Rediscovering Cilantro

Tonight’s meal was brought to us courtesy of Ruth, of Once Upon a Feast . She’s working on a cookbook, soon to be published, called Every Kitchen Tells Its Stories. Part of the publication process includes having your recipes tested, and I get to be one of Ruth’s testers! She sent me some delicious-looking recipes, and tonight we cooked the first three. I don’t get to share the recipes with you, because they’re Ruth’s, and they’ll be in her book, but I do get to tell you a little about them.

What I liked best about all three of these is that they were so quick. I had a long workday, one that began at 6:00 am, and included meetings at the district office, working in my office, an open house at the San Bernardino Regional Resource Center’s new office, and a TGIF at BJ’s Brewhouse for my chapter, Redlands Teachers, Redlands ESP, Rialto Educators, and NEA-Jurupa. We must have had over 100 people there. I didn’t eat or drink a thing, oh, wait, I had one small piece of toast with artichoke dip on it, but you know that nibbles don’t count, right? Anyway, I had to battle the traffic from San Bernardino, so it took me almost an hour to make it up the mountain. But from the time I walked in the door to the time I put the plates on the table, it was 35 minutes.

This picture is blurry, for some reason. But it’s the better of the two that I took.



First to be cooked, since it took the longest, was the Cilantro Citrus Chicken. What a wonderful mix of flavors! I cooked it on the George Forman Grill, since it’s 30˚ outside and I didn’t want to sauté it, and it came out juicy and tasty. The combination of the cilantro and citrus made it “clean” and light, not a heavy, greasy dish. This one’s a keeper, Ruth!

Second to cook was the Savory Couscous. DH normally doesn’t like couscous (I don’t know why; it’s just pasta in a different shape), but he went back for seconds on this one.

The last to cook, since it took only 8 minutes, was the Lemon Zest Spinach. I grew up eating spinach from a can. The first time I ever had fresh spinach was in a salad about 10 years ago, and I’ve always enjoyed spinach salad since then. It wasn’t until last year that I had cooked fresh spinach. It was at a restaurant in Costa Mesa. I was bowled over by the fabulous taste, and make it a point to buy two bags at least once a month–one for salad and one for cooking.

Now it’s time for dessert!