Road to Recovery, Cooking to Get Well: Garlic Ginger Roast Turkey Breast and Saffron Turmeric Soup

      On Monday this week, I turned 36.  I celebrated that night and over the weekend with lots of my very beloved favorite people, many delicious meals, much wine, and showtunes at my favorite piano bar downtown - and even taking a break from my birthday for my annual watching of Easter Parade :)

     Tuesday morning I woke up and basically could not move.  I spent the subsequent 4 days in bed with the flu and finally began to feel like myself today.  After a week of eating a lot of takeout soup, I really wanted some home cooking - but also to eat some things that would be nourishing and good for me.  I came up with the two below very yummy recipes.

Saffron Turmeric Soup

Serves 4

32 oz chicken broth

1 tbs ground turmeric

1 tsp saffron threads

1 tsp salt

2 cups of baby spinach

4 green onions, roughly chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tbs of honey

1 tsp red pepper flakes (or more - to taste)

Not being quite well enough for the patience to make chicken broth myself, I had to buy it... :) Progresso turned out to be the one at fairway with the least additives.  Combine the broth and turmeric in a pot on the stove, and bring to a boil.  Add saffron threads and salt and let simmer for 20 minutes.  Add spinach and green onions, simmer (covered) for 5 minutes.  Add the lemon juice, red pepper flakes, and honey - let simmer another 5 minutes, serve.  This has a very strong turmeric flavor.

Garlic Ginger Roast Turkey Breast with Potatoes

Serves 4

3 lbs split turkey breast

1 yellow onion, chopped

1.5 fingerling potatoes, halved

1 tbs butter

For the rub:

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbs of minced ginger

3 tbs chopped sage

1/2 cup of olive oil

1 tsp honey

1 tsp salt 

1 tsp pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350.  Mix together the ingredients for the rub.  Add the potatoes and onions to the roasting pan and toss with olive oil.  Rinse the turkey breast, pat dry.  Cut the butter up and rub under the turkey breast skin.  Take half the rub and rub over the breast.  Sprinkle the other half of the rub over the potatoes and onions. Nest the turkey on top of the potatoes and onions. 

Place pan with turkey, potatoes, and onions into the oven - lightly tented with silver foil.  Roast for one hour.  Remove foil, raise oven temp to 450, continue to roast for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven, cover with foil, let sit for 20 minutes.  Slice, serve.

Event Planner at Home: Spring Potluck! (Pesto and Zucchini Pasta Salad & Lemon Chicken with Artichokes)

Spring will be a little late this year.

- Frank Loesser

That gorgeous and poignant Frank Loesser song really epitomizes what this winter has felt like.  It's been long, it's been hard, and it's been too cold.  A few weeks back I was talking with a fellow food-loving friend and we came up with the idea to throw a potluck. The sort of old-fashioned kind where you get together a bunch of friends, organize into categories of courses, and spend a night eating eachother's favorite dishes and drinking a whole lot of wine.

I had a lot of ideas for theme - a type of cuisine maybe? Thai? Brazilian? (the Brazilian will be coming soon though...), or a common ingredient - everyone make something with basil? Finally, I decided the theme should just be spring - a focus, but broad enough to provide options for everyone.  After the winter we've been through, a heavy dose seemed like a good idea.

The whole thing turned out amazing and way too much fun :)  Full menu below, with recipes for my contributions below.

Mint Caprese Salad

Farro Spring Salad

Pesto and Zucchini Pasta Salad (recipe below)

Orechiette with Peas and Ricotta

Mustard Roast Pork

Lemon Chicken and Artichokes (recipe below)

Green Beans

Fiddlehead Fern Potato Hash

Dessert: Macarons, Raspberry Ice Cream, Berries, and some truly awesome dessert empanadas made by friend Aaron.

Pesto and Zucchini Pasta Salad

1 lb pasta - shells (my favorite is DeCecco)

2 zucchini, quartered and cut into 1/2 inch chunks

Extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

2 tablespoons pine nuts

Juice of 1 lemon

Bunch of fresh basil, washed and trimmed

Handful of flat italian parsley, washed and trimmed

1/2 cup of grated parmesan

For this dish, I wanted something I could fully cook at home and and just combine onsite.  I first made this at a barbecue party I had at my place a few summers ago and it's really delicious and as pesto as one of my favorite things of all time... it was a no-brainer for the party:)

First step here was putting the water on to boil, and dropping the zucchini pieces in a pan with evoo over medium heat.  Cooked them, shaking up the pan to flip them periodically for about 10 minutes. Once the pasta was cooked, I tossed it with the zucchini and let is cool down - about an hour to fully get to room temp.

For the pesto - toss the garlic, pine nuts, and lemon juice in a food processor with a little salt and olive oil and combine.  (The lemon juice is important because it keeps the basil looking green and vibrant).  After these are a smooth paste, add the basil and parsley.  Process until all ingredients are combined.

Mix the pesto with the cooled pasta and zucchini, mix in the parmesan and serve.  

Lemon Chicken with Artichokes

1 whole kosher chicken cut into pieces

Juice of 3 lemons

Remaining lemons quartered

1 package of frozen artichokes

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Handful of chopped flat italian parsley

Disclaimer: I inherited my love of both cooking and sharing what I cook from my mom and her mom.  But when I lived in Florence and took a cooking class - I learned one of the italian rules that has informed the majority of my dishes: You can basically never use too much olive oil.  I tend to always cook with extra virgin and it really makes absolutely everything better.  So for this recipe I use a generous amount.  You might want less:)

This recipe is simple and delicious - throw all the above ingredients in a ziplock back in the fridge for an hour to marinate.  Pre-heat oven to 400.  Dump the whole thing into a roasting pan and cook for 30 minutes.  Take out, flip the chicken pieces, mix everything up a bit, cook for another 30 minutes. Serve.  

Depending on your oven, you may need a little longer, the chicken should be golden brown on top and juicy throughout.

A couple of notes on the ingredients: It's no secret that i LOVE roast chicken and that is likely the main reason I have a hard time fully committing to an all-time vegan diet.  I always cook with kosher chicken. Once you start cooking that, you'll never go back.  The other note is that you could do this with real artichokes - which I'm usually too lazy to prepare.  I started cooking with frozen ones about a year ago and they have changed my life.  They really retain the flavor and basically save you a million years of carving out the prickly center and trimming the rough, tough leaves off fresh artichokes...