[I know this was last week’s mystery basket but Jessie definitely deserves to win! 1st, she was the only entry and 2nd this looks amazing! So Jessie, in my eyes you’re 2/3. This makes you our Cook’s Mission champion so far. ]

Leeky Salmon with Sweet Grapefruit Sauce

Ingredients:
1 pound salmon
1 leek, thoroughly cleaned and sliced thin
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp grapefruit zest
1 Tbsp grapefruit juice
Just keep the rest of the grapefruit, too
2 tsp honey
Salt and pepper

Cook the salmon by your favorite method. Peter cooked our salmon in his homemade sous-vide setup.

For the non-Peter cook, I recommend broiling the salmon with a little olive oil and thyme on top, or using this little salmon trick.

While the salmon is cooking, prepare the leeks by placing them into a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes, then draining them and plunging them into an ice bath (or cold water like I did, if you don’t have ice).

Whisk together the olive oil, zest, juice, honey, and salt and pepper. Arrange a few leeks on the salmon and pour the sauce over all. Place a grapefruit slice or two next to the fish (in place of the typical lemon wedge) and serve with a snooty upturned nose and a French accent.

Rutabega!

My arch nemesis! This should be interesting. Good luck, everyone!

This week’s challenge will end next Wednesday, winner will be announced Thursday, and then Nora’s ingredients will go up Saturday morning.

This week’s ingredients were chosen by Jessie, the winner of the pretzel and apricot challenge!

She chose:

Grapefruit & Leeks

Enter your recipes and vote until NEXT WEDNESDAY! Winner will be announced THURSDAY!

Congrats Nora! Your dish was beautiful and creative- an amazing use of celeriac and apples!

Send me an e-mail any time with your mystery ingredient choices.

This weeks challenge will be posted today, but it will extend to next Wednesday. Then, Cook’s Mission will take a 3 day break before announcing Nora’s mystery ingredient.

After seeing last week’s Cook’s Mission competition, I knew I needed to get in on the game! I impatiently waited until Saturday when the ingredients were announced: Celeriac (celery root) and apples. I thought this would be a “no-brainer” because I have seen them prepared together before, and although I have never cooked with celeriac, have seen it prepared in a variety of fashions. The first thing that came to my mind was celeriac-apple puree. Done and done. That just didn’t seem good enough so my next thought went to celeriac-apple soup. Hmm…I have seen/heard of these before. As I searched online for recipes, I just became more confused and my creative juices slowly died. I didn’t want to make a dish that was typical or done before. I peeled myself away from celeriac-apple research and waited until one came to me: Risotto. Initially I was going to integrate the apples into the risotto but I already had thoughts of cranberry-apple chutney in my mind. (Hello THANKSGIVING!)  I decided to use the elements separately, but in a way that really complemented each other. I ended up mixing the chutney into the risotto and it was fantastic! All together my dish was: Celeriac Barley Risotto with Apple-Cranberry Chutney. After tasting the risotto and the chutney I decided to make a side dish of Honey-Orange Carrots and prepare a Pan-Seared Chicken Breast to round out the meal.

SERVES 1:

Barley Risotto:

1 TBS olive oil

1 TBS minced garlic

1/4 Lemon, juice and zest

cracked black pepper

1/2 Leek (white and light green parts only)

1/2 medium Celeriac bulb

1/4 cup quick cooking barley

1/4 cup white wine

1/2 cup Low Sodium Chicken Stock

2 TBS shredded Parmesan cheese

1 cup torn baby spinach

In a medium sauce at a medium heat add olive oil, garlic, black pepper and leeks; cook until soft. Add celeriac, lemon juice and zest; cook until celeriac is tender and slightly brown. Add barley and stir 1 minute. Add white wine and allow to simmer, then add chicken stock. Bring to a boil and then to a simmer. Allow to cook ~10 minutes stirring occasionally until all the liquid has absorbed. Take off heat and wilt in spinach and mix the parmesan cheese. The result is a creamy “risotto”!

Cranberry-Apple Chutney

1 tsp olive oil

1 shallot (white and light green)

2 sprigs of thyme (chopped)

1/4 Lemon, juice and zest

1/2 orange, juice and zest

1/2 cup orange juice

cinnamon

nutmeg

ground cloves

1/2 cup frozen cranberries

1/4 cup jumbo raisins

1 small Gala apple

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

In a small sauce pan add olive oil, shallot and thyme until tender. Add spices, apple, cranberry and raising and mix. Add lemon and orange juice and zest. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and add walnuts before serving.

The major players (celeriac is that thing that looks like a hunk of a tree)

The minor players

Side note: A few weeks ago I bought a fennel bulb after seeing it on Averie’s blog. I don’t like to waste food, so I saved the wispy green top thingies (that is a technical culinary term, I’ll have you know) and froze them. So glad I did, because they were a nice addition to this. Any guesses as to what I made???

Dilled Root Vegetable Slaw with Apples

• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 1/4 – 1/3 red onion, sliced thinly and sliced cut in half
• 1 small golden beet, julienned
• 1 med tree trunk celeriac, julienned
• 1 small apple, cubed (I used a pink lady, but use whatever floats your boat)
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 T lime juice
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 1/4 t dried dill (or 1 T fresh)
• 1 T fresh fennel green thingies (see above for definition)
• salt, freshly ground black pepper, and stevia, to taste

Mix the vegetables and apple in a large mixing bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients for the marinade and shake or stir to mix. Pour over the veggies mixture and toss well to completely coat the veggies. Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 4 hours, stirring a few times to make sure the veggies get equal lovin’ from the marinade.

I’m not normally a slaw fan or a tooter of my own horn fan, but this stuff is the BOMB! Raw veggies marinaded in a sweet and tangy sauce with dill and fennel? Yes, please! So summery and fresh tasting, it really made me excited for warm weather and skirts and flip flops! I also can’t wait for my garden, because this would be far better with fresh dill (which I fell in love with during last summer’s garden bonanza).

I ate this all day long today. Straight from the bowl in the fridge. (I love alone, don’t judge.)

Congrats Jessie! Your super-creative Secret Apricot Passion Pudding won the Apricot and Pretzel challenge.

You get to pick the ingredients that will be announced next Saturday. Just shoot me an e-mail about what you choose!

A note for all future winners on picking the ingredient: please keep it vegetarian and reasonably seasonal so as many people can participate as possible. Thank ya!

AND thank you all who participated. The pictures really blew me away and I loved the creativity!! Homemade mustard? Apricots and rosemary? Apricot glazed chicken and tuna? Awesome. I hope everyone plays again!

Celeriac (celery root) and apples!

VOTING IS STILL OPEN for the Apricot and Pretzel challenge! The winner will be announced MONDAY MORNING!

Good luck everyone!

Ingredients

• 1 delicious, organic, locally grown Egg, separated and at room temperature
• 6 Dried Apricots (about, I had extra)
• 1 teaspoon of Agave Nectar
• A few tablespoons of crushed Pretzels

Directions

First, put your dried ‘cots in a sauce pan with plenty of water and let them cook for a few minutes. Just to soften them up and add moisture back into the ‘cots. Your call on how long that is.

Meanwhile, crush up the ol’ pretzels, so they are ready to go. Also, separate your egg! The egg white should be in a VERY clean bowl and ready to be whipped into a frenzy. Also prep your ramekin with some sort of non-stick spray.

Once the ‘cots are done, cut them into strips and place in your blender (or food processor, of course). Add the egg yolk. And your Agave. And blend! You will end up with a very pudding like consistency (yum!). Put this aside.

Now, it’s time to whip your egg white to the stiff white-peak consistency. It’s not so bad, just put a little elbow grease into it and think about how you are also getting a workout — win!

Then, take a metal spoon and fold your apricot pudding into the egg white. Be careful and do not over mix it! Even if the apricot isn’t evenly blended, don’t worry — it will turn out fine. Then, flop your mixture into your prepped ramekin, make an X mark in the top of the soufflé — this will help it rise. And then dust the top with your pretzels.

Place into a pre-heated 400 degree oven, set the timer for 10 minutes and patiently wait for your lovely desert to cook. Pull it out of the oven and enjoy! The salty, sweet combo is awesome!

P.S. Apologies for the poor photos; these are via iPhone, due to my camera suddenly being dead as soon as I started cooking — of course!

So I’m an idiot. I’m such an advocate for in-season eating and local food, and what do I go ahead and choose for the first Cook’s Mission Challenge? Apricots. My heart was in the right place- last weekend, Upstate NY was in the high 70’s and I was feeling Spring! I associate spring with apricots, so I thought ‘perfect, I’ll make apricots the secret ingredient!’. Are apricots at any farmers markets? No. How about in any grocery stores? No. So was this a poor choice for the tail end of winter? Probably.

So that means dried fruit, which I’m okay with. Actually I’m more than okay with it. I hated dried fruit when I was younger, but when I tasted fruit that wasn’t soaked is sulfur (in my mind, sulfur=egg water) I grew to love dates, apricots, plums and even raisins.

The thing with dried fruit is: less water means a more intense taste, a more intense sweetness and yes, more calories. Fresh fruit will always have my heart, but I do love the occasional candy-like chew, and caramel-esque flavor of dried fruit.

I was thinking the mystery basket ingredients (pretzels and apricots) would be fun in a savory dish, but I hadn’t baked everything in a while so I decided to go for a muffin recipe.

The filling of these muffins is a gooey sweet apricot fudge. It keeps them so moist and is better than any icing!

The actual muffin is a hybrid apricot banana bread  with crunchy pretzels as a topping. They’re vegan to accommodate more people!

Filling

• 1/2 cup dried apricots
• 1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 tsp salt

Process all ingredients in a blender or food processor until creamy and smooth.   

Apricot Stuffed Apricot Muffins

• 1/4 cup apple sauce

• 1 tbsp flaxseed, milled

• 1/4 cup almond milk (or soymilk)

• 1/4 cup honey or brown rice syrup

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 3/4 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

• 1 batch of apricot walnut filling, above

• 1/2 cup chopped pretzels

• 3 tbsp chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350*

Combine the apple sauce, flaxseed, almond milk and honey. Let mixture sit for fifteen minutes.

Why? Flaxseed has thickening properties that can increase the viscosity of the batter. I believe it’s the soluble fiber in the seed that binds water molecules. Have you ever added Metamucil (soluble fiber) to water and let it sit? It turns into goop! The properties of flax and chia seeds are similar and keep the muffins from falling apart. I let this sit for 15 minutes to give the seeds time to thicken the liquid.

Whisk together the flour, salt, cinnamon, leavening and apricots. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients and let sit for 5 minutes.

Why? Pouring the wet onto the dry lets the starch molecules in the flour swell before agitating them and producing gluten. Gluten is a protein structure that will be chewy or tough, so you want to avoid that. ‘

Fold together the wet and dry just until the powder disappears.

Why? The more you mix, the more gluten structure is created.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup (or disher) distribute batter into 9-10 holes in a greased muffin tin. Add 1 tbsp of filling to each muffin, then cover with another tsp of batter. Top all muffins with crushed pretzels and walnuts, if desired.

Bake for 7 minutes in the oven. Because the cooking time is so short, there’s no need to open the oven and rotate the pan unless you’re sure your oven has hot spots. Opening the door will actually increase the chances of uneven cooking.

Cool the muffins and then enjoy! They’re awesome with coconut butter, or Coconut cream cheese.

Nutrition: (per muffin) 174 calories, 5 grams fat (1.6 grams saturated fat), 30 grams carbohydrates (3 grams fiber) (12.7 grams sugar) and 3.7 grams protein. Provides 7% recommended daily value of Vitamin A, 6% Vitamin C, 6% Iron and 3% Calcium.