Day 154 : Raspberry Sauce & Raspberry Lemon Shake

I wanted to make a lemon shake and got the idea to add raspberries, but I didn’t just want to throw whole berries into the mix.  A few years ago I created this raspberry sauce I knew would be perfect for this so went ahead and whipped some of that up and then used a bit of it for the shakes.  You will end up with extra sauce, but it is great over ice cream, on pancakes, or drizzled over cake, etc.  Tonight I used sugar free/fat free pudding because it’s what I had on hand, but honestly I HATE them.  I hate that fake sugar flavor and the feeling it leaves on my teeth, so unless you are dieting (and in that case you are likely aware of the issue and it doesn’t matter) I would suggest using the regular version.

 

Raspberry Sauce

Serves : makes about 1 cup              Time to make : 5 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1 cup frozen raspberries
• 1 1/4 T. sugar
• 1 T. raspberry preserves
• 4-5 T. prepared pink lemonade (I just make a glass from the powder and measure from that)

Directions :

1. Combine ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 
2. Push contents through a sieve to remove seeds.
3. Cover and store in the fridge.

Raspberry Lemon Shake

Serves : 1                 Time to make : 5 minutes

Ingredients :

• 1 cup vanilla ice cream
• 1 T. raspberry sauce
• 1 1/2 T. lemon pudding mix (instant)
• 1/2 cup milk
• whip cream

Directions :

1. Combine all but the whip cream in a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Top with whip cream.

 

Day 103 : Homemade Tartar Sauce

Since my son recently decided he likes battered fish, I decided to grab a box from the store.  And with that I wanted to make my own tartar sauce.  I found this recipe on Key Ingredient, and decided to give it a try.  I think it turned out pretty well, and I think the longer it sits, and the more the flavors marry the better it will get.  I had to make it tonight rather than ahead of time so I didn’t get to chill it for as long as I would have liked.

When I was reading the recipe I wasn’t sure what a cornichon was, and figured there was no way I was going to find it.  I looked it up and it basically said it was a gherkin so I figured I MIGHT be able to find that.  To my surprise Yokes has cornichons.  I had thought to use regular pickles in place of the cornichons if I couldn’t find them, but I think there is a pretty big difference taste wise between the two.  Cornichons are these tiny little pickles that are fairly soft, and not really strong or tart like dill pickles would have been.  Anyway, the only difference I made to the recipe was to throw in a bit of lemon zest.

Homemade Tartar Sauce

Makes : about 1 Cup                 Time to make : q0  minutes (plus chill time)

Ingredients :

• 1 Cup mayo
• 3 T. capers, chopped
• 10 T. cornichons, finely chopped
• 2 T. fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 T. olive oil
• dash hot sauce

Directions :

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, cover, and chill until ready to serve.

Day 64 : Spicy Chicken with Herb Sauce

Finally a nice leisurely day at home made all the better by this great dinner!  When you’re making this it seems like a LOT of spices, and it is, but ironically it’s not too “spicy” or strong.  The spices create a sort of crust to the chicken, which once blackened in the skillet is SOOO good.  It also seems to help to seal the moisture into the chicken resulting in some of the moistest chicken we’ve ever had from the skillet.  The chicken itself has a nice smokey flavor with just a hint of heat to it, and is pretty good by as is…… then you add the sauce.

The sauce is a great contrast to the spices, giving it a nice fresh flavor.  It’s also a very beautiful green that contrasts with the blackened red/orange chicken nicely.  I think next time I might make it in the blender however because my processor is so large that with so few things inside it tends to slip under the blades and I think I would have gotten an even thicker emulsion if that wasn’t the case.  As it was, it was still very good, but it separated a bit and the oil was in a puddle after a while.  Anyway, this is a very good, “different” way to have your chicken and I recommend it to anyone.  NOT a very easy dish to photograph in a hurry however, so you’ll have to excuse the rushed picture for tonight.

*I made the spice rub earlier in the day and after rubbing a bit of olive oil onto the chicken I rubbed it into the chicken and then placed it in a glass dish covered with foil in the fridge to allow the spices to really penetrate the chicken.  I think that really helps to get all the flavor you can out of the spices.

 

Spicy Chicken with Herb Sauce

Serves : 4              Time to make : 20 minutes

Ingredients :

Chicken:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 T. smoked paprika
• 2 tsp. ground cumin
• 2 tsp. ground mustard
• 2 tsp. ground fennel seeds
• 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tsp. sea salt
• oil or butter for cooking

Sauce :

• 1 C. extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 C. fresh mint leaves
• 1 C. fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
• 6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 2 T. dijon mustard
• 1 T. diced green chilis
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Directions :

1. To prepare the chicken, combine paprika, cumin, mustard powder, fennel, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Rub your chicken with a bit of oil or butter and then rub the spices into the chicken patting them in well.
2. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the chicken breasts in some additional oil or butter for about 5 minutes per side until cooked through.  Spices will blacken and that is ok.
3. For the sauce, place mint, parsley, garlic, and chilis into a food processor and roughly chop.  Add mustard and salt and pepper, then process again.
4. With the processor running on high, SLOWLY drizzle the olive oil in to create an emulsion.
5. Serve sauce over chicken.