Recipes for a "Leaner" Christmas!

Baked Tilapia with Sage-Butter Sauce (served with steamed blue potatoes & carrots and spinach salads)

for 2 people (multiply recipe as needed)

2-Tilapia filets
asst'd seasonings (such as lemon-pepper, Old Bay, Lawry's Seasoning Salt, etc.)
drizzle olive oil

Spray or coat a glass baking dish with canola oil. Lay fish filets in it and season (not too heavily, but don't be too "light", either). Drizzle with a little olive oil over each filet. Preheat oven to 350. Put, uncovered, in oven and bake till done (anywhere from 15-25 minutes--you be the judge!).

Butter sauce: Clip a few leaves of fresh sage. Chop them and add them to a few (3-4) pats of melted butter and stir around. Add a pinch of kosher salt and stir around. When ready to plate meal, spoon sage-butter sauce over both the fish and whole roasted potatoes.

Steamed Potatoes & carrots: *You should start steaming these before you bake the fish. You will have to be the judge of of when they are done to your liking. I used a large pot with a lid and put a steamer "basket" on the inside, filling water up to the basket. I steamed a total of 8 blue potatoes (4 apiece) along with some diagonal slivers of 1 peeled fresh carrot. Just steam until they are tender to your liking and a fork easily pierces them.

Spinach Salad: Put fresh baby spinach leaves in a bowl. Add slices of 1-2 hard-boiled eggs, diced/sliced tomato, bacon bits and croutons. *Of course, all of these toppings are optional, you can omit any of them and add what you like. Use the salad dressing of your choice.

*This meal paired with M'enage 'a Trois Chardonnay 2007.



"Moussaka Stacks" based on a recipe in "How to Roast a Lamb" by Michael Psilakis

We had a hunk of pork in the freezer (a shoulder or ham). We seasoned it with kosher salt and black pepper and seared the pork in a pot with some olive oil. Take out the pork and put on a platter. To the pot, add: 4-5 cloves chopped garlic, 1-2 stalks chopped celery and a chopped carrot. Saute' till the veggies start to become soft. Add around 1/4 cup of tomato paste and stir around. Add a cup of dry red wine to the pan and stir around. Then add a couple Tbsp red wine vinegar. Allow the wine/vinegar to nearly cook away. Add about 2 tsp dried Oregano (preferably Greek), 2 tbsp Dijon mustard, a few sprigs of thyme, around 2 sprigs of rosemary and some water (a couple quarts?). You will have to adjust water and seasonings as you see fit...I never really cook specifically to a recipe. Return pork to the pot, bring to boil, reduce temp and simmer under a partly covered lid. Simmer till meat is tender. somewhere around 2 hours?... Transfer the meat and any veggies to a platter. Reduce pan juices over high heat till thickened and swirl in a garlic puree' with fresh herbs. Drizzle over pork, along with a drizzle of olive oil THIS is the pork I use to make the "Moussaka Stack".
Moussaka Stack: Peel & thinly slice (preferably on a mandoline) 1 white potato and 2 Japanese-style or a slimmer style eggplant (like "Hansel & Gretyl"). Blanch the potato disks in salted, boiling water for about a minute, then immediately remove and "shock" in an ice water bath. Season eggplant slices with salt & pepper and dust lightly with cinnamon. (I like to pour a small amount of cinnamon in my hand, then dump the cinnamon back in the container. Then "dust off" the residual cinnamon from my palm onto the eggplant slices). Saute' the eggplant in olive oil. Drain and set aside. Roll out fresh pasta sheets (made with about 2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 room temp eggs and around 1 1/2 tbsp water) to their thinnest setting on a manual pasta machine roller. Cut out circles (anywhere from 3-4" across). Boil briefly in salted water till they rise to the surface. (*Using the above measurements, you will be left with a lot more pasta than needed for this recipe. You can use the remainder to make lasagna or cannelloni with fresh pasta, or you can use the "cutter" attachment to cut strands of spaghetti or fettucini from it for other dishes). Make a "bechamel sauce". Put a few pats of putter in a pan (3-4), melt down, add some flour (1/8 a cup?). Stir around a bit to get rid of any "raw flour" taste. Add some warmed milk (around 1 cup or more?) and stir well. Add in a pinch of ground nutmeg, a couple pinches ground white pepper, 1/2 tsp kosher salt and a faint "dusting" of cinnamon (I'd suggest pouring some in your hand, pouring it back into the bottle, then "dusting" the remainder off your palm into the sauce).
Place a spoonful of bechamel sauce on each plate, speading into a circle around 3" in diameter. Top with a fresh pasta disk, some sliced eggplant & potato, and a spoonful of braised pork. Repeat with another layer just as the first. Repeat again with a third layer, finishing with a final spoonful of the bechamel sauce. Top with some fresh parsley leaves. Serve!
To go-with: Steamed asparagus spears and a bottle of Faustino VII Rioja. Also, I made some homemade goat cheese biscuits that paired very well!
Goat cheese biscuits: These are a "drop" style biscuit, not the kind you cut out. Go outside and clip a handful of fresh chives if you have them. Then cut them into 1/4" pieces to place in the dough. Mix your dry ingredients: About 2 cups Unbleached, All-Purpose flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground white pepper, 1/8-1/4 tsp dried lemon peel (Or fresh lemon zest, your choice), and 1/8 tsp granulated garlic (or use 1/4 tsp minced garlic). Don't forget to add your freshly chopped chives. Now mix in your "fat". Normally you'd use shortening, but I did not have any, so I substituted regular butter. Usually you'd use 1/2 cup shortening (1/2 cup butter would be a full stick, 8 Tbsp). Since I was also incorporating goat cheese, I figured I could cut down on the amount of butter; after all, the goat cheese would provide additional fat. So I used about 6 Tbsp. butter. Then I mixed in about 3/4 cup or so of crumbled fresh goat cheese. I love Laura Chenel goat cheese, that is THE BEST!! Mild and luscious enough to spread thickly on bread and eat...no offensive odors or off-putting tastes. After opening, as it sits in the fridge a little while (a week or slightly longer), the odor/taste can become slightly stronger...at THAT time, it is PERFECT for these biscuits! Anyhow, "cut" the butter and goat cheese into the flour mixture until very crumbly. Then add 1 cup of milk (skim is fine). Mix around. Grease a pan. Use an ice cream scoop to "scoop out" balls of the loose "drop" biscuit dough. Put on baking sheet and bake at 450 degrees (preheated oven) for around 10-12 minutes. I placed my biscuits on the lowest rack. After removing from the oven, push the biscuits off the baking pan onto a rack or counter and let cool. Yummy!


Chicken "Bryan" (serves 2; adjust as needed)

I've tried to "duplicate" this recipe from Carrabas. Theirs is grilled over oak wood, which I've done, and it is very tasty! This particular time, I opted to go the "easier" route and just 'bread' and sautee' it. I lightly pounded one skinless/boneless chicken breast and cut it in half. Then I lightly breaded each piece with a mix of cornmeal, Italian breadcrumbs and Lawry's Poultry Seasoning. Then I panfried them in olive oil. Once done, they were topped with rounds of goat cheese (Laura Chenel is the best!), some sliced, rehydrated sundried tomatoes, drizzled over with some lemon-butter sauce (lemon juice with some melted butter), then topped with freshly sliced basil leaves. They were served alongside an already-made lemon-herb risotto, using short-grain (or Aborio) rice. I used around 1/3 cup for us. You will need to adjust as needed. Sautee' the raw rice in a blend of olive oil and a pat of butter. Stir around. Add a splash of dry white wine and stir around. Have some chicken broth ready to go...add some freshly squeezed lemon juice (to taste). Start pouring some of the broth/juice mix into the rice and stir around. Keep stirring and wait for it to absorb most, then add more. Keep stirring and adding till the rice is at the consistency you prefer. Add some kosher salt (if needed) and ground white pepper, along with various herbs such as thyme, tarragon & chives. Plate the dish along with some sweet sugar snap peas. Yum! These are great served with Meridian Chardonnay.