I got a nice big fat cauliflower that I had to use and some walnuts I keep in my freezer and blue cheese so I was able to come up with this recipe easily. Going forward my new oven roasts different than my last oven so I need to turn up my recipes a little and most things seem to take a little longer. So it is very important to know that ovens really do differ. Your cauliflower might not be the same size as the giant one that I was lucky to get at a great price….SO…that also means that servings may differ too. I got six side servings out of this one but often I only get 4 servings from a cauliflower. I’ll say 4 servings because I usually can only find 4 serving cauliflowers.
Ingredients for around 4 servings
1 cauliflower – break down to florets
1 onion – rough chop
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes – slice in halves
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup walnuts
4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons walnut oil
1 garlic clove – either chopped or ground to paste
1 Tablespoon date syrup
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup blue cheese – crumbled
1/4 cup toasted walnuts – slightly crumbled
1/4 cup scallions – sliced thin
sea salt – to taste
crushed black pepper – to taste
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Cauliflower florets, bought cut onion, sliced cherry tomatoes go on a sheet pan(s) and get sprayed generously with olive oil. Do a light sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper. Place in preheated 425F oven until lightly charred…..(ovens do differ…in my old oven this would be 30-45 minutes…in my current oven it is more like 50-60 minutes.)
While the cauliflower is roasting use a stick blender and lightly blend the walnuts with the vinegar, oil, garlic, and date syrup. You might want it still a little chunky and not like peanut butter. Set to the side.
When the cauliflower is done assemble and serve. Add the walnut vinegar sauce. Finish with a sprinkle of walnuts, blue cheese, golden raisins, and scallions. It’s delicious and most people will enjoy!
Roasted Cauliflower with Walnut Vinegar Sauce, Walnuts, Blue Cheese, and Golden Raisins
This recipe is a variation of the Ottolengi Test Kitchen’s Middle Eastern Mac ‘N’ Cheese with Za’atar Pesto. I made it a few months back and it was SO FORKING AMAZING!!!!!!!! Incase you don’t know Yotam Ottolenghi is a famous chef, restauranteur, and multi award and James Beard winning cookbook author. Anyways that Middle Eastern Mac ‘N’ Cheese really was FORKING Amazing…. so
Middle Eastern Mac & Cheese with Za’atar Pesto & Crisp Onions
I thought these same flavors would also be great on a flatbread so I gave it a try.
I made my own bread and my own crisp onions but you can buy a flat bread already made. I always just wing bread because bread recipes are very rarely perfect to the brand flour you buy. They are all ground different so your results will differ. I basically made the bread the way I try to describe on how I make pizza dough. You can look that up on The Forking Truth if you like. The onions are easy. Either you can buy them already made crisp in a bag or slice onions yourself and coat them in either flour or cornstarch and fry in oil on medium heat till crisp. After that all I had to do was to make a cheese foundation that taste like what was on the pasta from the original recipe and then make the pesto. Serving size is difficult to judge. This recipe makes enough to dress two 14 inch breads that I cut into 16 small slices. I don’t know if you want one, two, three, or four slices to eat? I think the majority of people will eat two slices so I’ll guesstimate 8 smaller servings.
Ingredients for around 8 servings
2 – 14 inch flat breads
1/2 cup crisp onions
5 Tablespoons butter room temperature – topping
3 garlic cloves – ground to paste – topping
1/8 teaspoon turmeric – topping
1+ 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin – topping
5 Tablespoons cream cheese
1 + 1/3 cup mature cheddar cheese – shredded
6 + 1/3 oz feta cheese – crumbled
sea salt – to taste
black pepper – to taste
1 lemon – zest & supreme the segments and chop the supremes, squeeze what’s left not to waste the juice – pesto
3 Tablespoons za’atar – pesto
1 cup either parsley, cilantro, or celery leaves or a bit of each – rough chopped – pesto
1 garlic clove – ground to paste – pesto
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts – lightly crushed – pesto
6 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – pesto
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – to oil pan
Directions
Depending on your bread depends on the temperature you need. If you are using a purchased bread you only need to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. If you are baking a pizza type dough then you would need a higher temperature on what your pan or stone can handle between 450 and 500 degrees F.
Make topping- In a medium bowl combine butter, garlic, turmeric, cumin, cream cheese, cheddar, and feta cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set to the side.
Make pesto – In a small bowl combine zest, lemon supremes, any lemon juice that you can squeeze from the skins you removed from the supremes, za’atar, cup of leaves (parsley, cilantro, and or celery), garlic, pine nuts, olive oil. You will want to blend this slightly. It is easiest if you have a stick blender. Or you can muddle it with a mortar and pestle.
Preheat your oven to at least 350 degrees F.
Place a bread on an oiled pan.
Spread 1/2 of topping on bread. (other 1/2 goes on 2nd bread)
This goes in oven till hot. (about 10 minutes)
Next – take out of oven and add up to 1/2 of pesto. (Some goes on 2nd bread)
Finish with crisp onions and slice and serve!
Cheddar & Feta Flatbread with Za’atar Pesto & Fried Onions
A Special THANKS!!!!!!!!! to Ottolenghi Test Kitchen so I could come up with what I got here!
A corn muffin is very easy to prepare. I gave these corn muffins a southwest twist by using masa de harina, green chilies and cheese to basic corn muffins. This recipes makes 24 small muffins. Extras can be frozen for latter use. Latter I found out that they make a FORKING SCRUMPTIOUS filling for fresh fish. They actually sell fresh fish at supermarkets here….WOW if you can get some fresh mild white fish by where you live you can make something incredible.
Ingredients for 24 servings
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup masa de harina
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter room temperature (either salted or unsalted butter will work here. – I usually use unsalted but got salted by accident and I thought I had enough salt so I’m adding sea salt to taste to recipe)
sea salt – to taste
1 egg – lightly beaten
2/3 cup non fat dry milk (or just one cup milk and skip the water in this recipe)
1 cup water
1 cup scallions – sliced thin
4 roasted chili peppers – peeled, stem & seeds removed – well chopped (I used Anaheims but many different ones are delicious…You might need more or less chilies depending on what kind you use)
2 cups mostly cheddar cheese – cut in small pea sized cubes.
1/2 cup cilantro – well chopped (thin stems are good but thick stems should be thrown out)
Directions
Set oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl mix together the masa de harina, corn meal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, dry milk, (and salt if using). Next mix in the butter, egg, water, scallion, chili peppers, cheese and cilantro.
You use paper cupcake liners because the cheesy muffins might stick to the pan.
Fill the cupcake liners a little over 1/2 way.
In my oven on middle rack the muffins were done in 15 minutes. Timing may differ slightly.
Green Chili & Cheese Corn Muffins
They are tasty and moist. Everyone will enjoy!
But after I made them I discovered that they make a FORKING AMAZING STUFFING for mild white fish. I cut a muffin in half and rolled a sole filet around half a muffin.
I rolled sole filets around 1/2 muffins and added my home made salsa to the tops of them and popped them in a 350 degree F oven on an oiled baking sheet for 20 minutes. They came out FORKING AMAZING!
Spices, dijon, maple, walnuts, and celery leaves all go together very well and all taste great on carrots so here we are! This recipe will make 4-6 servings depending on how big your serving size is. Ovens do differ so timing may differ. Tis took far longer in this oven than I think it would have taken in my last oven.
Ingredients for around 5 servings.
1 1//2 pounds carrots – peel if not organic. You can cut however you like but that will affect cooking time. I cut mine longways.
1 Tablespoon Dijon (I used Amaro Brand)
1 teaspoon ground yellow mustard
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 orange – the fresh squeezed juice and zest separate
2 garlic cloves – ground to paste
2 Tablespoons butter – room temperature ( doesn’t matter if salted or not you adjust to your liking)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt – to taste
pepper (of your choice) – to taste (I used one small dried Calabrian crushed)
2 Tablespoons walnuts – ground
2 loose Tablespoons – celery leaves – chopped
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Lay the carrots in a single layer on baking sheet(s) and set to the side.
In a small mixing bowl mix together the mustards, coriander, fennel seeds, maple syrup, orange juice, garlic, butter, oil, pepper, salt. Mix well. Spoon this mixture evenly over the carrots.
Put them on the middle rack. In my oven this took a total of 45 minutes to be done. I put mine in for 35 minutes and turned them over and cooked them another ten minutes for a total of 45 minutes.
Finished them with the walnut crumbs, orange zest, and the celery leaves.
Spiced Dijon Orange Maple Carrots with Walnut Crumbs and Celery Leaves
The only main vegetable I had today was celery. So I looked up celery recipes. To my surprise I found a whole long list of Italian Celery with Chick Pea Recipes. They all were different but not all but most didn’t have meat in them. When I read all the recipes they sort of reminded me of turkey stuffing but with chick peas instead of bread but maybe slightly soupy. Not all but a couple recipes involved mashing a potato or more beans in it to thicken it up some. I also read that many Italians eat the celery with chick peas with an egg to make it a complete meal. I winged my own version that is different. I didn’t have potatoes or more beans to add to mine but I did have Taralli Pugliesi Pizza Crackers so I added some to give it some body. I thought it was just right to stuff into a chicken breast so that is what I did. I do note that the Celery & Chick Peas takes an hour or more to prepare and needs some time to cool before you can stuff it into chicken so you need to plan for that.
I usually cut 1/2 chicken breast different but with the shape this one was this seemed like the way that made sense to me today.
Then add stuffing
Roll it shut and season with an Italian type seasoning (I used not all but most of 1 Tablespoon sea salt, 3/4 Tablespoon ground black pepper, 1 small crush Calabrian pepper, I Tablespoon dried basil, 1 Tablespoon dried oregano, 1 Tablespoon fennel seeds)
If you have a sous vide this gets vacuumed sealed.
These go in the sous vide at 146 degrees F for around 3 1/2 hours. I refrigerated some of what I made and froze some. After refrigeration I reheated mine at 350 degrees for 35 minutes with Italian tomato puree. They came out delicious and expertly moist. My husband was very impressed. He said how come when we go to restaurants we never get chicken this moist. If I owned a restaurant I would sous vide most of the chicken.
Italian Style Celery & Chick Pea Stuffed Chicken
It’s just a fact that the sous vide results are so darn perfect that you can re-heat something you made from the sous vide and it will still be perfect.
Ingredients for around 8 servings
4 large 1/2 chicken breast opened up for stuffing
1 bundle celery – Sliced thin, reserve some leaves for finishing…..(Sorry I forgot to photo with celery leaves I reserved)
1/2 large onion – diced
6 garlic cloves – ground to paste
12 kalamata olives -pits removed, rough chop
2 short Calabrian peppers
1 can (around 15.5 oz) chick peas , drained, rinsed 3 times
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 lemon zest
1 mini red bell pepper – core, stem, seeds removed – diced
1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon (this adds great flavor and almost enough salt)
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 oz Taralli Pugliesi Pizza crackers – crushed
sea salt to taste
Italian seasoning to taste
1 cup Italian tomato puree
Directions
Set oven to 375 degrees F
In a 1/2 buffet pan or large dish add the celery, onion, garlic, olives, 2 short Calabrian crushed peppers, chick peas, safe, fennel seeds, lemon zest, bell pepper, Better Than Bouillon, olive oil, water, Taralli Pugliesi pizza crackers salt, and pepper.Cover pan. Cook on middle rack until the celery is tender (about an hour but timing may differ)
This mixture needs to cool to at least room temperature before you stuff it into chicken breasts.
When cool stuff the chicken breast, season each chicken breast all over with Italian seasoning. Then vacuum seal. Repeat till done. They go in a preheated sous vide. When the sous vide hits 146 degrees after the chicken is added let it go 3 1/2 hours. You can have heated tomato sauce or Italian tomato puree, vegetables and some of the extra celery and chick pea stuffing for serving. Garnish with some of the reserved celery leaves. You can brown in a pan if you like but it’s not necessary here.
Sometimes I read a recipe and I see it different in my head than what I read. I think I improved a recipe that I read from a major publication. Anyways this came out FORKING GREAT and it makes two servings. You do need gochujang for this recipe (that is why it looks like chicken salad instead of egg salad) . I strongly recommend to buy an Asian Brand from an Asian Grocery Store because the stuff they sell at your neighborhood grocery store isn’t much different than ketchup and it’s not the taste that you are going for.
Ingredients for around 2 servings
4 eggs – hardboiled
1 Tablespoon gochujang (preferably an actual Asian Brand)
1 Tablespoon prepared Chinese mustard
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
fresh ground black pepper – to taste
sea salt – to taste
1/4 cup peas
1 scallion – sliced thin
1 Tablespoon – cilantro
Optional – 1 Tablespoon mayonnaise for drizzle for finishing.
Directions
Boil the eggs in boiling water for ten minutes. Next place eggs in ice bath and let then chill about 30 minutes.
In a small mixing bowl add the gochujang, mustard, sesame oil, and peas.
Peel and chop the eggs and add to gochujang mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top with scallions and cilantro. Do an optional mayonnaise drizzle if desired.
This recipe is easy but is kicked up a couple notches from the pickled onions and the sumac crusted feta cheese. Easy recipe just roast the carrots with a little cumin and the broccoli with smoked paprika…All the flavors are FORKING DELICIOUS together! This will make around 4-6 servings. I got 6 side servings. Your carrots might be smaller so I’ll go on the low end just in case.
Ingredients for around 4 servings
1 onion – slice thin
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
10 carrots – Peel if not organic. I cut mine in half longways (you can cut however you like but they will cook in different time)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt – to taste
ground black pepper – to taste
1 teaspoon cumin
1 bunch broccoli – break down in florets
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt – to taste
ground black pepper – to taste
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
4 oz feta cheese – crumbled
1 teaspoon sumac
optional – 2 tablespoons parsley or cilantro
Directions – preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a small bowl or tub combine the onion, water, vinegar, sugar, pepper, and coriander. Let this sit on the counter for an hour. You can refrigerate after that.
The carrots go on a baking sheet. Spray them generously with olive oil. salt and pepper to taste. Then sprinkle them with ground cumin.
Ovens differ….also carrots differ in size and freshness too so your timing may differ from mine. Mine took about 50 minutes on the middle rack.
In a small bowl add the crumbled feta and sprinkle it with sumac.
I got very thin broccoli that can almost pass for broccolini so I didn’t need to par-boil mine but you might need to par- boil yours. About 2 minutes in boiling water. Then give them an ice bath. You might want to peel and trim the stems too!
Broccoli goes on a sheet pan. Spray generously with olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Give them a sprinkle of smoked paprika. Broccoli timing may also differ. Mine took 20 minutes to be done on a lower rack.
Assemble – Carrots and broccoli go on plate. Add pickled onions. Add sumac crusted feta. Finish with fresh parsley or cilantro if desired.
Roasted carrots &.broccoli with pickled onions and sumac crusted feta cheese
The way I made this one was very awkward but also came out too delicious not to mention. I scored some corn from my local supermarket real cheap and wanted to try something new. I wondered if anyone smokes corn. Turns out lots of people smoke corn. Most people say to soak the corn for an hour before smoking……So I did that……but my corn wasn’t cooked yet…so I wanted to cook it. Other people just oil or butter up the corn and eat it a few people add grill marks just for looks.
So I threw the corn covered into a 350 degree oven for an hour with a stick (4oz.) butter sliced up and water that almost covered the corn.
Something FORKING Amazing happened……..The corn is delicious and juicy and a just right good tasting smoke. BUT I GOT ANOTHER gift…The water is incredible with flavors. It actually is smelling the whole house up with deliciousness.
I was thinking that I need to make some sort of sauce out of the water…maybe I should reduce it……….?
Anyways-
I was thinking that an onion and a bell pepper would go well with the corn.
Since a stick of butter is in the water maybe I can flavor it up. cook the onion and pepper and maybe reduce the rest????
I drain the corn and add to the corn/butter water
2 Tablespoons of date syrup
2 Tablespoons paprika
2 Tablespoons chili powder
2 Tablespoons sea salt
I let it cook on medium simmering for around 30 minutes.
1 onion diced
1 red bell diced
After the 1/2 hour the vegetables have absorbed lots of flavors and are soft like soup vegetables. I remove them with a slotted spoon and add them to the corn that I sliced off of the cob. I taste the corn liquid and decide to take it off the heat. I add some to the corn side dish and the rest I am saving to use on the next vegetable I make.
I can across a recipe from Milk Street for Red Chimichurri. For some reason I imagined it going with parsnips. I didn’t do their recipe as written and changed the formula some. The biggest change I made was changing the amount of oil they put into it. I cut the amount of oil to around one third and added some water instead. My homemade smoked pecan sea salt might have also made a delicious difference here. Anyways this came out FORKING AMAZING but it is spicy…….Not sure if it would be as delicious with less heat?………. It’s so FORKING delicious I don’t want to screw with it……..I added some roasted red peppers to cool it off a little at the end.
Ingredients for around four servings
1 lb parsnips – (peeling is optional…organic don’t peel) cut into chunks (if core is woody remove it……If you knife passes threw keep core)
4 Tablespoons water
4 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Tablespoons sweet paprika
2 Tablespoons red pepper flakes
2 Tablespoons dried oregano
4 cloves garlic – ground to paste
4 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sea salt – preferably smoked pecan sea salt
non stick spray
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Really you can cut your parsnips however you want but if you cut them similar to what I did they will get done in around 30 minutes. I cut mine like this.
In a large bowl mix together the water, canola oil, sweet paprika, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, garlic, balsamic vinegar, salt. Mix well. Mix in parsnips to get well coated.
Spread out the parsnips in a single layer on a sheet pan. They get covered with foil that was sprayed with non-stick spray so the top foil doesn’t stick to the parsnips.
They go on the middle rack for around 30 minutes or until the parsnips are fork tender.
Parsnips in Spicy Red Chimichurri
I added two roasted red peppers. This is SPICY but it really is FORKING DELICIOUS!!! A special THANKS!!!!! to Milk Street so I could come up with what I got here!
