Stuffed Cabbage
When I was a youngster, my Birthday Dinner was Veal Marsala and Pineapple Cream Pie. My mom made a great dish with pounded beef, mushrooms, and marsala - we never saw $$$ veal in our house - and she served it over buttered egg noodles. Delicious.
Fast-Forward a few years and the Birthday Dinner has become Stuffed Cabbage.
What makes this so special is Victor has never really been fond of cooked cabbage, but, knowing how much I like it, he made it for me one year - and liked it, too! It's become a twice-a-year dish - once in winter and once for my birthday!
And since this was a birthday celebration, we started off with prosecco and homemade goat cheese, along with little crackers and hot peppers. Victor made the cheese yesterday. It is outstanding! We both really like hot peppers - there is always a container of peppers in the 'fridge - and we've taken to jacking up the heat from the store-bought peppers with a couple of the hot peppers from our yard.
More calories than we normally have for dinner, but... what the hell.
From cheese and peppers to stuffed cabbage served over rice. The rice is perfect for sopping up all of that delicious sauce.
The recipe originated with Ina Garten. It takes time to prepare - and it's worth every second!
Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons good olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
- 2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes and their juice
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large head Savoy or green cabbage, including outer leaves
For the filling:
- 2 1/2 pounds ground chuck
- 3 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onions
- 1/2 cup plain dried breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup uncooked white rice
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Directions
For the sauce, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onions, and cook over medium-low heat for 8 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar, raisins, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Remove the entire core of the cabbage with a paring knife. Immerse the head of cabbage in the boiling water for a few minutes, peeling off each leaf with tongs as soon as it s flexible. Set the leaves aside. Depending on the size of each leaf, you will need at least 14 leaves.
For the filling, in a large bowl, combine the ground chuck, eggs, onion, breadcrumbs, rice, thyme, salt, and pepper. Add 1 cup of the sauce to the meat mixture and mix lightly with a fork.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
To assemble, place 1 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a large Dutch oven. Remove the hard triangular rib from the base of each cabbage leaf with a small paring knife. Place 1/3 to 1/2 cup of filling in an oval shape near the rib edge of each leaf and roll up toward the outer edge, tucking the sides in as you roll. Place half the cabbage rolls, seam sides down, over the sauce. Add more sauce and more cabbage rolls alternately until you ve placed all the cabbage rolls in the pot. Pour the remaining sauce over the cabbage rolls.
Cover the dish tightly with the lid and bake for 1 hour or until the meat is cooked and the rice is tender.
Serve hot.
It really is one of those classic meals that succeeds on every level. It's a perfect agrodolce - sweet and sour - with perfect textures and perfect flavors. We each had two rolls. More than enough after cheese and peppers, although a part of me wanted to finish the pan.
We didn't have the Pineapple Cream Pie, though. I think Victor asked me half a dozen times if I wanted a birthday cake - and I repeatedly said no.
We had fresh fruit. But... we get to have the leftovers for dinner, tomorrow!
It's better than cake!
Goat Cheese with Apricots and Pistachios
We were at the Bryn Mawr Farmer's Market, today, and found raw goats milk.
Victor has been making his own cheese for a while, now, and raw goats milk is not easy to come by - we picked up a quart to make some!
Goat Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 qt goat milk - raw is best, cannot use ultra-pasteurized
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp vinegar white
- 1/2 tsp salt
optional
- Dried herbs of your choice
- 1/4 cup chopped dried fruit
- 1/4 cup chopped nuts
Instructions
Line a colander with two or three layers of fine cheesecloth.
In a heavy bottom sauce pan heat the goat milk until it reaches 180'F. Stir frequently to ensure even heat throughout.
Remove from heat immediately; add the lemon juice, and stir a couple of times until combined.
Add the vinegar, stir briefly until combined and allow it to sit for about 30 minutes.
The curds will not be large, on the contrary they will be like tiny specks.
Slowly ladle into the cheesecloth. Add the salt and stir lightly.
Gather the ends of the cheesecloth, and tie them with kitchen string. Tie to your faucet.
Allow it to hang and drip for about 1 hour.
Place on a cutting board and shape - mixing in fruits and nuts or sprinkling with dried herbs of your choice.
Refrigerate and serve when set.
The Last of the Eggplant
We have eggplants coming in out back - time to use up the last of last years' harvest.
At the end of the season, I took the last few eggplants and sliced them into cutlets, breaded them, and froze them. They were perfect for quick meals.
There was one package left.
Victor decided he was going to do an eggplant dish with gnocchi, but found some ricotta he had made and frozen, so he ended up making an eggplant lasagne - the gnocchi will wait for another day.
He took a bit of his homemade sauce and placed it in the dish. Then went a couple of eggplant cutlets and ricotta. On top of that went Italian long hot peppers we had cooked in the 'fridge, a bit of cheese, more eggplant, ricotta, sauce, cheese.
Into a 350°F oven for 35 minutes.
It was the perfect dinner - full of flavor, filling, and juuuuust spicy enough. the Italian Long Hot peppers from Gentile's have been really inconsistent in their heat. This mixture proved to be perfect as a filling.
I really wanted to lick my plate, but I didn't eat it all. Tomorrow is our weigh-in and year-end assessment.
I need to look svelte.
Chilled Cucumber Soup
The cucumbers are coming in fast and furious. I'm pretty psyched, simply because they're something I've never had an abundance of, before. The dusty, cobweb-laden area that is my mind actually has to think, a bit.
Or, better yet, let Victor think about them. He's already made tzatziki, a cucumber salad, and now, a chilled cucumber soup!
It's so nice being married to a man who can cook!
I picked three more cucumbers and Victor immediately set to work.
Chilled Cucumber Soup
- 3 cucumbers, peeled
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1 cup greek yogurt
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 2 tbsp parsley, minced
- 1/2 tsp dill
- 1/2 tsp tarragon
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
Coarsely chop two cucumbers and place in food processor. Hold one cucumber aside. Place remaining ingredients in food processor and process until smooth, adding a bit of milk or vegetable broth to thin, if necessary.
Pour into bowl. Chop remaining cucumber and stir in.
Portion into bowls and drizzle with olive oil, if desired.
Perfection in a bowl. Lots of cucumber flavor and just a hint of heat. With a couple of slices of crusty bread, it was the perfect lunch.
There are easily a dozen more cukes out there in varying stages of growth, so we haven't even begun to scratch the culinary surface.
I wonder if I can pickle some?!?
Stay tuned...
Shrimp Ravioli
I suppose there's millions of people out there barbecuing and grilling, today. Lord knows we've been there. We just didn't feel like grilling in 90°F weather with thunderstorms and ridiculous humidity. Better to stay indoors with air conditioning.
July 4th is also my favorite brother-in-law's birthday. I've known Mike since the mid-'60s, so there are a few birthday celebrations I have difficulty remembering. today. Our misspent youth was definitely misspent. Or not. How many of you remember the days when you had to make sure you had a wad of cash because ATMs would only give you a paltry amount per 24 hour period and were often Out Of Service after 1:00am?!?
Ah... the good ol' days...
If we were on the west coast, we'd be celebrating with him, today.
But since we're not... we're celebrating with homemade ravioli!
Victor had leftover pasta dough and ricotta filling from the ravioli he made last week, so he pulled it from the freezer and went to work.
He took the ricotta filling and added chopped shrimp he sauteed in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Really simple.
He then made a sauce of olive oil, garlic, white wine, clam juice, lemon juice, fresh oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, butter, salt and pepper. When it had reduced by about half, he added the shrimp and in three minutes the sauce was ready. Again, really simple.
The pasta was feather light and the filling screamed flavor. Rich shrimp flavor with perfect chunks to offset the creamy ricotta. The sauce was light but rich in flavor. It was the perfect topping.
Meanwhile, I made a loaf of sourdough walnut raisin bread. I screwed it up - more detail than I can go into, here - but, the flavor was excellent.
A successful holiday, and a successful meal.
Plus, the DC festivities are in shambles because of the weather... Who could ask for anything more?!?
The End of Week Fifty
Fifty weeks. Five-Zero. Us. At a gym. For fifty weeks. Who woulda thunk?!?
Certainly not either of us. We were both way over-weight, doing mundane tasks was a chore, and we were rapidly turning into sloths. But we ate well. A bit too well.
And then the notice about Silver Sneakers arrived in the mail. We found out we could actually get a free gym membership at the local LA Fitness, so we went up to see what it was all about. The thought was maybe use the pool a bit, walk on a treadmill... you know... old people stuff.
What we weren't expecting to do was get a health assessment and to sign up with a Personal Trainer for a year - at an outrageous sum of money per month, I might add...
That outrageous sum of money has been the best money we ever spent.
I cannot begin to tell you how much better we feel. How much energy we have, how much easier life, in general, has become. And it's all because we answered an ad in the mail - and took a chance.
If you've been following the saga, you'll note that we eat well. We're not dieting by any stretch of the magination. We eat what we want with no forbidden foods. By not denying ourselves we've been able to change how we eat - smaller portions, for one, and making better choices to fill us up, for another.
Our ooey-gooey desserts have pretty much gone by the wayside, but they've been replaced with lots of fresh fruit - usually topped with prosecco or a crisp white wine.
We're not suffering.
We eat bread, we eat white rice, we eat potatoes. In fact, here's the bread I made yesterday:
It's made with Rustic Red Fife Wheat Flour from Anson Mills. The thought is, if we're going to eat something, it's going to be a good something.
Which brings us right to tonight's dinner...
It's amazing how many foods are on do not eat lists - with every list designed by someone making money from it. Can't eat carbs, can't eat bread, can't eat pasta. Can't eat anything that is fun, comforting, or filling.
We've pretty much destroyed that theory.
We saw a variation of these ravioli being made the other night and immediately knew they were destined for dinner. Yes. We have lost weight and still eat like kings. And this may be the most kingly thing I have ever eaten.
Ever.In.My.Life.
It's a ravioli with an egg yolk inside. I can't even begin to describe it. Words are failing me.
The recipe is actually quite simple, the ingredients are few, but the combination is simply out of this world.
The pasta dough is based on a recipe from Alon Shaya. The filling and sauce are pure Victor.
Pasta Dough
- 1 1/4 cup 00 flour
- 1/2 cup semolina
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 tsp olive oil
Mix flours. make a well and add the eggs, egg yolks, and oil. Slowly mix in the flour and knead until smooth. Let rest 30 minutes before rolling to desired shape.
Ricotta Filling
- 2 cups ricotta
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese blend
- 1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
- 1/2 cup cooked spinach, chopped and drained well
- pinch garlic powder
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 egg yolk per ravioli
Mix all ingredients - except final egg yolk - together. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Fresh Tomato Sauce
- 2 large tomatoes
- olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- splash water
- salt and pepper, to taste
- fresh basil for serving
Heat oil on skillet. Add minced garlic and lightly cook. Add roughly-chopped tomatoes with their juices. Stir in oregano and a splash of water. Simmer until tomatoes break down and sauce slightly thickens. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
To Assemble and Cook
Roll dough through pasta machine and cut into circles - one slightly larger for the top.
Place filling on bottom round and make an indentation. Place a single egg yolk. Dampen edge with water and place top piece of dough over, carefully pressing out any air. Crimp and seal.
Place in large shallow pan with barely boiling water and cook for exactly six minutes.
And then we have the finished product.
Total food porn. There's really no other way to describe it.
After plating the dish, Victor topped it with grated Cured Egg Yolk - egg yolks dried in salt and sugar.
This really was one of the best meals I have ever eaten anywhere. Every single bite was a taste sensation, from the perfect pasta to the fresh tomatoes, the rich cheese filling - and that runny egg yolk. Every bit of it came together - perfectly.
I swooned at every bite.
Going to the gym, losing weight, and eating like kings.
It really does not suck to be us.
Asparagus and Smoked Salmon Salad
We had some smoked salmon in the 'fridge - hot smoked with pepper. Victor looked at it and said we needed some asparagus - he had an idea and wanted to make a salad.
I headed to the store.
One of the great things about both of us liking to cook is that we cook differently. We look at foods differently and can come up with vastly different ideas using the same ingredients.
It keeps it fun and interesting!
Asparagus and Smoked Salmon Salad
Salad:
- 1 pound fresh asparagus cut into pieces
- 1 cup pecans, broken into pieces
- 1/2 fennel bulb, diced
- 3 celery stalks, diced
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 1 cup peas, thawed, if frozen
- 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
- 1/2 pound smoked salmon, broken into pieces
Dressing:
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon good mustard
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Lettuce of your choice
Directions:
Blanche asparagus until just tender - 3-5 minutes. Drain and cool.
Lightly toast pecans. Cool and set aside.
Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper.
Mix asparagus, pecans, peas, fennel, celery, scallions, capers, and smoked salmon. Add 2/3 of the dressing and mix well.
To serve:
Place lettuce on plate and top with salmon salad. Add additional dressing, as desired.
Top with grated parmigiano reggiano.
The salads had absolutely everything going for them! Lots of crunch, lots of softer textures, and lots of individual flavors tied together with an awesome dressing.
The hot smoked salmon - as opposed to a cold smoked nova - is closer in texture to a traditionally cooked piece of salmon, so it's thicker and flakes easily. And totally delicious. A piece of cold, broiled or grilled salmon could be substituted with slightly different results.
If you like salmon, this is one to try!
And... it's a salad. Add or subtract ingredients as you see fit.
The recipe made enough for dinner, tonight, and lunch salads for a couple of days. My stomach is smiling at the thought of seeing this, again!
Crab and Shrimp Frittatas
Dinner Monday night was Crab and Shrimp Louie - dungeness crab and bay shrimp piled high on top of iceberg lettuce with a homemade Louie Dressing. In typical Tim-Fashion, I had more crab and shrimp than I needed for four salads, so the rest went right into the freezer.
While getting lunch together, today, Victor said he had a plan for it - he was going to make a frittata for dinner. Never one to argue when someone wants to feed me, I immediately took the crab and shrimp out of the freezer!
And I had a feast for dinner!
Along with the crab and shrimp, Victor added diced red pepper, caramelized onions, diced tomatoes, pecorino romano, ricotta, fresh basil and oregano, and salt and pepper.
As perfect as perfect can be!
Even more perfect is we have enough for lunch tomorrow, as well, since there's really no way to make a small frittata in our house!
It's great being married to a man who can cook!
Umbricelli
We've been watching more travel and cooking shows - wishing we were off to Europe or the Mediterranean. I don't think I will ever tire of travelling - or dreaming about travelling. So many food and travel shows focus on the Michelin starred restaurants - where everyone has tweezers in their pockets to put the plates together. Personally, I don't care how good the food may be - I can get tweezer food down the street or in just about any city in the USofA. Yes, it's beautiful, yes, those plates are works of art, but I want to eat where the locals eat.
I'm a street food person, a trattoria or bistro person. I'm a plebeian through and through.
One recipe that caught our eye, recently, was a pasta from Umbria - Umbricelli. The show didn't give a recipe, but it showed a woman making a basic dough with flour and eggs, rolling and forming it. They call it little earth worms because it's fairly long and thick.
Victor has made a lot of pasta over the years, so he thought he'd give it a try, tonight. We didn't have a recipe for the pasta, but it looked similar to his basic dough - and we just happened to have some already made!
How fortuitous!
It didn't roll quite as easily as the clip we saw on TV, but he's also not a 75 year old Italian woman who's been making this since she was 8 years old. Besides, through the miracle of film editing, anything she made would look effortless. Reality TV is not real.
Our pasta, on the other hand, was!
The flavor was excellent! The sauce was perfect - he spiced up a jar of his homemade sauce, cooked a couple of sausages, and simmered everything together.
The pasta, itself, was chewier than we normally eat, but... it was also ten times thicker than he normally makes. It had a great substance and a great flavor - and it went well with a hearty sauce. I could see myself having a plate of this sitting at a little neighborhood trattoria in Citta di Castello with a glass of Chianti and some crusty bread...
Maybe in the Spring.....
Lettuce Wraps
It's 89°F outside with 98% humidity. We're under a Tornado Watch, a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, a Flood Advisory, and a Flash Flood Watch. And it's still May. A perfect time to move back indoors with the air conditioning running and contemplate some good food - something not normally in the rotation...
I picked up a pound of ground pork the other day with no actual plan for it - we didn't have any and I thought we should. Victor saw it and he thought he should use it to make lettuce wraps. I thought that was a really good idea.
The beauty of not planning meals - but having lots of ingredients in the house - allows for these impromptu feasts - and feast, it was! It's amazing how something so simple just bursts with flavor. Of course, having lots of things to wrap into your wrap makes all the difference...
The pork filling is really pretty easy to make - it's cutting up all of the accompaniments that takes the time. Fortunately, Victor knows his way around a kitchen.
Lettuce Wraps
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
- 1 tbsp sriracha
- 1 hot pepper, minced
- 1 head lettuce, leaves separated
- 1 large carrot, julienned
- 2 scallions, chopped
- 1 watermelon radish, julienned
- 1 cucumber, chopped
Method:
Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add ginger and garlic and cook until fragrant, 2 minutes. Add ground pork and cook until no longer pink. Add hot pepper, hoisin sauce and Sriracha and stir until combined.
Spoon pork into lettuce leaves and top with carrots, scallions, watermelon radish, and cucumbers, and drizzle with additional hoisin and sriracha. Fold up and enjoy!
Perfection on a plate.
Like a taco, they're fun to eat and just slightly messy. Lots of crunch, lots of flavor, and just the right amount of heat. I can see these happening a bit more often.
The leftovers are going to be reworked into a chicken and pork salad, tomorrow, since I roasted a chicken last night and there's plenty left over. I'm thinking lentils, right now, but that is subject to change.
What I do know, is there are more fun meals yet to come!
Cannelloni
I learned something new, today...
I have always thought that cannelloni was made with a crespelle - a crepe - and manicotti was made with pasta. I pretty much based this on the cannelloni we used to make at Pirro's a million years ago and the boxes of manicotti pasta in the grocery store. It's actually the other way around...
It seems that it is the American market that makes and sells large pasta tubes (that are pretty much impossible to fill) and calls them manicotti and those little squares of fresh pasta we used to buy were, well... pasta.
Victor, of course, is the one who told me this.
It was his idea to make cannelloni, today, using some of the pasta dough he had in the freezer, and filling ingredients we had in the 'fridge. The sauce was his jarred sauce.
The filling was garlic, egg, ricotta, pepato cheese, a chopped hot pepper, fresh herbs, and some crumbled, cooked sausage.
He rolled the pasta, cut it into squares, cooked it, and then dropped it into ice water to quickly cool. He then added the filling, rolled them, and into the pan they went with sauce and cheese on top.
Baked at 350°F for 45 minutes - covered for the first 30 minutes and uncovered for the final 15.
The original thought was we would each have two. The reality check was we each had one with a couple of chunks of sausage - and we'll have leftovers on Monday.
Perfection on a plate - and more on Monday.
I really don't mind being wrong.....
Chicken with Honey and Garlic
When Victor got back from the gym, this morning, he casually said, oh, by the way... I'm cooking dinner, tonight.
That is always music to my ears. I am a firm believer in if you're cooking, I'm eating - and it really is nice when the person cooking knows what in the heck they're doing!
Both of us are intuitive cooks - we just kinda know what works and what doesn't. It usually means reading a recipe and being able to alter ingredients as you're going down the list. My mom used to talk about reading a recipe and mentally tasting it as she read it. That really makes a lot of sense to me.
Victor wanted to do something non-Italian, tonight. We both tend to go Italian as a go-to, although back in the day, my go-to was always Mexican. I conceded defeat when we first moved east and I couldn't find basic Mexican ingredients in the grocery store. (For the first 8 years we lived here, we would bring cans of chipotles in adobo back with us every time we traveled west.) Ingredient-wise, things have gotten much better, but the go-to Italian is still the go-to because I've gotten lazy.
He had an idea for something spicy with garlic and honey - and asked if we had any chicken breasts in the freezer. I grabbed one for him and walked away - seeing the wheels turning.
What he ended up with was something worthy of any decent Chinese restaurant - simple with clean flavors.
Chicken with Honey and Garlic
- 1 chicken breast, cubed
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 tbsp rice wine
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
- 1 cup broccoli, cooked
- 1 tbsp sambal oelek
- black sesame seeds
- natural sesame seeds
- flour
- salt and pepper
Dice chicken. Dredge in flour mixed with a pinch of salt & pepper.
Make a sauce of the honey, rice wine, soy sauce, and sambal oelek.
Saute chicken in a bit of oil. Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant - 2 or 3 minutes.,
Add sauce and simmer until thickened. Add broccoli and mix well.
Serve with rice and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
For an Italian, it was a pretty good rendition of Asian-American cooking. My stomach is smiling!