Feed Your Kids

I first encountered Kataifi (I’ve also seen it spelled “katafi”. I’m not sure which is right, but on my box of dough, it said “kataifi”.) at one of my favorite restaurants, Artie’s, in Fairfax City, Virginia. They have blue crab fritters that are breaded with kataifi (finely shredded phyllo dough) and served with roasted corn salsa and ginger lobster butter. They are SO delicious and you should definitely stop and have some, if you are in the Northern Virginia/Washington D.C. area.

I thought that it would be fun to try something else with shredded phyllo, and Emeril’s website was obliging enough to have this recipe: Katafi Wrapped Chicken Strips with 2 Dipping Sauces

I used Emeril’s “Baby Bam” spice, which is a “bammed-down” version of his “Essence” spice. The recipe for this great seasoning is in his “There’s a Chef in My Soup” book, but it contains paprika, salt, parsley, onion and garlic powder, black pepper, oregano, basil, thyme and celery salt. I use “Baby Bam” on almost everything and even keep a glass jar of it out on my counter, near the stove, with the salt, pepper and olive oil. The chicken strips were good, and the chicken itself had good flavor, but the phyllo was fairly bland. I don’t know if I over-breaded and there was just too much, but I think, if I made these again, I might sprinkle a little Baby Bam over the top of the strips before they’re baked. The good news is that the sauces were pretty flavorful. Hubby decided to use them (well, mostly the raspberry) for “dousing” sauces, instead of dipping sauces, and I think that’s probably the best way to go. The strips, with all of the crumbly, dangling kataifi, are a little unwieldy to be “finger food”, so they pretty much require a fork, anyway, so having them covered in sauce is not an inconvenience. Both Boy and Girl liked these.

The two dipping sauces were:
Apricot Dipping Sauce and
Spicy Raspberry Dipping Sauce
They were both good, but the Raspberry sauce really wasn’t that spicy. I didn’t have seedless raspberry preserves, so I just used what I had, which did have seeds, but it was fine. Girl preferred the apricot sauce. Boy liked the chicken plain, with no sauce. This dish actually might have been really good with a roasted corn salsa (with chopped tomato, black beans, a little onion and cilantro).

I still had some leftover mixed salad greens from Hubby’s party, so I went to Epicurious and did a quick search for a “4-fork” rated salad and came across the Mixed Greens with Roasted Asparagus and Apple. A bonus was that I still had some Gruyere on hand from our recent fondue experiment, so all I had to buy at the store was apples and asparagus. My store happened to be out of regular old green asparagus, and only had the white (it IS out of season right now – I should have known better), but it looked good, so I thought I’d give it a shot. The salad was good and Girl liked it, but Boy has decided that he’s not a great big vinaigrette fan, so I may have to lay off it for a while, or add just a tad bit more sugar to his portion of the dressing. The salad tasted fine, but since I used the white asparagus, almost everything had the same color (white-ish apple, white-ish cheese, white-ish asparagus), except for the salad greens. I did add a bit of roasted red pepper, because I still had some on hand, but it was a little difficult to see if you were eating a chunk of apple or a chunk of cheese, since it all looked similar. Having the green asparagus would’ve helped, I think, but it was pretty good, anyway.

Here’s how it all looked on the (my) plate:

Wasabi-Miso Marinated Flank Steak from Cooking Light, my absolute most favorite food-related magazine of all time. Their new cookbook (The All-New Complete Cooking Light Cookbook) is an update of the one that they put out a few years back and it is absolutely awesome! I even gave it to two friends for their birthdays recently.

Potato Gratin with Gruyere and Creme Fraiche is from Bon Appetit a few years ago. This is one of my all-time favorite recipes, great with lots of things – fancy enough for an adult dinner party, but very kid-friendly. I didn’t put the parsley on top of it tonight, because I didn’t have any – but it was still great! Rice probably would have been a more appropriate choice with this meal, but I just felt like steak ‘n’ taters!

To go with this, I steamed some edamame, in the shell. I like the organic (frozen) edamame from Costco – it comes with multiple single-dinner-size packets in one big bag. It tastes lots better if you add plenty of salt to the cooking water. My kids think it’s really fun to use their teeth to scrape the beans out of the pod – kinda like eating artichoke leaves.

Overall, this was a good dinner, but I’m not sure that I would make this flank steak recipe again. The mirin in the marinade made the finished product VERY sweet and the specified amount of wasabi didn’t add enough spice to counterbalance it – even the kids said that it was too sweet! Using real sake, instead of sweetened mirin, might have helped, but it just wasn’t a standout. A friend of mine made the Flank Steak with Cilantro-Almond Pesto, however, which is the recipe on the same page as the Wasabi-Miso Marinated Flank Steak in the cookbook, and she said that it was outstanding, so I’ll be trying that one next.

Gonna go have some leftover Key Lime pie for dessert…….mmmmmm……..

Hubby and I went to our first dinner meeting of our neighborhood’s “Gourmet Club” last night. The menu was:

Peppers Provencal served on Baguette Crisps.
I think that this recipe is from the Silver Palate cookbook, but I’m not absolutely positive. It was really good! Our hostess served it with a yummy 2004 Jewel Viognier from California.

Toasted Pinon-Coriander Crusted Goat Cheese atop Garden Greens in a Poblano-Almond Lime Vinaigrette

This salad dressing was really good, but the cook/gourmet club member that prepared it said that it was pretty labor intensive. She also said that most of the prep. work could be done ahead of time, however, so that’s a plus. The coriander flavor on the goat cheese was very strong and lemony. I happened to really like it, because I REALLY like coriander, but if you’re not a HUGE coriander fan, I would cut back the coriander quantity just a TINY bit. The wine served with this one was 2005 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc from Australia.

Whole Roasted Game Hens with Grits and Wild Mushroom Sauce
This was delicious. It was from the current “restaurant” issue of Bon Appetit. The combination of seasonings was perfect and the creamy grits were the perfect foil for the brined hens. This was served this with El Miracle 2003 Tempranillo-Shiraz from Spain.

Key Lime Pie with Passion Fruit Coulis and Huckleberry Compote

This was the part of the meal that I was responsible for, so it would be immodest for me to be TOO effusive about it, especially since I’ve never met a Key Lime pie that I didn’t like, but it really was yummy. The actual pie part of the recipe is just your basic lime pie recipe (Eagle Brand, egg yolks and lemon juice in a graham cracker crust), so it was really easy to make. If I were doing it again, I might add a little lime zest. The two sauces were not difficult to make, but the ingredients were VERY difficult to find. I ended up substituting blueberries when I couldn’t find huckleberries and had to special-order the passion fruit puree to be shipped overnight on dry ice from Perfect Purees. Frankly, I’m not sure it was worth it. The passion fruit coulis was VERY tart and tangy and any more of it than just a garnish would be WAY too potent. I’m not sure that $22 for the puree with $30 worth of shipping is worth it for pie garnish. It was a beautiful, colorful presentation, though, and looked lovely on the plate with the creamy pie, dark rich berries, fluffy Chantilly cream and the bright golden coulis. This was served with Martin Weyrich Moscato Allegro dessert wine. I’m not a huge dessert wine fan, but it was good for its type. I’d rather have a nice vintage Port, myself.

Overall, the food was all fabulous and the company and conversation were even better. We weren’t sure what the Gourmet Club was going to be all about and didn’t know, for sure, if we would enjoy it, but if last night’s guests and menu were any indication, it’s going to be GREAT!

Sorry I don’t have original photos for you, but I didn’t want to take my camera to dinner at someone else’s house! I may make some of these recipes again and will take photos if I do!