Olives

Gran Fran sent me a link to a site with a list of all sorts of cooking and food related contests. For the most part, they ask for a recipe, usually including a food or spice from a particular vendor and a little story about your recipe.

As you know, I likes me a little story, especially when it has to do with my cookin'. I've entered three recipes today in two contests, one of which was for Lindsay Olives. Here is my entry. It truly is delicious.

I grew up eating this kind of dish in my parents' home. It takes me back to grade school, doing homework in the kitchen, while my mom cooked. We'd trade stories of the day, and she'd help with my homework while mincing and browning the garlic.

I especially loved taking the olives from the can and "wearing" them on my fingers. It was a handy way to eat a little pre-dinner snack, too.
The richness of the walnuts against the tang of the onions and salty, warm flavors of the olives create a nice counterpoint of flavors. I choose to use brown rice pasta these days, no gluten for me, but my mom used a whole wheat pasta. Any pasta will work here, even rice noodles, if it's what you have on hand. The sauce is the key, the depth of the flavors and crunch of the walnuts.
This dish is also great cold, as a side dish for a picnic, or holiday potluck.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup  Lindsay chopped black olives, drained
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1 lb pasta spirals (whole wheat or brown rice pasta is nice)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 diced red onion
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
4 tbsps Olive Oil, divided, plus some for drizzling at end

Method:

• Set a large pot of salted water on the stove to boil for pasta.
• Put drained, chopped olives in a bowl, add 2 cloves minced garlic, salt, pepper and *red pepper flakes.
• Leave to marinate while pasta water boils, and pasta cooks.
• Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.
• Add 2 tbsps olive oil to pan, swirl to coat.
• Lower heat to medium, add remaining 2 cloves of minced garlic, and chopped red onions.
• Sautee until golden, then reduce heat to low.
• Add chopped walnuts, moving them around in the pan so they brown evenly.
• Cook pasta according to directions on box.
• Just before it's cooked through, add marinated olives to the onion, garlic, walnut mixture.
• Raise heat to medium. Heat until olives are just warmed.
• Drain pasta and place in large bowl.
• Pour onion, garlic, walnut and olive mixture over pasta and mix.
• Drizzle olive oil over mixed pasta, add a pinch of salt and *red pepper flakes.
• Serve and enjoy!

(*red pepper can be omitted for more tender palates.)

dinner and a movie

Last night, I had a lovely, homey evening with my daughter, Ms. Iz. We ate linguine with butter. This does not sound spectacular, but it was because it gave us a meal fast and simple and satisfying enough to fill us, and left us with plenty of snuggle time.

To be honest, I hadn't had pasta with butter until very recent times. Gran Fran thought it a sin to use anything other than olive oil on all things pasta. As a matter of fact, she cooks her scrambled eggs in olive oil, too, so to this day, I gag at the taste of eggs cooked in butter. While Gran Fran just about passes out when she hears of said atrocity.

The butter pasta was a direct result of Julie & Julia. You know, how the butter is the queen in all of her recipes. As the movie progressed, Ms. Iz asked for a bowl of pasta. Whilst making it, I asked her if she prefered butter to olive oil (which I rarely do). She said, well, since Julia is using butter let's have butter. And, I'd also like to point out, this was her second viewing of the movie, and that she has proclaimed it her new favorite movie.

For anyone who has read my blog in the past, you know about the love affair I've had with Julia for pretty much my whole life. And, so, to be able to see the movie once again, have my daughter love it, and get to eat a bowl of butter pasta (mine with walnuts, red pepper flakes and garlic), it turned out to be a very nifty evening.

As for this evening. I'm back on romance (see previous post) as well as a childhood favorite. First in the queue was Love Actually. A sappy and beautiful movie about 7 different love stories in Britain that are somewhat intertwined. Lovley characterization of all kinds of love...first love, broken love, unrequitted love...and all perfect. The best part is when the little 10 year old girl is singing "All I Want For Christmas is You". Apparently, I 'm a sucker for a good romance.

Right now, it's High Society. There is no way to describe the beauty of this film. It is funny, sweet, smart and best of all a musical! You get Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Celeste Holmes. Cocktails are in order (many mixed drinks and much champagne is consumed), but I can't do that when I'm on my own, so I'll just watch and imagine.

Somehow, before VCRs or DVDs, we watched this movie many atime when I was little. Maybe it wasn't as often as I thought. More likely, it's due to the soundtrack being played over and over again.

All 5 of us (and Gran Fran and Joe, as well) can still sing every song in this movie. I remember putting on shows with my sisters and brother (5 of us in 7 years, we had enough voices fora pretty good chorus) in the living room. We used a piece of drywall (who knows where it came from) as a dance floor. There are Super 8 movies of this somewhere, I think.

Thanks to Joe, there was plenty of Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Gran Fran leaned more towards Motown and Latin music. And both of them love a good musical. So we had quite a variety, always singing along, no matter if you knew the words, just get out there and sing it!

So, my friends, here is the recipe for my butter pasta, and please do make yourselves some and watch a couple of my faves along with a nice glass of wine!

Linguine with Butter and Walnuts
serves 4

Ingredients

1 lb best quality Linguine
1 large pot of salted boiling water
3 Tbsps Butter
3 Tbsps Olive Oil
1/4 cup chopped Walnuts

• 2 cloves Garlic, minced
  1 leaf fresh Sage, minced
  To Taste: Salt, Red Pepper and Pepper

Method

• Boil Linguine to your liking (I prefer mine a little on the soft side for this recipe).
• While pasta is cooking, heat a small non-reactive saucepan over medium heat.
• Add butter, olive oil, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.
• Once the butter has melted, lower the heat to low-medium and all the garlic and walnuts.
• Saute until the garlic is browned slightly and the walnuts glisten.
• Remove from the heat and pour over the cooked pasta.
• Sprinkle the sage and a bit more pepper and red pepper flakes over the pasta.

Enjoy!

Fake Bacon.....Or How I Made Vegetarian Carbonara Sauce

Yes, your heard me, (or you read that right) I have crossed over to the fake bacon realm.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this, but I've given up meat for the next few months. Oh, believe you me, it's not easy, especially since I would be happy to eat half of an entire roast beef for breakfast every day. Oh, but I digress.

So far, I have learned to make quite a few interesting full vegetarian dishes without missing the meat. Many eggs, fish and much cheese and beans have been consumed over these past 3 weeks. I even managed to avoid meat at our Chinese New Year Dim Sum luncheon (albeit, *that* event did make me a little sad, what with the roast duck and all).

Then, I saw this post for Spaghetti alla Carbonara on the blog A Chow Life. I was sunk. The need for bacon (which, I will have you know, I passed up at a brunch last weekend) reared its ugly head. There was no way around, it I needed to make this....fast.

I turned to my friend Ms. A, a long-time vegetarian. We headed to our fabulous organic veggie emporium, Rainbow Grocery, and she schooled me in the non-meat bacon options. We settled on Smart Bacon. Though still skeptical, I knew this was my only option.

When I returned home, I readied the ingredients and reviewed the recipe. The Smart Bacon was not at all like *real* bacon. When I opened the package, the tell-tale hickory smoke smell did not assault my nose. Nor, when I touched it, was the texture at all what I had anticipated. Since it is so thin and without the grooves of real bacon, I decided I would chop it up really small into a dice. Also, I realize now, that I did this as much to keep myself from feeling the weird texture in my mouth as for presentation.

I fried it up (had to use quite a bit of oil to make up for the missing fat), followed the instructions and sat down to eat. What a fabulous surprise I had, upon that first bite, of the bacon essence mixing in just-so with the egg, cheese and spices.

The apologies I owe to everyone and their brother (not my brother mind you, the biggest bacon eater of us all) for putting down their fake bacon are vast and cover years. Accept my apologies, and this recipe as a thank you for putting up with me.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 5 tblsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pkg meat-free Bacon (like Smart Bacon), diced
• 1 lb. spaghetti
• 1 and 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
• 4 eggs, separated
• Freshly grated black pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Method

• Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot, add 2 tablespoons salt.
• In a saute pan or skillet, combine oil, red pepper flakes, and meat-free bacon over medium heat.
• Heat the meat-free bacon through, and long enough to get the red pepper flakes to pop.
• Remove from the heat and set aside. Do not drain the oil.
• Cook the spaghetti in the boiling water until just al dente.
• Reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water and set aside, then drain the pasta.
• Add the reserved pasta water to the pan with the meat-free bacon.
• Add the pasta and heat, shaking the pan, for 1 minute.
• Remove from heat.
• Add 1 cup of the cheese, the egg whites, and pepper to taste, and toss until thoroughly mixed.
• Divide pasta among 4 warm bowls.
• Make a well in the center of each one, and gently drop an egg yolk into each well.
• Season the eggs with more pepper and sprinkle tops with remaining cheese.

Adapted from A Chow Life

mashed potatoes…i don't think so.

Here’s the deal, sometime around Junior High, Gran Fran began adding leeks to the mashed potatoes. Even though I was a fairly easygoing pre-teen and teenager, for that matter, but the addition of leeks brought out my full-fledged wrath of pre-teen-dom in all its glory. What in the heck was she thinking? How could you improve upon the creamy goodness of a nice batch of russet potatoes, boiled, dried over the flame, salt, butter and milk added, and mashed? Now, she had added some soft, green things, that made the potatoes taste downright wrong.

The bigger issue was, you had to eat what was on your plate, which should be expected. Now, I know in my heart this is wrong, but with my own daughter, we’ll call her Iz, I make modified versions of what I’m eating, with less spice, or none at all. This was an okay solution when she was small, but she has just turned 10 and it is sort of crazy to serve two meals in a household of two.

To be fair, Iz will always try new things and sometimes discovers dishes she likes. But, this is only at other people’s houses, not mine. Yes, I know, it’s my own doing, but I still like to talk about it. And, the odd thing is, she loves to cook and will make all sorts of things that she will not eat. Final thought on Iz is that she has a good palate and will eat lots of different things, including sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and all manner of veggies, meats and carbs, just not with any sauce or spices. But, how could I not love a kid who counts bacon as a food group?

Last night, a friend showed up to cook dinner and brought along potatoes and leeks. I cornered him and grilled him on how he was going to prepare them, warning him that he’d have to leave if he planned on making them into a smushy mess of mashed-like potatoes. He assured me that he would be making a gratin of some sort, and was then allowed to stay.

Gran Fran was kind enough to share her recipe with me, which, as now that I'm an adult, actually sounds like something I might like. But, I don’t have the courage to make it, for fear that Gran Fran’s look of disappointment (from back in the ‘80s) will come back to haunt me. And, I’m probably just a little bit too stubborn to admit she might be right on this one.

Mashed Potatoes with Leeks and Vegetables

Serves 6 as a side dish

Ingredients:

• 5 Russet Potatoes, peeled, washed, and cubed • 3 cloves of Garlic • 2 Leeks, white and light green parts only, thoroughly washed, dried, and diced • 4 Carrots, peeled, washed, sliced into discs • 4 Stalks of Celery, peeled, washed, and sliced • 4 Tbsps. Butter • 1/2 cup milk or cream, slightly warmed • Salt to add to water

Method:

1. • Place potatoes and vegetables, garlic and salt in a non-reactive pot; add enogh cold water to come to the top of the vegetables, cover pot, and cook until they are soft, about 25 minutes.
2. • Remove from the heat, strain the water out and put the vegetables back in the pan.
3. • Place the pan back over high heat, to dry the ingredients out, for 4 minutes. Then turn off the heat.
4. • Add the butter and milk (or cream) and mash them all together until they are the consistency you like (the more you mash the mixture, the smoother it becomes).
5. • Taste the mixture and add salt to taste.

Mashed Potatoes Without Leeks

(the right way, as far as I’m concerned) Serves 8/Serves 6 as a side dish

Ingredients:

• 5 Russet Potatoes peeled, washed, sliced • 4 Tbsps Butter • 1/2 cup milk or cream, slightly warmed • Salt to add to water

Method:

1. • Place potatoes in pot; add cold water to some to top of potatoes, add salt; cover pot. Cook until they are soft, about 25 minutes.
2. • Remove from the heat, strain the water out and put the vegetables back in the pan.
3. • Place the pan back over a high heat, to dry the ingredients out, for 4 minutes. Then turn off the heat.
4. • Add the butter and milk (or cream) and mash them all together until they are the consistency you like (the more you mash the mixture, the smoother it becomes).
5. • Taste the mixture and add salt to taste.