Archive for July, 2010

I was at the famers’ market today and was inspired by the lovely tomatoes and whole grain baguette I purchased.  Tomatoes, bread….hmm what to make?  Bruschetta!  It didn’t hurt that I had a ton of basil at home that I needed to use, either.

I hadn’t made bruschetta before so I was winging it, like a lot of my cooking.  My mom has a terrific ability to taste a food and then be able to recreate it.  *side note* Years ago when Cinnabon first came out, she asked them how they made the cinnabons.  Of course they wouldn’t tell her, so she sat at a table in the mall eating one and watching their technique (Ingredients were hidden) and then she came home and made them.  They tasted exactly the same, even the icing! I like to think that I’ve inherited that talent.  I can taste a dish and usually figure out how to make it.  Most of the time I’m pretty close, but some recipes take a few tries.

For the bruschetta I chopped one medium tomato.  A lot of people don’t like the goopy seeds inside tomatoes, so after you cut them in half, squeeze the tomato to get rid of the seeds.  It makes your tomatoes less slimy, and it keeps your food looking prettier.  You can do this any time you dice tomatoes.  Also, my tip is to dice the tomatoes with the skin side down, so your knife is cutting the inside of the tomato instead of going through the skin.

Bruschetta
Dice the tomatoes into small cubes
Mince 1 or 2 cloves of garlic — Traditionally, you rub the garlic on the toasted bread.
1T red wine vinegar – again, traditionally, you’d use balsamic…but I was out.
Healthy drizzle of olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Chop a few large basil leaves
Mix all items together.

I used a whole grain baguette,  sliced it on the diagonal, spread a little butter on each piece and popped it in the toaster.
When the bread was toasted, I spooned the tomato mixture on top and let the vinegar soak into the bread.

Things I did not do:
Some people use onion, but I think raw onions are too strong.  (I could have soaked them in cold water to get rid of the strong onion flavor…maybe next time.)
I didn’t have any parmigiano reggano, but I did think about putting a little goat cheese on top but  in  the end, I decided not too.

This really is a healthy accompaniment to dinner if you use a whole grain bread and limit the cheese.  Please, buy a hunk of good quality parmigiano reggano cheese and keep it wrapped in your fridge. It will last a long time and it’s well worth the expense.

If my sad tomato plants would have had more than 2 tomatoes and I didn’t kill all my basil plants, I could see myself eating this with a nice salad as dinner many nights.  Lots of room for experimenting with this simple recipe.  The goat cheese is going to be spectacular with this, or even crumbled ricotta salata.

The first time I had this dish I was in Rome.  Of course, I took a photo and decided to try to recreate it when I got back.  It’s a surprisingly easy recipe that uses just a few ingredients.  This is definitely a hearty meal and a big crowd pleaser.

Original dish:

Mine

This is how I made it. (recipe repeated at the end of this post)

Ingredients
1 bag frozen broccoli cuts or chopped broccoli
Orecchiette pasta but any small pasta will work
One medium onion – finely chopped (sometimes I put this in my food processor)
2T olive oil
2 cloves of garlic – minced - (sometimes I put this in my food processor)
1-2C chicken broth (you may not need both cups, use as much as needed)
1lb pork sausage (I used italian seasoned turkey but you can also use mild/hot turkey sausage, just remove it from the casing)
salt
pepper
peccorino romano cheese or parmigiano reggano cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Heat olive oil and add chopped onions and minced garlic.  Cook until translucent.

I added a little bit of leftover white wine at this stage because I had some.  It worked nicely, but it’s not necessary.

When the onions are garlic are ready, add the sausage and break into pieces. I’m really bad at this part. I don’t always have the patience to chop the meat finely.

Season with salt and pepper (easy on the salt because the sausage has lot and you’ll be adding cheese later)

Brown sausage until it’s no longer pink and it’s thoroughly cooked.

Add frozen broccoli and the chicken stock.  Cook for about 10 minutes on medium heat. The chicken stock shouldn’t make too much of a sauce, it’s just to give a little moisture to the meat mixture.

Drain pasta and mix with the sauce.  You can also freeze the sauce before adding pasta if you can’t possibly eat all this food.  It does reheat really well (This is coming from someone who doesn’t like most reheated food!)

Spoon into bowls and sprinkle with parmigiano reggiano or pecorino romano cheese.

That’s it.  This is my version of a Roman dish and I hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients
1 bag frozen broccoli cuts or chopped broccoli
Orecchiette pasta but any small pasta will work
One medium onion – finely chopped (sometimes I put this in my food processor)
2T olive oil
2 cloves of garlic – minced - (sometimes I put this in my food processor)
1-2C chicken broth (you may not need both cups, use as much as needed)
1lb pork sausage (I used italian seasoned turkey but you can also use mild/hot turkey sausage, just remove it from the casing)
salt
pepper
peccorino romano cheese or parmigiano reggano cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Heat olive oil and add chopped onions and minced garlic.  Cook until translucent.

When the onions are garlic are ready, add the sausage and break into pieces.

Season with salt and pepper (easy on the salt because the sausage has lot and you’ll be adding cheese later)

Brown sausage until it’s no longer pink and it’s thoroughly cooked.

Add frozen broccoli and the chicken stock.  Cook for about 10 minutes on medium heat. The chicken stock shouldn’t make too much of a sauce, it’s just to give a little moisture to the meat mixture.

Drain pasta and mix with the sauce.  You can also freeze the sauce before adding pasta if you can’t possibly eat all this food.  It does reheat really well.

Spoon into bowls and sprinkle with parmigiano reggiano or pecorino romano cheese.

I’m belatedly finshing up Janssen’s recommendation for June, which was These is My Words and so far, I’m really enjoying it. I took a small break to hit the library and stocked up on a few books for this week.  I have about three more weeks of Summer Break before I have to start easing back into school-mode.  I’m going to read as much as I can during the next three weeks.

I checked out Soulless by Gail Carriger and it was really good.  It’s a genre called steampunk, which I’ve heard of but was not familiar with. Apparently that’s a sub-genre of sci-fi with fantasy elements usually set in 19th century/Victorian era (thank you, wikipedia). It’s not at all the type of book I’d normally pick up (not necessarily the genre, but that era is not one I’m particularly in to – shame on me, I know), but I’m glad I did.  It was fascinating and I couldn’t put it down.  I don’t know how to explain the story but it’s about a woman who has no soul and it involves vampires and werewolves. Hmm, that really isn’t helping, is it?   Ok, I’m going to let Publisher’s Weekly explain it better:

Starred Review. Carriger debuts brilliantly with a blend of Victorian romance, screwball comedy of manners and alternate history. Prickly, stubborn 25-year-old bluestocking Alexia Tarabotti is patently unmarriageable, and not just because she’s large-nosed and swarthy. She’s also soulless, an oddity and a secret even in a 19th-century London that mostly accepts and integrates werewolf packs, vampire hives and ghosts. The only man who notices her is brash Lord Conall Maccon, a Scottish Alpha werewolf and government official, and (of course) they dislike each other intensely. After Alexia kills a vampire with her parasol at a party—how vulgar!—she and Conall must work together to solve a supernatural mystery that grows quite steampunkishly gruesome. Well-drawn secondary characters round out the story, most notably Lord Akeldama, Alexia’s outrageous, italic-wielding gay best vampire friend. This intoxicatingly witty parody will appeal to a wide cross-section of romance, fantasy and steampunk fans. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Seriously, how can you pass up a review like that?  (even as I admit that half of the review didn’t make a lick of sense to me) I thought the characters were interesting and likable, and the fantasy elements involving supernatural creatures didn’t seem so implausible.  It’s the first book in a series and there are romance elements as well as the mystery, sci-fi and fantasy components.  Overall, it was a really entertaining story and I’m looking forward to reading the next installments.  I know what you’re thinking;  the vampire/werewolf thing is really overdone right now, but I’m just going to say that if the Twilight werewolves were more like Lord Maccon …well… Team Edward would cease to exist.

I also picked up Stephen King’s latest short story collection called Just After Sunset.  I adore his novels and his novellas even more.  I’m always pushing his story collections on to people who say they don’t like his books.  Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption?  How can you NOT love that story (and movie…it’s on my top 10 list).  I haven’t been happy with his novels since “the accident” but I have high hopes for these short stories.

Let’s see, I also have Stardust by Neil Gaiman.  I admit I only got this up because my library didn’t have American Gods.  No, I don’t mean it was checked out, they don’t have a copy at all.  I find this very strange.  Every Neil Gaiman fan I know raves about this book, more than his others, but my library doesn’t have a copy.  *sigh*  I don’t understand this particular library (even though it’s where I got my start as a 16 year old page, so I will forever be thankful for the humble beginnings of my librarianship). OK so my real beef with Gaiman is that I don’t “get” him.  Yes, Coraline was terrific, odd and weird, but terrific, but The Graveyard Book?  I just….didn’t understand it.  Sometimes I think that whole British thing is lost on me.  Anyway, I have high hopes for Stardust and that I’ll be reading American Gods as soon as my library can get me a copy.  I used to follow NeilHimself on twitter, but Heavens to Betsy, that man tweets a little too much.

Another book I got today is PostMortem the first Kay Scarpetta – Patricia Cornwell book.  My friend, JenTastic recommended them and I’m going to give this here mystery genre a looksee.

I have some good reads ahead of me…hope you do too.  I know I have another five weeks to wait, but I’m anxiously awaiting Mockingjay, the final book in the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  It will be like Harry Potter release day all over. I will not answer my phone, facebook, blog, or tweet (ok, maybe I’ll still  tweet) while I’m devouring that book.  But more on that later.  If you have not started reading Hunger Games yet, what are you waiting for?

Yes, this has been delayed a bit, but hey, at least it’s done now.

JenTastic and I set out on the long drive from Chicago to North Carolina on a Tuesday morning.  It was a bright, happy morning and we were armed with coffee, grapes, potato chips and french onion dip (safely ensconced in an iced baggie) as well as other random car snacks.  We had plans to drive about halfway and then stop for the night.  No specific plans about where to stop, just whenever we felt tired enough.

As you will soon find out, that is not always the smartest strategy!

Our first cool sighting was the wind turbine farm we saw along I65.  These things are HUGE.  They don’t look that big, but when you get up close and personal, they are gigantic.  I hear there’s lots of controversy about strobe light effects on the people who live nearby, as well as the dangers to the birds flying through the area.

Still cool to look at, though!

Ooh hey look we’re in Kentucky!  Drive faster!  I can say this, as someone who lived in Kentucky for a few years.  I went to a grade school where you got extra credit for wearing shoes.

This was in 1980.

True story.

Need I say more?  Hunk-a-pizza?

At one point, the car started making a really loud grinding noise every time Jen hit the brakes.  Since we were at least 8 hours from our destination, this was cause for concern.    In the end, it turned out to be something easily fixable (though not until we arrived in NC.)

We were never in danger of crashing into a ravine.

No, Jen really, we were safe the whole time.  Promise!

Then there was the time we stopped at a doozy of a place to fill the tank.  I had to use the bathroom (remember I have major public bathroom issues).  One, teeny tiny problem. This wasn’t a gas station. It was a service shop with a few gas pumps, a garage and a greasy spoon dinette/shop/place.  The bathroom was inside the restaurant (and believe me when I say I’m being polite calling it that). Throwing caution to the wind, I left all my stuff in the car and ran into the building. I had to ask the short order cook, who was flipping over eggs and hash browns to direct me to the bathroom.

It was about 1 1/2 feet from a table where people were eating.  Ew, that’s a little gross, but beggars can’t be choosers.  I went in and closed the door quickly realizing the light was not working.  It was literally pitch black in this tiny room.  I panicked.  I opened the door to let enough light in about three times so I could see where everything was. Let me be clear here, I’m not scared of the dark, but I have an irrational fear of tiny, public bathrooms with no lights.  I was so mad that I didn’t even have my phone to use as a light source.  Needless to say, it was the quickest bathroom trip ever.

Back to happier things…along the way, there were sightings of beautiful scenery

and, um, some not so beautiful scenery. As if Piggy Bank Pawn isn’t bad enough, they are in a town called Locust.  I’m sure that’s a lovely place, but I prefer not to stop anywhere named after bugs.

At the end of Day 1, we stopped in a little town in Tennesse.  This was the bad part of the “no planned route” trip.  This hotel, while it was clean, safe and full of friendly people on motorcycles, was out in the middle of NO WHERE.  We asked about a restaurant and we were told that the mini-mart at the gas station had a great food selection.  For real.

Someone also had a fascination with statues because the property, outside and inside, was filled with them.  Here is a sample of the greatest.

Zeus

Then Genghis Khan

I’m not sure why the eagle is eating JenTastic’s foot, but it looks painful to me.

No idea what’s happening here. When she gets this like, I just nod and smile.  That happened a lot on this trip.

I thought this was creepy until we saw what was next to him….

A strange hungover, sleep deprived Mr. Lincoln.  He looks like he could use some coffee.  And shampoo.

Here’s the lovely eagle again, without Jen’s foot in it’s mouth.

I don’t know what’s weirder here…you decide.

After we had a good night’s sleep, a decent breakfast and stocked up on coffee, we were ready to hit the road for day 2.  JenTastic commandeered the camera and took these shots.

A few hours into our drive, I did a spot check with Roberta (the navigator) to see what interesting things were around us.  Hey, we were 2.9 miles away from Gran Nanny’s Goat Milk.  Too bad it was in the opposite direction, that just might have been fascinating.

Ok, this is not scary or dangerous at all.

Really, Mr. Truck, you’re doing a great job with that dental floss holding back the tree trunks from flying into our car and crushing us like ants, and those tiny orange flags, yeah, those are really obvious.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, lugged our stuff into the house and quickly collapsed for the night.

I did get acquainted with Chick-fil-A on this trip. Boy, they have delicious lemonade.

I also discovered the Food Lion grocery store chain, where I saw this very exciting ad, especially for someone like me with an eyeball fascination.

Another Food Lion gem (reminiscent of the potted meat product Kim gave me for my 20th birthday, along with a hot pink toilet plunger)

We went to a local place for lunch and the food was absolutely terrific.  We shared a cheesy seafood dip with pita chips (delish!)

as well as a burger with brie, carmelized onions and arugala and the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had. They tasted like candy, so sweet.

Look at that burger!

The only weird thing…look at the ads on the glasses?  Strange, no?

You’ve already seen the tour of the house and our trips to PikNPig but I’m strictly forbidden to discuss anything else that happened on this trip.

Not even the batch of raw cookie dough that was never baked, but mysteriously disappeared from the fridge

or the entire morning we spent laughing hysterically over Photo Bombs and Passive Aggressive Notes and didn’t get anything productive done

or the mysterious techniques we resorted to when building Rick’s desk

or the gem of a movie Jen dragged me to starring her movie star boyfriend that left us both stunned and in shock

or the “giving of the eyeball” at WalMart and the slippery shoes that almost caused my death or at the very least, serious maiming

or how I was tortured with Ke$ha for ten days and Jen was tortured with Celtics/Lakers games

or the countless times Roberta yelled “RECALCULATING” at us while we drove around

or when I had to restrain JenTastic from taking out a neglectful grandma in Barnes and Noble

or how many cups of coffee we actually drank

or the way JenTastic’s van kept giving me a concussion

or the number of times JenTastic called someone an assclown

or “The Great Eating Dessert in the Car” caper

My lips are zipped.

Nope.

Not saying a word.