Caper Pesto

This Christmas was the Christmas of kitchen gagets!  My sister and I really cleaned up on things for our respective kitchens.  Aside from my (fantastic and super hot) apron, I got a bunch of new cookbooks that I’m excited to break into, colanders (my sister was shocked to find I drain pasta with a plate…), an immersion blender, and a food processor.  I finally broke out the food processor for the first time today for my very first attempt at making pesto!

Told you it was fantastic and super hot.

I’ve had a bunch of capers in my spice cabinet for a while now, and I don’t really find recipes that use them very often.  This pesto was the perfect opportunity for using them though!  I usually shy away from making pesto just because I never have fresh basil on hand, but the only extra ingredient I needed to purchase for this recipe was the parsley.  So perfect, and ridiculously easy.  It turned out fantastic too!  Way better than store bought pesto.  I’ll definitely have to attempt to make different pestos when I start growing herbs this spring.

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp capers, rinsed, soaked in water for 10 minutes, then drained

2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

2 c packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 Tbsp pine nuts

1/2 c extra-virgin olive oil

1 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:1. Combine capers, garlic, pine nuts, and parsley in a blender or food processor.  Process, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed until parsley is finely chopped. Add oil in a fine stream, blending until creamy. Transfer sauce to a medium bowl; stir in cheese.

Tzatziki Sauce

Tzatziki is a classic greek-ish middle-eastern sauce.  Perfect for falafel or gyros (which I should really try to make sometime…).  I’m sure it’s good with a lot of other things as well…things that I’m going to have to find because I have a LOT of it now.  Whatever.  It’s delicious, oh darn.

Obviously when I decided to make falafel I knew I would have to make tzatziki sauce as well.  I can’t really imagine eating falafel without it.  It would be sacrilegious.  Luckily, tzatziki sauce is ridiculously easy.  The only issue I had was that my blender isn’t a food processor…so it took me a long time to liquify the cucumber, and as you can see from the picture there were still some cucumber lumps that I just couldn’t get out.  Whatever, I’m ok with it.

Ingredients:

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks

1 1/2 cups greek yogurt

1 clove garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop the cucumber in a food processor until more or less liquified.  Then, combine the cucumber, yogurt, and garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Apple Cider Syrup

The syrup I made to go with the pumpkin pancakes this morning.  Not a necessity…but definitely recommended.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup apple cider or apple juice

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup honey

2 tbsp butter or margarine

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

 

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, combine the syrup ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes or until slightly thickened. Let stand for 30 minutes before serving.

Raspberry-Dijon Sauce

This sauce recipe comes from the wonderful food magazine Taste of Home.  Love it.  I get SO excited when my new Taste of Home magazine comes in the mail each month.  I used this sauce on grilled chicken, I basted the chicken with the sauce about half-way through the grilling process and then spooned some of the sauce over the top before serving.  In the magazine this recipe was part of a recipe for grilled turkey tenderloins and I imagine that would be delicious as well.  This sauce would probably be good with something like pork chops as well, just a thought.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raspberry jam

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1 tsp orange zest

dash of dried thyme

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, combine all the above ingredients.  Cook and stir for 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

Quick Tomato Sauce

When I was planning my dinners for this week I decided to make some amazingly fabulous spinach-artichoke lasagna, a. because it’s fabulously amazing, and b. because I wanted to be sure I had awesome recipes to post up here for my first week!  That being said, when I went to the store, I was once again reminded what a scam it is to buy pasta sauce in a jar!  Last year I made the happy discovery that pasta sauce is REALLY REALLY easy to make yourself, and that cans of tomato sauce cost like 50 cents each, while jars of pre-made tomato sauce cost like $4.  Now for those who know me, if I’m anything, I’m thrifty (or “cheap” as some of my friends might put it…) so making tomato sauce rather than buying it is the obvious choice.  It’s like when I decided to stop being afraid of yeast and start making my own pizza dough.

Anyway, I whipped up this quick pasta sauce recipe this afternoon when I was getting things prepped for the lasagna.  I’d recommend sauteing half an onion or so along with your garlic if you are making this sauce to just put straight on pasta.  The only reason I didn’t was because my lasagna recipe already has sauteed onions in the mixture that I was eventually going to add this sauce to.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce

1 bay leaf

½ tbsp basil

1 ½ tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp rosemary

½ tsp salt

¼ pepper

Directions:

1. In a small sauce pan, saute garlic in olive oil until golden brown.  Add tomato sauce and stir in bay leaf, basil, oregano, rosemary, sugar, salt, and pepper.  Simmer for 30 minutes (but frankly simmer for as long as possible, the longer the better).

2. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Easy Pico de Gallo

This post is titled easy pico de gallo…but I seriously doubt it’s possible to make pico de gallo difficult.  This recipe is once again adapted from one I originally found on allrecipes.com, but I made a few changes based on what I had (that’s why there’s lemon juice and not lime juice as you might expect.  Whatever, it still tastes delicious!).

I actually made another batch of this pico last week to finish off a few tomatoes before I headed down to New Orleans for labor day weekend.  That batch was not nearly as good though.  Why?  Well, remember how I live in the Mississippi Delta?  Yeah…Wal-Mart is basically my only option to buy groceries.  And while my favorite big box store had cilantro the week before, there wasn’t any to be found last week when I made batch #2.  Sad day.  Take my advice, don’t skip the cilantro.  And if you can’t find any at your Wal-Mart either, well frankly you should probably drive to another store and get some if you’re dead set on making this recipe tonight.  It’s passable without it, but doesn’t have that real pico de gallo flavor.

Ingredients:

3 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 a medium onion, diced

1-2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped*

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir together tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, cilantro, salt, and lemon juice. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator before serving.

*Fair warning, be super careful cutting hot peppers!  I don’t wish that burning eye pain on anyone!*