Spicy Thai Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing

Now that I am focusing on where my meat comes from, I have the pleasure of really great building blocks for meals.  Grass-fed beef is good. In the past, when I've been lucky enough to have a special piece of meat, I've done as little to it as possible to highlight and honor the amazing natural flavor.

With that philosophy, however, I start to miss out on all of the other flavors that have been used for centuries to make some of my favorite meat dishes.For this meal, I abandoned all reverence and marinated a beautiful piece of grass-fed filet mignon in lime juice, soy sauce and chili paste. Rather than mask the flavor, this marinade elevated the whole meal and made the experience better.

The main use for this meat was in a salad, a bit of a twist on a Thai beef salad with great mixed greens and tomatoes from Vermont and basil and chili peppers from our own garden. The meat also made delicious sandwiches over the rest of the week. This recipe will definitely go into the rotation as both a show-stopper on its own and a good staple for lunches.

Now that I am focusing on where my meat comes from, I have the pleasure of really great building blocks for meals.  Grass-fed beef is good. In the past, when I've been lucky enough to have a special piece of meat, I've done as little to it as possible to highlight and honor the amazing natural flavor.
With that philosophy, however, I start to miss out on all of the other flavors that have been used for centuries to make some of my favorite meat dishes.For this meal, I abandoned all reverence and marinated a beautiful piece of grass-fed filet mignon in lime juice, soy sauce and chili paste. Rather than mask the flavor, this marinade elevated the whole meal and made the experience better.

The main use for this meat was in a salad, a bit of a twist on a Thai beef salad with great mixed greens and tomatoes from Vermont and basil and chili peppers from our own garden. The meat also made delicious sandwiches over the rest of the week. This recipe will definitely go into the rotation as both a show-stopper on its own and a good staple for lunches.

Spicy Thai Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing (adapted from Bobby Flay)

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon chili paste with garlic (I used sambal olek)
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 2 (12-ounce) filet mignons, sliced thinly
• Freshly ground pepper

Ingredients for Salad

• 1 head Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
• 3 cups mizuna leaves, torn into bite-size pieces
• 1/4 cup chiffonade Thai basil or regular basil, optional
• 1/2 English cucumber, halved and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch thick slices
• 2 carrots, julienned
• 5 radishes, thinly sliced
• 8 each yellow and red cherry tomatoes, halved
• Salt and ground black pepper

Ingredients for Dressing

• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon finely diced shallot
• 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Whisk soy sauce, lime juice, chile paste, and peanut oil together in a small dish. Add the steaks, turn to coat, cover, and marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. 
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet.  Saute meat until desired temperature (about 3-5 minutes for medium rare). Remove from heat and let rest. 
3. Whisk ingredients from lime juice to salt & pepper together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Let sit 10 minutes before using.
4. While steak is resting, combine all salad ingredients(lettuce through salt and pepper) in a large bowl. Toss with half of the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a platter, top with the steak, and drizzle the remaining dressing over the top.

Summer Weeknight Supper: Zucchini, Tomato and Ricotta Tart

Friends, Labor Day may have come and gone, but summer is still around for a couple more weeks! If that whole solstice thing doesn't convince you, there's always the continued presence of summer squash and fat red tomatoes in the farmers' market. Faced with an overflow of both and a shortage of time, I decided to throw these two together into a quick and easy tart that is suitable for brunch, lunch or a quick weeknight dinner. 

There are a number of zucchini tarts out there, not to mention tomato ones, but I found a limited number of recipes that combined them and none that wowed me.  I started with a smitten kitchen recipe, as I often do, and let creativity (and laziness) lead me from there. I'll have to admit that the main thing I did was include tomatoes in an otherwise perfect recipe, but I also took a shortcut and used pie crust.  On some other night I will whip up homemade dough and make the rustic galette as Deb describes. 

 I also changed this up a bit from my usual ricotta routine. When there is ricotta to be eaten, I almost always hit up my old favorite, the Valley Shepherd Creamery.  This time, I was planning to cook before I could get to the Valley Shepherd stand.  I took a leap and tried the Amish ricotta cheese available at a grocery and specialty foods store near my office.  There's no messing around with this ricotta.  It's not the part skim that you're used to.  It was rich and creamy and really made the tart.  If you have it in a store near you, I recommend giving it a try. I used more than the original recipe called for because, well, I'm an addict.  

Rainbow Chard with Anchovies, Pine Nuts and Cranberries on Polenta

On a cool rainy morning, it is hard to believe it is summer.  I'm sure many of you out there are grumbling and a bit blue, but, aside from the fact that I generally love cool rainy mornings most of all, I'm particularly satisfied because I'm stuck at home for a little while and I don't feel like I'm missing out on quite so much outdoor fun when it's gloomy. 

The other upside is that I have a chance to explore some summer comfort food.  Even on cool days like this, summer comfort food can't be too heavy or thick.  I crave warmth and a smooth texture, but still some lightness.  What could satisfy that call better than polenta? 

I used to buy the pre-prepared tube of polenta from Trader Joe's to keep on hand for these sorts of meals.  After buying a box of polenta, I realized how silly I was.  The biggest pain is that you have to keep stirring the polenta to discourage clumps, but otherwise there is no finesse and hardly any time involved in making a nice base for all manner of soothing meals. 

For this one, I took advantage of the beautiful rainbow swiss chard that we picked up from Phillips Farms at the farmers' market and turned to my friend Mark Bittman for inspiration.  I'd like to say that I tinkered and played with his recipe and improved on his perfection.  It's generally not possible since Bittman has a nice healthy simple (Minimalist, if you will) approach and his recipes generally do not go wrong.  I did use anchovy paste instead of anchovy fillets, cranberries instead of raisins and the polenta was all me.  His recipe was also for greens generally and I, of course, used the chard.  

I was drawn to this recipe because of the anchovies.  As gross as I always believed them to be, I can no longer deny that they are good for you.  Even my husband asked me to somehow slip more of them into our food after reading Real Food by Nina Planck (I haven't even read it yet and I'm eternally grateful for its effect on my household).  I use the anchovy paste to sneak some into pasta dishes and have come to like it.  This recipe was my attempt to go more full throttle into the world of anchovies.  Expect more to come.  

The most exciting addition was 1/2 of a Hot Portugal chili pepper straight from our garden.  I only used half because I had never worked with a Hot Portugal before, but they are on the light side, so I would use at least a whole one in the future.  If you don't have fresh chilis on hand, you can substitute about 1/2 teaspoon of red chili flakes or as much or as little as you prefer. 

Rainbow Chard with Anchovies, Pine Nuts and Cranberries on Polenta (adapted from Mark Bittman's The Minimalist Cooks Dinner)

• At least 2 servings prepared polenta (find your favorite slow version, it's worth it)
• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tbsp anchovy paste or up to 8 anchovy fillets to taste (or more if you're really a fan)
• 1/2 fresh small red chili pepper, sliced (optional)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
• 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
• 4 cups trimmed rainbow swiss chard or other greens, washed, dried and chopped
• sea salt
• freshly cracked black pepper

1. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large deep skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic, chili slices and anchovies.  When garlic is pungent and anchovies dissolve into oil, turn heat to low. 
2. Stir in cranberries and pine nuts.  Cook for one minute. 
3. Add greens and 1/2 cup water.  Cover and cook until chard is tender (about 10-12 minutes). 
4. Season with sea salt and black pepper to taste. 
5. Serve greens over polenta in a bowl with greater proportion of greens than in the picture above.  Pour broth generously over each bowl. Enjoy!

The Great Haul: A Trip to the Farmers' Market

Perfect Brooklyn morning: a great yoga class and a leisurely stroll through the farmers' market shoving beautiful summer produce into sacks and running away with it.  I may amend this with pictures, but I'm a little distracted as I dream up our meals for this week with our amazing haul of goodies.  

My ingredients for the week: 

• Rainbow Swiss Chard
• Collard Greens
• Scallions
• Beets
• Cauliflower
• Kirby cukes
• Heirloom tomatoes: Cherokee green, Orange Russian and White Beauty
• Regular beautiful red tomatoes
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Red Currants
• Cape Gooseberries
• Hot peppers (a whole cup for $1!) - jalapeno, habanero, thai chile and maybe some others
• Raw unfiltered local honey

And the featured items from the Amish stand and my perennial favorite Valley Shepherd Creamery: 

• Cheddar
• Butter (ingredient list: cream.  What could be wrong with that?)
• Smoked bacon (get ready, collards!)
• Valley Shepherd fresh ricotta - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. 

I can't wait for dinner.  And breakfast.  And lunch.  

July Daring Cooks Challenge: Cooking with Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

You really can't go wrong with nut butters and I've definitely wanted to explore a bit beyond my usual peanut butter, so this challenge was very exciting.  Exciting until I remembered that my food processor isn't being cooperative.  Luckily, our fearless hosts allowed some flexibility and so I got to play with peanut butter and will definitely make the rest of the recipes offered up in this challenge in coming months to try them all out. 

The upside to being a little less adventurous with this challenge is that I found a recipe that actually was really easy to prep the night before and will make an interesting, tasty and fairly healthy lunch for work.  I don't usually get that out of these challenges. 

The recipe I went with was the Asian Noodles with Cashew Dressing.  I hoped upon hope that Trader Joe's would have cashew butter for me to test out, but as they didn't, I went for peanut butter with flax seeds.  Still a bit of an experiment, if not a challenge. 

Food processing the old fashioned way!I made the dressing the night before with peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic and ginger (and, of course, sriracha for heat).  The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of sugar and while I decided to go with 2 instead, I completely forgot about substituting with another sweetener - definitely go for it. Of course the recipe also called for a food processor here, but I used some elbow grease and a whisk since bits of garlic and ginger never worried anyone around here. 

Next, I sliced up some cucumbers, carrots and fresh green beans and mixed them together with cashew pieces and chopped Thai basil (from the garden!) and let that hang out in the fridge.  Then...I rested. 

Before work I quickly cooked up some rice noodles to finish off the salad and assembled in the morning.  Success! A light, crunchy, nutty salad that is easy to assemble in the morning and bring on the road - think work, picnics, car travel...

Stay tuned for further installments of my nut butter adventures wherein I actually make my own and play with things like cashews and pecans. 

Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew (or Peanut) Dressing (adapted from Daring Cooks Challenge)
Yield: 4 servings

Recipe notes: Customize the salad by adding or substituting your favorite vegetables. Shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, and slivered carrots would make nice additions. Obviously, you can omit the shrimp, or substitute chicken or tofu or the protein of your choice. The dressing is equally as good with peanut butter rather than cashew butter. We tested the dressing with nut butters made from salted cashews & peanuts with good results.

Ingredients:

Cashew Butter:
1 cup (240 ml) cashews*

Cashew Dressing:
½ inch (1 cm) slice of fresh ginger, chopped
8 cloves garlic, more or less to taste, chopped
½ cup (120 ml) cashew butter
¼ cup (60 ml) soy sauce
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) sugar
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) vinegar
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) toasted sesame oil
¼ cup plus 1 Tablespoon (75 ml) water
Hot sauce to taste (optional)

Noodle Salad:
1/2 pound (225 g) linguine or thin rice noodles
1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
1/2 pound (225 g) small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 large red bell pepper, cored and seeded, cut into thin strips
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, sliced
1/4 cup (60 ml) sliced green onions
1/4 cup (60 ml) chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) chopped cashews (optional garnish)
Lime wedges (optional)

Directions:

1. Make cashew butter: Grind cashews in food processor for about 2 minutes until smooth. (*Or start with ½ cup (120 ml) prepared cashew butter.)
2. Prepare cashew dressing: Combine ginger, garlic, cashew butter, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, and water in food processor or blender. Process/blend until smooth. Be sure to process long enough to puree the ginger and garlic. The dressing should be pourable, about the same thickness as cream. Adjust consistency – thinner or thicker -- to your liking by adding more water or cashew butter. Taste and add your favorite hot sauce if desired. (If the cashew butter was unsalted, you may want to add salt to taste.) Makes about 1 ½ cups (360 ml) dressing. Store any leftover dressing in the refrigerator.
3. Prepare noodles according to package instructions in salted water. Rinse and drain noodles. Set aside.
4. Heat oil in large non-stick pan over medium heat. Add shrimp to the pan and sauté for about 3 to 4 minutes or until opaque throughout. Alternately, cook shrimp in boiling water for about 2 to 3 minutes or until done.
5. Slice basil into thin ribbons. Combine noodles, bell pepper, cucumber, onions, and basil in a large bowl. Add about ½ cup (120 ml) cashew dressing; toss gently to coat. Add more cashew dressing as desired, using as much or as little as you’d like. Scatter shrimp on top. Squeeze fresh lime juice over salad or serve with lime wedges. Sprinkle with chopped cashews if desired.