Category: Side Dish

Here’s Johnny

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State night is back! This week Miss A is taking us to Utah. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states Mike and I have ever seen. We spent a few days touring its many national parks on one of our cross-country trips before the kids were born, so we were happy to revisit some of those memories.

Surprisingly though, it was hard to find traditional recipes from the Beehive state. The state fruit is the cherry, but we covered those in Michigan; the state historic vegetable is the sugar beet, and you know how we feel about those (if you don’t here’s a refresher); and the state snack is Jell-O, but well, after Lisa’s post on its mystery ingredients, we can’t bring ourselves to eat it. Then we came across several recipes for the Mormon Johnnycake – done deal. We can do that and it just so happens it was a good match for a Nicaraguan dinner we’ll share later this week. Continue reading →

Gender Divide

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Tonight we bring you another easy and healthy Nicaraguan recipe. We’ve been exploring Nicaraguan recipes for the past week or so and it’s fairly varied with heavy indigenous, Creole and Spanish influences. According to Wikipedia, the Pacific Coast cuisine makes use of local produce with the most common being corn. The Caribbean Coast tends to use more seafood and coconut. Our first Nicaraguan recipe, Curry Seafood Stew, clearly comes from the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. So tonight, we head to the opposite coast and have a recipe with a bit of Spanish influence.

I’m really diggin’ how simple and fast these meals have been so far, especially after our cooking marathon the past few weeks. I’m also lovin’ that Miss A and I have gotten to spend some quality time in the kitchen together. Cooking earlier in the day for that much-needed natural light has its benefits. And so, Miss A and I bring you the Ensalada de Jicama y Naranja (or Jicama and Orange Salad). Continue reading →

Rockin’ the Pumpkin

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We’ve got one more pumpkin recipe for you before we head back to sampling recipes from the Philippines. This particular dish makes use of the leftover roasted pumpkin we had from our risotto and makes for a great lunch or side salad. If you don’t have any leftover pumpkin on hand, it’s simple to roast up a fresh batch, just allow for an extra hour of cooking time.

So what is this easy, tasty and refreshing pumpkin recipe? The Pumpkin and Couscous Rocket Salad. Yep, it’s healthy and offers some much-needed freshness after all the Halloween sweets and treats. We started by preparing our couscous. We used a whole wheat couscous, chicken stock, dry white wine, fresh sage, lemon zest and lemon juice. 

Continue reading →

Pear-ific

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Since we’re enjoying our pears around here, we thought we’d share this one before we head off to Mr. N’s new international destination. It doesn’t really fit with any particular region or state; although we did use our Canadian Ice Syrup again. Not to worry if you don’t have any, maple syrup will do the trick. We’re calling these Grilled Pears with Iced Mascarpone.

Start with some Bosc pears, slice them in half, scoop out the core and remove the stem. 

Next it’s time to poach the pears. We used a combination of water, white wine, vanilla, lemon juice and sugar for our pears. We first dissolved the sugar before adding the pears to the liquid. Continue reading →

Speaking my Language

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[By Mike]

So I haven’t had a turn at the blog for a while, and Kristy and I were trying to pick a good recipe for me to blog. We were searching for Welsh recipes a couple of weeks back and came to the recipe for Welsh Rarebit that’s featured today and I said, “Wow, that sounds like really good hangover food. I’ll blog that one.” To which Kristy replied, “You’re not going to tell some story about me being hung over, are you?” Of course not. I was planning on telling the story of my fluency in Welsh, but sadly she stole my thunder. I’ll add only one thing about her letter in Welsh–there was no way she wasn’t getting another date.

Rarebit is pretty easy to make, though it requires fairly constant attention. Begin by melting butter and whisking in flour over low heat.

Next comes a little Dijon mustard, a little Worcestershire sauce, and some salt and pepper. Continue reading →

Apple Thyme

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We just returned home from a short (but wonderful) visit back to our old home town in Minnesota, so we’re going to keep this one brief. Along with our Gruyère Stuffed French Toast the other day, we  made another recipe from Washington. This one comes from the Washington State Potato Commission and is a twist on the typical hash brown side dish. You guessed it – Apple Hash.

We started by heating onions, salt, pepper and olive oil over medium heat. After a few minutes we added some chopped Yukon gold potatoes. 

We cooked the potatoes for about 10 minutes and then tossed in some apples, butter and fresh thyme. Continue reading →