Turkish-Spiced Chicken with Hot Green Relish

Our dinner crew had our first meal of the 2015-2016 season.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been doing this since 2010 and this is my 420th post!

So much has happened in the intervening years….trips to Europe, Asia, Latin America (including Cuba), and all around the USA.  There have been graduations, weddings, new jobs, remodeled houses and new houses, including a shore house and charming tiny house that you can read about here.  We’ve celebrated birthdays, holidays, a mayoral inauguration (The First Lady of our Borough is part of our crew!), planted new gardens and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.  We’ve welcomed new puppies, bunnies, kittens and returning graduates (we seemed to have spawned the boomer-rang generation!).  We ate, drank, gossiped (just a little), giggled through the happy times and cried and supported each other when things got challenging.  All-in-all, it’s been a wonderful six years of enjoying meals and moments with cherished friends.   

We look forward to Dinner Night each week.  It’s like eat therapy.

To usher in this new season, we had dinner at M.’s house.  We also planned her birthday celebration and when we realized that she was cooking her own birthday dinner, we felt really bad.  To compensate, I made her a cake — Gingerbread Cake with Orange Buttercream Icing….it was really, REALLY good but not as good as the chicken M. served.  

This recipe is from The Splendid Table.  Listening to Lynne Rossetto Kasper on American Public Media is like listening to a dear friend tell a story.  She has a wonderful laugh and her style is so easy and conversational that it’s hard to believe she’s not sitting in the same room with you enjoying a cup of tea.  As I read the recipe, I could hear her voice saying these words as an introduction… 

“This dish seems simple, but I can’t tell you how much I love it. I’d heard about a Turkish relish-cum-salsa made with crushed green olives and chiles and the desire to try it became overwhelming one night. I have no idea whether this is anything like the Turkish relish I was told about and I don’t care. I just bashed everything together, adding and adjusting. When I’d finished I knew I would make this for the rest of my life. It packs a punch, it includes my beloved cilantro, and is so hot it makes you reach for a beer.”

You know what, Lynne, our crew agrees, although we reached for wine! The chicken is perfectly seasoned and the relish is absolutely delicious.  M. served the grilled beauties with basmati rice and more than one of us enjoyed seconds (not at all uncommon on our Wednesday nights!).  M. usually tinkers with recipes, but not this time…she made it exactly as written and it was wonderful.

This recipe calls for salt flakes or "fleur de sel." Flakes are formed when wind dries the surface of water that has a high salt concentration, producing thin, flaky crystals.  These crystals are known as salt flakes.  When using salt flakes, use a bit more than regular salt, so if the recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of salt, use 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt flakes.

We took advantage of the late summer magnificence and ate on the deck…it was peaceful and so completely wonderful.

Turkish-Spiced Chicken with Hot Green Relish 

The Splendid Table

For the chicken:

6 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

2 garlic cloves, grated

salt and pepper

6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs

For the relish:

2 garlic cloves, chopped

sea salt flakes 

1 green chile

1 red chile

1/3 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

leaves from 8 sprigs of mint, torn

1/3 cup pitted green olives, coarsely chopped

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

A good squeeze of lemon juice, plus lemon wedges to serve

To marinate the chicken, mix the regular oil, cinnamon, cayenne, cumin, garlic, and salt and pepper together to make a marinade. Make little slits all over the underside of the pieces of chicken with the point of a knife. Put the chicken into a dish. Add the marinade and roll the chicken in it to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight. Bring it to room temperature before cooking.

Make the relish just before you cook the chicken. Put the garlic and salt into a mortar and bash it with a pestle until it is crushed. Halve and seed both chiles and chop them roughly. Add them to the mortar with the cilantro, mint, and olives and bash everything together, gradually adding the virgin olive oil and balsamic until you have a rough paste (it should be chunky, not puréed). Add lemon juice to taste and set aside.

Heat a ridged grill pan. Lift the chicken out of the marinade, shake off the excess, and set it on the pan. Start off cooking it on medium heat for about 2 minutes on each side, then reduce the heat to low and cook for another 4 minutes. The chicken should be cooked right through and charred, but not burnt.

Serve the chicken with lemon wedges, rice or flatbread, a bowl of Greek yogurt, and the relish. 

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

I love anything citrus so you would expect that I would adore Lemon Poppyseed Muffins.  

I had my first lemony muffin experience while working in an office building on Rittenhouse Square in the 90’s.  I would walk to the Commissary Market, that was located at 1710 Samson Street, and pray the pulpy confections were on the menu.  If I struck gold, I would stock up, sharing one or two with friends who did not work in the city, in particular, someone who I eventually married.  I don’t recall if I ever confessed that the yummies were purchased, not homemade, but I suspect my ruse was eventually exposed!   

Maybe that explains some things.

I lamented the day in 1991 when the Commissary Market closed because it was a reliable destination for all kinds of gourmet treats, not just baked goods.  You can read about the Commissary Market by clicking here.

I’ve not been able to find a Lemon Poppyseed Muffin quite as good as those baked by the Commissary, but I tried a recipe this weekend and, I must say, this version comes pretty damn close!  There muffins are a bit dense, like those I remember, and, courtesy of lemon zest and lemon yogurt, the lemon flavor is perfectly balanced…not overpowering at all.  I opted to not add the glaze and they were still quite moist and very delicious!  I gave some to my shore neighbors who were delighted!  

This recipe would make nice little mini-loafs too, and Target carries the sweetest little disposable loaf pans. Make a few loafs and tie with a festive bow for a wonderful, homemade holiday gift!

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Adapted from:  allrecipes.com

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 ounce jar of poppy seeds (use the full jar!)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup lemon yogurt (I used Chobani Lemon Blended)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Glaze
1/3 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons Confectioners’ sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Lightly grease a muffin tin. Combine the flour, 3/4 cup white sugar, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl mix the eggs, yogurt, vegetable oil and lemon zest. Blend well and pour over the flour mixture. Mix until just combined; the batter is quite thick so don't be surprised! Spoon batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

Combine the lemon juice with the Confectioners’ sugar. Stir into sugar dissolves.  Once the muffins are baked, drizzle them with or dip the tops in the sugar/juice mixture.

Apricot and Almond Cake

In the Ocean City ‘hood, we planned a little get-together to celebrate Labor Day and to welcome Fall, even though its official debut is a few weeks away.   The nice thing about not having to pack up and go home each week, or for the season, is that the end of the summer does not seem as final or gloomy.  There’s plenty of warm weather to be enjoyed and I’m looking forward to sitting on the beach enjoying the cool, crisp autumn air.

So, for the shindig, I contributed meatballs and baked ziti but I also wanted to make a dessert evocative of Fall. 

Perhaps figs will do.

So I searched a few of my reliable cooking sites and NYTimes cooking came through with the following recipe:

Younger daughter did not think this cake would appeal to some of the party-goers and suggested something chocolate.  If I could re-phrase her proposal it would sound something like this…”Mom, I want something chocolate, so please don’t waste your precious, shore-baking time making a not-too-sweet cake with ground almonds, butter, honey, and figs.  Just make something ooohy-gooey, delicious and chocolate and call it a day.”

Well, her wish almost came to fruition because I could not find figs.  I almost gave in to the cocoa request but thought to myself…”hmmmm, what would be a good substitute for figs?”  So I went to the market and browsed and take a look at these little jewels:

Apricots!

So I borrowed a mini chopper from a neighbor, ground up the almonds, and followed the recipe exactly as written but substituted sliced apricots for the sliced figs.  This cake is very, good, not too sweet and perfect with a cup of tea.  I found it to be just a little dry, so I’ll fix that next time by adding a little more melted butter (I adjusted the recipe below). But for this tasting, a scoop of coffee ice cream served along side compensated splendidly.

Sliced plums would also work well with this recipe and would be quite pretty!

Oh and, by the way, after all that, I forgot to bring the cake to the party so we just had to eat it ourselves!

Apricot and Almond Cake

by: NYTimes Cooking

INGREDIENTS

5 tablespoons butter, melted, plus butter for greasing pan

1 cup natural raw almonds (not blanched)

¼ cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling

¼ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

⅛ teaspoon cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

2 tablespoons honey

½ teaspoon almond extract

4 ripe apricots, each sliced in fours (or 12 figs, sliced in half)

PREPARATION

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan or pie pan; set aside. Put almonds and 1/4 cup sugar in a food processor and grind to a coarse powder. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; pulse to combine.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, melted butter, honey and almond extract. Add almond mixture and beat for a minute until batter is just mixed. Pour batter into pan.

Slice the apricots and arrange them cut-side up over the batter. Sprinkle the apricots with sugar and bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden outside and dry at center when probed with a cake tester. Cool before serving.  

Quinoa Avocado Salad

To accommodate vacations, weekend getaways and other general frolicking, Dinner Club seems to have taken an spontaneous sabbatical.  This is not that unusual given our schedules that seem to become even more challenging during the get-me-out-of-dodge summer months.

I have exciting news to share…I bought a house at the shore, Ocean City, NJ (a long-awaited item on my bucket list!).  It’s not big. It’s not fancy.  But it’s mine.  What this means, however, is that adorable pair of shoes I saw in Anthropologie won’t be walking on these feet anytime soon and that oh-so-charming vintage-stye dress from ModCloth, well, I’ll be wearing vintage circa 2010-2014 already hanging in my closet.  I don’t mind, really, because now I have something that I can and will happily share with family and friends that will be the joyful hub for many, many wonderful memories.

Also out of the budget is going out to eat which is fine with me because I and my brigade can prepare a meal better than most restaurants anyway…except for Lago in the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  I had the best red wine risotto there, plus the waiters were straight off the boat from Italy and so damn handsome.  I was in heaven (so were my travel colleagues although I don’t think they would admit it as freely me). 

So, when friends came to visit this week, we opted to eat in.  K, a native New-Englander (she’s the one who worked for The Barefoot Contessa and knows Martha) taught us how to properly cook and eat lobster.  She said, and I quote “you have to twist the tail off with conviction." Very Julia Childesque.  The instructions continued….use a heavy life to crush the claw in half to liberate the meat; knuckles contain the sweetest meat so twist the claw, poke your finger though and pull out the meat; there are some wonderful little jewels in the body if you are willing to work for them; serve with melted, salted butter and lemon wedges.  Younger daughter and K got the lobsters at Mike’s Seafood in Sea Isle and they were delicious

The next day, K, our friend D and I strolled along Asbury Avenue in OCNJ…we came upon a farmers market and bought scallops for our dinner that evening and some fixings for the Quiona Salad recipe I share below.  We also bought chocolate-covered blueberries, roasted red peppers and the most delicious corn and cilantro Sicilian-style pizza….it was delectable!

D, who is a sales rep, donated some very nice — and useful — product samples, including a Sparq Soapstone Appetizer Tray on which you can serve hot or cold foods.  She also brought some homemade pesto that we happily consumed mixed linguine and served as a side for the scallops that were lightly fried and served with lemon wedges.

Later that day, we headed to the beach where we saw the preparations of a life-guard competition…very cool!  My favorite time on the beach is between 3:30 and 6:30….it cools down a bit and is very peaceful!  

We meandered on the boardwalk the next morning…it was a wonderful visit with dear ones!

My friend V. who runs wine education events that you can read about here, shared this recipe from Wegmans with me last year.  I’ve prepared it several times and, of course, made some additions and substitutions.  It’s quite tasty and great for a quick lunch or as a side salad with grilled meat or fish.   At 140 calories (a little more since I add nuts), 0 cholesterol, 3 g of fiber, 3 g of protein and low sodium per 2/3 cup serving, it’s also good for you!

Red Quiona & Avocado Salad

Adapted from Wegmans

Ingredients

1 box (7 oz) Red Quinoa, cooked per package directions, cooled

1 small can Shoepeg corn or a cup of frozen shoe peg corn

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced on the bias (about 1 cup)

2 plum tomatoes, 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup) (we used fresh Jersey tomatoes, of course!)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/3 cup pine nuts or sunflower seeds

2 avocados, peeled, pitted, 1/4-inch dice

1/2 cup Lemon Vinaigrette Dressing (Wegmans is good, so if Briannas)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions

Add cooked quinoa, corn, cilantro, green onions, tomatoes, garlic and nuts to mixing bowl; stir to combine. Fold in avocado and dressing; season with salt and pepper. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

The Wedding Day

Since both Older Daughter and new Son-in-Law work at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, it seemed only fitting to post this on the 4th of July!

Back in early 2014, Older Daughter’s boyfriend asked me if he could marry her.  Of course, I said yes (actually, I screeched with delight) and in May of 2014 the happy couple became engaged.

Thus began a year of planning, tastings, shopping, fittings, some anxiety but mostly sheer happiness as we eagerly waited for the wonderful day to arrive.

We did the things that a bride-to-be and her mother do.  We purchased bridal magazines and, much to our delight, we both dog-eared the same dress in the same magazine we each purchased separately.  It’s a a lovely dress, from a designer in London, Ellis Bridal, and the search began for a bridal shop in the United States that carried the collection.  We found one in Sewell, NJ, The Bridal Manor and after trying on two or three other dresses from the same designer, Older Daughter chose the very gown we each swooned over in the magazine.

While in London this past Fall, I purchased a small hair comb for her to wear on her wedding day, a replica of a crown jewel, determined that Older Daughter would bring some bling to the day….she did, with the comb and her Kate Spade shoe choice!  Just beautiful.

I’d like to say that we toured several reception facilities but we didn’t….we considered a few but looked at only one — The Mansion at Ridley Creek State Park — and we knew it was just the perfect enchanting, magical spot for this special day.

A story about the caterer…..back in 2013 when I working with NorthEast Boston Terrier Rescue, a lovely woman named Liz, visited for the required home inspection.  As we got talking, I learned she owned a catering company.  I was delighted to see that her company, Sage Catering, was on the approved caterer list at Ridley Creek….a perfect choice. Below are our selections from the tasting!

In April, 2015, we threw Older Daughter a very special, themed bridal shower based around the movie, “That Thing You Do.” You can read about the shower here.

Then there was the Beachlorette Party….a gaggle of girls rented a Sea Isle shore house for the weekend.  Somehow they all survived!

The day finally arrived, June 12, 2015.  For a year, we prayed for a rain-free day, but we forget to include low humidity in the divine request. It was perhaps the hottest, most humid day of 2015 to date, but, nonetheless, it was lovely.   A very dear friend of our family is the Mayor of Swarthmore, and the couple asked him to officiate their ceremony.  A choice made even more special by the little stories sprinkled among his celebratory, light-hearted and sincere words, including a reference to a pink Barbie Ferrari! The vows, written by the bride and groom, were both humorous and heartfelt.  It was wonderful.

The stunning bride glowed, the handsome groom was simply gleeful and the proud parents beamed with pride! All of these moments captured quite beautifully by the photographer, Amy Tucker (and a very talented amateur photographer at love, kate photography). The venue was picture-perfect, quaint and quite charming and the food was outstanding….one choice, the top sirloin, was cooked to perfection!!

The fabric of the Mother-of-the-Bride dress is Marimekko and was made by the talented Emily of Compendium Boutique in Swarthmore.  The bridesmaids dresses are JCrew and the groom and groomsmen wore suits from Men’s Warehouse.

Everyone dined, danced, drank and prattled the night away and it could not have been more perfect.  

The couple honeymooned in London.  My daughter has always been fascinated with all things English (I am amazed at the information that just rolls-off-her-tongue about the Royals, British history, literature, and regalia in general) so a honeymoon is London seemed quite proper.  Cheerio!

Friday evening, June 12, 2015 was one of the most joyful days of my life, second only to the births of my two beautiful daughters.  When a beloved daughter gets married, sometimes pictures tell the story far better than words and I hope you enjoy this photo journey!