Patatas Bravas with Grilled Steak

We went for the meat and potatoes thing today. An easy 60 minutes of leisurely weekend cooking. Apparently this Spanish tapas type dish of patatas bravas is supposed to heat things up, but we opted to keep it on the mild side so that everybody could enjoy it.

We started the affair by turning the oven to 400F. Then we peeled and wildly chopped 1 kg of potatoes and fried them for about five minutes with a little olive oil. salt, pepper, and just a teeny tiny dash of red pepper spice.

Then we stuffed them into the oven for 45 minutes.

Next we prepared four medallions of angus steak by rubbing a clove of garlic all over, as well as more olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For the sauce we finely chopped up half a big onion and 3 cloves of garlic and softened them in olive oil for a short while.

We added 1 heaping tablespoon of tomato paste and

a dash of red wine vinegar, waited a minute, and

added a pack (since Liz said we should avoid cans more often) of diced tomatoes. A little salt and pepper, more red pepper spice. That was it. We let the sauce simmer a good twenty minutes till the taters were done.

With plenty of time on our hands we decided to add a chopped salad. A medley of what the kitchen had to offer, really (here is a quick how-to).

Last but not least we turned to the grill and gave the meat about ten minutes.

Voila! This should do well on the 4th of July, we thought.

Lintels

We had jotted down "lintels" for today and found the lintels. But not the recipe. So we forged ahead. This now is the world premier of TGLF's first truly original recipe:

First we sautéd half a big yellow onion in a good bit of olive oil for a few minutes. Then we added 2 minced cloves of garlic, a little cumin, and just a pinch of red pepper. After just a minute we added 1 liter of vegetable broth, 2 bay leaves, and a chunk of tomato paste.

When it was all boiling we added a 3/4 cup of green lintels and simmered them for 45 minutes.

While we were waiting we cooked a pot of assorted left over pasta.

At the end we added to the lintels 1 small can of diced tomatoes, a dash of balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. We served pasta and lintels mixed together with some chopped fresh parsley. Voila.

It tasted rather yummy. (We will be incommunicado for a short while, as we are busy throwing out all our cookbooks. :) )

Fennel Sausage, Fennel Soup, Saucy Fennel Fun

And this is how our second readers' recipe got mangled up in our kitchen of mischievous mayhem. The end result, however, was without doubt absolutely sensational. This recipe was sent over the big pond by the girls' German aunt, "Sister Tilla".

We plucked a small handful of sage leaves off their stems and

tossed them into 2 liter of boiling vegetable broth together with 2 cans of white cannellini beans. We let them simmer for half an hour. (Here is where we deviated the most substantially. Since Sister Tilla used dried bean soaked over night and cooked for an entire hour.)

In the meantime we chopped up 2 bulbs of fennel, half a big yellow onion, 6 cloves of garlic, a small handful of sun dried tomatoes (the kind without oil), and another small handful of sage leaves.

After about 15 minutes of boiling beans, we started to gently saute the veggies in olive oil, also for 15 minutes and then chucked them into the broth. After these first 30 minutes of cooking a five minute rhythm emerged.
We added the veggies and waited 5 minutes.

We added 6 sliced mild Italian sausages and waited 5  minutes.

We added a quarter pound of torchiette pasta (aren't they gorgeous) and waited 5 minutes.

Then we cut up some parsley and .... ate.

Thank you Tilla. It was really yuumylicious!

(We should share here the anecdote of  Sister Tilla tracking across Hamburg to her favorite Italian grocer Andronaco Grande Mercato for the sole purpose of procuring a "fennel sausage". Which took her maybe 45 minutes one way using public transportation. Since we weren't allowed such culinary and traveling luxury, we jumped out of the car, passing an Earth Fare store, offering a wonderful butcher counter. There we were told that all their basic Italian sausages were made with fennel.)

Roasted Pork Chops and Taters

We turned the oven to 450F, peeled and cut up 3lb of yellow potatoes,

got them in a pot of water, brought them to a boil, and cooked them with a little salt for 3 minutes.

In the meantime we whizzed up in a food processor a small handful of sage leaves, 4 dried apricots, 4 tbls butter, 4 slices of prosciutto, 1 clove of garlic, salt, and pepper.

Then we carefully sliced pockets into 6 pork chops

and filled them with the herb butter.

Just about them the potatoes where ready and we placed them on a roasting pan with more sage, 6 slices of bacon, all chopped up, and a drizzle of olive oil. then we shoved them in the oven for twenty minutes.

This gave us plenty of time to garnish the chops with 12 leaves of sage, two each.

Lily slathered them in olive oil and dusted their underside in flour.

Just so they would stick and taste good.

We fried them up for ten minutes before we placed them on the spuds and roasted the whole mess for another 15 minutes.

While we waited we cleaned up, set the table, and chopped up a quick salad. (For a couple ideas check out our lazy quick chopped salad.)

There you go. It came out picture perfect for a hungry crowd.

We found the recipe for this goodness in Jamie Oliver's cookbook Jamie's Italy . He called it of course "costolette di maiale con salvia". And salivating one does, when you put it like that.

A Mild Veggie Chili

This one was yummy. Almost a veggie stew. We kept it on the mild side.

First we browned 1 lb of ground beef in a little olive oil and salt and pepper in a big pot. When it was all good we took it out at put it aside.

This gave us some time to chop up 1/2 big yellow onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 eggplant (Aubergine sounds much better, doesn't it?), 1 zucchini, and 3 carrots.

Loosening the leftover beef crumbs, we softened the garlic and onion in some more olive oil for a minute or two.

Then we added all the other veggies, sauteed and almost caramelized them a little for about ten minutes.

Then we chopped up a handful of oregano leaves and tossed them,

2 cans of red kidney beans, 1 small can of chopped tomatoes, ground cumin, and the beef to the mix. We added enough water to barely cover all the goodness. Finally we let it all cook for a good while, maybe 15 or twenty minutes, till everything smelled and jelled good. We adjusted the seasoning with some more salt and pepper. Voila!

To serve we offered ciabatta bread, and chopped scallions. The hardy souls got some red pepper spice to sharpen the focus on the chili a little.

It was surprisingly well received. In a few bowls there was some careful maneuvering around the eggplant, but Lena and Lily announced that they really like red kidney beans.

The origins of this dish can be found with a recipe from food writer Mark Bittman.

A Mild Chicken Tikka Masala with Raita and Rice

Apologies to our Indian cooks if this is far from an authentic Indian dish. Chicken Tikka Masala has made it into the fast food business in some places, but here we gave it due consideration. It was absolutely delicious one way or another, even as we kept it on the mild side.

To get the show on the road, we plugged the leaves of a bushel of cilantro and chopped up the stems. We also finely chopped a knob of ginger and a few cloves of garlic.

Everything but the leaves went into a bit of olive oil for a few minutes till the garlic was browned

In the meantime we chopped up a big onion,

added it into the pot, turned down the heat, and softened it for about ten minutes.

That gave us plenty of time to cut up a pound of boneless chicken thighs.

They got added to the veggies with a jar, about 300g, of Tikka sauce. We turned the heat back up to brown the meat a little.

We chopped up two tomatoes and opened a big can, 800g, of chopped tomatoes, which were

added to the mix. We gently got the goodness to a simmer with the lid on and let it go for 45 minutes. About ten minutes before the end we removed the lid to thicken the sauce a bit.

Now that we had a little time to our hands we got the rice going. To do so we warmed a couple of chopped cloves of garlic in some olive oil, added 3 cups of water, a little salt, and brought it to a boil.

Then we added a cup and a half of brown rice, waited for it to boil again, turned it to the lowest level with the lid on, and forgot about it till dinner time.

We also prepared the Raita by mixing a good bit of plain yogurt, a small bushel of fresh mint, and the juice of one lemon. Then we deseeded half a cucumber and shredded it into the yogurt mix.

Before dinner, we added half of the cilantro leaves to the rice and the other half to the chicken with another cup or so of yogurt and the juice of another lemon.

The cold yogurt was a wonderful touch to the hot chicken dish. Everybody loved it. It was hard to put the fork down.