red pepper salad with hard boiled eggs and anchovies

So my last two posts have both involved roasted red peppers, something that I really enjoy, both eating and preparing. Today, I have one more idea of what you can do with them: a big old salad with anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, garlic, parsley and a nice vinaigrette with olive oil.

blt spaghetti

OK so this post is basically "spaghetti with tomatoes and some other stuff part two." I hope that's alright. I know that everyone who cooks regularly has their usual fall back tricks in the kitchen, and I am anything but an exception. Yes, I will admit it: I am entirely too dependent on pasta and tomatoes and garlic and cheese and onions and cracked black pepper. I just can't help myself. Can you accept me as I am? Please? OK great, thanks.

maple black pepper pork chop

So a nice fat pork chop is always pretty good... on this blog alone I've covered quite a number of delicious preparations: breaded and baked, pan seared, coffee marinated, braised pizzaiole and agrodolce.

fried egg with cheddar, scallion, spinach and duck prosciutto/goat cheese, duck prosciutto and arugula sandwich

So in my last post I mentioned the duck prosciutto that I bought at the Union Square Farmer's Market. It was some amazing stuff. I usually just sliced it up and ate it for a snack, but I also added it to a couple of sandwiches, which was always pretty sweet.

It also makes an AWESOME bacon alternative, fried ever so quickly here and served with a little sauteed spinach and a fried egg topped with cheddar and scallions. No meal should be allowed to look AND taste this good. Just a winner on all counts.

spaghetti with bacon, breadcrumbs and arugula

Nathan and I made this when he hosted our book club. The selection was Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night, the discussion was riveting and the dinner... was actually better as leftovers.

When I found this recipe I was really excited. Bacon and breadcrumbs and arugula and sun dried tomatoes with spaghetti in a creamy sauce... What could possibly go wrong?

beet and blood orange salad

So I apologize in advance for the quality of these photos. However, if you, like me, are at a loss for what to do with your food co-op beets, this may be just what you need. Alice Water's beet and blood orange salad

tomates farcies/sausage with arugula

breadcrumb topped baked tomatoes

Happy Thanksgiving, and greetings from Boston!

I know that I am supposed to be writing about squash and turkeys and things, because it's Thanksgiving, but I'm not going to to do that. Sorry. You're probably sick of those things anyway; perhaps even literally. Instead I am going to bring you back to those warmer days of early fall, with late tomatoes, for this recipe that Nathan's mom, Tenli, gave us for baked tomatoes.


our french tomato dinner plate

Nathan's stepmom, Marie, is French, and her very French mother, Jackie, gave this recipe to Tenli, who passed it along to us. It's very easy and a great way to serve a ripe, juicy tomato. Just promise me you won't try to make this with the mealy pink type you're likely to find in the grocery store this time of year. It's just not worth it.

Once you've got your hands on some good tomatoes, say like next July, this is what you're going to do: cut a beefsteak tomato in half, and cover the cut surface with a mix of breadcrumbs, minced garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, moistening the mixture with a drizzle of olive oil. Bake it at 425˚ for about 12 minutes. I put it in the toaster oven, which worked pretty well, but it got a little crispy on top being so close to the heat. With that, you've got yourself a great little side dish!


sausage and wilted arugula

We ate our tomatoes with some ravioli with butter and cheese, chopped up sausage, and arugula that I briefly sauteed in the sausage fat. It was super delicious. Thanks to Tenli for hooking us up with such a brilliantly easy and yummy meal!

Normally, I don't bother trying to write up a recipe, but since Tenli took the trouble of sending this one to us, I'm going to pass it along to you readers directly. Don't get used to it!

Tomates Farcies
serves 2 as a side dish, 4 as a starter

Preheat oven to 425, and put one of the oven racks at the top of the oven.

Take two large tomatoes in season (beefsteak or a large heirloom variety are both delicious!) Cut in half and place cut side up on a baking sheet covered in foil.
Combine:
3TBS bread crumbs
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS parsley
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Distribute crumb/garlic/parsley mixture evenly between the tomato halves, then drizzle each one with +/- 1 TBS olive oil

Bake in top of oven for around 12-15 minutes.

Very tasty!

balsamic orange beets with goat cheese and walnuts

beets cooked in orange juice and balsamic vinegar

So as I've mentioned, I'm not too crazy about beets. I don't dislike them, but I get very bored of them after a few bites. Beets are kind of a chore. But I promised I'd try them with goat cheese, so that is just what I did. I know that adding pine nuts is another popular choice, but there was apparently some shortage in China and those little buggers cost $20 a pound, so I used walnuts instead. Way more affordable.

I also took a peek in The Flavor Bible, which suggested pairing beets with oranges. I had some orange juice in the fridge, so I peeled my beets, chopped up an onion, and then boiled the beets in a mixture of oj and balsamic vinegar.


beet salad with goat cheese

Served over arugula with goat cheese and toasted walnuts, these orange infused beets were pretty much as good and they were going to get. That being said, I still wasn't too thrilled with those beets. It was good, but I guess beets just aren't my thing, because I didn't really want to finish them.

Unfortunately, I'm going to keep getting beets as long as I'm in the food co-op, so I guess I'll just have to keep looking for a beet that I love.

bread salad: the good and the bad

I really only started cooking after I had my own kitchen and couldn't rely on my parents or the caf to feed me. I knew my way around the kitchen from helping out my parents, but until the summer after my junior year, it wasn't a place that I chose to spend much time in. That June, I found myself cooking for ten on a service trip to New Orleans, when no one else seemed comfortable stepping up to the plate. With very limited resources and absolutely no recipes, I somehow managed to make something that everyone ate without complaint. I wouldn't call that dinner a triumph, but I would say that it kindled something deep inside me. Bolstered by that success, I began to feel drawn to the kitchen.

After my trip to New Orleans, I went to Europe for two months. Obviously, food was a big part of that trip, and I didn't have to prepare most of it. Traveling with friends through Britain, Spain and France, there was always another restaurant, another sandwich shop, another gelato shop. When we finally got to Italy, Mike, Marianne and I stayed in a small apartment with a tiny little stove in Cinque Terra. One night we bought pasta and lots of fresh veggies in the town of Riomaggiore, and I cooked dinner. It was just a simple pasta dish, but I got a real thrill out of making something tasty from quality ingredients.

From Cinque Terra, we went to Pisa and to Rome, and then we went our separate ways– Marianne back to New York, Mike to Albania, and I to Florence. There, I had an apartment with five other American girls for a month. It was a fifth floor walkup, but there were three bedrooms, a tiny living room, a rooftop balcony with a view of the Duomo (*sigh*), and a pretty nice kitchen. Obviously, I ate out a great deal in Florence, but I also went shopping at the San Lorenzo Market and started making myself dinner.

I probably only cooked three or four times while I was in that apartment, but it was always kind of fun and exciting, even if the results weren't that spectacular. I remember making a great pasta dish with onions and cannellini beans, and calling up my Nona to get her recipe for pasta in ricotta cheese sauce. Again, nothing super fancy, but I got quite a sense of accomplishment from throwing those dishes together without a recipe.

Of course, after a while I felt like making something more traditionally Florentine. I don't remember where, but I did find a recipe for a bread salad called panzanella that Italian peasants made with their stale bread. I had lots of stale bread, and it seemed easy, so I decided to whip up a batch of panzanella.


soggy panzenella

Unfortunately, it was soggy and bland, and a total disappointment. I figured I must have done something very wrong. I was a novice cook, and I didn't think it was possible that I could be so unimpressed with traditional Italian food. I love me some peasant food, so this mushy mess just couldn't be right– could it?

Well last month I gave panzanella another shot, and let me tell you the result was exactly the same. Totally bland, even loaded up with basil, garlic, roasted red pepper, tomatoes and sauteed spinach. The bread, though toasted absorbed all the moisture from the veggies, turning the salad into a cold, wet, unappetizing pile of sludge.

Basically, I don't know why this dish hasn't been put out to pasture. Panzanella is just not good. Luckily, I have an alternative for you that is way better.


it's not panzanella– it's way better

Though this dish has a lot of the same ingredients as panzanella, it manages to avoid getting soggy and gross. I cubed the day old bread, but instead of toasting it, I melted some butter in a cast iron skillet, and then tossed in the bread. I let it sit until it got really crispy, and almost burned. Then I stirred all the bread around, letting it soak up all that butter goodness. Almost saturated with butter, the bread stayed crispy on the outside, even when I mixed it with sauteed arugula and pan fried tomatoes. I threw all that on a plate and topped it with some goat cheese, plenty of cracked black pepper and a fried egg.


toasty buttery bread with goat cheese, pan-fried tomatoes and wilted arugula

Now that's what I call a delicious bread salad.

i miss arthur avenue

arugula, prosciutto and parmesean salad

I am really, really glad that I live in Manhattan now. Yes, it may be upper Manhattan, but it's still way more accessible than our old place in the Bronx. People are willing to come over on days of the year that aren't Fordham homecoming or my birthday party, and I love that.

What I do miss is Arthur Ave. The meat, the cheese, the torrone, the wine, the pasta... So much amazing foodstuff. I love it here in Harlem, but I haven't seen so much as a leaf of basil up here, let alone prosciutto di parma. I'm not asking for specialty Italian food, but a nice butcher would be cool.


red pepper and fresh mozzarella bruschetta

So, when I get a chance to go back, I blow two weeks of grocery money in a single afternoon and eat like a pig. I go to Casa Della mozzarella and buy pillowy little bocconcini. They are absolutely perfect and delicious bites just as they are, but I don't always stop there. I also go to Madonia Bakery for their excellent bread, (and peerless canoli), because bocconcini also make absolutely delicious bruschetta with some garlic marinated roasted red peppers, basil, parsley and some wilted greens.


prosciutto close up

Here we have a lovely and simple little salad that I threw together after my last trip to Arthur. I got a quarter pound of prosciutto di parma and a small wedge of parmesean at Teitel Brothers. I made the salad with the paper thin slices of cured meat, some curls of the cheese, a lemony vinaigrette dressing, and then arugula and tomato from the co-op.


four little bruschetta

Man, this was a good dinner. I wish I could get back up there more often. The ingredients on Arthur Avenue are so good and so flavorful that you barely have to do anything to them!