their gifts over to our place to open, so of course we had way too many packages everywhere!  There were nine adults and the first granddaughter, and that makes for a lot of gifts.

Here's a picture that needs no explanation:

Check out the shirts!

The best time of the day was watching Corgan!  She had a crazy bad cold, so she wasn't in the greatest mood, but she was precious none the less.  She was actually more excited for the toys than the boxes and paper, which I hear is not normal.  She got a stocking stuffer of Grover from Sesame Street that sings Jingle Bells when you push his belly.  She couldn't get it to sing herself, so every time he stopped she would get all mad and do her fake cry.  It was adorable!

Corgan, her Grover, and Grandma

And lastly, just for fun, here is a peak into the crazy life that is the Piedfort/Bankey clan:

Pepper & Shrimp Fra Diavolo

Ever have a day where you know that you have an ingredient in your fridge that will go bad if you don't use it ASAP? This happened to me the other day with some bell peppers.  I knew I needed to cook them, but I didn't have a lot of stuff on hand.  On my way home from picking up my daughter from day care, I was picturing all the food I had in my fridge and pantry (which wasn't much), and came up with Pepper & Shrimp Fra Diavolo.  Stuart and I love anything spicy, and when we first moved into our home his mom bought us red pepper flakes from Costo.  I still have the huge jar even though we use them all the time, so I decided to put them to good use.  One of the other blogs I read (http://fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/) shows great pictures of the ingredients before she begins to cook.  She also does these great mid-cooking shots as well, but I'm so not going to show you all the complete mess that I make when I cook :)

Pepper & Shrimp Fra Diavolo

 

12-15 Count Frozen Shrimp

3 Bell Peppers of Any Color

1 Can Diced Tomatoes with Basil & Garlic

1/2 Box Rotini Pasta

Parmesan Cheese

Put the noodles on to boil according to the box, and yes, I do add salt to the water.  Whenever the noodles are done, strain them and drizzles a little olive oil over them to keep them from sticking. In the meantime, cut the bell peppers into strips, then half them.  I sauteed them in butter (yummmmm) until they were starting to get brown all over.  Next, I added the can of tomatoes and the pepper flakes, salt, and pepper to taste.  Once the mixture came to a simmer, I added the frozen shrimp directly to the sauce until they were pink all over.  I served the sauce over the noodles, and topped it with freshly shredded Parmesan. I learned from my Oma Betty (grandmother) that real Parmesan is the only way to go!

Pepper & Shrimp Fra Diavolo

It turned out pretty well for being a made-up recipe. As my husband put it, "It was subtly spicy, and surprisingly light." You could put the sauce over brown rice or spaghetti squash if you were watching the health factor.