Spicy Chickpea Soup and Proscuitto-Wrapped Scallops
These are from two different nights, I never remember to upload pictures.
The chickpea soup is from the March issue of Food & Wine. It's really tasty, and can be made vegetarian by substituting veggie broth for chicken broth. And if you make curry a lot, you probably have most of the ingredients sitting in your pantry. And it's really quick to make because there is very little chopping involved, and it doesn't take very long for the soup to heat. I'll definitely make this again!
I halved the recipe to serve two people, but here is the full recipe. As you can see from the picture, it makes a full bowl of soup, but I needed a small salad with it, because it didn't feel like quite enough food.
Ingredients:
Two cans chickpeas, drained
One can coconut milk
1 can diced tomatoes (about 1/2 cup). (I used extra tomatoes)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper
some plain low fat yogurt and thinly sliced green onions for garnish
To make the soup:
Combine everything from chickpeas to ginger in a blender and puree until smooth.
Then, transfer the puree to a pot and stir in chicken broth. Bring it to a simmer over moderately high heat and season with salt and pepper. Serve in bowls and top with a few spoonfuls of yogurt and scallions.
The Scallop dish is the second recipe I've tried from Cooking With Curtis and once again, I was very happy with it. The gremolata was a great sauce. I love all things citrus, so I was drawn to this recipe right away. I served the scallops with asparagus, and the sauce was great on both it and the scallops.
This recipe is rated as ** out of *** on Curtis' difficulty scale, meaning "everyday." I think that this recipe was quite easy to make once the preparation was done. But, the prep work did take a while, since the sauce needed the zest of three citrus fruits and I also had to peel tomatoes.
I forgot how to read when I was making the grocery list, so instead of buying pancetta, I ended up with proscuitto, but it worked fine. Wegman's didn't have the pretty microgreens that were in the picture, so I used baby spinach because I had some around. The sea scallops I got were gigantic, and I think that next time I make this, I'll buy half the number of scallops and then cut them in half horizontally. This recipe says it serves 4 as an appetizer, and I made the full amount for a main course for two people. It was a lot of food, but if I used 6 scallops cut in half horizontally, it would have been perfect.
Ingredients for gremolata:
4 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves, chopped
zest and juice of 2 oranges, and 1 lime
juice of 1 lemon
about 1/3 cup olive oil
To make gremolata: put everything in a bowl. Set aside.
Ingredients for scallops:
24 thin slices of pancetta. (I used about 10 slices of proscuitto).
12 sea scallops
4 tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded, and diced
juice of 1 lemon
some olive oil
baby salad greens
Preheat oven to 350. Cut the pancetta/proscuitto to 1/2 inch in width and 4 inches in length, place 2 strips in an X on a cutting board, and wrap a scallop. Repeat. (We didn't do this. tincow wrapped the scallops in single strips of meat and it worked great, and it was less work.)
Heat a nonstick frying pan. Cook scallops for about 30 seconds, or until they start to change color. Then put the pan in the oven for 1 minute, then turn the scallops and cook for another 1 minute. (As I said, my scallops were clearly on steroids, so I cooked them for longer than what was stated in the recipe).
In a separate pan, put the tomatoes, lemon juice, and 2 tbsp olive oil. Heat the mixture gently.
Place the tomato mixture in the center of the plates, top with scallops, and then pile some greens on top. Spoon the gremolata around the plates.
The chickpea soup is from the March issue of Food & Wine. It's really tasty, and can be made vegetarian by substituting veggie broth for chicken broth. And if you make curry a lot, you probably have most of the ingredients sitting in your pantry. And it's really quick to make because there is very little chopping involved, and it doesn't take very long for the soup to heat. I'll definitely make this again!
I halved the recipe to serve two people, but here is the full recipe. As you can see from the picture, it makes a full bowl of soup, but I needed a small salad with it, because it didn't feel like quite enough food.
Ingredients:
Two cans chickpeas, drained
One can coconut milk
1 can diced tomatoes (about 1/2 cup). (I used extra tomatoes)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper
some plain low fat yogurt and thinly sliced green onions for garnish
To make the soup:
Combine everything from chickpeas to ginger in a blender and puree until smooth.
Then, transfer the puree to a pot and stir in chicken broth. Bring it to a simmer over moderately high heat and season with salt and pepper. Serve in bowls and top with a few spoonfuls of yogurt and scallions.
The Scallop dish is the second recipe I've tried from Cooking With Curtis and once again, I was very happy with it. The gremolata was a great sauce. I love all things citrus, so I was drawn to this recipe right away. I served the scallops with asparagus, and the sauce was great on both it and the scallops.
This recipe is rated as ** out of *** on Curtis' difficulty scale, meaning "everyday." I think that this recipe was quite easy to make once the preparation was done. But, the prep work did take a while, since the sauce needed the zest of three citrus fruits and I also had to peel tomatoes.
I forgot how to read when I was making the grocery list, so instead of buying pancetta, I ended up with proscuitto, but it worked fine. Wegman's didn't have the pretty microgreens that were in the picture, so I used baby spinach because I had some around. The sea scallops I got were gigantic, and I think that next time I make this, I'll buy half the number of scallops and then cut them in half horizontally. This recipe says it serves 4 as an appetizer, and I made the full amount for a main course for two people. It was a lot of food, but if I used 6 scallops cut in half horizontally, it would have been perfect.
Ingredients for gremolata:
4 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
2 garlic cloves, chopped
zest and juice of 2 oranges, and 1 lime
juice of 1 lemon
about 1/3 cup olive oil
To make gremolata: put everything in a bowl. Set aside.
Ingredients for scallops:
24 thin slices of pancetta. (I used about 10 slices of proscuitto).
12 sea scallops
4 tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded, and diced
juice of 1 lemon
some olive oil
baby salad greens
Preheat oven to 350. Cut the pancetta/proscuitto to 1/2 inch in width and 4 inches in length, place 2 strips in an X on a cutting board, and wrap a scallop. Repeat. (We didn't do this. tincow wrapped the scallops in single strips of meat and it worked great, and it was less work.)
Heat a nonstick frying pan. Cook scallops for about 30 seconds, or until they start to change color. Then put the pan in the oven for 1 minute, then turn the scallops and cook for another 1 minute. (As I said, my scallops were clearly on steroids, so I cooked them for longer than what was stated in the recipe).
In a separate pan, put the tomatoes, lemon juice, and 2 tbsp olive oil. Heat the mixture gently.
Place the tomato mixture in the center of the plates, top with scallops, and then pile some greens on top. Spoon the gremolata around the plates.