Sunday, November 22, 2009

Green Bean Casserole

This green bean casserole is not your mother's recipe. This is a recipe by Kate Ramos taken from http://www.chow.com/

 
Green bean casserole has been a part of Thanksgiving meals for years now. I must admit my mother did not serve this dish. She did, however, serve homemade pasta, usually ravioli and meat balls. According to Wikipedia, this American Thanksgiving favorite originates in 1955 and is the creation of the Campbell Soup Company. You can find that recipe on the Internet at http://www.campbellkitchen.com/. My recipe comes from www.chow.com./
 
Anyone who knows me knows that the recipes must contain very fresh ingredients, no cans or boxes if they can be avoided. I am making an exception to this rule today and recommending frozen greens beans for this recipe. I have not had time to visit the farmers market to find great green beans. In fact the beans I bought at Ralphs were a disappointment.
 
This recipe is EASY, fast and yummy. It takes a bit of work to prepare, but after all this is the holidays and part of the fun of the holidays is the time we spend together in the kitchen preparing food. If you can get to the farmers market, buy fresh green beans, if not frozen works great.

 
If you do not know how to prepare a Béchamel Sauce, email me and I will post that recipe.
 
This casserole can be prepared the day before and popped in the oven to heat up before you serve your meal. If you prepare and refrigerate, remember to remove it from the fridge an hour before it goes into the oven so that the temperature of the dish is room temp before it goes in the oven.
 
  1. Total Time: 1 hr 10 miniute
  2. Active Time: 50 minutes
  3. Makes: 6 servings
  4. Baked in a 400 degree oven.
INGREDIENTS

 
  1. 1 1/2 pounds fresh green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
  2. 1/4 cup olive oil
  3. 1/2 pound fresh brown mushrooms, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
  4. 2 garlic cloves, minced
  5. Béchamel Sauce (warmed)
  6. 2 teaspoons minced thyme leaves
  7. 5 medium shallots, sliced (about 1 1/3 cups)
  8. 3/4 cup flour, for dusting the shallots
  9. 2 cups vegetable oil, for frying
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Cut, trim and wash the green beans. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add kosher salt to the water. One tablespoon should be enough. Add green beans and cook until bright green and just tender, about 5 minutes; drain in a colander and plunge the beans into a bath of ice water. This will set the bright green color and stop the cooking. Over cooked vegetables are mushy and tasteless. You don’t want to go there. Set the green beans aside.
  2. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. When it shimmers, add mushrooms and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are brown on the edges, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
  3. Combine green beans, mushroom mixture, béchamel sauce, and thyme in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Transfer to a 2-1/2-quart baking dish and set aside.
  4. Dust sliced shallots in flour and shake off excess. Set aside.
  5. Pour vegetable oil into a 10-inch frying pan (the oil should be 1 inch deep). Heat over medium-high heat to 350°F, about 4 minutes.
  6. Fry shallots in batches, until light golden brown on the edges, about 2 minutes. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  7. Top casserole with fried shallots and bake until shallots are golden and crispy and casserole is bubbly and heated through, about 12 to 15 minutes.
This Thanksgiving, one of my invited dinner guests is bringing this dish. I will review it at that time.

 
Happy Holiday! Don’t forget to be thankful for all your blessings.

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, November 16, 2009

Pesto alla Genovese

Pesto, or what is commonly called Pesto Genovese is one of the tastiest, easiest, and healthiest dishes you can serve. Preparing pesto takes about 15 minutes. This recipe makes a cup of sauce and that is what you need for one pound of pasta or 5 servings. Yes, a pound of pasta serves five.



Pesto is the classic Ligurian Sauce made with Basil (Liguria (pronounced [liˈgu(ː)rja]) is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and food. Wikipedia ) and it was considered somewhat exotic to my American friends a few years ago. Like all staples in the Italian refrigerator, Pesto is one of them. It is especially available in the summer when basil grows like weeds.


My grandmother made this with a mortar and pestle. I did as well once or twice. The best way to make Pesto is with a food processor.
You will need:
  1. 2 cups of fresh basil leaves packed tightly
  2. 1/3 cup of pignoli (pine nuts)
  3. 1 large clove of garlic peeled
  4. ¼ teaspoon of salt
  5. ½ cup EVOO
  6. 1/3 cup of Grated Parmesan

  1. Put the basil, the nuts, the garlic and the salt into the food processor bowl. Let the single blade chop these ingredients for two pulses. Add the oil and blend it. Remove the mixture from the bowl and put it in a mixing bowl, fold in the cheese.
  2. Cook the pasta in salted water. Remove and set aside ½ cup of pasta cooking water before you drain the cooked pasta. Note, always time your pasta. Check the package directions and minus 1 minute. Set your timer and check you pasta constantly after the timer is sounded, until the pasta is done to perfection. Perfect pasta is supposed to be cooked al dente and that is a matter of opinion. When the pasta is done to your satisfaction, drain it, toss it with the pesto and use that cooking water to thin out the suace if it is too thick and rich.
  3. Serve with warm bread, a ceasar salad and a fruity Italian Wine such as Chianti or Valpolicella Classico. Valpolicella is a light quaffing wine, generally fermented in steel, kept in tanks, and then bottled in the spring, to be drunk on a daily basis. It tends to have a lively bouquet with floral notes and hints of cherry or berry fruits - this is definitely an aromatic wine. On the palate it is light, fruity, and with a pleasant touch of acidity that leaves a clean finish. Not much in the way of tannins. Should be served with first courses -- pasta with meat-based sauces and soups, or vegetable-based entrees. I love this wine, you should try one.


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Rogue Recipes

I never intended to post a cookie recipe. Making cookies and pastries, cakes and pies have never held a fascination for me. However, when you read this blog entry you will understand why I wrote, tested and will publish a cookie recipe.

This very funny note was sent to me by one of my readers and I want to share it with you.
He called it Rogue recipes! Here is his story.

Our family went on a bit of a cookie binge last weekend, starting with several rounds of oatmeal raisins that my mother baked. I was set to have dinner with my friend Albert on Sunday night, so I decided to finish the weekend with chocolate chips, which are his favorite.


Cookies are hardly brain surgery. But as my mother always puts it, baking is an “exact science,” so I always rely on recipes when the time comes for pastries. For the chocolate chip recipe, I turned to Irma Rombauer’s old reliable Joy of Cooking, the Encyclopedia Americana of culinary craft. My mother received it at her bridal shower in 1987; its pages are wavy from steam and spotted with over twenty years of sauces; it has, as far as I can remember, never misled us. And chocolate chip cookies are hard to mess up, no matter who’s making them.

The recipe from the 1986 printing calls for half a cup of butter (a whole stick). To put this in perspective, the amount of flour required is one cup plus two tablespoons. Not having my mother’s culinary savvy or intimacy with ingredients, I followed it without a trace of skepticism. I might have listened to my mother. She stepped in just once as I was starting, to comment that the proportion of butter to other ingredients seemed high. But who was she to argue with Irma Rombauer? I took another stick of butter out of the refrigerator and pointed at the measurement markings on the wrapper — we were going to the dictionary on this one. She put on her reading glasses and laughed, saying that she had mistaken half a stick for half a cup when following the oatmeal raisin recipe. Another of her kitchen “accidents.” She makes a lot of them, yet her meals are always more delicious than any recipe promises. I’ve often wondered if “instincts” might be a better label for them. I might have considered this, of course. I might have put my stubbornness aside long enough, even, to remember that her cookies had come out perfectly sweet and fluffy.

So I sent her away and went on mixing the batter, which became more delicious with every step. Cookie batter is, as far as I’m concerned, in the same class of sublime pleasures as massages and Caribbean beaches — if it weren’t for the raw eggs, I might never bother with the oven. I didn’t doubt Irma Rombauer one bit, that is, until I started rolling the batter into balls. It was unusually sticky — mushy, even. Even as I coated the little spheres with flour, they refused to hold their shape, which is always a bad sign for something that’s on its way into the oven. But I checked myself, told myself I was being fussy, told myself I was letting my mother get to me, again. I arranged them carefully and dotingly on the sheet, the way I used to write cursive in elementary school — respecting the margins, leaving plenty of space between each word/cookie — checked the oven temperature, slid them in, and set a timer for five minutes. The recipe says ten, but I am a neurotic baker (you should have seen me when I took on crème brûlée, poking my head in front of the oven every two minutes, like a prairie dog).

I checked after three minutes. No cause for alarm — the batter was glistening, spreading out a little more quickly than I expected, leaving the chocolate chips in the center, but, eh, whatever. I left them alone and shuffled about the kitchen some more, starting the cleanup, making sure the cooling rack was set. The timer went off; I checked again. Now they were utterly slick with butter and dipping ominously low. Two had run together — so much for my careful arrangement. I narrowed my eyes and looked for even just a hint of golden brown on the bottom that would justify taking them out prematurely, but they showed none, and I decided to be patient. Still, though, I didn’t take my eyes off them. After another two minutes, golden brown appeared. I put on my oven mitt, and all at once a series of tiny bubbles broke out over their surfaces. Here I lost my patience and practically yanked the sheet out in my haste. Their color was all right, but they were dismally flat — certainly not the perky little hills of oatmeal raisin that my mother had produced. I set a timer to let them cool and solidify for a couple of minutes, before I’d transfer them to the rack, and left the kitchen.

When I came back, what I saw on the sheet looked less like cookies than like volcanic rock. They had dried to an ugly dark brown, scarred by bubbles and bumpy with ripples all the way to their edges — I was reminded of what Hawaiian lava looks like when it dries. Disgusted, I grabbed a plastic spatula, scraped them off the sheet, and laid them on the rack. Fortunately, my mother had gone out — hers was the last commentary I needed to hear just then.

As I scooped them onto a plate to take to Albert’s apartment, I ate one. To say I chewed it wouldn’t be quite right — it was more of a gnawing, smacking motion, the kind you perform when you have to dislodge a Milk Dud from your molars. As a consolation prize, the flavor was just fine.

Fortunately, Albert’s oven-roasted turkey came out beautifully, but we agreed with a sardonic laugh that the cookies should be sent back to hell. Perhaps because they were tasty, or perhaps out of pity, Albert kept the rest of the batch we didn’t eat. When I see him tonight, I will ask him frankly which was the real reason.

I was really bummed by my butter snafu, but butter is one of those things, like a puppy, that one simply can’t stay mad at. I saw Julie & Julia earlier this year, and one of the parts I found really charming and dead-on true was the “Is there anything better than butter?” monologue. I mean, who didn’t identify with that? What I should have remembered as I baked those cookies was that brief but delightful scene with Frances Sternhagen as Irma Rombauer, cautioning Julia Child about the treacherous territory of cookbook publishing. One of the things she mentioned was that, under pressure to produce such an encyclopedic cookbook, she didn’t bother to test every recipe.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Best Pork Chops Ever


As you know I have been writing about pork chops lately. Well, rather than keep writing, I decided to cook. I went out to buy chops. As is always my way, I bought what was on sale. I purchased ¾” chops with a bone in. These pieces were too thin to stuff. I love stuffed pork chops and promise to make some soon. Instead I decided to lightly bread the chops, brown them and bake them. This recipe is now entitled the Best Pork Chops Ever.

Start by placing the chops in cold water and salt. Make a 10% brine solution. Refrigerate for 6 hours.

Set out two plates and shallow bowl and set up a standard breading line, flour, eggs and breadcrumbs, in that order. Bread the chops and place them on wax paper.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Coat the pan with EVOO and brown the chops for 3 minutes on each side. Place the browned chops in a roasting of refrigerate and bake later.

In the roasting pan add ¾ of cup of Chablis and ¾ of a cup of water. Sprinkle the chops with dried basil. You may want to cut up potatoes and place the pieces in the roasting pan with the chops. This is an easy way to get your vegetable cooked at the same time. Sprinkle the potato pieces with salt, pepper and dried basil. Cover the pan with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. Uncover and cook for 5 more minutes.

Be prepared for the best pork chop ever. We paired the Best Pork Chop Ever with a Malbec from Argentina, Mendoza, the best known wine producing region of Argentina.

Argentina is making some interesting wines at the moment. Its main marketing push has been Malbec, a grape whose home is the southwest of France, where it’s the main grape in Cahors and a bit-part player in many Bordeaux blends. Malbec doesn’t have the black currant fruitiness of Cabernet; rather it is a bit darker, and a little more savoury, with spice and earth undertones. It has less of a tendency to go to lushness when grown in warm climates, which is probably a good thing.

Mendoza is the dominant wine region. Perched on the side of the Andes, this is a region that receives very little rainfall, and were it not for the ready supply of Andes melt water, viticulture wouldn’t be possible here. Another important factor is altitude: the vineyards here are high up, and with the highest vineyards in the region the extra UV light that the grapes receives causes the grapes to develop thicker skins, with more tannins (and softer tannins, too), as well as more colour. The cooling effect of altitude means that the grapes preserve acidity even when they are allowed to hang for quite a while before harvest.
I bought this wine, Moncagua at Bevmo! However, if you fall in love with Malbec, like I have you will want to start shopping for wines online. Case prices and variety rule on line and there are some amazing values for the Internet shopper. Check out my favorite online wine shop. Click here!

Shop our selection of wines that made Wine & Spirits Top 100 wines of 2009.


Enjoy!

Monday, November 2, 2009

Turkey a la Marietta


Turkey Thighs

With Thanksgiving almost here, the grocery stores will have turkeys and turkey parts for sale from now until the year’s end. Turkey thighs are one of the tastiest parts of the bird. This recipe for turkey thighs comes from a request made by one of my readers. This recipe can serve two to three people, depending on the size of the thigh pieces.

The preparation for this recipe requires that you plan on marinating the thighs. I suggest that you place the pieces in the marinade before you leave the house for the day. When you return to prepare dinner, remove the thighs from the refrigerator for 30 minutes before cooking them. There is no more preparation on the thighs, you will need about 15 minutes to peel and chop the potatoes.

While they are roasting in the oven, prepare your salad. Serve this meal with a medium to full bodied red wine.
Thirty minutes before the thighs are done, uncork your red wine. Let it breath. This will allow the flavor of the wine to even out and improve.

Turkey is a flavorful meat and can stand up to most medium to full bodied red wines. I turn to www.wine.com for great choices under $20 per bottle. I have two different wines I can recommend to you for this meal. You can probably find these wines at BevMo. If you fall in love with either, the case price at www.wine.com will be the best price available. Both these wines were awarded at least 90 points by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Geyser Peak Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 is my first choice. From the Alexander Valley region of California, this full bodied red is fruit forward, lively style and is ready to drink now. Selling for under $15 per bottle, this is a wine you should buy by the case.

For those of you who want green wines and a little less intensity I recommend Bonterra organically grown Syrah 2006 Vintage. Taken from the wine maker’s notes; maintained through an organic growing process, Syrah vineyards are entering their prime, reflected in the wine’s brilliant color and intense aromas. Bonterra Syrah blends a touch of Rhone varietals like Grenache, Mouvedre and Viognier for a powerful floral note. Concentrated berry flavors come to the fore with notes of vanilla and toasty oak spice from aging in French oak. This wine is also selling on www.wine.com for under $15 per bottle and as we head into the season of turkey dishes, you may want a case of this wine as well. This wine can convert a non red wine person to a red wine drinker. Smooth, earthy and fruity this Syrah earned 90 points from Wine Enthusiast Maga

Ingredients
  1. • 2 turkey thighs, about 2 ½ lbs total
  2. • 3 cloves chopped garlic
  3. • 1 bunch of sage, chopped (2/3 oz leave
  4. • 1 potato per person, peeled and chopped into large pieces
  5. • Salt and pepper
  6. • Sprinkle of white wine vinegar
  7. • Sprinkle of olive oil
  8. • Broth if needed while cooking
Method
• Cut deep slits into turkey thighs and rub sage and garlic mixture into cuts and onto surface. Marinate in refrigerator for 5 or 6 hours. Remove thighs from refrigerator about 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put thighs skin side down in roasting pan. Put pan, uncovered, into oven for about 30 minutes. Then turn thighs over, add potatoes, sprinkle all with salt, pepper, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and broth and continue roasting until thighs are done and potatoes are tender, adding broth if needed, about 30 more minutes. Stir the potatoes once or twice during roasting. Remove from oven, let thighs and potatoes sit covered and untouched for about 20 minutes before serving.










Sunday, November 1, 2009

Pork Chops For Dinner

Frequently the best buys in the grocery are in something called a MAX PACK. What that means is you buy a larger quantity and the price per pound is reduced. Most often the MAX PACK is a special price offered on protein choices. I love this because it allows the "Marie Callendar" in me to come out. I create my own frozen entree by preparing the entire MAX PACK which is enough for tonight and I the extra I freeze already prepared servings for another night, knowing full well that my main course will be delicious and welcomed in the future. Also great fro entertaining at home. When you invite friends over for a dinner party a MAX PACK can be your best option for amazing meals at amazing prices. I like to pair this main dish with a salad, roasted potatoes made with caramelized onions and diced sweet red peppers and green beans.

Today it is Pork Chops with Apricots and Prosciutto. I love this recipe because I love using dried fruits with meat. If you have a chance to visit the Farmers Market in the fall you will find that dried fruits are plentiful, fresh, organic and delicious. Plus adding fruit helps you focus on your wine selection.

For this recipe I recommend any medium bodied red wine. My first choice is Bordeaux. If you are not familiar with Bordeaux now is your chance to discover some great wines made from Old World Traditions. These red wines offer intense flavor for a modest price and they are impressively food friendly, too. For Pork Chops with Apricots and Prosciutto try 2003 Chateau Bel-Air Lussac St.Emilion. This wine can be found in most wine shops including BevMo for the low price of $18 per bottle. On a wine list in a restaurant expect to pay in excess of $60 for this bottle.


You will need 15 minutes to prepare, cooking time is 25-30 minutes and this recipes serves six.


  1. 6 pork loin shops, cut 1” thick with the bone in
  2. ½ teaspoon of salt (use Kosher)
  3. ¼ teaspoon of black pepper (rough grind)
  4. 6 slices of prosciutto or deli baked ham
  5. 6 dried apricots
  6. 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  7. 1 cup of a dry white wine
  8. ½ cup of water

  1.  Trim the excess fat from the chops. Using a sharp knife, slit a pocket into the meaty part of the chop, cutting towards the bone. Season chops with salt and pepper. Stuff each chop with a slice of ham and an apricot.
  2. In a large skill heat the olive oil over a medium heat. Add the chops and cook them on each side for 3-5 minutes so that they are lightly browned. Add the wine and the water and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pan, cook for 25 minutes or until the chops are white throughout.