Christmas in Portland

This year we celebrated Christmas in Portland, Oregon with Michael's side of the family. We did some last-minute gift shopping, got our nails painted, and visited the local pottery shop for the kids to make their own ornaments. In addition, we enjoyed the Christmas Eve and Sunday services at Athey Creek church.

Another big part of Christmas, of course, was the food. One Sterrett family tradition is to have a big pot of wassail on the stove. I'm not sure of the exact recipe, but this year's version was egg-free and alcohol-free so the kids could drink it, too. And on Christmas Eve we had the traditional dinner of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green beans.

Before and after Christmas we also enjoyed going out to eat. Thursday night we had a babysitter come so that the adults could eat out together. We went to the Macaroni Grill, which has excellent allergy information sheets so Michael knew exactly what he could order. To no surprise, he got steak and red wine, which he said were great -- he would happily go back for more. On our last night in Oregon we had eaten up most of the leftovers, so we decided to go out to eat again, this time with the kids. We went to Typhoon, a Thai restaurant chain in the Portland area with notations on its menus as to which foods are gluten-free. We especially liked the chicken satay, tom kha gai soup, Thai yellow curry, and phad Thai, and we'd love to go back the next time we're in the Portland area. Perhaps next time we'll also make it over to Bob's Red Mill to take a tour and have lunch.

Lemon-Garlic Green Beans

It's been a while since Thanksgiving, but my excuse for not posting until just recently is that the past couple of weeks have been really busy. The busiest part was that I had to write the final 10-page paper for my literature class. I turned the paper in on Tuesday evening, but then I needed to catch up on all of the other things that I had been putting off, like doing the laundry and vacuuming.

Now that the laundry is done and the house is a bit cleaner, I'm finding the time to get back to posting some of the recipes that I've been wanting to share. One of these is for lemon-garlic green beans. We had these green beans at Thanksgiving, which we celebrated with my family. I really liked how the lemon and garlic flavor of the green beans contrasted with the flavors of the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stuffing. The recipe came from the December issue of Southern Living magazine, and here is the link to the original recipe. Below is my modified recipe. The primary change is that we like the beans with a bit more lemon flavor, so I add more lemon juice and zest. If you don't have fresh basil, the beans are just as good without it.

Lemon-Garlic Green Beans
serves 6 adults

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lb. fresh haricots verts or green beans
• 2 tsp. sea salt, divided
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 3 shallots OR 1 small yellow onion
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
  
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Instructions:

Put a medium pot of water on the stove over high heat to bring to a boil. Add 1 teaspoon of the sea salt to the water. While the water is heating, trim the ends off of the haricots verts or green beans. Finely chop or thinly slice the shallots or onion, depending on your preference, and set aside. Chop the basil and set it aside as well.

When the water has come to a boil, add the green beans to the pot and let them cook 4 to 5 minutes, until they are tender-crisp. When they are done, remove the beans from the water. If you are serving the beans later in the day, immerse them in cold water to stop the cooking process. If you are serving the beans immediately, just drain them.

While the beans are cooking, place a medium pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil to the pan and let the oil heat up. When the oil is hot, add the onion to the pan and saute until the onion has softened. Add the garlic and stir constantly for 30 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat. Then add the chopped basil, lemon juice, lemon zest, pepper, and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. Stir all of the ingredients together. Add the green beans to the pan and toss them in the onion mixture to coat them thoroughly. Serve immediately; or if you are serving the beans later in the day, place them in a bowl in the refrigerator and reheat them later in the medium pan on the stove.

Lemon Roast Chicken with Vegetables

I used to make a whole roast chicken with vegetables. It was a great one-dish meal . . . when it turned out. The problem was that if the chicken was a little too big or a little too cold when I put it into the oven, then it took longer for the chicken to cook than for the vegetables. Since we didn't want to eat under-cooked chicken, we sometimes ended up with over-cooked vegetables. The other problem was that as Michael has become more sensitive to corn in the food he eats, he has begun to react to whole roast chicken. At first I thought that buying an organic or kosher chicken would help, but it doesn't always. So, since I really like roast chicken and vegetables, and especially as a one-dish meal, I needed to come up with an alternative.

I decided to try buying a whole chicken that was already cut into pieces. If I buy kosher or organic chicken and wash the chicken pieces really well in cold water, Michael doesn't react. I think the combination of the kosher/organic chicken, the washing, and the high roasting temperature makes the cooked chicken corn-free. Hooray!

Lemon Roast Chicken with Vegetables
serves 4 adults

Ingredients:

• 1 whole kosher or organic chicken, bought already cut into 8 pieces that still have the bones in and skin on
• 1 1/2 lb. potatoes. Any kind of potato works except for Russet, which fall apart.
• 1 lb. baby carrots
• 1 medium onion
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 2 lemons

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Immediately take the carrots out of the refrigerator so that they can come to room temperature. Pour the carrots into a large bowl.

Lightly grease a 9"x13" Pyrex pan with olive oil. Thoroughly rinse the chicken pieces in cold water. Dry them with paper towels and then place them in the pan in a single layer. Sprinkle the chicken with kosher salt and pepper.

Rinse and dry the potatoes, and then cut them into 1 1/2 to 2-inch cubes. Add the potatoes to the bowl with the carrots. Chop the onion and add it to the bowl. Drizzle the olive oil over the vegetables and toss to coat. Then sprinkle the 1 tsp. kosher salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, garlic, and thyme over the vegetables and toss the vegetables again so that they are evenly covered with the herbs and spices.

Place the vegetables on top of the chicken pieces so that they cover the chicken. Put the pan in the oven and roast for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and take the chicken pieces out of the pan. Toss the vegetables in the juices and then spread the vegetables so that they lay evenly in the pan. Place the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables. Return the pan to the oven and roast for 20 more minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven and check to make sure that the chicken is cooked fully. Remove the chicken from the pan and place on a serving plate. Drizzle the juice of 1/2 lemon over the top of the chicken pieces. Drizzle the juice from the other 1 1/2 lemons onto the vegetables and then toss the vegetables in the roasting pan. Transfer the vegetables to a serving bowl.

Since I never remember who likes white meat versus dark meat, I let people serve themselves from the plate of chicken pieces and the bowl of vegetables. If you have more than two people who like white meat, either cut the breasts in half or draw straws to decide who gets them.

Caesar Salad

Whenever we go out to eat at a fancy restaurant, Michael orders the Caesar salad. His absolute favorite was one that he ate at a restaurant in Vancouver, Canada called Seasons in the Park. Ahh, the memories of delicious meals eaten while we lived in Vancouver. However, we no longer live in Vancouver, and even when we did live there, we couldn't eat out at an upscale restaurant every night. So back in our Vancouver pre-children days, I got on a salad dressing kick and experimented with home-made Caesar salad dressing. I came up with a pretty good dressing that Michael and I both liked. Then we moved back to the US and had kids. For a couple of years I didn't have time to make salad dressings, and I completely forgot about the homemade Caesar dressing that we had liked.

This summer I had a craving for Caesar salad, so I went to our local supermarkets to try to find a bottle of dressing that did not have any corn syrup or soybean oil, and ideally not much distilled vinegar either, since that comes from corn. I was so excited when I found one brand that fit those criteria. Unfortunately, when we tried it out on our Romaine lettuce, it tasted terrible. Fortunately, I remembered where I had put my recipe for homemade Caesar salad dressing. The recipe needed some tweaking to make it egg-free, but after several tries I have come up with the following recipe, which gets Michael's stamp of approval.

The picture above shows Caesar salad with capers. Unfortunately, all store-bought jars of capers that I have come across so far seem to contain either vinegar, citric acid, or acetic acid, all of which come from corn. So although the capers are very tasty on Caesar salad, we don't add them too often. I used the capers to replace the anchovies that are traditionally in Caesar salad. We like the hint of anchovy flavor in our Caesar salad, but I don't usually use it for logistical reasons. The only brand of anchovy paste that I've found in stores near me contains corn oil, and buying a whole tin of anchovies to use 1/2 teaspoon seems like a waste. (We're not anchovy lovers, so you won't ever hear of us consuming the rest of the tin of anchovies for lunch. And we really don't want to attract all of the cats in the neighborhood by offering them the rest.)

Caesar Salad
serves 2 to 3 adults, or 2 adults and 2 small children as a side salad

Ingredients:

• 1 Romaine heart, rinsed and broken into bite-size pieces
• 1 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese. Use either 4C Grated Imported Parmesan cheese, or a block of Parmesan that you grate using the smallest holes on a grater or zester. 4C brand is the only pre-grated Parmesan I've found that does not contain an anti-caking agent, which comes from corn.
  
• 1 Tbsp. sour cream. Do not use low-fat. Use Daisy brand sour cream, or another brand that contains just cultured cream and nothing else.
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice. Use fresh lemon juice if possible, but bottled is okay.
  
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 tsp. granulated white sugar
• 1/4 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• optional: 1/2 tsp. minced anchovies or 1 Tbsp. capers
  

Instructions:

Wash the Romaine lettuce and rip with your hands into bite-size pieces. Dry the lettuce in a salad spinner or with a couple of towels, and place in a large salad bowl.

In a small bowl grate the Parmesan, or sift the 4C grated Parmesan through a sieve to break it up into very small pieces. Stir together the cheese, sour cream, lemon juice, black pepper, salt, sugar, garlic, and Dijon mustard. Then slowly whisk in the canola oil. If using anchovies or capers, stir them into the dressing.

Right before serving the salad, toss the Romaine lettuce with the dressing.