Sunday in the Kitchen
It's been a fun day in the kitchen. I made Mint Pepper Jelly and fried peppers, and Victor made Green Bean Salad, Walnut Pesto, and Pistachio Pesto. All before noon!
We can be industrious when we want to be.
If you have ever planted mint in your life, you know that it grows like a weed, is invasive, and you will never - ever - get rid of it. Knowing this the hard way, we have mint in containers where it can be contained. It still grows like crazy and there is no way we will ever be able to use it all - but I did take a stab at it, today.
We have spearmint and peppermint growing out back and I've been thinking about a mint jelly for a while. When Victor came in with a basket of peppers this morning, mint and pepper jelly became a reality.
It's a simple water bath recipe anyone can do at home without any special equipment. You really just need canning jars and a pot big enough to boil the filled jars. Pots and jars we have by the truckload, so I just jumped right in. You do want to have everything ready when the jelly is done, so make sure your jars are boiled, water is boiling in the canning pot and all that when the jelly is ready.
Mint and Pepper Jelly
- 2 cups fresh mint, divided
- 2 hot peppers
- 2 cups water
- 3 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 pouch (3 oz) liquid pectin
Roughly chop mint and set 1/4 cup aside. Place remaining mint in pot with water and bring to a boil. Let boil rapidly for a couple of minutes, cover, remove from heat, and let steep about 30 minutes.
Drain well, squeezing leaves to get as much liquid as possible.
Finely mince peppers and remaining mint.
Add mint liquid, sugar, peppers, mint, apple cider vinegar, and lime juice to pot. Bring to a rolling boil and boil 3-5 minutes. Stir in pectin and boil another minute.
Pour into sterile jars and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.
When that was done, I started on the peppers.
This was the first batch coming out of the yard. There are so many peppers growing it is scary. We still have some canned from last year. I need to start eating them faster. In the meantime, these were just fried in olive oil and placed in the refrigerator.
They're good on anything.
I cleaned up and it was Victor's turn. He's the Pesto King so I let him have at it.
Basil is another weed growing out back. The more you use the more it grows. We have it in two different areas and both of them are approaching out of control. The answer, my friend, is pesto. Not just any ol' pesto, however... Victor made Pistachio Pesto and Walnut Pesto, today!
First the pistachio...
and then the walnut.
The recipe is the same for both of them - just switch out the nuts. And you can always just go with the traditional pine nuts, if you're so inclined. This isn't a chiseled-in-stone recipe. It's merely a guideline. You can add more or less of any ingredient, or make it smoother or chunkier. It's up to you. The only real rule for me is blanching the basil. It helps remove the bitterness and the unwanted licorice undertones - and it sets the vibrant green color!
Pesto
- 4 cups basil leaves
- 1/2 cup nuts - pine, pistachio, walnut, whatever
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 cup pecorino romano cheese - or parmesan or any good, hard Italian grating cheese
- salt and pepper, as desired
Blanche the basil quickly in boiling water and then plunge into ice water. Remove and drain well. (A bit of water remaining is okay - it helps in the emulsification.)
Place nuts and garlic in blender and chop well with the olive oil. Add handfuls of drained basil and process. Add the grated cheese and process until you get your desired consistency.
Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
Place in container and add a thin layer of olive oil on top to keep it fresh.
This is another throw-together salad. Cherry tomatoes from the garden - the only tomatoes that have ripened, so far - mixed with the very last store-bought tomato of the season, sundried tomatoes in oil, blanched green beans, minced garlic, olives, a bit of grated cheese, salt, pepper, and good olive oil.
Absolutely delicious.
Dinner, tonight, is going to be grilled tuna steaks, pesto pasta, and green bean salad.
::burp::
Sunday Sauce
A rainy Sunday is the perfect day to replenish our supply of pasta sauce. Actually, any day is perfect, but a rainy day really does make it easy to blow off everything else and just spend time in the kitchen! Not that we really need an excuse to do nothing but cook... but you get the idea...
Victor is still working one-handed - he gets the stitches out tomorrow morning - so I did my part of the sauce-making by opening the dozen cans of San Marzano tomatoes and the bottle of wine. My role in this really is just canning it - Capo Chef Victor does the cooking.
After all these years, we really do have this down to a science. A couple of hours to make the sauce, a couple of hours to get it all canned, and before you know it, 14 quarts of sauce are in the basement and another is on the counter for tonight's dinner.
The recipe really doesn't vary much. Amounts change, but it's basically the same. He makes about six times this basic recipe.
Victor's Pasta Sauce
- 2 – 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
- 1 – Sm can tomato paste
- 1-2 cloves of garlic (or to taste if you like more) chopped fine
- Olive oil
- Dried Italian seasonings
- Hot red pepper flakes (a tsp or more or less to taste)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Red wine (always cook with a decent wine, never “cooking” wine) about a cup or cup and a half
- Meat – such as Italian sausage or some nice beef or pork ribs or pork chops
Ok…I ALWAYS make my sauce with meat, so start with a deep, heavy pot and add about 3-4 TBS of olive oil. On high heat, once the oil is hot, start frying the sausage or pork, Let the meat get good and caramelized although you don’t have to cook it all the way through because you’ll add it back to the sauce to finish. Once the meat is browned take it out of the pot, put it on a plate and set aside.
Lower the heat to medium and sauté the tomato paste for a couple of minutes until it begins to “melt”. Add the chopped garlic and sauté with the tomato paste for just a minute (no longer or it will burn). Then add about a cup of the red wine and deglaze the pan with it, scrapping up all the good bits that stuck to the bottom when cooking the meat.
When the wine reduces by about ½ start adding the canned tomatoes. Add one can of hot water for every can of tomatoes you use.
Now start adding the dried Italian seasonings. I eyeball it but I would guess a good 2 TBS is fine. Add about another ½ cup of red wine, with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir everything into the sauce. It will be very thin at this point.
Add back the cooked meat. Now this is important….at the bottom of the plate you let the meat rest on will be some of the oil and juices that seeped out. Pour that back into the pot. It has a lot of flavor in it.
Bring the sauce back to a boil then turn the heat down low and let it simmer for at least 1 and a half hours, stirring every 15 to 20 minutes to keep it from burning. It should reduce by about a third or a little less and get thicker. The meat will absorb the sauce and get very tender.
And then it goes into jars and into the pressure canner...
I had Victor come in and take pictures while I was filling jars. And then I took a few when they came out of the canner...
And another...
This should keep us in sauce until July. I wonder if we could get enough tomatoes this year to can a batch from our garden?!? That would be nice!
This really is something anyone can do - you can pressure-can or just do a hot water bath. It's really easy - and the result is far superior to any sauce you buy in the grocery store. It really only takes a couple of hours - and most of the time is unattended.
Make some - you'll be happy you did!
Papardelle with Guanciale
The guanciale has been calling my name for a week. Today, I decided to answer. And before I had even mentioned my idea, Victor asked if I wanted him to make some homemade pasta.
[Oh, no, dear. I'd rather have something out of a bag. Really. Don't trouble yourself...] Like, DUH!! Are you done, yet?!? Is it ready?!?
A dinner was born...
Guanciale is cured pig cheeks. It's similar to bacon, but the fat is silken... there's an earthier flavor... it's richer... and totally worth the splurge.
Victor got into the kitchen first and made the pasta while I looked to see what kind of bread I wanted to bake.
Victor has always made his pasta on the counter by hand. Today, he made it in a food processor after seeing Lidia do it several times. It worked well! You just need to finish it off by hand to get the right feel. Like anything, you can take shortcuts when you know what the standard is supposed to be.
And we use Italian flour - Tipa '00' - for almost all of our cooking and baking. Even our semolina comes from Italy. The exception is when I buy Daisy Organic from Lancaster - local wheat. Yeah, it's a bit more expensive, but I like the quality and the results. And I especially like it when Victor turns it into pasta!
Papardelle
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1 cup semolina flour
- 6 large eggs, at room temperature
- 4 tsp olive oil
- pinch salt
Mix flours and salt in food processor. Add eggs and oil and process until it all comes together in a ball. Seconds, really. It's quick.
Remove from mixing bowl and knead a few times on the counter. Roll into a ball, cover, and let rest about 30 minutes.
Feed through your pasta roller and cut into strips. Victor made shorter papardelle than traditional because his mom can't really handle long pastas, anymore. But unlike the Republican debates the other night, size doesn't matter.
The pasta sauce came together quickly, thanks to already having sauce in the basement.
I pretty much just threw it together, so here's a close approximation to what I did...
Pasta Sauce with Guanciale
- 12 oz guanciale
- 1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- pinch red pepper flakes
- 1 cup grated pecorino
- 4 cups simple pasta sauce
Saute guanciale in a large skillet until it completely renders its fat. Remove guanciale from pan and set aside. Saute onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the fat until onions are well-wilted.
Add the guanciale back into the pan and continue cooking until onions are done.
Stir in the sauce and heat completely. Stir in the pecorino and stir until smooth and hot.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta, drain, and add to the sauce.
Sit down and eat.
It was a really simple dinner to pull together with each of us doing our part. Things took a bit of time, but much of it was just waiting for things - like the bread to rise before forming and baking. Victor has pasta-making down to a science. I know it would take me longer to make it, but it would take him longer to bake the bread. We each do the part we're best at - and dinner is served!
Scallops and Homemade Cavatelli
I've been staring at a bag of cavatelli in the freezer since Victor made it a few weeks ago when we were having our little snow storm. That first night we had it with a red sauce but I wanted to try something different the second time around.
As I was rearranging the freezer on Monday - a task I need to do every few months because of my strange food-buying habits - I came upon a bag of scallops and knew that they would be the perfect foil for the cavatelli. A recipe started formulating...
My first thought was making a cream sauce because if there's a way to add fat and calories to an otherwise healthy dish - I'm your man. It's not really my fault. My mind just works in variations of butter and heavy cream. It's a gift and a curse.
I had an idea of what I wanted to do but always like seeing what else is out there so I perused the internet a bit. I found lots of recipes for a cream sauce with scallops, but none of them were very promising. I wanted creamy - I just didn't want their creamy. So I went with wine and cheese, instead.
Good ol' Rachael Ray had a recipe for linguini with scallops that held some promise, but it still wasn't what I was looking for, so I took her concept and started playing. The end result was pretty good.
Scallops with Cavatelli
- 1 lb cavatelli
- 1 lb scallops, cleaned
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 large shallots, minced
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 cup clam broth
- 1 cup grated pecorino romano
- 1/2 cup minced basil
- 1/2 cup minced parsley
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- olive oil and butter
- salt and pepper
Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta. You will want to time it so the pasta is done the same time as the sauce - neither take long.
Melt a bit of butter with olive oil in a large skillet. Cook scallops about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add shallots and garlic and quickly saute until shallots are wilted. Add wine and bring to a boil. Add clam broth, lemon zest, and lemon juice and simmer.
Stir in basil and parsley. Stir in cheese, being careful not to bring it to a boil.
Stir in the cooked pasta and coat it well with the sauce. Let it simmer in the sauce a few minutes to pick up the flavors.
Stir in the scallops along with any juices that have accumulated in the bowl.
Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
It was a 20 minute start-to-finish dinner. The longest part of the entire production was waiting for the water to boil.
And it was unexpectedly good. As in really good. The homemade pasta really made a difference, but I'm sure it would be excellent with any good pasta.
I need to convince Victor to make several pounds of this one day and let me freeze it in 1 pound packages for those other fun and unexpected meals I'm waiting to make...
Stay tuned...
Tri-Tip and Artichokes
Artichokes are great. Stuffed artichokes are greater. Victor's stuffed artichokes are the greatest!
I knew the minute I saw the artichokes today that Victor was going to be stuffing them for dinner tonight. He just does a good job of it. The recipe gives ingredients - not amounts - because they vary according to how many you're making. Besides... these ain't the sort of thing where you have to put 1/8 tsp of this and 1/4 cup of that, anyway. They're stuffed artichokes. You can't screw 'em up!
Victor's Stuffed Artichokes
- bread crumbs (He used panko this time around because that's what we had in the house. He has also used store-bought and freshly made.)
- grated parmesan cheese (Maybe 3 bread crumbs to 1 cheese. Don't be cheap with the cheese.)
- Italian seasoning
- red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper
Trim outer leaves. Mix all ingredients.
Liberally stuff the breadcrumbs into the artichokes. Pull the leaves out a bit and really go for it.
Drizzle with olive oil and steam for 35 to 45 minutes.
Drizzle with olive oil again just before serving.
They really do rock.
Since we were going Italian with the artichokes, I marinated the tri-tip in olive oil, red wine, and garlic. Really basic. And then grilled it to rare perfection.
I cubed a couple of red potatoes, boiled them in salted water, drained them, and then quickly browned them in a drizzle of olive oil with salt, pepper, and garlic.
And we still have walnut pie.
Burgers and Peppers
Tonight's dinner is brought to you by the hot Italian peppers Victor fried up Monday.
We picked up some hot and some sweet peppers Monday with the intention of frying them in olive oil and garlic. They are one of the best condiments to have in the 'fridge - they go with so many things and have a shelf-life just short of plutonium. Not that we ever keep them around long, but they will last.
Did I mention hot?!?
They were so hot cooking that when I walked into the kitchen - with windows open and fan blowing - my eyes immediately started burning and I started coughing.
I knew we were onto something good!
I wanted some of them for dinner tonight and thought an open-faced burger was just the ticket. I toasted a couple of thick slices of Italian bread and spread it with mayo mixed with some mixed shredded cheese left from last night's dinner. On top of that went the peppers - and then the burger topped with more cheese.
The fresh fruit was perfect with the hothot peppers, and the leftover-from-Monday potato salad and baked beans added to the goodness (and helped clean out the 'fridge).
It's currently 85° outside with climbing humidity ((I will never get used to living in a place where it can actually get hotter when the sun goes down!) so we're having homemade ice cream for dessert tonight.
Really rich chocolate ice cream with mini peanut butter cups.
Stay tuned.
Green Rice and Spice
Green rice and white asparagus. Yes, a decidedly different dinner!
We tried out th Bamboo Green Rice tonight. Way fun! Taste is a bit difficult to describe... definitely "rice" but an almost tea-like flavor from the bamboo. Besides looking great, it tasted great.
I grilled a pork tenderloin and topped it with a fresh mango salsa... Diced mango, minced jalapeño, minced onion, minced red pepper, cilantro, parsley, a squirt of lemon, salt & pepper. I don't recall the variety of mango other than it's from Mexico and very yellow when ripe. It had just the right amount of sweet and tart flavor.
The white asparagus was topped with diced tomato mixed with a bit of adobo sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo.
And Victor baked off the last of the brioche dough.
This batch of dough has definitely gotten a work-out. I made it last Friday for hamburger buns on Sunday. I made cinnamon apple rolls with it - twice - and then tonight's sesame braid.
I'm going to have to get another batch going soon.
Artichokes and Steaks
The bigger-than-a-softball-artichokes are back. Oh yum.
They're big enough to feed a small army or emerging nation. They're big. And oh, so good!
I brought them home with no real plan. Victor took one look and said "leave them to me". I did. I'm glad I did!
He trimmed them up and made a stuffing of fresh bread crumbs, black olives, garlic, Italian seasoning, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. After stuffing them, he liberally drizzled olive oil on them and then steamed them for an hour.
Mashed sweet potatoes with a drizzle of maple syrup, and steaks on the grill.
The perfect meal.
Needless to say, there was actually more food on those plates than we could eat. We both ate half of the steaks, half of the sweet potatoes, and all of the artichokes.
Leftovers are my friend.....
More Valentine Love
Chicken Noodle Soup. Jewish Penicillin. Actual medicine.
Researchers have actually confirmed what Grandma already knew - Chicken soup helps when we have a cold.
They found that chicken soup and many of its ingredients helped stop the movement of neutrophils -- white blood cells that eat up bacteria and cellular debris and which are released in great numbers by viral infections like colds.
Neutrophil activity can stimulate the release of mucous, which may be the cause of the coughs and stuffy nose caused by upper respiratory infections such as colds.
"All the ingredients were found to be inhibitory, including the boiled extract of chicken alone," they wrote.
Rennard said vitamins and other agents in the ingredients could, plausibly, have biological action.
So Victor made me Chicken Soup.
We had the stock made, so it was just a matter of pulling it all together... carrots, celery, onions, chicken, and noodles, noodles, noodles. Simple. basic. Nutritious and delicious.
And just because we always need it, I made a loaf of Beer Bread.
Made with Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA.
Picture Perfect Pizza
I have to laugh at the pizza commercial that says their frozen pizza is as good as delivery pizza.
Uh. Right.
I made hand-spun pizza for years. I made a hellava lot of pizzas for delivery. Not one of them was half as good as having that pie delivered to your table right out of the oven. It's great marketing that can convince someone that a mediocre product is as good as a mediocre product - and get them to buy it.
I've had a few frozen pizzas in my time that were reasonably good - for a frozen pizza - but nothing compares to a fresh-made and fresh-baked pizza.
In case you hadn't heard, it's snowing back here today. A perfect excuse to turn on the oven and bake a fresh pizza.
This was a team effort. Victor made the dough and the sauce, I put it together and baked it. We work well in the kitchen together.
We have a couple of pizza dough recipes we use. Today was BH&G New Cook Book. (Well... it was new in 1981 when Victor got it...)
Pizza Dough
- 1 1/2 cups warm water (100º to 105º)
- 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 4 cups “00” flour or unbleached all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- olive oil for bowl
Sprinkle yeast over warm water in bowl of mixer fitted with dough hook. Let proof about 5 minutes.
Mix together flour and salt. Add to yeast mixture. Mix on low speed about 4 minutes or until dough forms a coarse ball. Stop mixer and cover bowl with a towel. Let dough rest about 5 minutes, then remove towel and continue mixing another 2 minutes or so.
Lightly oil a large bowl. Form dough into a ball, transfer to bowl and turn to lightly coat with oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes, then refrigerate overnight.
Punch down dough, re-roll, and return to bowl. Tightly cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.
Divide dough into 2 pieces; shape pieces into balls and place on a lightly floured work surface. Loosely cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise at warm room temperature until doubled, about 2 hours.
The pizza sauce was simply a can of tomato sauce, a splash of red wine, garlic, Greek oregano, salt, and pepper.
I topped it with cheese and homemade Italian sausage.
It was the exact size of the pizza stone. Luck or skill? If you voted luck, you would be right.
Pizza for lunch was just what the weatherman ordered, since it's been snowing now for about 20 hours non-stop - with more to come.
A good dinner tonight and another loaf of fresh bread tomorrow.
I love this weather!
A Food Fest
We have friends in town. It's 6pm... We've been eating since yesterday... There's still more to come!
It started with New England Clam Chowder yesterday. I was so excited to have them here I forgot to put the potatoes in the chowder. So much for pretending I know what I'm doing!
And I forgot the cukes for the salad...
Breakfast this morning was our spin on Eggs Benedict - poached eggs on whole wheat English muffins, with andouille sausage and langostino, topped with a jalapeno hollandaise sauce...
We skipped lunch so we could start dinner at 3pm. We invited Victor's mom over to meet the girls and have dinner with us; Brasiole, Italian sausage, meatballs, pork, rigatoni and sauce, salad, tomato basil bread... and later tonight a puff pastry and apple dessert...
Brasiole...
Meatballs and the homemade Italian sausage
Pork
Rigatoni
The simmering sauce...
Fresh-baked croissants and omeletes tomorrow for breakfast...
We are having so much fun!
Sharing the Cooking
We did a bit of a tag-team in the kitchen tonight. I pulled the chicken out of the freezer this morning before heading off to work, and Victor decided he would cook it. He kinda planned a breaded chicken cooked in the oven, brussel's sprouts, and rice. But at work, Jessica had mentioned potatoes in caramelized onions and I just had to have some. So... Victor did the chicken and veggies - I did the spuds.
Where Jessica had used a little teeny-tiny potato, I had a russet, so that's what I used. I probably could have let the onions go longer than I did, but... I was hungry! Anyway...
I sliced up an onion and sauteed it in a pat of butter until just starting to brown. I added one cubed potato and a bit of salt and pepper, and covered it. Cooked for about 30 minutes on low heat.
The brussel's sprouts were sliced in half and then browned in a wee bit of olive oil. Victor then added mirin and dijon mustard. Talk about fusion! They were excellent!
The chicken was almost secondary to the side dishes - breaded with homemade bread crumbs and into a hot oven for about 15 minutes. No additional oil or anything. It came out a bit pale, but it had just the right crunch.
Everything really worked well together. Yum.