fast food: a fake "bouillabaisse" and some garlic flatbread

A friend recently told me many of my recipes on the blog were "involved." Or fancy, or something along those lines. :) I do like to experiment and try new recipes, but a lot of my cooking is also super quick and simple. This is a recipe inspired by one of the recipes in Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express - 20 minute meals ("Fast Fish Soup"). Michael and I set the timer to see if we could make it in 20 minutes, and it took 22 minutes, but we also made a garlic flatbread with some left over pizza dough I had in the fridge. So all in all, pretty quick. I will definitely try more recipes from this book this winter. I also like Bittman's style - it encourages improvisation with its "narrative" style recipes rather than exact measurements. I took some frozen fish out of the freezer yesterday, and everything else was on-hand in the pantry or fridge.

quick fish soup
1 chopped onion
1 minced/pressed clove of garlic
1/2 tsp paprika
4 cups stock (fish, veg, or chicken)
1 can chopped tomatoes with juice
pinch saffron
salt and pepper
a couple of leaves of kale, de-stemmed and chopped roughly
1 lb white fish, cut into chunks
garnish: chopped parsley

1. Cook onion, garlic and paprika with a bit of olive oil until onion is soft.
2. Add stock, tomatoes, saffron, salt and pepper, kale, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for five minutes
3. Add fish and cook until cooked through (about five minutes).
4. Serve garnished with parsley and with bread.

garlic flatbread
we had leftover pizza dough, so I just spread it out on a cookie sheet, cranked up the oven high (500), and spread olive oil and pressed garlic on the dough, baked until brown (about 5-10 minutes).

venison with red wine sauce - fit for a new year's feast

This year we had a low-key New Year's Eve at home, just the two of us. Michael and I celebrated Christmas together since he was in Miami and I was in Minnesota over the holidays. I wanted to make a nice dinner, and so I prepared some of the venison tenderloin I got from my dad. I felt so honored - he only had 2 tenderloins and he gave them to me, hoping I would make something delicious with them. I don't have a lot of experience making venison, but I grew up eating a lot of wild game and freshly caught fish thanks to my hunter-fisher father.

You want to cook the venison rare, so it doesn't get tough. The sauce is super tasty - lots of flavor. I am not a huge red-meat eater, and I really loved this one. Michael said it was the best meat he's ever eaten. The edges of the meat get brown and crispy, and the inside is soft and tender (it was also a prime cut). The sauce, Michael said, reminded him of Stuben in Germany where you can get wild boar or venison with a hearty sauce. I served the meat with a fresh carrot salad and a wild rice pilaf with delicata squash.

holiday side dishes: cranberry-chipotle sweet potatoes

I have my friend Anne to thank for this tip. She has a fun habit of cooking her way through issues of Cooking Light magazine and then saving the good recipes in a binder. I like the idea, but I don't think I could ever be that methodical. Instead I accumulate cookbooks and then cook mostly from the internet. :) Anyways, this is one gem she passed along to me, a recipe by Mark Bittman. Super festive looking, and delicious. Make these for a holiday feast, or just to spice up your winter plate.