Fridays nights in winter, Mr TBTAM plays tennis, so I’m on my own. It’s my night out with the girls or a good time to shop, get a cut and color or a mani-pedi.
This Friday night, however, all I really to do was be home. It was freezing cold outside, and I knew the rest of the weekend was going to be busy. After an even busier week, I was craving some alone time.
The default mode would be take out, but I wanted a good meal, not a slice or some lo mein. And something that would hold up well for leftovers tomorrow as a nice Valentine’s Day lunch with Mr TBTAM.
I decided on something tried and true, and a recipe I’ve written about before – rustic shrimp bisque. Not the fastest preparation out there, but I had a book I was listening to, and nothing is more fun than cooking and reading, at the same time. Paired with this winter citrus salad and a baguette, it was the perfect choice for a cold winter evening meal for one. With plenty leftover for lunch tomorrow.
CLEMENTINE, FENNEL AND ARUGULA SALAD
This recipe, which I adapted from Williams-Sonoma, is a nice break from the usual salad, and a great use for winter citrus. I made it as written, but next time I will use garlic instead of shallots in the dressing, and add some red onion, shaved Parmesan and maybe a few black olives to the salad. You could also add some grapefruit. Prepare the fennel and make the dressing ahead, then assemble at the last minute if serving to company.
To make this salad for one, toss a large handful of arugula with the segments of one clementine and a little of the sliced fennel. Toss with 2-3 tbsp of dressing, sprinkle some sea salt and grate some pepper on top and serve.
Ingredients
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. grated orange zest
4 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1 shallot, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 large fennel bulb
6 clementines, peeled and separated into segments6
6 cups arugula, loosely packed.
Directions
To make the vinaigrette, in a small bowl, whisk together the orange juice, lemon juice, orange zest, oil, mustard, tarragon and shallot. Season generously with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Cut off the stems and feathery fronds of the fennel bulb and remove any bruised or discolored outer layers. Cut the bulb in half lengthwise and cut out any tough core parts. Cut the bulb halves crosswise into thin slices.
Place the fennel and arugula in a large serving bowl, add half of the vinaigrette and toss gently to coat thoroughly. Arrange the orange slices in a pinwheel or other design on top. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette and serve immediately. Serves 6.
I know the year’s barely begun, but this dish from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem is well on its way to being my most memorable meal of 2015. Maybe even the past decade.
And this from a gal who says she doesn’t like eggplant.
If you don’t own Jerusalem, you must. Every recipe in it is a gem. The day after I was given it from my dear friends Karen and Steven, (OMG thank you!), my book club was over for dinner. They all gathered round and placed stickies on their favorite recipe in the book that I simply must make. The entire book is one giant sticky collection, but somehow this recipe escaped their stickies – my turn to give them a Jerusalem must-make!
My husband and I have already decided that this is what we’re serving the very next time we have company for dinner. It’s perfect for a dinner party because you can put it all together ahead of time, then let the eggplant roast for an hour and a half, giving you plenty of time to clean up the kitchen, set the table and make dessert or appetizers before your guests arrive. Not to mention, you can serve it warm or at room temp. It just doesn’t get any better.
I made one change to the recipe, which was to toast the pine nuts before using them. We toyed around the idea of adding some golden raisins to the meat mixture, but in the end did not. We also considered a breadcrumb topping, but again, left that be. It was pretty darned perfect just as it was.
STUFFED EGGPLANT WITH LAMB & PINENUTS From Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
Serves 4
This dish is Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s take on a dish served at Elran Shrefler’s restaurant Azura in the Machne Yehuda market in Jerusalem. I’ve Americanized the recipe instructions (we work in volume, not weight), and split the parts to make it a little more idiot-proof. (The original recipe gives total amounts of ingredients then splits them up depending on which part of the recipe you are making. That always throws me if I’m in a hurry.) Don’t let the amount of spices worry you – the flavors are sweet and smoky, but not biting. Don’t cut out anything.
Ingredients
Eggplant
4 medium eggplants (about 2.5 lbs each), halved lengthwise
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
Black pepper to taste
Sauce
5 tsp spice mix (see above for spice mix recipe)
2/3 cup water
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp tamarind paste
4 cinnamon sticks
1/2 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Place the eggplant halves, skin-side down, in a roasting pan (I used a La Crueset lasagna pan) large enough to accommodate them snugly. Brush the flesh with 4 tbsp olive oil and season with 1 tsp salt and plenty of black pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
While the eggplant is cooking, make the spice mix and stuffing. Mix the cumin, paprika and ground cinnamon in a small bowl. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan. Add 5 tsp (1 2/3 tbsp) of the spice mixture to the pan along with the onions. Cook on a medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, stirring often, then add lamb, pine nuts, parsley, tomato purée, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and some black pepper. Continue to cook and stir for another 8 minutes, until the meat is cooked.
Make the sauce. Place the remaining spice mix (5 tsp) in a bowl and add the water, lemon juice, tamarind, 2 tsp sugar, cinnamon sticks and half a teaspoon of salt; mix well.
Reduce the oven temperature to 375 F. Pour the sauce mix around the eggplant in the bottom of the roasting pan. Spoon the lamb mixture on top of each eggplant. Cover the pan tightly with foil, return to the oven and roast for 1 1/2 hours, until the eggplant are completely soft and the sauce thick; twice through the cooking, remove the foil and baste the eggplant with the sauce, adding some water if the sauce dries out. (Ours did not dry out)
Ever since I first saw Mrs Frake putting up pickles and mincemeat in the movie State Fair, I’ve wanted to put up something.
As opposed to putting up with something, which basically describes my life.
I did once put up a few small jars of blackberry jam with the kids while vacationing on Block Island. We tried to sell the jam at the playground – I think someone bought one jar – then used the rest of the jars pretty much immediately. And that was the end of my putting up.
Until this week, when I was faced with forty pounds of South Jersey Roma tomatoes (Thanks Patty!) a few days after meeting blogger Marissa McClellan, who was selling her book Food in Jars at the Union Square Greenmarket and two days after my mother-in-law Irene sent me a recipe for what she is calling the best tomato sauce she’s ever made.
The stars had aligned. It was time for a real put up.
A Warning
First of all, I must warn you. This tomato sauce recipe has not been formally “tested” as safe for canning. However, it is not dissimilar in amounts of olive oil, garlic and peppers to other recipes I found on the web that are tested for canning. Just to be safe, I’m freezing all but one jar of my canned sauce, and will update this post in 6 months or so when I open up the one unfrozen jar to see how it fared.
Of course, you don’t need to put up this sauce. You can just make it, use it and eat it right away.
A Second Warning
Forty pounds of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes. Unless you have a 3 day empty weekend, or are willing to give up three to four straight week nights (for me happily coinciding with Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts on PBS) and a bit of sleep, I do not recommend starting with such a large amount of tomatoes. I spent an entire evening making 5 quarts of sauce, not to mention the clean up time, which left me getting to bed well after midnight and still with 20 pounds of tomatoes.
The next night I got smarter, I thought, and made oven dried tomatoes. (That post is coming up) The first batch was a disaster, and while the second batch turned out okay, I had to set the alarm to check the tomatoes every few hours overnight. That left me with about 10 pounds of tomatoes. Those I will blanch, skin and can tonight. Hopefully, it will go quickly.
How I canned this sauce
I canned my sauce using a water processing method. (This is as opposed to using a pressure canner.)
Make the sauce as directed, multiplying by 6 and using about 18 pounds of tomatoes.
Towards the end of the vegetable roast, fill a large stockpot with water, place a 12 inch metal cake cooling rack on the bottom, then fill and submerge 5 one quart mason jars in the water. (Your jars should not sit directly on the bottom of the pot – you can put a dish towel there if you don’t have a rack or a trivet to use).
Boil with the lid on for 10 minutes (My stock pot lid has a steam scape valve – very handy), then turn it down on a very low heat to keep the jars warm so that they will not break when I you add the hot sauce.
Boil the lids in small saucepan and turn them down to keep as well.
After the sauce is made, and has simmered for 10 mins or so as directed, remove the mason jars from the water bath with a pair of tongs (I need to get a jar lifter for future efforts, this was a bit precarious). Fill the jar, wiping away any excess sauce near the top and leaving 1/2 -1 inch airspace, then put on the lids and finger-tighten them.
Return the now-filled jars to the stock pot, sitting them neatly on the submerged cake racker and removing the excess water from the pot with a small sauce pan, so that the final water level is 1-2 inches above the top of the jars. (Since the jars are now filled, you don’t need as much water in the pot.) I was able to fit 5 quart jars in my large stock pot.
Bring the water to a rolling boil, cover the pot and let it boil for 45 minutes. (This is an extra ten minutes over the recommended processing time for quart jars at sea level, but I wanted to be safe. Processing times do vary by elevation – you can check here for the right time for your location).
After processing, I remove the jars to a towel-covered counter top and let them sit and cool overnight. As mine cooled, I could hear the lids popping (a good sign that the vacuum seal has worked). Although some folks say to remove the outer rings and just let the cans sit with the vacuumed lids atop, I’m leaving the rings on.
Bottom Line
Putting up is fun, but laborious. It’s not an undertaking to be taken lightly, and you must be sure to do it safely. I learned a lot this first go round. Stay tuned for more next season.
RITA & IRENE’S FRESH SUMMER TOMATO SAUCE
This recipe comes from my mother-in-law Irene, the world’s greatest home cook, via this delightful email she sent to me a few weeks ago-
Hi Peggy, Here it is 10am Sunday morning and I just finished making the best tomato sauce I ever made. I was sitting in the dentist’s chair on Thursday going through 2-1/2 hours of dental fun. The dental assistant, Rita and I were having some delightful conversations about food. She’s a vegetarian and we had a lot to talk about when I didn’t have a lot of stuff going on in my mouth. At one point she told me of a fresh tomato sauce she makes that’s very good. All she gave me were the basic ingredients, without amounts, the oven temperature and the time —tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, olive oil, 350 oven for an hour and a half. I had to figure out how to do it and season it. Here’s what I came up with.
This recipe is for one batch of sauce. I multiplied the recipe by 6, using about 20 pounds of tomatoes, and got 5 quarts of sauce.
5 large summer tomatoes, quartered (or 3-4 pounds roma tomatoes, halved)
1 large red pepper, seeded and cut in 1/6ths
1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled (that’s a bulb, not a clove)
2 tsps. sea salt
lots of freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
Do not peel the tomatoes, the pepper or the garlic, the skins come off easily when they’re finished roasting. Place all ingredients in a large roasting pan. Place in 350 oven for 1-1/2 hours.
Remove from oven and let cool for about a half hour until the tomatoes and pepper and garlic are cool enough to handle and peel. Peel the tomatoes and peppers into a large sauce pot, discarding the skins. Squeeze the roast garlic into the pot and discard the skins. Using an immersion blender, blend tomatoes, peppers and garlic to a smooth sauce. Add back the oil and juices from the pan as needed to thin the sauce to the right consistency (I used about 3/4 of it). Heat to boiling and then simmer 10 mins. Season as necessary.
Use immediately, or pour into prepared canning jars and process.
We dropped our youngest off at college, which to our delight is a mere two hours drive north along the lovely Taconic Parkway. To say the campus is bucolic is an understatement, with the Catskill mountains on the horizon, and a lovely little town just a short ride away. This was a happy day for us all, the culmination of an amazing summer for the entire family. She’s launched and we’re so happy for her. (And can’t wait to come back up to visit on parent’s weekend…)
After settling her in, we explore the area, following dead end roads like fingers that end at the Hudson River. We stop at an amazing little farm stand, where we find fresh corn and heirloom tomatoes.
A little further down the road, the guy who owns the pastry store is selling huge zucchini from his garden at a little table out front of his shop. Of course we have to buy one.
At home later that evening, we find a recipe to combine our farm finds, and eat delicious vegetable fritters al fresco on one of the warmer days of this unseasonably cool summer, sitting on the terrace at the table which until now was too small for a family dinner. Now with just the two of us, it’s just the right size.
We share a beer and talk about the future. Yes we miss the kids, but then we think of each of them – one settling in at her new college, the other launching a theater career (and a play opening!) in our hometown -and we are just so happy for them that we would not have it any other way.
This is my own modification of a recipe from The Wednesday Chef, who herself modified a recipe from Taste.com/Au. Feel free to change up the herbs you use. Makes 12 fritters. If that’s too many fritters for one meal, the leftovers heat up nicely for lunch the following day. My mother in law Irene, who made these a few days after we did, instead froze the extra batter to make another day.
1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained & rinsed
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 large zucchini, grate
2 large ears of corn kernels (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
3 scallions, thinly sliced
Zest of one lemon
Canola Oil
Plain sheep’s yogurt and hot sauce for serving
Process chickpeas until roughly chopped.
Whisk milk and eggs in a measuring cup. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Gradually add milk mixture to flour, whisking until smooth. Stir in chickpeas, zucchini, corn, mint, scallions and lemon zest.
Heat a shallow layer of canola oil in a large skillet over moderately high heat. Add 1/4 cup mixture to pan. Spread slightly with a spatula. Repeat to make 3 more fritters. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate and cover or keep warm in a 200 degree oven. Repeat with remaining mixture to make 12 fritters. Serve with freshly sliced heirloom tomatoes, a dollop of sheep’s milk yogurt and a splash of hot sauce.
As much as I love book club, I love hosting it even more. Because hosting means I get to leave work early and do my favorite thing in the whole world – spend the late afternoon in my kitchen. I’m rarely at home at that time of day, when something wonderful happens to the light in our apartment as the sun begins to peek out from behind the tall apartment towers just south of us, and pours into my kitchen. Add in NPR or a good book on tape and I’m in heaven.
The evening promised good weather, so we planned to meet on the roof. I took my cue for the menu from the book we were discussing – “My Brilliant Friend”, set in Naples – and went for a Mediterranean theme. (Plus I had a whole mess of amazing, pitted Castelvetanos olives and a jar of fig preserves.)
In an amazing feat of pre-planning, something highly unusual for me, I actually decided on the menu and bought all my ingredients the day before, so I was able to head straight home and got to work around 4 pm. Luckily, Mr TBTAM was home early as well, and I put him to work weeding the rooftop garden, which we had ignored for most of the summer. Somehow I managed to pull it all together by the time the group arrived at 6:30, with a little help from my friends who arrived first.
The discussion was as always, interesting and spirited, and we went till dark. This is one great bunch of women, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the group.
These delicious babies come from The Runaway Spoon, found via Food 52. I used a wonderfully pungent Roquefort style sheep cheese (Ewe’s Blue) from Nancy & Tom Clark’s Old Chatham Sheepherding Company. I did not have a one inch round cookie cutter, so I used a floured 1 inch soda bottle cap. You may be tempted to make these bigger, but do not. The small size is perfect. They can be made ahead and kept in layers separated by waxed paper. They freeze beautifully.
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, room temperature, cut into four pieces
4 ounces blue cheese, cut into several chunks
Ground black pepper
Fig preserves (about 1/4 cup total)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Process the butter, blue cheese, flour and a few grinds of black pepper in the food processor until the dough starts to form a ball. Dump onto a lightly floured surface, knead a few times to pull the dough together and roll out to 1/8 inch thick with a floured rolling pin. Cut rounds out of the dough with a floured 1-inch cutter and transfer to the parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the back of a round half-teaspoon measure or your knuckle, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation. Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, the remove to a wire rack to cool.
Can be made ahead or frozen in an airtight container in layers separated by waxed paper.
OLIVE ALL’ASCOLANA – Vegetarian Version
This recipe comes from Arielle Clementine via Food 52. It’s inspired by the classic Italian stuffed olives, which have a spicy meat stuffing and use olives from the Ascoli region of Italy. (Here’s a wonderful video on how to make the real thing, which I must try one of these days.) I made some fresh breadcrumbs for this recipe, but did not toast the crumbs as I usually do, since they would get crisped as they fried. I had no mustard seeds, so used a pinch of dried mustard instead. I fried them in my electric fryer, a kitchen appliance I only use otherwise for latkes, and it worked beautifully.
24 large green olives, pitted
1/2 cup goat cheese
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup all purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
1 cup breadcrumbs (fresh or panko)
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
parmigiano reggiano, for sprinkling
zest and juice from one lemon, for sprinkling
Mix the goat cheese, mustard seed, rosemary, chile flakes, and garlic in a small bowl. Stuff the olives with the cheese mixture (I used my fingers, rolling the filling like a small cigar and sliding it into the pitted olive.) Put the stuffed olives on a plate and refrigerate for 20 minutes. While the olives are chilling, heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan to 375 degrees. Set up three plates for your breading station (Flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs+grated Parmesan) When the olives have chilled, roll half of them in the flour, then in the egg, then in the bread crumb/Parmesan and carefully drop them into the heated oil. Fry until golden brown, about one minute per side. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain, and repeat with the remaining olives. Pile on a plate and finish with a shower of freshly grated cheese and lemon zest and a spritz of lemon.
For years, my friend Susan (of the famed Chicken Salad Susan) has been making her Italian grandmother’s sautéed chicken breasts with breadcrumbs, parmesan and fennel. Not too long ago, she was also on a diet program that included an amazing recipe for pan fried lemon chicken. I decided to combine both her recipes, and now have a killer entree that I’ve made almost weekly since she first shared it with me.
LEMON FENNEL CHICKEN WITH MUSHROOMS & SCALLIONS
You can just make the chicken breasts, and you’ll have an amazing entree. Or just cut up the chicken breasts, skipping the breading, and have another amazing entree. But together? OMG.
1 bunch scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, white and green parts divided
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
Preparation
Whisk 3 tablespoons lemon juice with chicken broth and soy sauce in a small bowl and set aside.
Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry. Place flour on a dinner plate. Lay a 12 inch long piece of wax paper down on the counter. Mix the bread crumbs and Parmesan and spread out onto the wax paper. Sprinkle some fennel seeds atop the crumb/cheese mixture in such a density that every bite of the breast you are about to coat will have a fennel seed on it. Lightly coat a breast by dipping in the flour and shaking off, then dip into the egg, then into with the breadcrumb, cheese and fennel mixture, coating the second side in a different spot on the wax paper so that it too gets the fennels seeds on it in the right distribution. Set aside on a plate. Scatter some more fennel seeds if you need to and continue dipping and coating and scattering more fennel seeds as needed to be sure that each breast has enough fennel seeds on each side. Toss any unused breadcrumbs and flour. (Of course, you could just mix the fennel seeds in with the breadcrumbs, but this is how Susan does it, and I assume how her grandmother did it, so that’s how I do it. There is power in tradition, and I respect it when I can.)
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and sauté 2-3 minutes each side, until just cooked through. Transfer to a plate with tongs and cover with tented foil.
Add mushrooms to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes – enough to cook but not to dry them out. You want them plump and juicy. Add scallion whites, garlic and lemon zest. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the broth mixture to the pan; cook, stirring, until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add scallion greens and the chicken and any accumulated juices; cook, stirring, until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve.
My friend Paula and I threw a Middle Eastern dinner party on my rooftop last Saturday evening.
It was really all Paula’s idea. You see, her dad once ran a Lebanese market in Worcester, Mass. Paula inherited not only her father’s butcher block kitchen table and meat grinder, but a real love for the foods of her ancestors. I can tell you that enthusiasm is highly infectious, having caught it from her last year while sitting at the table at our cottage rolling grape leaves under her tutelage. So when Paula proposed a joint party – she’d provide the food and I, the venue and sous chef duty – I jumped at the idea.
The menu was perfect for the warm summer evening – Appetizers of fresh feta, olives, baba ganoush and pita served with red Lebanese wine, followed by a dinner of grilled lamb kabobs, rice pilaf, stuffed grapes leaves and green salad.
The lamb for the grape leaves? Paula ground it herself that morning.The mint? Dried on her dining room table just a few weeks ago. And the recipes? Handed down from her father’s generation to her – via the parish cookbook of the St George’s in Worcester. With a few gems culled from May Bsisu’s wonderful cookbook The Arab Table.
We culled the guest list from the ranks of our friends we knew would appreciate the lemony pepper bite of the baba, the saltiness of the feta and the earthy flavors of the lamb, but would also be open to sampling my first attempt at homemade pita bread (a valiant but mistimed effort), and most importantly, open to getting to know one another. We also asked the guests to bring a reading to share that would be appropriate for the gathering.
And so it was that we dozen found ourselves at a picnic table drinking wine under the waxing moon and twinkling lights on one of the most beautiful nights of the year, eating a most delicious meal and afterwards, listening to the words of Kahil Gebran, EB White and Maya Angelou, along with readings about Lebanese and Irish immigrants to America, capped off with the words of a modern young Jew and the intimate details of the days before the music died.
Our only regret was that the late hour at that point limited our chance to discuss the readings we had shared – a lesson we will keep in mind as we plan our next Mediterranean salon.
Oh yes, there will be another. Because we’ve barely sampled the mezze or ventured into the kibbe.
And I’ve got pita to perfect.
Baba Ganoush (Eggplant bi Tahini), Lebanese Style
This recipe is originally from the famed El Morocco Restaurant in Worcester, where Paula’s aunt once worked in the kitchen. This is a much more lemony baba ganoush than you may have tasted before, and is the first baba I’ve ever really loved. The trick is getting the texture just right – too much smoothness and its just a other puree. Not enough and the odd texture of the eggplant dominates the flavors. When Paula told me she makes hers by cutting it over and over again between two knives, I took that as my cue to bring out the wooden bowl and chopper, and the result was a perfectly textured baba. You can use less lemon if you like – start with one and only add more if you think you’d like it that lemony. (I have a feeling lemons may have been smaller when this recipe was first written.) Don’t skimp on the pepper and use a coarsely ground sea salt or large grind kosher salt for flavor. Serve with homemade pita chips.
Ingredients
1 large eggplant, skin on, cut in half lengthwise
3 tbsp sesame tahini
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tbsp water
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Brush the eggplant with a little olive oil and broil, turning it frequently, until the meat softens, about 15 minutes total. (f you want to grill it, that would be even better…)
Scoop out the softened eggplant meat into a large wooden bowl, discarding the skins. Add the tahini, lemon, garlic and chop until the eggplant is blended, but still recognizable as eggplant. (Alternatively you can use a pastry blender or two knives. If you must use a blender or food processor, be very careful not to pulverize it into an unrecognizable puree.) Avoid long stringy pieces – its a relatively fine chop. Add water and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley, lemon or a scallion. If you want to drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil on top, go ahead. No one will complain.
We made a big batch of butternut squash polenta with sausages and onion, adding an extra cup of grated squash to the polenta as it cooked. While this made for a delicious flavored polenta, there was quite a bit left over.
The great thing about polenta is that it hardens as it cools, so we spread it into a class refrigerator dish and put it in the fridge. Next morning, I cut it into rectangles and sauteed it up beside my egg as it cooked in olive oil. A sprinkling of freshly ground pepper topped off a delicious breakfast!
You know the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree when your daughter texts and asks what you’re doing tonight, and you text back that you are making this for dinner, and she texts back “OMG!! I just watched that video this morning!” followed by a little icon that she describes as “Me running home for dinner!”
Yep, it doesn’t take much to excite us in the TBTAM household, and this recipe, along with the utterly charming video of Melissa Clark making it, was the highlight of our day yesterday.
We made the dish exactly as written, but but did add a little grated Parmesan when serving.
One of the highlights of my visit to the Medicine X Conference in Palo Alto in September, in addition to my poster presentation and meeting all the amazing e-patients, docs and tech gurus there, was dinner at Lyfe Kitchen.
Founded by former McDonalds CEO Mike Roberts, Lyfe (which stands for Love Your Food Everyday) is the first of a growing chain of healthy, pretty fast food franchises that “put sustainability, our planet and our employees first”.
As soon as I entered Lyfe, I was hooked.
There was a gorgeous live herb garden forming the centerpiece of the place and lending a deliciously fresh scent to the room.
The food itself was healthy and varied, with plenty of veggie, vegan, low fat and gluten free options on the menu created by Chef Art Smith, who you may know as Oprahs personal chef. Smith, who himself lost over 100 pounds after being diagnosed with diabetes, has kept dishes under 600 cals, low in saturated fat and sodium, and high in fiber and protein.
Service was faster than a traditional sit down restaurant – diners line up at the counter and place their orders, then sit down with a pager that alerts the servers where they are and when their food is ready. Prices were moderate, but not cheap, which is to be expected if local food sources are being used and employees treated like human beings.
On to the food – The edamame hummus was delicious. (I have the recipe and will post it soon)
as were the flatbread
the grilled fish
the veggie burger and the sweet potato fries.
Smith’s cookbook Healthy Comfort was on sale at Lyfe, so I picked up a copy for inspiration and dinner ideas.
I’m excited to see healthy food making it closer to the masses and look forward to the day when Lyfe makes it to NYC. If they do, they’ll find some real competition here in the Belgian chain Le Pain Quotidian, an even faster growing chain that serves delicious, organic and healthy food.
Started with having both girls home for dinner. Add in daylight savings time and the first bike ride of the season in Central Park and life is pretty damned good. Then give me a sunny afternoon in the kitchen baking and I’m over the top.
This cake will put you over the top, too. From my fave old magazine “Pleasures of Cooking”, it’s dense and sweet but not too sweet due to a touch of lemon tartness and has a wonderfully chewy outer crust.
I made the cake substituting olive for vegetable oil, resulting in a slightly richer and denser cake than the original recipe. Here’s the original cake made with veggie oil by my mother in law Irene-
and mine made with olive oil. Mine is a little lower because I took some batter off to make cupcakes, which I”ll show you in another post, so concentrate on the crumb texture. See how it’s denser? It actually fell a tad when I took it out of the oven, but was well cooked from what I could tell. It could be my cake pans or the olive oil that made the difference there, I’m not sure.
Both were delicious. When we taste-tested frozen and thawed versions of both cakes with my husband’s family today, they were evenly split on which they preferred. So I’ll leave it to you to decide which you’ll make. I”m sticking with the olive oil because it seems healthier and more authentic and I loved how it tasted.
Quick! Before winter ends, you’ve got to make this stick to your ribs, warm the cockles of your heart, comfort food supremo dish of butternut squash polenta with sausage. Thanks to Melissa Clark of the NY Times for this recipe, which I encourage you to read and watch her cook on the NY Times website.
This really is a perfect recipe for the end of winter, when you think you’ve had all the butternut squash you think you can stand, but there’s really not much else at the Farmer’s Market. It sort of sneaks the squash in by melting it into the polenta, adding a bit of “what is that?” flavor while still allowing the corn flavor to shine through. It also rounds out this one dish meal so you don’t need to serve a separate vegetable. (We did, however, put out small side bowls of home made applesauce, which were a perfect accompaniment.)
Melissa’s is a very basic recipe that lends itself to creative tweaking, so we doubled the squash and the fennel seeds and adding grated Parmesan and some chopped parsley to the polenta. We also added a tablespoon of sherry to the polenta near the end of its cooking, just because it seemed like the right thing to do. Next time, I may try making the polenta with a mix of chicken broth and milk (see video here), and skip the cheese.
In addition to watching Melissa’s video, I encourage you to read this post on polenta making so you know how to tell when the polenta is done – much later in the cooking process than you think.
If you’ve spent the afternoon at the Signature Theater seeing Open House by Will Eno (“People have been trying nobly for years and years to have plays solve in two hours what hasn’t been solved in many lifetimes. This has to stop.” I laughed so hard I cried…) and want to have dinner over in time to watch the Oscars, this is the dish to make. I hate to even use the word “quick” to describe this meal, because it cheapens it. This is no fast food you’ve ever eaten before. It is rich, complex, and absolutely delicious.
Thank you, Lidia Bastianich for this recipe. If there were an Oscar for great Italian cooking, it’s be yours.
A huge shout out to Adam Roberts, whose blog The Amateur Gourmet has been a constant source of great recipes, fun stories and sometimes silly songs, for pointing me to this wonderful soup recipe from chef Alfred Portale’s cookbook Simple Pleasures.
This was indeed a delicious soup, and may very well be one of the best we’ve ever made. If you want to make it too, here is the recipe. The only thing I’d do differently is to add a little more stock to thin the soup a bit.
This is what I love about food blogs – they point us to great cookbooks that may have passed beneath our radar when they were first published, in this case Portale’s Simple Pleasures (C 2004). A quick perusal of the web finds several recipes from the book, which I’ve linked to below. I hope to try a few more of them (The Filet with Madiera and the Spinach Custards for staters), and have added Portale’s book to my must get list and his restaurant Gotham Bar and Grille to my must go list.
I know, I know. You’re wondering how I’ve never heard of Portale or Gotham Grill before, especially since I claim to have lived here in New York for so many years. But you see, as much as I love food, I’m more a home cook in the Big City that a Big City restaurant scene player.
Wonderfully simple, delicious, and almost decadent when paired with chocolate in any form, like a chocolate torte perhaps?… Even better when paired with good friends, lively conversation and a few well-chosen readings at a wonderful dinner party thrown by Paula and Tony. Thanks, guys, we had a great time!
POACHED PEARS
I was inspired by David Lebowitz’s post on how to poach pears, which is really not a recipe but a suggestion. I made up my own combo and proportions of spices, and you should do the same. But I found the sauce begging for a touch of salt, so I added it. Perfection!
4 Bosc pears
1 quart water
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 small or 1 large stick cinnamon
2 large slices crystallized ginger
Juice of one clementine + 1/2 its rind.
Juice of one lemon + 1/2 its rind
A few peppercorns
1/4 tsp salt
Parchment paper
Dissolve sugar in water in a large saucepan over low heat. Peel, quarter and core the pears, and add to water-sugar mixture along with the spices. Cut the parchment paper into a circle with a smaller circle cut out in the middle and lay atop (See Lebowitz’s post for pics and detailed instructions – it keeps the pears from browning).
Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, till pears are soft. Remove pears and spices with a slotted spoon and boil down the juice to about 1/2 cup. Store in fridge till ready to serve, then briefly reheat the pears in the sauce and serve warm. Each pear serves two.
at the Union Square Greenmarket and two days after my mother-in-law Irene sent me a recipe for what she is calling the best tomato sauce she’s ever made.
