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Archive for the ‘Tasty Tidbits Tuesday’ Category

Soup’s On! To Cure What Ails You in this EVERLASTING WINTER!

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

"Cover Coughs, Cover Sneezes" - NARA...

“Cover Coughs, Cover Sneezes” – NARA – 514081 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s almost April and where is that lamb that’s supposed to escort March and the cold weather out of here?  I’m surrounded by people who are sneezing, coughing, dripping and chilled.  Today I had to ask a co-worker to please not lean over my desk and breathe on me – she looked awful and had been home for two days sick and with a fever.  GREAT – just what I need.  I have never gotten over the cold/sinus infection I caught from one of my Mah Jongg players who coughed and sneezed all over the tiles and that was in February!  I walked to work today and by the time I got there, the wind had caused my eyes and nose to run, quite the sight walking in.  So what’s a person to do?  Two words – COMFORT FOOD.  This Tasty Tidbits Tuesday recipe comes from PureWow Recipes.

ULTIMATE CHICKEN SOUP

Makes 6 servings

Start to Finish 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients

1 TBS olive oil

1 sweet onion finely chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and finely chopped

3 celery stalks finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 TBS tomato paste

Kosher salt

Freshly ground pepper

8 cups chicken broth

1 bay leaf

2 thyme sprigs

1 serrano chile, seeded and minced

2 cups chopped cooked chicken meat

1 cup egg noodles

6 eggs, poached or fried, for garnish

Roughly chopped parsley, for garnish

Directions

1. In a large pot, warm the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion, carrot and celery, and sauté until tender, 7-8 minutes.  Add the garlic and serrano; continue to cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute more.

2. Stir in the tomato paste and cook, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot, 2-3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then add the chicken broth, bay leaf and thyme. Bring the soup to a simmer.  Simmer until a good flavor has developed, 15-20 minutes.

3. Stir in chicken and noodles.  Continue to simmer until chicken is heated through and the noodles are tender 6-8 minutes.

4. To serve, ladle soup into bowls and top with egg. Season the egg with salt and pepper, and garnish the soup generously with parsley.  Leftover soup will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days.

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Savory Monkey Bread – Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Big Cheese

The Big Cheese

At first I thought it was just this forever-long, forever-cold winter that is drawing me to all kinds of dishes that could fall into the comfort food category.  Possibly, and the fact that biologically we are inclined to eat more calories in order to burn them for fuel and body heat.  And then I looked again at this recipe and imagined sitting on my front porch in Ocean Grove with a couple of friends on a midsummer’s eve sipping wine and munching on this savory bread appetizer.

Monkey bread, also called monkey puzzle bread, sticky bread, African coffee cake, golden crown, pinch-me cake, pluck-it cake, bubbleloaf and monkey brains is a sweet, sticky, gooey pastry served in the United States for breakfast. It consists of pieces of soft bread with cinnamon sprinkled on it. It is served at fairs and other parks as a treat. But now it’s Lent and I’m off sweets for the next few weeks.  I discovered a savory version and I think you’ll like it.

THE BIG CHEESE

It’s Time To Rethink Monkey Bread

1 loaf unsliced bread

1 cup pesto

12 oz mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350° – Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

Prepare the bread: Score the bread lengthwise.  To do this, slice the bread as you would for toast, but don’t cut all the way down to the base of the loaf.  The idea is to keep the bread in a loaf shape and fully intact.  Repeat this scoring across the width of the loaf.  You will end up with what looks like squares of bread.

Use a spatula or butter knife to spread pesto in the crevices of the bread.  No need to be precise-just get a good slathering in there.

Next, place mozzarella slices inside the crevices, wedging them  in so that they don’t stick out too far at the top (you want all that gooeyness inside the bread and off your pan).

Transfer the loaf to the prepared baking sheet and bake till pesto bubbles and cheese melts – 15-17 minutes. 

Serve warm.

Recipe from PureWow.com

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The Greatest Thing Since…. Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2014| 3 Comments »

Bread

Bread (Photo credit: CeresB)

BREAD, the staff of life, gimme the dough/money!  Bread has always played a major role in our lives and diet.  When I was growing up, we lived in area where the milkman delivered milk to your door and the bread man delivered bread.  They were both white;  by that I mean we were getting pasteurized white milk and ultrarefined industrial white bread, so prevalent in the 50’s.  My dad bought Wonder bread for us, my friend, Susan’s mom bought Sunbeam.  Once in a while my father would bake delicious Italian bread with tiny bits of pork rind in it.  Warm from the oven and slathered with butter…no wonder I take a statin every day now!  Then along came Dr. Atkins and bread became the enemy.  The war against carbs still rages on, however, real bread in its naturally leavened, long-fermented hearth-baked form has enjoyed a comeback, especially in New York City where there are several well-known and much-touted bread bakers.  We have Eli Zabar, Tom Cat’s Noel Labat-Comess, Bread Alone’s Dan Leader to name a few. Bakeries such as Amy’s Bread, Sullivan St. Bakery and Balthazar Bakery produce such delicious bread, you really can make a meal out of it! 

Here are New York’s top 5 new-wave breads:  Try not to drool on your keyboard.

1.Roberta’s – CITY WHITE LOAF – Why would Melissa Weller leave the kitchen Per Se to toil in a converted shipping container? Three words: Wood. Fired. Oven.  Her bread has a dark and crackling crust, with a moist crumb.  It’s beyond “Rustic” in looks, more like a throwback to some communal oven in 19th century Paris.  

2. Nordic Breads – FINNISH RUIS – If you’re a New Yorker, you know rye bread.  However, there is a Nordic newcomer among us and this bread is dark, dense, flat as a Frisbee and has a tang that intensifies as you chew.  High fiber content, organic and made with a sour-dough starter smuggled in from Finland. Produced by Nordic Breads.

3. Hot Bread Kitchen – M’SMEN – Their repertoire ranges from corn totillas to Sephardic challah.  Their mission is to train immigrant women to parlay their native expertise into management positions in the industry.  Headquartered in East Harlem, the most extotic and delicious of their offerings is m’s men, a rough-textured, butter-and-oil enriched North African flatbread that’s rolled, slicked, and folded into a delicious envelope of dough. Rich and flaky like a croissant with the tender-crisp chew of paratha, the m’s men is girdled golden-brown and traditionally eaten at breakfast in Marrackech.

4. Runner and Stone – BUCKWHEAT AND PEAR – Peter Endriss, formerly of Per Se and Bouchon Bakery is creating such wonders as a Cheddar-and-hard-cider loaf, a sourdough whole-wheat walnut with dried sausage and red wine and a pain au chocolate encasing port-infused figs. Local grains, natural leavening, and long fermentation all conspire to make his squarish buckwheat pear loaf a thing of crusty, nutty beauty, its speckled crumb a triple-grained canvas (rye and spelt too) for nuggets of sweet poached fruit.

5. Roman’s – SPROUTED SPELT – Baker Austin Hall appropriates a corner of Roman’s kitchen after hours to bake breads for service and for retail sale on weekends.  He makes a naturally-leavened sprouted spelt, a sturdy burnt-umber sourdough loaf with a crackly, darkly caramelized crust and crumb riddled with New York State spelt berries. It’ a health bread for hedonists.

I will continue this list with more mouth-watering breads next week.

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FAT TUESDAY – Bring On The Bacon!

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2014| 1 Comment »

A cooked rasher. Raw bacon rashers are an esse...

Bring On The Bacon

It’s FAT TUESDAY and I for one am planning on indulging…for tomorrow brings on a more than a month of deprivation.      For years I had the habit of NOT giving up any food that I particularly loved but rather DOING something(s) good for others.  Now I’m back to giving up sweets because, well for my own health and well-being and vanity the mirror and my jeans are yelling at me to say no to chocolate, ice cream, cookies and maybe almost everything white.  OK, so for selfish reasons I will deprive myself with an eye to a slimmer me by Easter Sunday.

BUT today is a very different story…tonight I’ve been invited to be a guest at the Annual Tasting Event sponsored  by    C-CAP-Careers through Culinary Arts Program.  WOW!! New York’s Top Chefs will be gathered at Pier 60 tonight offering up tasty tidbits so tonight I feast and tomorrow I fast!

Here’s a tasty tidbit you can make yourself and feel like a million bucks.

BILLIONAIRE’S BACON

1 lb thick cut bacon

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar

coarse ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and top with a roasting rack.  Spray the rack with a non-stick spray.  Place the bacon in strips on the rack.  Brush the bacon with the maple syrup.  Sprinkle brown sugar over bacon and then grind some black pepper.

Bake in oven till sugar begins to melt, about 15-17 minutes.  Let cool 5 minutes.

 

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Soup of Borlotti (Pinto) Beans, Dried Porcini and Tubetti

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

It’s Tasty Tidbits Tuesday and now that Monday’s snow has turned into gray slush around here, we’re getting ready for tomorrow’s snow storm.  And when and where’s there’s snow, there will be soup!  

English: "Painted Pony" dry bean (Ph...

 “Painted Pony” dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have made this soup many, many times and each time it has received amazing accolades, yes really!  It’s rich and hearty and absolutely a fantastic soup to make when the weather is blustery and cold and snowy.  It’s also vegetarian except when I make it because I’m partial to chicken broth.  But if you are vegan and/or vegetarian, you know what to do about the broth.

The recipe calls for Borlotti beans which are very much like our own pinto beans.  The woodsy  aroma and flavor of the dried porcini subtly flavors this soup.

2 ounces of dried porcini mushrooms (or other dried mushrooms)

1 cup of boiling water

3 TBS of olive oil

1 medium-size onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 cups pinto beans (1 can rinsed and drained)

1 cup chopped canned tomatoes with their juice

3 cups broth

Kosher salt

1/2 cup dry tubetti or other small tubular pasta such as ditallini

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place the mushrooms in a heat-proof glass measuring cup with the boiling water; allow to stand 30 minutes.  Strain the mushrooms through a double thickness of paper towels, reserving the liquid, and coarsely chop.  You should have about 1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms.

Heat the oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the onions.  Cook until the onion begins to soften, 2 to 3 minutes.  Add the garlic, beans-mashing some of them against the side of the pot – tomatoes, mushrooms with 1/4 cup of their soaking liquid, and the broth.  Turn the heat to high; bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low; simmer until the soup is thick, about 20 minutes.  Season with salt to taste.  Add the pasta; continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until it is tender but still firm, al dente, about 10 minutes longer.  Serve with Parmesan.

Recipe from PASTA VERDE  cookbook

  

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White Bean and Portobello Mushroom Soup

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2014| 2 Comments »

Portobello Mushrooms

Portobello Mushrooms

It’s Tasty Tidbits Tuesday and as long as this weather stays so cold and I stay indoors, I’ll be making soups.  I have made this soup many times and it’s always a hit.  Flavorful and delicious.  This is one of quickest tastiest homemade soups I’ve ever made. 

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 lb sliced portobello mushrooms

1 medium carrot chopped

4 cups of vegetable or chicken broth

Kosher salt

1/2 cup of orzo

1 (16 oz) can cannelloni beans drained and rinsed

2 TBS chopped parsley

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Saute the onions, garlic and carrot in a large saucepan until onion are soft 4-5 minutes.  Add the mushrooms, season with salt and cook for another 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add broth and bring to a boil; then lower heat to medium low.  Cover and simmer 15 minutes.  Add the orzo and cook 10 minutes.  Add the beans; cook until orzo is completely tender and beans are heated through, about 5 minutes longer.  Season with salt to taste. Add the parsley and  serve with Parmesan.

Recipe from PASTA VERDE  – more than 140 vegetarian recipes for soups, pasta sauces, salads and baked pastas

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Farro and Arugula Salad – Tasty Tidbits Tuesday

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , , on January 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Farro

Farro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I found this recipe on a blog that I follow, Proud Italian Cook and I knew right away I wanted to make it.  I had all the ingredients in my kitchen except for one.  I made it for myself for dinner one night to test it out because I planned on serving it for a planned dinner party.  It was delicious and I served it this past weekend. This is so simple and so tasty, you should make it tonight.  It’s a good winter salad.

1 1/2 cups of cooked farro 

1 lb. baby arugula

handful of marcona almonds

1/2 cup, sliced cherry tomatoes

1/3 cups nicoise olives

1/2 cup good feta crumbled

FOR THE DRESSING

1 lemon

olive oil

1. Make the dressing by squeezing the juice of one lemon into a small bowl then whisking in olive oil and tasting until you get the right balance.

2. Place all the ingredients into a bowl and then toss with the dressing adding salt and paper to taste.

*** The first time I made it I didn’t have farro in the house but I had some Ancient Grains and I used them.

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DAY #6 – Give Me Some Of That OLD and BITTER Stuff!

Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, BY THE WAY, New York Speaks, Smooth or Crunchy, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , on December 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If that title didn’t grab you, I don’t know what will!!! LOL LOL.  No, I haven’t lost my mind or forgotten what these count-down blog posts are all about – Gifts for the Foodies in Your Life.  

We know that there is a broad definition to the word Foodie;  Some like to eat out and experience a wide range of ethnic foods or dine exclusively  at restaurants owned by renowned chefs, some prefer the ever-changing and exciting world of cocktails which often includes revivals of the classics.  Then there are creative cooks at home, the bakers and candy-makers as well as the gadget-collectors!

This post is for young emerging generation of cocktail connoisseurs.  They started out drinking the sweet, syrupy fruit-flavored drinks like all things made with Raspberry Vodka, Orange Vodka and every other fruit vodka.  Since vodka doesn’t  have too much flavor of its own and can be disguised with fruit flavorings, the newly-legal and the many under-age drinkers preferred drinking the equivalent of a cherry soda with a kick!  And some resorted to Jack and  Coke  or Jack Daniels and Red Bull (OMG) to get their highs.

But now, I see the Gen X and Gen Y crowd (well especially here in New York City) growing  into sophisticated crowd of cocktail connoisseurs.  They meet at the secret speakeasies around town and order classic cocktails, some with a modern twist.  Manhattans and Martinis, Single Malt Scotches, and aged Bourbons are among the new old preferred drinks of the day.

Additionally, one of the new hot buzz words in the Foodie world is small batch which could be described as artisanal and sometimes even local or regional unique offerings from private label companies.  In that vein, today’s gift idea is: AGED CITRUS BITTERS by Five by Five Tonics Co.

Aged Citrus Bitters

Aged Citrus Bitters

The company’s description of their product is as follows:  

Five by Five’s Aged Citrus Bitters are unique in that our aged component does not come from aging the bitters themselves, it comes from selecting citrus varieties at various stages of maturity from fresh to aged.  This gives the Aged Citrus Bitters a wider range of flavors than you will find in any other citrus bitters available from the aromatic flavor of citrus peel to the savory flavor of aged tangerine peel.  This is a truly handmade product crafted meticulously from botanical to bottle.

Mixing notes:  This is an extremely versatile citrus bitters able to mix well in all traditional uses of citrus bitters, while also imparting enough balanced savory flavor to shine in cocktails where normal citrus flavor wouldn’t.  These bitters pair well with brandy, vermouth, and work exceptionally well in a martini.

Tasting notes: Savory and warm with complex citrus notes.

And as a bonus I’m including their recipe for a FIVE SQUARED VIEUX CARRE

5 Squared Vieux Carre

  • 3/4 oz. Rye Whiskey
  • 3/4 oz. Cognac
  • 3/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth
  • 2 Dashes Five by Five Aged Citrus Bitters
  • 1 Dash Five by Five Aromatic Bitters

Stir 50 times over ice and strain into a cocktail coupe.  Garnish with a orange peel.

Notes:  I’m sure there are many of you crying out that the Vieux Carre is not a cocktail that is served up.  Traditionally the Vieux Carre is served in an old-fashioned glass over ice.  I like to think of this more as a Nouveau Carre for two reasons.  One, being that this drink is best made with high quality spirits, serving it up will not allow these flavors to be diluted.  Also, the keen-eyed observer can see the absence of Benedictine in this recipe.  I feel the herbal component of this cocktail is handled quite nicely by employing both of Five by Five’s bitters flavors and makes this gem of a cocktail a bit more accessible to the home cocktail enthusiast.  

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Day #14 – I’ve Got A Crush On Garlic

Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, BY THE WAY, Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, tagged , , , , , , on December 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I almost always increase the number of garlic cloves any recipe calls for.  I’m Italian and many dishes I make are of that ethnicity and with garlic.  I’ve had a couple of garlic presses and hated trying to poke all of the residual garlic out of the holes.   Then I had one of those that switch the head back and forth and it pushes the last of the garlic out;  Unfortunately I broke two of those – not sure how or why.

When the rubber tube garlic peeler came out, I bought one of them and one for my daughter.  At first it seemed like the ideal way to peel garlic and I used it hundreds of times.  Lately I’ve been peeling cloves sans tools because, because I have no idea why lol.  

LOOK what I found!  A new garlic tool and it looks like a winner.  It is called Joseph Joseph Rocker Garlic Crusher. It looks like this:

It ROCKS!

It ROCKS!

By using downward pressure and a ‘rocking’ motion, this stylish tool breaks up garlic cloves quickly and easily, forcing the pieces up through the array of small holes in its base. The crushed pieces are then held in the curved design, allowing them to be spooned or scraped conveniently into a pan or bowl. Additional cloves can also be crushed at this stage before emptying. Continue rocking for a finer texture. Rocker™ is easy to clean under running water but is also dishwasher safe. 

It was designed by Goodwin Hartshorn and is available through Yellow Octopus for $12.95

 

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WEDNESDAY Is A Workaday! Pre-Thanksgiving Prep

Posted in Amuse-bouche du jour, BY THE WAY, Everyday Food, Ha-P 2 B in OG, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday on November 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

The day is rapidly slipping away and I’m not half done with what I need to make or prep.  We didn’t exactly get a late start this morning but we did have to go out and pick up yet a couple more things.  I would think with all of my OCD planning and list-making that I would have everything I need. 

So far the cranberry sauce has been made and the cornbread-mushroom-sausage stuffing has been baked.  In this house you have to make as much as you can in advance because my stove and oven are so small.  When I think of the buyers in New York who when they see any kitchen, the first thing they say is, “We’ll have to renovate the kitchen”.  Cracks me up every time!  You would think New Yorkers actually cooked in their apartments.  Yes they do somewhat but not enough to insist on a Wolf 4-6 burner stove or Miele dishwasher and a sub-zero refrigerator!!  JUST try to imagine what a 20″ inch stove looks like and how small the oven is and how close together the burners are to one another.  That’s MY stove and I’m cooking Thanksgiving dinner on it!

A Turkey Doesn't Fit in the Oven

A Turkey Doesn’t Fit in the Oven

This was a mini-break while the stuffing was cooking and now I’m back to work.  Where is my helper? Oh he had to go back to ShopRite because this morning when we bought Half & Half and a disposable roasting pan, somehow we picked up a bag that was left behind by the lady in front of me.  What do I have? Turkey legs, turkey cutlets and turkey thighs.  I really didn’t have an ethical dilemma about what to do, I just didn’t want to go all the way back to the store right now.  So I called the store and they asked me what did I have because some lady had been in saying she didn’t get her items.  I had them! I said we would return the stuff but later.  Peter brought the food back and while he was there, so it shouldn’t be a total waste of time, I called him and asked him to buy more butter – the list never ends….

Back to typing, it’s been a couple of hours since I typed the above.  I just had to sit down.  I made the chocolate ricotta mousse and oy what a mess!  There were chocolate splashes everywhere;  on the microwave, on the counter, on the cord of the food processor and on me.  But that’s done  and in the refrigerator, chilling.  Speaking of the refrigerator, it’s not exactly large either.  I had Peter peel the potatoes and put them in cold water;  They’re now in a covered pot sitting on the table outside!  Cold weather affording extra refrigerator space is one of the pluses of a winter holiday.  Of course it is raining on and off  but I think the pot will be secure.  There was no space for the cornbread sausage stuffing either so it’s out there too but in a casserole that isn’t airtight so there’s inverted plastic bowl over it.  I love improvisation.

The green beans have been cooked and refrigerated, the onions have been caramelized and the tarragon snipped and stored in a plastic bag.  As soon as I rest just a bit more and type away, I’m going to inject that pricey bird breast with Emeril’s very own recipe for a brine.  I’m going have to put the garlic heads in the oven to roast, so I can then make the garlic-herb paste à la Emeril and Martha and have it ready for spreading under the skin tomorrow.

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