Poached Figs with Apricot and Cinnamon Sauce

Remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I bought some fantastically delicious peaches at Costco? Well, this week I saw a boxful of fabulous-looking, velvety-skinned figs that were so picture perfect that I had to buy them.

Mostly we ate them out of hand. I cut some up for my morning yogurt. I ate one or two garnished with crumbled blue cheese.

The rest? I poached them, reduced the sauce until it was nice and thick, set the fruit up in a pretty plate, added a dab of whipped cream and a sprinkle of chopped toasted almonds and VOILA! a fancy dessert.

So easy.

Here’s the recipe:

Poached Figs with Apricot and Cinnamon Sauce

• 1 cup apricot nectar

• 1 cup water

• 1/4 cup honey

• 1 cinnamon stick, about 3-inches long

• 2 strips orange peel, each about 2-inches long

• 12 large fresh figs

• 1 cup whipped cream

• finely chopped toasted almonds

  Combine the apricot nectar, water, honey, cinnamon stick and orange peel in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the figs and simmer for about 8-10 minutes or until the figs are tender but not overly soft. Remove the pan from the heat. Remove the figs to a dish and let cool. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and orange peel from the pan. Boil the liquid over high heat for about 5 minutes or until syrupy. Let cool. Spoon some of the cooled syrup onto 6 dessert plates. Cut the figs in half and place 4 halves on each of the plates. Spoon a dollop of whipped cream on top of each fig half. Scatter the nuts over the figs.

Makes 6 servings

Smoked Salmon and Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches

It’s hot, hot, hot. The new big thing. Trendy.

It was all over the Fancy Food Show last month.

What am I talking about?

Smoked food.

Smoked cheese, smoked meat, all sorts of jerky (dried smoked meat). Smoked caramel chocolates. Smoked vegetables. Even smoked sea salt.

I don’t like any of it.

Okay, maybe the smoked salt is good. And it’s true, I use a smoked turkey neck or wing when I make split pea soup.

But I really really dislike smoked mozzarella, liquid smoke-infused barbecue sauce, smoked turkey breast. Don’t give me smoked brisket or smoked pecan ice cream. Please, please NO smoked pizza. I don’t even like Lapsang Souchong Tea.

And yet —

Smoked Salmon is another whole thing. Gaspe Nova Scotia Smoked Salmon to be specific. The fancier stuff — Scottish, Irish, Norwegian and so on — is too dry and smoky for my tastes.

Give me Gaspe Nova Scotia Smoked Salmon. Soft, moist, glossy slices over a crispy potato pancake. Chopped and mixed with seasonings for Smoked Salmon Tartare. Pureed into Smoked Salmon Pate. Smeared with cream cheese and wrapped around asparagus as a quickie hors d’ouevre.

Or as a component of tea sandwiches, for some of the simplest, easiest party food nibbles there are. You can make these in minutes (okay, you will need some egg salad for starters). I don’t buy the expensive sliced salmon for these — the much cheaper “ends,” which many stores sell, is just fine.

Smoked Salmon and Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches

16 slices loaf type bread (whole wheat, multigrain, white)

1 cup egg salad

1 cup finely chopped smoked salmon

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley or dill, or 1/2 cup each

Place 8 slices of bread on a board and spread about 2 tablespoons of egg salad on each slice, evenly covering the entire surface up to the crust. Top each egg salad layer with chopped smoked salmon, using about 2 tablespoons for each piece. Spread half the mayonnaise on the remaining 8 slices of bread. Place these slices on top of the smoked salmon, press down lightly. Trim the crusts. Cut the sandwiches in half diagonally, then cut each half in half diagonally. Use the remaining mayonnaise to spread on the cut surfaces of each triangle sandwich. Press the edges into the chopped herb to garnish the edges.

Makes 32 pieces

Here’s how I make egg salad: 3 large hard-cooked eggs — peel and grate into a bowl. Mix in 2-3 tablespoons mayonnaise, a small amount of Dijon mustard (optional) and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. (Makes one cup)

An InLinkz Link-up

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

A few days ago I posted a recipe for gluten free blueberry muffins made with almond flour and oat bran.

But a gluten free diet is not for everyone, so if you’re like me and can’t resist the tons of blueberries available now and buy them by the six-pack as I do, and you also love blueberry muffins in the summer when the berries are so fat and sweet, here’s a really simple recipe for traditional blueberry muffins.

These are plain, vanilla-y flavored. You can add a teaspoon of grated fresh lemon peel or orange peel for a more citrusy taste. You can also add a half cupful of chopped nuts.

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup plain yogurt

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups. Melt the butter and set it aside. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda together in a bowl. In a second bowl, combine the yogurt, egg and vanilla extract and blend them thoroughly. Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture and stir just to bend ingredients. Fold in the blueberries. Drop into the muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 10

Gluten-Free Oat and Yogurt Muffins

It’s easy to spot new trends at the Fancy Food Show. The sales pitches are so obvious that it’s almost comical.

This year at the Javits Center it was “Hey, get your gluten-free stuff here!”

There were signs and setups everywhere I looked for everything “gluten-free” — from grains to cereals to, of course, all sorts of cakes, pastries, candies, cookies and even meat products and, not to be forgotten, every kind of chip in the food world: fava bean, quinoa, falafel and so on.

Btw, it’s also easy to notice the lack of once-fashionable-now-has-beens (at least as far as marketing is concerned). This year I only saw one itty-bitty new product with kale!

Only time will tell whether the ingredients and products of the moment will show themselves to be mere fads or enduring and valuable additions to the culinary coffers of our age. I think people will continue to eat kale because it has proven its worth. But we probably won’t see dozens more kale products in the future because our manufacturers have shifted their focus onto current trends. Like gluten-free.

I believe we will see more and more gluten-free products, a boon for people who actually require gluten-free food. Life can be difficult when you have a health problem, so making it easier to mitigate that problem is a good thing. 

I tried out almond flour, which is gluten-free and very tasty, in a couple of recipes and these muffins, which include oat bran too, were among the winning recipes. They’re easy to bake and don’t require xanthan or guar gum to keep them from crumbling apart.

Gluten-Free Oat and Yogurt Muffins

1/4 cup coconut oil

3 tablespoons honey

1 cup almond flour

1 cup oat bran

2 teaspoons grated fresh orange peel

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain yogurt

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 10 muffin tin cups. Heat the coconut oil and honey together in a small saucepan for about one minute or until the coconut oil has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and set it aside. In a bowl, combine the almond flour, oat bran, orange peel, baking powder, baking soda and salt, mix well and set aside. Place the yogurt, egg and vanilla extract in another bowl. Add the coconut oil mixture to the yogurt mixture and blend the ingredients thoroughly. Spoon this mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and gently combine the ingredients into a batter. Fold in the raisins. Spoon equal amounts of the batter into the muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 10

Chicken and Peach Salad

The last place I would expect to find a great-tasting peach would be a warehouse club like Costco. But there I was the other day to stock up on paper towels and detergent and as I drifted through the food aisles, lo and behold! I saw this box of huge, gorgeous-looking fresh peaches.

The fruit was photo-beautiful and the peaches had that “give” at the stem end to mark them ripe. They had a floral fragrance too, so I bought the 5-pound box (about $10).

I have no idea whether these were “local.” They were not organic.

But they were unbelievably tasty and juicy.

I am going back for another box.

These were definitely eating-out-of-hand fruit, not to be spoiled in a fussy recipe.

But I did have some leftover chicken, so I actually sacrificed half a peach to use in enough chicken salad for one person. A bit of scallion, fresh herbs, some olive oil and lime juice and lunch that day was divine.

Thanks Costco!

Chicken and Peach Salad

2 to 2-1/2 cups diced cooked chicken

3 scallions, chopped

1 large peach, skinned and chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine the chicken, scallions, peach, mint and thyme in a bowl and toss the ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lime juice and white wine vinegar. Pour over the salad and toss to coat the ingredients with the dressing. Sprinkle with black pepper to taste. Let rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 2-4 servings

How to Make Whipped Cream

I wait all year for these: local, organic summer strawberries. Their fragrance is so like cotton candy it reminds me what it feels like to be a kid at an amusement park.

These, the small, richly-red, juicy strawberries of summer always make me wonder why I ever buy any other kind, because I know what strawberries are supposed to be and taste like. They are NOT supposed to be some colossal science fiction-fruit, pale-orange/red with white tips, without much taste and dry as pillow stuffing: the kind you find most often in the supermarket.

If you’ve never tasted a real strawberry, locally grown, do yourself a favor and find some. Make sure you buy extra because, if you’re anything like me you’ll eat a carton of them on the way home. Look for the 100% organic so you know it’s non-GMO and hasn’t been sprayed with pesticide. 

You don’t need anything else to make strawberries the perfect dessert or snack. They are amazingly, naturally sweet.

If you insist, maybe a squirt of orange juice or orange brandy.

Or homemade whipped cream. Homemade. Because store-bought whipped cream is loaded, unnecessarily, with sugar.                          

Here’s my recipe:                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

Refrigerate a large bowl (or the bowl of an electric mixer) and beaters for about 30 minutes or until chilled. When ready, pour the cream into the bowl and beat at low speed, then gradually increasing the speed to high for 1-2 minutes or until the cream is slightly thickened. Add the sugar and optional vanilla and continue beating until the cream is thick.

Makes about 2 cups

Chicken Freekeh Salad with Mango, Dates and Pistachios

I’ve always loved the Fancy Food Show, not just because the eating is swell, but because I enjoy seeing what’s current in the food world and what manufacturers have come up with in the last year.

Trying out something new is always an exciting prospect as far as I am concerned.

And yet, for me, two of the show favorites this year were old timers that have become staples of my kitchen: freekeh and dried dates.

While freekeh is familiar at our house, I do realize that it isn’t exactly as well-known as most other grains. If you haven’t heard of it or haven’t tried it, I heartily recommend it. Freekeh is a whole grain that fills in for well-known starches such as white rice, noodles and potatoes, but is much lower on the glycemic index than those ingredients. It also has lots of fiber and protein and is a good source of calcium and iron.

It’s a variety of wheat, so it is NOT gluten-free.

There are several brands available in supermarkets and online; I tried some from Freekehlicious, which sells both whole and cracked freekeh. They sent me home with a sample of their soon-to-come freekeh pasta. (Haven’t tried it yet.)

Freekeh is nutty and toasty tasting. I love it plain and hot with a squirt of olive oil, and also cool, for salad, like the chicken salad recipe below (that includes freekeh, mango, nuts and a citrusy vinaigrette).

Dried dates are like candy— sweet, chewy and indulgent. I frequently snack on them late in the afternoon though sometimes I cut them up into my breakfast yogurt.

I have always bought Medjool dates, but at the Fancy Food Show I tried several other varieties, including safawi, saggae and sukkary at the Sahara Date Company booth. I’m convinced. If I see these in my supermarket, I’m going to be a buyer.

Because dates are so naturally sweet, they’re a good fit with tangy, citrusy and acidic ingredients. So they work harmoniously in this chicken salad too.          

Chicken Freekeh Salad with Mango, Dates and Pistachios  

• 1 cup wholegrain freekeh (or use some other whole grain)

• 1-3/4 cups water

• 2 cups diced, cooked chicken

• 1 cup chopped dates

• 3/4 cup shelled pistachio nuts

• 1/2 cup golden raisins

• 1 ripe mango, peeled and diced

• 4 chopped scallions

• 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley, preferably flat leaf

• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 3 tablespoon mango juice or orange juice   

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place the freekeh and water in a saucepan over high heat. Bring the liquid to a boil, stir, cover the pan and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 30-35 minutes or until the grains are tender but still somewhat firm and all the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Place the cooked freekeh in a bowl. Add the chicken, dates, pistachio nuts, raisins, mango, scallions, parsley and mint. Toss ingredients gently to distribute them evenly. Combine the olive oil, white wine vinegar, mango/orange juice and lemon juice and whisk vigorously. Pour the dressing over the salad. Toss the salad and season to taste with salt and pepper. Let rest for about 10-15 minutes before serving.

Makes 6 servings.

Chef’s Salad

Need a dish to eat while you’re watching the U.S. play Belgium at the World Cup today?

Or a dish that’s useful for a Fourth of July get-together?

Or one that refreshes any old summer day?

One in which you can use leftovers so you don’t have to cook?

One that’s light, but filling and easily assembled?

Here it is: Chef’s Salad. A dish that that fulfills a multitude of needs.                                                                                                                               

Chef’s Salad

8 cups torn lettuce leaves (such as leaf lettuce, Bibb, Romaine)

2 tomatoes, chopped

1-2 leftover cooked sausages, chopped

1 cup chopped cooked beef

1 cup chopped cooked chicken or turkey

2-3 hard cooked eggs, quartered

1 large avocado, cut into bite size pieces

optional:

radicchio leaves

1 red bell pepper, deseeded and chopped

2 carrots, sliced

4-6 radishes, cut into bite size pieces

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into bite size pieces

croutons

1 cup chick peas or cooked beans

1/2 cup pitted olives

1/2 cup vinaigrette dressing, approximately

Place the lettuce, tomatoes, sausage, beef, chicken, eggs and avocado in a salad bowl. Add optional ingredients as desired. Pour some of the vinaigrette dressing on the ingredients and toss to coat. Add more dressing as desired. 

Makes 4 servings

Nut-free Chocolate Chunk Grand Finale Cookies

I have just a few minutes until I turn everything off, including work, so I can watch the World Cup match between the U.S. and Germany.

It will be a nailbiter, especially because of what happened in the last 20 seconds of the last game between the U.S. and Portugal.

So, I wanted to wish our team good luck and send them off with a terrific recipe: the all-American chocolate chip cookie. This is my latest version of my family-favorite Grand Finale cookies, but this one is nut-free and has chocolate chunks.

NUT FREE CHOCOLATE CHUNK GRAND FINALE COOKIES

•    1 cup all-purpose flour

•    1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

•    1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

•    1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

•    1/2 teaspoon salt

•    3/4 cup unsalted butter

•    3/4 cup packed brown sugar

•    3/4 cup sugar

•    1 large egg

•    1/4 cup orange juice

•    1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

•    2 cups quick cooking oats

•    12 ounce package chocolate chunks

•    1 cup shredded coconut

•    1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until smooth, creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice and vanilla extract and beat them in, blending thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Add the oats, chocolate chunks, coconut and raisins and mix them in. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough and place on the cookie sheets, leaving some place between the blobs for the cookies to spread. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes then remove to a cake rack to cool completely.

Makes 36-42 cookies

Grilled, Marinated Chuck Steak

Grilled Chuck Steak

Chuck steak or rib steak?

Once, a long time ago we were at Ed’s sister Barbara’s house for the day. A day like today. Glorious and sunny, warm and not too humid. Perfect for a barbecue.

She took out a huge chuck steak. My mother-in-law almost fainted. She thought Barbara should have made rib steak because it’s more upscale and, after all, I was new to the family and she didn’t want me to think they didn’t know chuck from rib.

Interestingly enough my mother-in-law was not at all snooty or show-offy. Maybe she just wasn’t sure of me at that point.

What she didn’t know then, but learned that very moment, was that I love chuck. For hamburgers, roast beef and steak.

Sure, I love a great rib roast (and my mother-in-law made GREAT rib roast), but for steak and burgers: chuck is king. For me. Because it’s so meaty and beefy tasting.

Today is the perfect day for grilled steak. Weather is glorious in Connecticut and besides, what better way to honor the U.S. soccer/futbol team playing Portugal at the WORLD CUP today?! Nothing better than grilled American steak!

Grilled, Marinated Chuck Steak

• 2 pounds chuck steak

• 1/4 cup red wine

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 tablespoons orange juice

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger

• 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh orange peel

• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha

• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place the meat in a non-reactive pan. In a bowl, mix the wine, olive oil, orange juice, mustard, thyme, ginger, orange peel and Sriracha and pour over the meat. Turn the meat over once or twice to be sure all surfaces are covered. Marinate for about one hour. Preheat an outdoor grill or oven broiler. Remove the meat from the marinade. Sprinkle with fresh pepper. Grill or broil for 3-6 minutes per side, depending on whether you like the meat rare or medium-well. 

Makes 4-6 servings