A Trinacria Tribute

Mmm pasta

I recently 'discovered' the most fabulous market in my 'hood-- Trinacria.  It's this fabulous Italian grocery stuffed full of goodies.  There a pasta, house-made ravioli and prepared foods, fresh breads, sandwiches, house-cured olives, deli meats and cheeses, cookies, and cheap wine.  They even raise $ for BARCs (where Dapper Dan came from!) Anyhow, I bought a groupon there and decided to explore.  It has a very unassuming, almost sketchy store-front on a dodgy block.  I thought it might be abandoned when I approached. When I opened the door, I was met with a throng of people packed in between shelves of food.  In the two trips I've made there, I've sampled the house-made diavolo sauce, two types of olives (spicy mixed and rosemary garlic pitted kalamata), imported parm, fresh mozz, foccachia bread, wine, and stuffed peppers (goat cheese for me, prosciutto and mozz for M.)  I especially loved the olives, the cheeses, and the sauce.  The mozz didn't even taste like what I think of as mozzerella: it was so fresh and moist!  Ok, I'm starting to sound like a foodie, but seriously--check this place out. 

Above is pasta with diavolo (spicy) sauce, grated parm, fried Italian soysage, and fresh basil. Below is perhaps our greatest pizza night success yet, made with diavolo sauce, slices of fresh mozz, kalamata olives, and fresh basil.

Better ingredients, better pizza

Dan Cat makes a monkey tail!

Roast crucifers

Guess what, lucky reader? It's a two-blog day!

Tonight I made some delicious and simple roast cruciferous veggies. I purchased cauliflower and brussels sprouts the other day at the store with ambitions of making two separate dishes.  Naturally, I thought up a way to combine the two ingredients into one dish and save myself some time.  Time that I proceeded to spend taking pictures of the cat playing a kazoo:

O, don't mind Dapper Dan, he's just practicin' the katzoo

I usually steam brussels sprouts and toss them with a vinaigrette.  I use a delicious recipe given to me by a dear friend at my bridal shower that I should probably share with you in the future. I was curious if they'd taste good roasted, too, deducing that if other crucifers (like cauliflower) were delicious roasted, they would be, too.  Turns out I was right!  I still can't decide which recipe I like better.  This one is good for a cold winter's night when you want something hot and filling.  It is especially good for a cold night in late winter, when you're feeling a little frumpy after eating sweets all day everyday from Thanksgiving to Epiphany and beyond. The mustard gives them a nice tang.

So, without further ado: Roast Crucifers (Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower)

Preheat your oven to 400.

Rinse 1/2 head cauliflower and ~1/2 lb brussels sprouts
Cut the cauliflower into florets and place in a large roasting pan.  Don't worry if the florets are uneven in size--they'll cook unevenly, but it's nice when you have some little crunchy ones and some big soft ones.
Cut the stems off the brussel sprouts, cut them in half lengthwise, and add them to the pan.
Slice a sweet onion into medium sized wedges (a little < 1cm thick) and add it to the pan.
Drizzle with oil.  I used avocado oil. Enough to coat the veggies lightly.
Drizzle with mustard.  I used spicy brown.  
Sprinkle on whole cumin seeds.  Fun fact: these are super cheap in the Hispanic foods section of Walmart. 
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pre-tossing

Toss the whole thing to coat the veggies.
Roast for ~45" at 400 or until the cauliflower starts to brown and can be readily pierced with a fork. 
Toss occasionally as it cooks.
Juice it up to 450 if you're getting impatient at the end.

Just a lil' shout out to my Christmas tree

Because it's adorable. Because it provides me with a year's supply of rosemary once the holidays are over. And because it only comes once a year, delivered by Santa Claus to Whole Foods.

Mom's butternut squash pudding

Mom used to make us this delicious butternut squash pudding all the time when we were growing up, before cholesterol was persona non grata in our house. I made it the other night for some friends--I've forgotten how delicious it is! I tweaked the recipe somewhat to reflect more grown-up tastes (less sugar) and more different microwave kinetics (this recipe is indicating to me that the microwaves of the 80s were at least twice as bossy as those today... at least the cheap one furnished in my apartment.)

Peel and cube a medium-sized butternut squash (~3lbs).

Cook squash in the microwave (place in microwave-safe dish with a splash of water, cover, cook ~10"+ until it is very soft.)

Meanwhile, food-process1/2 stick (1/4c) butter and 3/4c brown sugar (if you're worried about this being too sweet, start with 1/2c and add more PRN at the end).

Add to the butter/sugar mix: the squash, 5 eggs, 1/3c flour, 1/2c ricotta (or, apparently, cream), 1t vanilla, 3/4t cinnamon, 1t allspice, salt.  Process.

Pour the whole mixture into a microwave-safe casserole dish (mine filled a 2.5 quart one).  Cover with a lid or, if you have dropped the lid and broken it (oops), with plastic wrap.

Microwave until the center is no longer runny, 9-20".

I used to love this paired with spaghetti and meat sauce (weird.)  I most recently served it with fettuccine alfredo and green beans almondine, which made a nice pairing.

Light 'n' easy green beans almondine

I went to the store the other day to shop for a dinner party.  I was hoping to make brussel sprouts for a vegetable, but was willing to wing it based on what vegetable looked best at the store (occasionally, the produce at Fresh and Green's is neither fresh nor green.)  Turns out all the veggies there, even the winter veggies, were either super expensive or super sketchy. Even the butternut squash--oh, faithful butternut squash!--was off: they only had mongo squashs >6 lbs for sale! Yes, I bought one anyway. The only veggie that hit the trifecta of fresh, tender, and cheap were the green beans.  So I bought them and came up with this simple but elegant recipe with a little help from my friends at Joy:

Put a medium-sized pot of water on the boil.
Rinse 1 lb green beans, removing the stems and sketchy bits.
Add a dash of salt to the water.
Boil green beans ~6", or until tender and bright green.
Meanwhile, toast 1/4c slivered almonds  (place in ungreased skillet over medium-low heat. Toss/stir occasionally. Remove entire skillet from heat when they start to brown/become fragrant.  They will cook slightly longer if you leave them in the pan, so remove them if you're close to burning.)
Back to the beans: drain the water.
Rinse green beans with cold water for a few seconds (you don't want to make them cold, you just want to lower the temp a little to stop their cooking.)
Splash with nut oil (I used hazelnut, at most 1T), toss to coat.
Sprinkle toasted almonds on top.
Serve.

Savory spinach with leeks

I had been excited to try this recipe, Skillet-Baked Eggs with Spinach, Yogurt, and Chili Oil, for weeks.  I love eggs and thought this would be a great way to present eggs as dinner food without feeling like it's Breakfast for Lunch! day at the cafeteria (does anybody else remember French toast fingers? Ew.)  Thought.  I forgot that baked eggs are weird and rubbery.  Also, with all the juices coming off the vegetables the eggs stay very soft, requiring repeated assurances of "yes, I did cooked your dinner."

Are you blogging about bad recipes now?

No.

Out of this failed experiment came a delicious recipe for wilted spinach (which was delicious before it was ruined by adding eggs!)  I deviated pretty far from the original recipe:

Heat 1T butter and 1T EVOO in a skillet.
Add 3 leeks, chopt (white and pale green parts only) and 3 cloves garlic, chopt.
Decrease heat to low and cook until soft, 10+ minutes.
Add 1 bag (10 oz) spinach (rinsed).
Once the spinach's bulk has decreased in size, add ~1T cream cheese.
Season with a good shaking of oregano, 1t lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
Serve when the spinach is just wilted.
We served it with Harissa sauce (Clarissa Explains It All sauce)

Serves ~4.

Before baking:

 And after:

O NO MR LOBSTER'S CREEPIN' ON UR FUD!

Honestly this might be good as a main course topped with a fried egg.  Just not a baked one.  Yuck. If you do decide to deviate from my sage advice, know that it took mine ~30" to cook (not the predicted 10-15"), even after I turned my heat up to 350 half way through.  How bogus.

Sufficiently Palatable Reeves-friendly Spinach Sformata

Long ago I'd make a spinach sformata with parmesan. Mmmmm. Here's a new version:

Sautee 1/4 of a Vidalia onion without revealing the oil
After the onions are pretty much cooked, add 7 oz or more of spinach and cook on low until it is barely cooked. Meanwhile heat up ~2 cups [fat-free] ricotta to room temp. And in yet another container, whiz up egg beaters (it works, although next time I will try egg whites in the hopes of getting more volume). Then add the ricotta to the spinach/onion mixture and to that add lots of nutmeg and cinnamon. I used the vicious whizzy on this with good results. Lastly fold in the egg, then cook at 350 for 35 min or so. I think the nutmeg is what really sets it off.

New Year's Day Traditions

Many of you know the Southern tradition of eating black eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day.  This meal is meant to bring good luck and prosperity in the new year.  The peas symbolize change (the kind that jingles) and the greens represent folding money.  In the past, I've always eaten the black-eyed peas in the form of hoppin' John, which never really satisfies.  Maybe I'm not making it right--maybe it needs some good ol' fashioned pork fat to be truly delicious.  Maybe black eyed peas are boring.  This year, I almost ditched them all together because let's be honest--we're all more interested in folding money than in coins!  Mom stumbled upon an intriguing recipe in a book I gave her for Christmas, The Indian Slow Cooker by Anupy Singla.  I forgot to buy cilantro (oops) and didn't have time to make it in the slow cooker (oops oops), so I made a number of adjustments, which I will describe below.  Turns out (duh) Indian spicing makes even the most boring of foods DELICIOUS! Look, Mom: no fat!

The collards recipe is also worth sharing, though it's not ground-breaking. M said it tasted like it contained ham, which is kinda what I was going for.

Indian Black-Eyed Peas

Reanimate a whole bag (1lb) of black eyed peas. Place in a large pot.
Process 1 large can crushed tomatoes, 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1 hot pepper (like jalapeno), and 1T ginger (~2") in a food processor. Add to the peas.
Stir in 1T cumin, 1T coriander, 1t turmeric, 1t salt, and a little water (maybe 1 cup).
Simmer for 30-60 minutes (however long your rice takes to cook), stirring occasionally.
Serve over rice.

Slow Cooked Collards

Place 1T EVOO in a slow cooker.  Turn it on to high.
Add 1 onion, chopt and 2 cloves garlic, chopt.  Cover and allow to cook while you prepare the collards.
Wash, stem, and cut ~1lb collards (or, just pick over those big ol' bags of cut greens they sell at Walmart). Add to the slow cooker.
Add 1c veggie stock, 1t liquid smoke, salt and black pepper to taste.
Turn the cooker down to low and cook for 6h, stirring maybe 3 times total (don't open the lid too many times, as you loose heat each time you do.)

Happy New Year!

Collards and black-eye pea substitute

It wasn't pretty, so I haven't photographed it, but it did taste pretty good. I cooked 2 c. navy beans and black beans in vegetable stock, and then de-stemmed and sliced the contents of a bag of collards in the food processor. I minced half a jalapeno. I sauteed that and the collards briefly, then let them sit, covered, in the skillet on very low heat while they softened. I mixed 3 T. vinegar, juice of a lemon, maybe 3 T. of the stock that the beans cooked in (and discarded the rest), and maybe 3 T. of tahini - - so that the resulting dressing was pourable. Mixed it all together.