Weekly Dish

As regular readers of this site will know, I am not a person who counts carbs. I have been known to count calories if I want to lose weight, but I simply can’t give up bread or pasta. I tried Atkins for about a week when it first became popular, but I was miserable. I thought I would never want to see another scrambled egg or piece of bacon again.

But I have had friends who were careful about their carbohydrate intake. Our friends in Jackson, Laura and Randy, were on the South Beach diet for a while, and we dined with them often. Through learning to cook low-carb for them, I also learned that it’s important to have a variety of meals in my culinary arsenal. This frittata is both low-carb and gluten free, so if ever I have friends coming for dinner who fall into either of those categories, I at least have one option.

And, if they’re coming for Sunday brunch? Even better. This frittata is quintessential brunch food: it’s fast, easy, goes well with both coffee and juice, and the possibilities are endless. Put another way, you could throw in the kitchen sink, and a frittata would take it.

Well, okay, maybe not. But it soaked up my almost-expired goat cheese and quickly ripening green tomatoes with gusto. I used rosemary to add an herbal kick, but basil would provide a better, milder flavor; the rosemary was a little overpowering for my taste. Red tomatoes might work fine too, but the green ones are not as juicy, so there’s less chance that the frittata will be runny. Although tomato season is still a few months away, a farmer at our market grows them in a greenhouse. The flavor is definitely not the same as a tart green tomato at the height of summer; to minimize the difference, I salted the tomatoes and let them sit for a bit before tossing them in to the skillet. The salt also seems to absorb some of the tomatoes moisture, again reducing the possibility for a runny frittata.

Going low-carb? Cooking gluten-free? Just want a light, bright dish for brunch or lunch? Frittatas are the way to go. Here’s how I made this one, but the method is an open palate. If you try the kitchen sink, please, by all means, let me know how it turns out.

Green Tomato, Garlic, and Goat Cheese Frittata

1 large or 2 medium green tomatoes
Olive oil and butter
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 ounces goat cheese, or more to taste
Chopped rosemary (I used too much, but if you like the flavor, use it sparingly.)
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Preheat the broiler. Slice 4 thin slices from the tomato; salt, and set aside. Chop the remaining tomato, and salt it too. Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a broiler-proof skillet with a small pat of butter over medium heat. Add the garlic slices and saute until fragrant, about a minute or two. Add the chopped tomatoes, stirring to coat them with the garlic and oil. Cook until the tomatoes are very soft; salt and pepper. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and milk together; season them with salt and pepper too. Pour evenly over the tomatoes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and crumble the goat cheese on top of the eggs. Cook the eggs slowly, but without stirring. When the top is just beginning to set, lay the tomato slices on top, and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Place the whole skillet under the broiler to finish. Broil for a minute or two, or until the top is golden brown. Slice into wedges to serve. Serves 4-6.

This recipe is my contribution to Sweetnicks’ weekly event, Antioxidant Rich Tuesdays.

Whenever I visit my parents in Mississippi, the first thing my dad wants to know is what I want him to cook. For our holiday visit over Christmas, I thought it was high time that I learned to make a proper etouffee, seeing as how I now live in the land of fabulous Cajun cooking. Dad complied, and so I am pleased to share the recipe with you, as I diligently took notes during each step of the preparation.

One of the things I noticed as I was watching him (and we’ll see this later on when my Grandmother teaches us to make dressing) is that I come by my “cook by feel” method quite honestly. There’s very little measuring that goes on in the kitchens of these folk. I did insist that we measure some things, as you will see from the recipe, but both Dad and his mom say that the best way to figure out what your dish needs is to taste it and then add some stuff. Not very scientific, I know, but the more you cook, the more you learn this trick.

When I first started cooking regularly, I tried to follow recipes exactly because I was afraid of screwing up our dinner. If the recipe called for celery, I’d use celery, even though I don’t usually like celery that much. Since then, I’ve become more confident at making substitutions and leaving things out entirely. All I can say is that it comes with practice. Of course, having these techniques in the family doesn’t hurt either. You just have to pay close attention.

Dad’s Shrimp Etouffee

3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup butter
4 stalks celery, small-diced
1 bell pepper, small-diced
2 medium onions, small-diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, white and green parts minced
3 bay leaves
3 small tomatoes, chopped
2 pounds shrimp, in their shells
Tony Chachere’s
Salt
Cayenne pepper

First, peel the shrimp. Put the shells into a large stockpot to make the shrimp stock. Add the trimmings from the onions and celery; cover with water. Season with Tony Chachere’s. We didn’t measure here, but my guess was about a tablespoon. Bring the mixture to a boil, and let it simmer until you need it. Put the peeled shrimp into a bowl; season them wtih Tony’s as well (dust lightly). Set aside.

Next, make a roux with the butter and flour, stirring them together in a large saucepan or cast iron dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat, until the mixture begins to turn golden. Dad agrees with Emeril: the roux takes 2 beers to brown. Just keep stirring, so that the flour doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. When it’s ready, it should look like this:
Once the roux has browned properly, add the celery, bell pepper, and onion; coat the vegetables with the roux. Cook until all vegetables are very soft and translucent. Season with salt and cayenne pepper (a good bit of salt, and as much cayenne as you can handle; Dad likes it hot! Just remember that the Tony’s has both salt and cayenne in it too.) Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves, and green onions (reserve some of the green onion for garnish). Stir into the roux-vegetable mixture.

Here’s where the measuring goes out the window. You add the stock, a little at a time (maybe a half cup per addition), stirring so that the roux and the stock become thoroughly blended. You have to wait until you think the mixture has come back up to temperature before adding more stock (it should simmer a little–that’s how you know). All in all we ended up adding one quart of stock for this amount. The key is consistency: you don’t want it to be too thin (like gumbo), but you also want it to be pourable, so not too thick. Cream sauce consistency is what you’re after. When the thickness is right, add the shrimp. Dad also added some worcestshire sauce and Tabasco while I wasn’t looking, so I have no idea how much. He topped ours with crab meat, but that’s not really necessary. Right before serving, taste for seasoning. Serve over rice, and garnish with the leftover green onions.

Noodles are clearly a staple around my house. Experimenting with pasta is one of the earliest ways I learned to make dinner both fast and good, and my love of the noodle is one of the reasons I could never join the low-carb craze. I like my noodles saucy or plain, thick or thin, hot or cold–in truth, it would be difficult for me to think of a noodle dish I don’t like. So when Amy announced that noodles were to be the theme of this month’s Is My Blog Burning event, I wondered how I would choose just one pasta dish to contribute.

This fettucine is certainly not the fanciest of pastas, but it is one of my favorites to fix. If you toss it properly, each bite is packed with a bit of tart tomato, creamy avocado, and crispy bacon, accented now and again with the fresh clean taste of cilantro, the crunch of a green onion, or the sweet mildness of a pine nut. With fresh ingredients and minimal prep work, this pasta dish is, in my estimation, the perfect quick, light supper. We have eaten it often at the end of a long school day or on a Sunday evening when I didn’t quite feel like cooking. The recipe is also highly adaptable: any nut would do in the place of the pine nuts (or none at all), and more vegetables would probably also work nicely in the mix (red bell pepper comes to mind).

Avocado and Sun-dried Tomato Fettucine

based on a recipe from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced (the dehydrated ones, not packed in oil)
1 pound fettucine
5 slices bacon
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
2 avocados
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
Juice of 1 lime
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in 2 cups boiling water for about 5 minutes, or until they are soft. Drain; setting aside the tomatoes and reserving the soaking water. Pour the water into a saucepan, return to a boil, and add the fettucine (you may need to add water to make sure the noodles are covered). Cook the pasta until it’s firm to the bite, but not mushy. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a small skillet. Remove the bacon slices when they’re cooked through and set aside to cool. Drain off the grease from the skillet, and toast the pine nuts until golden brown. Dice the avocados and sprinkle lightly with Kosher salt. Set one aside for topping. In a large bowl, combine half of the tomatoes, the pine nuts, green onions, one of the avocados, and the cilantro. When the pasta is done, toss it immediately with the avocado mixture. Drizzle the whole dish with the vinegar, olive oil, and lime juice. Toss again. Serve topped with the crumbled bacon and the reserved avocado and tomatoes. Serves 4 for dinner.

Tagged with: IMBB # 22 + Noodle

Everyone knows that the danger of a sugar high is the low-energy dip that follows. For Sugar (not so) High Friday this time around, we have been encouraged by the lovely Sam to subvert the sugar high, to knock it on its head. Or, less theoretically, to prepare a healthful dessert, relatively low in sugar and fat content.

No one can live without sweets every once in a while, even the post-holiday dieters among us. So creating something delicious to satisfy a sweet craving without crashing your calorie count is a most worthy — if difficult — challenge. This recipe is one I’ve been toying with for a few months — the original was passed along by my aunt from longtime family friend Angela Rehmann, who teaches cooking classes occasionally. Louisiana strawberries have begun to appear at my farmer’s market in glorious abundance over the past few weeks, and with the help of Angela’s recipe, I have hit on my favorite simple and sugar-free preparation of them, which makes a lovely and delicious dessert.

With so few ingredients, quality becomes key here. Really good basalmic vinegar and honey will reduce to a delectable, tangy syrup, the perfect topping for just-ripe strawberries. A small bit of mascarpone cheese whipped with fresh cream smooths out the vinegar’s kick–when everything is mixed together, the cream coats the syrupy berries in a silky cloud, making each bite melt slowly on the tongue. All in all, this dessert is just the kind to assuage that after-dinner hankering for something not too sweet or heavy, and you don’t have to feel too guilty about eating it. Just the kind of (not so) sugar high I enjoy most.

Strawberries in Basalmic Syrup with Mascarpone Cream

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup good basalmic vinegar
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced
In a small saucepan, bring the honey and basalmic vingar to a slow boil, stirring constantly. Reduce the heat and stir until it thickens, about a minute. Remove from heat and cool. Whip the mascarpone cheese and cream until soft peaks form. Divide the strawberries between 4 glasses or bowls. Drizzle the syrup over the berries, and top each glass with a dollop of the cream.

Tagged with: SHF # 15 + Low Sugar

Or maybe it is. What do I know? Well, I’ll tell you. I do know that three types of apples are on Sweetnicks‘ list of the top twenty most antioxidant-rich foods: Gala, Red Delicious, and Granny Smith. And I know that ever since Ina Garten’s recipe convinced me, applesauce is my very favorite thing to make with a bushel o’ apples.

Before Ina, I never even thought about making my own applesauce. I’d never had any that was homemade, and who eats applesauce besides third graders anyway? And, then my Aunt Prissy gave me The Barefoot Contessa, and my applesauce prejudices dissolved right into the casserole dish with the apples. The texture of the sauce is perfectly chunky-smooth, and the spices add just the right complexity and depth to the apple-citrus combo. Plus, with all of those apples and the juice and zest from 4 other pieces of fruit, it has to have some kind of nutritional punch, right?

Yes, okay, so it has a little butter in it. But I substitute cane syrup for most of the sugar, and I bet that honey would also work. Butter and sugar aside, applesauce still contains all of the vitamin-y goodness of the fruit it’s made of. This batch made a lovely side to go with our roast chicken last night, and it will be the perfect, antioxidant-rich snack for at least another week. Besides, doesn’t it look pretty in the little mini-goblet my mom got me for Christmas?

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Roasting a whole chicken (or two) is a fabulous way to make a meal that lasts all week. We’ll have the plain old chicken itself with crispy roasted potatoes the first night, and then there will be meat leftover for at least two more meals in the week, plus stock. What’s not to love about that?

Who gets to actually cook the chicken on the other hand is a whole different matter.

The right to roast the birds in our family has often been the source of controversy. My aunts have fought long and hard over who’s roast chicken is best, but the truth must finally be known.

Here’s my confession: the best roasted chicken in my house has been made, not by me (who follows the aunts’ recipes), but by my husband. In the days when he worked in an office, he made the Thanksgiving habit of roasting turkeys every year, and apparently, over the years he learned a thing or two. His roast chicken is DELICIOUS. It’s usually much moister than mine (even though he had an off night the other night and it cooked too long, his record is still pretty good), and the flavor is the perfect balance of lemon and piny rosemary. So, when he put together his perfect creation over the weekend, he agreed to dictate the instructions to me so I could share them with you. Let me reiterate that I quote verbatim. These are not my words, I tell you, but his. Got that? THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS. Okay. Here are his instructions:

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What I Make for Dinner when I’m Dead Tired at the End of the Week, or What to Do with that Jar of Spaghetti Sauce in Your Pantry

Yes, dear readers, it’s true. Sometimes I buy pre-made spaghetti sauce at the grocery store. As a matter of fact, I usually keep a jar on hand for nights just like last night. I may seem like a great big food snob on the surface, but deep down, I really just want to get dinner on the table and have it taste good. And sometimes in the midst of this life I live, that just has to happen with premade stuff. Please don’t tell the foodie police.

Oh, sure, at the beginning of the week, I planned to make my own slow-roasted tomato sauce for the pasta. But by the time 7:00 rolled around last night, I had just walked through the door, ended my first full week of teaching and going to class, and I just didn’t have the energy for anything else. I post this recipe not because it’s some great feat of culinary prowess–it isn’t. I post it just in case you just ever find yourself staring into the deep dark corners of your pantry and you need a quick, hearty way to satisfy your need for dinner. If a jar of Ragu or Bertolli or Prego or whatever catches your eye and you also happen to have pasta and some mushrooms on hand, then this is the recipe for you.

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I am probably in grave danger of being called in by the veggie police for blasphemy. After all they do for me–feed my body the nutrients it needs, liven up my salads, play a second fiddle to the main courses–and all I do is talk about how I need to dress them up in order to eat them. Why do I feel this way about vegetables? Well, I’ve been giving that some thought. I really don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve had bad experiences with canned or frozen ones that scarred me. Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with how to prepare them in a way that makes them taste good instead of bad to me. Whatever the reason, I’m trying to conquer my dislike of vegetables, one recipe at a time, so when I saw this soup recipe over at The Gracious Bowl, I knew I had to give it a try.

If you like soup and you haven’t visited Adrienne and Margaret’s blog, you should check it out. I have long been a fan of the comforting and nourishing powers of soup, so I check their site often for new ideas and recipes. They posted this recipe last week, and I immediately wanted to try it. We love Italian sausage, and since David loves beans of all sorts (and I, sadly, do not), I’m always trying to think of new ways to fix them where we might both be happy. This soup really did the trick. It is thick and hearty and utterly satisfying. The sausage and beans give it enough substance to make it filling, and the loads of vegetables makes it extra good for you. I simplified the original recipe just a tad–I eliminated the bacon and cooked the sausage, onions, garlic, and carrots all together before adding the rest of the ingredients. Also, Margaret included the rinds of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, which sounds like a lovely addition–I just didn’t have any. The recipe was also perfect for my new schedule–I threw everything together in the morning before class, and then David put it on to simmer a couple of hours before I got home.

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I love fresh figs. If you’ve only ever had the dried ones or the filling inside a newton, there is no comparison with the drippy sweetness of the fleshy fruit straight off the tree. My in-laws have a fig tree, and my mother-in-law is so sweet to save bags of them for me because she knows I love them so. Often, if they’ve been frozen for a short period of time and when the fruit was just ripe, I can eat them all by themselves, straight out of the fridge. Or with a drizzle of cream in the mornings. But sometimes, the frozen ones lose their shape and some of their juices–these are the perfect ones to cook with.

Figs and sausages may seem an unlikely pair. The recipe comes from my most beloved aphrodesiac cookbook, Intercourses. (It feels strange to say that to you, but I really do love the book for its recipes. Honest.) I felt really adventurous the first time I made it. It seemed a bit strange on paper, but really simple too, and I had a bag of cooking figs on hand. Since then, every time I have figs I need to use, this is the dish I make.

Cooking the figs with the vinegar, lemon, and spices gives them a rich, jammy flavor, and letting those flavors mingle overnight gives the dish an interesting complexity and depth of flavor. Your tastebuds move from the tang of the vinegar and lemon to the soft sweetness of the figs, spiced with clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and on to the salty, meaty sausage. Although the dish is not terribly appetizing to look at (I’ve photographed it on two different occasions now–it just ain’t pretty), once you’ve made the fig sauce, it comes together in about 20 minutes. I have served it over rice, toast points, and grits; last night we had it over cous cous. And although I haven’t tried it, the recipe might work with canned figs too–I’d just rinse off any syrup. This sauce is sweet enough on its own; in fact, I think it would be good in a variety of ways. Perhaps I’ll experiment with the leftovers…
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Broccoli has never been one of my favorite foods. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure I really ate much broccoli until I was in my twenties (unless you count the kind that comes in a casserole dish smothered with cream of mushroom soup and cheese).

In the first six months we were married, David and I lived in a small apartment downtown in the small Mississippi suburb where I grew up. My soon-to-be sister-in-law Hannah lived just a block away, and during those months, we shared many a meal (and many a load of laundry–Hannah was the only one of us with a washer.) She made this broccoli for us one night, and I have not fixed it any other way since. I love the tangy sauce, the crunchy cashews, and the texture of the not-soggy-but-not-too-crisp broccoli. Most of all, though, I love to make it because it reminds me of the delight of being within walking (and meal-sharing) distance of one of my favorite people (she and David’s brother now live far, far away in Pasadena, California).

If you’re noticing a trend with my vegetable preparation, it is true that I need a bit of sauce to make the vegetables go down smoothly. But in my defense, it makes me enjoy eating them, rather than forcing them down because they’re good for me. And if I were really honest, I would tell you that I’ve not done much forcing since I’ve been cooking for myself. So the sauce is getting me to eat more vegetables, and that’s always a good thing. Right?

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