Stew with Fava Beans

This is a "made up" recipe that starts with city-chicken, a meat mixture common in the mid-west consisting of chunks of veal and pork. Several hours before or even over night, soak 1C dried fava beans in water. You can also use canned ones if you wish. We coated about 1 lb. of the meat with seasoned flour and browned it in 3T of oil. Remove the meat and brown 1 medium onion, diced, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 1t each of sweet paprika, ground cumin, tumeric, rosemary and lemon zest. When the onion is tender, deglaze the pan with 1/2 C white wine and 1/2C chicken stock. Add the meat back to the pan, add 1- 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes and bake in a 275 degree oven for 3-4 hrs, until the meat is fork tender. Sliced kalamata olives would be a nice addition to the dish. Garnish with chopped fresh mint. We served the stew with simple boiled potatoes.

Veal and Sausage Ragu

A ragu is a hearty sauce of meat and veggies. I've been looking for a wonderful recipe for years and this is it!!

I sauted diced onions and carrots with garlic and parsley. After they were done I cooked Italian sausage and some veal stew meat in the same skillet. When they were cooked, I returned the veggies and added some white wine. I cooked this down till the wine was almost evaporated. Then I did the same with chicked stock. The entire mixture went into a food processor and was coarsley chopped.

I combined the meat mix with canned tomatoes, bay and fresh sage. I simmered this for about an hour, adding chicken stock along the way.

While the stock was simmering, I sauted some mushrooms to add at the end and served the ragu over pasta.

Savory Bread Pudding

We had some left over crusty bread, so I decided to a make a savory bread pudding.

I mixed seeded and diced tomatoes, minced garlic, fresh basil and parsley with some lemon juice, olive oil and red pepper. While these flavors were blending, I cut the bread into cubes, tossed them with olive oil and baked till golden and slightly crunchy.

I whisked together 1 cup of heavy cream with 2 eggs then added the bread and tomato mix. This went into a baking dish. I toppped the pudding with grated cheese and baked at 350 for one hour.

Dijon - Potato crusted Salmon

This is a com-pilation of several recipes we found on the internet. We prepared the fish in the oven rather than the Weber because we didn't want the smoky flavor to over power the potatoes. Season the salmon with salt and pepper and lightly apply a coating of a good Dijon mustard to the side of the filet without the skin. Grate one potato ( covers 2 1/2 lb salmon filets) , pat gently onto the mustard coating and brush with melted butter. Place the fish skin side down in a 450 degree oven for 10 min and finish under the broiler until the potatoes have a golden color. We served the fish with steamed asparagus but a green salad would be wonderful as well.

Trout Filets with Dill and Lemon Butter

This is a very simple recipe but very tasty as well. The trout filets were cooked for 5 min. on the Weber but they could be done in the oven as well. We whipped together 1/4C softened butter, 1T fresh lemon juice and 1/2t of dried dill. The butter was spread on the fish just before serving. We served the trout with boiled potatoes topped with butter and parsley and steamed broccoli. A dry, crisp white wine finished the meal.