Guest post: Roast leg of lamb and spinach salad

I am Armenian. And you can't be Armenian without learning how to make a lamb roast. Of course, I suffer from the "I cannot cook as good as my mother" syndrome. No daughter of an Armenian mother ever feels that she measures up, however, I think I have come very close. When I first started cooking, I deliberately made dinners that wouldn't compete with my mother, such as chicken curry and tuna casserole. It was a cop out, but a start.

With that in mind, it's hard to believe that I ever had the courage to tackle a roast leg of lamb. Believe me, I have had my share of mishaps here—under cooked, over cooked and just plain tasteless. But I kept at it until I found the perfect formula. Dare I say, it's even better than my mother's?  

Roasting requires a bit of trial and error. You may have to make a dish several times, before hitting on the exact seasoning and cooking time. But if you follow my advice, I promise you a shortcut to success.

Ask your butcher to roll and tie a 4 pound leg of lamb. 

Then marinate it for four hours in: 

1/2 cup of olive oil

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1/2 tablespoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Here's an important tip: Do not ever use citrus in the marinade. It makes the meat tough. 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Roast the lamb for 25 minutes, uncovered. Then lower the heat to 300 degrees and continue roasting for approximately an hour and a half (two hours total roasting time) or until a meat thermometer registers 155 degrees.

Let the meat rest for about 15 minutes before slicing. Ideally, lamb should be served on the rare side, but if you prefer your meat less pink, you can increase the cooking time. 

I served the lamb with a wonderful spinach salad. The recipe for the salad comes from my cousin's restaurant Charentsi 28 in the capital city of Yerevan, Armenia. I visited my family in Armenia last year, and loved the beautifully updated traditional dishes served at the restaurant.

To make the salad, you need:

1 bag of baby spinach (buy the pre-washed stuff)

1 bunch of beets (do not discard the leaves as they are going into the salad)

Portobello mushrooms (again, buy pre-sliced but rinse them)

1 cucumber, peeled and sliced 

1 red onion, sliced thin

Cut and wash the beet tops and mix with the spinach greens in a large bowl.

Boil the beets, until the skins come off easily (I then roast the beets until tender, but you could just boil them till they are tender.) Set aside to cool.

While the beets are cooking, saute the mushrooms in butter for about 4 minutes (add water to avoid burning if necessary). Drain most of the liquid. And set the mushrooms aside.

For the dressing (the most important part) you need:

1/3 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 large clove garlic, crushed

about 1/2 tsp salt and a 1/4 tsp pepper (to taste)

Using a wire whisk, mix the dressing ingredients well and set aside until just before serving.

To assemble the salad, add the sliced onions and cucumbers to the bowl with the spinach and beet tops. Slice the cooled beets and add, along with the mushrooms to the greens. Pour the dressing on and mix well. Using lemon instead of vinegar in the dressing makes all the difference here. Enjoy!

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Now that Virginia has expanded her repertoire beyond chicken curry and tuna casserole, she is pursuing a wide range of culinary adventures both at home and abroad. She blogs at In The Heart of a Former Hippie and can be found studying cookbooks and travel brochures in her spare time.

Guest post: Lentil and butternut squash soup

I love soup. In many ways I think it is the perfect food. Except for the small fact that my kids usually won't eat it. To get around this I normally make a big pot of jasmine rice and mix some of the soup with a bowl of rice and then we are all happy. But this soup! This soup is the only one that my youngest son Sami—who had declared hating ALL soups—requests for me to make. When I served it earlier this week he stunned us all by eating three bowls. Then he asked to have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Can it get better than that? Why yes! Because, you see, this soup is phenomenally easy to make and is very versatile as a leftover. I created this vegetarian soup based on the flavors from a favorite chicken and rice dish and I never wrote down or measured the ingredients. The recipe that follows is pretty close—but more or less of any of the ingredients to suit your taste is probably fine.

What you will need:

2 yellow onions
garlic, minced—about 3 med. cloves
ginger, minced—about 4 quarter-sized slices
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper (or less if you don't like it so hot)
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp salt
8 cups vegetable broth
1 bag lentils
1 medium butternut squash

1. Coarsely chop the onions and saute over medium-high heat until translucent.
2. Toss in the minced garlic and ginger and saute for a few more minutes.
3. Add spices and stir thoroughly for about a minute
4. Add the vegetable broth and lentils, increasing the heat to bring to a boil.
5. Start preparing your squash now. When you have finished peeling, seeding and chopping, your soup should be at a rolling boil.
6. Add the squash and reduce the heat to medium.
7. Continue to cook until the squash is soft. You may also continue cooking for a few more minutes to reduce the soupiness further.

To serve, you could pair this with some freshly cooked rice or eat it by itself as a soup. If you like cilantro, toss a few leaves on each serving or mince a medium-sized bunch, mix with plain yogurt, and add a dollop to each bowl.

For lunch today I put a few tablespoons of it in a fresh flour tortilla and served it burrito-style. The cilantro-yogurt would be a tasty condiment for this. My husband liked this so much that I'm going to prepare a whole bunch of them and stick them in the freezer for those days when I don't want to cook.

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Christine's blog home is at daysixtyseven.  She writes about life in the less-virtual home she shares with four boys, all of whom have hearty appetites.

Guest post: Breakfast cookies

(hi, this is jennyalice with a sneaky little guest post.)

My son eats a lot of food. No really, a lot of food, and since he has a physical disability, he needs quite a bit of help at meal time. Breakfast is always a blur at our house, and in an effort to be most efficient, get out of the house on time, and offer Jack more opportunity for independence, we have tried every cereal on the market. They all end up in little pieces at the bottom of the box, or scattered all over the floor. So we want him to be able to feed himself, and it has to be fast, and his sister has to like it. Frustrated by the $4.00 price tag on 5 ounces of granola nuggets, I decided to try to make cereal cookies. This is my first try. It is basically a takeoff on any oatmeal cookie recipe, with cereal instead of the oatmeal.

I use a professional grade KitchenAid stand mixer and aluminum jelly roll (cookie) pans in a non-convection electric oven.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs (I used large, not extra large)
• 2 sticks of softened butter (I do not ever bake with margarine)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2T vanilla extract
• 1 cup white flour
• 2/3 cup wheat flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 15 oz box muesli cereal (I used Safeway brand)
• 1/4-1/2 cup oatmeal (as much as needed to make the batter more on the stiff side.)

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F
   
2. Cream butter and sugars
3. Add vanilla
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat until smooth
5. If you are a good person you will sift your flours, baking soda and baking powder. But since you are not a superhuman, just try not to have any hard nuggets of baking soda or baking powder, then with the mixer on a low to medium speed, slowly add the flours, baking soda, and baking powder.
6. Mix in the box of muesli. You could hand mix at this point, but I have a heavy duty stand mixer, so I make it do the work.
7. Add in the oatmeal a little at a time until the cookie dough is more on the stiff side.

I use cookie sheets with parchment paper to cook most all of my baked goods. It allows me to place all of the batter onto the sheets, then I can slip baked goods onto the counter and a new sheet with raw dough onto the pan and pop it back into the oven faster. No lag time between baking and I don't need to get my hands dirty very 13 minutes.

I tested three different sizes for the cookies. A 1 tablespoon dough ball makes a normal-size cookie, and was more on the soft side. A 1/2 tablespoon dough ball, made a small cookie, and would probably work just fine for most people, but I really wanted them to be "one bite" cookies so there would be less of a chance of my kid taking a bite then dropping the rest. I settled on a fat 1 1/2 tsp. So I just scooped up batter 1 tablespoon at a time and divided it into four little dabs. This made cookies slightly larger than a quarter, which was perfect for my family.

Bake cookies for 13 minutes at 350F, slightly less time if you want them softer; we wanted crisp. This recipe makes, um, a lot of little cookies; it filled a 10 cup container.

I do not know how long these keep, they were finished within 3 days. Even my husband ate them (note to self: do not tell husband that muesli has dates or he will never eat them again). I have several other types of cereal in the cupboard, so I'm going to keep making different kinds until I can find the tastiest, highest protein, lowest cost, batch of breakfast cookies that my family will still eat. Once I figure out a few that work, my goal is to get a ton of cereal on super sale, then spend a day and make batch after batch of breakfast cookies, and freeze them in 1 gallon zip-top bags. I'm sure they will freeze well, since oatmeal cookies do. Of course the way my family mowed through them, it's possible I won't need to freeze any at all.

Guest post: Homemade cucumber sushi

Of all the so-called "ethnic" foods one can serve up, homemade sushi seems to strike a good share of fear into the hearts of cooks who otherwise have no qualms about dishes that require trips to foreign markets, or strange spices, or presumably difficult techniques. But honestly, sushi is so simple to make at home, and so delicious, I can't figure out why more people don't do it. Even some cooks here on NTMC claim they'd "never" attempt it, so here's my brief pep talk—and tutorial—aimed to prove sushi simple.

Here's (all) you'll need:

Two cups cooked short grain, "sushi" rice. This can be purchased in the Asian aisle of most supermarkets. I cook mine in a rice cooker. Two cups of rice will make about three rolls of sushi.

One English cucumber, sometimes called hothouse cucumbers. These have more meat on the cucumber, and less seeds, and, in my opinion, better flavor. But honestly, a regular old cucumber will work too.

Sushi nori. Again, many supermarkets sell this. It's simply sheets of nori, the right size for rolling sushi. If you buy your nori in an Asian market, ask specifically for sushi nori, as many Asian markets also sell Korean style nori which is far saltier, and spicier, and greasier, and well, delicious on its own but it won't roll up right at all.

Mirin. This is a sweet rice seasoning—not vinegar!

Bamboo sushi rolling "mat". You can buy these in all Asian markets, or even on Amazon.

Small bowl of warm water.

Getting started:

First, peel and seed the cucumber, then cut into long, thin strips. Next, sprinkle the cooled rice with the mirin and toss. The mirin lightly seasons the rice, and makes it a bit less sticky when rolled. Next, lay the sheet of nori on the bamboo mat, then spread an even 1/4 to 1/2 inch layer of rice along all but about two inches of the nori, leaving a bit of nori free at the top for sealing. You'll have to play with the thickness of the layer of rice to get the amount right, but after a few rolls, you'll get the hang of it. My local sushi chef also compresses the rice between his hands before he lays it on the nori. This makes the roll nice and tight, so go ahead and try!

 Next, layer strips of cucumber into the middle of the nori. I usually cut the cucumber into 1/4 inch strips and use about three to four of these per roll.

 Begin rolling:

 The goal here is to keep the roll right. Use both hands and don't be afraid. The mat will prevent you from breaking the nori. When you get to the end, wet the edge of the nori with the warm water, and seal the roll.

Moisten a sharp knife with water, and cut the roll into inch wide pieces. Serve with soy sauce and wasabi.

 See how easy? And so much better than supermarket sushi!

***

Leightongirl blogs at www.vickiforman.com

Guest post: Sugar and spice pecans

Because I can't resist anything that combines sweet, salty and spicy flavors, I found I could not keep my hands off these amazing sugar and spice pecans when I first had them at a friend's house last year. I immediately got the recipe and made several batches as gifts for teachers and friends.

Nearly everyone who received them emailed me for the recipe and I knew I had a hit on my hands.

That, and the fact that my husband, Chris, pleaded with me to get the extras out of the house lest we both need to order new pants with bigger waistbands.

This year, I'm making them again for teachers and staff at my son's school. I thought it might be a nice recipe to share as a guest post here since some of you might be looking for a simple way to give some homemade holiday goodness.

Here's what you'll need:

1 egg white

1 Tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla

4-6 cups of pecan halves (this recipe is very forgiving of the amount)

½ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (More or less, to taste)

1/8 tsp nutmeg (optional)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees

Lightly beat egg white with water and vanilla. Add pecan halves to egg white mixture and stir until pecans are coated with the egg white mixture.

Combine the sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne pepper and nutmeg (if using) and add to the pecan mixture. Mix well. At this point, the pecans should be nicely coated with a sticky, sugary goo, but not swimming in goo.

Cover two baking sheets with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Now comes the tedious part (because after all, holiday baking has to be just a little bit fussy, right?). Transfer the pecans individually, making sure that the pecans are separated and dispersed evenly on the baking sheet. It's best to just do this with your fingers and get a little messy. Listen to a podcast and hold a nice glass of wine with your non-dominant hand.

Bake for 25 minutes or until pecans are crisp and bubbly, browned and toasty-smelling. Let them cool, then transfer them from the foil and let them cool for a few more minutes on a flat surface.

I've been packing them in festive tissue and holiday-themed Chinese take-out boxes as gifts. They make a lovely addition to a cheese plate and will make a salad a little more dramatic. My favorite way to eat them, though, is crumbled over ice cream with chocolate sauce.

And, yes, my new pants are on the way.

By day, Christa is a consultant and writer in the area of training and learning in the workplace. She blogs at Hyperlexicon, writing about parenting on the spectrum, hyperlexia and life with an atypical kid. She enjoys cooking and trusts that someday her six-year-old son will eat more than four things.

Guest post: Scallop risotto

One of my favorite things to cook, for family and friends, is risotto. I always loved ordering it when we went out to eat, but I figured it was one of those dishes I'd only get to enjoy in a restaurant. What did I know? It's easy to make, is a wonderful comfort food, and, whenever I make it for friends, they're always impressed because they think it's too hard to make. I've even blogged about risotto before over here.

Anyway, here's what you'll need for approximately four servings:



3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion—finely chopped
2 cloves garlic—finely chopped
1 red pepper, chopped

SAUTE THE ABOVE, THEN ADD:

16 uncooked scallops (if they're really big, you can use fewer. I usually cut them into halves or quarters)
6 sun-dried tomatoes—cut into small pieces (or more!)
½ teaspoon finely chopped lemon zest
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

COOK THROUGH and set aside (I usually keep the heat on low).


Meanwhile, bring 5 cups fish, chicken or vegetable stock (I usually use chicken or vegetable—low sodium versions) to a simmer.

To make the risotto you need:

1 ½ cups arborio rice
½ cup white wine

Now the fun stirring begins. In a large pot, heat one T. of unsalted butter and some olive oil (probably 1 T. but I just pour in a glug). Saute 1/4 c. finely chopped onion and then pour in the uncooked rice, and stir to coat all the grains well. Keep the heat on medium (you want it to bubble/boil softly) and add the wine, stirring occasionally until most of the liquid is absorbed. Basically, when you can draw a wooden spoon through the rice and it leaves a "clear" path/streak for a second or two, you're ready top add more liquid. Now, add the broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring occasionally until the liquid is absorbed (just like with the wine--when you can draw spoon through the rice mixture, add the next half-cup of broth).


Continue adding the simmering broth to the risotto until there's only 1/4-1/2 cup broth left in the pan. Add the broth and the scallop mixture, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients:

1 cup tightly-packed spinach leaves, cut into slices (I know there's a fancy term for this but I don't know it).
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
fresh tomatoes

Give it another good stir to mix everything together and voila! You just made risotto.


One of the great things about this recipe is once you get the basics down (how much broth to how much rice), you can mix it up with the rest of the ingredients. Do you like mushrooms? Go for it (me, personally, I detest them). I've made this with smoked salmon and dill. Yum. Or chicken. Whatever. All you've really got to know is the basic formula of rice and broth and how to let it simmer/cook.

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Guest blogger Judy Larsen is used to cooking for one husband and four kids who love everything she cooks (or at least are savvy enough to not say otherwise) and one kid who for years lived on only "white" foods.

Guest post: Vietnamese grilled pork with rice vermicelli

My kids call this scrumptious all-in-one meal "Vietnamese pork bowl." It's a crowd pleaser: gluten and dairy free, vegetable gateway for picky eaters, straightforward preparation, and its three-hour process is done in spurts with lots of interstitial free time to pull apart brawling children—and oh my goodness is it delicious. Even my picky son with autism can be coaxed into nibbling on one of the carrot sticks. I hope you like it as much as we do.

Serves 4 - 6

Marinade
8 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
5 tbsp fish sauce
1/4 cup sugar
ground black pepper to taste

Sauce (nuoc cham)
1/4 cup sugar
Juice of 1 large lime
5 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 cup water
2 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced

2 pounds pork shoulder (pork loin works but compromises awesomeness)
8 oz rice vermicelli/sen mee/maifun
1 medium carrot, peeled and julienned
1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and julienned
5 tbsp cilantro, Thai basil, mint (any combination), chopped

1. Place pork in the freezer for sixty minutes to firm it for slicing. (Frozen pork can be slightly defrosted in microwave and sliced immediately).
2. While the pork is freezing, mix the marinade ingredients and set aside.
3. Remove pork from freezer, cut into 1/4" slices, then place in a gallon ziploc bag.
4. Pour marinade into pork bag, shake to cover all surfaces, squeeze out excess air, and seal. Marinate in fridge for one hour (you can leave it overnight, but one hour is sufficient).
5. Mix the sauce ingredients together and put in fridge until needed.
6. Julienne carrot and cucumber, and chop herbs.
   
7. Optional: Place leftover mint, cucumber, or lime in a pitcher of ice water to impress any guests or soothe yourself with a spa-like visual.
8. Optional: Reserve a couple of carrot sticks and tell your child with the self-limited diet that they will get a bite of cookie or other preferred food for each bite of said carrot sticks.
9. When the pork has 30 marinating minutes left, boil a large pot of water. Add the vermicelli/sen mee/maifun noodles and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, until tender. Drain the noodles, rinse, and set aside.
10. Fetch the pork. Grill it until it is cooked through but not overcooked, 5 - 10 min. (This is an excellent time to deep-six any fantasies about Viking ranges with built-in grill tops, as they require two hours of cleanup. I recommend a nice grilling pan, Weber, cast-iron skillet, or George Foreman-style plug-in grill.)
11. Divide up and pile noodles in individual bowls; top with vegetables, then pork, then herbs. Ladle sauce/nuoc cham over each bowl. Those who can take it should top with chili paste or Sriracha.
12. Enjoy everyone's exclamations of pleasure and delight.

Adapted from Serious Eats
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Guest blogger Shannon Des Roches Rosa serves a hot home-cooked dinner six days out of seven, if you include take-and-bake Costco pizza on Wednesdays.