steak au poivre/spinach and mushrooms

As I think of what to write about this very traditional "meat and potatoes" type meal (literally), I realize just how infrequently I cook beef. That's healthy, I suppose, but also kind of a shame because I love meat and I love steak and ribs and all that good stuff. This meal, in particular, would totally be right at home on the menu of a steakhouse, albeit one with some heavy French influences. Like Les Halles.

crispy chicken wings with mushrooms, garlic, thyme and vermouth

Chicken tends not to be the most exciting type of meat, and it takes a great chicken recipe to get me to stand up and take notice. This, my friends, is a great chicken recipe. And I'm not just saying that because this is by far the garlickiest dish I have ever made.  It's incredibly crispy, without being weighed down with any sort of batter, and the white wine, mushrooms and thyme are the perfect sauce.

garlicky broccoli rabe, fresh mozzarella and tomato jam sandwich

I know any photo involving gooey, melted cheese is guaranteed to set your mouth a-watering, but trust me when I say that this sandwich is legitimately one of the most delicious ones that I have ever tasted. There's the fresh mozzarella, broccoli rabe loaded with garlic and spicy red pepper flakes, and a sweet, slow cooked tomato jam, all pressed between a loaf of Italian bread like a crispy panini.

edamame hummus

I made this for a New Year's Eve snack last weekend, for the two New Year's parties my brother Matt and I were attending. As long as you've got a food processor, this is a really easy dip to make, and can easily be doubled or even tripled for a crowd, as I did. It's a little salty, a little lemony, a little garlicy, and a whole lot of edamame.

fried eggplant balls, mustard braised green beans and pancetta pappardelle with stewed tomatoes

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this was probably one of the best dinners I made all year. Nathan helped, but this was mostly my endeavor, and both he and Laura had nothing but good things to say about the meal. When you've got some crispy fried goodness, a tasty, honest-to-goodness healthy vegetable, and a really solid pasta dish, that's pretty much a guaranteed recipe for a first rate feast.

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.

roasted eggplant spread sandwich with roasted red peppers, arugula and romano cheese frico

It doesn't take much to make a great sandwich. Take peanut butter and jelly for instance. I learned how to make it when I was in preschool, and pretty much nothing could be easier, but who doesn't love a good peanut butter sandwich? Well, Nathan doesn't, but he can be a weirdo sometimes. But I'm not here to talk about peanut butter sandwiches, but a much fancier affair, with crisp romano cheese frico, marinated red peppers and garlic, fresh arugula and a roasted eggplant spread from Ina Garten. Now that's a sandwich.

pasta with sun gold tomatoes

Hi guys. Just another little pasta dish for you all. I am nothing if not an inveterate collector of pasta recipes, as you have probably come to realize. This one appealed to me largely due to the name: pasta with sun gold tomatoes. Sun gold! How delicious does that sound? A good adjective will get me every time. For example: farm fresh. Call me a total sucker, but I am probably about 15% more likely to order something if it is described as farm fresh. Embarrassing, but true.

charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint and red pepper flakes

Just one simple dish for you today: charred eggplant and tomatoes with mint. Originally it was supposed to be "with harissa and mint," but I don't have harissa. Actually, I didn't even know what it was, but I looked it up, and it's a spicy hot chili sauce from North Africa, so I decided I could just use chili powder. As you probably know, I'm kind of a wimp about spicy food anyway, so I didn't lose too much sleep over it.

spaghetti limone/bacon wrapped pork loin

So as I mentioned in my post on zucchini, I visited my Aunt Elise and Uncle Ed when I went out to California this summer. In addition to the aforementioned vegetable, I put together quite a nice dinner, if I do say so myself.

First we had a garlic and sage crusted pork loin. That is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a big old pork loin generously seasoned and rubbed with olive oil, garlic and fresh sage. Further gilding the lily, as per Aunt Elise's excellent suggestion, I wrapped that sucker in bacon before searing it off in a frying pan and finishing it off in the oven. Gotta love that pork on pork action.

mint pea pesto

So this I was like pretty proud of. My dad came over and helped me install a window herb garden, which, by the way is totally dying on me. What the hell man? I water them once a day, shouldn't that be enough? WHY IS ALL MY THYME AND BASIL DYING ON MEEEEEE?

Ahem.

What I was saying is that my dad came over to help me install a window herb garden, and because I am not a totally ungrateful daughter, I made him lunch. I saw this recipe for "pea pesto" on smitten kitchen and while I didn't entirely love the sound of it, it did give me the spark of inspiration I needed to make this dish.

random stuff to do with zucchini

As anyone who has ever planted them or joined a farm share knows, the bounty of summer squash and zucchini never seems to end. Luckily, my csa seems to have moved on this season, but there was a month or two there where it was pretty dicey. Laura made a LOT of zucchini bread, but for some reason I stuck with more of the typical veggie side dish type thing.

buttery mushrooms and parsleyed polenta

Here, Gourmet magazine and Smitten Kitchen combine forces to bring you a predictably awesome dish of garlicy broiled mushrooms. Really, both of them are pretty much food gospel for me, so whenever Deb talks up something from Gourmet, it always goes to the top of my "to-make" list.

(If you know me, you won't be surprised to know that I have an obscenely long "to-make" list. And also "to eat at" list. And "to read" list. And "movie-to-watch" list. It all springs from my mild obsessive compulsive tendencies.)

Anyway. Food blog. Right.

Mushrooms and butter and garlic oh my!

Really, it doesn't get any simpler or tastier than this. Clean off your mushrooms and toss them in a pan with minced garlic, butter, and capers. Roast in a 450˚ oven for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with lemon juice and chopped parsley for a rich but easy side dish.



I served mine with some creamy polenta and some more parsley, but I'm sure it'd be even better with crusty bread. Any time you soak up a yummy sauce with bread the meal becomes 46% more enjoyable. Scientific fact. Seriously.

sun dried tomato infused spinach

Nathan and I threw together this tasty spinach dish with some garlic, sun dried tomatoes and lemon. Initially I was probably just going to toss chopped sun drieds in with the steamed spinach, but as we rehydrated the tomatoes in some hot water, I had an interesting idea. What if I used that tomato infused water to cook the spinach?

It turns out that the end result is both very tasty and somehow strangely reminiscent of Asian flavors. I think the tomato water functioned a little bit like soy sauce, salty and rich with a savory umami funk.



I simply sauteed the spinach with a decent amount of chopped garlic, some lightly squeezed lemon slices, the sun dried tomatoes and their broth. I often squeeze lemon over my spinach, and God knows I love to use garlic, but the addition of the sun dried tomatoes made this dish a whole new experience of deliciousness. I was very pleased with this new flavor combination, and it is one that I will try to explore more in the future.

cauliflower

cauliflower "mac and cheese"

No this is not the long-awaited-since-yesterday "what I cooked for the holidays pt 2." Today I am talking about cauliflower, which we were getting in alarmingly large quantities this fall. Like, if you think cauliflower looks like brains, these babies came from the head of a total giant. Beyond enormous.

Unlike Nathan, I am a big fan of cauliflower, which I usually steam until tender and serve with olive oil, lemon and parsley. I also love it breaded and fried, which, let's face it, is not a bad preparation for any food, really. Except maybe fruit. Apples would work, but can you imagine breaded fried pineapple, or berries? Yuck. I wonder if anyone's tried that.

Anyway. With such unimaginable amounts of cauliflower, I decided to branch out and try some new ways of making it. I thought about the delicious cauliflower I've had at Indian restaurants and Middle Eastern pita joints, but ultimately I stayed a little closer to home.

First I tried a simple oven roasted recipe from Ina Garten, which employed pine nuts, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice and whole cloves of garlic. It's from her book How Easy Is That, and it really did seem like it would be.


ina garten's garlic roasted cauliflower

Parboiled garlic cloves and chopped up cauliflower florets are tossed with olive oil and baked in a 475° oven for 20 minutes. Toss with lemon juice and toasted pine nuts, (or walnuts if you're put off by the astronomically high price of the former), and sprinkle with parsley and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately, my version fell a bit short. Perhaps there was something off with my oven temperature, because my cauliflower was a little too brown, but not yet cooked through. It was one of those situations where I probably should have just put everything back in the oven, but was too hungry to wait. Impatience does not a good cook make.

My second cauliflower dish was a play on macaroni and cheese. I created a rich bechamel sauce with butter and blue cheese, and then stirred in my cauliflower florets. After I time, I sprinkled the top with breadcrumbs and baked the dish in the oven. With a little parsley and chopped scallion for color, this was cheesy and good, but no match for the pasta laden original. And, like this previous dish, the cauliflower wasn't cooked evenly. While some of it was meltingly tender, cooked through with buttery cheese, other bites were almost crunchy. It was very strange. I think I probably should have boiled the cauliflower and then put it straight in the oven.


improvised cauliflower bake

While the flavors of both these cauliflower dishes were good, they both suffered from being unevenly cooked. I hate hard crunchy cauliflower, (although I admit it's no good mushy either), and I failed to reach that fork tender ideal. It wasn't a huge failure, but both dishes had their shortcomings.


blue cheesy cauliflower

I think I'd prefer to make macaroni and cheese in lieu of trying my cheesy cauliflower again, but I'd definitely try Ina's recipe out again, especially if I can get my hands on some pine nuts without losing an arm and a leg.

tomato basil tart

I was really excited to share this dish with you guys. Of course, now that I've finally gotten around to it, here it is, late November, with nary a tomato in sight, and no prospect of decent ones until next summer. I cook seasonally, but I'm definitely having a tough time keeping the blog up to speed.

So yeah. Even though it is nearly December, I am going to tell you about one of my favorite dishes: Tomato Basil Tart. My mom has been making this for parties since the mid-nineties, and it is totally, wonderfully, unbelievably delicious. It's creamy and cheesy, with plenty of basil, garlic and sweet juicy tomatoes. Since it's so impressively festive in its little tart pan, mom would never ever make it just for the family. There were years of frustration, as she would whisk the finished tart off to parties, leaving me behind to salivate over the lingering aroma.

This was a minor tragedy for me, but a minor culinary triumph for mom. The dish is actually quite easy to prepare, but the end result is both polished and rustic, making it the perfect dish for company. For years, friends and family members would specifically request that she bring her tomato basil tart round to dinner parties and picnics. Just this past summer, her former volleyball coach's wife called up looking for the recipe years and years later. I told my mom this was quite the compliment, but this tart is just that good.


the greatest tomato dish

This recipe dates from 1994, when a Ms Kathleen M. Bonerb, of Glen New Hampshire, entered it in the Pilsbury Bake Off under the Fresh Tomato Ideas Category. I am not sure what the prize levels were, but I assure you that the tomato basil tart, (or Basil-Tomato Tart as she actually called it) was well worth the $200 prize it picked up. This little tart is so perfectly fantastic that I'm frankly shocked that it did not go home with the Grand Prize, which even in 1994 had to have been more than a couple Benjamins.

Anyway. You should make this. When my mom finally turned a worn photocopy of the recipe over to me, I was surprised to learn that it called for ready made pie crust and mayonnaise. I would have never thought that one of my favorite dishes could have sprung from such humble ingredients, but I wasn't about to mess with success. Ok, so I made my own pie crust. But other than that, there's very little to tinker with in this baby.


a gooey slice of tomato basil tart

I know I usually do not include full recipes on here, but today I am making an exception, because I so want you to try this for yourself. I figured this would be the rare entry that is more than a rehash of something that's already been all over the interwebs, but of course I found it on some allrecipes clone in about 10 seconds of searching. Bummer.

Anyway, I am still proud to present a family favorite, the dish that my mother is so famous for, the tomato basil tart. Here she is in all her glory, and with a couple notes from mom and from me.

Tomato Basil Tart
recipe b Kathleen M. Bonerb, winner in the 1994 Pillsbury Bake Off
Be ready. Your friends will request the recipe for this garden-fresh appetizer or entreé.

½ of a 15 oz. pkg. folded refrigerated unbaked piecrust (1 crust)
1½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese, 6 oz
5 Roma tomatoes, about 12 oz
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil, leaves only
4 cloves garlic
⅓ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing*
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
⅛ t. ground white pepper **
Shredded fresh basil, optional

Unfold piecrust according to package directions. Place in a 9-inch quiche dish or glass pie plate. Flute edge; press with the times of a fork, if desired. Pre-bake according to package directions. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with ½ cup of the mozzarella cheese. Cool on a wire rack.

Cut tomatoes into wedges; drain on paper towels. Arrange tomato wedges atop melted cheese in the baked pie shell. In a food processor bowl, combine basil and garlic; cover and process until coarsely chopped. Sprinkle over tomatoes.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine remaining mozzarella cheese, mayonnaise or salad dressing, Parmesan cheese and pepper. Spoon cheese mixture over basil mixture, spreading to evenly cover the top.

Bake in 375˚ oven for 35 to 40 minutes or till top is golden and bubbly. Serve warm. If desired, sprinkle with basil leaves. Makes 8 appetizer or 4 main-dish servings.


Says Sarah: * we only ever use mayo
** I always sub in black pepper to no ill effects
Says Mom: "I have used strips of aluminum foil on pie crust edge after its partially cooked and remove when tart is cooked.

broccoli rabe with oil and garlic/fresh tomato sauce

broccoli rabe

This is simple Italian comfort food at its best. I will admit that the slight bitterness of broccoli rabe can be off-putting, and that it was years before I warmed to it. But now, slick with garlicy olive oil, sauteed broccoli rabe is one of the simplest and easiest things in the world.

This dish only has a handful of ingredients: the broccoli rabe, olive oil and garlic, plus salt and pepper and an optional sprinkling of grated cheese. Making it is a snap. Just get the olive oil nice and hot, toss in the chopped garlic, and then the broccoli rabe. It should still be dripping wet from being washed, so when you cover the pan it steams without burning. You cook it for maybe 8 to 10 minutes, until the leaves wilt and the stems soften. Once it's cooked through, season with salt and pepper and enjoy!


broccoli rabe with pasta in tomato sauce

Broccoli rabe is so hearty and filling that I like to make it a substantial part of the meal. In this particular instance, I just served it with a fresh tomato sauce over tiny pasta shells. I sprinkled both of them with romano cheese. It was straight-up simple Italian food, and it was really good. This is the kind of meal that isn't overly impressive or exciting, but that I am always happy to eat. Salty, garlicy, slightly bitter goodness.

broccoli strascinati

roman style broccoli

Remember when I talked about making pork chops agrodolce and peperonata from Saveur's Roman Food issue? Well, another dish in the magazine that caught my eye was broccoli strascinati. The concept is simple: broccoli cooked in a frying pan at medium high heat with olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. I really like broccoli, and I think it's especially good when the edges start to brown even as the rest of the floret stays bright green, so I was excited to try cooking it this way.

Nathan, however, hates broccoli, which means that in the two years we've been dating, I've cooked it only a handful of times. This is sad. Growing up, broccoli had a prime spot in our veggie rotation, usually steamed and sprinkled with lemon juice and grated cheese. If it wasn't for Nathan, I know it would remain among my go-to vegetables. As it is, I miss broccoli, so when Boyfriend went off to Italy without me, what else could I do but cook a Roman broccoli dish?

When I made dinner for Paul, I had just gotten three small heads of broccoli from the food co-op. When I started thinking about side dishes for chicken parmigiana, this recipe immediately popped into my head. I got hungry just thinking about it: crispy, crunchy, slightly charred broccoli with fragrant garlic and olive oil and a hint of spice from the red pepper flakes. I'm used to hearing from Nathan about how awful broccoli is, so I was worried that Paul and company wouldn't like it. Then I remembered that Paul's second favorite dish after chicken parm is chicken with broccoli, and that he has long dreamed of combining the two into one super dish. We were golden.

I cut the broccoli up into little florets. I also peeled the stem and chopped that up, so as to not waste anything, but I think I could have peeled a little more liberally, as I got some very chewy stringy stems at points. Then I smashed and sliced a few garlic cloves. From there, the recipe is sinfully simple.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the broccoli and let that start to brown, turning it periodically, for 6 to 8 minutes. Then you add just a little bit of water, the garlic and the red pepper flakes and cook for a few minutes more, until the garlic starts to brown. Season with salt and pepper, and you've got an easy and super delicious vegetable side dish. It's so good I suspect even Nathan would like it.

As for Paul, this was probably the closest he's ever going to get to his hybrid chicken parm/chicken with broccoli dinner. While I'm happy to cater to a friend's personal tastes, I don't think I'm ever going to mess with parmigiana soy sauce fusion. Sorry Pablo.

Stay tuned for our dessert!

ravioli with swiss chard, sugar snap peas and garlic chips/radish salad sandwich

ravioli with chard, sugar snap peas and fried garlic chips

So last Monday night when Nathan left for vacation in Italy, I decided to cook up some Borgatti ravioli. I had had a box in the freezer since I was last up on Arthur Ave the last weekend of April, but I was waiting for a special occasion to break it out. I guess I was feeling like if I couldn't go back to Italy, I could at least eat the best ravioli this side of Atlantic. The time was right. (Appropriately, Nathan actually gets back TODAY, and I am so excited!!!)

As I was leaving work, I stumbled across this recipe for spaghetti with swiss chard, olives and garlic chips. I had seen it before, but it hadn't particularly struck me at the time. However, with a bag full of chard slowly wilting back at home, it suddenly seemed much more appealing. So, when I got home, I dug into a fridge full of vegetables and used that recipe as a jumping off point for my dinner.

Obviously, I switched the pasta from spaghetti to ravioli, but other than that I followed the recipe fairly closely, with one notable exception. I've never really liked olives. Lately, I've been coming around on them somewhat, but I still usually avoid them. I definitely don't keep them in the house, and I didn't go out shopping, so they got axed from the recipe.

I sliced the garlic into thin chips and fried it in hot olive oil until golden brown. I removed the garlic from the pan, and added a diced shallot, which I cooked until soft. Then I added a pint of shelled sugar snap peas, (after almost five days in the fridge, the pods were truly sad looking), and then the chopped leaves of a bunch of chard. (I reserved the stems for use in a dish Nathan likes to call chard surprise, but I'll be saving that for another post.) Meanwhile, I boiled my ravioli in a pot of salted water until it floated. Once the chard was wilted and the pasta drained, I tossed it all together and added back in the garlic chips. Yummy!


ravioli with veggies and open faced salad sandwich

I also had some old Italian bread in the fridge, the end of a head of food co-op lettuce, not to mention that never ending bag of radishes. I toasted the bread with some butter so it would taste less stale, and then just topped it with thinly sliced radish, the red leaf lettuce, kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar. It wasn't as extraordinary as my last radish sandwich, but it was quick and easy and helped me use up some of the food I have in the fridge. (If you too have a surfeit of radishes, you can simplify this even further and just eat them sliced with butter, salt and pepper. That's how I finally finished mine off.)


radish and red leaf lettuce salad on Italian bread

So that was that. Dinner without my boy. Inclusion of peas aside, I think he would have liked it. That being said, for those of you keeping track this type of dinner is getting to be bit of a standard in my kitchen. Olive oil, garlic, onion, cooked greens, an extra veggie and some pasta... It's getting a bit formulaic, and I'm wary of falling into a rut. That being said, when there are so many greens to use up, there's only so much you can do with them. If anyone has any especially interesting suggestions, please pass them along!

What I did particularly like about this recipe that made it stand out from the pack was the crispy fried garlic slices. If you too are intrigued by the idea of garlic chips, I also happened upon this post which a couple of other interesting ideas for crunchy fried garnishes. I use a lot of browned garlic in my cooking, but it's generally more finely chopped and serves more as additional flavoring than as stand alone element of a dish. I'm intrigued by exploring this idea of crispy little garnishes and what not. In my first post of the year, I mentioned a dinner that Nathan and I made that included blue steak, creamed spinach and a poached egg with crispy onions. This we did accidentally, but I ended up really liking it. This other blogger's post has got me thinking that there could really be something to this flavorful crispy thing!

syrian beet salad

So while there are many wonderful things about having a food co-op share, it can be a bit rough at times. The amount of vegetables can be simply overwhelming, and all too often something beautiful and fresh wilts and rots before you can use it. Very sad. This is even more likely to happen if the veggie in question is not something you are particularly familiar with or even like. For instance, neither Laura nor Nathan nor I can ever seem to muster up any enthusiasm for beets. I don't hate them, but they're just not something I generally cook with. I have no idea what to do with them.

Luckily, beets can stay for months in the refrigerator and reemerge little worse for the wear. Last season, I honestly did my best with the beets. I pickled them, I made borchst, I roasted them with sage for Thanksgiving dinner... but by the time winter rolled around, I was burnt out on beets. While I don't dislike them, persay, they really do very little for me, and I was flat out of ideas and inspiration. Judging by the fact that we've had two big bags of them in the crisper since at least February, I think it's safe to say that Laura feels the same way. My apologies to Dwight Schrute, but I think I've had enough of nature's candy.

However, with the summer CSA season now in full swing, I started to feel pretty bad about the winter veggies taking up room in the fridge, and resolved to remedy the situation. Enter A Bushel of What?, a fabulous blog detailing one woman's attempts to use up all the strange produce she gets from her food co-op. It's interesting reading, it's got good recipes, and she's got plenty ideas for using stuff like beets and kale, vegetables that generally stump me. Basically, it's a god send.

One of the recipes Nicole posted was for a Syrian beet salad. I liked the idea of jazzing up with beets with cilantro and scallion, and I had gotten both of those in my summer share, so I was excited to try it.


syrian beet salad

I halved my beets, (they were tiny), and boiled them for ten minutes. Then I peeled them simply by pushing at the now-softened skin with my fingertips. I smashed up a small clove of garlic, sliced up half a scallion, and chopped up my cilantro. I tossed all this with salt, pepper, olive oil and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. As instructed, I let this sit for a half an hour so that the flavors would meld.

It was good, but it still didn't blow me away. I was happy to taste the bolder flavors of the lemon, garlic, scallions and cilantro, but the beets were still a little bland. I suppose it could be that they were so old, but I think it's also just a matter of personal taste. Beets, in my opinion, are just alright. I doubt I'll ever be a true beet enthusiast. That being said, if you are, then you should give this recipe a shot. It's definitely an unusual and tasty take on the vegetable.