Sixty-seventh Post ~ Steamer Pot

I know that summer technically goes until the middle of September somewhere, but to me, the end of August always signaled the end of it. This meal was meant to be a celebration of the dog days of summer - and believe me - cooking it in my 90-degree third floor apartment kitchen really enabled me to welcome in the prospect of autumn and its crisp days.

This dinner was inspired by the steamer pots that my dad and I have shared at Joe's Crab Shack, a care-free restaurant chain that we have visited in Maryland and California. I really think that the act of slamming one pot down on a table and announcing, "Dinner is served!" sets a certain casual, laid-back sort of mood...

So here's what you'll need for tonight's meal (cook this for two - grab a friend, a S.O., a family member, a neighbor - honestly, it's just more fun!):

~ one 2-pound bag of mussels

~ any other kind of mollusk you want to add to the mix - I chose 10 steamer clams

~ one (or two) sausages

~ a good handful of fingerling potatoes

~ three or so ears of corn

~ EVOO

~ onion

~ half teaspoon of sugar

~ scallions or chives

~ garlic (I used three cloves)

~ coarse-ground sea salt

~ seasonings (I used dried thyme, cayenne, white pepper, curry powder and bay leaves)

~ one big ol' pot to cook and serve it in!

Start a large pot about half-filled with water boiling on your stove. Grind in an embarrassing amount of salt.

Chop some onion and start to sauté it in a small pan with some EVOO. My goal was to caramelize the onion and I've learned that there's a fine line between burning and caramelizing. Once they're browning nicely, toss in some sugar and grind on some salt and keep them going, tossing them occasionally. I made the mistake of crushing in the garlic with the onions at this point - all it does is splash hot oil back onto your hand as you crush it in, and then the garlic burns a bit. Injury + Insult. I would recommend waiting until the onions are done caramelizing, turn them off, and crush in the garlic and let it meld.

Once you've turned off the heat under the onions, cut the sausage in half and just set it in the pan with a lid over all so the aroma of the caramelized onions and garlic infuses the sausage.

Now that your water is rolling nicely in your pot, add three bay leaves, a dash of cayenne, curry powder, white pepper, dried thyme, and the pierced fingerling potatoes to the pot. Savor the aroma as you add each spice to the water! Set your timer for 10 minutes. During this time, rinse off your clams and mussels. Also, prep some spices that you'll want to sprinkle over the whole pot before you set it to steam. I mixed a dash of all of the spices listed above into a prep bowl so they were blended and ready for when I needed them.

Cut the ears of corn in half. As soon as the timer goes off, add the corn and reset the timer for 8 minutes. Get your table ready. I recommend large placemats and smallish plates - you're mostly eating out of the pot, anyway! Get some beverages and a large empty bowl for shells and corn cobs. Put some butter on a plate so you can use it on the corn and potatoes if you wish.

When the timer goes off, pour out all but about two inches of water from the pot. Put the caramelized onions, garlic and sausage in. Keep the burner going and put in your clams and mussels. Sprinkle with your spice mix and slap on the lid for 4 minutes.

When the timer goes off, turn off the heat and let it sit for another minute. Then, unveil the steamer pot! Transfer it from stove to table (a trivet or strategically-placed place mat is helpful here). Snip in some fresh scallions or chives for a little fresh, crispy onion taste. Try not to burn your fingers, dig in and enjoy!

I served tonight's meal with a chardonnay by Casillero del Diablo - it was a perfect pairing for the mixture of spices and tastes in tonight's meal. It was refreshing with notes of citrus and vanilla.

All in all, a fun meal and a worthy send-off to summer!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Sixty-sixth Post ~ "Italian Classics"-Inspired Tilapia

This post could be titled "An Ode to Wegman's Italian Classics." I have had a long-standing love-affair with Wegman's Italian Classics seasoned breadcrumbs. Just the right amount of parmesan. Just the right amount of basil. Just the right amount of salt. My habitual "comfort food" dish of late has been chopped chicken tenderloins rolled in these savory morsels and sautéed in EVOO... but I have found yet another use for them: fish!

In the mood for something home-cooked yet quick this evening, I grabbed a fillet of tilapia as I zoomed through Wegmans. At $1.87 for this hearty serving, tilapia is not just yummy - it's cheap! I had intended to do something fun with the leftover cilantro and lime I had in the fridge, but my attention was grabbed by something in the chilled prepared pasta aisle - Wegman's sun-dried tomato and basil pesto. Who could resist something that enticing? Into my cart it went. So here's what you'll need for this meal:

~ Fillet of tilapia (light and flaky is the key - you could probably substitute halibut, monkfish or catfish as well)

~ Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

~ EVOO

~ Wegman's (or your local wonder-market) sun-dried tomato and basil pesto

~ Green beans

~ Scallion

~ Jarred (or crushed) garlic

~ Coarse-ground sea salt

Dump some frozen french-cut green beans into a pot with some water. Snip in one scallion and some jarred garlic. I couldn't even be bothered to crush any fresh garlic tonight. Scallions are one of my new favorite on-hand items. They add so much flavor to a dish without being overwhelmingly oniony. Let those simmer until they're done to whatever level you like your beans cooked. I like french-cut green beans al dente, so I turned them off just about as soon as they really started simmering.

Into a pan put a little jarred garlic and about a tablespoon of olive oil. Start it heating. Generously coat the tilapia fillet in the seasoned breadcrumbs and set it carefully into the hot oil. As I flipped it, I would sprinkle some more breadcrumbs over it so that it gave it a little extra crispiness.

As soon as the fish is done (it won't take long!) serve it on a plate and spoon a bit of the pesto over it. A little goes a long way - believe me! I saran-wrapped the rest of the pesto and put it in the freezer - I am envisioning it tossed with some pasta (tortellini?) along with some breaded pork tenderloins for a quick and savory dinner sometime in the near future.

I added a little butter to the beans, topped the tilapia with pesto and served it with a Chenin Blanc from MAN Vintners of South Africa - a gift from Nozomi and her husband. It was fresh and citrussy but heartier than a Sauvignon blanc. It paired with the lighter tones of the tilapia but also stood up to the zesty, savory quality of the pesto. A good match!

Yours in the love of good food, wine, and occasional culinary shortcuts,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Sixty-fifth Post ~ Salmon with Zesty Avocado-Peach Salsa

While searching for healthy yet filling summer dinner recipes, I happened upon a recipe for grilled salmon over mango salsa.

Now, I neither possess a grill nor a penchant for mangoes, so I decided to mix the original recipe up a little. And then I kinda got carried away "customizing" it to my personal tastes and preferences. So here's what I ended up needing for tonight's meal, when all was said and done:

(Note that I am preparing this for two, but if preparing it for one, I would make it exactly the same way but with one salmon fillet - I feel that the salsa would be wonderfully accompanied by tortilla chips for lunch the following day)

~ 1 or 2 salmon fillets (about 6 oz. each)

~ 1 large ripe Haas avocado

~ 2 peaches* (or one monster peach, which is what I ended up with!)

~ 2 roma tomatoes*

~ 1 jalapeño*

~ 1 lime

~ fresh cilantro

~ 1 can corn*

~ two scallions*

~ 1 clove of garlic

The asterisks indicate ingredients that I "customized" - I substituted peaches for mangoes, one and a half roma tomatoes for cherry tomatoes, a jalapeño that I seeded first rather than packing in all that heat, added a half a can of corn to give it a little more oomph, and scallions instead of onions, as they are a little milder in taste.

Set aside some time before you're actually going to bake the salmon. The salsa is best if it sits and melds for a bit. This dinner is quite easy to make, but it requires a bit of chopping, slicing and dicing. It is a task made much easier with the proper tools - in this case, a chef's knife, a paring knife, a peeling knife, and kitchen scissors, all direct from the beautiful knife set my dad gave me as a Christmas gift!

So time to get your get your slice 'n' dice on!

I started with the avocado.

:: PAUSE ::

Now here's a strange habit, but I'm going to share it with you, dear readers: my 60-second avocado hand treatment. Whenever I make anything with avocado, I end up with a ton of it on my hands. Instead of washing it off immediately, I rub the avocado all over my hands, then rinse it off under warm running water and towl my hands dry. It leaves my skin amazingly smooth. I also end up smelling a bit like an avocado, but there are trade-offs in life.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So after [ahem] dealing with the avocado, I diced up the peach, squeezing the juice out of the peel into the bowl. Next went the romas. I scooped out a little of the tomato "innards" first. I used my kitchen scissors to snip in a good handful of cilantro - which has to be one of my favorite fresh herbs next to thyme and basil. I added about half of a small can of corn, the scallions (which I snipped into the bowl rather than cut), a crushed clove of garlic, the juice of one lime, and the jalapeño.

:: PAUSE AGAIN ::

Sorry. But this merits saying. I have a medium-to-moderate spicy tolerance. I can eat jalapeños, but only in very small quantities - and I'm best if their seeded first. All the heat of a pepper resides in the seeds and inside pulp, so I scooped it out with the smaller end of a melon-baller (a trick I learned at one of Meg's Pampered Chef parties!) and then, with a very sharp paring knife, minced the bugger. Actually, I only added half of it to the salsa, reserving the other half in a prep bowl so that it could be added later by someone else who may have a higher spicier index than I...

And then I attempted to add the zest of lime. It turns out I lack a zester. I thought I had one; perhaps it was a dream. In any case, I decided to attempt to use a cheese grater. Remember what I had said about the right tools making a job really simple? Well, the wrong tool can really complicate things. Thankfully I was working over a prep bowl and NOT the salsa, as I ended up grating a good deal of my own knuckle along with the lime on my first pass down the grater. So there is no lime zest in this salsa. No blood, either.

:: UNPAUSE ::

So now you've got all your ingredients in the salsa - toss it a few times and then cover it tightly - trust me on this - and refrigerate it while you bake the salmon.

As previously mentioned, rather than grill the salmon, I opted to bake the fillets, which I had skinned by the helpful guy at Wegmans. I rubbed them with a juicy slice of peach and ground some salt over them and sprinkled on a bit of pepper before baking them for about 15 minutes. About halfway through the baking, I brushed them with some olive oil.

Serve the salmon atop an ample bed of salsa with a garnish of cilantro, if you so choose.

I served this meal with an amazingly refreshing sauvignon blanc from South Africa by Graham Beck. I got it on sale 50% off at Global Wine, my favorite wine shop (for reasons like that!). It was grassy, citrussy, and paired perfectly with the dish.

All in all, a successful meal!

Yours in the love of good food, wine, and the joy of customization,

AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Sixty-second Post ~ Spaghetti alle Vongole

It started with a photo... While looking at a friend's travel photos, a picture of a pasta and seafood dish caught my eye and captivated my soul as only a foodie's soul could be captivated. She told me that it was a common dish in Japan, where there seems to be a prevalence of authentic Italian cooking (who knew?). The dish's name is spaghetti alle vongole, and is Neapolitan in origin. I decided that I must try it for myself.

So, with a tweaked recipe from the UK in hand (this was an international venture), a willing test subject at the ready (my boyfriend, John) and a Wegman's shopping list, I set out to recreate the meal that had captured me so (with the hopes that it would taste as lovely as it looked).

Here's what you'll need to take this virtual trip to the sunny Mediterranean shores of Napoli.

~ fresh clams (for two: about a pound or so - or maybe more - I got littlenecks from Wegmans as they are the sweetest)
~ spaghetti
~ dry white wine (enough for cooking and for drinking - I recommend buying a bottle to serve as the beverage and a mini bottle for cooking. Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi is a good single-serve wine for both drinking and cooking)
~ garlic
~ flat leaf (AKA Italian) parsley
~ scallions
~ lemon juice
~ extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
~ chili powder (cayenne)
~ white pepper
~ course ground sea salt
~ butter

To add a little more to the dish, I opted to roast some garlic that could be spread on a baguette. So, for the side that really compliments the dish with savory nuttiness:

~ one bulb of garlic
~ baguette
~ EVOO
~ coarse ground sea salt

Peel the garlic cloves and generously coat in EVOO and season with coarse ground sea salt. Wrap the whole bundle up in tin foil and roast in a toaster oven (or heating apparatus of your choice) on 400 degrees for about a half hour. Start this ahead of time.

Cook your spaghetti as per usual in salted water. As it's cooking, chop up some parsley and one large scallion. Set to the side. If you have a sous chef, ask him to slice the baguette and put it in a bowl and rinse the clams.

In a pan with a well-fitting lid, start some EVOO, lemon juice, two cloves of garlic and scallions gently sizzling.

Add a bit of cayenne - I used less than the quarter teaspoon that was called for, as I have a lower spicy threshold than most. I like to taste my food thoroughly, and I find that extreme heat can detract from that. Others love this taste/sensation, so you be the judge and add as much or as little as you like. The dish itself is typified by having a bit of heat (hence why it is refreshing on a hot Mediterranean day) but it would be delicious without it, as well.

Add the white wine, parsley, and clams.

:: PAUSE ::

The recipe from the UK calls for steaming the clams in less than two tablespoons of white wine. Obviously, American clams must be thirstier than British ones. That or the original recipe doesn't intend to yield a lot of broth.

The liquid that comes from shellfish as they open and cook is referred, in the foodie world, as "liquor." This is an appropriate name for it, as it is about as intoxicating and delicious as some finely distilled spirit. I like a lot of it. As you may recall, my mussel recipe yields more than enough, and is intended to be mopped up with the baguette after all the mussels are consumed.

I was sort of expecting the same deal with this recipe, but even after allowing for the pasta to absorb some of the liquid, there was not a lot left for dipping. To alleviate this tragedy, I would recommend adding a good deal more white wine to the pan, and definitely more clams that what was called for (6-8 per person).

:: UNPAUSE ::

So, whether or not you have gone the route of more broth, add your parsley and clams, season with salt and pepper, and slap on the lid for four to five minutes. At this point, your pasta should be sitting in a colander in your sink. Your garlic should be done, so unwrap the luscious gems and mash them up with salt to taste.

By now your timer should be going off, so take the lid off, revel in the aroma, and dump your pasta into the pan and toss it all around.

Serve in big bowls with crusty bread spread with roasted garlic. I paired this meal with a Soave from Vincentini Agostino, which was bright with citrus to compliment the garlic and scallions, light enough not to overpower the delicate clams, and cool in the face of the cayenne. It was a perfect partner for this dish, and made this the perfect meal for a hot summer evening!

Yours in the love of good food and wine (and the derring-do to take a culinary leap based solely on someone's vacation photo),
AL

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The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.

Forty-fourth Post ~ Chicken in Bleu Cheese Cream Sauce Topped with Sauteed Mushrooms

This meal might sound gourmet, but in all honesty, it was born from determination to use (and use and use and use) leftovers that I might already have in my fridge. You all remember the chicken from last night - well, here was a good way to use part of it up. This is a pretty easy meal to make with substitutions - any meat would do, really.

Here's what you'll need:

~ Pasta (I used zitti)

For the mushroom topping

~ Mushrooms (I sliced up some baby pearls using my Chef's Knife - that's right - I've got one now, as part of a gloriously beautiful set in a wooden block, courtesy of my absolutely wonderful dad - or Santa... not quite sure, but I know they were given to me by a jolly man who loves me!)

~ One scallion, chopped

~ Bit of garlic (jarred or pressed, your choice)

~ White wine (Vetter Vineyards Brig Niagara was a perfect cooking and drinking companion)

~ Salt

~ Olive oil

For the cream sauce:

~ Chicken (preferably cooked leftovers, for ease)

~ Cream

~ Blue cheese

~ Any other cheese you might want to add (I had some grated parm on hand, so in it went)

~ White wine

~ Paprika

~ Thyme

~ Salt

~ Butter

Start your water boiling for your pasta, and cook and drain as you make the rest of the food:

In one pan (the only pan you'll need, if you work the sequencing right) start some olive oil heating. Add your chopped mushrooms and scallions, then some white wine. I'm starting to learn that I really like New York whites to use for sauteeing mushrooms. Other less-sweet wines can give the mushrooms a tart taste, but New York whites make them sweet and savory, all at the same time. Add salt and garlic to taste. Once they've sautéed, put them into a prep bowl to wait patiently.

In the same pan (now empty) add some butter and your chopped chicken. Add salt, thyme and paprika to taste. Once it's nicely golden, add the blue cheese crumbles (I used a crumbled Danish bleu from Wegmans) and some heavy cream and wine. Stir the mixture 'til it melds, adding more liquid as needed.

Top the pasta with the chicken in blue cheese cream sauce and top THAT with the mushrooms. I paired tonight's meal with Vetter Vineyard's Brig Niagara. It was sweet enough to par down the sharpness of the blue cheese, yet smooth enough to cleanse the palate, as this meal is a rich one. It had a soft finish, which made it a nice match, rather than contrasting pair, to the meal.

All in all, a nice dinner, and a nice re-use of leftovers!

Yours in the love of good food and wine,

AL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The blogger is not an experienced chef. She takes no responsibility for the quality of the meals prepared while following her advice. Use your own judgment regarding cooking times and proper food handling.