Chicken, Wild Rice and Cherry Tomato Casserole

By Paul Briand

My wife, Jane, found this very simple - and very tasty recipe -- in Real Simple magazine ad.

It’s a chicken-based recipe but she jazzed it up a bit with some chicken sausage prepared with Mozzarella cheese and garlic. She diced up a link and added it to the mix.

Here is the recipe as originally presented.

Ingredients
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
4 ounces mushrooms, bottoms trimmed, sliced thin
2 (5-ounce packages) long grain rice and wild rice
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
4 chicken breasts, sliced into ½-inch slices
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
3 cups hot water
1 package cherry tomatoes, halved

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees;
2. In a large casserole dish, combine first nine ingredients, top with tomatoes;
3. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes (or until liquid is absorbed).

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Grilled Shrimp with Tomato Salad

By Paul Briand

When it comes to looking for good recipes to try and write about, my wife Jane is a valued co-conspirator.

In part, she knows I’m always on the hunt for something new. But largely, I think, she knows how she benefits with another delish dish on the table.

This recipe comes from the Relish magazine her newspaper, the Eagle-Tribue in Massachusetts, puts into Tuesday’s edition once a month. You can find the recipe online at Relish.com here.

This recipe oozes summer. Grilling shrimp. A light, tasty vinaigrette. And tomatoes galore.

One note: I couldn’t find yellow pear tomatoes at my supermarket. So I substituted a yellow bell pepper. It offered the same color effect to the salad, and had the added bonus of adding texture and a crunch to the salad that it wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Ingredients

For the vinaigrette:

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

3 tablespoons orange juice, freshly squeezed

1 tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard

2 garlic cloves, pressed

2 teaspoons chopped cilantro

1 tablespoon honey

For the shrimp:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

12 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails intact

White pepper

For the tomato salad:

2 beefsteak tomatoes

4 Roma tomatoes

12 red grape tomatoes, cut into halves

12 yellow pear tomatoes, cut into halves

Freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons basil, cut into thin ribbons

Directions

1. To prepare the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk well;

2. To prepare the shrimp, combine olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and shrimp in a large bowl;

3. Let stand 15 to 30 minutes. Add white pepper;

4. Heat grill to medium-high. Thread shrimp on skewers;

5. Place shrimp on grill rack and cook on grill 2 to 3 minutes, until just pink. (Or grill jumbo shrimp directly on the grill.);

6. To prepare salad, toss grape and pear tomatoes into vinaigrette. Sprinkle with pepper. Slice beefsteak tomatoes and Roma tomatoes into 1/8-inch-thick slices and place on serving plates. Spoon grape and pear tomatoes and vinaigrette on top and garnish with basil. Serve with shrimp.

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Tomato and Thyme Haddock

By Paul Briand

I’ll go anywhere in search of a good recipe for preparing at home. I traveled recently to England -- OK, more like the British Broadcasting Service and its BBC Good Food web site.

This recipe originally called for cod, but I used haddock instead. And I doubled the recipe since something this good deserved to get on our dinner table at least twice this week.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 14-ounce cans of chopped tomatoes (opt for low salt or no salt added)

1 heaped teaspoon of soft brown sugar

A few sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped (1 tablespoon if you have to use prepared thyme from your spice rack)

1 tablespoon soy sauce (again, opt for the low salt)

2 pounds haddock

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a medium large skillet over medium high heat;

2. Add and saute until lightly browned;

3. Stir in the tomatoes, brown sugar, thyme and soy, then bring to a boil;

4. Add the fish into the sauce, making sure some of the tomato mixture gets onto the top of the fish;

5. Cover and cook on medium low until the fish flakes easily, about 8 to 10 minutes.

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Calling all recipes for tomatoes

By Paul Briand

My plants are starting to pop with the brilliant red of what I hope is a plentiful crop of beefsteak ??? and cherry tomatoes.

I didn't have such a great year with my tomatoes last season, so I'm looking forward to a bumper crop this year.

Which begs the question: With a bumper crop of tomatoes, what should I do with them?

That's where I'd like your help. I'd like you to send me recipes for any recipe that uses fresh tomatoes.

Send me your concoctions for sauces and salads and whatever.

I'm especially interested in recipes for salsa using fresh tomatoes. Salsa is one of my all-time favorite food groups.

Please don't be shy.

Post your recipes in the comment section below; that way everyone can see. Or email me with your recipes:
pbriand@broadcovemedia.com

Not only would I love to try some of the recipes for my own use, I'd love to share some of them here.

Tomato Basil Tart

By Paul Briand

The story behind this recipe is, frankly, a little hazy. It comes from my sister Kate, who got it from her friend Karen.

It has to do with it was a party and grilling steaks, and how my sister's rear car window got blown out by a stray rock while someone was mowing a lawn.

"And anyway," Kate writes, "Karen is a fantastic cook, and this pie was so good."

Ingredients
1 unbaked pie crust
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
3 medium tomatoes
3/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp ground pepper

Directions
1. Unfold pie crust according to package directions,
2. Place in tart or pie pan and flute edges,
3. Line the shell with double thickness foil,
4. Bake in 450 degree oven for 8 minutes,
5. Remove foil and bake 4-5 minutes longer until set and dry,
6. Remove from oven and sprinkle crust with 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Cool slightly on a wire rack,
7. Dice tomatoes and arrange in the bottom of the pie shell,
8. Coarsely chop the basil and garlic and sprinkle over the tomatoes,
9. In a bowl combine the remaining mozzarella cheese, mayo, parmesan cheese and pepper,
10. Spoon cheese mixture over the basil/garlic, spreading to evenly cover the top,
11. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes or until top is golden and bubbly,
12. Serve warm and enjoy.

Red Sauce with Sausage

By Paul Briand

Everyone should have a red sauce at their disposal for home cooking. There's no need, frankly, to depend on Ragu or any other canned or bottled brand when there are a lot of people to feed and the menu calls for a hearty red sauce with your favorite kind of pasta.

My red sauce comes from an amalgamation of influences -- from my mother (and her ethnic mix of Italian and Ukrainian), my sister Margaret, a girl I dated a while ago, from reading cookbooks and from a bit of experimenting on my part. In other words, when it comes to eating at various homes over the years I've paid attention, absorbed hints and bits of data, churned them up and made them my own.

Besides the ingredients, what I like to absorb from good cooks is technique. For example, I picked up a technique for cooking the Italian sausage from a Silver Palette cookbook my mother gave me for Christmas in 1999. It recommended pricking the sausage with a fork and boiling them in a large pot or skillet in about a half inch of water over medium/high heat. Then let the water boil away and continue to cook the sausage until brown on all sides. Remove the sausage to a plate, discard the fat, but don't clean the pot/skillet. Add some olive oil and use that accumulated goodness at the bottom of the pot to then start preparing the sauce itself.

The other technique that I picked up but don't necessarily use is the addition of a little sugar to, obviously, sweeten up the red sauce. And the aforementioned bygone girlfriend also shredded some carrot into her sauce to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes.

As for the sausages I like to mix sweet with hot -- I buy a package of each. It creates a surprise in every bite -- sometimes tangy, sometimes not. I also substitute the sausage on occasion with ground beef or ground turkey, depending on my level of nutritional guilt at any one time.

Ingredients
2 - 2 1/4 pounds of Italian sausage (half sweet, half hot)
3-4 cloves garlic, mashed
Green pepper, sliced
Vadalia onion, sliced
8 ounce package of sliced mushrooms
28 ounce can kitchen ready tomatoes
29 ounce can tomato sauce
12 ounce can tomato paste
Cup of red wine
Parsley, oregano, sage, basil - a tbsp of each

Directions
1) Cook sausage in large pot or skillet as described above -- prick links with a fork, boil in about half inch water over medium/high heat, let the water boil away then continue to brown sausage on all sides. Set sausage aside, drain fat but don't clean the pot/skillet;
2) Add olive oil, and sautee garlic, pepper, and onions 3 minutes;
3) Add mushrooms and cook mixture another 2 minutes;
4) Add kitchen ready tomatoes and tomato sauce and give a good stir;
5) Add tomato paste and give another good stir to get the paste well into the sauce;
6) Add the red wine and add the parley, oregano, sage and basil;
7) Stir and reduce to a simmer.

Now, I'm sure you've heard it said that the sauce should simmer just about all day. I say, "Fuggedaboutit!" A half hour, 45 minutes tops of simmering and stirring and you'll be good to go. Cook your favorite pasta and toss a salad. One note about the salad: In my mom's kitchen we never, ever had tomatoes in the salad on the nights she served spaghetti and sauce. Too much tomato, she said. I still hold that as sacred today.