Ham and Eggs en Cocotte

We are quite familiar with the drill: meteorologists hype the storm for days, everyone heads out to the store for bread and milk, all is quiet during the storm, and then the cleanup begins. What's our favorite part? The quiet. We are encouraged to stay home. We are specifically asked not to be on the roads. You don't have to ask us twice. We are all too happy to cook, eat, binge-watch, repeat. Let it snow! 

We started with Saturday brunch. The air smelled of snow, but there wasn't a flake in sight...yet. No matter. We planned to be in for the day. We took some leftover ham, potatoes and asparagus and transformed them into a beautiful brunch plate Ham and Eggs en Cocotte with homefries and asparagus.

Eggs en Cocotte are named after the individual serving dish in which they are made. We make ours in ramekins, although those gorgeous little Le Creuset and Staub versions are definitely on our wish list. And Eggs en Ramekins just doesn't sound as nice, does it?

It's not the ingredients that matter here, rather, it's the technique. The possibilities are endless. Place your choice of ingredients at the bottom of the cocotte dish, making a little nest for your eggs, which you gently lay on top. Top with cheese or herbs if you like, and bake for 15-18 minutes at 325F, until the egg whites are set but the yolks are runny (bake longer if you like a harder yolk). Make sure to serve them with something to dip into them - toast is a good choice, but so is asparagus spears.

Ham and Eggs en Cocotte

(serves 2)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup diced cooked ham

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/2 onion, diced

4 eggs

1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

Divide the ham between two cocotte dishes/ramekins, then set them aside. In a small skillet, heat the butter and cook the onions until translucent and slightly caramelized (5-7 minutes). Divide the cooked onions between the two dishes. Gently break two eggs into each dish on top of the ham and onions. Top with cheese and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 325 for 15-18 minutes, until the whites are set, then serve.

Meatless Monday: Traditional French Onion Soup

Some time ago we made an onion soup with 7 different types of onions in a beef broth base. It was very good, don't get us wrong. But we wanted to try something different, lighter, more authentically French. And that's when we found this post on Michael Ruhlman's informative and entertaining blog. We loved the recipe's focus on the simplest and least expensive of ingredients - onions and water - and the lovely rusticity of the soup. Next thing we knew, we were slicing a bunch of Spanish onions and cooking them until they turned a golden amber color. Good thing we weren't too hungry, because this took nearly four hours! It was well worth the effort, though. We followed Ruhlman's recipe, which you can find here, with a couple of necessary changes (like substituting marsala for sherry, which we did not have). Surely this changed the taste, but we were very pleased with the result. It was a light yet satisfying bowl of good food, much different from the beefy version we're used to, and perfect for Meatless Monday.

7 Spanish Onions

Sliced onions go into the pot

About one hour into the cooking time

After four hours of cooking

Adding water, marsala, red wine

Ladle into bowls

Top with dried baguette

Top with shredded gruyere

Broil until melted and browned

Traditional French Onion Soup

our very slight adaptations from Michael Ruhlman's recipe are below

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter

7 Spanish onions, thinly sliced

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

4 slices of baguette

6 cups water 

1/3 cup marsala

splash of red wine

2 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated

Place the large pot over medium heat and melt the butter. Add the sliced onions, sprinkle with 2 teaspoons salt, cover, and cook until the onions have heated through and started to steam. Uncover, season with pepper, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally. Preheat the oven to 200°F. Place the bread slices in the oven and let dry completely. When the onions have completely cooked down, the water has cooked off, and the onions have turned amber—this will take several hours—add the water. Raise the heat to high and bring the soup to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low. Add the marsala. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed, and add a splash of red wine. Preheat the broiler. Portion the soup into bowls, float the bread on top, cover with the cheese, and broil until the cheese is melted and nicely browned.

Skinny Stuffed Tarragon Lemon Mustard Chicken - Made with Saucy Mama Mustard! And a GIVEAWAY!

We were chosen to take part in Saucy Mama's "Skinny Mama - Cooking with Mustard" Recipe Contest, and as such, a nice big box filled with a variety of Saucy Mama mustards appeared on our front porch not too long ago. We were quite excited to try some new mustard flavors, and the "Smoky Garlic" and the "Tarragon Lemon" flavors especially appealed to us. The contest rules dictated that we had to use one of the mustards to create an original recipe that follows the guidelines of any well-known diet plan.

The recipe we came up with is called "Skinny Stuffed Tarragon Lemon Mustard Chicken," and it is as deliciously flavorful as it is low in calories. The Tarragon-Lemon mustard packs an herbacious punch of flavor with hints of tangy citrus, and the vegetables stuffed inside the chicken keep it moist and fork-tender. Even with a side dish of pretty red lentils, a serving comes in at only 302 calories! It has a mere 3 grams of saturated fat, and the dish is low-carb as well as high in protein, niacin, folic acid and Vitamin A. And did you happen to notice that it only takes about 25 minutes to make??? It's the perfect weeknight dinner!

You may think you'd like to try this at home, but you don't have a bottle of Saucy Mama's mustard handy. We have great news for you - Saucy Mama has offered us an additional three bottles of their mustard to GIVEAWAY! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post by Wednesday March 7th, including your email address, and a random number generator will choose the winner for us.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, this contest is being decided on Facebook. So if you like A Couple in the Kitchen, and our "Skinny Stuffed Tarragon Lemon Mustard Chicken" sounds good to you, please vote for us HERE. Voting starts Wednesday February 29th (Leap Day!) and ends on March 7th. And you can VOTE ONCE PER DAY!!!

Skinny Stuffed Tarragon Lemon Mustard Chicken

(Makes 6 servings)

Ingredients:

6 boneless skinless chicken thighs

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

6 tablespoons Saucy Mama Tarragon Lemon Mustard

1 plum tomato, julienned

2 slices sweet yellow onion, 1/4-inch thick

6 spinach leaves

2 ounces white wine

1 cup fat-free chicken broth

3/4 cup red lentils

Preheat oven to 375. Lay chicken thighs flat on a work surface and season them on both sides with salt and pepper. Pour the mustard into a bowl and gently toss the chicken thighs in the mustard; set aside for 10 minutes to marinate. Once again lay chicken thighs flat on a work surface. On top of each chicken thigh, place one spinach leaf, 3-4 julienned slices of tomato, and 3-4 slices of onion until chicken is covered with vegetables. Roll chicken so that vegetables are encased inside, then place in a baking dish. Add white wine to the dish and cover loosely with aluminum foil. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes, removing aluminum foil when there are five minutes left to go. While chicken is baking, place lentils in a medium saucepan. Cover lentils with chicken broth, bring to a boil, stir gently, then loosely cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Disclaimers:

We were given 6 bottles of mustard by Saucy Mama/Barhyte Specialty Foods as participants in this contest. We were not otherwise compensated, and the recipe here, as well as any opinions expressed, are our own.
The winner of the GIVEAWAY will supply us with their contact information which we will send to Saucy Mama; GIVEAWAY prize will be shipped directly from Sauce Mama/Barhyte Specialty Foods.

Roasted Garlic Soup (Secret Recipe Club)

It's February's Secret Recipe Club reveal day! In the Secret Recipe Club, members are assigned a food blog from which we are to choose and make a recipe, then we all blog about it and reveal our posts at the same time. Right now there are 212 members in the SRC; we are divided into four groups so that every Monday is a new reveal day. Since we're in Group C, today is ours, and the blog we were assigned is Heidis Verden (in English, it's "Heidi's World").

Heidi is from Denmark, and she loves to bake breads, cakes, ice creams and other desserts, but she also makes savory dishes of all kinds. Her blog is in Danish, but if you go to the page "Important: For Foreign Visitors!" you can find out how to view it in English (hint: it's much easier if you are using Firefox rather than Internet Explorer). Once we did that, we had a hard time choosing a recipe because there were so many and they all sounded so good. While we really wanted to try one of her ice creams, we thought we'd come back to those when it's a little warmer out. We didn't have a whole lot of time, so we chose not to bake anything. Since it was blustery and cold here, we zoomed in on the soup section and finally decided to make her Roasted Garlic Soup.

The most important ingredient: roasted garlic

We've made a similar recipe with garlic and potatoes, and were curious as to how this one would compare. We made a couple of minor adaptations based on what we had around the house, most importantly substituting madeira for Heidi's preference, sherry. The soup was fantastic, and even better when we had it again for lunch the following day. The texture was light, silky smooth yet it was completely filling and satisfying. The flavors from all of the alliums made it something that could be enjoyed year-round, and the madeira offered a unique hint of sweetness. There was a nice deep flavor that we guess came  from roasting the garlic first. We even surrendered offered a small portion to Joanne who pronounced it "restaurant-worthy." Yeah, even with its garlic-breath side effect, we loved this soup. Thanks, Heidi!

Cook the roasted garlic, onions and leeks...

...until they look like this.

Add flour to thicken the soup.

Stir in the warm broth and madeira wine.

Blend

Swirl in the cream and allow to simmer.

Roasted Garlic Soup

Ingredients:

4 heads garlic

1/4 cup olive oil
4 cups chicken broth

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 leeks, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/3 cup madeira wine

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon lemon juice

kosher salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut off the top 1/4 inch of each garlic head. Place in a small, shallow baking dish and drizzle with olive oil. Bake until golden, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cool slightly. Press the individual garlic cloves between thumb and finger to release, then chop the garlic. Pour the chicken broth into a small saucepan and set over medium heat to warm. In a large saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Add garlic, leeks, and onion; saute until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes. Gradually add flour, and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in warm broth and madeira. Simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Puree soup using an immersion blender. Swirl in the cream, then simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with lemon juice, salt and white pepper. Ladle into bowls. Garnish with chives. Serve crusty bread on the side and enjoy.

Tagine of Golden Chicken with Potatoes and White Beans

We purchased a tagine last winter and have done a few experiments with it, making flavorful meals in this earthenware coned dish. Why is it shaped this way? The conical cover rests on the flat base and allows for any condensation that occurs during cooking to return to the base and braise the meat and/or vegetables in it. In this way, any meals made in a tagine are truly one-pot wonders. You can even serve the tagine in the base!

This week's wonder is adapted from the cookbook 150 Best Tagine Recipes by Pat Crocker. The golden color on the chicken comes from the aromatic spices turmeric, saffron, and cinnamon, which also offer plenty of exotically warm flavor. The potatoes and white beans round out the meal to make it a hearty one; we're sure you could use other root vegetables instead of potatoes, or chickpeas instead of white beans (as Crocker does). A slight problem we encountered was that our tagine is on the smaller side and we had a bit of overflow (not to mention a very small, very brief fire...) during cooking. All that did was set us off in search of an even bigger tagine!

Cook onions and potatoes in tagine first

Remove vegetables and brown chicken in spice mixture, meat side down

Turn chicken, add cinnamon stick and broth and bring to a boil

Return vegetables to tagine

Cover and simmer

Add white beans, cover, and continue to cook until done

Tagine of Golden Chicken with Potatoes and White Beans

slightly adapted from 150 Best Tagine Recipes by Pat Crocker

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons melted butter

20 strands saffron

1 tablespoon ground turmeric

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, peeled and quartered

2 medium potatoes, diced

salt to taste

4 chicken thighs

1 cup chicken broth

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 of a 14-ounce can of white beans, drained and rinsed

parsley for garnishing

In a bowl, combine melted butter, saffron and turmeric; set aside. In the bottom of flameproof tagine, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and potatoes and cook for five minutes, stirring often; remove vegetables from tagine and set aside. Add chicken, meat side down, to tagine and cover with spice mixture. Cook for 5-6 minutes, until chicken is browned on meaty side. Turn chicken over. Add broth and cinnamon stick and bring to a boil. Return onions and potatoes to tagine, cover with tagine lid, reduce heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring once. Stir in white beans, replace lid and simmer for additional 15 minutes until beans are heated and chicken is cooked through. Discard cinnamon and serve garnished with parsley.

Meatless Monday: Spring Onion and Ricotta Fresca Tart with Scapes and Sage

We grew onions for the first time this year and they were the inspiration for this week's Meatless Monday dish. Well, not just our home-grown onions but also our sage, as well as a few ingredients from Sunday's Farmers' Market, namely, a handful of garlic scapes we got for a dollar, and some just-made ricotta fresca from our friends at Beltane Farm in Lebanon, CT. We call it a tart, but the addition of milk and eggs may cause a debate among our foodie friends and readers who may want us to call it a quiche. Suum cuique, we say. All we know for sure is that it was deliciously satisfying.

Home-grown inspiration:

onions (left)

and sage (right)

Bushel of garlic scapes, Coventry Regional Farmers' Market

We allowed the onions and scapes to caramelize in some fresh-sage-infused olive oil with a bit of sugar, salt and balsamic vinegar. Whisking in egg yolks with the whole eggs and milk gave the tart that rich and creamy yet still springy consistency one desires in a tart/quiche-thing. The crumbled ricotta fresca made from goats' milk resisted melting, was milky and sweet, and gave us something to bite into, which meant we hardly noticed it was a meatless dish. Meanwhile, the store-bought refrigerated pie crust made things a bit easier for a "manic" Monday.

Quickly frying the sage leaves makes for infused oil and pretty garnish

Onions and scapes are sprinkled with sugar then caramelized

Egg yolks, eggs, milk and chopped sage about to be whisked together

Ricotta Fresca from Beltane Farm

The ricotta is crumbled over the caramelized onion mixture inside the (raw) pie crust, awaiting the milk and eggs...

Ingredients:

1 refrigerated pie crust, thawed

4 tablespoons olive oil

6 large fresh sage leaves (whole)

2 onions, diced

6 garlic scapes, chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tabelspoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup milk

3 large egg yolks

2 large eggs

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage

6 ounces ricotta fresca*

*Note: it so happened that our ricotta was seasoned with chopped chives which enhanced the flavor of the spring onion. If you so desire, chop one or two fresh chives and add them to the mix.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Press the pie crust into a pie plate and set aside. Heat olive oil in a large skillet and fry the sage leaves until they are crispy. Carefully remove the sage leaves and place on a paper towel; set aside. Add the chopped scapes and diced onion to the oil and place over medium-high heat. Sprinkle with sugar and cook the onions until they are translucent. Add the salt and balsamic vinegar and continue to cook until caramelization occurs. Spread the onions into the bottom of the pie crust and crumble half of the ricotta fresca over the onions. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, egg yolks, eggs, black pepper and sage. Pour this over the onions and cheese inside the pie crust. Crumble the remaining ricotta into the mixture and place in oven. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes, or until the center of the tart is firm and springy. Serve each slice garnished with a fried sage leaf.

The finished product