Ten Minute Dinner

This is the easiest, quickest (other than calling for take out) dinner you will ever make it and it's delicious.  It was inspired by a recent cooking show that I was watching.  Olive pesto.  Much like regular basil pesto, this is an uncooked sauce so in the amount of time it takes you to boil pasta, that's how long this dish is to make.

I used linguine because it's my favorite and what I had on hand, but I think it would be pretty great with a wider pasta, like a pappardelle.  So get your big pot of water on to boil and make your pasta.  Don't forget to salt your water when it comes to the boil.

While the water is boiling and the pasta is cooking, drag out your food processor.  Now, you can chop everything with a knife or you can use a mortar and pestle if you prefer.  The food processor makes very quick work of this though so that's what I went with.   You will need about a cup of pitted olives.  I used Kalamata, but I think any good olive would be good.  Just don't use canned olives.  It definitely won't come out the same.  Frankly I wanted to use oil cured Moroccan olives, but they are difficult to pitt so I went with the already pitted Kalamata's.  You will also need a clove or two of garlic, the juice of one lemon, a small bunch of fresh basil (about 10 leaves or so) and a small bunch of fresh Italian parsley (about 1/4 cup).  There is no need to add salt to this because the olives are plenty salty.  But you may want to add some pepper to taste.

Put it all in the food processor and pulse until you have a small chunky consistency.  You don't want it completely smooth but a little texture is nice.

And here's the thing, this is so fast that you even have time to do the painful task of washing the food processor before the pasta is even done!   So set your sauce aside in your favorite zebra bowl and get that pain in the ass thing washed before dinner.  You'll be so happy you did, trust me!

Once the pasta is done, drain with just a little of the pasta water left in the pan (not much, just about a 1/4 cup but you can hold some more aside in case you need it).  And then toss the pasta and the olive pesto in the pan (or a big pasta bowl if you prefer).  

This is absolutely going into my go to recipes.  It was so easy and so good!   I suspect I will make it often and tweak it as I go.  I think it would be great with the addition of pine nuts or maybe some Parmesan cheese (although we did add it to the top after it was done).  Possibly the lemon zest in addition to the juice.  Maybe even some anchovy or hot pepper flakes.  The possibilities are endless!!!

Mangia!

Pesto is the Quiche of the '80s

Last week when I received my bi-weekly farm share I was thrilled to see a big bag of basil.  Now, I grow my own basil but for whatever reason, no matter what variety I buy, I don't get those big luxurious pesto making leaves.  I get a lot of small leaves, tons in fact, but not those big succulent leaves that I really equate with pesto.  So when I saw that bag pesto was the only thing I had in my mind for it.

First step, wash it. 

Isn't it gorgeous?  It's washed, spun and then stems removed and then it doesn't really look like as much as I thought it was going to be.  So I went out and picked some of mine to add to it, and also in this weeks basket I also got some sage so I put that in.  Hey why not huh?  

So into the food processor it goes.  And to it I added four big cloves of garlic (also in the basket).  I didn't have any pine nuts so I added almonds, which I did have (about a handful)

And then set the thing a whirrin!  Once all the ingredients are chopped nicely I began to drizzle in the olive oil with the processor running.  I would say all in all, about three quarters to one cup of extra virgin olive oil was used.

In total, I got about a cup of pesto.  Maybe a little more. You're probably wondering where the Parmesan is.  Well, I forgot it!   I totally forgot to put it in so when it was done I stirred some in. 

Now, what do with this pesto now that it's made?   Of course you can also make pasta.

But I have also used it on grilled chicken...

And I even put some in the calzone I made (broccoli rabe, sausage, leeks and provolone with a little pesto mixed it)

 

Mangia!

Arancini, At Last

One of the things my Grandma talked about wanting to make but never did was arancini.  I'm not sure why she never made them, or why I never took a day and went to her house to make them with her, but it never happened.  And I thought of them from time to time, how delicious it sounds and how I'd like to make them.  When I see them on a menu, I order them.  So what is arancini you ask?   Having originated in Sicily, it's basically risotto that is shaped into a ball with some fillings in the middle, breaded and deep fried.  In the words of Ina Garten, "how bad can that be?"

Traditionally arancini start with saffron risotto and being the traditionalist I am, I would start with saffron risotto.  To make it, you need one small onion, diced and sauteed in a large pan on medium heat with a Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and a Tablespoon of butter.  

Once the onions have softened and are translucent, add 1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice.  Do yourself a favor and don't try and use regular long grain rice thinking it will work the same.  It won't.  You need a short grain rice like Arborio or don't even bother.   Add a good pinch of saffron.  It's expensive but a little goes a long way.

Stir together and saute for about 2 minutes.   You don't want the rice to brown or anything, but you want it to be nicely coated with the oil/butter.

Add 1/3 cup of white wine to the rice and stir until the wine is evaporated.  You should have another pot going with 5 cups of chicken stock.  I happen to not be able to find chicken stock in my favorite brand Kitchen Basics that week, so I opted for turkey stock.  And I didn't have any of my own available either.  You want to warm the stock but not boil it.  Just heat it gently.  Add one ladle of chicken stock at a time to the rice, stirring and stirring until all the stock is absorbed.  Then add another.   And keep doing this until you get the desired consistency of risotto that you want.  Normally it would take 5-6 cups of stock to get the loose risotto texture that is desired when eating risotto.  But since we are making arancini, you want the consistency a little stiffer.

Check out that color!  That's the saffron at work.   Once the risotto is done, set it aside to cool completely and make your filling.  I've had them with a tomato sauce, a meat sauce, peas, or cheese inside.  I had an idea for what I wanted to fill mine with and that's what I went with.   One pound of Italian sausage (either bulk or removed from the casings) browned with a diced small onion and some basil from my garden.

Once the sausage and onions are nicely and lightly browned, drain any grease off and mix it with the risotto.

Hot damn that looks good enough to eat right now!  But just wait.  Let it all cool completely and wait.  Chill.  You've come this far.  And so I chill.  Once the risotto mixture is cooled, it's time to start the arancini mayhem.  Put a pot on the stove with about 3-4 inches of oil (vegetable, canola, any light oil that has a high smoke point).  That oil needs to get to between 340 and 350 degrees.  I have a candy/deep fry thermometer that came in very handy for this occasion.   It is the first time I've used it for deep frying because I never deep fry.  Ever.   So this should be fun!

While it's heating I cut up the cheese.  Oh yes, there will be cheese.   Fresh mozzarella in fact.  Cut it up into a small dice.  Try not to keep eating it while you do that so there is some left for the arancini.

And now, assembly.   Wash your hands or if you're a wuss, put on some rubber gloves.  Take about 3 Tablespoons, give or take, of the rice mixture and form it into a sort of semi circle.  Then put one of your pieces of diced motz in the middle.

 

Take a little more of the rice mixture and place it over the cheese and then form the whole thing into a ball.  As you can see, mine fit in the palm of my hand.

Not too small, but not huge either.   A little bigger than a golf ball.  Once they are all formed, it's time to bread them.  Dip them in egg then in bread crumbs.  I'm using Panko.

And this is how many I got from the batch of risotto/sausage.

 

Look at those cuties.  From here I've washed my hands again, for about the 50th time and then check my oil.  It's ready!

Be careful with this huh?   It's hot freakin oil!  Gently put in three arancini at a time and don't go anywhere.  This goes fast.  Check out the action shot.

You can see they are getting brown really fast.   The temp of the oil shot up right before I put them in and this first batch got very brown in very little time.   But then I was able to get the temp down and things went a little smoother.

The one on the right was from that first batch with the too hot oil.  The one on the left, clearly perfect.   Money shot!

These were absolutely delicious.  The risotto was still creamy.  The sausage added a wonderful depth to the arancini and the cheese, what are you kidding me?  It's fresh motz, it's freakin fantastic anywhere at any time.  Try it.  Make them.  Don't fear the arancini!   You won't be sorry.

Buon Cibo mia Amici

All Garden (almost) Dinner!

I love to make things straight out of my garden. It's not only the sense of accomplishment at getting my hands dirty and growing actual food, but it also tastes damn good. So while I had some pork chops from the grocery store (raising pigs for slaughter in inner city Akron is probably not something I'm ready to take on), everything else made for this meal was from my garden or someone else's, starting with the marinade for the pork chops.

Thinking pesto sounded good, I made a quick marinade from about (and I'm sorry I'm always saying "about" but I'm not a measurer and I try really hard to approximate how much of each ingredient I'm using so that you can try it yourself) 1/4 cup of basil leaves and 1/4 cup of flat leaf parsley leaves. Added to that is 2 cloves of my very own garlic all in a food processor. OK, fine.. the extra virgin olive oil isn't homemade, nor did I mine the salt or harvest the black pepper. Sue me and then add them to your food processor (1/3 cup oil, salt and pepper to taste). Give it a whirl until it's pesto-like (not completely smoothed into a green liquid but with some substance left). Then slather it all over your pork chops (or chicken breasts or whatever else you have because I'm here to tell ya, this would kick ass on anything!)



Set the chops in the fridge until you're ready to grill. In the meantime, let's work on the side dishes. First up, burgundy beans from my garden. They aren't really burgundy. They're actually more of a deep purple. We like them raw, but we like them steamed too. I do this by putting about 3/4 of an inch of water in pan, bringing it to a boil and then dropping the beans in.




As they cook, they turn green. I think I captured this phenomenon rather beautifully here:




Don't cook your beans too soon, you still have to grill your chops. There's also a salad to make. That consists of my gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (Mortgage Lifters today), cucumbers from a friends garden and basil from mine. I use either basil or mint (or both) in my tomato salads, but since I made the pesto pork chops I decided to stay with that flavor and just use basil. A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and that's all you need. Some crusty bread for dipping is a plus.



And that my friends, is an almost all garden meal and it rocked!!!

Pesto Bread Deliciousness

Did you ever get one of those flyer's in the mail advertising a new cookbook? They make them sound so and the pictures are so gorgeous. I fell for it. I ordered A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman. I wasn't sorry. It's a wonderful book chock full of amazing recipes. The first one I tried was Pain Pesto.

Start by putting a Tablespoon of rapid rise yeast in the mixing bowl with 1 and quarter cups of warm water and whisk them together. Let that set for a few minutes so the yeast can dissolve.




Add one cup of flour and stir. Then add 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 5 teaspoons of sugar (I actually only used 3, I'm not big on sugar in my savory breads), 2 and 3/4 teaspoons of salt and three more cups of flour (there should be 4 cups total).




Start by just adding 2 and half cups. Depending on the flour, the weather or any number of variables, 3 cups may be too much. It's better to add more flour than it is to add more water. This recipe calls for bread flour but I didn't have any so used AP.

With the dough hook knead the dough for 6-8 minutes.




This dough turned out absolutely perfect. After it all pulls together, form the dough into a ball and put into an oiled bowl, cover in plastic and let rise for about 90 minutes until dough doubles in size.




Gently deflate dough and remove to a lightly floured surface. Let set for 10 minutes. The dough is perfectly soft and pliable. Oh it was just so wonderful to work with! Don't you just love when something comes together so perfectly? Roll it out to a 20 x 20 inch shape and then drizzle with a little olive oil. Then spread the pesto over the dough.




I did use store bought pesto, but come summer when my basil plants are going crazy, you can bet that I will making my own pesto and making this bread again! For now, the Buitoni worked just fine. After the pesto is spread you then roll the dough jellyroll style. Then shape it into an "S" shape (or "U" shape as I did) and put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with a little olive oil and then sprinkle with salt, pepper, parsley and Parmesan cheese. Let the dough rest for about 45 minutes, until it looks puffy.





Then bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until the bread is well browned. It actually only took about 30 minutes.




This bread is amazing! It's soft and chewy, herby and delicious. I had to force myself to stop eating it. It's going to be a wonderful accompaniment to the Asparagus Risotto that I'll be making for dinner tonight.

Pain Pesto
(courtesy of Marcy Goldman)

1 1/4 cups warm water (100 to 110 degrees F)
1 Tablespoon rapid rise yeast
4 cups (give or take) bread flour (remember, I used AP and it was fine!)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 teaspoons sugar
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 (10 oz) jar of prepared pesto (about a cup - my container was 7 oz. and it was plenty)

Olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley and Parmesan cheese for the top.

Stack two large baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper.

In a mixer bowl, hand whisk water and yeast together and let stand 2-3 minutes to dissolve yeast. Add 1 cup flour and stir briefly. Then stir in oil, sugar, salt and most of the remaining flour. Mix ingredients and then attach dough hook and knead on lowest speed 6-8 minutes until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if needed.

Remove dough hook from machine and spray dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover entire mixer with clear plastic bag (this step seemed so odd to me that I just did what I usually do and took the dough out, formed it into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl, covered in plastic and set aside to rise). Let rise for 45-90 minutes or until almost doubled.

Gently deflate dough on a lightly floured surface. Let rest 10 minutes and then roll out to a 20 x 20 inch shape. If dough resists, let it rest a few more minutes then roll out gently. Drizzle some additional olive oil on the dough and then smear on pesto all over dough's surface. Roll up jellyroll style. Shape into an "S" shape and put on prepared baking sheets.

Drizzle oil on top and dust with salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese and parsley. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until puffy, about 45-60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.

Gently press bread down slightly before it goes into the oven (I did not cover it, nor did I press it down before I put it in the oven). Bake until it is well browned, about 35-45 minutes. Cool to warm on baking sheet before cutting. I dare you to try and wait that long!!!