oh lobel’s. how do i love thee? let me count the ways…

i’ve reached a point in my life where if i’m going to buy a slab of meat it’s going to have to be of serious quality. luckily in the nashville area we have some really good farmers raising the kind of meat i feel good about eating. i’ve felt this way for quite some time making it almost impossible for me to go to my local supermarket and just ‘pick up’ a chicken or a steak. michael pollan pretty much changed my thinking on all of this and now in the wake of ‘food, inc.’ – a movie that pretty much spells out the truth in undeniable facts about what has happened to our food supply and our nations declining health… well, in my home it’s either local meat from the farmers market where i can ask questions, or it’s ordered online from a trusted source.

i’m a full fledged omnivore, but given a choice, i’d take a bowl of pasta any day over a factory farmed piece of meat. and so i usually do. this way when i cook up a chop or roast a bird, it may cost more than one might be used to paying, but the usual meals of beans, grains and yes – my beloved pasta, seem to balance it all out. fyi – the above chop was about $1 an ounce. and my steaks can sometimes be as high as $4 an ounce, but this varies.

oh and just one more thing. a dear friend sent me this link and i am definitely making my next big thick steak using this method. this technique got my attention in a big way and quite frankly, i can’t stop thinking about it…

but before i hit you wth yet another bowl of linguini, i think the time is right to present to you this really beautiful and juicy 12 oz berkshire pork shop. it was simply seasoned and then pan grilled and served over some polenta that had been studded with italian sausage, mozzarella, roasted garlic and both red and green bell peppers. as a terrine it was lovely served beside some roast chicken, but there was quite a bit leftover so it was then frozen and now thawed and pan fried in the same pan as the pork had been while the chop was done and resting.

just now while i was writing this post i became a bit peckish and went outside and began to literally graze on my quasi-garden that resides in pots on my patio. some little ripe and very sweet cherry tomatoes were popped in my mouth accompanied with some basil and chive. i tasted the fennel fronds and the parsley and the french thyme too, just picking away as though i was a rabbit or a raccoon or a deer – or whatever usually ravages your garden…

some of the thyme was brought back in the house to go into tonights farro risotto, but on a whim i grabbed a few leftover water crackers, some fresh mozzarella and some calabrian fig molasses that i had just received as a gift and garnished it generously with the fresh thyme. when i took a bite i declared it absolutely wonderful.

the above picture is deceiving. i ate five of them…

ok. this was good. as in very good. as in i won’t go all yoplait ad on you, but this was another definite do-over. and the sooner the better.

i take very little credit as this plate of pasta was nothing more than a blend of: the latest post from rachel eats‘ blog, along with the addition of some murray’s cheese mail-ordered burrata. i’ve since found out – and to my surprise, that trader joe’s carries "burrata", but my obvious thoughts on that were although it’d most likely do in a pinch, there’s no way it could be even close to the same quality as these delicate cream filled mozzarella balls made in italy on monday, and at my door on wednesday…

because you deserve a closer look…

it’s hot as hell in nashville. we’re on day 10 of 90+ degrees with the usual humidity issue, and well, cooking is only so appealing. the ovens are off limits but i will boil a pot of water and saute some onions – and happily.

but here’s what i won’t do. although i preach high quality ingredients and authentic preparation, here’s another ceF ruling to go along with the whole ”i don’t do pastry crusts" thing. so now you can just go on ahead and add to that – "i don’t slip the skins off tomatoes". because honestly, it just seems SILLY. yet despite this blatant admission, i still struggle with the fact (if only ever so slightly) that this conscious oversight would be sneered upon by better cooks than me. i mean the italian nonas do things for GOOD REASON. but then i quickly rationalize the whole thing – i honestly don’t think it changes the experience. and i’m at peace with tomato skins – though i have succumbed to certain other kitchen practices such as always trussing my chickens.

adding to the list of ‘do’s', i also have claimed the red onion as my personal onion of choice for nearly all cooking purposes. i just like them better. and they look beautiful on my counter.

an important component of this dish is that you barely cook the tomatoes. for the record, mine were not home grown, as those are not quite yet available in nashville, but joyously coming soon. still, what i’d picked up at TJ’s were juicy and tomatoey. i used a fair amount of chopped basil from my herb pots, adding it the same time i added the chopped tomatoes to my pan of slowly sauteed onions, thinly sliced into half moons. you salt, you pepper and you’re done in 15 minutes. if that.

and then i strayed away from the recipe because I AM A REBEL and cut a creamy burrata ball in half and plopped it on top along with some more fresh basil. it’s a perfect dish. it just is. even with the aforementioned skins still thinly present…

but by far, the best part of dinner was the company. we had new friends over – emily and kevin. they brought extra tomatoes (in case), bread (i had none), wine (2 bottles of pino grigio) and a glazed lemon almond poppyseed cake that was quite good and tangy. and while we all sat there happily digging in to our respective slices, emily took her first bite and i watched as she sat there wrestling the flavors and consistency in her brain, thinking out loud about all of the things she perhaps could have done for it to have been better – and how she could improve upon it the next time.

and i thought to myself, i’m going to love this chick…

update  – with 3 reports now in on trader joe’s burrata, i am strongly recommending that you stay far away. my good friend heidi robb who i trust implicitly says, "Take a big hearty PASS. Their Mandara buffalo mozzarella is more burrata like than this insipid stuff."

poached egg sitting on a caesar salad with bottarga…

grilled fresh mozzarella with crisped speck and basil…

and for the foundation of this fine dinner, may i introduce to you the 3 seeded bohemian loaf – courtesy of twin fork farms artisan bread.

it’s a dense – but not too dense, chewy slice of bread made from: whole wheat flour, unbleached flour, natural sourdough leaven, sunflower, sesame and flax seeds and salt. all the bread undergoes a long fermentation process which supposedly has a list of advantages, none of which i fully understand, but all sound positively healthful. i had read that for awhile these beautiful orbs were baked in a little beehive oven in david tannen’s backyard, just four at a time but that a bigger oven has since been built, and he’s now churning out about 300 loaves a day. i’m usually not much of a sourdough fan, but this is wonderful bread and i always try and keep a loaf in my freezer.

we’d planned on dinner out last night but the heat has set in to the tune of intolerable. high 90′s + the heat index = over 100 degrees. and really, i’m just not an extreme weather kinda gal. so with a house full of odds and ends and little need for much in the way of imagination, this was dinner. a caesar – of sorts, along with a – kind of, grilled ham and cheese…

it always amazes me what you can come up with just by poking around…

              

my rss feeder broke.  and i didn’t realize it for 3 months.  mostly because i (still) don’t even understand what exactly an rss feeder is, or what it does – talk about being oh so techno savvy… but my stat’s were dropping off and well, try as i might to just ignore the cold hard numbers, i started to take it personally.  was it something i said?  something i cooked?  where did so many of my bleaders go and why would they leave me after all we have meant to each other? 

but before i called my therapist, i called mark from simpler computing! and he quickly came to my rescue – again.  thank you mark.  you solved the mystery and now once again you are so totally my blero. 

so listen up – all you techno losers out there that just like to cook and write and take a little photo here and there, but do not want to bother your pretty little heads with html and templates and embedding and wordpress editors that suck and the like, call mark.  today.  he can tweak your blog into submission.  AND he likes to cook… (btw – ceF is still under construction as i type so please bear with…)

speaking of liking to cook… here’s the deal.  i cook a lot.  but sometimes it’s just dinner.  and sometimes it’s not my idea of a blog worthy post.  and usually it’s just that i’m too lazy to write.  but it’s totally me, not you.  you, i adore.  you make my life better, adding an entirely new fangled dimension that did not exist just 16 months ago. but still, i am often unmotivated, or perhaps even more often than that, i’m just reading OPB’s…

so what happens is that some of these dishes fall by the blogosphere’s wayside.  but i thought since we were dealing with feeds and feeding, i’d show you what gets fed around here to my immediate world.  so i’m going to hit you with a fair few of what i’ve not bothered to bother you with until now, along with some pictures. take a deep breath – here goes…

look familiar?  this one was made with the half and half, as per ripert’s recipe.  was it better?  yes.  did i LOVE it?  not so much.  it’s ok.  kinda brunchy, not desserty.  i like custard.  life is good.  and eric, you’re totally cool and sexy and hot and all those things.  but my tony still has you beat, big time. i hope you can understand…

ok so i realize i am blogger #4721 to make jim lahey’s no knead bread.  but i did it.  quietly.  and it was a good and crusty loaf of bread that if nothing else looked very, very impressive. 

i baked it in my romertopf that i dug out and dusted off.  although it stays unused and because it looks so beautiful – i keep it.  i’m sure you understand such things.  so, i soaked the terracotta in water and then baked the bread as per the direction for a dutch oven.  i felt my dutch oven was too big and i didn’t want a 2" high bread.  somehow, this worked out quite nicely.  so take a chance, dear readers – bake no knead bread.  oh, and have i made this again since?  nope.  will i?  maybe, probably not.

this was made quite awhile ago.  it was panko encrusted chicken livers served over what i think was swiss chard and finely sliced ‘delightful tiny purple potatoes’ and shallots sautéed with pimm’s and port.  what?  you think they may not have been tiny and delightful?  you are sooooo wrong….

i present to you… delightful. tiny. purple. potatoes.  i only wish i could have been in the room when the marketing team thought of that.  can you imagine what the discussion would have sounded like?  i only know they were republicans with bad haircuts.  after that, i know nothing.

so now you ask, what the hell is that?  that, my dear readers is a watermelon salad with mint leaves, chili oil and feta – topped with a very anti-locavore piece of barramundi from costco via australia.  in a previous life i lived down under (husband #1) and ate this fish regularly.  perhaps i didn’t need to sit the barramundi on top of the watermelon, but it seemed like a good idea at the time… and it was our dinner that night and we were happy enough.  so stop smirking.  thank you.

i made this last weekend and it was good and rich and saucy and chicken thighey – all that with trofie pasta thrown in for very good measure.  it’s what patricia wells eats when she’s at home in provence, a recipe that i picked up from feeding groom.  oh and it’s got sherry vinegar and garlic cloves and dijon mustard and lots of tarragon and minced sundried tomatoes… it’s more wintry than it is septembery in nashville, but i had 4 chicken thighs in the freezer and suddenly this just happened…

ok are you ready to hear what this was supposed to be?  what it almost was… what i wished it might have been and what it could be if i ever decide to take it on again?  salted butterscotch pudding with chocolate covered bacon.  thank you and goodnight.  the end.  by claudia. 

except it never really thickened properly.  and benton’s bacon is crazy salty.  so salty that i forgot just how salty it was therefore making it an out and out wrong bacon choice.  because it seems that is actually possible.  to make a wrong bacon choice.  you’d think not, but what this dessert needed was a thin cut good bacon that crisps up in a curly, artsy strip, and only then could it be dipped into lindt chocolate and put into a pudding recipe that WORKS.  because this recipe did not.  and another blogger tried it and it didn’t work for her either.  so. oh well,  we all drank our pudding and chucked the wayyy too salty pork.  seemed sinful but we got over it.  we lived and learned, moving onwards and upwards – with the comforting knowledge that bacon rarely ever lets you down…

so not even a little pretty.  AND the wrong color bowl.  but it was just a simple dinner of fresh crowder peas with bacon.  the bacon did just as it should, redeeming itself from the previous mishap.  there was something else served with this but really, i have no idea… i think it was grilled tilapia.  unexciting, quick and easy and not exactly memorable – but hey, not every night can be foie gras…

OK – EVERYBODY STAND UP AND STRETCH.  NO REALLY.  BECAUSE I AM NOT DONE.  BATHROOM BREAK?  GO ON.  I’LL WAIT….

oh, hi, you’re back.  wonderful, because i was worried… ok, just a few more…

this was lazzaroli’s sweet potato and ricotta ravioli.  i dressed it up with a side of kale, done in a sauce of olive oil, cream, honey and sage, and then dusted the pasta with nutmeg and parmegiano.  again – super fast and easy.  (tommy noodles, you are a nashville godsend… thank you for giving me an option that is first rate and still allows me to get creative.)

yes, i too jumped on the bandwagon thanks to michelle from thursday night smackdown and all the rest of you that grilled the hell outa a bunch of pizzas…  except michelle was the one who took my call on a saturday night so i could get very specific information about the whole pizza grilling process.  this particular pizza was taken from her post and it was damn fine.  i cooked down some swiss chard in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and used copious amounts of minced garlic and ricotta.  i also sliced up a big ripe yellow tomato with red stripes running through it (we will miss you beautiful heirloom tomatoes),

awesomeness, no?  well yes – but… from here on in i’ll stick to the pizza stone with my oven set to broil and 550f… because grilled pizza is too damn white on top.  and flipping it before the toppings go on doesn’t allow the cheese and sauce to bake into the dough and well, my grill runs hot (it’s infrared) so even on the lowest setting it never got the top brown and i kept having to turn the flame on and off so as not to scorch the bottom and was nervously moving it to the top rack and well, i like my pizza stone in my oven.  so if i had a real charcoal grill which i don’t and do not plan on getting because it’s too much work and i am not willing (go on – think of me what you will but there are extenuating circumstances… like a boyfriend who is also happy with oven baked pizza’s), maybe that would be better.  but as it stands, and i repeat – i am a pizza in the oven kinda gal – set to broil on super high heat with the stone on the very bottom rack.  but i made the obligatory grilled pizza.  yes i did.

i present to you… voodoo mac and cheese

do you read gild the (voodoo)lily?  if not, you need to read gild the (voodoo)lily…  heather is very smart and very funny and this bitch can cook.  and i mean that in a good way.  heather is another one of those foodcentric people that seriously knows how to put ingredients together.  like if you turned your pantry over to her, she’d blow your mind.  and you’d be thinking all, why didn’t i think of that?… and the answer is because she KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO.  plus she’s a botanist.  a freakin’ botanist... so she’s always growing and foraging and well, it’s a little bit intimidating.  heather could totally kick your ass and never even touch you…

anyway, back in july she made something called garden mac.  for her it was merely a ‘clean your fridge out’ kinda dinner, and i’m thinking – mac and cheese with roasted tomatoes in a bechamel base?  sign me the hell up. 

the ingredients i used were as follows; mostaccioli pasta, the 4 cheeses were – asiago, parmigiano reggiano, st jerome and fontal.  and for the garden part – fresh thyme and heirloom tomatoes, kale, onion, squash and zucchini.  i drove all the ingredients about an hour south, down to my friend shannon’s house and we spent the day cooking and drinking wine and talking and laughing and then we sat out on the porch overlooking her farm and had a late lunch…

and for the grand finale i give to you an extremely abbreviated version of my veal stock mission…

bones arrive from snook’s.  i tried for weeks to find a local source.  nada.

20 lbs.

because i am awesome…

i made brown and white stock.  i followed the ruhlman way.  it is the only way. (great version here)

otherwise when you die, you go to culinary hell where you are forced to live on nothing but shoney’s buffets. (please click on the shoney’s link.  there are no words…)

and hey, thanks so much for reading.  i realize this post was a commitment. 

you can go now…

i’ve been seeing this dish around.  and then i spotted it on ruhlman’s blog .  and that was pretty much it for me.  call it a defining moment - but i’d already been tempted, and now this pasta had to happen in my kitchen – and soon. 

i immediately began mentally preping the raviolo’s by going through the ‘mise’ in my mind.  first came the cheese situation.  because if i was going to make these beauties, i was going to have to use sheep’s milk ricotta, with a much more compelling flavor than the sweeter and widely available cows milk version.  and it’s hard enough to procure this ricotta in a major metropolis – but in middle tn?  fuhgeddaboudit.  and believe me when i tell you that i gave it all i had.  n/a.

so as i am wont to do, i clicked my way to ricotta heaven by simply relinquishing my amex # – yet again – for a pricey foodstuff.  but i’ve got to tell you that tony at pastacheese.com came through for me.  i love this guy.  he’s like the italian uncle you always wanted.  sooooo nice.  sooooo willing to do whatever it took, working with my schedule, packing it extra cold, calling me back after checking with his supplier.  all that for 3 measley pounds of ricotta.  it’s flown in from italy, and then it flies out, right to your doorstep – still as fresh as if you were sitting in sardinia sipping a limoncino waiting for your raviolo to arrive.  and yes, shipping kills.  but damn if it wasn’t worth the airfare…

final talley?  $60.  and i’d do it again. 

so, on a martha re-run (that freakin’ woman gets on my very last nerve – but has undeniably the best guests) odette fada, chef at san domenico’s, whipped up a more wintry version of her raviolo’s using spinach, ricotta, parmigiano and nutmeg, and about $500 (not kidding) of white truffles from alba.  so be sure to run and get yourself some this autumn.  mmmk?  oh, and while you’re getting that, get this – martha actually had the audacity to say "we save up for this one dinner…" and i literally felt myself seethe.  it was a very unzen moment for me and i’m not proud…  BUT REALLY MARTHA… please spare us the bullcrap as we all know you can shit white truffles from alba, ok?

i stuck with ruhlman all the way.  i wasn’t able to get any espellete on the quick, but next time i’ll have it in my pantry (it’s on order).  i made do with a sprinkle of cayenne, some organic valencia orange zest, finely minced shallot and chive and salt.  my eggs were bought the day before from the amish at the nashville farmers’ market and the pasta was made with ap flour, whole eggs and a touch of water.  we rolled it thin and here’s how it all came together…

after about 2 minutes at a slow but steady boil in salted water, the raviolo’s are carefully removed and browned butter is spooned over the top.

if ever there were a pasta that i look forward to perfecting, this would be it.  the first try came out nicely but i’m going to try and get some fluted edged round dough cutters and perhaps let the raviolo’s cook an extra minute next time – just to tighten up the yolk a bit more.  but don’t get me wrong, it’s a damn sexy dish and everyone was collectively swooning. but this one is absolutely worth getting as close to perfect as you can.

i feel that the ruhlman version is the much better warmer weather option, the orange zest really brightening everything right up.  but this winter i’ll definitely try odette’s, with spinach and nutmeg, although depending on the price of truffles, i may be relegated to using just the truffled butter.

and i can totally live with that.

i think…

i read about ‘orangette’s’ brussels shuffle, and the description of her market breakfast was more than i could stand

I should begin by saying this: do not underestimate the combined power of fresh goat cheese, honey, and olives. (Or spicy olives, to be specific, coated in something akin to harissa.) It is the trifecta….

so on a whim, and lured by some unexpected goat cheese gracing my doorstep, green olives were pitted and spiced with harissa, pita bread was gently defrosted in the oven until soft, the crumbled goat cheese was smoothed out by a bit of hot water and then a dark wildflower honey was drizzled on top of that – with complete abandon.

and dear readers, it was good. oh so very very good. so much so, that i have now had this exact dish 3 times in 5 days – and have served it to no less than 10 people. pita was what i had going. and it worked. but the authentic wrapping that would be used to envelop this spectacular tasting trio is called m’semmen, a moroccan pancake of sorts. and sure enough, i came across a recent post written about this very thing. but i don’t bake bread, remember? except i am now somewhat intrigued and might have to consider a m’semmen clause written into the ‘no bread baking’ contract that i have with myself.

but not today…

the farro was soaked for about an hour, drained and then boiled in fresh water for 30 minutes and drained again.  i added a great olive oil from chianti in tuscany (the rest of the address still unknown) and some salt and pepper.  then with inspiration from josh friedland of the ‘the food section’ i chopped some buffalo mozzarella and some fresh tennessee tomatoes.  please look at his picture shown below because mine really was the near identical plate.

but then…

i made a gremolata of fresh parsley, crushed garlic, microplaned lemon peel, olive oil, salt, pepper – and included fresh basil because it felt right.  all of the aforementioned were minced and combined.  then i salted the 9 chops and threw them on a 900 degree grill for about 90 seconds a side.  honestly there were only 8 chops, but that kinda had a nice ring to it…

so, ok.  you with me?  here’s where i need your creative participation.  my plate has a layer of farro, then down one side of the farro is the white mozzarella, down the other side the chopped red tomato.  but now in the center we have a small mound of the green gremolata with 3 chops rising above it all standing in a leaning teepee formation.  i invented this last part.  so now we’ve got a co-written recipe here except jeff has no idea that i exist in the universe.  (hi jeff!)

the dish was totally fabulous.  and i am making it again soon so i can snap a shot.  just for you.

but in the meantime, here is proof of how the dinner began… with a good multi-grain crusty loaf, parmegiano from zingerman’s and truffle honey from market hall.  folks, this combo is not to be missed.  it’s a wow.

i liken this experience to a computer crash without any back-up files. 

it rarely happens twice.

<sigh>

something about the recipes in the ny times sunday mag really entice me.  over the years i’ve made a slew of them and some have become my classic go-to’s.  like ’my’ flourless chocolate espresso cake that tends to wow the (adult) masses.  this recipe i seem to remember was from an older man who was a legend in the music industry and loved to bake – or ‘my’ rigatoni with white bolognese from a 2002 article by amanda hesser where she speaks of eating at a friends home in italy.  i’ve made it countless times to rave reviews.  and there are others…

so when the massive paper arrives each week, cary knows where i’m headed – current events loser that i am.

and last week was a little answer to my prayers.  the aug. 19 ‘the way we eat’ article was zucchini driven and i was needing to come up with a cool thing to do – that wasn’t ratatouille – with the three green tubular beauties i’d gotten from my last weeks csa share.  i even used a yellow squash – just so there’d be one less. 

(in the meantime, the eggplants are restless – again – not to mention the peppers – AND i just picked up my csa share this morning – and – well, i am starting to become the vegetable fairy leaving squash and cabbage behind me for all the good citizens of nashville.  it’s fun to be a fairy.  i guess.)

so what happened was i made this twice in two days.  i made it twice because i made a mistake.  i used a big loaf pan.  she called for two small ones but it still didn’t fill my one large one.  so i had what could have been this squat terrine on my hands – and no more zucchini.  of course this was temporary because of the ‘today’s csa haul’ and guess what?  yep, i got more zucchini’s.  so out came the mandoline and for the second day in a row i focused on carefully slicing while intently repeating the mantra, “respect the mandoline… respect the mandoline”.  it helps.  try it sometime.  ok, honestly, cary saw me doing it today and got so fearful/panicked/terrified that the man went and laid his very own life on the line and insisted on taking on the danger himself.  chivalrous?  i would say so…

and because i am determined to never follow a recipe to the letter, i also decided to add a layer of some soft chévre.  the sauce was a quick mix of my wonderful stokes blushed tomato mayonnaise, some sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.  that and a baguette and we called it dinner.

delightful to look at.  lovely to eat. 

last wednesday in the ny times ‘dining in’ section, mark bittman ran an article ’101 simple meals ready in 10 minutes or less’.  now i know that ever so many of us out there wants the shortcut, the easiest method, the (if you will) quick fix.  i kind of sit on the fence on this one, acutely aware how everything has its place.  but what i loved about bittman’s take on this was that in all its immediacy, it was still all real food.  it was still (if i may) gourmet, albeit down home style.  and for someone like me, it sparked ideas.  introduced some new combinations that i’d not thought of before.  hell, it was downright inspiring. 

33 Sauté 10 whole peeled garlic cloves in olive oil. Meanwhile, grate Pecorino, grind lots of black pepper, chop parsley and cook pasta. Toss all together, along with crushed dried chili flakes and salt.

mark, i am a fan.  i love you man.  and i can guarantee it marky baby – if you knew me, you’d love me too. 

chew on that big boy.