Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Chive Pesto

This is a good side for chicken, or whatever else. The chive pesto is delicious.


Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Chive Pesto
From: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

1 3/4 pound fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped fresh chives, plus more for garnish
1/2 cup packed chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped pine nuts of walnuts
1 garlic clove
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, toss potatoes with 1 tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange potato halves in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast potatoes about 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.

3. While the potatoes roast, combine 1/2 cup chives, parsley, nuts, and garlic in a food processor. Pulse into finely chopped. Gradually add olive oil and pulse until it's incorporated. Transfer pesto to a small bowl and add lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Transfer potatoes to a platter and toss with half of the pesto. Top with extra chopped chives and serve with remaining pesto.

Bacon, Cheddar, and Chive Biscuits

Anything that has bacon in it doesn't really need much of an introduction.  These are a great side/addition to any meal, but go especially well with any kind of soup.

Makes: 12 biscuits

Bacon, Cheddar, and Chive Biscuits
From: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

6-8 slices thick cut bacon (you should probably use more, because you'll want to eat a slice or two)
3 3/4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled, unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (plus more to melt/brush over tops of biscuits)
2 1/2 (about 12oz) cups grated cheddar cheese
1/3 cup fresh chives, chopped
1 3/4 cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper (don't use the cheap-o kind like I did or you'll be peeling off parchment paper from the bottom of the biscuits).

2. In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crispy. Remove bacon from skillet and let cool over some paper towels, then coarsely chop the bacon.

3. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Blend, add butter, and then blend until a coarse, lumpy meal forms. Gradually add in buttermilk and stir everything together.

4. Lightly flour your hands, and drop large (about 1/2 cup) mounds of dough onto the baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart.

5. Bake biscuits for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick/tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Lightly brush biscuits with butter and let cool 10 minutes before serving.


Mmm, bacon:

Ready to go:

 

Farro with Roasted Beets, Beet Greens, and Goat Cheese

Speaking of beets, I am totally beat. Hence the lack of posts over the last week or so. I was also in Maine for a few days though, so I'll be posting some pics later of delicious seafood.

My lovely vegetarian/allergic to seafood friend came over last night, and I knew she was a sucker for the beets/goat cheese combination so I went with this New York Times Recipe for Health recipe.

I used goat cheese instead of feta and red wine vinegar because I couldn't find any sherry vinegar, but otherwise I followed the recipe mostly straight through. I'd recommend just wilting the chopped beet greens in with the farro when it's still hot, because the whole boiling them then removing to ice water procedure is really more of an ordeal than it should be.

Ingredients

2 medium or 3 small beets with greens, the beets roasted (To roast: peel and cut beets into small pieces and roast in 4 tbsp olive oil at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes/until tender)
1 cup dried farro
Kosher salt to taste
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 garlic clove, minced or pureed
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 ounces crumbled feta or goat cheese, plus more to top
1/4 cup fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, mint, etc... I used chives)

1. Cook farro according to package, then drain.

Meanwhile ...

2. Remove the beet greens from their stem, wash well, then coarsely chop.

3. Whisk together the vinegars, salt, garlic, mustard and olive oil.

4. When farro is finished cooking, mix together with the vinaigrette, roasted beets, herbs, goat cheese, chopped walnuts and beet greens. Add salt to taste.

5. Top with a little more crumbled goat cheese.

**Serves 3-4 for dinner if you have a side or two to go along with it.

Red Potato Salad with Blue Cheese, Chives and Bacon

I'm losing my mind a little bit lately. I made a small to-do list of errands to do after the gym this morning, but that didn't help me because I forgot to bring the list with me. The point of this story is that the last recipe I posted - the red potato tart - called for a pound of small red potatoes, which I bought - twice. Whoops. At least my forgetfulness left me with an extra pound of red potatoes. I also still had some blue cheese, bacon and chives. What to do?

I found Martha Stewart's recipe for red bliss potato salad with blue cheese, bacon and chives. This recipe was even more awesome because I also had leftover buttermilk from a cake I made recently. I changed it up a little because I didn't have red wine vinegar though (I used white wine vinegar) and I only had 2 strips of bacon - but it was tasty regardless. Also very easy and quick to put together and makes a good side for dinner or a quick "snack," if by snack you mean eat almost half of the bowl ... whoops again.

Ingredients

1 - 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes
1/4 cup blue cheese, plus more to top with
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon red or white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup fresh chopped chives
2-8 bacon strips (I only had 2, but it was fine), cooked and crumbled

1. Cut potatoes into bite-sized pieces and put them in a medium saucepan with salt. Cover potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Let simmer for about 10-12 minutes until potatoes are tender.

2. Meanwhile, whisk together mix blue cheese, buttermilk, vinegar, and mustard in a bowl until well combined.

3. Combine potatoes, dressing, chives, and almost all of the bacon in a large bowl. Garnish with blue cheese, chives, and remaining bacon.

Red Potato Tart with Blue Cheese, Bacon and Chives

I've been drooling over this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for a while, and I finally bought a tart pan to make it happen. I also had a package of bacon and some chives, so I modified the recipe a bit because blue cheese, bacon, chives and potatoes belong with each other ... if not twice baked from The Habitat, then in any other way.

**You can retain the original vegetarian-ness of this recipe if you leave out the bacon.

Ingredients

1 tart shell:
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg

1 pound small red potatoes, sliced to 1/4 inch thickness
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 large egg yolk
1/4 cup chives
5-6 slices bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
Sea salt/regular salt

Tart Shell
1. In a stand mixer or food processor, combine the flour, cornstarch and salt. Add in the butter, which should be cut into very small pieces.
2. Add one egg and mix everything until a dough forms. If you don't have a stand mixer or food processor, you can mix with a fork until a dough forms and use your hands to knead it together.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a 12-inch circle. Place the dough in a 9-inch pie plate or tart pan and press into the pan, leveling the edges. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before filling.
Filling
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium saucepan, cover the sliced potatoes with 2 inches of water and boil until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and dry potatoes with paper towels.
3. Arrange the potatoes in the tart shell in circles, slightly overlapping their edges. Sprinkle the blue cheese over the potatoes.
4. Whisk cream and egg yolk together and pour into tart shell.
5. Sprinkle chives, bacon crumbs and sea salt over the filling.
6. Bake tart for 45 minutes or until golden brown (over a cookie sheet in case any filling spills over).

This tart shell was super easy to make in the stand mixer:

Mmmm.

I ate way too much bacon this week and the gym is closed today. Darn.

Don't Gnocch-it before you try it: Goat Cheese and Chive Gnocchi with Asparagus

Although I find recipes on the Kitchn blog to be hit or miss, I feel like I have loyalties to them because they were the first food blog I started following...mainly because Google Reader included it in a package deal of RSS feed suggestions for me. Regardless, their posts inspired me to start cooking more, and here I am.

One of the best hits I've had with their recipes is the Goat Cheese and Chive Gnocchi with Asparagus. It is super easy to make, even for a dough-phobe like myself, and the goat cheese gives the gnocchi a tastier bite than ricotta based gnocchi.

The original recipe says that it serves 2-4, but I doubled the recipe and it fed a total of 3 friends who had already had some soup to start. So I'm going to include the doubled recipe here. Continuing my attempts to tweak recipes, I added a shallot to the sauce, and it turned out to be a nice touch.

Quick tip: Trader Joe's has fairly inexpensive goat cheese.

Ingredients

8 ounces goat cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup fresh chives, chopped
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 - 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. asparagus, washed and trimmed
1 large shallot, chopped or minced
6 tablespoons butter

In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine goat cheese, Parmesan, eggs, 1/2 cup chives and 2 teaspoons salt. Mix with a fork until smooth. Add one spoonful of flour at a time until dough forms but is still a little wet.
Lightly flour a cutting board and line a cookie sheet with wax paper.
With floured hands, take about a handful of dough at a time and roll each piece until it resembles a rope about 1 inch thick. Cut each rope into 1-inch pieces. Use excess dough from the rope in the next handful. Place gnocchi on wax paper-lined pan and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
Bring a pot of water to boil for the gnocchi. Meanwhile, cut asparagus into 1 inch pieces. Steam over boiling water for a few minutes, remove from heat and set aside.
When water is boiling, salt generously. Add gnocchi and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until they rise to the surface. Drain and set aside.
In a large sauce pan, heat butter over medium heat until it begins to brown. Mix in the chopped shallot and let cook for about 1 minute. Add the asparagus, gnocchi, 1/2 teaspoon salt and remaining chives. Toss everything together and cook for 1 minute. Add black pepper to taste.

Mixin' it all up:

The eggs break down the goat cheese pretty quickly, resulting in this goop:

Adding flour! Hello doughy stuff!

Meghan loves raw dough, so I let her eat one: