Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens

If you can believe it, we haven't yet told you about all of our New Orleans food adventures. But we'll come back to it. Now that we are home, we've been cooking again and the idea for this recipe was a bunch of beautiful red plums Chris brought home from the market. He had gone out to get produce and when he got home, he laid it all out on the table. It was a hodge-podge of fruits and vegetables, and for some reason, I honed right in on the plums and the red peppers. Weird mix, eh? That's why we're calling this recipe "Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens."

It was definitely an experiment, roasting the plums, peppers, and some onions right in with the hens in a cast iron pan. We prefer to cook with red bell peppers over green; green peppers seem to take over everything else in a dish with their strong flavor. Anyway, the plums and peppers mixed in with the pan juices to create a side dish that was sweet and sour, soft and crunchy, all at the same time. We weren't really sure how these flavors were going to be together, but we loved it with the game hens. Crazy!

Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens

Ingredients:

2 Cornish game hens

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 red plums, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 tablespoon honey

Heat a cast iron pan at 450 degrees for 45 minutes. Splay the game hens and season them, inside and out, with salt and pepper. Carefully add them to the heated pan, breast side up. Drizzle the hens with olive oil and cover the pan with foil. Roast for 30 minutes. Toss the chopped plums, pepper, onion and honey in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add this mixture to the pan with the hens and stir to coat with the pan juices. Roast for 15 minutes uncovered, or until hens are cooked through. If hens are not brown enough, place pan under broiler for 5 minutes. Remove hens from pan and allow them to rest. In the meantime, over medium-high heat, reduce the plum and pepper mixture to desired consistency. Serve alongside roasted hens.

Halloween Hummus Bites

Amy writes:

Chef Dave, the culinary teacher at school, started up a cooking club for students this year. I decided to join in on the fun, and once every couple of weeks we have a great time cooking up food that is easy to prepare, and then, of course, we eat up!

Being the excellent teacher he is, Chef planned the first meeting as an introduction to the kitchen and to the club. So, instead of club members doing the actual cooking that day (as we do now), he did a demonstration on how to make red pepper hummus. Many of the students had never tried hummus, and when they saw how easy it was and tasted how delicious, they were hooked. Meanwhile, I now had my plan for a simple appetizer to serve as our neighbors came around on Halloween night! Notice the festive colors, perfect for Halloween, and sort of spooky looking, too!

Halloween Hummus Bites

Makes 24 "bites"

Ingredients:

1 16-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

3-4 tablespoons of lemon juice, to taste

1 1/2 tablespoons tahini

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 7-ounce jar roasted red peppers

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 packages mini fillo shells (found in frozen food aisle)

24 whole black olives, pitted

Place chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt, and all but one roasted red pepper in a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix, then slowly drizzle in olive oil while processing until smooth. Take fillo shells out of package and place on a serving tray. Carefully spoon red-pepper hummus into fillo shells. Chop remaining red pepper into small pieces. Stuff the red pepper pieces into the hole in the olive. Top each filled fillo shell with the stuffed olive and serve at room temperature.