Shrimp feast!

I love shrimp. It’s the only sea creature that I find edible. I’ve tried many of them, and dislike all but the briny shrimp. And since the medium shrimp were on sale this week, we had a shrimp fest! After I got through the seemingly endless process of peeling and deveining the little buggers, I tossed them in a marinade for about a half an hour. They really don’t need much more time than that, especially the smaller ones like these. My standard shrimp marinade is as follows, for about a pound of shrimp:
1/2 a lemon, juiced
3 or 4 T of olive oil
2 or 3 T white wine, if you’ve got it
minced clove of garlic
good shake of red pepper flakes
sea or kosher salt

and sometimes, slivered basil. When they’re bigger, you can skewer and grill these, about 2-3 minutes per side. When they’re smaller, though, you just end up butchering them in the process, so I used our grill guard thingy. It’s about the size of a cookie sheet, made of thin metal, and covered with holes so the heat can get through. We use it for veggies and other small things. I also marinated and grilled some chicken for our non-shrimp-lovin’ friend who came to dinner.

I served this with some spaghetti with a fresh tomato sauce, a few slices of prosciutto I got at Tony’s last week, and some white wine. I had good intentions about cooking some cauliflower, too, but ran out of energy. Such is life!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, Crate and Barrel is having a huge outlet sale right now. I bought a new casserole dish and various glasses to replace the ones I’ve shattered over the years! Hooray!

Mediterranean Kabobs

I think we’ve turned a corner, people. I made these kabobs I think on Tuesday night, and the photos were kind of poor. Rather than blog about them on Wednesday–which I realllllly wanted to do, as these suckers were incredible–I waited until I had time to manipulate them in photoshop. That’s right. I made an effort to care about the images I toss up here.

I’ve read numerous reviews on other blogs about the wonders of the Barefoot Contessa. Oh, they’d rave, everything is so delicious! Easy! Fantastic! I made one apple cake following one of her recipes, and was completely underwhelmed. I was in no rush to try again.

Fast forward a year or so, and I was at the harvest co-op, raiding the bulk bins, and I bought far too many pine nuts for a person to consume in an average summer. They’ll be fine in the fridge, but there was no way we’d make *that* much pesto anytime soon. In my search for other things to make with pine nuts, I came across a recipe for couscous that’s made with them, and accompanying kabobs.

This stuff was to die for. I am a convert.

The kabob recipe per the Contessa called for lamb, but we’re not lamb eaters in this house. They’re too cute. So I swapped in just some london broil. I bought a thick cut, about a pound and a half, and diced it into large cubes. I also wasn’t going to open our only other bottle of red wine for 3 T for her marinade, so I just left that out. The results were still divine.

For the kabobs:
mix together:
about 1 T of minced garlic
2 t minced fresh thyme
about 1 T minced fresh rosemary (our window herb garden was handy here)
4 T olive oil
T T (to 2) red wine vinegar
sea salt and fresh pepper

1 1/2 pounds beef (or lamb), cut into 1 1/2″ cubes
1 red onion, cut into big ol’ pieces
1 pt cherry/grape tomatoes

Allow meat to marinate in mixture for several hours. Mine marinated about six.

Thread meat onto skewers, alternating with hunks of onion. Grill over med-high heat, about five to seven minutes a side, until desired doneness. While they cook, thread your tomatoes and drizzle them with some olive oil. When the meat skewers have only five minutes left, add tomatoes. They cook quickly, and turn them once.

In the meantime, I also made the couscous. I didn’t change the recipe at all, and it was really, really good. Couscous can be pretty bland sometimes, but this was tasty. You can find the recipe here, care of Borders. I used Pacific chicken broth, which has excellent flavor.

There was also a sauce that went with these that I thought was ok, but Mr. Pea loved it enough to drizzle on everything. If you want to use all your burners, go ahead, but it’s not that necessary. You can find it here, with her original lamb recipe.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Ever since our return from Italy I have been in search of good Italian sausage. It came as a great surprise to me that sausage in Italy tasted nothing like what we call Italian sausage here. The biggest difference was the lack of fennel flavor, or red pepper. The stuff in Italy, unsurprisingly, was far superior to what we normally eat here. I began a quest to find sausage like that we got from the local butcher here in Boston. At first I had no idea just what I was looking for, but after a couple days of googling, I was victorious. It seems foodies the country over pine for proper Italian sausage, but because most Americans don’t know there’s a difference and really like our Italian sausage, it can be hard to come by. The beauty of living in a major city, however, is that there are little ethnic corners, and little ethnic butchers. I was originally planning on schlepping to the North End, which is basically Boston’s little Italy, but by chance I came across a reference, I think on Chowhound, to a wee market in my very own neighborhood. Imagine my excitement! I called them and explained what I had enjoyed and was now looking for, and they invited me on down. I ran out of the house, and had it not been 90 degrees, probably would have run all the way to the market.

Tony’s Market is a tiny storefront in Roslindale Square, on Washington Street. He’s an energetic guy, and came running out to see if I was the one who had called and had been to Italy, and wanted to hear all about my trip. I love this place. It’s homey and sweet and endearing, and they have a range of authentic Italian foods that will mean I make frequent return trips. Tony makes his sausage by hand–no scary fillers, no nitrites or nitrates–every Thursday. I bought six links, a ball of fresh mozzerella, and some beautiful imported prosciutto. Last night we finally grilled up some of these sausages, and they were nearly exactly what I was looking for! I am very, very excited about this turn of events.

We ate them with a modified amatriciana–one we made more by instinct than by recipe. Into a wide, deep saute pan went a couple tablespoons of oil; in went some garlic; in went a slice of pancetta, diced; out came the garlic, which had seriously overbrowned while browning the pancetta; in went half a dozen or so fresh garden tomatoes, chopped and seeded; in went a new clove of garlic, chopped; and we let it simmer away for twenty minutes or so. At the end, in went a few leaves of basil, sliced, and a little more olive oil. Mr. Pea lifted the pasta out with a skimmer and added it to the pot, along with enough pasta water to make a sauce that coated. We had it with the end of a bottle of red wine we’ve been working on and some grated parmesan. Yum!

It might not look like I’ve cooked much, but I have

I just, as always, haven’t taken many photos. The other night we had some pan-sauteed chicken with a marsala sauce (not as heavy as chicken marsala, more like a regular pan sauce) with baked brown rice, and last night I made spaghetti with homemade pesto and sauteed zucchini. The first night, we were starving by the time dinner was ready and the food was whisked into the dining room before I could even dig out our camera. Yesterday I plum forgot. I spent the evening weeding ten-year-old bank statements and paystubs out of our busted file cabinet that is soon to be replaced, made dinner, ate it, and then cursed myself for not taking a picture! I should have at least taken a picture of the mess I made of the kitchen. Food processor, multiple pans, I make a heck of a disaster.

Pesto’s easy–for a half-pound of pasta (which the box says should feed four but I say feeds 3, max)–toss in your processor/blender/what have you a cup of fresh basil leaves, packed, a quarter cup of pine nuts, 2 1/2 T of parmesan cheese, a clove of garlic that’s been chopped into a few pieces, and let ‘er go. After you’ve chopped this stuff up quite finely, add somewhere over 1/4 c and a 1/3 c of good olive oil, depending on how thick you like it. Toss with hot pasta. Yum.

Anyway, what was this post about? Oh, right, I’ve also been baking. Up until today it’s been only in the 60s and low 70s here, which is rare and fantastic, so I’ve been using the oven. I baked a couple loaves of wheat bread earlier this week. Then on Wednesday night Mr. Pea was looking for a sweet and was all ready to bake cookies. He was going to go to 7/11 for butter, which we were out of, and came back empty-handed because all they had was salted butter, and he’d be damned if he was going to overpay for butter he didn’t really want, anyway. I was so impressed. Then it turned out we didn’t have any sugar, either. Poor Mr. Pea. He ate a granola bar and was sorely displeased.

Yesterday I decided to remedy this problem and went to the superfun Harvest Co-op the next neighborhood over, where I could raid their bulk bins for chocolate chips, oats, arborio rice, pine nuts, and whatever else suited my fancy. I also got proper butter and a bag of sugar, and was going to make some cookies. But to be honest, I hate making cookies. They’re ridiculously time-consuming, all that scooping and dropping. So instead I made cookie bars, based on a Nestle’s recipe.

You’ll need:
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 c (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 c granulated sugar
3/4 c packed brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.

First, grease up a 9 x 13 pan. I floured it, too, to prevent any sticking. In a mixer, cream sugars and butter. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time. Add salt and baking soda, and whir away. Add flour, whir. Hand-mix in your chocolate chips, and spread the mix into your pan. Bake for a half-hour for just underdone and nicely squishy cookie bars, or add a few more minutes for a dryer bar. Cool and cut! We got something like 28 bars out of this–some are cut larger and some are just bite-sized nibbles.

Vino! Vino!

One of the amazing things about Italy is seeing that yes, indeed, wine is made there, and made in mass quantities. Grape arbors cover the landscape in about the same numbers as olive trees in most people’s yards, and plenty of people seem to make their own wine. I imagine Napa Valley in California must be kind of the same way. As a result, wine is incredibly inexpensive, and also very good. This grape cluster was by my uncle’s place, and his landlord makes and sells his own wine. This wine was a whopping 5 Euro for 5 liters. Imagine! In Italy, the wine culture is more about enjoying the beverage on a regular basis rather than buying posh bottles and savoring them individually, as it is here.

We visited a place called Orvieto, which is in Umbria. Orvieto is known for its white wine, and we brought a three-pack home with us that cost less than 8 euro. Orvieto is an old medieval town, which, like many medieval towns, was built waaaaay up on top of a hill as a means of defense. You park your car in what is now the valley section of the town (it looks very new) and then take a tram up a very vertical incline to reach the old section. It’s like that first stage of a roller coaster–it clicks, clicks, clicks, and goes straight up. A little Italian child hollered “We’re all going to die!” as we went up. Cheery little lady.

To give you a sense of what I mean, here’s the view from on top of the medieval wall, looking down:

Here’s one of the little streets that wind throughout:

That’s me in the red shirt.

And here’s the enormous gothic cathedral that suddenly pops out of nowhere:

Pretty impressive, isn’t it? We ate at a little cafe that day, enjoying one of the “tourist menus” that features a prix fixe service–Mr. Pea and I each had the summer menu, which featured a garden salad, four different kinds of bruschetta, half a cantaloupe with an obscene amount of prosciutto, a quarter-liter of Orvieto white wine, and a quarter-liter of water, all for 15 euro. It was a lot of bang for our buck! These little tourist menus are great because they give you essentially a sampling of a region’s foods without having to order full-size quantities of numerous things. They’re worth every penny.

Alas, it’s not meant to be

See this espresso machine? It was a gift from my parents when I was, oh, 16 or 17. I’ve been nursing my coffee addiction since I was about 14 years old, and when I was in my late teens a coffee shop opened in the next town over that sold (expensive) espresso drinks. They gave me this to offset what I was spending there, I think, out of my little paycheck from the pharmacy I worked at. Anyway, it was mothballed a year or two after I left for college, and sat in my folks’ cabinet until last year. My mom, in a cleaning frenzy, handed it to me. It then sat in my pantry until this last Monday. In Italy, I drank incredible (and wee-Americans make their drinks too large!) cappucinos and cafe every day, and I was hoping for a splashing return it. I bought some espresso at Trader Joe’s, and dug out my little machine.

But no matter how many times I rinsed it out–ran water through it–ran water and vinegar through it–it keeps kicking back little brown flakes. An investigation with a tiny reading lamp reveals what looks like some corrosion inside the well. It’s a shame, because it works beautifully, too. But I probably shouldn’t drink rust with every coffee, so I guess it’s time to move on.

I do have a birthday coming up with great speed, so Mr. Pea has suggested a little European stove-top espresso brewer. Be on the lookout for it in next month’s gadget reviews!

Aha!

I might still be struggling to get on eastern time (I was asleep at 830 last night and up again this morning a little after 5–what gives?), but I have regained some of my cooking chops. When we were in Italy my uncle served us Pasta Fredda twice, and yesterday I made myself a near-Fredda for lunch. Mr. Pea and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this dish that involves a story containing a large volume of limoncello, jet lag, and hours in the sun—suffice to say I have enjoyed this dish more than twice, if you know what I mean. Also, I will never touch limoncello again.

Anyway, seeing as there is precious little in the fridge right now, I thought I’d make myself a little bowl. Now traditionally pasta fredda contains chopped mozzerella. My uncle made it with mozzerella di buffala, which, if you’ve never had it, is the ice cream of the cheese world. It puts brie to shame with its richness and deliciousness. It’s also exceptionally heavy as a result, and in the States, veeeeery expensive. Our fridge has no mozzerella whatsoever, so that pivotal ingredient had to be foregone. I know purists would scoff, but such is life.

To make pasta fredda, combine some tomatoes (serving one person, I chopped six or seven grape tomatoes in half for me), fresh basil (for medium-sized leaves for one), good olive oil (about 1 tablespoon for one person) and a good dose of sea salt and let sit. If you have mozzerella, add that in there, too. We also ate it with a handful of corn mixed in as well. You want it to sit, minimally, for at least as long as you cook the pasta. I think my uncle let it sit for about an hour.

Then cook your pasta. Farfalle seems to be pretty traditional, though we had it with fusilli, as well. I cooked 2-3 ounces for li’l ol me. Drain and add to your bowl of tomatoes. Toss and enjoy. I added some fresh parmesan to it–probably a couple teaspoons or a tablespoon–so I’d have some cheesiness. It’s very tasty, very easy, and inexpensive to make.

For dinner last night, I made Italian-style steaks. When we were there, we had these lovely, thin veal steaks. Here, we had a couple of small (about 1/3 lb each) eye steaks. Without seasoning, grill until done to your liking, and then drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and a squeeze of lemon to serve. It’s simple and delicious. That seems to be the heart of most Italian cooking–the simplicity of the recipes belies the incredible results. We ate that with roasted potatoes, a salad, a baguette, and red wine. You can’t go wrong with that!

Bit of a bust

Coming back from a vacation like ours, full of delicious fresh produce from my uncle’s garden, which you can see in this photo, I had great expectations for making new, tasty, fresh food myself! And then we got here. And we were exhausted. We’ve eaten a lot of classic American food ever since–cheese steaks, Mexican take-out, Chinese lunch plates. I did make Amitriciana the other night, and it was pretty good. And I swear, I’ll start cooking properly this week. More olive oil! Less deep frying! I promised myself that after I turned in my dissertation I’d work on losing weight. So here we are.

Last night, after the lunch at the Chinese place with my folks, we were hungry but not starved, and there was nothing good in the fridge–all our meat was frozen, our basil plant had a bit of a time while we were away. So I just threw some hot dogs on the grill that we’d left for our friend who was watching the cat, and decided that the least I could to was make a good side dish. I decided on corn fritters. I even beat the egg white by hand until it was, um, well, not quite stiff but exceedingly fluffy. I put some in the pan, flipped, lovely. I put another batch (the only other batch, I might add), ran out to the grill, ran back in…..and they were blackened hockey pucks. I should’ve asked for a hand, but evidently I thought the trip abroad had turned me into Wonder Woman. It has not.

On that note, then, dinner tonight turns a new page. Fresh! Tasty! Olive oil!

Oh, and get a load of this “fortune” we got in a cookie: “Here we go. Low fat whole wheat, green tea.” I have no idea what that means.

Vacation Recovery

On Thursday night Mr. Pea and I returned from our first trip to Europe. We spent ten days (well, nine, technically) in Italy. I have an uncle who lives there and who repeatedly has requested visits, so we finally took him up on his offer and flew out last week. If you’ve never been to Italy, I’d highly recommend it. The beauty about having family there, besides the free room, was that we were able to learn more about the country than simply the tourist destinations. While we visited Rome and Florence for several days, we were also fixtures in my uncle’s tiny mountain village. We attended the community dinner a few nights before the Italian national holiday of Ferrogosto, and spent the evening of the holiday itself attending a procession in the village center, on top of the old medieval wall. How cool is that?

My uncle and his partner have also become extremely talented cooks of local fare. We feasted while we stayed there. I know most people say to go to Italy for the food in restaurants, but we only went to those a couple of times because my family has become quite adept at preparing traditional Italian dishes. They’d go to the butcher and veggie shops in the morning, and we’d have sumptious pasta dishes, delicious sausages and steaks, and fresh tomatoes and basil from their gardens. De-li-cious. Tonight I’m going to try to prepare what my uncle made us the first day we were there, I having been awake over thirty consecutive hours and Mr. Pea only a few less. It’s Pasta Amatriciana, and I’m going to make it with pancetta and canned tomatoes. As such, it might be tasty, but likely a pale imitation of that we had in Italy with fresh garden plum tomatoes and guanciale, the salt-cured cheek of a pig. Now I know you’re probably grimacing right now, and when he first told me what he was making I was a little grossed out at the thought, but I have to tell you–don’t knock pig cheek until you’ve had it. It puts bacon to shame!

Anyway, we’re still in recovery mode here–we were both wide awake at 4:30 yesterday and 5:30 today, as we haven’t yet adjusted to eastern time again. But who wants to really let go of that last bit of vacation, anyway?

Sometimes silicone is a good thing

Silicone can be very scary. It’s a little…unnatural…in places. But in other places, like your kitchen, it’s extremely useful. This here is my pal, the silicone pastry brush. I have long used pastry brushes for egg washes, milk washes, spreading warmed jam on puff pastry, you name it, and the bristley ones were always a real struggle to clean. God forbid you used it with oil, you might as well just forget about it. You couldn’t hand wash it and get it thoroughly clean and the dishwasher trashed it by the third go-around. That’s why the silicone brush is extremely handy. Nothing sticks to it, you can handwash it clean, and it survives the dishwasher just fine. Hooray! Now I can spread barbecue sauce in peace. They’re available in most cooking stores; I believe Mr. Pea bought this at Sur La Table. He spoils me.