Wordless Week, Episode Six: Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with Roasted Asparagus

Day Eighteen: Spring Vegetable Couscous and Steak Kebabs

Day eighteen of Operation: Expand Horizons offers one new recipe from the May 2010 issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, Spring Vegetable Couscous, as a side dish to some tried-and-true steak kebabs.

I've never tried couscous before, and it was super quick to prepare. The dish itself is simple- asparagus, green onion, frozen peas, parsley, couscous, and water. I really liked it, but my husband, who is season-weary of asparagus, complained about it and also said it had too many peas. I think I might make a variation of this dish as a cold salad, using tabouli wheat (bulgur) instead of couscous. I may even spring it up further by adding some shredded spinach!

The magazine version calls for lemon zest and fresh lemon juice. Knowing our tastes (asparagus may well pair with lemon according to traditional cooking lore, but I find it has too much bitterness), I omitted the lemon and added two small cloves of garlic. The magazine also calls for adding shredded rotisserie chicken to make this a main dish, but that sounded weird to me and I opted instead to make it as a meatless side.

I like to keep frozen peas in the fridge at all times. For one, I got lucky with a youngin who will literally eat peas as a snack. Secondly, the frozen variety are infinitely more tasty than the canned variety. I learned my lesson buying the cheap store brand frozen veggies. There is a noticeable difference in flavor and texture- I now buy either Green Giant or Birds Eye exclusively.

Here's the recipe as it appears in this month's Everyday Food, with my changes noted in italics. I halved the recipe to make it a side for two adults and a 3 year old, and had about a serving left over.

Spring-Vegetable Couscous with Chicken

Serves 4

3 tbsp. unsalted butter

4 scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced crosswise

2 wide strips lemon zest plus 1 tbsp. lemon juice (I omitted in favor of 2 cloves garlic, minced)

coarse salt and ground pepper

1 lb. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/2" pieces

1/2 c. frozen peas

1 cup couscous

leg and thigh meat from 1 rotisserie chicken, turn into bite-size pieces (I omitted.)

2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high. Add scallion whites (and garlic) and cook, stirring constantly, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add lemon zest and 1 1/4 cups water and season with salt and pepper. Cover pan and bring liquid to a boil, then add asparagus and peas. Return to a boil and stir in couscous. Add chicken and remove pan from heat; cover and let sit 7 minutes. Add lemon juice (I omitted), scallion greens, and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Fluff with a fork and serve.

I have a well-worn recipe my husband found online for a dry rub for steak. It's purported to be like that used by Outback Steakhouse, but whether that's true or not, it's a good mix.

Steak Rub

Makes about 1/2 cup. Mix the following in a small bowl. Sprinkle generously over steak or pork chops about 1/2 hour before grilling. Store leftovers in a sealed container with your spices.

4 tsp. kosher salt

4 tsp. paprika

2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder (I use garlic granules, which I think have a more potent flavor.)

1/2 tsp. cayenne powder

1/2 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground turmeric

Day Thirteen: Fettuccine with Peas, Asparagus, and Pancetta

Day thirteen of Operation: Expand Horizons was a simple pasta dish from Bon Appétit's May 2010 issue, Fettuccine with Peas, Asparagus, and Pancetta.

The dish is quite simple and fast. The prep time is actually longer than the cooking time.

We were a little disappointed with the bland flavor overall and the overwhelming amount of lemon, but it was worth a shot. The combo of pasta water, cream, olive oil, lemon juice, and Parmesan is worthy of using again as a light pasta sauce base, with a smaller amount of lemon.

The recipe says it serves 4, but quantities listed told me that I'd have too much left over if I didn't trim it down. Instead of 1 1/4 pounds of asparagus, I used about 3/4 pound. Instead of two cups of peas, I used one cup. Instead of a whole bunch of scallions (we call them "green onions" here in Oklahoma), I used 4. There was still a very generous amount of veggies in the recipe, and it seems like the called-for amounts might have been too much anyway.

Pancetta is outside of my budget, so I used regular bacon, which is an acceptable substitute per the recipe. We are a bacon-loving household, and Wright brand thick-cut bacon is fantastic. The recipe calls for 2 ounces of bacon, but because of my die-hard carnivore spouse, I used more- 3 slices, or about 3 ounces.

The bacon is merely a garnish, so of course my husband whined about the lack of a hunk of meat at dinner. He'll get over it.

I made some garlic toast for a side out of that delicious homemade wheat bread I promised to post on soon.

Day Four: Chicken Cutlets with Asparagus, Capers, and Shallots

Day four of Operation: Expand Horizons was a marginal success. I liked it; my husband called it "edible." Bon Appétit's Chicken Cutlets with Asparagus, Capers, and Shallots may not make it into our regular dinner rotation, but he tried something new and I'm OK with that.

Before plating the food, I wasn't sure how it was going to taste, but I knew that it sure looked pretty.

My normal method of cooking asparagus is steaming, so the broiled kind was new for me and I really liked it. The stalks were not tough at all. The shallots were really good with the chicken, and I was surprised at how mellow the flavor of the fennel seed became during cooking. I'm not normally a big fan of fennel seed or any licorice-type flavors, but it was quite good.

The mustard and caper sauce was really tangy and vinegary, too much so for my husband. I added a teaspoon of sugar and it was better. I knew he might not like it, so I served the sauce on the side.

The sauce called for fresh tarragon, which I have never used and could not find in the grocery store. Not knowing what tarragon tasted like, I took a guess based on the other ingredients and substituted fresh thyme from my garden. It seemed to work.

My oven rack was in the middle position, so broiling time was longer than indicated by the recipe, but that was better for me in that it reduced the chance that the shallots would burn while the chicken stayed raw on the inside.

I made some plain buttered egg noodles to go on the side.