granted, not my best work with the new camera. but that night i was determined to eat hot food. an oft declared rarity for a food blogger. so instead of a well taken photo to entice you with, let me explain as best i can how to cook swordfish properly, as told to me by michael pardus, chef instructor at the culinary institute of america in hyde park.

you see, for me this is a big deal. for years swordfish had been low on my list of fish to eat, let alone cook. it was always kind of dry and uninteresting – flavorless if you will. and then michael cooked some up one evening and i was forever changed. it was moist, tender and flavorful which somehow in and of itself sounds a bit like an ad for cat food (and i do so wish i could have come up with better words) but believe me when i tell you, that these three words were never more true…

ok, the swordfish. the trick, the secret, the mystery – it’s a complete revelation. and here’s what you do.

you treat the swordfish as though you’re cooking a steak.

just start out with a piece of fish that’s at least an inch thick and let it sit in some olive oil, salt, pepper and whatever else you might be using such as herbs or lemon zest for about 15 minutes. get a good sear on both sides and then move the fish to an indirect heat source, either into the oven if you’re searing stovetop or to a part of the grill with no direct heat beneath it. let the fish cook until it’s about 5 minutes away from being done and take it off the heat and LET IT SIT as you would a ribeye. it will continue to cook, the juices will redistribute and it will be the best piece of swordfish you’ve ever eaten.

*cooks note – this piece of fish was less than an inch but my grill goes to 900 F so i was able to get the sear without overcooking. i think that within reason, the thicker the fish, the better. an inch and a half would be perfect. judging doneness is tricky unless you do it all the time, which i don’t so there’s always some anxiety involved. but if you can cook a steak properly you can do this as long as you know that the flesh of this fish is way more delicate and it will cook faster than a piece of beef.

so now you know.

this fish sat upon a bed of swiss chard simply sauteed with some olive oil and garlic, some salt and pepper – but let’s talk about the yellow squash for a moment shall we? it’s peaking nearly everywhere right about now and THIS is one of the things you must do with it. i got the idea from jennifer at last night’s dinner who got the idea from melissa clark who wrote about it in a magazine that’s going to have to remain nameless because if i typed the celeb’s name, my keyboard would explode in my face. ok?

anyway, jennifer described the dish as follows:

"It’s an extremely simple dish, ribbons of summer squash dressed with a drizzle of olive oil and a spritz of lemon juice, tossed with freshly grated parm and toasted pine nuts – just five simple ingredients, but they come together in perfect harmony. It’s particularly nice when you get a bite of everything together – the flavors and textures play really well together, with crunch and a slight bitterness from the pine nuts, the salty, pebbly parmesan, and the perky lemon dressing all jazzing up the mild, tender squash."

i highly recommend making this. it’s yet another example of the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts. pine nuts are pricey right now but find them in bulk and just buy a handful. or splurge and just freeze the rest until you make this – again and again.

oh, and one last thing about the swordfish. if you happened to warm some olive oil in a small pan with some capers and anchovies and garlic and red chili flakes and lemon zest and parsley? perhaps even a chunked home fresh tomato from your garden thrown in there too? and drizzled that over the fish before serving?

it would be yum-O!

the joke goes something like this: when it’s summer in nashville you need to lock your car doors when you go anywhere otherwise when you come back there will be a bushel of zucchini on your passenger seat.

and THEN what would you do? because sometimes zucchinis and yellow squash can be a little perplexing, if only due to the lack of excitement they tend to cause.

i was reading ruhlman’s last post and decided that a version of his sauteed zucchini recipe would be a perfect jumping off point for a pasta dinner with friends. it’s hot as hell out and i’m eating very lightly right now – paying for some recent past indulgences. i knew i owed you all a pasta dish and although there’s really no recipe here, i urge you to do what i did with ruhlman’s post and just get inspired and use up a few zucchini and squash from your csa haul or garden or local farmers market.

oh, so there’s that and i need to tell you about a gadget… because i use them on occasion and this one is kind of fun, as gadgets go…

enter: the saladacco spiral slicer…

photo from the sur la table web site…

i’ve never hidden the fact that my knife skills are pretty lame if not dangerous. i get by, barely, so i tend to rely heavily on my mandoline, food processor slicer attachment and the kindness of others. and on occasion, this nifty little device which does two things. it makes long curly ribbons out of firm vegetables and it also makes an angel hair like strand. fun with vegetables. good times.

2 minced shallots and about 6 minced garlic cloves got sweated in some olive oil

and then added to that was a bit of salt and red pepper flakes.

next in went the zucchini, yellow squash and carrots and a good amount of fresh thyme. after about 3 minutes i added some butter and hit it with a good squeeze of lemon juice. it was tossed with some spaghettini and you can tell by the color that i used one of those multi grain omega 3 high protein pastas – but in a perfect world where i didn’t have to think about fiber and protein – OR if you were coming to dinner, i would have just used white pasta because it’s just better.

the dish was finished with some lightly toasted mediterranean pine nuts which are both hard to find and expensive. since, you’ve come to expect that from me, i didn’t want to let you down.

oh and tomatoes. it is august after all…

i’m not exactly known for being a fan of the nashville restaurant scene. and that statement right there is one that gets me in a world of trouble around these parts. but it’s the very statement that launched ceF – and in 2 1/2 years i still stand by it firmly. dining out in this town has been – with few exceptions, relatively painful for me. and then tandy wilson came along…

city house opened two years ago and by now i suppose you could call me somewhat of a regular. it’s way on the other side of town from me, but if i’m going out to dinner, that’s the only place i want to spend my money. ok, sushi. there’s the exception. and savarino’s because i love corrado and his family and it’s a wonderful place to be on any given afternoon. oh, and patterson house. i really like that place too – serious cocktails and some decent small plates… and sure, there are a handful of others, and sometimes they surprise me. but overall there’s just not that much to speak of. and dropping a wad of cash on something that strives for mediocrity? i’d rather make myself a bowl of cacio e pepe ANYDAY.

but tandy cooks with a sensibility that speaks to me. even if a random dish misses the mark, i always appreciate where he was going with it. because i ‘get’ the food at city house in a big way. and if i had a restaurant, it’d feel very much like this place. but i will never have a restaurant. and so i eat here. and the fact that stephanie mixes me a fine, fine aviation, which is a rarity in almost any town – or city, delights me to no end.

the wood fired ovens reach a solid 750 degrees and the pizza dough undergoes a solid three day age. the roast chicken is consistently damn good and chef knows his way around a pig. tandy’s a snout to tail kinda guy that supports local farmers, sourcing his meat and produce to within any locavore’s comfort zone.

but it’s often the antipasti and the interesting salads that surprise me. and the one pictured above is a version of the one i had there this past friday night.. i roasted red and golden beets, sliced a still firm fuyu persimmon, mint, toasted walnuts, chili flakes and a drizzle of olive oil finished with a thoughtful placement of crunchy salt. all that and some ricotta salata. just beautiful.

it’s thoughtful plates like this one that excite me. i would never have put beets with persimmons yet somehow they are wonderful together. a dish like this is why city house continues to be both an inspiration and an oasis for me here in nashville.

and for the record, a bad dinner at a restaurant never makes me irritable or outraged. after all, it’s just one meal that i’m even lucky enough to get to eat. and really, when you’re out at a restaurant it’s more about the people, the evening – the memory.

but at home in my kitchen? a bad dinner? now that could really piss me off…

gina depalma would’ve been proud of my rendition. especially after my last fiasco. and mario batali would have happily served this at babbo with a scoop of their mascarpone gelato…

this cake was decided upon for a few reasons. but mainly it was the result of a "compromise". you see, the 13 year old, wanted chocolate. as in cake. or brownies. or perhaps a carrot cake. with cream cheese icing. and well, i didn’t. i wanted to make a galette. something rustic and simple with maybe some of the beautiful nectarines i’ve been seeing around. but she, the 13 year old, was so not interested. she was all like, "no thanks". so i seized the moment, approaching it as a learning opportunity and explained to her that seasonal mattered to me and that we could compromise. and when she looked at me quizically, i explained that a compromise basically would mean that neither one of us would get what we wanted… and she was all like "whatever", and went to watch the 12th season of the simpsons, now available on dvd.

and then while flipping through a few books i saw this. and it felt right. a perfect summer into fall cake. the tail end of the almost never ending zucchini, the brightness of lemon, along with the depth of toasted walnuts, cinnamon, ginger and clove – and olive oil – the clincher. i’m a big fan of cakes made with olive oil. the concept unleashes my inner italian-ness.

so i got right to it. and after the batter was prepared i called the 13 year old into the kitchen to lick the paddle, warning her it wouldn’t be your typical cakey/buttery/smooth batter – and she gave me the thumbs up. a good sign. but then i found myself looking down at the bowl and thinking, "there’s no way that this cake is going to set up", because the mixture appeared oddly thin. and yet through the nagic of HEAT, somehow after 45 minutes or so in the convection oven – suddenly i had perfection. and it was exactly as it should have been. and believe me when i tell you that no one is ever more surprised than i am when the cake turns out smashing… because the whole baking process ‘thing’ is always questionable around here. i’m not much of a baker, but i often bake very good things. and you know why? BECAUSE I CAREFULLY FOLLOW THE RECIPE. i know. imagine that…

but we’re talking bundt cake. and the glaze was nothing more than fresh lemon squeezed into sugar and whisked with a fork. so sure, this was easy as can be. but the final result was truly great. and the undeniable reason is merely the list of ingredients… thanks gina…

zucchini olive oil cake with lemon crunch glaze

dolce italiano – desserts from the babbo kitchen
by gina depalma

1 cup walnut pieces
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 teasppon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teasppons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup GOOD extra virgin olive oil (i’m liking the ‘murray’s cheese’ oil a lot these days)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchini)

for the glaze

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup confectioners sugar

preheat oven to 350 and position rack in the center.grease a bundt pan and then flour and tap out excess. you can also use that bakers spray that i always forget to buy.

place walnuts in a single layer and toast until golden brown and aromatic, 12-14 minutes. cool completely and finely chop in the food processor and set aside.

sift the flour baking soda, baking powder and salt and spices into a medium bowl. in an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (have you seen these?), beat the eggs, sugar and olive oil until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in the vanilla. scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition (unless you have one of these). beat in the dry ingredients all at once until thoroughly combined, then switch to medium and beat 30 seconds. beat in the zucchini and walnuts on low speed until completely incorporated.

pour the batter into the pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time to ensure even browning. the cake is done when a tester inserted into the center comes out clean and the sides have begun to pull away from the pan.

when the cake is baking, prepare the glaze: in a medium bowl whisk together the lemon juice and granualted sugar, then whisk in the confectioner’s sugar until the glaze is completely smooth.

allow the cake to cool in the oan for 10 minutes then carefully invert onto a wire rack. using a pastry brush, immediately brush the glaze over the entire surface of the warm cake, using all of the glaze. it will adhere to the cake and set as the cake cools. allow the cake to cool completely and the glaze to dry completely.

transfer the cake to a stand or serving plate and if desired lightly dust with confectioners’ sugar. any leftover cake may be wrapped in plastic and served the following day.

oh and hey, i garnished with some chopped up basil. i had some and well, i must tell you that the addition of fresh herbs to olive oil cakes? a natural…

heirloom tomato, zucchini, grilled louisiana shrimp, guanciale and torn basil with sauteed arugula

global cooling. or at least it feels that way. the weather here in nashville is struggling to hit 80, and that pretty much means that it’s just plain glorious. temperate and sunny, this including the days just past and the rest of the week to come. since on any other given year it could easily be 90+, this is what you wish – no, pray for – to the god of all things good.

and even though it’s the last days of august here in the deep south, the tomatoes are still extraordinary – and the zucchini is as overly prolific as usual. so i threw together a simple summer dinner using gulf shrimp and just a touch of la quercia guanciale, because i am a very enthusiastic fan of the jowl, choosing it over pancetta time and time again. it’s just well, porkier. AND WHEN HAS THAT EVER BEEN A BAD THING?

but there was a crisis… a culinary disaster of the very worst kind…

you know how when you decide to sprinkle a touch of red crushed chile peppers from the bottle and you’re talking to your friends and not paying close attention to what you’re doing and you unscrew the cap and shake… AND THE ENTIRE CONTENTS EMPTIES INTO YOUR PAN? well, i did that. but thankfully, my friend rick heard me scream and came flying to the rescue and was on it. we quickly removed as much of the pepper as we could. he carefully rinsed off the dangerously smothered zucchini and tomatoes while i chopped more vegetables to try and spread out the heat a bit… and really? perhaps in the end it was slightly warmer than i’d have wished for – but it wasn’t too bad at all – it was even kinda verydamngood. plus it was a cool evening, so, PERFECT!

i got lucky.

this is my kind of cooking. just winging it, using the best of what’s available. i thought about adding roasted peppers but it was just one more flavor that although would have worked, was unnecessary and i believe in the end would have detracted from the dish.

and so i am forever learning this… that if you have what is already perfect, do the least amount to it and then appreciate it for what it is. for awhile now the food i enjoy the most is an interesting combination of a small number of high quality ingredients.

amen.

it all began around a little jar of this…

mostarda mediterranean – from dario cecchini the eccentric tuscan butcher from panzano.

did you read ‘heat‘? god, i loved that book. bill buford writes about the years that he left his job as fiction editor at ‘new yorker magazine’ and worked unpaid in the kitchen of batali’s acclaimed babbo ristorante, and then, with both affection and a rhetorical shoulder shrug, introduces us to dario, a dante-quoting, opera singing character from the chianti region of tuscany. cecchini appears to be a one-of-a-kind, to say the very least, and his macellaria has now become a tourist attraction where countless foodies make the pilgrimage to hopefully catch a glimpse of this etruscan figure performing entire cantos from the inferno before his carnivorous audience.

and i suppose because even a butcher has to eat, dario cecchini is now offering some of his goods right here in the states. and me, being susceptible to such things was quick to grab a jar of this mostarda as soon as i laid my eyes upon it. $30. if only for the story…

and then over dinner one evening with my friend laura, a local chef here in town, i was telling her about my recent mostarda acquisition. and so we decided to do a dinner. a steak dinner as dario would have wanted. as tempted as i was to buy the grass fed lobel’s steaks because they have in the past blown my mind, the price is overly exorbitant. so i researched and clicked my way to heritage foods usa where i was able to come up with something a bit more apropo…

"Piedmontese cattle originated in the foothills of northwestern Italy and are thought to be a mix of the Auroch and Zebu cattle crossed over 25,000 years ago. We are especially fond of this breed, because Piedmont is also home to the Slow Food movement in Bra, Italy. Today, in the United States, a network of family farmers is raising the cattle on a pure vegetarian feed without the use of antibiotics and without added growth hormones.

Piedmontese is unique in that it contains myostatin, known as the "double muscle gene." Myostatin is only found in Piedmontese cattle and results in a natural tenderness. Though the beef is naturally lean, the flavor is rich and intense.

i tell you, i amaze myself sometimes. in keeping with the whole spirit of dario’s mostarda, i’d managed to find the perfect beef for it to accompany. and unlike lobel’s, it was palitably priced – and well, this was going to be fun.

i sent laura the link to "the jar" so she could see specifically what i was talking about and her response succinctly read, "dude, it’s pepper jelly". and really, that it was. except not nearly as hot as was promised. this "elixir’, as it was referrred to, rated pretty mild on the heat scale. but nevertheless, it was quite nice. and the steaks? well, they were ok. nothing special. i think dario would have blown a gasket had he tried them. the word is that he takes his meat very, very seriously.

oh, and did i mention the beautiful ramps that were foraged in ohio and then sent to my door? they were grilled with salt, pepper and olive oil. or what about the artichoke hearts, painstakingly cut, peeled and choked, then braised in olive oil, lemon, shallots, coriander and fennel seeds – all because of a dish i saw over at smitten kitchen a few weeks ago? did i tell you about those? no? i’m so sorry, because they were very good.

and there was much more. it was even perhaps a bit over the top. there were pizzas flying out of my oven and pig liver pate wrapped in homecured bacon and the most incredible homemade blood sausage… and then there was the grilled watermelon dripping with balsamic vinegar (all of the aforementioned from chris) and laura showed up with orange fennel meringues that were truly perfection, along with a dreamy panna cotta. and i think i’m forgetting a few things, but well, it’s been a little while…

there were 9 of us huddled around my kitchen banquette that evening. i have a pretty good size dining room with a table that seats 10 easily, but no one ever left the kitchen.

for the record, earlier that very same day, i had a late brunch at my house and made a perfect carbonara for 3 friend – with guanciale, farm fresh eggs, pecorino, grana padano, and finely chopped ramps.

beginning monday, the following morning i literally drank nothing but tea with lemon and agave, along with one protein shake a day – for 5 days straight.

true story.

the literal translation of bagna cauda means warm bath. but in my world bagna cauda is a truly delectable warm and sexy mixture of anchovy, garlic, butter and olive oil in which to dip vegetables, bread and really whatever else you deem appropriate. because dear readers, i am not here to judge you and you certainly don’t need to report back to me…. but just so you know, i personally settled upon baking more of the wine infused batali pizza dough, this batch completely unadorned and fortified with a cup of ‘white whole wheat’ flour, along with simply grilled tiger shrimp, raw celery stalks, chunks of red and yellow bell peppers, radicchio and endive. sadly, there were no cardoons in sight. had there been i would’ve been even happier than i already was – if that could have been possible.

i finally bought a can of "real" anchovies, unlike that unrealized inferior product that comes in little tins and jars. this is the industrial sized can from italy. the kind that real chefs use. because although i am a hack, i still want my food to be as good as i can make it. and since i’m only willing to go so far, i wind up relying heavily on the best ingredients i can get my hands on. you can pretty much fool all of the people all of the time with this method of cooking. take that, abe.

so let’s talk about this whole anchovy business, shall we?

this is a very large and empty can that once housed a school of sicilian anchovies weighing in at one kilo.

i forgot to take a shot of the full can, if only so i could show you the salt packed anchovies all neatly crisscrossed in rows. i only used about 8 of the little fish and the rest quickly went into a container and were covered with olive oil to keep them relatively oxygen free and ready for action at my beck and call – for the next 2 years – which is about how long it’ll take me to go through them. AND by the way you have to chop off the tails and remove their guts and backbone. i was not aware of this prior to my $28 purchase. but if i had it all to do over again, i’d snap up a can of this fishy goodness in a ny minute. they are barely comparable to what i’ve used in the past…. and if mario were god, and if god were in heaven – he’d be smiling down at me. as it stands now he has no real idea that i exist which – funny enough, is how i feel about god…

but i digress…

so i made the bread. and then i made the bagna cauda. after that i chopped up the peppers and grilled the shrimp. the spread got laid out on my table along with the lettuces and a damn fine bottle of barbera (2006 agostino pavia & figli barbera d’asti ‘blina’) that at $16 just thrilled me. and it was uncorked. and then we ate. and it perhaps wasn’t a gorgeous spread, inappropriate for even a novice photo shoot such as this – but it was incredibly good to eat. of this much i can assure you.

naturally, the calories were relatively high but i had eaten sparsely (again) that day, and once again reigning it way back the next. but it felt like clean food. i felt really good after i ate. and after weighing myself yesterday i’m down about 11 lbs in 6 weeks… so in 4 months i should be me again. and i will have done it without torturing myself. torture is bad. when it comes to myself i have a total no torture policy, though i make no guarantees what i am capable of doing to you.

and back by popular demand: grace, the amazing growing puppy - at 14 weeks.

(she’s all mine and you can’t have her…)

as i’ve been going on and on about – ad nauseam, i’m 5 weeks into a pretty serious diet shift. but in the name of sanity and well, umm, cosmc fairness i felt the need to make my own pasta. so the other day i ate lightly, preparing for a higher calorie dinner – and then yesterday i really watched the calories, keeping my average daily intake to where it needed to be. was i hungry? a little. did i live? well, here i am to tell the tale…

my daughter is 27. and although we met when she was already 12, i made it a point to raise her on very good quality food. i baked all our bread, made all our pizzas, cookies, cakes – and shopped almost exclusively at the local health food market. it mattered to me that she would grow up knowing the difference between what i considered to be good food – and what was readily available to a teenager in nashville. so these days, when she shows up at the house i love nothing more than to cook her the food she craves, dishes she’d never make for herself. also now that there’s a 6 year old in tow, i really enjoy having the opportunity to turn my sweet boy on to new taste sensations and hear him exclaim "wow, grand claud – i really like this!".

but i’ve been being careful. oh so painfully careful. making the right choices. keeping it lean. counting. weighing. doing the weight loss math. but here’s the deal. because we all have our limits, right? diet or no diet. there will be pasta. and the only thing better than pasta is homemade pasta. and my girl is a pasta fiend. really she’s a fool for gnocchi… and i need to get on that. but pasta always makes her very happy which in turn satisfies me to no end. see? pasta. it’s the quintessential win/win. of this i am quite sure.

the italian dish had written about a batali pasta that she’d made not long ago, and after lusting after it i filed it away in my non existent memory and promptly forgot all about it. but a few days ago when flipping through the ‘babbo cookbook’ for ideas, my eyes fell upon a recipe that immediately appealed to me and also seemed vaguely familiar. sure enough it was that very same one. destiny at play, no doubt. so i caught a ride to the market (still carless) and bought parsnips. i also managed to lay my hands on some marigold yolked farm fresh eggs and i defrosted the hunk of pancetta that tom from lazzaroli’s had sold me a few months back.

the recipe called for black pepper pasta and with all my pasta making to date, i’ve yet to add in anything to the flour besides some eggs and a touch of oil and water. i used mostly 00 flour and added about 20% semolina bringing it to about 4 cups of flour total. this batch took 4 eggs, 2 yolks, about a teaspoon or so of olive oil and maybe 2 tablespoons of water. i barely measured anything and well, it came out wonderfully. the miracle of pasta making never ceases to amaze me. the next time i will be sure and grind the pepper finer as i noticed the pasta tore in a few places from the bigger pieces of peppercorn dragging through the roller. while the pasta strips dried out a bit, i decided instead of making fettuccine with my cutters, i’d just roughly cut the pasta into thick rectangular strips. i’ve no idea the exact name for this shape but it’s like a maltagliati.

the pancetta gets browned and then removed from the pan. in goes about one tablespoon of butter and two of olive oil. the 4 parsnips were peeled and chopped into coins and browned until crisp, next went the leeks. i used 3, sliced into quarters and when wilted and a bit caramelized, i added some salt, deglazed the pan with an italian red and in went chopped parsley and the pancetta. the pasta was drained and added to the pan along with about 1/4 cup of the pasta water. finito. serve with grated parmegiano.

the red wine was kind of a no-brainer. i can’t imagine mario not wanting you to deglaze that pan – but well, he didn’t mention it and i just had to. after all, i had just fried a BACONlike substance in that pan which is a rarity around here so there was no way i wasn’t going to get all that flavor back. really mario. wtf?

and the leeks were an afterthought. i had bought them for no particular reason and when grabbing the parsnips from the refrigerator, i thought it all made sense. and for those of you suspicious about parsnips (and yes, lauren – i am looking at you, honey) it’s high time you saw this vegetable as versatile. it’s delicious. and nutritious. any other applicable words ending in -cious, please let me know.

but hey… dear readers, i just needed to bring attention to my batali guilt. after all, i defiled his recipe. certain chefs have no real impact on me. i’ll substitute. i’ll mess with the best. but mario is brilliant. mario is in my top five. and i overrode his good judgment without any second thought,

my god. what have i become?

i used tilapia. o’charley’s perpetual "catch of the day". and really,  it’s a nothing kind of fish. farmed. not terribly exciting, yet i buy it all the time. tilapa is inexpensive. you can’t seem to overcook this fish. it crisps up with minimal oil. and it goes well with almost anything and everything. it’s definitely not the fish you have a fling with, it’s the one you marry. i have flings with, say, chilean sea bass – expensive and rich. but tilapia is your everyday fish. you can totally count on tilapia.

so my latest greatest is to chop up a fennel bulb and throw it in a pan with 2 teaspoons of oil and get it all browned up. i added minced garlic and some capers – an anchovy would work nicely too, and then a minute later some chopped fresh tomatoes (good canned are an option). and oregano. i love oregano. it’s right up there with thyme as my favorite herb. and rosemary. and basil. anyway, just season that up, add a bit of water, cook it down for a few minutes and put it on top of whatever’s going. fish. chicken. pork chops. pasta. italian sausage, giant lima beans… then add a few good olives. the fennel frond garnsh was for you – because i care. especially after the beige food assault of ’09.

while adhering to ‘the plan’, not only do i count every calorie but i weigh everything. because i am neurotic that way and because i secretly kind of like it. i realize this eccentric ‘production’ isn’t for everyone but i can’t impress upon you enough how effective it is. i am trying to set myself up for success. because failure is just not an option. speaking of which, do you remember when wynonna went on oprah, all "i need to put myself on my list because i do sooooo much for my fans and family that i have no time to eat right even though i have a personal chef and trainer on staff"? it just wasn’t pretty on so very many levels. (personally, i think she left oprah’s studio and her first stop was shoney’s… bless her heart. (fyi – this is what they say in the south.))

i often make this for dinner even with fennel at $4 a bulb. and hey, by the way, is it me or are ‘whole foods’ produce prices out of control? anyway, the good news is that you get everything on that plate for in the neighborhood of 375 calories – and that right there is a caloric bargain. and c’mon. you gotta admit. that’s awesome…

UPDATE!!! THIS JUST IN:

Farm-raised tilapia has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, but high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, new research shows. Researchers say this combination could be dangerous for some patients with conditions including heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto immune diseases.

The study is in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Senior study author Dr. Floyd H. Chilton is quoted in the article: "If you’re in a vulnerable population such as a heart disease patient, you need to be very careful with what you’re eating, and that includes everything. But when it comes to fish, there’s not a more important thing you can do for heart disease than eat the right type of fish or take dietary fish oil. There is evidence that you may harm yourself by eating the wrong kind of fish, and [farmed] tilapia and catfish are the two that fall into that category."

and now 2 complimentary puppy pics of grace at 10 weeks old on her 7th day at home. because she is just too damn cute not to show off.

no no, not the economic kind although that is being taken into consideration around here too. but i’m talking calories… i’m budgeting my calories. big time.

after playing with a few different methods of how to make this whole weight loss thing happen in my world, i finally decided that i had to go back to counting calories. there is just no other way. for me. i’m too much of an eater. too devious with my rationale. so this keeps me painfully honest. and with a nutritional computer program i can enter all the details of my food and – voilà – it’s been this many fat grams today, that much fiber… and since i have decided to stick to 1000 (yes 1000) calories a day, while making it all pretty nutritious – as in none of the "100 calorie snack packs", of for instance, oreo mini cakesters or those minuscule weight watchers cakes – every thing i eat matters. luckily, i like a challenge. 1000 is low but if you don’t crap it up with empty calories, it’s amazing what you can cram in there.

wait.. was that just the sound of every male reader clicking away from this post and ceF forever?

i won’t bore you with the specifics of what i eat most of the time… well maybe i will, but not right now. it’s all fairly plain. all close to the earth with the exception of some boca burgers and protein shakes. and then i cook. and then i think… is this even blogable? i mean i’ve made about 3 pots of soup since i last posted. most of them are all variations of this lentil soup. and i highly, but highly recommend this soup. and lately, i’ve been on a kale kick so that’s the green that gets tossed into the pot. a bag of my rancho gordo cannellini’s mingled quite nicely with some french green lentils, and for the non-weight-conscious i grated a bunch of parmegiano into the bowls. everyone loved it with big hunks of bread. but i was happy with this soup all on its own. i mean, my life is good. and i can eat baguettes and cheese again one day. just not today. or tomorrow. or february, march. or april. and you know what? i will LIVE! and come spring i will feel and look better. it’s the big cheese/baguette trade-off of ’09..

so the other night i had to use up a big beautiful pristine looking head of cauliflower. i sliced an onion and put it, along with the florets onto a baking sheet and then sprayed it with a misting of olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt. the vegetables roasted for awhile on high heat and required some moving around every 15 minutes or so for a total of about 45 minutes. i also threw some walnuts into a pie tin and toasted them until they turned deep golden brown. god, i love toasted walnuts…

i put a pot of water onto boil and took out some whole wheat spaghetti. when the pasta was cooked i tossed it into a bowl with the roasted cauliflower and onion and hit it with a touch of olive oil, thyme, meyer lemon juice, a drizzle of reduced balsamic vinegar and red pepper flakes. it’s crowning glory was a sparse sprinkling of the toasted walnuts. my portion was 2 ounces of spaghetti which alone was 180 calories. and yes, dear readers, 2 ounces is not much. it’s even kind of amusing. but i loaded on the roasted cauliflower and when it was said and done, i was pretty full.

i know i know… multi textured very beige food…

it’s a version of this recipe from alice waters that i made last april, sans cheese and the oil was cut to probably about 1/8 the amount i’d have normally used. and we loved it. and yes, there was no salty, richness of the ricotta salata. no extra virgin olive oil to coat each strand of pasta that would have made it taste the way it would in a perfect world… but i can eat these things again one day. just not today. maybe in may… and you know what? at the risk of being redundant, i will LIVE! and i will fit into all my very cool summer clothes again. and my jeans. i miss my jeans. i miss my other body… it’s under the extra poundage though… it’s there waiting to be freed…

and it’s a one day at a time thing. it’s all in the consistent chipping away at the extra blobules of fat on my body that has taken not only my good health and energy, but even some of my joy. and like, that’s totally crazy…

no pasta, pork or pudding is ever going to be worth that…

in the name of full disclosure:

dear readers, i am fully aware that this is a touchy subject for many of you. our culture demands women to be model thin and it is has made us into a gender plagued with eating disorders and deprivation. this country is getting fatter by the year, juvenile obesity is on the rise. commercials tell us to eat crap food, desserts at many of the national chains check-in at 1000 calories alone – and a fine dinner out is usually about 1500+ calories - EASY, not to mention the wine… and then we all go and sit in front of our computers. it’s confusing. but in the end we must all find our way.

i’m not the thin girl. i never have been – ever in all my life. but at 5’9" with a medium frame i look pretty damn good at 140 (better at 135 – but i just can’t get there so i’ve given up) and can still pull it off at 150. but i let the black stretchy pants assure me i was ok. and the next thing i knew i weighed as much as cary, who at 6’2" is 165. i am posting this for the world to see. i am 47 1/2 years old. i have limited mobility due to an injury that happened when i was 18. i use a wheelchair. and this is no excuse for anything. we all have our shit. i’m lazy and should get my ass to the Y every day to swim. i’m a strong swimmer. in the spring and fall i bike, but that’s a seasonal thing….

like you, food is a strong passion for me. i know great food and have been fortunate enough to be around it much of my life. i’ve traveled to eat for years, i’ve thrown my hands up in despair of the local restaurants and taken to my own kitchen. i. love. to. eat. i’m a plate cleaner from way back.

it sure would be really nice to be naturally thin, to have the metabolism of a hummingbird… but it was not to happen for me in this lifetime. my family fights fat. my brother eats out nearly every night – lavishly. and also hits the treadmill hard every single day. it’s the only way he can maintain. my dad used to eat light all week, come home from work every evening and do his floor exercises followed by a healthy dinner – and then he’d let loose on the weekends, whereas my mom smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank a lot of coffee to stay svelte… her parents were both obese.

and so it goes.

since there is no magic pill. i count calories. and i hope for some enlightenment that will lead me to a way of better balance once i get back down. god knows i’ve danced this dance before… and, i apologize. i know i have changed the tone here at ceF with a focus on the FRET. but i need to stop the madness.nothing tastes as good as being thin feels. you can quote me on that. it’s (ahem) totally original!

i appreciate having the forum to share this all with you. i hope my food will still turn you on…

ps – we adopted a puppy. meet grace. 9 weeks old. australian shepherd/lab mix. she is a very sweet girl…

welcome to the family…

merle, my loved and adored burmese kitty: february 1, 1994 – december 25, 2008

happy new year. it’s been so seemingly long now since i’ve written that i barely know where to begin except to say that i’ve thought of you. often. like every time i cooked or ate i’d think – i’m a food blogger and i should be telling somebody something about this. and then i’d go watch a movie.

but first of all, thanks for supporting ‘menu for hope V‘ and for bidding on the mullet roe from ‘rk’s black hammock smokehouse’. the total worldwide effort raised over $60k which will make a real difference in the lives of so many african children. or it could buy me the bmw i’ve had my eye on. you decide. anyway, i hope that a ceF reader wins the mullet roe because then you’ll finally understand just what i’ve been going on and on about regarding this esoteric florida delicacy.

and please note that i truly believe that you are all more than worthy of this amazing foodstuff and i can assure you that if i were empress there’d be mullet roe sacs for each and every one of you. because that it the kind of empress i would be. and if being empress were an electable position, smoked mullet roe and bottarga would be my platform, and my campaign slogan would be "smoke fish eggs, not your enemy" or "more sacs, less tax". granted, the concept needs tons of work. but i would totally be there for you in this way.

and thanksgiving in december was finally celebrated on ny’s eve. and after i read through every suggestion that you left in the comments, we took it all to heart and as many of you suggested, opted for sheer simplicity. we kept the food close to the ground with few ingredients. i roasted 2 chickens using the infallible zuni café method of salting smaller sized birds and covering loosely in the fridge for 2 or 3 days, then hitting them with a very high heat for about 50 minutes. the result – crisp skin and moist meat every time. i baked a simple cornbread using olive oil and made the stuffing using that and chicken sausage, red onions, garlic, celery, sage and veal stock. i also caramelized some brussels sprouts in a heavy skillet and hit them with a balsamic glaze and then roasted some sweet potatoes in nothing more than olive oil and salt. the cranberry sauce had fresh orange zest along with the juice, just a bit of brown sugar and a cinnamon stick.

at dinner, santos toasted to his beautiful wife rudrani, recognizing the auspicious evening and upcoming year with an excellent bottle of tattinger’s and we ate our dinner with a bottle of cotes du rhone. we felt grateful to not only be alive – but together, looking forward to the best year of our lives, if only because it is the one we will be living.

and being the exciting people that we are, cary and i were in bed at 11:30pm and flicked on the tv to watch all the festivities in nyc and do the whole pretend countdown (we’re on central time) and DID ANYONE ELSE SEE DICK CLARK AND GET FREAKED THE HELL OUT? it was, shall we say, NOT GOOD. it wasn’t the slurring due to the stroke it was "the face". he looked like he had died 2 days before and was embalmed, then put in full make-up and propped up in a chair. NOT GOOD. we both got the willies and quickly changed the channel. so much for going out with grace… i think much of america collectively gasped when they saw him. it kind of broke my heart.

and there was actually some food worth mentioning that happened to get cooked and then photographed in my kitchen during the tail end of ’08. so i thought i’d purge what was left in my files and hit you with it all at once in the name of starting fresh and not being wasteful.

this first dish, which i’ve now made perhaps 4x and have neglected to mention it to you, dear readers, is a smashing thing to eat. it’s a total wow and you need to make this one soon. grilled haloumi with caramelized fennel. oh. my.

just grill the fennel in some olive oil until it caramelizes, toss it with chopped italian parsley and spritz with lemon. then top it with the grilled halloumi. it is so much better than you might imagine it to be. so even if you are sitting there thinking, "no – i get it. that would be excellent", then you go and make it and it’s like crazy good and everyone thinks you are a brilliant cook and talks about you for days on end. i saw this dish on an australian blog called souvlaki for the soul. besides his beautiful food, the guy is a serious photographer. anyway, you heard it here second. now go make this.

jennifer? i told you i was going to make this and i did. and then i bought the book because ‘sunday suppers at lucques‘ by suzanne goin is most definitely a must own. and romesco is a must have in your repertoire. it works with nearly everything and although i’ve no recollection what fish this was, it was an excellent accompaniment to the romesco along with steamed broccoli.

romesco sauce
from ‘sunday suppers at lucques’ by suzanne goin

5 ancho chiles
2 T raw almonds
2T blanched hazelnuts
1 ¼ c extra virgin olive oil
1 slice country bread, about 1 inch thick
1/3 cup canned san marzano tomatoes
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 T chopped flat leaf parsley
½ lemon for juicing
kosher salt

preheat the oven to 375. soak the chiles in hot water for about 15 minutes, then seed and stem them. spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for 8-10 minutes. remove from the oven and set aside. fry the bread in a bit of the olive oil, then let it cool and cut into cubes. return the pan to the stove, heat the chiles for about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes. cook them until they break down and the juices are reduced, then turn off the heat and set aside.

pulse the nuts, bread and garlic in a food processor, then add the chile and tomato mixture and pulse again to combine. pour in more olive oil while the machine is running until you have the texture you want. taste for seasoning, then stir in the lemon juice and parsley.

ok. i know. not beautiful. but i am so incredibly proud of what’s going on in that bowl you just couldn’t know. you see, peter and heather are constantly cooking all these amazing asian dishes filled with mysterious ingredients to the point where i personally find it to be borderline between annoying and inferiority complex causing. my problem? i’d say so. but a few weeks ago i whipped up this little number using only what i had on hand. undoubtedly a red bell pepper would have come in handy along with some bamboo shoots or something else with color but it tasted pretty damn good and it contained the following, in no particular order:

white miso
mirin
shoyu
raw chicken breast
a chopped shallot
frozen peas
sriracha sauce
fresh rice noodles – sold refrigerated in the vacuum sealed bag
gochujang
sesame oil
my poultry stock

never to be duplicated, but again, it was a proud moment – especially since there is no chinese food in nashville worthy of buying unless you count ‘pf changs’. sad but true.

presenting, farinata – a thin chickpea pancake/pizza like thing that’s pretty popular in liguria. i saw farinata mentioned somewhere and then i found this recipe on the food & wine website – and well it’s very much my kind of food. yes yes, i scorched the top a bit with my broiler but really it was no big deal – just a very surface ring of black. you basically mix garbanzo flour and water and let it sit for a couple of hours. then you preheat the oven to 500f, skim any foam off the batter and add salt, rosemary (i think i used sage) and olive oil. then heat a cast iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes, add some olive oil to the pan, add the batter and bake. again, i made the mistake of deciding to brown the top a bit more and i took my eye off the oven…

but there were no complaints and it went fast…

this was from the ‘king arthur flour whole grain baking‘ book. i’m pretty sure this recipe called for peaches but i loaded it up with 3 pears being that i had just bought a huge box of them to support a friends daughter school choir. great idea… so much better than gift wrapping or magazines. anyway, i lowered the amount of sugar the recipe called for and well, cary ate the entire loaf in one day.

vegetables on brown basmati rice. exciting, i know. please try and contain yourselves. but for the record we’ve got brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, garlic, broccoli and some lovely briney olives lightly sauteed in olive oil and finished with a balsamic glaze. and i must tell you, it was quite delicious. and since i took a picture of it, i felt the need to share. because not only am i needy that way, but also because the rice had the perfect bite and the vegetables were cooked to that crisp but not overdone finish. i got lucky on this one. it was a moment in time where all the planets aligned just so, and the vegetable gods smiled down upon me. and i was grateful and appreciative and all those things that the vegetable gods expect one to be.

scarlett runners from rancho gordo dusted with espelette. there’s some pan fried tilapia back there with a spicy green olive tapenade on top. but the beans and the espelette were seriously good. and even more seriously basque.

but regarding the espelette… like if ever you were to get some? think eggs. scrambled, deviled, fried or perhaps just one orange egg yolk sitting atop a small mound of sheeps milk ricotta mixed with a bit of orange zest, sprinkled with this extraordinary pepper and then tucked carefully between 2 sheets of thin pasta…. yes. think that.

so dear readers, for the record – my personal ‘o9 resolution is to lean down both physically and financially. and i’m heading in that direction, yes i am. and there’ll be more on that later.

and although i may be 4 days late, allow me to raise my virtual glass to you. here’s to a kinder, gentler new year…

except i used a squash. a squash that masquerades as a pumpkin.

so really, you would never know that this wasn’t an actual pumpkin. unless i told you, which i am. and i think that even by tasting, you’d still never know. because this squash was fleshy, dry, sweet and well, deliciously pumpkiny – and not to confuse things but it was even sweet potatoey.

i used what i’m pretty sure is known as an ‘ambercup’ squash, along with 2 smaller ‘kabochas’ that i had bought 2 weeks ago. as it turns out, ambercups and kabochas are related, both being part of the squash family called the "buttercup". personally, i am from the greenbaum family line and also have many cousins, but i’m not sure if we taste alike nor do i want to find out. quite frankly many of our cousinly characteristics are so vastly different - and on too many levels to even begin to mention, that i would highly doubt it. except that we are all jewish - and beyond that i’m not even really sure what parallel is being drawn here… except that maybe jews taste alike. and from there i’d have to surmise, being the quasi food knowledgeable person that i am, that this would highly depend on what the individual jew was eating. whereas most squash tend to eat the same things as in water and daylight. 

have i lost you yet?

so yesterday i was on the nytimes dining site looking for bittman’s whole wheat super speedy no-knead bread recipe and somehow i came across a link to a slew of pumpkin recipes, which took me to a list of archived recipes, which with one click took me here. i really liked the sound of this dish but what cemented the deal was the date. because i realized that when this recipe was first published almost 4 years ago to the day, americans were being asked to choose their next president. and the talking heads were talking, and the commercials were in full swing and the politicians were hitting us with everything they had and well, you needed a roasted stuffed pumpkin just to cheer you the hell up. that and a few glasses of vino.

i took major liberties with this recipe, using what i had in the house. the recipe called for one 7 lb. pumpkin, basmati rice, dried cranberries, saffron, orange zest and vegetable stock. i used 3 squash (the one pictured plus 2 smaller kabochas), white long grain rice, currants, dried apricots and a zip-lock bag from my freezer whose contents had started off as a vegetable stock and finished as the strainings from my last risotto which had gotten a bit too soupy on me. so this broth/stock had a lot of tomato/parmigiano flavor happening all on its own – but i took a chance, and really it worked out better than i’d hoped.

roasted stuffed pumpkin
heavily adapted from the ny times food section – october 27, 2004

note: after further research i am pretty sure that this is from a nigella lawson article/recipe as the dates match up….

7 lb sugar pumpkin or assorted squash
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 c cup currants
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
2 cups white rice
4 cups stock of choice
salt

heat oven to 400 degrees. Fill a kettle with water, and bring to a boil. about an inch below the top of the pumpkin’s "shoulders," about where it would be cut to carve a jack-o’-lantern, slice a lid from top of pumpkin, and set it aside. remove seeds and fibrous flesh from inside.

in a large saucepan over medium-low heat, heat the oil, and sauté the onion until it is softened. Add 2 minced garlic cloves, and sauté for 30 seconds. Stir in the dried fruit, ginger and allspice. add the rice, and stir until it is glossy. pour in stock, and bring to a boil. cover, and reduce heat as low as possible. cook for 15 minutes. meanwhile rub the inside of pumpkin with some salt .

when rice has cooked for 15 minutes, it will be damp and not very fluffy. adjust seasoning to taste, and spoon into pumpkin cavity. press lid firmly on top. It may sit above the stuffing a bit like a jaunty cork. wrap bottom three inches of pumpkin in a double layer of foil to protect it from contact with water during baking. place in a roasting pan, and add about 1 inch of boiling water to pan.

bake the pumpkin until it is tender when pierced with a knife, about 1 1/2 hours. (If there is resistance when pumpkin is pierced, allow more baking time.) to serve, remove pumpkin from pan, and allow it to rest for about 10 minutes. discard foil, and place pumpkin on a serving platter.

a jaunty cork. gotta love that.

you can then cut it into wedges as one would do with a cake. it holds together beautifully. all in all it was a big hit around here. last night i was feeding vegetarians as well as those that chose to embellish their stuffed squash with some leftover pulled pork. illustrating how you can serve it as a side or as a main. it goes with just about anything and would make a great leftover lunch – i’m thinking with a poached egg on top because that is my automatic culinary embellishment…

and the recipe? it’s just a loose reference…

yes yes, scallops again. and again and again. have i mentioned how we love them over here? and have you seen the scallops that have been available lately? i’m not sure i even want to know how exactly it is that they are getting so huge, but i bought one yesterday that was like a small tenderloin, weighing in at 5.5 ounces.

but hey, i like them big because then it is ever so easy to sear the wholly hell out of them and still have them be good and rare in the middle. because that right there is what it’s all about in the world of scallop cooking. achieving the perfect crusty deep golden exterior that is basically pure umami – while not rendering the meat inside to a hard puck-like substance.

this dish was totally ripped off from a local restaurant here in town called 360 bistro. chef john david crow makes a dish like this that i absolutely love and so i decided to try my hand at replicating my last dinner there – or at the very least, come close. chef crow is a friend and i almost called him to get some pointers, but then i just got to cooking and well, i am telling you – 20 minutes from start to finish and we were eating a damn fine plate of food. which is once again proof positive that cooking does not have to be a long, drawn out laborious process. this was truly quick and painless with a huge payoff.

both the apple and the cauliflower were roughly chopped and thrown into separate pans with some water, covered and left to steam about 10 minutes. the cauliflower was then thrown into the food processor minced garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. while it pureed i drizzled in about 1/4 cup of my best olive oil. when i stopped the processor and spooned a bit of the cauliflower into my mouth i smiled. it was absolutely exquisite. dear readers, mashed potatoes have nothing on this. i am telling you. trust me. i care about you. all of you. this cauliflower puree? a winner… and yes, go butter or cream it up if you feel you must, but after this, i was giving the ol’ arteries a break. and really, a very good buttery spanish olive fit the bill wonderfully.

by this time the apple was soft and it got thrown into the chinoise sans water, and strained down to a very fine consistency. the sauce then went back on the stove to reduce down a bit more with some sugar and a pinch of salt.

the scallops got a good deep sear and were plated atop the cauliflower and then drizzled with the apple reduction. the parsley was ‘just because’ it was a rather drab and colorless dish – but regardless of its pallor, i am telling you… this was phenomenal. and on the healthy scale it ranked pretty high.

except we ate the entire head of cauliflower. the 2 of us. and as good as it was in the moment, it was A LOT of food.

an aside: i went through a raw phase once where nearly eveything got pureed. nuts, seeds and vegetables make delicious pates but the quantities get skewed when it’s all in a slice or a ball. i’d make chocolate cakes with nothing but nuts, avocado, coconut oil, agave and raw cocoa powder and the fat/calorie count was high as a kite. also raw macadamias are dangerously good when pureed with nothing but salt and onion…

the scallop thing? we’ve got it bad. and being the versatile little buggers that they are, it’s fun to dress them up according to what’s happening in your refrigerator, the season, or just your mood…

scallops, it’s what’s for dinner…

              

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 made this up. i just opened up my fridge and started grabbing jars and after the 4th i stopped. i suppose i’d call this dish moroccan. i mean, i could really call it anything i pleased – as long as i didn’t call it late for dinner… hee.

i just grabbed some organic roasted peanut butter, harissa, preserved lemons and some honey – and that was the sauce. is this a sauce? well it is now. cause i made it up. honestly we really liked this. it wasn’t too much of any one thing and it kind of transformed the 4 ingredients into an entity unto itself – "ceF’s moroccan’ish sauce". the carrots and chickpeas were sauteed in blood orange juice, freshly ground cumin, with a touch of sugar and salt. the fish was pan fried tilapia, served over brown rice pasta with chopped green onions.

all in all, it was really freakin’ good. i’ve got a small jelly jar full, and i’m thinking its next appearance will be with a roasted chicken. or seared scallops. or a grilled flank steak.

hey, did i tell you that i made it up?

this picture is taken in pre-oven-roasted status. sadly, the post-oven-roasted photo op just never happened, and now these olives are long gone – brought to a dinner party and set down beside some mighty fine cheeses and bread – and then there was all that wine… i meant to remember and i just didn’t. anyway, it kind of looked – well, just like this but the fennel was cooked. but. that all being said… these olives were so totally wonderful that it was worth posting about because you, dear readers, deserve to know such things despite the fact that i slacked on the ‘after’ shot. simply roast the finest green olives (with pits) that you can find, along with some olive oil, lots of orange zest, lots of rosemary, some peeled garlic, minced hot peppers and sliced fennel – about 45 minutes at 350f. serve warm – not hot – and be sure to warn your guests about the pits to avoid any potential law suits. one would think pitted olives might be the way to go, but unless you’re buying them from an incredibly fresh source – usually meaning that you live on the north west coast, or italy, or spain or southern france or greece or all the very many places that are not tennessee (i think we may have wineries here too but the thought is just too scary…) i think the pit holds the flavor in the olive longer. i could be wrong here, so choose your olives at your own risk.

this dish is brought to you by ‘i’m mad and i eat‘, a longtime favorite food blog of mine, who consistently taunts me with her northern californian locavore ways including a plethura of painfully perfect produce and meats – regularly regaling me by righteously rubbing my face in her very own garden of fresh vegetables and heavily laden backyard fruit bearing trees – on a constant basis. And. I. Quote:

"Let me tell you about a personal favorite flavorizer this time of year. Orange rind. I gots the oranges (and so does the food bank; we’re taking two huge boxes of oranges tomorrow). This simple dish of roasted green olives took a little bath in olive oil mixed with orange zest, some peeled garlic, and sliced hot peppers. No salt needed; the olives are salty. These are soft cured, velvety, buttery green olives from the farmers market."

ummm, Go Titans?

a friend dropped in tonight, detouring just slightly off the path of an israeli couscous buying excursion.  i had offered to cook for her and i was fortunate that she was agreeable because these days i seem to feel an undefined obligation to ‘nablopomo‘ my life away, relentlessly chained to both the kitchen and the computer simultaneously (a.k.a. my usual life), and with the need to cook. 

my friend is a vegetarian which is a pretty comfortable genre for me.  my life consists quite happily of numerous meatless days.  at the beginning of this year i was a raw vegan for a solid 4 months – just because.  and now i’m not.  but i could be again.  you just never know with me.

i believe one of the most impressive food bloggers that exists hands down is heidi from ’101 cookbooks‘.  her recipes are always impeccable, her photography is true art and her voice is kind and real.  and she’s a vegetarian.  so today i wandered around her site until i spotted our dinner.  i had everything i needed except a slice of montrachet, fresh thyme and a red onion.  perfect.

i am the proud owner of a 5.5 lb. bag of semi-pearled farro from market hall.  i’d seen that it was on “sale”, if only minorly - and i decided to stock up.  i’m growing quite fond of this nutty, chewy little spelt like grain.  i also just happened to have on my counter one of my infamous csa butternut squashes just begging to get used.  i’m thinking csa veggies somehow have a greater guilt attached to them.  these vegetables know they were a challenge to begin with and to remain unused is to, quite frankly, reduce you to a failure as a cook.  all that to say, my kitchen has been a tough room these past few months.

i read heidi’s post carefully, in the end making only a few small adaptions.  i upped the fresh thyme, scaled down both oils and added a few grinds of black pepper. and i never minced some of the onions after they roasted – but that was only because i forgot.  once i had my mise en place i never referred back to the recipe or measured a thing.

i began by deeply toasting the walnuts in a 350 degree oven until they were fragrant and well browned.  when cooled they were roughly chopped and set aside.  then i put the oven up to 375 and began to prepare the vegetables for roasting.  the squash was cut into 1/2 inch cubes, the red onion sectioned into eighths and it all went on a baking sheet with maldon salt, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  i ended up using my ‘whole foods ’365′ spanish olive oil’ rather than the yellingbo pictured since i was just roasting and the subtleties of a great olive oil would be lost in the heat of the moment.

the vegetables needed about 20 minutes, tossing twice to make sure they were getting browned on all sides, and out they came.

my semi- pearled farro was soaked in water for 20 minutes, then drained and boiled in fresh water for about 20 more and drained again.  the farro and the vegetables were then added to a mixing bowl along with some salt, pepper, the chopped walnuts and some walnut oil.

the farro and roasted vegetables then got plated with a sprinkling of fresh thyme and some good montrachet.  the beauty of this dish for me, was that in all it’s rustic versatility, it was a flawless blend of ingredients.

a testament to mother nature and her infallible sense of style…

3 soups in one day?  ambitious?  perhaps.  but i was hell bent on getting through this mountain of produce that was somehow all mine.  and soups are a good way to go when faced with an overbearing bounty.  i opted first for the bittman pear zucchini, then a riff off an aubergine soup i’d seen that i refer to as mediterranean eggplant and finally a buttermilk butternut squash creation that was inspired by JO (you know who you are…).  even in a baking recipe, i rarely can follow along verbatim although i did stay loyal to mark.  mark, i hang on your every ingredient.  you are so my kinda cook.

the pear in the zucchini soup is more subtle than i expected.  it gives it a certain mellow sweetness and flavor that marries well with the zucchini.  it’s a sautee of onion, carrot and potato, the latter giving it it’s creamy texture – and of course pears and zucchini.  a lot of zucchini…  i opted to serve it room temperature as i felt it brought out the flavor of the pear more.  to finish i sprinkled this soup generously with fresh chopped mint. 

there is not one zucchini left in my house.  thank you jesus.

next up was the eggplant soup.  a quick sautee of shallots and garlic in olive oil and then the diced eggplant is added to the pan on low heat.  cook this down for about 30 minutes or so and then add salt and chicken stock.  cool it down, transfer to a blender and puree until it’s smooth.  then add it back to your pan along with the juice of half a lemon, full fat greek yogurt and chopped parsley. 

i opted to top this with the suggested gremolata and added a fine chop of tomato for color and flavor.  i saw it presented with a healthy slice of buffalo mozzarella – one of my favorite cheeses in the world – but i opted to keep it lighter.  the original recipe also calls for butter and cream.  and i’m sure it’s amazing.  but this version was meant to be a bit more lean while still staying big on flavor.

and last, i love butternut squash.  which is lucky for me because before i began this soup i had 8 of them in my house.  i am currently down to 4.  i like to think of this as progress.  i diced a few of them up and they were added to a sautee of onion and garlic.  i added chicken stock and seasoned with fresh thyme, salt and pepper. 

i let the squash soften and after cooling down, pureed the mixture with a cup of buttermilk.  to serve i garnished with a swirl of greek honey and some fried sage leaves.

and i’ve got to hand it to cary, a truly good boyfriend who not only shopped with me, took a bunch of the final photo’s AND cleaned the entire kitchen – but he ate 3 bowls of soup for dinner.  happily.

and that right there deems him a keeper.

life throws us challenges.  some bigger than others, no doubt.  in this instance the ny jew is presented with a huge and perfect bunch of turnip greens.

now i’ve never met a vegetable i didn’t like.  sometimes love might be too strong of a word (green bell peppers, i’m looking at you), but still i’m a big fan of all things produce.  i’ve got to say that this season my relationship with food brought forth from tennessee soil was definitely tested.  it was like living with someone your whole life and they go off to work each day and you happily enjoy evenings, weekends and the occasional vacation together and then suddenly they retire – and they’re always around.  such was the case for me and the vegetables.  the wonderful, beautiful weekly bounty from the delvin csa share put my passion to the test.  every day.  being that the last pick-up is only 3 weeks away, i am sure i will look back fondly on the experience come february.  but lately i find myself looking at zucchini going ‘oh shit’.

with challenges you are forced to stretch and grow.  not only was i in possession of these truly gorgeous turnip greens, but just last week i had received another big leafy bunch that had little baby turnips still attached.  the greens themselves didn’t look as impressive as the cute little pink pointy orbs suspended from the bottom, so puzzled as to what i might ever do with them they promptly got tossed in the fridge with no idea what their fate might bring.

with dinner time approaching and no preconceived notions, i got to thinking.  which brought me to cookthink.  which brought me in no time flat to the perfect idea.  with a big smile i made a beeline for the kitchen and i was fixin’ to make a fine meal.

i began with unarguably one of the world’s most amazing taste sensations.  out of the freezer came a package of niman ranch uncured applewood smoked bacon.  and now i take a moment to ask you this.  how could my people be the ‘chosen people’ if we’re not supposed to eat bacon?  would a fair and loving god do this to his children?  i think not.  i believe it all must be a misunderstanding from way back.  so i tore open the package and put it on my grill plate and let the meat soften and the slices separate.  then i fried the bacon until crisp and set it aside, my only guilt being one having to do with fat as opposed to hell – although in my life there is most certainly an overlap between the two.

into a big pan went some olive oil and then i added a large diced onion.  i let that caramelize for about 15 minutes and then added the diced baby turnips, discarding their wilted leaves.  next the huge quantity of my new turnip greens were roughly chopped and added to the pan in batches along with some chicken broth and some salt.  while that simmered i chopped up 3 ‘joe’s long hots’ – my favorite chili’s from delvin and added those to the pan.  for the final touches i used a healthy dose of a wonderful spanish red wine vinegar that i’d gotten from zingerman’s and some greek honey.  the bacon then got chopped and mixed back in.

while all this was going on i had taken 3 acorn squash, halved them and with some olive oil, salt, pepper and a drizzle of agave syrup they hit the oven for about 20 minutes until softened. 

i was really happy with our dinner.  i felt as though i’d done something nativelike to nashville and had met with success.  plus i knocked out 3 acorn squash, the huge bunch of greens, the baby turnips, 3 chili’s – and found the perfect dish for my new vinegar.

as well as my foray into southern cuisine may have turned out, by dessert we were back on “the Continent” with turron from spain and an espresso. 

what a world…

it was a quick ‘let’s have lunch’ decision.  and i thought perfect.  zucchini pear soup - a bittman recipe that sounded intriguing from last week’s dining section in the ny times.  and then i immediately thought imperfect.  no pears.  damnit.  i had just bought pears but now they were gone.  i had honeycrisps but that wasn’t going to cut it.  so faced with yet another produce quandary, i switched gears.

i opened the fridge, grabbed a red bell pepper and two big zucchini’s and proceeded to make it all up as i went along.  sometimes this tactic works better than other times, but soup can be pretty forgiving.  it’s hard to destroy a soup.

so first i sauteed about 4 diced shallots in olive oil.  anthony bourdain claims that if you just use shallots more often, forgoing the lowly onion, your food will taste better.  probably had i substituted butter for olive oil the result would have tasted better still.  but i wanted a cleaner vibe to this soup – a heart happier, less french, more italian soup.  then i added about 4 cloves worth of chopped garlic, followed by oregano and all the diced zucchini.  when the vegetables had softened i added boxed organic chicken broth (so sue me) and let it simmer.  from there it hit the blender and then the fun began.

i charred the red bell pepper over the gas flame of my stove and then peeled, seeded and thinly sliced the flesh.  but now i must take a sec and tell you about one of my top 3 favorite olives cured with lemon and rosemary.  they are HAAMAZING.  easy entertaining with michael chiarello…  come on – you know what i’m talking about.  do you get the catalog too?  i do.  don’t you just wanna live in napa and hang out with michael, with his ever so appealing boy next door thing goin’ on and drink the zin from his vineyard and eat all the perfect produce from his garden and sit around the table with his other friends – you being his best – and eat all those great ‘easy entertaining’ meals? i do.  in the meantime though i suggest that you breath deep, pay the shipping fee and then delight in these olive’s deliciousness.  cause i’m here to say that i’ve eaten a ton of olives in my years and these rocked my world.  but that’s just me.  ok, last step was to chop some basil and then it was all about making it look like something other then flecked greenish sludge.  so i channeled my inner ‘iron chef’ and this was the end result.

we cut a slice of bread and slathered it with the last of the thick smokey tomato sauce.  the soup was wonderful AND i made it up all by my lonesome. 

i think bittman would’ve been impressed, if only just a little.

i want to thank luisa from ‘the wednesday chef’ for posting her scrambled eggs with shrimp dinner.  her dinner wasn’t pretty.  nope, not even a little.  and she knew it but was real about the situation on the plate including the fact that it tasted really good.  because the truth is that life isn’t always pretty, right?  and in the case of food – who cares?  ok, let me rephrase… who cares all the time?  we’re home.  we’re hungry.  and we’re out of parsley.  parsley does tend to help a bit.  it’s the lipstick of food…

last night i threw dinner together quickly.  i started with 4 of my 9 csa cucumbers.  they were peeled and sliced and tossed with green onions, chili flakes, white vinegar and turbinado sugar.  i had leftover steak from the night before and decided to use all my japanese eggplants and 1 of my 4 butternut squash.  so this one dinner alone used up a bunch of produce which was excellent!

the eggplants got sliced and grilled on my stove with minimal olive oil.  the squash was simply peeled and steamed.  cary did a thin cut on the steak – and all of it got sauced with an on the fly mix of white miso, turbinado sugar, mirin and a 2 year shoyu (aka soy sauce).  lucky for all of us i had some black sesame seeds to sprinkle around.  but hey, still kinda not so pretty…

but good?  very.

it was mediterranean night tonight.  the kids love all this kind of food.  and i gotta say, i love kids who love lamb.  i even love kids who’ll just eat lamb.  it makes their stock go up and well, anything helps when it comes to kids in my mostly non-kid world…

as a rule, lamb is not big here in the south which has been a bit of a thorn for me when cooking for many of my friends.  but not anymore.  i have been saved by these kids and their dad.  and not that kinda saved, although there’s surely more of that kinda saved going on around these parts then there is of the lamb eating kind down here in the buckle of the bible belt.  i’ve just no longer been relegated to a life of eating lamb beyond my kitchen.

so quite simply here’s what happened.  elsa helped dice the vegetables.  this is an 11 year old that wields a mean knife – her technique so impressive that i’ll put her up against anyone 13 and under.  (takers?)  and the louis child helped carry the tray of kabob’s outside along with the olive oil and salt and then back in again.  he wanted to do it on his unicycle but i just couldn’t go there. and then on cue cary pulled up just in time to warm the pita in the just turned off grill.

a little familial bliss… 

lamb kabobs – cut from the leg
red and vidalia onion kabobs
zucchini and red pepper kabobs
greek yogurt sauce – 2% fage, garlic, cumin, diced cucumber and a little red onion
tabouli – bulgur wheat, green onion, tomato, cucumber, garlic, olive oil
hummus – store bought sabra brand – very good – not proud
pita bread – whole wheat mini’s

in the end we were all well fed and quite pleased with the group effort.  and really, i’d probably still love these kids even if they didn’t love lamb.  but sometimes we need all the help we can get…

and may i now say, god bless all her little lambs…

it happened to me. 

and now i have lived to tell the tale of my web hosting server going farther south than i already logistically am – and pretty much shutting my blog down for awhile. 

somehow the experience was strangely interesting.  when the mystery of this sudden quasi crash was in full swing, i found myself wondering if something fatal happened and the entire blog was corrupted, would i start over?  because blogging is sort of like this little commitment that you make not only to yourself, but to all the cyber people out there that might just get the littlest kick out of you and what you’re thinking about or cooking that day…  and me, well i’m only 3 months in, so i didn’t imagine a petition would be started to get ‘cook eat FRET’ back on the proverbial air waves like i would do if say ‘smitten kitchen‘ or ‘orangette‘ or ‘la tartine gourmande‘ or ‘the traveler’s lunchbox‘ somehow went away…  these people have become my guilty pleasures… stealing glimpses into their kitchens, their lives…

oh but here i am.  back up and running.  a technological miracle if only in my own mind.  and i come bearing food.  three little things.  nothing flash.  but i thought i’d share.  and for those of you wondering if i cook much of anything other than pasta these days, the answer is obviously, not so much…

nashville’s own lazzaroli’s tuscan white bean and spinach ravioli topped very simply with my oven roasted juliette’s, some olive oil, salt and pepper.

a sweet and spicy zucchini and corn recipe that i found on ‘forest street kitchen‘.

and a penne dish tossed with grated ricotta salata, minced garlic, fresh red chili peppers, lots of parsley, chopped oil cured black olives and a good dose of olive oil, salt and pepper along with some pasta water mixed back in.  nothing here is cooked except the penne.  super fresh, super good.

hey, glad to be back.  i kinda missed you.

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.

people of the foodie blogosphere, i present to you – a mediocre photo of the perfect round festive finger food – and hey – get this… it was not ever really meant to exist.  you know, like some good version of the perfect storm.  due to what was circulating out there in kitchen land, it just happened to come together – just so…  and in stages.

now i realize it doesn’t look like much.  but let me tell you about this little fella and how he came to be…

when i was cooking for one, and before the days of ‘alone in the kitchen with an eggplant‘, i used to on occasion buy these luxurious looking deep purple shiny footballs.  and i’d pretty much do the first step below and call it dinner.  but what i am about to describe to you right here and now is both the bonafide and the virtual evolution of the little hors d’oeurve that could…  so put on your reading glasses and hold on tight.  wait, what’s that you say?  you’re only 30?  good gawd…

1. the eggplant – from my csa share – was small in stature, perhaps 8 inches long so the thinly sliced rounds were just the perfect size.  i put them on my large grill plate that stretches across 2 burners on my stove, as many as i could – lightly olive oiled and salted – and browned them.  that was good enough for me.  i begin eating.  magically delicious.

2. but half way through my eggplant, i realized that right in my fridge was the roasted tomato sauce that i’d made the day before from all the little red and yellow tomatoes – from my csa share - cut lengthwise and roasted in my oven at 250 for 2 hours with just some maldon salt and fresh pepper.  after they cooled i had put them in the vitamix along with some really good olive oil and a touch of sugar.  the flavor was shockingly good.  especially atop the eggplant rounds.

3. and just when there were maybe only 5 rounds of eggplant left, it hit me!  i had a primo batch of frozen pesto that i’d made awhile back.  not wanting to defrost all of it, i threw the ziplock in the microwave for about 20 seconds until the edge thawed slightly and i broke a chunk off with a knife.  and man was that a good idea…

it was an eggplant’s crowning glory.