The Composition of a Salad

I have not made a Salad Nicoise in ages....I love a good composed salad (think Cobb, think Chef), but I had forgotten how much patience it takes to make one.   It needs to look good as well as taste good.   Blanching the beans, making the potato 'salad', hard boling eggs, finding the perfect tomatoes, and yes, you do need the perfect olives, obviously, nicoise olives are best, but any really good Italian or Greek Olives will suffice. I used tuna fish packed in water, not olive oil.  Purists will say to use tuna packed in Olive Oil is the only way to go. Could not find any, hey, I substituted!

I used my stick blender to make the dressing, I was a little excited and over emulsified it, I should have used the whisk attachment, but hey, it's just really, really thick, still tasty, but thick. As you can see, I have everything neatly organized in separate bowls so I can "compose" the salad.   I did forget that I had a huge jar of capers in the fridge, but oh well.  

All of the above made a huge salad for my dinner with leftovers for lunch.  What you see in the upper left-hand corner in the batter bowl is a  potato salad I made with the extra potatoes. I enhanced with some chopped green beans, a bit of yellow pepper and some of the dressing. It does not have mayo and since I almost over emulsified the dressing, it was a great substitution for the mayo, but it was lovely and tangy....

Here is the finished product....yeah, my food presentation needs a little work, but this was still really really tasty! The recipi, just google it and use any of the many. I did a variation on Julia Child and one I found on The Kitchen........I'd serve this with a really light white wine or it has even been suggested to serve with a Rose.....

P is for....

Well for starters, get your mind out of the gutter!   Dinner the other night needed to be something simple and soothing.   I was not feeling all that well, but I was feeling a bit peckish.   I ended up the recipient of some amazing prosciutto di parma and it was an inspiration for dinner..


P-Penne Pasta

P-Peas-frozen, but still not too bad, like a 1/2 cup

P-Parsley-fresh from my garden-flat leaf! Big handful

P-Prosciutto-2-3 slices

P-Pecorino Romano Cheese1/4 to 1/2 cup

P-Pepper, black, freshly ground-to taste.

 You will also need-Onions, garlic, olive oil, cream,

Start a pot of well salted water to boil. Cook your pasta to just before al dente.   Reserve a large cup of pasta cooking water

In a saute pan, pour a couple glugs of olive oil, add one to two or three chopped cloves of garlic, 1/2  diced small onion and saute until soft and fragrant.   Take a couple pieces of proscuitto, roll them up and then slice them so you have slivers.

Once the onions and garlic are soft and fragrant, add the prosciutto, let it get warm, don't let it burn, it can get a little crispy, add some cream to the pan, about 1/2 to 3/4's cup, can be heavy, can be half and half, or light cream, don't use milk, especially any of that low fat stuff.  Lower the heat and let it all get warm.  Stir occassionally.

Drain the pasta, reserving a large cup of the cooking water.  Add the pasta, the frozen peas, to the cream mix, add some fresh ground pepper and the pecorino romano cheese.   Stir well and let simmer for a minute or two. Taste the dish, you probably won't have to add any salt if you salted your water and you use the  proscuitto, and  pecorino cheese I do like to add lots of freshly ground pepper. If the dish looks dry, add a little of the pasta water to the saute pan.  Toss the handful of parsely into the mix, give it a big stir and then serve in a nice bowl.  This would be good with a good white wine, I did not have any wine, I just had a nice glass of ice tea....

The last P is for Perfection, this is a perfect Sunday night supper..

Who Buys Mint?

Who  actually buys mint?  I mean why buy mint from a nursery or plant store (unless you need a specific rare variety).  This is my mint patch, it's a combination of mint, ferns and day lilies. It serves me quite well for mint for my tea, or to make mint jelly or mint sauce.  It started with one little piece of mint I plucked from a friends garden, stuck it in the ground and with the usual benign neglect, it has thrived......  there is a boat load of mint in there despite my average photography.

The Lakelands like getting in every photo they can......

Loving the New Thrill of The Grill!

I have the best neighbors in the world, I really do.....

They upgraded their gas grill and gave me their old Weber Gas Grill.   What you see below is tonight's dinner,  chicken breast marinated with Salamida State Fair Cornell Style Chicken BBQ Marinade..... the grilled veggies where just marinated with olive oil, salt, pepper and some ground garlic.    As you can see, I got a good char on the veg. I like that, but really should remember to put the veg on after the meat has cooked a bit so it's not always "blackened". 


Whats really cool about this grill is the left side shelf and on the right side, just out of view is a burner.  Only thing missing is a beer or some wine. I forgot to pick up something, so we had a lovely large iced tea instead.

Still Hoping For That Call From The Ellen Show

I was watching the Ellen show the other day and they showed one of the winners in their home makeover contest.  Well, it was not me, but it was a nice young couple that had neither central heating or central air in their home.  I at least have heat and a few window fans and a very ancient shiny brass and fake wood ceiling fan......Can you say envious.......

I wrote up the To Do list for This Summers Projects.  I keep hoping a little public accountability will goad me into doing some of these projects.  Things like painting I can do all by my lonesome, things like tiling/renovating the bathroom....well, I can do the demolition, just not the renovation.....

You can see the list below, looking at it, I've forgotten to add in some of the yard projects, more pavers for in front of the runs, re-seed lawn, work on flower beds.......

I could also use a really, really skinny person who does not mind the creep crawl space and the crawl space in the attic as well......

Sigh, the contest is not over yet, I will keep my fingers crossed, light a saint candle and think happy thoughts!

You Can Never Have Enough Pasta~ Sunday afternoon or Sunday Night

I work weekends away from my home. I sometimes say "I have a weekend place in Massachusetts" . While it's bigger and slightly better equipped than my house (ie it has a washer and dryer), there is no place like home for cooking. I do cook there on the weekends with the occasion order in for pizza or take out Chinese, but I still love a good Sunday lunch

I do however, have about an hour and half drive home on Sundays. I try lock up and be on the road no later than 5:35 PM, sometimes I stop for a bottle of wine at the local packy, sometimes I don't. My goal is to be home, with all the dogs, laundry, food, etc unloaded no later than 7:30 PM with a pot of water set to boil for something for dinner...

I grew up eating macaroni on Sundays for Sunday Lunch it's what Italian Americans did. They went to church and then had macaroni and gravy for your mid day meal. The two greatest Sunday afternoon meals are the Italian American macaroni and gravy and the English Roast Meal.  Both I love.   Since it would take too long to do a Roast Meal when I get home on Sundays, I stick to a pasta dish.  The leftovers are usually my Monday lunch.

This past week, I made a dish that I saw on Pioneer Woman cooks blog.... It a chicken Florentine pasta, you can see her dish and the directions here.  I made this on Sunday when I came home and as I did not have any chicken, I just added extra spinach. I had the cherry tomatoes in the house and I had the end of a wedge of really good locatelli romano cheese that I shaved into slivers for the pasta. You could use grated cheese if that is all you had in the house... It was soo good I made it again on Monday. I was out of wine, so I just doubled the chicken stock. It was still tasty. I also used a little chopped onion as I was trying to use up things from the fridge. Yummmm

Things I love

1) Laundry drying on the clothes line
2) The zen of mowing the lawn
3) The herb garden re-emerging from the winter!
4) Not caring that the lawn has both violets and dandelions in it.


Please note, this is not a complete list.....,.

Chicken Linda

This past weekend was Garden State/Bucks and Trenton Dog Show weekend. It is by far, one of my most favorite dog show weekends ever.   The highlight of the weekend is The Trenton Lunch-Capital T, Capital T and Capital L.  The most magnificent food is provided by Linda Buonauro and set up by me....

There is usually some lovely leftovers, they come home with me. On Monday I make Chicken Linda.  Chicken Linda is a recipe designed by RC Carusi and it's simple and  simply luscious.

What you need

1-2 chicken breast pounded thin, I also cut them in half.  I do one chicken breast per person
2 pieces of prosciutto per piece of chicken (2 chicken breast-8 pieces of prosciutto)
Fresh mozzarella
Roasted red peppers.

To Make

Cook your chicken breast until they are almost done. I use the method that The Kitchen has for cooking perfect chicken breast.  Click here for the link.  I cut the time down by about 4 minutes as the chicken has to go back into the pan. I also omit the salt as the prosciutto is salty enough.

While the chicken breast is cooking, take your prosciutto and lay it in a cross pattern, place a piece of fresh muzz on the prosciutto and top that with some roasted red pepper.When the chicken is done, place your chicken on top of the red pepper and muzz and fold over the prosciutto.  

In a hot skillet, place your chicken in the pan, muzz side down.   This is one of the times I use a non stick skillet, I want a hot pan with a little oil in it. Heat the pan, add a little vegetable oil,(not olive oil) just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. I don't want the chicken to stick to the pan,. You will cook the chicken for a 2-3 minutes per side to  melt the muzz and crisp up the prosciutto. The heat should be a low/medium heat,but watch your skillet to monitor the temperature.You may need a little more or little less time depending on the heat/thickness of the chicken.  You don't want to overcook your chicken and overcooked prosciutto is a crispy salty waste of good prosciutto.

I served this with an Israeli couscous pilaf, some steamed broccoli and a nice Pinot Grigot for dinner.   You can also add a little pesto the the packet if you have it, I've made it both ways, but prefer the more simple version. A little pasta with pesto on the side would be good too! 

Things I Hate

1) Fake people

2) Being lied to

3) Grit in my teeth

4) Cold weather when it should be spring time

5) Having to babysit Adults


Please note, this is not a complete list....

A few Spring Rolls in honor of Spring!

It was just warm enough today to want something that was light and lucious. I had some veggies that needed to be consumed, some frozen shrimpies in the freezer that I thawed and the last of the dipping sauces from the scallion pancakes that needed to  be used up.

Spring rolls are one of those dishes where things need to be mise en place as the French say~ meaning, you need everything sliced and diced and ready to roll (no pun intended).....

 To soften the rice paper wrappers,I put some very warm water in a frying pan. It was easy to soak them and pull them out. I let the excess water drip back into the pan, put the wrapper on a plate and filled it with goodies. This roll will have scallion, shrimp, rice noodles, lettuce, carrots, peanut satay sauce and cucumber.

The finished product. I did two with shrimp and two without.   I drizzled some of the soy ginger dipping sauce over the top... 

I had thought to keep two for lunch tomorrow, but ate them for dinner instead.....

Sort of Chili

It's Chili inspired I should say.  I had planned to make burgers last week, but it was going to be a couple cool, chilly (no pun intended) days and I wanted something hearty for dinner and I wanted something leftover that I could freeze.  I had a bunch of leftover canned beans and chopped peppers in my fridge from my lunch salads. They were not getting any younger, so I grabbed a can of tomatoes out of the cupboard and an extra can of beans and made a chili inspired  dish.



Recipe

1 lb of ground beef (I use an 80/20 mix)
1 onion-a little smaller than my fist, diced
1-3 cloves of garlic, depends on your taste
1 large sweet pepper, diced (red or green)
1 can red beans
1 can white beans-rinsed
1 can black beans-rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes-rinsed
1 can of canned corn or 1.5 cups of frozen corn-rinsed
1-2 TBS of tomato paste
1-2 chipolte peppers in adobe sauce * optional 
Canola, corn, or vegetable oil
salt
pepper
1 T. cumin
Cayenne powder to taste
chili powder to taste

Put a few glugs of oil in a large pan (dutch oven, large saute pan).  Add the onion, garlic and peppers and let them saute until soft.

Add the ground beef and let it cook until its no longer pink, you will have to break up the ground beef as it cooks. 

Add the rinsed  beans, corn, canned tomatoes,  tomato paste, chipolte peppers if you want them. Stir well. Add a healthy pinch of salt, black pepper, Cayenne pepper and chili powder to taste. If you are not a fan of very spicy food, you only need like a teaspoon of the cayanne or chili powder.  If you like spicy, add more.  

Turn the heat to low and let the mixture simmer for about 45 minutes. 

Serve over white rice and with hot sauce on the side.  You can also serve it with tortilla chips!  Freezes well and reheats really well.

Scallion Pancakes

I was lucky to find scallions on sale at the place where people have never seen food (The Market Basket).  I decided that for meatless monday, I'd make Scallion Pancakes.   Not difficult to make at all, pretty tasty and they reheat really well The worst part about making these in my house, no kitchen fan so my house does smell a bit of fried food....

The recipe is below the photos

The dough rolled out

Scallions and sesame oil -put as many scallions as you like!

 Rolling up the pancake like a burrito,

The pancake before it becomes a pancake! You have to smush it flat and roll it out

Getting ready to fry the pancake!~

 The finished product with 4 different dipping sauces......

As always, stolen from The Kitchen.   

Notes:  I use more scallions than The Kitchen recipe.   Your dipping sauces are up to you. I use soy sauce, peanut satay sauce, sweet and sour sauce....what ever strikes my fancy and what ever I can make up. I even used the leftover packet of orange sauce from a bag of Trader Joe's Orange Chicken one day.

What You Need

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup warm water
Canola or vegetable oil
Kosher salt
1-2 bunch scallions
Sesame Oil to brush on the pancake

Instructions

1. Mix 2 1/2 cups flour with 1 cup water until it forms a smooth dough. Knead by doubling the dough over and pressing it down repeatedly, until the dough is even more smooth and very elastic. Coat this ball of dough lightly in oil and put it back in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rest for about 30 minutes.

2. Cut the dough into 4 equal parts. Lightly oil the back of a large metal baking sheet. Roll out one part of the dough on the back of the baking sheet. Roll until it is a thin rectangle at least 12 x 9 inches.

3. Finely chop the bunch of scallions and have them ready, along with a small bowl of kosher salt.

4. Lightly brush the top of the dough with the seasame oil, then sprinkle it evenly with chopped scallions and kosher salt.

5. Starting from the long end, roll the dough up tightly, creating one long snake of rolled-up dough.

6. Cut the dough snake in two equal parts.

7. Take one of these halves and coil into a round dough bundle.

8. Roll out the coiled dough bundle again into a flat, smooth, round pancake.

9. Heat a 10-inch heavy skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat, and oil it with a drizzle of canola of vegetable oil. When the oil shimmers, pick up the pancake dough and lay it gently in the pan. It should sizzle, but not burn. Cook for 2 minutes on one side.

10. Flip the pancake over with a spatula and cook for an additional 2 minutes on the other side, or until golden brown.

11. Cut the pancake into wedges with a pair of kitchen scissors, and serve immediately with soy sauce or another dipping sauce.

Things I love

1) a good cup of tea with cinnamon toast.
2) Tired sleepy happy puppies.
3) crawling into a bed with clean fresh sheets.
4) the daffodils that are finally blooming
5) Spring is here!

Please note, this is not a complete list...

Ellen! Please Pick My House to Redo!

Ellen! Here are photos of my house! I so need a home makeover.   Please send your team ( or at least Nate Berkus) to help me! Please!

The sleeping nook-very cozy, but not very exciting

 

The closet area-the only closet

The Bathroom

The kitchen-it's like half the house space and I have no counter scape, I'd love to have a little U shape kitchen area with a breakfast bar.

The kitchen

My office

The Stove

The living area-with  my free to me very large, very heavy TV that I can't move...

the back of the house

the girls!-you can see the lake!

the front of the house-you can see the lake in the background

I would love to win a home make over from your show.  I moved back to Connecticut 13 years ago and bought my little 450 SF house 450 SF and 2.5 rooms plus a bath.. It’s called a cottage, but I call it the studio house. I live here with my dogs, it’s a tight fit and my decorating scheme is what I call grad school design.

I’ve hit some financial, job, and personal issues, my job working as an assistant for a real estate broker has gone from full time to part time to less than part time (12 hrs). Heck, I did not even get a card on Administrative Professionals day this year.  I’ve lost all my benefits (paid vacation/ holidays, insurance) with the reduction in hours; I have picked up a second job on the weekends. I split my time ½ of the week here at home ½ of the time in Oxford ,MA. I am doing this to pay my mortgage, car payment, and life’s other bills. The reduced hours mean reduced pay and I’ve also spent my savings and emergency fund on the basics. And sods law, just when I think I am making a little headway, things like my car unexpectedly breaking down happen.

I know what you can do for the winner of the contest, do a beautiful home makeover, but this is what I do for you.   I can pay this forward.

 I can and will happily volunteer on a project to help another deserving person or family.

I can chip in by doing some of the work, I can paint and I can do demolition.

My house is very small, so you can also help another deserving person or family get a home makeover. Two for the price of one!

 I can cook for the workers, I’m Italian and I love to cook for people. I can host a BBQ at the end of the project for the workers, we can borrow canoes and we can all go canoeing on the lake.

I can blog about the renovation on this blog,

 I can post about this on my facebook page.  My friends and family would get a kick out of this

I hope you and your staff will give serious consideration and pick me for the Ellen home makeover!