Today was a day filled with reconnecting with "lost" family members; at least for my husband. I never lost any family members, they just decided to pass on.
Anyway, I looked at my fruit stand on the dining room table and saw apples and pears looking poorly. I could: a) throw them out (the usual remedy),
b) hope someone (John) would eat them,
or c) make a thing out of them.
The Thing was the winner. It was supposed to be an apple crisp, but I don't have the patience to use 2 knives to make the topping into a "crumb", and I don't have a pastry blender (soon to be remedied) so I tried to mash the butter, sugar and flour between my fingers. It came out of the oven looking anything like a crumb. I'm sure it will be good warmed with a little half and half poured over. Sadly, I have no ice cream.
The Chunka-Chunka Pasta (my own title) was a recipe I took off of BakeSpace and adapted it a little to become my own. You may wonder why I called it: Chunka-Chunka. It has lots of chunky deliciousness packed into a pasta sauce like chunks of eggplant, chunks of mushrooms, whole canned tomatoes all chunked up; you get the idea. It consists of everything you could want in a quick pasta dish. It starts out with Italian sausage. I decided to go healthier and use chicken Italian sausage. Next is eggplant, black olives, mushrooms, fresh basil, canned Italian tomatoes, onions and of course, garlic. It was made spicy by the addition of crushed red pepper. The recipe called for 2 Tablespoons of the dried fire, but I only added one. It was plenty spicy, and I love spicy food!
It was all combined with ziti without the ridges and grated Romano was sprinkled on top.
There is a ton of sauce, too, so we have plenty of leftovers for our work dinners ready for the week. I don't usually like leftovers, but I'll make an exception with this meal. I'll add a nice salad and there you go.
Chunka-Chunka Spicy Pasta Sauce
serves: 4 big eaters; 6-8 those who eat like they're "supposed" to.
1 lb. Italian sausage. Whatever kind you like; it's all good.
2 Tbls olive oil
1 eggplant-cut in 1/4's
8oz. sliced mushrooms (I prefer crimini)
1 can black olives-cut each in half or leave whole A mix of green and black would be good or Kalamatas
1 onion-chopped
4 (or more) cloves of garlic chopped with the onions
Fresh basil
2 roasted red peppers-chopped (I used roasted peppers from a jar; feel free to roast your own)
1 large can whole tomatoes (Italian, of course, but fire-roasted could add a nice touch)
1 Tbls or less of crushed red pepper flakes...oooofdah
salt and pepper
1 package pasta-something tubular like ziti, penne, mostaciollo, elbows (if you must)
Brown the sausages in a pot-remove. Add olive oil and over med-high heat, saute onions and garlic with salt and pepper to taste. Add eggplant and cook until eggplant is soft and smaller. Add olives, mushrooms and red peppers; cook down for a couple of minutes. Then put sliced sausages back into the pan with the can of tomatoes which you've cut with scissors or mashed with your hands. Sliver 5-6 leaves of basil and add to pot; stir gently. Heat it all up and throw in the crushed red pepper. Stir and let heat through.
Meanwhile, at some point, cook up the macaroni. Save a cup or two of pasta water to loosen up the sauce if needed.
Add it all together in one big pot and serve with Romano or Parmesan grated cheese to top off the bowl.
Buono Mangia!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Florence Remembered
Bistecca ala Fiorentina
When we traveled in Italy, one of our stops was Florence. They are known in that region for cooking meats and the Florentine steak. You buy the meat by weight, not by cut, and they cook it in a large brick oven, all fired up with wood from the surrounding hills. It was good, but nothing compared to the steak recipe we found from Lydia Bastianich (which I won't tell you).
We were greatly anticipating this meal yesterday. It is without a doubt one of the best meals we ever make and love to make it for our meat-loving guests. John prepared the grill early and I went to work on finding a suitable recipe for the accompanying kabocha squash.
We decided to pair this meal with the superb pinot noir from the Sonoma Valley vineyard of the August Briggs winery that we picked up Thursday in Calistoga. I mention the location of the vineyards because, while we were visiting the tasting room, we sampled three different pinots, all grown in different areas and you could actually taste the difference in the wines. This was a new experience for me, as I usually buy my wines from Trader Joe's and look at the price, not the region.
Our dinner consisted of our fabulous Florentine-style porterhouse steak, a salad I made of greens, pistachios, Kalamata black olives and a dressing I created from the tangerines we had laying around, olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper and a pinch of white balsamic vinegar. It was tasty, but the star is the grilled steak! One secret I will spill: fresh rosemary plays a big part.
Kabocha squash, we discovered is a very meaty squash. I think it would be best served alone or with something lighter than a steak. I just had a thought: if we have a guest who is vegetarian or not into slices of rare, delcicious steak, we could fix up this squash.
You cook, you learn.
When we traveled in Italy, one of our stops was Florence. They are known in that region for cooking meats and the Florentine steak. You buy the meat by weight, not by cut, and they cook it in a large brick oven, all fired up with wood from the surrounding hills. It was good, but nothing compared to the steak recipe we found from Lydia Bastianich (which I won't tell you).
We were greatly anticipating this meal yesterday. It is without a doubt one of the best meals we ever make and love to make it for our meat-loving guests. John prepared the grill early and I went to work on finding a suitable recipe for the accompanying kabocha squash.
We decided to pair this meal with the superb pinot noir from the Sonoma Valley vineyard of the August Briggs winery that we picked up Thursday in Calistoga. I mention the location of the vineyards because, while we were visiting the tasting room, we sampled three different pinots, all grown in different areas and you could actually taste the difference in the wines. This was a new experience for me, as I usually buy my wines from Trader Joe's and look at the price, not the region.
Our dinner consisted of our fabulous Florentine-style porterhouse steak, a salad I made of greens, pistachios, Kalamata black olives and a dressing I created from the tangerines we had laying around, olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper and a pinch of white balsamic vinegar. It was tasty, but the star is the grilled steak! One secret I will spill: fresh rosemary plays a big part.
Kabocha squash, we discovered is a very meaty squash. I think it would be best served alone or with something lighter than a steak. I just had a thought: if we have a guest who is vegetarian or not into slices of rare, delcicious steak, we could fix up this squash.
You cook, you learn.
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