Artichokes
I brought home a couple of really nice artichokes, today. I am a big fan of artichokes. They were a special treat back when I was a kid. Mom would always steam them and we'd have mayonnaise to dip the leaves in. No fancy aoili or anything - just plain ol' Best Foods.
Victor asked me what I had planned for them and I casually said that I hadn't thought of it. He asked if I wanted them stuffed, and I immediately said YES!! He then looked at me and said I was just played, wasn't I?!? I smiled and replied, Yep!
I really was hoping he'd stuff them - and having him think it was his idea was perfect.
Stuffed Artichokes
- bread crumbs
- garlic powder
- crushed red pepper flakes
- Italian seasoning
- parmesan cheese
- S&P
Mix crumbs with seasonings and cheese. Trim tops of artichokes.
Pull leaves apart and stuff the artichokes with the breading mixture.
Place in a deep pot and drizzle with olive oil. Add a cup of chicken stock (or veg stock or water) to pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until they're soft - about 45 minutes, depending upon size.
Baste now and again with the broth, adding more, as necessary.
They really were perfect! I grilled a couple of hamburger steaks - I mixed the leftover bread crumbs into the meat because - why not?!?
Boiled potatoes, smashed and fried, completed the plate.
A simple meal that filled us without bloating us - which is good. There's Cherry Crumb Pie for dessert!
Orecchiette with Chicken and Asparagus
I called home at lunch, today, and, as per usual, we talked about dinner. It's usually a take something out of the freezer, or what did you have in mind... There was already a big package of chicken in the 'fridge that I needed to vacuum-pack and freeze when I got home, and fresh asparagus I had picked up the day before. I didn't have a concrete plan, but kinda thought about making a stuffed chicken breast. I mentioned ingredients to Victor and he said dinner was ready and he would take care of it!
Mama didn't raise no fool. Victor says he's cooking and I'm eating. I had no idea what he was planning, but it didn't matter.
What he ended up creating was heaven on a plate! It's fun how when someone else cooks, the food is infinitely better than if you had made it, yourself! This dish hit every one of my taste-bud pleasure zones!
Orecchiette with Chicken and Asparagus
- 1 large chicken breast, cubed
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 1/2 cup cream cheese
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 8 oz orecchiette pasta
- red pepper flakes
- fresh basil
- oregano
- garlic powder
- salt & pepper
Cut up chicken and lightly saute in a bit of olive oil. Add chicken broth, half and half, and cream cheese and cook, stirring, until sauce begins to reduce.
Add the basil, oregano, red pepper, garlic powder, and S&P, to taste.
Meanwhile, cook orecchiette. Halfway through, add the cut up asparagus and cook both together, until done.
Drain, and stir into sauce. Let it all simmer together for a minute or two. Remove from heat and stir in grated cheese.
Check for seasoning and add more S&P, crushed red pepper, or herbs, as desired.
Rich and creamy without being too rich and creamy! The cream cheese added silkiness to the sauce. The fresh parmesan added oomph. The red pepper a bit of zing...
And a simple fork made it really easy to eat.
As my sister, Eileen, would say... My stomach is smiling!
Salmon with Fennel and Leeks
There's a storm a'brewin' outside... We're expecting hail, 70 mph winds... thunder and lightening... It's looking pretty eerie...
Blanche is under my desk, right now. She went to the back door, looked out, looked up at me, and decided she was staying in for a while. She's a smart dog.
My original plan was to grill salmon for dinner tonight. The ominous weather changed my mind and I'm actually kinda glad it did - I think what I made was better than what I was planning!
What I made was a simple baked salmon with a simple sauce, served over leeks and fennel, cooked with a bit of white wine. It seriously could not have been easier.
Baked Salmon
- salmon portions
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp honey
- 3 tbsp mixed herbs, minced (I used mint, basil, oregano, and parsley
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- S&P, to taste
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with foil.
Mix mayonnaise, mustard, maple syrup, honey, mixed herbs, garlic, and S&P together. Place salmon on greased foil. Spoon sauce on salmon and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until desired doneness.
Be careful that you don't get any of the glaze under the foil - it will burn and stick the foil to the pan. Don't ask me how I know...
The fennel and leeks was even easier...
Slice the leeks and fennel and place in a skillet with a splash of olive oil and butter. Saute until almost fully cooked. Add about a half-cup of white wine, and a bit of S&P. I used a teaspoon or so of Penzeys Florida Pepper. Continue cooking until wine has evaporated and vegetables are tender.
Quick and easy - and it kept me dry. It's howling outside, right now.
May the power and cable stay on...
Baby Back Ribs
It's 45 days to retirement, and the last hurdle has been jumped. We have health insurance starting July 1st. It wasn't easy sorting through the bazillion and one options and plans - and at soon-to-be 66 years of age, this is the first time in my life I have ever had to think about it.
I was in Kaiser for all of my childhood and any time I was living in San Francisco, and any other time, I was covered under an employer plan. I've always been employed. I've always had health coverage. I've rarely had to use it - but it's been there...
Fast-Forward to today, and I was as lost as lost can be trying to sort out HMO Plans, PPO Plans, Medicare Advantage Plans, Medicare Gap Plans, Drug Plans... It could not be any more confusing. Okay. Not true. It can - and probably will - get a lot more confusing if these assholes in Congress get their way. If a reasonably well-educated person can't figure this stuff out, I really don't see how the poor and downtrodden in this country can...
We need a Single Payer Health System in this country. Period.
</rant>
So...
In celebration of having health insurance, I decided ribs, baked beans, and corn was the perfect Independence-type Day menu. And baby back ribs the perfect choice.
I'm a bit over the top, right now, when it comes to herbs and spices. Well... right now is a bit of a misnomer. I'm always over the top when it comes to herbs and spices - I'm just a bit more than my normal.
And that doesn't include the baking and salt cabinet. Yeah... there's a whole shelf just for different salts. I'm going to have to see if this particular illness is covered under my new health plan...
I decided to make a batch of rib rub because, why not?!?
Rib Rub
- 1/3 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup Penzeys Ozark seasoning
- 1/4 cup smoked paprika
- 2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 tsp mustard powder
- 2 tsp black pepper
Mix and store in an airtight container.
It went all over the ribs, the ribs were wrapped, and put into a 225°F oven for three hours.
When they came out...
They were liberally doused with our own Smoky Sweet BBQ Sauce and placed on the grill for about 15 minutes.
Fall-off-the-bone tenderness...
Corn on the cob and Phoebe's Baked Beans were all it took to complete the meal.
We're eating well in soon-to-be-retirement-land. And if things ever get tight, I know a lot of ways to make beans.
Spaghetti and Shrimp
Spaghetti. Probably my most favorite of the hundreds upon hundreds of pasta shapes.
I certainly don't remember a lot of pasta shapes as a kid. Pasta was spaghetti. Macaroni was elbow macaroni used for making macaroni salad or macaroni and cheese. My first real recollection of different pasta shapes was when I went to work for Pirro's circa 1968. We had mostaccioli and rigatoni on the menu - as well as a 36" spaghetti! The noodles were a full 3 feet long! You started slurping one of those things and it lasted for days! We had a huge - really huge - copper pot that we cooked the spaghetti and our sauce in.
It was old school. We served meat sauce or meat balls. There was no marinara, although we did do a special butter and parmesan sauce on request. And no pineapple on the pizza.
My first business card - when I was still a wet behind the ears kid. Hell - I was still a teenager! But it's where I really learned the restaurant business, the importance of answering a phone right, and how to schmooze someone when you screwed up an order. And also how to deal with the Health Department, construction dirt vs production dirt - I physically helped build the new restaurant at 33rd and Taraval that's still there, today, albeit quite changed from our glory days - and how to win an argument with a government agency when you can prove you followed their rules.
You think I'm a smart ass, today?!? You should have seen me in my youth!
I don't recall the price of that 3-foot spaghetti, but it was twice the price of the regular restaurant-length stuff of the day and came in sturdy, long, 10 pound boxes - like the shape of flower boxes from days gone by. I remember Barry totally losing it one day when a new cook he had hired was breaking it in half to fit the pot better. He didn't last long. I lasted over 6 years.
Fast-forward 50 years and we're in Pennsylvania - not San Francisco - and Victor is preparing a spaghetti dinner for the two of us. Spaghetti is one of the foods Nonna no longer likes, so she had a stuffed eggplant rolatini.
A simple shrimp sauce with butter, olive oil, garlic, lots of crushed red pepper, Italian Dry Vermouth - and finished with fresh basil and freshly-grated parmesan.
It was total simplicity bursting with flavor. The spaghetti was perfectly cooked, the shrimp, as well. The sauce coated the noodles without drowning them - every flavor came through.
It shows how much my taste buds have grown and changed over the past 50-odd years. Back then I wouldn't have even thought of shrimp and spaghetti - shrimp was butterflied, batter-dipped, and deep-fried! - but, today, there's nothing that can't be thrown into a pot to make a sauce... although it takes a lot of skill to do it with just a couple of things.
Victor did it, tonight!
Pistachio, Onion, and Cheese Bread
We've gone from 90°F to 50°F in mere days, with wind, rain, thunderstorms, and tornado watches... Right now, it's pouring rain outside and my sunburn from the baseball game on Thursday is rapidly fading.
Welcome to Spring in Pennsylvania.
Inclement weather means bake a loaf of bread, since we already have cake. Rotten weather outside usually brings me into the kitchen - any excuse to turn on the oven and use my baking stones. I do like these baking stones. I also like the double ovens and the fact that I can leave them in the oven all of the time. It makes bread and pizza-making so much easier. And I do like easy. Or, rather, convenience. It's why the mixer is on the counter. If we had more room, the food processor would be there, too.
Convenience.
We all have our own idea of what convenience is... One of mine is the ability to keep baking stones in the oven. For others, it's having a bakery next door. Neither is wrong. It's your world and your reality.
I think what truly brought that home to me was when I first started demo cooking. I would come up with these grandiose ideas and my dear friend and demo partner, Ruth, would smack me upside the head and say "I have two screaming kids and 20 minutes to get dinner on the table. Simplify that." Having children in the house wasn't my reality. Having to have dinner on the table at a set time wasn't my reality. I learned to step outside of myself and think in terms of other people.
That really helped when we moved Victor's mom in with us 5 years ago. Set meal times and constantly changing food likes and dislikes are now the norm around here.
Welcome to my new reality.
Our other new reality is we can't be locked into her dietary whims. Cooking two meals is a reality - as much as I swore it would never happen and I would never do it. It's amazing how mindsets can change.
The good thing about changing the mindset was being able to have fun in the kitchen, again, and not dread the will she eat this? scenario. I flat-out know she will not eat any bread I bake - she only eats store-bought potato bread - preferably Stroehmann Dutch Country Premium Potato Bread. It frees me from having to worry about her liking it. I get to bake what I want and she has her own loaf that neither of us will touch.
Other things can still be a bit more iffy, but I'm learning...
What I baked, today, was a loaf of Pistachio, Onion, and Cheese Bread.
A relatively easy loaf to pull together, with a crusty crust and a really soft crumb. The milk, the oil, and that little bit of sugar really add tenderness.
Pistachio, Onion, and Cheese Bread
- 1 3/4 cup white flour (I use Italian "00")
- 1/2 cup sprouted wheat flour
- 1/4 cup rye flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 1/4 tsp - 1 package - active dry yeast
- 1 cup warm milk
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup pistachios, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup provolone cheese, diced
Sift flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm milk. Pour it into the middle of the flour together with the oil and rest of the milk.
Knead well until the dough is firm and blended into a smooth, springy ball (about 10 minutes.) Leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours.
Punch down, mix in pistachios, cheese, and onions. Shape into loaf and let rise for about 45 minutes.
Bake at 400° for 35-40 minutes or until the loaf is nicely-browned and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Can be baked on greased baking sheet or bread stone.
This smelled heavenly when it was baking and I barely waited for it to cool before slicing into it. My excuse was I wanted to write this post before dinner. The reality was I wanted a piece of bread with butter - immediately.
The recipe needs about 2 1/2 cups of flour, so play with it and use what you like. These proportions work well for me, but your results can vary. Add more wheat or rye - just make sure at least one full cup of the flour is white to keep it from being too dense.
And have fun!
Birthdays and Mother's Day
Friday was Victor's Mom's 92nd birthday. Today - Mother's Day - would have been my Mom's 92nd birthday. They were born 2 days apart on opposite coasts and both would share a birthday with Mother's Day from time to time. They really could not have been more different, but they were both representative of their place and time - the immigrant's daughter and the small-town girl. Neither grew up with much and both learned to make do - and they did it well.
Even though they were on opposite coasts, they both met a few times and got along great - as did our fathers. It's nice when the in-laws like one another. There are some good memories, there.
Victor's mom no longer likes anything but plain white cake, so I pulled out my old standby. It's an easy cake to make and always comes out great.
Butter Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition - about 20 seconds for each egg.
Mix baking powder, salt, and flour. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three additions and milk in two, beginning and ending with flour. Beat just until combined after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 28 to 30 minutes. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks.
Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 4 oz butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 tbsp vanilla
Cream butter and cream cheese together until light. Slowly add powdered sugar. Add vanilla and mix well.
And here are a couple of pictures of the boys with their mothers...
Chicken and Polenta
Last night I spatchcocked a chicken and cooked it on the grill. I rubbed it liberally with Penzey's Ozark Seasoning and let it cook under indirect heat for a bit more than an hour. It was really good.
But, even with our hearty appetites, we ate less than half of it. That, of course, was the plan... Leftovers can be my friend, sometimes...
One of my favorite go-to dinners is something in a sauce with a bunch of olives. It's quick and easy - and always good without any fuss. At any given moment there are at least four varieties of olives in the cupboard or in the 'fridge - quick and easy. While I was shopping on Monday, though, I stopped by the olive bar at the grocery store to do a bit of a mix-and-match of things I didn't have. My original thought was to cook them with sausage and serve it all over pasta.
But I ended up cooking the chicken, first. Ergo, lots of leftover chicken and a container of mixed olives, various hot peppers, roasted garlic... The sausage became chicken and the pasta became polenta.
One must maintain flexibility in meal planning...
I took about half of the leftover chicken and cut it into bite-sized chunks - the rest will become chicken salad with grapes and walnuts, tomorrow, for Victor's lunch.
Into a skillet it went with the olive mixture and about a cup of white wine. I brought it all to a boil, reduced the heat, and let it simmer for about 15 minutes to reduce a bit. The only seasoning I added was some black pepper - it didn't need anything else.
I cooked up polenta - with milk and a bit of pepato cheese - and served the chicken over the polenta.
Simplicity.
And there are biscotti for dessert!
Cantucci
Cantucci is a Tuscan biscotti, and, as Martha Stewart says, this variety is also called biscotti di Prato.
A biscotti by any other name would smell as sweet.
Deepest apologies to William Shakespeare.
We were watching Martha the other night when she made these. It was an immediate - we're making these tomorrow. Actually, it was an immediate Victor's making these tomorrow. He's the biscotti-maker in the house.
He used his own biscotti recipe and adapted it to the fillings Martha used on her program. His recipe is perfection, so there's no need to use another.
Victor's Cantucci
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cube (stick) butter
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- juice and zest of 1 orange
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
- 1/2 cup chopped dried cherries
- 1/2 cup chopped pistachios
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds
- pinch salt
Sift together dry ingredients. Cream sugar and butter, add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, salt, orange juice, and zest. Stir in flour. Stir in fruits and nuts.
Divide dough in half. Shape into logs. Place on greased cookie sheets and bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes.
Cool completely. Slice into 1/4 to 1/2″ slices and toast on both sides in 350° oven.
They are really good! We make a lot of biscotti in our house, but, they are more often than not, a single flavor with a single added filling. These were fun because you really taste the various add-ins - the different nuts, the cherries, the apricots - along with the orange background.
These are definitely being added to the Christmas List!
Strawberry Shortcake
Strawberry season! My favorite time of year - besides Peach season, Blackberry season, Watermelon season...
I remember the strawberries at my grandparents house in Bakersfield. There was a brick BBQ pit in their backyard that had been filled with dirt and planted with strawberries. Bright red, sweet and juicy... Free for the taking. We never tired o0f them.
Their backyard was a great place for kids to play and explore... They had a chicken coop with lots of chickens we got to feed - and eat - although a couple of them were pretty mean and didn't take to kids being in there with them. There was a grape arbor along the side of the house with huge juicy sweet grapes with seeds and a neat old tree where my brother and I built a tree house.
Grandpa always had something growing back there - the place was a riot of color with flowering trees, roses, and gladiolas. My brother and I would take grandma's canning jars and catch bees from one of the trees in front of the house - when we weren't taking shotgun shells and hitting them with bricks and shooting them across the street. (We got into a LOT of trouble over that little trick.)
Mrs. McNamee next door had a peach tree where we would get fresh peaches, and next door on the other side was Mr Brown - Grandpa's drinkin' buddy and grower of huge watermelons. We stole his prize seed melon one year - not knowing it was a seed melon - it was just the biggest melon in his yard. He was royally pissed. Everyone knew we had done it, but we denied it like hell - and they couldn't prove it. We stayed clear of his yard after that.
But back to strawberries...
Back in those thrilling days of yesteryear, strawberry shortcake was a standard summer dessert - made with homemade shortcakes. Shortcakes, biscuits, and scones are all in the same family and they're all made pretty much the same way. Tweak a few things to sweeten or make them more savory - cream instead of buttermilk, butter vs shortening, sugar or no sugar... But if you can make one, you can make the others - and most cooks could make all three with their eyes closed.
This is a foolproof shortcake recipe. It uses both butter and shortening, but feel free to use all of one or the other. Or... make another old standby...
Strawberry Shortcake
- 2 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp shortening
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- Melted butter and sugar for tops
Heat oven 450° F.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter and shortening. Mix in cream. Form into a circle about an inch thick and slice into 4 to 6 wedges. Place on a baking sheet.
Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until brown. Cool.
Split shortcakes and fill with strawberries and whipped cream.
I sliced the berries and added a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of Grand Marnier and let them sit for an hour to macerate.
They came out pretty damned good. Maybe not as good as Grandma's, but she would have eaten them and loved every bite!
Scallops
Let's see... It's Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby. The dinner possibilities are pretty much endless... So endless, in fact, that I decided to ignore all of it and cook up some scallops.
I suppose I could have come up with some sort of blending of the two cultures, but while I really love Mexican food, Kentucky food is nothing special. I'm not making Burgoo and Mint Juleps are a waste of good whisky. Or bad whisky. They are just not my cup of tea, so to speak. I have even had them at the Brown Hotel in Louisville. In real silver julep cups. Meh.
Besides... I'm pretty much boycotting anything Kentucky as long as Mitch McConnell is in office. He's a creep.
Which brought me back to Mexico - and Nonna. She won't eat anything with any spice to it and I wasn't in the mood to cook two dinners, so... a simple scallop dish was born. I had picked up the scallops at Reading Terminal Market when I was last down there and I'm working on trying to get the freezer emptied a bit. I acn pack that little bugger out pretty good - but at some point, the goodies need to be rotated out. I can't even imagine what it would be like if we had another freezer downstairs...
Scallops thawed, I went to work...
I heated a skillet with a bit of olive oil and butter and added the scallops I had patted dry. A couple of minutes on each side was enough to brown them and cook them through.
I took them out of the skillet and added a bit of minced shallot, and then a splash of white wine, lemon zest, a squeeze of lemon juice, and some parsley. And a pinch of salt and pepper.
Plated them and spooned the sauce over the top.
Really simple, really basic - and really good. And one step closer to an empty freezer.