a few months ago i bought some locally produced lamb shanks at the nashville farmers market and then tucked them away in my freezer for just the right day. and then yesterday, on a whim i sat them out to defrost and began snooping around the interwebs for some inspiration. i wound up on food52′s site and glanced at 2 different recipes – and then i was off. within a minute i had found just what i needed, and based on what was in the pantry and the refrigerator i got to cooking.

the shanks got salted and peppered and well-browned in olive oil. the meat was removed from the pot and in went a dice of onion, garlic, carrots and fennel. when it was all softened and just barely starting to color i added some pimenton, red chile flakes and fennel pollen. after a minute or so i added some of my chicken stock along with about 2/3′s of a bottle of decent zinfandel. i let that simmer for about 2 hours.

when the meat was easily removed from the bone, into the pot went the flesh of one navel orange and 3 tangerines along with some of the grated zest. and then to finish i added some diced up dates, preserved meyer lemons and green olives.

then i called it a night and everything went into the refrigerator.

and tonight it was dinner. and really, a stew such as this does well with an overnight rest. everything melds together and somehow the flavors deepen. it’s a given. we all know it, and we all do it. right?

a few months ago i also bought a package of yellow grits. it was an impulse buy. i liked the look of the labeling and i am a huge polenta lover and i just figured, why not? grits are pretty standard fare down around these parts but i never really make them. no reason. i’ve just not hit a ‘grits phase’ yet. for those of you who may have wondered, the difference between grits and polenta is twofold. the grind and the type of corn used. the following is taken from the anson mills site:

Dent or Flint?

there’s a pretty amusing backstory as to why i created this dish, but that’s for another day. what i will say is that it was quite fabulous. the sauce wound up taking on a life if its own, as at one point a bad flick of the wrist had rendered it nearly inedible and it needed to be somehow fixed. luckily the culinary gods were with me and i had on hand just the very thing to bring it back home with grace. honestly, this was a serious sauce… and having no formal training whatsoever, i was really pleased that not only was it saved, but it was enhanced tenfold.

veal shanks. a beautiful cut of meat. perfect for a winter’s braise. osso buco. something i love to cook that hadn’t seen rotation in awhile. i don’t use the typical ingredients so perhaps this particular treatment of the shanks can no longer be considered ‘osso buco’, translated as ‘pierced bone’. but regardless of its proper name, it was superb.

i’m avoiding the recipe format because this dish just came along on its own. i urge you to make this – and to wing it. keep tasting. then adjust. i posted about this awhile back and there you’ll find a similar recipe for reference.

flour, salt and pepper the meat and brown in olive oil. remove from the pan and set aside. add about 5 oz of finely minced pancetta until it’s rendered and browned. next add about 4 finely minced anchovies (the good ones that need to be filleted). when they melt away, next to go in is about 3 cloves of finely minced garlic. after about a minute pour about 10 oz of white wine – i used a pinot grigio – and reduce. return the veal to the pan and add veal stock (chicken will do…) about halfway up the sides of the meat.

braise for about 90 minutes, basting often. the remaining liquid was strained through a chinois and put back on the stove. i added about 3 oz (maybe more) of butter in pieces until it was glassy and coated the spoon. then i tasted. too salty. damn. DAMN. anchovies are salty little buggers and i threw in a healthy pinch of salt not long after i added them. silly girl. not good. what to do? slight panic. think, claudia, think.

i spy a bottle on the shelf under my kitchen work table. it’s port. so i grab it and add some to a small espresso cup of the sauce. EXCELLENT. then i added about 5 oz of port – incrementally – to the rest. FREAKIN UNREAL. did i just make this? yes? high five!

the polenta was made the good old fashioned way. water, salt and the polenta stirred for about 15 minutes and then left alone to do its thing. when it was done it was hit with a sizable amount of mascarpone. the brussels sprouts were simply caramelized in oil, butter and salt.

definitely rich. definitely a winter dish. wonderful nuanced home cooking, layered with great flavors.

you go girl.

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…

so here’s the deal. i love calf’s liver. but i rarely get to have it because it’s seemingly not very popular here in these southern parts. up until recently, i couldn’t even procure a piece unless i committed to the entire liver. which was not going to happen – my love knows bounds…

but saturday we were at ‘whole foods’ and while perusing the meat case, i spotted some, all shimmery and liver’y. it must be a new product addition to our particular store, so as you might imagine, i was pretty excited. cary won’t touch the stuff so we bought him a dry aged ny strip and i got my calf’s liver - which, if calculating ounce for ounce is 1/3 the price. (note: they charged me for a veal rack instead of the liver – which was double the price. i noticed this when i got home and now i have to deal with it, though ‘whole foods’ is always good about this kind of thing.)

as a kid, my mom would make this on occasion and i’d be lying if i told you that i was happy about it at the time. but in those days we ate what was served and grimaced through the dinner. there was no feeding it to the dog we didn’t have. there was no hiding chewed up and spit out mouthfuls in my napkin and dumping the contents into houseplants or behind the drapes. i ate it. it wasn’t my favorite, but i lived to tell the tale and learned to not only appreciate calf’s liver, but to actually love it. especially when i first had it served with apples and bacon. total wow…

this past july when i was in nyc i had a great lunch at felidia’s, with my secundo being an amazing calf’s liver dish. it was served with a mix of farro and polenta and the meat was finished with sautéed shallots and a reduction of balsamic vinegar. it was definitely one of the better things that i had eaten that trip – hands down. so this was an opportunity to recreate it. and i love a challenge, minor as this one might have been.

so i grabbed my molto italiano book and with mario’s help (on page 405), he once again showed me the way, the light and the truth. for the polenta, i kept it pretty light and simple and just added some grated parmigiano at the end.

fegato alla veneziano
inspired by lidia bastianich from felidia restaurant in nyc
adapted from molte italiano by mario batali

flour seasoned with salt and pepper to dredge the liver
2 T olive oil
1 T butter
1/2 lb. calf’s liver cut into 1/4" slices
1 cup sliced shallots
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T chopped parsley

heat the olive oil in a 10" sauté pan until very hot but not smoking and add the butter. when the foam subsides, dredge the liver in the seasoned flour and cook until brown on one side, about 4 minutes. transfer the liver to a warm plate.

add the shallots to the pan and cook until very soft, about 6 minutes. add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. place the liver on top of the onions, uncooked side down, reduce heat to medium and cook until just cooked through - about 5 minutes.

so i got it all together, plated it as nicely as i was willing, snapped a few photos, poured myself a glass of a surprisingly good argentinean malbec (terrazas reserva 2004) and took a bite…

really bad. like, really really b.a.d.

it was the liver. something was off. not rotten, more like, well, shitty. as in shit tasting. as in if i had ever eaten shit, which although proverbially, i may have – in reality i have not – but had i, i would imagine this would be close to what it would be like.

and i’m trying to figure out where i went wrong. or was it just the meat? did i dredge it too early? did i undercook it for fear of overcooking it? i can’t figure it out… the buttery shallots with balsamic were truly wonderful and the polenta was just right for the dish. as i gingerly ate the end pieces of the liver which were seemingly the least offensive, i sadly realized, i had to let it go.

but i have cats! and so i cut it all up into little pieces and gave it to my little guy merle. and he scarfed it down like there’d be no tomorrow. he’s almost 15 and weighs less than 7 lbs and he likes to eat animals. preferably dead and cooked as his hunting days are now behind him.

then the little guy went to sleep.

an hour later i heard it.

he puked it all up.

 

polenta is a much loved staple in my home.  i see it as a perfect food, versatile beyond measure, lending itself to main courses, side dishes and desserts.  plus i’d never get the pizza off of the peel if not for my polenta.

awhile back i remember watching a molto mario episode where he made a polenta dish and added one part coarsely ground buckwheat flour into two parts cornmeal. mario has never led me astray so i decided to give the combination a try.  

after about 45 minutes and a lot of stirring, the two grains become polenta-esqe and i threw in a hunk of butter and some diced up tallegio cheese. mario went ahead and baked his taragna and i believe served it with a veal, sage and pancetta dish.  the bastardo…

alas, using only what was in my pantry and refrigerator, i sauteed a large spanish onion until golden, sliced a lonely looking yellow bell pepper and then added my ground lamb.  after the meat was just browned, i added some fresh chopped tomatoes, cooking for about more 5 minutes.  this was seasoned with oregano and a shot of very good balsamic vinegar to finish.  

i opted to keep my polenta taragna in more of a thick porridge like state.  again, rustic being my middle name (rustic substituting so wonderfully for unattractive and/or lazy) this suited my dinner purposes just fine.

ok ok.  i know what many of you are thinking.  there’s cornmeal, polenta, grits and somehow variations on each of these.  and now i’ve gone and thrown buckwheat flour into the mix. questions? go to anson mills. their elegant site will clue you in on everything you ever wanted to know about eating dried corn – and more.  

mario can inspire me like no other.  well except gabrielle hamilton.  

but she’s doesn’t have a tv show…

              

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 just wrote an entire post on this dish, hit publish and

IT WAS LOST FOREVER. 

and now i wanna literally cry because well, i’m tired.  and other stuff.  but i took a long time writing this post and i thought it was kinda good, and with a ton of links… but dear readers, i just can’t recreate it.  i don’t have it in me.   i need a big glass of water, my bed and the remote… asap…  a neck rub would be mighty splendid too…

basically i just wanted you to know that harissa is my new love.  and here it is on grilled shrimp with mario’s 3 hour polenta and slow roasted grape tomatoes with shallots and fresh thyme, sprinkled with guerande salt.

the end.

winners tba for the ‘IRON FORK’ contest tomorrow.

see you there…

3 hours? who the hell has 3 hours to make polenta? ummm, me? you see, i’m reading "heat" by bill buford. he’s the guy who was senior editor at ‘new yorker magazine‘ and left his job to work in batali’s kitchen at ‘babbo‘. there is a chapter in the book about a fund raising dinner that batali and his boys did here in nashville a few years ago – and he goes on about the polenta. but not just your everyday polenta, about perfect polenta and perfecting the art of making this batali perfected polenta. and well, perfection is my life…

anyway chapter 14 is all about buford’s quest to thoroughly understand not only how to make the dish, but the history behind it. buy the book. it’s a fun ride. lamb shanks i can make. you salt them and then brown them in some olive oil. remove the shanks from the pot and add some chopped onions, carrots – and celery if you like. you let the vegetables cook for a solid 10 minutes and then i added a can of san marzano tomatoes, a bottle of red wine, the last of my dried bottarga, the last of my thanksgiving turkey broth (goodbye for now, i will miss you) and a handful of fresh thyme, salt and pepper. i think that was it. no real recipe here.

i added the shanks back and let it all do its thing for 90 minutes or so. the shanks are then removed to prevent the meat from totally falling off the bone, the sauce is cooked down and then blended till smooth. it was quite good, most definitely in the "what’s not to like" category. unless you hate lamb and then well, we can’t be friends because there is something terribly wrong with you. but the polenta… it’s just 3 ingredients. as in salt and water – and the corn. and it seems that making good polenta is kind of like a metaphor for life. time improves it and it can’t be rushed. it will become what it needs to if you just tend the pot for about 20 minutes or so by constantly whisking and adding the necessary hot water until it can absorb no more – and then just leave it alone, coming by to give it a quick stir every 15 minutes or so.

whereas risotto is needy but faster, polenta just wants to do its own thing, letting the heat almost caramalize the corn, releasing the depth of flavor. or so buford says. and batali told him. and i’m just assuming that they really know. my polenta was moretti polenta – bramata, the coarsest grind. from an italian family that’s been grinding it since 1922 in the town of… yadda yadda yadda… and really? i dunno. it was good but even after 3 hours i didn’t think it was that different than other polenta i have made. the whole "perfect polenta experience" has evaded me but i am going to try again with a different brand. like next month.

but i must say, as you can see in the picture, our dinner could have really used a couple of brussels sprouts. if only for color.

just in case you missed this great post on minimally invasive…

this is a very simple dish and one that most likely would have continued to passed me by if only because it’s a very old-time traditional cajun recipe – and i know very little nothing from this style of cooking.  but just watch me whip up quite the cajun cornmeal mush.  i am now the master of mush.  don’t mess with me.  thank you.

if you’re looking for total comfort food and if you grew up on corn muffins (toasted with grape jelly) like i did, well this is absolutely wonderful.  i halved MI’s recipe and used a small cast iron pan.  then i topped the couche couche with buttermilk and pure maple syrup. i made that part up and i don’t think it’s very authentic… but man was it good.

3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
1 t salt
combine these well
add:
3/4 cup very hot water
1 egg – beaten
1 t baking powder

pour into a very hot pan that has 1 T cooking oil. let it form a crust for about 3 minutes or so.  stir occasionally until cooked but not dry. serves 2.

i used a coarse and very rustic italian polenta and the nutty flavor really showcased itself in this breakfasty porridge.

this is the perfect home alone food.

here on the day after the last day of october, and for the record, let me just put forth that i am the halloween grinch, which more or less goes with my overall dislike for kids.  ok ok – all you great folks out there with beloved children… i’m just not the one dying to hold your baby or smile at your tantrum throwing toddler – especially in a restaurant or at 35,000 feet.  but before you jump on me, i happen to have raised one great and impressive (step) kid and i am in love with one particular 5 year old who calls me “granclaud”.  so i’ve not led a totally kid-less life.  plus my boyfriend comes with not one, but two rather appealing tweens that i’m quite partial to.  still, overall i don’t like kids much. i just like certain individual people who i’ve come to know and respect – who happen to be under the legal drinking age.

i (happily) live on a road that does not allow for trick-or-treaters.  it’s trafficky and i’ve got a very long and winding driveway that goes way up into the woods. so last night, safe from the barrage of cuteness i made dinner for some friends. 

i’m still on my ‘eating down the house’ kick.  so last night’s dinner was in keeping with what was available to me within the current confines of my pantry and my fridge/freezer.  a quick trip to the market for a head of garlic and some shallots – along with a 4 pack of mediocre mini bottles of pinot grigio for cooking – and i was set.  my dessert required a 14 oz. container of whole milk and a baguette so i grabbed those too.  oh, but that’s worthy of a whole other post…

i had searched the freezer to see what meat i had in stock and i began defrosting 4 very large locally produced, super organic chicken breasts from ‘west wind farms‘.  then in my mind i assembled the ingredients and decided to bake the breasts due to their sheer size and proceeded down a mediterranean path.  i had a few naked lemons in my egg tray that had been zested for a batch of gremolata and they needed to be used stat.  i chopped a few large shallots, used some wonderful dried-on-the-vine oregano from sicily, added some lemon juice and finely sliced rind -  as well as thinly sliced lemons that were peeled of their nearly 2 week old hardened pith.  (hey it’s lemon in nearly every form imaginable!)  then salt, pepper and a mini bottle of pinot grigio and into the oven it all went.

i baked the chicken at 400 for about 30 minutes or so.  then i broiled them for a few extra minutes to slightly brown the skin a bit more.  they came out great.  not dry.  thank god.  dry chicken breasts are the worst.  it seems to always be a crap shoot for me with bone-in chicken breasts.  i also used the cooked shallot and lemon mixture when i plated everything.  it was way too good to toss.  i especially loved the thin slivers of lemon rind.

while all that was going on i opened a bag of moretti polenta from market hall foods.  the bramata polenta is a coarse yellow flour that takes about 40 minutes of nearly constant stirring.  when it was close to done i added a very buttery spanish olive oil that i have become quite attached to and a large handful of finely chopped parmigiano, both from zingerman’s.  the polenta was sublime.  cary commented that he could live on just that.  for like forever.

and the last element on this plate was quickly executed.  i already had a big leftover bag of the 3 mixed greens that i had used in my sweet potato stew.  about 5 cloves of garlic were minced and then added to some italian olive oil and the chopped greens went in about a minute later along with a bit of water and a cover on the pan to steam them down.  the trick here is not to burn the garlic even a little, hence the use of the water which disappears.  it’s my own little method and it works for me.

not a sexy plate of food.  but a hearty autumn dinner that worked out just like it was supposed to.  and that right there for me is a big deal.

i’ll take a little fleeting success in any form.

ok – so i’m into italian food and i can’t stop.  and why would i? 

tonight’s dinner was an off the cuff throw together in 30 minutes kinda thing.  i saw a post on ‘minimally invasive‘ for a roasted fennel dish and i knew that would be my jumping off point.  after using fennel tops for my shrimp pasta i now had the two bulbs sitting in my fridge.  i used pancetta instead of the prosciutto and added some dry breadcrumbs on top of the grated parmigiano.  i also used olive oil instead of butter.  after tuesday’s dinner i just couldn’t face any more butter… and usually i rarely touch the stuff.  but man, when you’re cooking to impress – it’s everywhere.  anthony bourdain mentions this in his book ‘kitchen confidential’ – chefs use it on everything.  and in copious amounts.  and why?  because it tastes so friggin good…  anyway, this dish was totally wonderful and i plan on making it again and again.

i bought some black truffle polenta awhile back and decided to break it out.  and then i had the audacity to go and use an organic boxed vegetable broth because the guy who sold it to me told me that it works just great. 

Mistake 

and i really should have known better.  really.

i mean, it wasn’t terrible. but it was wrong.  when your polenta has black truffles in it – respect them.  and next time i will.  of this you can be sure.

cary liked dinner.  he’s a scallop guy.  and a polenta guy.  and i thought it was ok.  but perhaps the roasted fennel was fighting a bit with the truffles.  i’m not exactly sure.  the combo wasn’t a do over although i will say that it totally seemed like the thing to do at the time.

live and learn.