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Whole Wheat Pasta with Vegetables and Lemon The Macaroni Marathon Continues

February 20, 2015 by pbenjay

Martha Stewart Living 2005

Martha Stewart Living 2005

This is a versatile dish that is seasonless;  It is as good cold as a pasta salad as it is warm for a weeknight supper.  This is a great vegetarian pasta with some added health benefit from the whole wheat pasta.  I have to admit, I just can’t rave about whole wheat pasta, I don’t like it.  Maybe I have to force myself to eat it consistently and perhaps then I will appreciate its flavor.  Flavor? Hah, I don’t think it has much but then again I am a big fan of Barilla pasta.  So either follow the recipe to the letter or do I as often do, which is mix the whole wheat shells with regular shells – hey it only makes the dish more interesting!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup frozen shelled edamame

10 oz asparagus trimmed and cut into 2 1/2″ pieces

1 lb. whole wheat shell-shaped pasta

2 TBS plus 2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil

1 shallot finely chopped

1/3 cup white wine

Finely grated  zest of 1 lemon, plus 3TBS fresh lemon juice (1 lemon total)

2 1/2 tsp coarse salt

2 cups baby arugula (about 1 oz)

2 oz yellow grape tomatoes or other cherry-type tomatoes, halved (1 cup)

2 TBS freshly grated ricotta salata

2 TBS chopped fresh chives

Freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cook edamame and asparagus in boiling water until just tender, 3-4 minutes. Drain, and set aside.

Bring large pot of water to boil, add pasta, cook until al dente.  Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water.

Heat 2 tsp oil in large skillet or braising pan over med heat.  Add shallots, cook stirring occasionally until translucent, about 4 minutes..  Add wine, bring mixture to a boil.  Cook until liquid is reduced by half.  Add lemon juice, edamame, asparagus, pasta and 1 cup reserved liquid.  Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt.  Toss well.  Add arugula and tomatoes, toss.  Top with ricotta salata and chives.  Drizzle with remaining 2 TBS olive oil, sprinkle with lemon zest and 1 1/2 tsp salt.  Season with pepper.

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living 2005

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Mushroom Pasta with Ricotta – THE MACARONI MARATHON

February 19, 2015 by pbenjay

Mushrooms seem to be, well just mushrooms…no brilliant color like a red pepper, no deep green like a bunch of kale or broccoli rabe, no heartiness of a baked potato, nor the crunch of a carrot.  Is the best you can say about a mushroom is that it has virtually no calories?  Of course not!  Porcini mushrooms are particularly noted for their strong nutty and slightly meaty flavor and as they’re cooking, the aroma is delicious.  There’s also portabello mushrooms which will lend substance and hardiness to any dish.  And those are just the more common ones we find in grocery stores as well as Shitake, Oyster and Chanterelles.  Imagine cooking with Hen-of-the-Woods, Black Trumpets, Morels, Hedgehogs and Trumpet Royale!  Well now if you’re wondering why I led you down this path of edible funghi, I’m not surprise AND I’m not even sure why I did, except to add a bit of interest and knowledge to the recipe of the day.

Mushroom Pasta with Ricotta

Mushroom Pasta with Ricotta

INGREDIENTS:

Coarse salt and ground pepper

12 oz. rigatoni or other short pasta

2 TBS butter ( I always use unsalted)

1/2 small onion finely chopped

1/2 cup dry white wine

3/4 lb white button or cremini mushrooms, trimmed and sliced

1 cup ricotta

4 tsp fresh lemon juice

shaved Parmesan, for serving

DIRECTIONS:

In large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente.  Reserve 3/4 cup pasta water; drain pasta and return to pot.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 1 TBS butter over medium.  Add onion and cook until softened , about 4 minutes.  Add wine and cook until almost evaporated, 4-6 minutes.  Add mushrooms; season with salt and pepper and cook until browned, about 8 minutes.  Remove skillet from heat and stir in 1 TBS butter.

Add mushroom mixture, ricotta, and lemon juice to pasta; stir to combine, adding enough pasta water to create a thin sauce.  Serve topped with Parmesan.

Recipe from Martha Stewart EVERYDAY FOOD October 2009

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Pappardelle with Butternut Squash & Blue Cheese-The Macaroni Marathon

February 18, 2015 by pbenjay

You know it’s winter in our home when the chief cook (me) turns to all forms of comfort food. We have hearty soups and stews and when we have pasta it’s often with vegetables that are plentiful in the grocery store.  I’m talking root vegetables, onions, carrots, pumpkin and beans.  And usually these vegetables leave a smaller carbon footprint!

Nigella Lawson's Pappardelle with Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese

Nigella Lawson’s Pappardelle with Butternut Squash and Blue Cheese

INGREDIENTS:

1 large butternut squash (2 3/4lb – 3 1/4lb or 1 3/4 lb of ready-cubed  (6 cups)

1 large onion finely chopped

2 TBS olive oil

3/4 tsp. smoked paprika

1 TBS unsalted butter

3 TBS Marsala

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup pine nuts

1 lb of pappardelle or rigatoni

6 fresh sage leaves

5 oz of soft blue cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Cut the butternut squash into 1″ cubes.  Cook onion in olive oil in a large, heavy saucepan that can accomodate the pasta later – I would use my braising pan.  When the onion turns golden, add the paprika.

Stir butter and squash into the onion mixture.  Add Marsala and water.  Bring to a simmer, then cover and reduce heat.  Simmer about 10 minutes or until the squash is tender but holds its shape.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boiling, add a hefty pinch of salt.  Cook according to package directions.  Toast the pine nuts in a hot dry frying pan on the stove top until dark gold.  Pour them into a bowl or onto a plate to cool. 

Lightly season season squash mixture to taste with salt ( the blue cheese will add additonal saltiness).  Remove from heat.

Finely chop the sage; Sprinkle over the squash, reserving some for serving.

Reserve 1/4 to 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water; drain pasta and add to the squash mixture.  Gently stir to combine.  If sauce is too dry or mixture won’t come together, add some of the reserved pasta water;  the starch encourages the sauce to emulsify and cling to the pasta.  Stir in most of the pine nut and the  blue cheese.  Transfer to a large bowl.  Sprinkle  with the remaining sage, pine nuts and cheese.

Recipe from  Kitchen by Nigella Lawson,  featured Better Homes And Gardens, October 2010

Posted in Everyday Food, Tasty Tidbits Tuesday, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Linguine with Tapenade, Tomatoes & Arugula – The Macaroni Marathon

February 17, 2015 by pbenjay

Today’s entry in the Macaroni Marathon is a tasty pasta dish just perfect for the winter.  With fresh local vegetables out of reach and certainly we’re not buying any of those pink tennis balls that are being passed off as tomatoes, right?  Well of course not;  First of all you can make the best tomato sauce from canned tomatoes.  There are lots of sauces that can be made using the seasonal vegetables of winter and we’ll get to them too, but today I’m using those sweet cherry or grape tomatoes – I never eat any other kind in the winter because well really, they’re not really tomatoes.

Sweet Cherry Tomatoes

Sweet Cherry Tomatoes

INGREDIENTS:    

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 lb linguine

1 TBS olive oil plus more for serving

3/4 lb cherry tomatoes halved                                         

1/4 cup plus 2TBS tapenade

2 cups baby arugula

2 TBS chopped fresh parsley

1 1/2 oz feta cheese, crumbled (1/4 cup)

DIRECTIONS:

Cook linguine according to package instructions.  Drain pasta.  In pot, heat oil over medium.  Add tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly softened, about 3 minutes.

Return pasta to pot, stir in tapenade and cook until heated through.  Add arugula and toss to combine.  Season with salt and pepper.

Divide among four bowls, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with parsley and feta.

Serves 4

Martha Stewart's Everyday Food

Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food

Recipe from Everyday Food

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Pasta w/Roasted Cauliflower & Lemon Zest – The Macaroni Marathon

February 16, 2015 by pbenjay

Roasted Cauliflower with Pasta and Lemon Zest

Roasted Cauliflower with Pasta and Lemon Zest

Perhaps you didn’t read yesterday’s blog about a Month of Sundays;  Besides the mundane explanation of the expression, I intended another nuance to the meaning as it relates to this blog.  Sundays were often “the” family dinner day and a big bowl of macaroni with Sunday Sauce was the norm.  A true Sunday Sauce contains more than one meat and often three.  Sunday was the day of special treats – the extra meat in the sauce and for me growing up, ice cream for dessert!  So I got it into my head that I would do a  month of  Sundays(not literally) of  pasta recipes, nicknamed The MacaroniMarathon.

If you have never experienced pasta with vegetables, you don’t know what you’re missing!  Not only are the ingredients fresh and healthy, the meal is also economical.  With doctors and nutritionists across the country advocating at least one or two meatless meals a week, a pasta dish with vegetables solves your dilemma as to  what to cook.  Roasting the cauliflower brings out the sweetness and the lemon zest adds just enough zing to counterbalance the saltiness of the capers!

INGREDIENTS:

1 large head cauliflower (about 2 lbs) cut into small florets (about 7 cups)

1 red onion cut into 1/4 ” slices

1/4 cup salt-packed capers, rinsed

1/4 cup virgin olive oil

coarse salt and ground pepper

8 oz orecchiette or small shells

1/2 cup coarsely chopped Italian parsley

2 TBS finely grated lemon zest (2 lemons)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 450°.  Toss together cauliflower onion, capers and 2 TBS olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Spread vegetables in single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.  

Roast, stirring halfway through, until cauliflower is tender and browned, about 40  minutes.

Meanwhile, bring large pot of salted water to boil.  Add pasta, and cook until al dente according to package instructions.  Drain

Toss hot pasta with remaining 2 TBS olive oil, the parsley, and lemon zest.  Add cauliflower mixture and season with salt and pepper. Gently toss to combine.

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living, November 2009

Posted in Everyday Food, Marthaspeak, We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Do You Know The Expression ” A MONTH OF SUNDAYS”?

February 15, 2015 by pbenjay

When I was growing up my mother would often use this expression;  Like “You haven’t cleaned your room in a month of Sundays” or “It seems like a month of Sundays since you called” – the latter said to me as an adult no longer living at home, obviously meant to be a minor guilt trip.  Just think how long a real month of Sundays is!

Anyway, I feel like I’ve been gone a month of Sundays when in fact it’s been just over a month.  I don’t know why I went on hiatus from my blog – I just did.  I had some distractions – work being a major obligation of late; then I got hooked on watching Orange Is The New Black and every night and free minute I had I would escape to Netflix and indulge myself with back to back episodes and no commercials.  And then, OMG my neighbor gave us the complete set of Breaking Bad which we watched every night into the wee hours of the next morning.  Not excuses, just reasons.

I’ve decided to devote a week or two (or three?) of blogs to my second favorite food – PASTA!  Well actually we called it macaroni.  I think this obsession/passion for pasta is the direct result of dieting.  After all, when you are abstaining or at least eating a lot less of some favorite food of yours, don’t you find yourself hungering for it (pun intended)?  I just love cooking and eating pasta and although I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, these recipes are just not your mother’s macaroni.  In my house we had two kinds of macaroni meals;  Shells, Ziti or Rigatoni with gravy (red sauce) and meatballs or Linguine with olive oil, garlic and parsley.

Today being Sunday, I’m starting my macaroni marathon with the meal I made tonight.  The butter coaxes the sweetness from the cabbage.

Spaghetti with Savoy Cabbage and Breadcrumbs

Spaghetti with Savoy Cabbage and Breadcrumbs

SPAGHETTI WITH SAVOY CABBAGE AND BREADCRUMBS

INGREDIENTS:

8 oz of spaghetti, linguine or angel hair pasta

5 TBS unsalted butter

1-2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced or minced

1/2 cup fresh  (not dried) breadcrumbs (from a rustic loaf)

9 cups of thinly sliced Savoy cabbage (1 medium head)

1/2 cup water

3 TBS heavy cream

1/4 cup grated  Parmesan cheese plus more for garnish

DIRECTIONS:

Bring pot of salted water to boil.  Cook pasta until al dente according package directions.  Reserve 1/2 – 3/4 cup pasta water.

Meanwhile, melt 2 TBS butter in medium skillet over medium heat.  Cook garlic till fragrant, about 1 minute.  Stir in breadcrumbs.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cook stirring until breadcrumbs are golden brown, 4-5 minutes.

Melt remaining 3 TBS butter in large high-sided skillet or braising pan over medium high heat.  Add cabbage, season with salt and pepper.  Toss to coat, cook until slightly wilted 3-4 minutes.  Add 1/2 cup water.  Cook, covered until tender about 4 minutes.  Uncover, and let any water evaporate.  Stir in cream.  Cook until sauce is reduced and thick enough to coat cabbage, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Add pasta and reserved liquid to cabbage.  Cook for 1 minute.  Stir in cheese.  Transfer to platter.  Sprinkle breadcrumb mixture over top, and garnish with more cheese.

OPTIONAL: Serve topped with fried or poached eggs or crumbled bacon to add some protein.

Recipe from Martha Stewart Living

You can find all of my pasta recipes in the categories: We Called It Macaroni and Tasty Tidbits Tuesday and Everyday Food

Posted in We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

5 Good Reasons To Flee The City and Head South

January 8, 2015 by pbenjay

SUNSHINE STATE

SUNSHINE STATE

I’m off to Florida today to spend a few days visiting my daughter and my three gorgeous grandchildren.  Yes I can say gorgeous because first of all they are and secondly, Grandmas can get away with that stuff.

Well timing couldn’t be better because the last couple of days in New York it’s been hard to live the pedestrian life.  Of course we have lots of public transportation but…realities of getting around these past few days has been more like this….

1.  Snow melted to slush and then froze on the sidewalks making the walk to work treacherous.

2. Standing in the biting wind while waiting for the cross town bus is not exhilarating!

3. Unless you want hat hair, you have to use an umbrella when it’s snowing.

4. Bundled up in layers to keep warm and wearing fleece-lined boots,  you arrive at your office and it’s over-heated.  Actually went barefoot for half a day there!

5.  The steam heat from my dishwasher froze and formed a film of ice on the inside of my kitchen window.

AND

6.  I would almost rather be chilly in my apartment than have to endure the DRY HOT AIR heat blowing in the room. 

Posted in New York Speaks | Leave a Comment »

Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day!

January 7, 2015 by pbenjay

This Isn't Your Nonna's Macaroni

This Is Not Your Nonna’s Macaroni

PASTA WITH FRIED LEMONS AND CHILE FLAKES

Well not exactly because in this cook’s kitchen, Barilla pasta reigns supreme.  I love the flavor of their macaroni products.  I worked late tonight and I still have to pack for my long-awaited trip to Florida to see my daughter and my grandchildren.  I knew I wanted to make a simple pasta dish so tonight I made yet another version of a vegetarian pasta dish.  And referring to it as vegetarian is a bit of a stretch.

INGREDIENTS:

4 lemons

1 lb. linguine or spaghetti

4 TBS EV olive oil, more for drizzling

1 tsp kosher salt, more as needed

Pinch of sugar

3 TBS unsalted butter

3/4 tsp. chile flakes (could not find so I used crushed red pepper)

2/3 cup Parmiagiano-Reggiano cheese, more to taste

Black pepper as needed

1/2 cup celery leaves, coarsely chopped (optional)

1/3 cup parsley, coarsely chopped (optional)

Flaky sea salt, for garnish

DIRECTIONS:

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Finely zest 2 of the lemons and set aside.  Trim the tops and bottoms from the other 2 lemons and cut lengthwise into quarters;  remove seeds.  Thinly slice the quarters into triangles.  Blanch the lemon pieces in the boiling water for 2 minutes, then transfer with a slotted spoon to a dish towel.  Blot dry.

In the boiling water, add pasta and cook until just barely al dente.  Drain, reserving 1/2-1 cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet ( I used my braising pan), heat 1 TBS olive oil over high heat.  Add the dried lemons pieces and season with a pinch each of salt and sugar.  Cook until the lemons are caramelized and browned at the edges, 3-5 minutes.  Transfer to a plate.

Melt the butter with the remaining oil in the pan over medium heat.  Add the chile flakes and zest of both lemons;  cook until fragrant.  Whisk in the reserved pasta water.

Toss in pasta, juice of 1 lemon, cheese, black pepper and the remaining salt.  Cook until pasta is well coated with sauce.  Toss in the caramelized lemons and the celery leaves and parsley if using.  Taste and add lemon juice if needed.  Serve, topped with a drizzle of oil, more cheese if you like, and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Recipe by Melissa Clark, New York Times

This was an amazingly different, delightful and very delicious dish.   My husband was astounded, he had wondered just how these pieces of lemon were going to taste in his favorite pasta, linguine!  He was so surprised;  about every 5 minutes he said, how tasty the pasta was and how delicious the lemon pieces were.  Quite frankly, although I pride myself as someone who can discern a good recipe just by reading it – well even I was pleasantly surprised at the flavors melding in my mouth.

Posted in We Called It Macaroni (Pasta recipes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Goodbye Hollywood – Hello Big Apple

January 4, 2015 by pbenjay

For years I’ve been telling my son, who is an actor and lives in Los Angeles to come EAST!  I truly believe he would have more opportunities right here in Manhattan.  Theater roles abound and as we all know most of the truly GREAT actors come back to Broadway periodically to hone their skills.  When you act in a play, you must embody the role and stay in character for hours at a time!  When you act in a movie, you do scenes totally unrelated to the sequence of events and you are afforded the opportunity to do it over and over again until you get it right.

Now that I’ve put my unbiased opinion out there, I thought I’d back it up (sort of) with some 2014 New York City celebrity real estate facts.  The following information was gleaned from an article in Curbed:

Below are a few of the celebrities involved in real estate transaction in 2014.  I’ve listed just 12 but there are more; Perhaps tomorrow…

Manhattanites

Manhattanites

1. ROBERT DE NIRO – $125,000/MONTH Robert De Niro may be short, but he plays big when it comes to real estate. In September the actor rented the most expensive apartment (steel magnate Leroy Schecter’s 35th-floor combo) in the city’s most expensive building, 15 Central Park West. Part of the combo was formerly rented by disgraced baseball star Alexander Rodriguez. De Niro’s rent? Oh, $125,000/month.

2. TOM BRADY/GISELE BUNDCHEN – $40,000/MONTH Obscenely gorgeous couple Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen want to rent out their New York City pied-a-terre. Of course, the full-floor three-bedroom is located on the 47th floor of a previously scandal-plagued skyscraper on Madison Square Park, cost $14 million when they bought it, and can be leased for $40,000 per month (plus an extra $2,500 for furniture picked out by a star quarterback and a supermodel).

3. JANET JACKSON – $35,000/MONTH Janet Jackson’s ornate three-bedroom, 3.5 bathroom spread on the 34th floor of Columbus Circle’s Trump International tower came up for lease in early February, asking $35,000/month. It rented three days later.

4. KIRSTEN DUNST – $12,500/MONTH The star of Spider-Man put her lovely, fully furnished two-bedroom penthouse on the Tribeca/Hudson Square border on the rental market in September, asking $12,500/month. Yeah, someone snatched that up.

5. PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN – $10,500/MONTH The West Village two-bedroom apartment formerly occupied by the late great actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who tragically died at home earlier this year in a drug-related incident, entered the rental market in March asking $10,500/month. It leased one day later.

6. LAUREN BACALL – $26M Beautiful starlet Lauren Bacall passed away this year at the age of 89, and subsequently, her nine-room, Central Park-facing apartment at the Dakota entered the real estate market for the first time in decades. Bacall bought it back in 1961 for a couple of tens of thousands of dollars (reports vary from between $28,000 and $48,000), and it’s now asking $26,000,000.

7. SPIKE LEE – $24.5M This year, anti-gentrification pundit Spike Lee officially put his incredibly historic Upper East Side townhouse on the market. He bought the 8,292-square-foot home from Jasper Johns (yes, that one) in 1998 for $16.6 million. In January, he wanted $32 million. In April, the price came down to $28.5M, and we got another look inside via different photos. In June, the ask dropped even further, to $24.5M. Maybe history and celebrity don’t help when the house is this pricey?

8. JENNIFER LOPEZ – $20.2M Though the deed doesn’t have the name to prove it, but an LLC intead, the buyer of The Whitman’s absolutely bonkers penthouse facing Madison Square Park (personal putting green included) is reportedly Jenny From The Block herself. At The Whitman, which only has four apartments but a lot of star power, Lopez would live above Chelsea Clinton and NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon. The price? $20,161,350.

9. TAYLOR SWIFT – $20M And the biggest sale of the year goes to the queen of the pop music scene, Ms. Taylor Swift. She dropped $20 million on Lord of the Ring’s director Peter Jackson’s 8,300-square-foot Tribeca penthouse, which came with 6,000 square feet of outdoor space. The heavily beamed space aside, it apparently “sounds like it was decorated like a serial killer.” For one thing, she has personalized candles that say “Taybeca” inside of Tribeca. Tay-Tay, welcome to New York.

10. SARAH JESSICA PARKER/MATTHEW BRODERICK – $20M Celebrity real estate power couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick cut the asking price of their Greenwich Village townhouse… all the way down to $19.95 million. The 25-foot-wide, seven-fireplace home, which the couple renovated but apparently never lived in, was asking as much as $25 million at one point, but it’s now veering dangerously close to the $19 million they paid in 2011.

11. DEEPAK CHOPRA – $14.5M Joining Leonardo DiCaprio at the health-obsessed Delos building in the Village is holistic health and New Age guru Deepak Chopra, who spent $14.5 million for a 3,663-square-foot 3BR/2.5BA home.

12. BRUCE WILLIS – $13M Back at the Upper West Side celebrity magnet, the El Dorado, action star Bruce Willis put his three-bedroom on the market for $13 million—and found a buyer in less than a week. Willis and his model wife bought the place less than two years ago for $8.695M from U2 bassist Adam Clayton, but they’ve apparently given it a renovation since then. More photos? Over here.

New Yorkers are notoriously blasé about celebrity sightings and even more disinterested in where they live.  Additionally most real estate brokerage firms agree not to disclose where their celebrity clients purchased or rented; That’s why this information primarily deals with the properties sold and rented.

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With Snow In The Air – Put Comfort Food On The Table

January 3, 2015 by pbenjay

Tonight  it’s snowing in New York City, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.  It’s pouring here at the shore and has been most of the day and I thought what a perfect night for some real comfort food.  I made New England Pot Pie.  Earlier in the day, I thought about asking our friends, Dick and Jane to join us – it wouldn’t be the first time I prepared a dish that I never made before.  Thank goodness I didn’t follow through on that impulse.  NOT because the dish wasn’t good or that the recipe didn’t make enough;  No, it was definitely both, BUT it took me longer than I thought and it was totally my own doing.  

When I read the recipe two days ago or actually just skimmed through it concentrating mostly on what ingredients I would have to purchase, I didn’t realize how much prepping was needed.  A good chef knows the importance of mise en place, and I do know that very basic rule of good and efficient cooking, yet somehow just never gave it a thought.  So what happened was that I was working my way through the steps, I had to stop and prep the ingredient so I could use it.  NEXT TIME!  I think New England Pot Pie is a great dinner guest meal;  Once it’s in the oven, you are free to join you guest for a pre-dinner cocktail.

Comfort Food for a cold winter night

Comfort Food for a cold winter night

INGREDIENTS:

Olive oil for the baking dish

2 medium russet potatoes (1 lb) peeled and cut into 1/2 ” pieces

Kosher salt and pepper

6 slices of bacon cut into 1/4″ pieces

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/3 cup flour

1/2 cup dry white wine

2 8-oz bottles of clam juice

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup frozen peas and carrots, thawed

1 cup frozen corn, thawed

1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1 TBS fresh thyme leaves

1 lb. medium peeled and deveined shrimp, tails discarded, shrimp halved

1 lb. skinless white fish fillet (such as cod, hake, pollack or haddock) cut into 1 ” pieces

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (half of 17.3 oz pkg) thawed

1 large egg, beaten

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 400º.  Lightly oil 8 10 oz ramekins OR a 2 quart baking dish

Place the potatoes in salted cold water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes  are tender, 5-7 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon in large skillet ( I should have used my braising pan-my skillet a bit small) over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 4-5 minutes.  Spoon off and discard all but 2 TBS of the drippings.  Add the onions, season with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 6-8 minutes.  Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Gradually stir in the wine, then the clam juice and cream.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is slightly thickened and coats the back of a spoon, 5-6 minutes.

Add the potatoes along with the peas and carrots, corn, parsley and thyme and cook until heated through, about 3 minutes.  Remove from the heat and gently fold in the shrimp and fish.  Transfer to the prepared baking dish.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry.  Using a 4″ round cookie cutter, cut out 8 pieces OR cut one 10 x 14 ” rectangle.  Brush the edges of the ramekins or baking dish with water.  Lay the pastry over the seafood mixture and press pastry against edge of dish to  seal.

Lightly brush pastry with egg and if making the rectangle, cut 3 diagonal slits in the middle of the pastry.  Place dish(es) on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the crust is deep golden brown and puffed in the center, 30-40 minutes.  Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

recipe from Woman’s Day

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