Dill

Another one of those ingredients that I've never used before is dill. I didn't even know what it looked like when I went to the store. It ended up coming in such a large quantity that I made more than one recipe with it. First...

Lemon Dill Green Beans

serves 10

2 1/2lb green beans

3T chopped dill

2 1/2T minced shallot

2 1/2T olive oil

2 1/2T lemon juice

2 1/2T whole-grain mustard

3/4t salt

3/4t pepper

Steam green beans.

Whisk dill, shallot, oil, lemon, mustard, salt and pepper. Add green beans and toss.



You can definitely taste the dill in these, so don't try if you know you don't like dill. I thought they were good, and I would make them again, but they definitely weren't nearly as good as these lemon herb butter green beans.

Garlic Ginger Chicken Thighs

Lately I've been trying to cook more than bake, and to try recipes with ingredients that I would never otherwise eat. This recipe is simple enough that I wouldn't have minded spending time on it if I didn't like it, and it uses ginger, which I wouldn't normally eat. (I even had to google how to peel it.)

Garlic-Ginger Chicken Thighs

serves about 4

2lbs skinned, boneless chicken thighs

1c thinly sliced red onion

2T minced garlic

2T minced peeled ginger

1/4c soy sauce

1/4c orange juice

1t pepper

Combine chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, soy, juice and pepper in a plastic bag.

Seal and shake to coat chicken. Refrigerate at least one hour.

Preheat grill to medium high heat. Oil grate (or grill pan). Grill skin side down, 5-6 minutes.

Flip and continue to cook, about 5 minutes.

I used boned chicken thighs for this (my grocery store doesn't sell boneless but skinned chicken). If you do this, add about 5-10 minutes to the cook time.

As promised...

The best part of Jim's welcome home party (besides him finally being home) was....

CAKE POPS!

I saw these on bakerella.com a few months ago and had been wanting to try them, but was waiting for a good occasion. They're very time consuming and really easy to screw up, but once you get the hang of them they're fun too. I wasn't adventurous enough to try any of the crazy designs shown over at bakerella, but I'm pretty sure they taste just as good no matter what shape they're in.

To make:
Prepare a box of your favorite cake mix and let cool completely.
Crumble into tiny pieces, then add 3/4 can of your favorite frosting, and mix together.
Roll mixture into balls and let chill in refridgerator or freezer.
Melt chocolate.

Take out 5-10 cake pops from freezer.

Dip stick into chocolate, then stick into the cake ball about 3/4 of the way.

Dip entire cake ball and stick into chocolate.

Tap stick against side of bowl to remove excess chocolate.

Put stick into styrofoam block and allow to set.

I found these to be much easier when working in small batches. The first batch I did, I melted too much chocolate at once and it ended up burning. I also took out all of the cake balls from the freezer at once and they started to get too warm by the end, so they were falling apart when I dipped them into the chocolate. But my mess ups turned into cake balls instead of cake pops!

These really are SO good and are worth spending time making... check out bakerella for more ideas and instructions.