Thanks, Snowflake! I'm going to give it a try. I like Thai and south Indian food, so coconut milk is a staple in my kitchen.

Sounds like you are an innovative cook. Tyrian must adore all those many talents of yours!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cecily,

Here's a really easy meal that will impress your guests and family:

Tilapia over Corn and Bean Chutney with Pasta

Ingredients:

4-6 Tilapia filets, bones removed.
Bread crumbs.
Salt and pepper.
One package angel hair pasta or spaghetti.

Cook pasta to desired doneness.

Mix bread crumbs with salt and pepper or preferred spices. Dip Tilapia filets in egg wash and coat with bread crumb mixture and cook in non-stick in olive oil or stainless pan until done.

Chutney

1 can black beans, drained.
1 small package frozen corn.
1 red onion.
2 cloves garlic
2 bell peppers (one yellow, one red)
1 tomato

Saute garlic and onions in skillet until onions are opaque and garlic begins to brown. Add beans, corn, and bell peppers and cook, uncovered about 10 minutes. Stir in diced tomato at very end and let stand on low heat until ready to serve.

Place small amount of pasta on plate, then spoon chutney on top of pasta. Finish with Tilapia filet on top and add favorite green vegetable as garnish. Serve with a glass of white wine.

Salmon? someone say salmon? *grin*

heres my favourite salmon recipe. (are'nt ya'll lucky) hehe
you'll need:
a salmon fillet (i like norweigan. milder taste)
onion, either a sweet onion or onion powder
garlic, or powder
honey
and a lemon or two.


take a salmon fillet. put it on a piece of aluminum foil.

cover the salmon with garlic and onion. powder, minced whatever.

slice the lemon unpeeled, 1/4 inch slices roughly. arrange them so they overlay and totally cover the fillet.

cover liberally with honey.

then put a sheet of foil over the top and make a nice packet.

put the packet under the broiler. and give it 20 min or so. (its a by feel thing)

remove from the broiler drain the packet of its now substantial juices. and open the top. remove the lemons etc from the top of the fish.

put back in under the broiler long enough to brown the top of the salmon.

put the lemon slices on the side. and serve.

i usually serve this with some wild rice. comes out real nice.


cheers
Nigel.

ps tilapia is often real nice when cooked with lemon and crumbled peanuts, then serving with a nice thai peanut sauce. .

Holy Guacamole...

I have a kitchen full of dishes to clean after yesterday's cooking. I made lasagna for the first time in 5 years, and obviously I have no clue as to how to cut down my old recipe. Now I have two 35 lb lasagnas in my fridge. One I cooked to take to a friend's house for an "Italian Night" gathering that was supposed to be a lot larger, so I ended up bringing home an almost-full pan. The other I'm going to cook and take to work tomorrow.

I'd share the recipe, but I really don't have one. All I can say is that it takes two pounds of garlic and it bleeds cheese.

quote:

Originally posted by Martini Man:
All I can say is that it takes two pounds of garlic and it bleeds cheese.

MMMMMM, MMMMMMM!!!! It sounds almost as good as having sex!

Yesterday evening I cooked this!
(but with much less meat of course)

It is EXTRA yummy! And a lot less complicated than it sounds.

I used some home-vacuum-potted (does that make sense?) cherries instead of dried cherries. And served everything with potatoes baked in tin foil (having a german in the house there is a great demand for potatoes!)

Home-vacuum-potted is likely the same thing that we call canned or home canned here. So yes, it makes perfect sense!

~Ang

I absolutely love to cook (and am consequently registering at Williams-Sanoma in hopes I or my fiance have some filthy rich relative we don't know about) and would like to share one of my favorite recipes for Chicken Milano. It's ready in only 30 min. Enjoy! Oh, just curious, who else is addicted to Williams-Sanoma?

INGREDIENTS

* 1 tablespoon butter
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
* 1 cup chicken broth, divided
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
* 8 ounces dry fettuccini pasta

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large saucepan over low heat, melt butter; add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and 3/4 cup of the chicken broth; increase to medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are tender. Add the cream and bring to a boil; stirring. Simmer over medium heat until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
2. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides. In a large skillet over medium heat, warm oil and saute chicken. Press on chicken occasionally with a slotted spatula. Cook for about 4 minutes per side or until the meat feels springy and is no longer pink inside. Transfer to a board; cover and keep warm. Discard the fat from the skillet.
3. In the same skillet, over medium heat, bring 1/4 cup chicken broth to a boil; stirring the pan juices. Reduce slightly and add to the cream sauce; stir in basil and adjust seasonings to taste.
4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add fettuccine and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain, transfer to a bowl and toss with 3 to 4 tablespoons of the sauce.
5. Cut each chicken breast into 2 to 3 diagonal slices. Reheat the sauce gently if needed. Transfer the pasta to serving plates; top with chicken and coat with the cream sauce; serve.

Summer cous cous

one large onion ( or four shallots)
two coves garlic
2 large sweet red peppers
1/2 Kg ( 1 pound or so) fresh or canned tomatoes
juice of two lemons
a small handful of fresh, finely chopped mint
hot chili pepper powder a pinch
freshly ground black pepper
salt
olive oil
1 cup of cous cous


Cut the onions in fine rings, and the garlic in tiny pieces and fry them very lightly. Cut the peppers in thin pieces and add them to the pot, let them get soft. Add the tomatoes, diced, or mash the canned tomatoes in the pot with a wooden spoon. If you use fresh tomatoes also add two cups of water. With canned tomatoes only one cup.
Let it simmer for about twenty minutes, don´t let it get dry.
Meanwhile cook the cous cous (with ´fast´cous cous one cup of cous cous, two cups of water).
Add chili salt and pepper to the tomato mix, check the seasoning, take away from the fire, and let it cool for one or two minutes. Add the lemon juice and the mint, mix in the cous cous, and let it stand for ten minutes.

It´s really fast and easy, it is nice in winter, hot, but its real perfect use is in summer, well chilled. Add a spoon of good olive oil on the dish when serving.

Thanks, Snowflake! I'm adding the ingredients to my shopping list and making your couscous recipe this week. I'm not waiting for summer.

Thanks for passing this along.

I thought: this is a Cecily compatible dish, must post it. It´s one of my favourite dishes!
I grow mint in the garden mostly for it.

Tyrion said we have plenty of eggs to use up, why not an omelette?

So we cut up five spring onions and a couple of shallots that were laying around, then I went in the garden, where the perrennials are just putting up leaves and picked chives, sage, some nettles (don´t make that face, nettles are excellent) and parsley.

Fried the onion and nettles on a very low fire, until soft, in a large pan. I beat six eggs with the other herbs and a small chili, finely chopped, a dash of milk, a few spoons of grated parmesan cheese, a pinch of salt . Poured everything on the onions, and let to cook for a few minutes, until set. "All that green looks dangerously healthy" said Tyrion.

Served with creme fraiche and tequila sunrise. "Tequila sunrise? I thought it was to be healthy!" says Tyrion
"Well " says I "Tequila is strictly vegetarian, orange juice is full of vitamins and ice is fat free."

I like the way you think, Snowflake

That sounds delicious!

We made a great eggplant parmesean tonight. I did something different, though. After salting and rinsing the eggplant, I dredged it in Italian Dressing (Wishbone), and then in the breadcrumbs and baked it at 375 F for 15 minutes. After they were golden brown, we assembled in layers: tomato sauce, eggplant, mozzarella, repeat until you don't have any more eggplant and your last layer is cheese, and baked at the same temperature for 25 minutes. YUM!! It was fantastic! Good thing we made two, one for now, and one for in a few months when we don't feel like cooking!

By request: (P.S. Check your PM too )

Eggplant Parmesean

Ingredients: 1 good-sized or 2 small eggplants per recipe you want to make (if you make more than one eggplant parm, bake them both and freeze, they are excellent in the winter when you don't want to cook, just thaw and reheat in a 350 oven); Kosher salt; EITHER 1-3 eggs lightly beaten, and seasoned breadcrumbs, OR 1 bottle Wishbone Italian dressing and seasoned breadcrumbs; 1-2 jars favorite marinara sauce (we like Prego) and shredded mozzarella cheese or very thinly sliced mozzarella.

Take the eggplant, give it a good rinse, chop off the green stem end, and the tiny blossom end and peel it with a vegetable peeler. The skins tend to be pretty tough and chewy.

Cut the eggplant into 1/4 inch rounds, size does not have to be exact. Don't remove the seeds.

Lay rounds (probably slightly overlapping) on a flat surface, and sprinkle Kosher salt over them. Let them sit for about 30 minutes. I like to do this on a cooling rack placed over the sink, it works out pretty well. Kosher salt has a less harsh taste than table salt, and sticks to the eggplants better. This will draw out excess moisture and any bitterness in the eggplant. They will also be more flexible. The liquid that comes out will probably be a little brownish, this is fine.

When the 30 minutes are up, rinse off the eggplants gently to get the salt off and pat dry with a towel.

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees, and get out 2 baking sheets and cover with non-stick spray, Crisco, or Parchment paper. Put EITHER the eggs OR the Italian dressing in one shallow dish, and the breadcrumbs in another. This always gets a little messy! Take the dried off eggplant and dredge both sides first in the egg or dressing, and then in the breadcrumbs. I always start off with a small amount of breadcrumbs and add as necessary; they get pretty goopy quickly because of the egg/dressing. Place on the baking sheet, it's OK if they touch. Bake for 15 minutes until browned, remove to cool slightly. You may have to do 2 batches if there are a lot of rounds.

Leave oven on it's temperature. Spray a 2 1/2 quart casserole or other casserole dish with non-stick spray. I used Corningware, but any Pyrex dish should be fine too, I'm not sure about metal.

Now for the fun part! Put a few good spoonfuls of your tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish, place a layer of eggplant rounds on top of this, and sprinkle mozzarella over this. Put sauce on top of this, then eggplant, then cheese and repeat until your last layer is eggplant and top with the cheese. The number of layers depends on the size of your dish. Bake, uncovered, in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese is getting golden brown and the sauce is bubbly. The eggplant will soak up some of the sauce.

Serve with a salad and bread if you'd like, it's pretty filling.

Sorry if this got really wordy, I was kind of on a roll!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phoenix,

We had some really good homemade bruschetta (on triscuits and wheat thins tonight, didn't feel like cutting and toasting a baguette, please don't hate me) with breaded and broiled sliced leg of lamb. YUMMY!

Here's how we throw together our usual bruschetta with garlic spread:

To start, cut off just the tops of two heads of garlic (not cloves, heads) and put them in a casserole dish or something that'll fit them. Pour a little olive oil and grind a little pepper over them, then stick 'em in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes or until soft.

You can start the rest while this is all going on.

In one bowl, mix:
One package cream cheese or neufchatel
One 15 oz. package ricotta

In another bowl, mix:
1.5 large tomatoes, or 3-4 romas, cut up in smallish chunks (really depends on your taste as to how big or small to cut them)
***side note - today I did half of a beautiful large yellow tomato I pulled from the back yard and it was an extra yummy addition.
1/2 of a medium red onion, cut somewhat smaller than your tomato chunks.
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
a coupla tablespoons balsamic vinegar, to taste.

Grab some basil and parsley, about a handful fresh of each. Chop fine and put about 1/3 of it into the cheese mixture and the rest in with the tomato.

When the garlic has cooled enough to touch, grab the bottoms of the heads and squeeze out the garlic, then mash into a paste. I use a fork. It's fun. Mix this and whatever olive oil/pepper was in the bottom of the baking container into the cheese mixture.

Serve in separate bowls on toasted baguette slices: spread a little cheese on first, then plop some tomato mixture on. Oh so very yummy, and rather quick to throw together. Can be modified to fit the mood, throw some extra spices on the garlic or whatever, but that's my base recipe.

~Ang