First things first: I love Caesar Salad. I consider myself a Connoisseur of the Caesar Salad, and know the best place in Boise to have one (Bardenay downtown), which restaurants don't make their own Caesar dressing (most of them), and where one may get anchovies placed atop the salad (Smokey Mountain Pizza, Red Feather, others). There is, however, nothing like making Caesar salad at home. I think though (much like cheesecake), that most people are intimidated by making what may be considered "restaurant food" at home. Or just don't care enough to make it. This is why I am here. Let's get one thing straight:

Making Caesar salad is easy! And tasty! And you will want to eat the whole thing yourself!

Croutons: If you don't want to make croutons, you can get some good ones somewhere else. But I warn you: you're missing out. It takes mere minutes to make fresh croutons, and they're totally worth the effort.

Get a good tasty baguette or similar airy bread. Slice it into 1" rounds, then into cubes. I suggest using a bread knife for everything so you aren't squishing the bread. Place the breadcubes in a bowl and add S&P (½ Tbsp each), garlic powder (1 Tbsp), and rubbed sage ½ Tbsp). If you have a Misto or similar, spray olive oil onto the cubes as you toss. If you don't have a Misto or similar, lightly drizzle the olive oil over the breadcubes and continue adding more if needed when tossing until the spices are sticking to the breadcubes - they should not be oily. Make sure to use a good quality olive oil - no store-brand stuff unless it's Trader Joe's or similar.

pre-tossed, after tossing

Put the cubes on a lined cookie sheet or jellyroll pan and bake in the oven at 350 degrees. Toss every 5 minutes or so until the cubes are browned and hard. Once they're done, let them cool completely, and they can be stored for many days in a sealable plastic bag.

Dressing: Ingredients needed:
1 egg
½C good olive oil
2 Tbsp anchovy paste (or some Worchestershire sauce, though it's better with the paste, trust me)
1 large lemon
5 cloves minced garlic (or more, to taste)
½ Tbsp dijon mustard
S&P

Here's the fun part: crack the egg into a bowl and add the anchovy paste or worcestershire. Whisk together while slowly adding the olive oil. If you're uncomfortable with using a raw egg, you can coddle it, or use some egg-replacement crap. The best way, of course, is just to get over yourself and use the raw egg. I can't promise it won't kill you, but I've never had an issue with them.

What you're trying to do here is emulsify the egg with the oil, which in turn pretty much makes mayonnaise. Usually mayo needs a bit more stirring, so when the dressing starts getting thick, you can lay off and go onto the next step: adding the lemon juice. Before cutting the lemon, squish-roll it between your hands or on the counter. This breaks some of the membranes within the lemon, thus allowing for easier juice extraction. Whisk in the lemon juice and the dijon and add the minced garlic. Once it's all put together, S&P to taste, and set aside to make the salad.

For the salad: Grab a bag of Romaine lettuce (or some romaine heads if you like - you'll just have to chop them up later), a can of artichoke hearts in water, a can of hearts of palm, a wedge of parmesan cheese, and another clove of garlic. Before you do anything, cut that clove of garlic in half and rub it all over the inside of your bowl, then toss the garlic out. Dump the bag of romaine in the bowl. Drain the artichoke hearts, cut them in half, and toss into the bowl. Do the same with the hearts of palm, but only use half of the can. You can eat the rest while you're putting the salad together. grate the parmesan (about a ½ cup) over the salad.

Of course, you don't have to add the artichoke hearts and the hearts of palm. It's just my opinion that these make for a tastier salad. And who am I to tell you how to put your Caesar salad together. As a quick aside, this reminds me of a saying by a great sage:

"If you can't be trusted to make the right decisions, then I'll make the decisions for you!"

Here's the salad paired with the Champagne-poached salmon I made for the entrée!

Posted at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With the husband out of the country for a while, I take opportunities to test out recipes and screw up things I cook a lot to hopefully make them more pleasing to the pallette. Most importantly, I get to eat a lot of fish.

Ben isn't much of a fish eater (ever since I almost killed him with some bad ahi 4 years ago), which is really rather disappointing, since I enjoy fish a lot, and would eat it more often if he was willing to put up with it. Salmon, on the other hand, is something he'll eat as long as he can't smell it cooking. While this has forced me into several situations where I am in need of coming up with clever ways to cook it, the recipes leave much to be desired, as they usually produce too much of a tender fish. I have been plotting (since hearing that Ben was leaving again on his globetrotting jaunts) a dinner night with my friend Amy, who seems to be one of the few friends I have that "do" fish. While looking at some recipes on the Food Network site, I found the one mentioned above in the subject line. It sounded too good to pass up. Therefore, may I present to you the following:

A happy fish-eater

The recipe can be found here, and will not be reprinted on this site. The following photos and slight instruction-type descriptions will have to do and totally aren't descriptive enough to get a cease & desist from the Food Network. The recipe is originally from Emeril Lagasse, a first for me.

Here is a buttered saute pan containing champagne, shallots, dill, and S&P. I purchased the not-the-cheapest champagne at Albertson's, because I knew that the not-the-cheapest champagne would be cheaper than the-cheapest champange found at the Co-Op. I found out later that I was totally correct in this assumption, which gave me a bit of a superiority complex for 30 seconds, at which point I spent 20 minutes searching for vanilla beans, which brought me down a bit. No doubt, they were in the spice section the whole time.

Once the poaching liquid cooks a bit, the salmon is added. Though there were only 2 of us for dinner, I made 3 fillets, as the recipe calls for 4. The third fillet I ate for lunch today, and was still fantastic.

I spooned the liquid over the salmon every 3 minutes or so, in between prepping for the sauce. After a while, I just stuck the whole pan in the oven on warm while I finished the recipe. Amazingly, the salmon didn't overcook, and was pleasantly moist and flavorful when masticated for consumption and energy. This is what it looked like when it came out of the oven.

Making the sauce: I had to do some stuff with a vanilla bean that I haven't done for a while, namely scraping the seeds out. I suggest getting the fattest vanilla bean you can for any recipe requesting one to do this kind of task, as it makes the scraping a million percent easier. Here, I've added the seeds, pod, and more shallots to even more chapmagne as the base of the sauce.

Once the above has been simmered down (summers, donna) to almost nothing, we add a crapload of heavy cream. I had a bit of an issue when, while not paying attention to the stove, and instead whisking Caesar dressing, it bubbled over the sides of the pan. Obviously, the burner was set too high for the "simmer". It made a big hissing noise, and I had to yelp and screech an explitive. Thankfully, Amy was in the bathroom, so she didn't get to see this bit of unprofessionalness from me. Also, the sauce was not ruined. But you have been warned.

After the sauce reduced a bit (though admittedly, probably not enough), it was strained into a bowl and some champange vinegar, as well as S&P, were whisked in. Amy and I were extremely hungry by then.

The salmon was served on a plate with the sauce over top and some dill sprigs for garnish. You can tell by the thin consistency that the sauce very well could have been reduced further, therefore not making a lake of the entire plate.

The whole process took maybe 40 minutes or so, and could have been condensed a bit if I would have had the braincells to cook the sauce at the same time as the poaching. The actual dish was fan-farking-tastic. The Champagne-Vanilla sauce lent a subtle sweetness to the salmon, which paired perfectly with the crispness of the champange. The dill sprigs on top provided dill overkill, so both Amy and I scraped it off before continuing to eat. As stated above, the salmon was tender, but not mushy at all (as it is rather hard to make salmon mushy). This is a recipe that I would definitely make again, especially for guests that eat fish. Though some of the ingredients were expensive, they were totally worth it. The taste was delicate and fulfilling; I couldn't imagine Emeril shouting "POW" at this salmon at all.

The salmon was served with a Hardcore Caesar salad.
A++ would buy again.

Posted at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was invited over to a friend's house to have fiesta on Sunday, and it was requested of me to make guacamole. Good thing, too. The avocados at my local Co-Op have just started looking good, and there's nary a condiment I love more than the guac.

The name guacamole comes from Mexican Spanish via Nahuatl AhuacamOlli, from Ahuacatl (="avocado") + mOlli (="sauce") (stolen from Wikipedia). This isn't much different than aguamole, which is a small burrowing animal attracted to water, or a dimensionless quantity. Of water.

Anyhow,

Make it!
||
V

Gather:
4 ripe avocados. If they're overripe, that's probably even better. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to make guac with underripe avocados. You have been warned.
1 small red onion
1 large bunch of cilantro
1 medium lime (or more, to taste)
5 cloves of garlic
1 ½C of your favorite salsa (spice determined by your taste)
S&P
Tequila!!

Choppity-chop up the red onion into small pieces. Mince the garlic. Put both in a semi-large bowl.

Skin and cube the avocados.
My favorite way to skin avocados (which will only work with completely ripe avocados):
Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Lightly score the skin on each half into 2-3 sections. Peel away. So easy!!

Add the cubed avocados to the bowl and add S&P - about a ½ Tbsp apiece; cut the lime in half and squeeze all of the juice out over the avocados, and add a large shot of the tequila. If you want to get fancy, add some zested lime rind. For extra iron, mash with a slightly rusty potato masher. If slightly rusty potato masher is unavailable, use a non-rusty potato masher or a large fork.

Mash until avocados reach desired consistency. I suggest mashing until still a little chunky, but with no fear of the dip falling off of the chip.

Chop up a good handful of cilantro (which will chop up to be a rather small amount), and add the salsa to the mixture. If your salsa is very wet, drain some of the water out. We don't want this to get too sloppy. Fold in the added ingredients carefully (we don't want the avocados to become more mashed) as if you're dealing with a fussy baby or juggling knives.

Once it looks well-mixed, have a generous taste, preferably without a chip or any other distractions. Is is spicy enough? Salty enough? Peppery enough? Mine wasn't spicy enough for me, so I added a liberal amount of Sriracha! Is it cool to add a Thai chili sauce to a traditionally Mexican dish? YES. And don't question me again. If yours isn't hot enough, I highly suggest adding sriracha or some kind of chili pepper/sauce.

Mix it up again and taste. Yummy? Good. Now don't eat all of it - wrap it up and leave in the fridge for at least an hour so all of the flavors have time to party. Once they've met, made out, and had some kids, enjoy the guac with some chips, veggies, or just eat it with a spoon. It's so good for you!

Posted at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is what I had for dinner the other night. Ben was out of town, and I was eating late, so I didn't actually want to cook anything. The mother-in-law had given me the fixings for some Caprese salad a couple of days prior, so I thought it was the perfect time to toss it all up and eat something lovely. Here is a generic Caprese salad: fresh mozzarella, tomatoes (oh the tomatoes at Costco! So lovely!), fresh basil, S&P, olive oil, and vinegar.

I, however, wanted to spice it up a bit. I had some oregano leftover from a main dish made for the first seder, so I threw some of that in, too. Then I looked at all of my leftover fuji apples (originally for charoses), chopped one up, and tossed that in. Now, normally Caprese salad is made with balsamic vinegar, but I accidentally locked mine up in the chametz cupboard, not to open until tonight, so I used some red wine vinegar. All the rest was the same. And I cannot describe to you how bloody good this was. The sweetness of the apple balanced the tartness of the vinegar perfectly. The addition of fresh oregano was genius, adding a more earthy flavor to the rest of the standards. I will definitely be bringing this at whatever BBQs/Parties to which I am invited this summer.

Posted at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can tell that I'm really on top of things when I post the recipe for my favorite charoses on the last day of Passover. Well, keep it in mind for next year, I guess.

Charoses (sometimes called charoset) is one of my favorite things about Passover. It's made for the seders as a symbol of the mortar the Jews in Egypt used to build stuff for the Pharaoh, and is traditional to eat throughout the holiday. I don't make it out of season, as I don't think it would be right - I'm all purist masochistic like that. I usually end up making at least 2 batches of it because Ben and I will go through a big bowl in 3-4 days. You can put charoses on matzah for a lovely snack (see below), eat it with veggies, or just spoon it into your mouth. I <3 it.

Ashkenazic charoses is incredibly easy to make, and will probably take about a half-hour from start to finish (if you have the same kind of tools I use).

Start off with 2lbs of fuji apples (I prefer fujis über alles), 1lb of tart apples, a lemon, and a few cups of walnuts.

Cut and core the apples (a cutter/corer is so bleeding handy and cheap from Williams-Sonoma) and put into a food processor.

Pulse after every 3 apples so the rest will fit.Once all of the apples are in the processor (more than half should be pulsed down at this point), add a good glug of sweet wine (I like to use Kesser or Rashi), then add the following spices:
1tbsp cinnamon, ½tbsp nutmeg, ½tbsp ground cloves, 1tsp ground ginger (dried - if using fresh ginger, make it ½tsp), and a dash of cardamom.

Add 2 large handfulls of walnuts (or any nut you prefer - this is also excellent with almonds and pecans) and let the processor get processing.

Blend until desired consistency. I like mine almost completely smooth, but applesaucey (all the better to spread atop matzah!). Allow to refridgerate overnight, up to 24 hours. You may see some water seperation from the fibres, but just mix it in. This will probably keep in the fridge for 5-6 days. I wouldn't suggest leaving it out on the counter to get warm and attract little bitty living things to reproduce and make you sick.

Yummy!

Posted at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ah cheesecake. Rich, smooth, tasty, decadent. I literally had to search through 5 cookbooks for a decent cheesecake recipe before I realised that what I needed was something old school. A cookbook published before someone thought of ruining a cheesecake with oreos, candy bars, or jellybeans. Before cheesecake wasn't good enough unless it contained a hard-to-pronounce Peruvian herb or a berry found in only 5% of the berry-growing free world. A cheesecake-flavored cheesecake.

I found the perfect recipe in Helen Corbitt Cooks for Company. This cookbook originally found its way to my cupboard most likely through my mother. She gave me a stack of old cookbooks when I moved out on my own, and I have kept all of them in my various kitchen cabinets since, though they have rarely been used. The book features Mrs. Corbitt herself, dressed in a drapery-esque dress that clashes wonderfully with the too-busy wallpaper in the background. The table in front of her is laden with down-home food in silverplated chafing dishes and glass bowls, ready for the 30+ people she is planning to entertain that night.

Published in 1974, it is 5 years older than I, making it 32 years old this year. If you are ever searching for something along the lines of "Danish buffet supper" or "Orange rice", look no further - both of these and a few hundred more simplistic (for our time) recipes are contained within. Helen even inputs her own quips about ingredients, the way she hates calling certain dishes "Creamed *", and how to use the bottom of a cup in 50 different ways. Unfortunately, this book is no longer in print. If you're interested, however, a simple search on Froogle might lead you to a cheap copy on ABE Books or elsewhere. Now, onto the cheesecake:

(Halfway eaten, of course - couldn't get a photo quickly enough)

For the crust, crumb 1lb. graham crackers (get the good kind - nothing sucks like a bad cheesecake crust). Mix the graham cracker crumbs with 1/4lb. melted butter, 1tsp. cinnamon, and 1/2C sugar. I did this all in the Cuisinart, and didn't take any photos. Once it's all crumbly, dump the whole lot into a pan with removable sides - I used a 9" springform pan - and press into the bottom and up the sides as high as you can get it to go without collapsing.

The filling calls for 1.5lbs of cream cheese (usually 3 packages). Put all of the cream cheese into a mixer (G-d help you if you don't have one), and mix it all together until it's soft and pliable. It's probably best to have the cream cheese warm up to room temp before doing this. Did I? Nope. And that just means you have to scrape the sides and bottom down more when you're mixing anything with it.

While your cheese is being beaten, wisk together 4 eggs, 1C of sugar, and 1tsp vanilla (if you're using fake vanilla, up it to 2tsp).

Add the egg/sugar/vanilla mixture to the cheese and beat it up. I used my mixer on high speed for this. Make sure to stop every once in a while to scrape down the sides, bottom, and beater.

When everything has been completely integrated, it should look like this. If it has little bitty pieces of cheese still floating about, that's fine - they'll get cooked just the same.

Pur the cheese mixture into the prepared pan and carefully even the top with a spreader or whatever you have lying about. I drop the pan a couple of times on the counter to get the cheese to settle and to let any air bubbles escape. If some of the crumb mixture falls on the top of the cake, don't worry - we'll be covering it up anyhow.

Bake in a 375-degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cake is mostly firm. Every cheesecake I've ever made has looked undercooked in the middle. So, if it jiggles a bit, don't worry about it. However, if it's sloshy everywhere, it may be that your oven isn't turned on.
Take the cake out and allow to cool for 10 minutes (keep that collar on the cake pan). Mix together 2tbs sugar, 1C sour cream and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, spread it on top of the cake and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Take it back out of the oven, allow to cool completely, cover, and refridgerate overnight-24 hours. When you're ready to serve it, spread with some more sour cream (or not), release the cake from the cake pan collar, and garnish with some fresh berries, mint, and sugared flowers (or not). I tossed some blueberries still in the carton on the table when I was serving it. Make sure to have a sharp knife and a glass of warm water nearby in which to clean the blade per slice - this is a clingy cheesecake.

Eat it up and don't be surprised if a friend (or many friends) comes over to your house to eat the rest of it the next day.

Posted at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The mom's birthday occurred on the 7th of April. Since I'm an awesome daughter, I invited her and the finacé over for a celebratory dinner that night - all of which was centered around the fact that she wanted cheesecake for dessert. Since I don't make all too many dairy meals, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the lasagna again. The dinner would be happening during shabbat, so I prepped everything the night before, including making the cheesecake, while I was also making Italian Wedding soup for Thursday night's dinner. The stove and oven were full, and I was harried, up until midnight, when everything was done enough for me to sleep. Enjoy the fruits of my labors: No-meat lasagna (based again off of the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook) - the cheesecake will be in a seperate post:

I began with making the homemade pasta sauce again - only this time with 3 cans of chopped tomatoes instead of 2, and a bit more wine. You can see the original walkthrough for the sauce and the lasanga here. The other difference is that I made the sauce a bit more "spreadable" with the handyness of an immersion blender. While I prefer a chunky sauce with plan noodles, for a lasagna and the layers and the cheese and everything else, it's better to have a thicker sauce with less chunks.
Below: (First tomato add -> Simmered down -> After blending -> With the basil)

With the sauce done (it took about 3 hours for the simmering and the like), I prepped the veggies, cheese, and pasta.
The cheese filling (which I really didn't do before) consisted of 15oz ricotta ("full" fat, which is still relatively little), 4oz fresh goat's cheese, a handful of shredded asiago, a handfull of freshly shredded parmesan, an egg, fresh chopped italian parsley, fresh chopped basil, and S&P.

(showing the fineness of the parmesan)

With that all mixed up, I chopped up some (on sale!) crimini mushrooms with my handy-dandy (product placement!) Pampered Chef Food Chopper. This is about 2 1/2 C:

Once the noodles had been soaking for about 20 minutes (I used some whole-wheat lasagna noodles found at my local Co-Op), I layered everything in the pan for baking the next night: sauce, noodles, cheese mixture, musrooms, sauce, noodles, cheese mixture, rest of the sauce (it covered the top this time! rock!), then some more asiago and parmesan. Here it is, ready to put in the fridge for the night (covered by plastic wrap):

When everyone showed up the next night, I the lasagna in a preheated 350-degree oven and it cooked for about 45 minutes, until it was all bubbly and we were salivating from the smell (I'd already served the Caesar salad - that recipe to run soon). It came out gorgeously (see the photo at the top), and tasted heavenly. The husband had senconds, and we were left with only 3 small pieces leftover.

Check out these happy faces. The lasagna was a hit - the mushrooms added an incredible flavor and meatiness, and the cheese mixture was perfect - not too stringy-cheesy, with a perfect balance of "tang" from the goat's cheese and smoothness from the ricotta. I'll definitely be making this again. I also got thumbs up from friends Amychan, Laura, and SK, who had the leftovers.

Please ignore the huge soda cup - it wasn't part of the original placesetting.

Posted at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

With the incredible business of cleaning for Passover, along with all of the friend-type activities going on, I haven't had a second to start thinking about what I'm going to put up here. Thankfully, I documented a 3-course night: my version of an Italian Wedding soup, Lasagna, and Cheesecake. I made all of these in one night to make sure I had time to prep a salad for my mom's dinner meal, which included the lasagna and the cheesecake. The Italian Wedding soup we ate that night. So, I'll beg forgiveness and wow you with 3 different recipes today. First up: the Italian Wedding soup:

I make this soup often-ish, as it contains things I usually have in the kitchen: onion, celery, carrots, zucchini, spinach, broth, and ground meat. It's totally forgiving and incredibly tasty.

While waiting for everything to sautee below, pull out about a pound and a half of ground meat. I use ground beef, because I rarely ever use it for anything else, and it will totally get freezerburned if I don't put it to use. In a medium-sized bowl add the meat, then add 1 egg, some breadcrumbs or panko, lots of onion powder, some garlic powder, a pinch of hot curry, and a grind of hot red pepper flakes. I like my meatballs spicy. Hand-mix this all together and form into 1" meatballs. Place the meatballs in a pan and put into a 400-degree oven.

After 20 minutes, check the meatballs - they should be a medium-brown on the top and a lot of the fat and stuff should be in the pan. They're done! Don't worry about cooking these all the way through, as they'll be cooking in the soup, too - we just wanted to get some of the fat out. Drain the pan and hold the meatballs to add when the soup is ready for them.

Start off with chopped onion, celery, and garlic - sautee in a large pot with some olive oil over medium heat. When the onions become translucent, add sliced carrots.

Sautee the carrot about 5 minutes longer, then add approximately 4C chicken broth and 4C water. I made broth from the Honey-Mustard Blackened Chicken I made the week before, which had a wonderful flavor. Without that, I would have just used some No-Chicken broth from the store. If you want to add some pulled chicken to the soup (as I usually do, but I didn't have any chicken left this time), add it now.

Bring the soup to a boil and lower the heat to medium. Add the meatballs and cover to let the soup simmer. Check back every 5-7 minutes, and once the meatballs are floating, add the sliced zucchini. Cover again and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Chop up some raw spinach (I think you could use frozen, but I've never tried this) and add it to the soup. Cover again and let simmer for 5 minutes.

Last step! Pour in 1 1/2 - 2 Cups of a small-sized pasta. I used ditalini, but that's because I can't find orzo at the Co-Op.

Let the noodles cook to al dente and voila! Bon Appetit!

Posted at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After Havdalah on Saturday night, I had a hankerin' for some good roasted chicken. The problem is that I didn't have any accoutrements that would normally go on/in a roasted chicken - so I made this up:

Burnt Honey-Mustard Slow-roasted chicken with Garlic wilted spinach, Curry carrot puree, and a last-minute Crunchy green asian salad.

The origins of the chicken are simple: I'm not a fan of most chicken skin. Every once in a while, I'll roast a chicken perfectly, and will really enjoy eating the skin, but I tend to just peel it off and toss it to the side, like a used up kleenex. So, thought I, why not just burn the crap out of the skin, but make the insides all juicy and lovely (hopefully without making the fire alarm go off)?

The origins of the sides are also simple: I was out of most everything I normally have with which to accompany vegetables and the like. Nevertheless, they all turned out wonderfully, and my notoriously picky-eater husband went back for seconds. If that doesn't sound like the cheesy "Cook of the month" quote from Better Homes and Gardens magazine, I don't know what does. Here're the recipes:

The Burnt slow-roasted Honey-mustard Chicken:
For the "glaze", I used about 3 1/2 Tbsp of 2 different kinds of mustard: a spicy dijon and a stone-ground. To this, I added an equal part of honey, then a splash of olive oil to thin it out a bit:

I tossed the chicken into my roaster, and poured the honey-mustard mixture over the top, slightly spreading down the sides and onto the wings (there's no reason to coat the bottom, since this is where the juices normally go anyhow). Add water to the bottom of the pan, so any drippings won't burn and make the smoke alarm go off:

(If you're using a kosher chicken, don't forget to remove the wing tag - that doesn't go too well with the rest of the meal)

Put the chicken into a preheated 300-degree oven. I suggest using a meat thermometer to judge when the chicken is done. Mine plugs in and impatiently lets me know when it's halfway done, almost done, and take it out of the oven already (relatively cheap at Williams-Sonoma). The cooking will take between 2 and 4 hours, depending on the size of the bird:

While the chicken was cooking, I got started on prepping the rest of the food items for consumption later. Since my oven only has one rack, and I failed to roast garlic earlier, I dry-roasted some garlic in a non-stick pan. Turn the heat on medium and put the skinned garlic cloves in the pan. Turn the cloves every once in a while - you can press on them to see when they're done (they'll be somewhat soft and fragrant). These will be used in both the carrot puree and the spinach:

For the Crunchy Greens Asian Salad:
I had some celery and cucumbers in the fridge, and since I didn't think that there were enough "real" veggies being served with the meal, I threw this together. Cut the cucumber and celery into matchsticks, then put them into a medium lidded container. Atop the c&c, pour about 1 1/2 Tbsp stir-fry sauce (I used some orange-ginger sauce I had on hand), 1 glug of vinegar (I'm all out of rice vinegar, so I used some red wine vinegar), and 1 small glug of sake (I used this because of the lack of rice vinegar - you could probably do without, if you wanted to). Add salt, pepper, and some ground hot pepper flakes, put the top on the container, and toss until well-coated. All done! Put into the fridge until you're ready to eat:

For the Curried Carrot Purée:
About an hour before the chicken is done, top the carrots, and cut into halves (I used about 10 small-medium carrots). Cover the carrots with water (normally I use No-chicken broth or similar, but once again, I was out), and put on the stove on high. Once the carrots come to a boil, lower the heat, cover, and let simmer for 45 minutes. If you have more carrots, or if the carrots are massive, it may take more time for the carrots to be soft.

Once the carrots are fork-tender (they should be speared easily with a fork and/or fall apart when speared), use a slotted spoon to take the carrots out of the water or broth and put them in a food processor. Add a glug of soy milk, 2Tbsp of margarine (olive oil works well, if you're not into the margarine thing), 2 cloves roasted garlic, 1Tbsp medium-hot curry powder, and 1/2C of the water or broth in which the carrots were simmering.

Puree the carrots until the consistency of thin mashed potatoes. They shouldn't be runny, and thick enough to keep their shape when doled out. If you aren't a fan of curry, these carrots are also wonderful without the extra seasoning. Once the processing has been completed, they're all ready to be served up!

For the Garlic-wilted Spinach:
About 15 minutes before the chicken is done, slice 4 cloves of roasted garlic and put into a small sealable container. Add 1Tbsp good olive oil, 1Tbsp water, and 1/2 Tbsp roasted garlic dressing mix. Shake all of the above the mix fully, then spread across the bottom of a non-stick pan.

Put the pan on a medium burner and wait until the garlic starts to sizzle. Add the spinach (I used a bag of organic baby spinach from the salad aisle), and toss carefully to coat. Turn the heat up to medium-high and add 1/2C of the carrot water. If you don't have carrot water, just use normal water. Cover, and let steam for about 45 seconds. Uncover and let the rest of the water dissolve. Salt and pepper the spinach to taste, and it's ready to eat!

The chicken, revisited:
Once the timer goes off (or you've tested the chicken to make sure all the juices run clear and all that), remove from the oven and let sit for about 5 minutes - the honey-mustard glaze should have caramelized and burned, hopefully without making your kitchen a smoky mess. It's important that the chicken be cooked at such a low temperature to make sure the glaze doesn't burn too quickly. Carve and peel the skin away before serving. The meat retains some of the honey-mustard taste, but not enough to overpower the delicate yumminess of the poultry. It should be incredibly juicy. I saved all of the bones and extra meat (including the "burnt" water underneath the chicken) with which to make broth later... enjoy!

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