An Inspired Kitchen

Merguez Sausage with Lentils du Puy with Mint and Feta Cheese

Merguez sausage is a delicious Middle Eastern lamb sausage and has cumin, coriander, fennel paprika, garlic and harissa paste.  You can find it in gourmet stores or just use any sausage you like. If you prefer Italian sausage, use fresh oregano or thyme or if you use a German style sausage, use fresh thyme in the lentil pilaf.  Puy lentils are grown in the French region of Puy and retain their small green shape when cooked and have a slightly peppery taste, but you could use any small lentil like black beluga lentils, brown lentils or dal lentils. I like to buy lentils in the bulk food section.  You start by boiling the lentils in salted water and while they cook, sauté a red onion and add diced carrots and garlic. When the carrots are cooked through, add some red wine vinegar and some fresh mint.  Serve the cooked sausages over the bed of lentils and sprinkle more fresh mint and feta or goat cheese before you serve.  I served it with some toasted naan bread slathered with butter. This lentil pilaf is also good served with pan roasted salmon.  Click here for the recipe….

Pumpkin Pancakes with Pecans and Maple Syrup

I don’t make pancakes often (even though I really like them!) and have a really good recipe from Cook’s Magazine, but when I want an even quicker pancake for the two of us, I like using Trader Joe’s pancake mix.  I made some pumpkin muffins last week and had a cup of pumpkin puree leftover so I froze it.  To make these delicious flavors of fall pancakes, I thawed the pumpkin puree and added it to the pancake batter along with some quintessential fall spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves and topped it off with real maple syrup and toasted pecans.  I have a pancake batter dispenser that I like to use and it makes perfectly round pancakes.  I also use it for thinner cupcake batters to fill the cupcake liners.  One tip to making a fluffy pancake is to make sure the batter is quite thin.  It should be the consistency of heavy cream and you can add a little milk or water to thin it out.  I usually make a little test pancake and drop 1-2 tablespoons of batter in the skillet and cook until lightly browned.  This allows you to check to make sure the batter is the right consistency and you can add a little milk or water if the pancake is too doughy and you have the right temperature.  If you are making a large batch of pancakes, you might have to thin the batter out because the batter thickens a little as it sits.  Another tip is to only flip the pancakes when the edges of the pancake become dull and the bubbles forming from under the pancake are almost breaking on the surface.  Don’t peak until you are quite sure it needs flipping! If the pan seems to be getting too hot, remove it from the burner and allow it to sit a minute before placing it back on the heat to regulate the skillet heat (if you have an electric stove).  I only use a nonstick pan to make pancakes because that is one less potential problem and I often wish I had an electric nonstick griddle.  Maybe Santa will bring one this year!  If you are making pancakes for a lot of people, preheat the oven to 250 and place a baking rack on a baking sheet.  When the pancakes are cooked, place them on the rack and cover with foil and keep them warm in the oven until you serve them.  If you want to get a little fancy, add maple syrup, raisins and pecans to a small saucepan and bring to a slow simmer to heat the sauce to plump the raisin and transfer to a serving pitcher. Otherwise, just pour and sprinkle everything on top.  Click here for the recipe….

White Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Swiss Meringue Butter Cream

I made a birthday cake for a friend and his favorite cake has a lemon curd center.  I have made lemon curd, but to make it really easy, Trader Joe’s has a really good one and I used that for the filling along with a nice layer of the butter cream in the center.  To make the candied lemon slices for the decorations I made a sugar syrup with equal parts of sugar and water.  Bring it to a boil and add a sliced  lemon and cook them in the syrup over low heat for an hour. Remove them to a wire rack and let them dry overnight and then dip them in sugar so they sparkle.  I used America’s Test Kitchen recipe for the cake and it sounds strange, but you mix the butter into the dry ingredients until it is sand like, and then you add the egg whites and remaining ingredients and give it a good beating with the mixer.  I use a carton of egg whites to make the cake and butter cream frosting.  The texture is feather light and moist. Swiss meringue butter cream takes a little more effort than just a regular butter cream frosting with powdered sugar, but for butter cream addicts, this recipe is delicious and is really a no fail recipe.  Click here for the recipe….

Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Picholine Olives

I love all the Moroccan spices with their vibrant flavors and this dish is delicious with the addition of preserved lemons.  I make my own, but you can often find them in gourmet stores or online.  They take about a month to preserve so you can’t make this dish on a whim unless you have a jar of them.  The rind becomes soft and takes on a sweetness and has all the flavor of lemons but without the sourness.  You start the tagine or stew by making a marinade for the chicken with olive oil, coriander, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, saffron, cloves, ginger, and red pepper flakes and if you have the time, it’s best to marinate overnight.  I use my Le Creuset shallow Dutch oven to brown the chicken and then remove to a platter and add the onions and lightly brown them before adding garlic, chicken stock, carrots, green olives, and the preserved lemon peel.  I usually braise it in the oven for 35 minutes but you can also cook it on the stove top.  To garnish the dish, you sprinkle cilantro, parsley and some diced reserved lemon peel and serve over a bed of couscous.  Click here for recipe….  Click here for preserved lemon recipe….

Israeli Couscous Pilaf with Peas and Red Pepper

This side dish is nice and creamy and goes really well with chicken or pork.  Couscous is a type of pasta made with semolina flour.  Israeli couscous is just a larger round shape that has a nice texture that you can make creamy with the addition of Parmesan cheese and a little more chicken stock towards the end of cooking.  I started out by sautéing an onion and red pepper until the onion was slightly browned and added the couscous to brown a little before I added the chicken stock (you can also use vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian).  When the couscous is almost cooked through -about 10 minutes, I added some frozen peas and Parmesan cheese.  Add more chicken stock at the end to get to the desired consistency.  You can add any kind of fresh or dried herb like thyme, oregano or basil.  Click here for the recipe….

Phyllis’s Peach Cobbler

This is my friend Janine’s sweet mother Phyllis’s recipe and it is really moist and yummy and screams summer dessert.  Having 9 children, she needed great recipes she could count on and this is one of them!  She usually uses peaches, but I had nectarines and used them.  You could use any kind of fruit and she said the original recipe used blackberries which would also be delicious with a combination of fruit.  You could also used drained canned peaches or pears in a pinch.  Drizzle melted butter on the bottom of a baking dish and pour the batter over and put the fruit on top and bake.  I sprinkled sparkling sugar (don’t know what it’s called, but it’s large sugar crystals) on the top after it baked for a little crunch.  A scoop of ice cream or some whipped cream makes it an over the top decadent dessert!  Click here for the recipe….

Grilled Ratatouille Panzanella Salad

Panzanella is a traditional Tuscan bread salad and this bread salad borrows from the traditional Provençal dish of ratatouille to meld the two together for a fabulous summer salad.  It is a hearty and delicious side dish that goes well with grilled chicken or fish and is even better if made ahead and made with slightly stale french bread.  Grill red and yellow peppers, eggplant, zucchini, onions and cherry tomatoes.  Slice the french bread and brush it with some olive oil and grilled each side and then cut it in cubes.  I made a fresh herbal vinaigrette with basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano and a pinch of fresh lavender and tossed it all together for a wonderful salad.   Click here for the recipe….