Italian Week

By coincidence, a lot of the recipes we've been cooking this week have been Italian.

First, we got a bunch of cherry tomatoes to make a batch of Smitten Kitchen's farro (but we forgot to get basil, whoops):




















Then we had a glut of cherry tomatoes that started getting a bit old, so we made the bon appetit summer bolognese (We remembered to get more basil for this!). This is one of my favorite pasta dishes. It's DELICIOUS, satiating, fast, only dirties two dishes, and uses fresh cherry tomatoes to make the sauce. It reheats nicely, too.

















 
Prior to that, we'd made the Italian rustic loaf, and the date soup, which used some some mushrooms: 

Rising!

Finished product!

Then, thinking to use up some of our costco mushroom glut, we made the New York Times cooking baked orzo recipe, but forgot to add the mushrooms. The result was still delicious, and it was completely eaten up within 24 hours. It's kind of like a super fast and easy risotto made of giant rice, with creaminess coming from the cheese. A second attempt (with successfully adding mushrooms, and adding less Parmesan) on Saturday worked


We managed to save more of this for leftovers by having snacks in the afternoon, but it's disappearing fast. For people without an NYT cooking subscription, here's the recipe:

fast father-daughter food

This evening, Dad and I were left on our own for dinner, only instructed to use up the shrimp, eat some asparagus, and to finish the spinach. We noticed an open box of chicken broth in the fridge, and decided to make soup. We boiled the broth and added some spaghetti, then tossed in the shrimp, asparagus, and spinach as the pasta got close to done. We only used one pot for all our cooking, and the cooking process was fast and easy. The final result was tasty, but could have used a bit more seasoning.

Picture!

Happy New Year!

Yesterday we updated our New Year's Eve tradition by making out own pizza instead of ordering out. Mom took care of the dough in her new Cuisinart while I prepared olives, onions, sausage, cheese, and other toppings. Then, while the dough rose, I made some olivata using this recipe, and it turned out pretty good.

Mom made a large pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella, sausage, basil, spinach, onions, and red pepper. I made a smaller one with olives but sans sausage and red pepper. Steve made himself a small sausage pizza, and I made a dessert pizza with strawberry jam, mozzarella, and a tiny bit of experimental olivata on one corner. It was surprisingly good. I think we might have a new tradition for New Year's Eve.

A Salad and a Healthy Dessert

am sending Linnea a CD track by track and while I wait for it to load I will tell you about the salad we made for the Pat and Greg and the dessert they brought on Saturday night. What with all of the dietary restrictions because of an fascinating variety of ailments we have collectively, it is an interesting challenge to cook for the four of us. There was a recipe in the paper (The Minneapolis Tribune may be a bit short on news but they still do have recipes. We get it, you know, because they didn't endorse George Bush.)

My Improved Version of the Salad:

Cut up about 1 medium carrot per person or an equivalent amount of winter squash or sweet potatoes. The sous chef around here was told 3/4 inch by by 3/4 inch. Toss the roots in a little olive oil and add some grated ginger root if you like and pop it in the oven at about 375. (The newspaper wanted one to line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Things turned out fine without the foil and the sous chef cleaned the pan.) I may have sprinkled on a bit of sherry--can't remember. Peel one ripe pear for every two people and an extra one. put them, cut side down, in the roasting pan and sprinkle a bit of oil over them. Again you could add ginger root or sherry if you wanted.

When the pears and vegetables are softened to your taste remove from the oven. Put a half a pear (or a whole pear if you are preparing more than four portions) in the blender with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and about 2 tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar. Put a small handful of greens or arugula per person on a platter or a dish with low sides. Toss with a bit of oil and sprinkle with a tablespoon or so of vinegar.

Arrange the carrots and pear halves prettily on top of the greens and sprinkle the pear-oil-vinegar mixture over everything. You can do this just as the pears and vegetable come out of the oven or after they have cooled some. Just don't refrigerate them--actually I guess you could do that if you wanted but warm or room temperature seems better to me. All four of us liked the salad a lot. Time for bed. I'll pass along Pat's dessert recipe later.

Recipe Free Soup

Recipe Free Soup

Every Monday we are in town I go to the Women's Cardiac Support Group. Since it meets from 6:30 to 8:00, dinner is sort of a problem. Now my mindfulness group is coming early to meditate or do yoga so I really am not here on Mondays to do anything about dinner but I am always hungry when I get home around 9:00.

Somehow it is a lot less work for me to make soup or pretty much anything without a recipe. We had a ham bone from Christmas and I had actually gotten far enough to buy some green split peas. So I quickly chopped up all of the onions we had in the fridge (about two onions) 2-4 good sized cloves of garlic. and 3 giant sized carrots. I sauteed that in a couple of squirts of olive oil until it was soft. Then I rinsed the split peas (about 2 cups--I think it was a one pound package). Then I added the partly-used chicken broth we had left in the fridge from making pork chops for Mary and Bob last Thursday plus a can of chicken broth and two or three cans of water. I tried to make the whole business about twice as deep in the kettle as it had been before I added liquid. I put in a bay leaf and about two tablespoons of basil and some tarragon and some pepper and brought it up to a boil. and then turned it down so it was barely boiling. Then it was time for me to go to support group. The flavor of the broth was already excellent at that point but the beans were sort of crisp-tender, the texture one wants in fresh cooked vegetables.

I'm afraid there there was a little disagreement between the members of the household about how to proceed. One of us thought that leaving the soup on the lowest setting would produce perfect soup a couple of hours later. The other thought that the soup tasted perfect as it was. It was good if the split peas had a little texture and besides this person was reluctant to leave the burner on while we were gone. I do not recall an admission that the goal was to conserve energy but I am suspicious. Well that person turned off the burner as we left.

Although the burner-turner-offer had had been home for over an hour when I got home the soup had not been cooked any more. The split peas were a bit softer although the broth was still clear. As I said, I am hungry when I get home from support group. It did taste very good. . I did turn the soup back on until I went to bed but I think the split peas were still a bit hard when I added two quarts to the soup stash in the freezer.

Next time I will start cooking the split peas in some water even before I start chopping vegetables.