I threw together this quick pasta dish for our second anniversary tonight, and it sort of reminds me of Julie- beautiful to look at, and then filled with such rich gooey warmth it just made me glad that I was smart enough to order such a great dish.
Uh, something like that. I'm not exactly good with the mushy stuff, but I've got the most perfect wife I could have ever wished for.
(Whole Wheat Rotini, squash, tomatoes, corn, pine nuts, shallots, red onion, thyme, chicken stock and asiago cheese)
In our quest to keep our carbohydrates down we've given up on pasta for the most part, but when I was scrambling for a quick dinner last night I found half a pound of whole wheat rotini in the pantry. Whole wheat pasta is considered a healthier alternative to standard semolina, but really, moderation will do you far more good than the actual pasta you choose. I just make sure to incorporate plenty of vegetables and/or meat to keep it all in balance.
Julie had bought some aged asiago cheese a while back, and it was absolutely fantastic when I shaved in a generous amount to the dish once it was on the heat, after I took the picture. It added a wonderful flavor, along with lots of Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgine di Oliva, and a little chicken broth. Toasted pine nuts also added a bit of thickening, as well contributing depth of flavor.
We had this with some Scariyaki Salmon. Great tasting, and healthy. What a concept.
For me, risotto is a very romantic dish, which is why I made it for our anniversary last week. Not a lot of ingredients are necessary to make a great risotto- this included lots of roasted shallots, homemade chicken broth, thyme, a few peas, and a generous amount of grated parm and a splash of Tibvrtini Novello Extra Virgene once it was off the heat.
For more on my classic risotto technique, see the post here, this version definitely had more ingredients in it, but simple is just as good, really.
Sadly, that was the last of my chicken stock. Time to roast a few chickens to make more, I reckon...
John sent this in a while back around the time of the wedding, I missed it because it didn't have a subject line, I think. Shame on me:
here is a shrimp and morrocan olive pizza , I took eggplant, onion , sun dried tomatoz , portabello mushrooms , fennel , garlic and grilled all of them on my rangetop grill pan . then I hand chopped them rough ,then I mixed in capers and chili peppers. Then I added 1 small can of tomato paste and loosened it with h2o to get the desired pizza sauce thickness. then I added a bit of pesto .......take shrimp and 1/2- horizontal -soak in bit o melted butter................... crust : 4 cups ap flour , 1 stick butter melted , 1 pkg yeast added to 1 cup h2o bit o sugar , salt ........mixo .....bit of parm cheez........... oven set to flank speed , ..............@ 15 miuntes take za out of oven and garlic butter the crust , pop back in til med well done , re-garlic crust , eat
Wow, I'll bet that crust was rich. The whole thing is just mind-blowing.
Okay, I hate to start the week with something so racy, but let's get the juvenile part of this out of the way- "Puttan" means "whore".
To me, the most credible explanation of the origin of "alla Puttanesca" is that because it's a dish that can be thrown together using only pantry ingredients so quickly, the working girls could have a quick meal in between dates. I've also heard that the aroma would draw in customers. Maybe one led to another, who knows?
Our dinner last night is not the classic version. I make a classic puttanesca the way that I was taught- by sauteeing some roughly chopped tomatoes, garlic, chopped anchovy, capers, olives, with a chiffonade of parsley and basil. Then I add some cooked pasta, toss, then take off the heat, along with a good drizzle of Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgine di Oliva.
I started out to do the classic version last night, but because we wanted to incorporate salmon with the fettucine, the Alfredo option came to mind. Being me, instead of doing one or the other, I decided to try to smash the two sauces together.
I was lucky enough to have some leftover artichokes on hand, so in they went into a saute pan with tomato concassee, black Greek olives, red bell pepper, green onions, and copious amounts of garlic. Once the veggies were done I browned off some cubes of a nice salmon filet. Once the fish was out of the skillet, I deglazed the pan with some white wine, reducing it 50%. I added a little chicken stock, reduced it a bit, then finished it off with some cream. I added back the veggies, seasoned the sauce and then added back my pre cooked fresh fettucine. Quick toss, then a few minutes with the fish back in the pan, and it was all done, ready for lots of Parm Reggiano.
It was really, really good and I didn't have to cook it under a red light...
The good news- there was absolutely no Spam® in this...
My buddy Bob gave me a bunch of home-grown basil the other day. I wasn't in the mood for pesto, so I decided to make some pasta sauce with it. You know my M.O. for basic pasta sauce- lots of sauteed garlic in Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva, crushed to order tomatoes, crushed red peppers and basil only- so I won't go into detail on that.
To make the cacciatora, I oven-roasted some chicken legs and thighs seasoned with our Survival Spice™ until they had a nice color and were nearly cooked through, and also sauteed some mini red and yellow peppers along with a chopped red onion. I deglazed these with some white wine, then added them to some of the tomato sauce. Once the chicken was ready, I added it as well, then simmered the whole thing for an hour.
Boiled some penned until it was al dente, then garnished with parmaseano reggiano and a sprig of Bob's be-YOO-tiful basil. Thanks again!
Bottle of red, and some crusty bread. Life was good.
Here's a simple dish I made last night, after seeing bunches of fresh basil at the market. It's fun to just shop, then let whatever I find inspire my meal ideas, because most of the time I don't really crave anything in particular.
In keeping with the low-glycemic lifestyle that reality has thrust upon me, I found some whole wheat rotini that were really good. The idea behind eating whole wheat, as opposed to a pure white flour, is that the bran tends to slow down the conversion of the starch to glucose, so that your blood sugar levels don't spike as much.
While I was pan-frying some boneless chicken breasts in Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva, lemon and S & P, I mashed 5 cloves of garlic in my mortar and pestle with a little kosher salt. I added a few handfuls of the fresh basil and pounded my frustrations away. I toasted a small handful of pine nuts, beat the crap out of them as well, then added a handful of grated parmesano reggiano, a generous glug of the wonderful Tibvrtini oil, salt and pepper.
I drained the pasta, put it back into the pot, added the diced chicken, gave a quick toss with the pesto, and dinner was good to go.
What did you have for dinner last night?
(Photo: Mary, of her Chicken Piccata and Capellini w/truffle oil)
This was the entreé for the Italian night we had recently. My friend and photographer Mary had us begging for mercy when she served this terrific combination. A classic piccata, with breaded and browned off thin chicken filets, and a pan sauce of olive oil, marsala wine, capers, lemon juice and parsley.
She served it with some angel hair pasta she tossed with chives and truffle oil. Between this, a terrific Caesar salad, and my tiramisu, this quality of this great meal was equaled only by the friends I shared it with.
It's such a great way to have a party. Pick a theme, plan a menu and let each guest bring a part of it. A highly recommended low-stress way to entertain, I think.
(TPC's Penne Arrabbiata con Pollo)
Here's another delicious and easy dish. This is great baked in an over for an hour or more, but I'm giving you the quick version.
I used chicken thighs because I had them on hand, and I really like them. They work well in a simmered dish like this because they have enough fat to keep them moist. If you make this with breasts, you'll want to cook them off almost entirely then remove them while the sauce comes together, adding any juices from the meat to the skillet, of course. Adding peppers and onions (some add mushrooms as well) would make it a cacciatora, but I didn't go that route.
To define a few terms, Arrabbiata means "angry", referring to the spiciness in the dish. Cacciatora is an Italian word for "hunter", inferring a rustic style of cooking.
Easy, easy, easy. Here's how it came together.
(Just before I grated some grana padano cheese on top)
Here's another quick pasta dish I made over the weekend. You might recall that I wrote back in September about Lazy Man's Pasta, a technique where everything, including the pasta, was cooked in the same casserole dish. I loved the simplicity of it, but I thought I could improve the sauce and make it even simpler. This has a surprising amount of flavor due to the chicken broth, so even a hard-core carnivore like me enjoyed it.
