Winter is here... Pasta Fagioli Weekend

Well, Winter has finally arrived in Maryland this past weekend.  SO, I decided a nice Pasta Fagioli would be a great and yummy weekend staple in the fridge.  Normally, I am all about shortcuts but I have to admit that when you have the time and are going to make beans start with dried and soak them overnight.  It makes a huge difference in the final product.  The beans will be creamy on the inside and retain just enough resistence as you bite into them.

I have never really made pasta fagioli but I do love it.  So I started on Friday night by soaking a bag of cannelleni beans overnight in cold water.  The next day I rinsed them off and started making the soup… very standard here:  Start by sautéing the aromatics in Olive Oil.

 

Chopped Onions

Chopped Celery

Chopped Carrots

Chopped Garlic

Soaked Cannellini Beans

Chicken Broth

Bay Leaves

Dried Oregano

¼ jar of Marinara Sauce

And start simmering!  Once the beans were tender I tossed in some partially cooked ditalini (or any small pasta).   I like partially cooking the pasta so that it can finish in the soup, some starch will be released and bring together the soup and the pasta will soak up some of the stock as well.  I grated some Parmesan over just before serving, you could add a little chopped parsley as well.  It came together and was the best thing for this chilly weekend.  It was gone by Sunday night!

Sweet Potato Red Curry

In this country I don't think we eat curried dishes very often.  I know I certainly didn't until we moved to Europe.  While I was living in Vienna (Austria not Virginia :) I found a tiny place that just served a couple of curries and maybe 3 soups.  They had a few salads as well I think.  It was pretty cheap- about 5-7 Euro a dish.  An hour before they closed though it was a steal as they lowered the price to 3.50 Euro on all dishes to get rid of what was left over!  It was a very simple and clean concept.  You walked up to a counter and ordered say a Chicken Red Curry, they used a deep bowl scooped some rice into the bottom and ladled some curry on top.  Then they asked you if you wanted Coriander or Petersile (cilantro or parsley).  They passed it to you on a tray with a cup and some flatware.  There was a water cooler in the corner for you to help yourself to.  You then sat at a choice of one big communal table or a small bar along the wall.  When you were finished you bussed your tray to the racks at the back.  Done deal.  Simple, Fresh and Yummy.


Since eating there was at least a once a week thing for us I learned to make my own red curries which are really my favorite.  I try to keep them as light and healthy as I can by not adding cream to thicken this yummy stew.



The recipe goes a little like this but you can add in whatever you like.. sort of like cleaning out the fridge or pantry :)

Finely chopped Onion
a couple of chopped garlic cloves
some celery finely chopped
some carrots 
mushrooms
and about 1-2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 can of coconut milk
1 tablespoon of red curry paste (this can be hot so use more if you like it spicy)
Cilantro/Lime
Frozen Peas
Protein of your choice!


Start by heating up a little oil in your saucepan... make sure you use a pan that you would make a soup in.  Soften up the veggies but don't get any color on them.  Add in (to your taste) the curry paste.  Saute that all together.  Then I add some chicken stock to almost covering the veggies.  Add in the coconut milk and season with s&p.  Cover it and turn down the heat to a simmer once it has initally come to a boil.  Let this go until the veggies are tender and the sweet potato is breaking up.  The reason I add sweet potato to this dish is to thicken it without adding cream.  It works really well in this dish.  Sometimes I use a large spoon to mash up the sweet potato pieces in the pot and sort of stir it all around.  Once this is to the consistency you want- (I like it a little thick) you can take the lid off at any point to help reduce the sauce.  Only at the end do I add the protein.  I like either chicken or tofu in mine.  Then I add the frozen peas as well and I finish cooking it just until the peas are tender but still green and the protein is just cooked through.  Finish it off with chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime.  


You can most certainly add a little fish sauce or soy sauce to this dish, it will give you a deeper depth of flavor.  Let your creativity take over as well... you can change this to suit your tastes as well as what is in your fridge.  I always do serve this with rice, I especially love Jasmine or Basmati.  

Ode to Maman

Ode to Maman

No, I don’t have a French mother …..hell I am not even French but it sounds special and that is what she is.  I have been thinking lately about my past, where I come from and the people in my life.  How do they all fit in and what have they made me or helped shape me.  The most important person on that list is of course my mother.  She is an incredibly talented woman who in her childrens’ eyes can do anything…  I think that is the reason we never see something as insurmountable.  That is really something to pass on to your children.   These thoughts were loudly calling out to me to be written down as I decided to make some chicken stock…. The smell of the chicken stock on the stove screamed my mother.  I am channeling her while I am making this stock.  I don’t make stock, I don’t have the patience .. that is why I cook and don’t bake.  But throwing the carcass of a roasted chicken into the pot with a few cloves of garlic, half an onion and some carrots and bay leaves was so simple and yet it made me want to tell my mother and everyone else what she is to me.  My own daughters keep saying how great the house smells and they can’t wait to have this soup.. so maybe I am giving my girls what my mother has given me.  A sense of roots, a foundation, the idea that the simplest act can mean so much to someone else.  Maybe someone who you love so much but can never find the words or the time to tell.

All this from a pot of chicken stock.

Chick Pea Salad with Curried Lime Vinaigrette

Today a client asked me to make a curried chick pea salad.  I don’t have one in my repetoire   but I gave it a little thought and it really couldn’t be simpler to make.

Generally speaking I do make things pretty healthy.  So the idea of a mayo based anything doesn’t really ever pop into my head.  I just immediately thought curry lime vinaigrette.  For the salad I just used what I had in my fridge.  Onions, green onions, red bell pepper, cilantro, celery, carrot and a couple of cans of chick peas... (note- when putting carrots in a salad I think they taste way better if you cut them into the size you want and then blanch them in boiling salted water for a minute or two)

The vinaigrette was another mish mosh of what I had….  Olive oil, lemon, lime, sherry vinegar, red chili flakes, cumin seed, turmeric, curry powder, s&p and just whisk it all together.  Throw it all together and let it sit a little bit to give the beans a chance to soak up some of the dressing.  I tasted it… adjusted a little bit.  More salt, red chili flakes, lime.  But it still seemed flat in the texture.  It was soft and crunchy with the beans, the red peppers and all but I thought it could be better.  I had some roasted almond slivers left over from last nights dinner and I threw them in too.  They made all the difference!  It was perfect! :) 

This leads me to say this....  You don’t need a recipe to make something.  What we need is to use our heads and our mouths to come up with something really great.  Seriously.  Take a little leap of faith in your ability to know what is right and what needs adjusting.  I am not going to preach here but I have a few cookbooks from other countries…  when I compare the way they are written to cookbooks from the U.S. there is a big difference.  We love to be told step by step what to do!  We also love times!  When our pasta isn’t done in 11 minutes we do a little panic.  I know I infuriate people when they ask me how long something takes to cook.  I usually say till its done.  Seriously, your oven is different then my oven, you may have started with a colder piece of meat, you may have cut your veggies to a different size.  Its all an approximation.  We need to use our eyes, noses, taste and sense of touch more- especially in cooking.

The mind of a 12 year old

In our family you can pick the menu for your birthday... no holds barred.  My youngest just turned 12, the candy kid.  She loves sugar so much I swear it oozes out of her pores.  This is the kid you find candy wrappers in every nook and cranny of her room, pockets etc.  That said she recently saw a title in a food magazine for Root Beer Ribs, she loves root beer of course and asked me to make her that and plain angel hair pasta.. she even threw a salad in there for good measure.

We had a "family" dinner, which in our neighborhood means you invite all the neighbors since we don't live near our families.  Having 17 people to dinner on the Sunday following Thanksgiving is enough to make anyone tired just thinking of it.  But, you only turn 12 once!

The rib recipe is something I concocted after doing some research online.  I will give you a bit of a warning here....  I am notorious for never following a recipe and just shooting from the hip on how I think something should taste.  Sometimes this means I can never make the same thing twice :)

It went a little like this....

Marinade
6 pack of good Root Beer
1 cup of fish sauce
Ground Pepper
Grated Ginger
Ice Cubes

Baby Back Pork ribs sat in this bath for about 8 hours.  I think took them out dried them off and dusted them with s&p.  I wrapped them TIGHTLY in foil and threw them in the oven for about 2 hours at 325.  In the meantime I reduced about 2 bottles of Root Beer till it was thick and syrupy- I added this to a pretty generic BBQ sauce.  I grilled the ribs while I basted them in the sauce until they were charred and pretty yummy looking.  I think you could do this in the oven at about 400 or higher to get the same effect.  For garnish I quickly grilled a few bunches of green onions and combined them with chopped cilantro, the lime was the perfect thing to cut through some of the sticky sweetness of the ribs.  All in all a good success story!

The cake was something I had seen online about a year ago.  It stuck in my mind for this daughter loves all things bright and colorful...

Lets just say this was a big cake and cutting into it in front of 17 people (hoping it worked) was a little nerve wracking but it turned out pretty awesome even if a slice didn't really fit on the dessert plates!

The beginning.....

I am 42 years old and am a self taught chef (pretty much).  I have started a few food business’ in the DC Metro area- both successful and not so much.  For the past 6 months I have been on the verge of giving up.   I have become uninspired and downright lazy. 

I read various blogs and check stuff out online but it often leaves me more anxious then when I start.  My ingredients don’t come out of the grocery bags looking amazing like they do on some food blogs I see and to be honest just looking at those pictures stresses me out the way fashion magazines play on women’s insecurities.  My family suggests that I write a book, a cookbook, etc.  The cookbook…. Well, I certainly could but I believe you need a theme and right now I just don’t see one.  (In case you didn’t notice yet I am perfectly awesome at throwing up road blocks and walls.)  But I will say this, I have a lot of ideas and I think I just need some sort of clarity and path.  Maybe putting down my recipes/ ideas/ stories in cyberspace is just what will help me with said clarity and I am ready to give it a whirl.

So this will be a documentation of all the things I cook, some good, some great… and I may even throw in a video here or there.  

Welcome to my world of food, hang on for the ride!