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Bucatini all’ Amatriciana

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:04:11 -0400

Better known as Spaghetti with Spicy Tomato Sauce. Also referred to as delicious. And nutritious (okay, stop it). We’ve been makin’ this for almost a year now - it’s become a favorite in the rotation. Just go pick yourself up a 1/4 pound of guanicale or pancetta sliced thin, garlic, a small carrot, small onion and a 28oz can of San Marzano pureed tomatoes and you’re pretty much good to go. Once back in the kitchen, start by making yourself a cocktail. Now proceed.

Heat a little oil in large skillet on medium heat. Add pancetta (already cut into 3/4” pieces) to pan and cook until lightly browned (6 minutes or so). Add cracked black pepper and cook another minute. Increase heat to medium-high and add garlic, minced carrot and diced onions and cook until soft, roughly another 5 minutes. Add some chile flakes (we’ve been using Aleppo pepper instead - ‘cause that’s how we roll), cook for another minute and then add the tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring once and awhile, until sauce thickens, another 20 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, you’ve salted some water and cooked a pound of pasta to just under al dente. Reserve a 1/2 cup of pasta water and then when the sauce is done you drain the pasta and add it to the sauce along with the water. Stir it all together and continue to cook for another 2 minutes or so until the pasta is cooked through.

And because your momma didn’t raise no fools
you add a cup of shredded Pecorino cheese to
this mess and mix it all together. Serve it up in
a bowl and add some shredded basil if you’ve
got that lying around - if not don’t sweat it.

This should feed two gluttonous adults, or two
regular adults with enough leftover for your
lunch tomorrow.

I’d link you to the Saveur site where we got this
recipe but mother nature has dealt a doubly cruel blow today and as I type this it is raining hellfire (by that I mean we’re getting our first snow of the year - say what?) and the power has gone out. You believe that nonsense?

We like Squash Soup

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:41:42 -0400

So sue me. We’ve been on a squash soup bender lately. Butternut to be specific. It all started a few weeks ago when we received some butternut squash a couple weeks in a row from the CSA. First we roasted it and it was damn good. Then we roasted it and turned that roasted goodness into soup. It was even better. Kinda like the pumpkin pie of soups. Then we flew all the way out to Oregon and did it again (with a hand mixer):

And then we flew back home and did it one more time. Fascinating, I know. Here’s how we (she) did it:

Take a butternut squash, peeled and seeded, and cut it into large chunks. Coat with olive oil, salt and pepper, a little brown sugar and assorted herbs and spices - we like, oregano, garlic powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, paprika and some Aleppo pepper. Roast at 450 for 25 to 30 minutes (until it begins to brown and crisp a bit) tossing once at the midway mark. Then dump it in a pot with roughly 4 cups of beef or chicken stock and add some sliced onion, peeled and cubed sweet potato, and some peeled and cubed apple.

The first time we did this we had the benefit of the previous night’s pork chop bones left over which we dumped into the pot as well (the second time we had no such bones, and the third time we had some chicken carcass left over that we used and that turned out to be a pain in the ass ‘cause of dem bones). Anyhoo, let it all cook for 10 or 15 minutes and then do as pictured above, or use an immersion blender or regular blender or processor to puree it a bit (to what every consistency you like, and don’t forget to remove any bones), and then back into the pot to cook and reduce a bit to whatever thickness works for you (add the bones back in). Add stock if needed and adjust flavoring if needed (probably not needed).

Serve up with some crusty bread that you fried up in a pan with lots of butter, salt and pepper and perhaps some garlic. Then be glad that you have leftovers for lunch 2 days in a row and feel lucky that you remembered to take a picture just before the soup disappeared forever.

Discuss.

Porterhouse with MacDonalds fries

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:51:42 -0500

They weren’t really MacDonalds’ fries, but she said they tasted just like them. Which I took as a compliment... until I remembered she prefers Burger King fries, so now I’m not sure what her real intention was. Anyhoo, this was the best steak meal we’ve cooked in some time. Probably because we used the weber grill instead of the stove top. And maybe ‘cause it was a darn t-bone: 1 part ny strip steak, one part filet mignon, and 1 part dy-no-mite.

The inspiration for this came from this
NY Times Magazine article I read today.
However, as you can see what we ate really
wasn’t anything close to it. I thought I was
going to do pretty much exactly what it
described but as I began to fill the wife in on
what was for dinner, she wasn’t having any
of it. The idea of roasted root vegetables
was essentially repulsive to her (go figga), so
we settled on this glorious Porterhouse and
some fantastically roasted steak fries, plus a
side of salsa/chimichurri.

I don’t really know technically what a chimichurri is, but this thing we make isn’t as soupy as salsa typically is, so I call it chimichurri. Bascially I take 4 o 5 plum tomatoes and hollow them out with a spoon to remove all the soupiness. Then finely dice up the tomatoes, combine that with about half of a small yellow pepper - finely diced, plus half a jalapeño, finely diced, plus a good handful of cilantro and the juice of half a lime. Also add in a good pour of olive oil, then salt and pepper, a little garlic powder, and then some cumin. Stir it all together and adjust seasoning as needed.

I should have said start first with the fries,
‘cause you can do everything else while they
roast. Peel 2 russet potatoes and cut into
long wedges. Pour a bunch of olive oil,
salt and pepper over them. Add a little
oregano if you want and also some celery salt.
Roast for 20 minutes on 450, flip the fries
and roast another 10 or 15 minutes at 400.
Remove from oven and toss in a T of butter,
add some more salt, plus some chopped
parsley and some microplaned lemon zest.
Stir all together and put it back in the oven
to stay warm while you wait for your steak to rest after coming off the grill. BTW, the steak was simply brought to room temp before cooking, seasoned with most of those spices from the NYTimes recipe and then cooked about 6 minutes per side on a hot grill. Rested and sliced. Spoon pan juices over the top after serving. Delish.

Linguine wit Clam Sauce

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:43:49 -0500

Thankfully I have a wife who can cook, because I completely ruined my back tonight taking out the returnables. Just bent over kind of funny to pick up the blue bin full of glass and plastic and whammy(!), lots of hurt. Note to self: bend at the knees. We’ve made this numerous times in the past, but it’s been awhile so it tasted especially good. And I didn’t have to do any heavy lifting in the kitchen because I was unsucessfully too busy trying to find any possible position that would allow my back some relief. Hence, no real pictures.

Chicken Off the Rails

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:35:26 -0500

This dish really didn’t go the way it was supposed to. It was simple pan seared chicken cutlet accompanied by some roast vegetables and some jasmati rice. Unfortunately I was lacking the proper ingredients to make the sauce. Before we started I cleaned out the fridge and threw away the chicken broth from last week, assuming we had more in the cupboard. Turns out we did not. So I was forced to use beef broth, and while it wasn’t bad, the flavors just didn’t quite line up properly.

Jake’s Saloon

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:26:55 -0500

“Whether it is just to grab a quick bite, or to catch up with old friends while watching the game on a big screen... Everything your senses crave... All in one place, it can only be Jake’s Saloon...”. Everything your senses crave? Translation: don’t eat here. Unless you’d like a voluminous offering of fried food to choose from off of a grimy menu. We had to work late and we had no energy to leave the neighborhood, so it wasn’t our fault. At least somebody liked it.

AUGUST

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:37:17 -0500

In the city for 4 days of toil. One thing to look forward to is the end of each day which, as you know, turns into what is called evening. That is when the eating and drinking portion of the 24 hour cycle begins. In my opinion, that is generally the most important thing happening during any given orbital pass of our great fireball, currently scheduled to flame out in approximately 4.57 billion years. While you wait for that to happen, I’d highly suggest a dinner at August when you’re in town (Urinetown). By the way, the bacon braised kale was out of control. Let the image parade commence...

Don’t Really Know What to Call This

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:21:56 -0500

And you’ll probably create something different than this when all is said and done. This is a complete original. Never done it before fer sure. And tonight’s recipe had inspiration, but since there’s a big push to do something somewhat inventive, I honestly can say it’s original. Spaghetti Collins was the starting point for this dish. After reviewing it and going down some other pasta avenues I saw the need to work in some crispy bread crumbs and anchovy flavors.

So, you can use the Collins recipe above as a base, just keep in mind you want to trade out veal stock for clam juice, plus add a little chicken stock and anchovy paste. Multiple extras added in as well such as canned tuna, jalapeño, parmesan, and parsley. Add a little jalapeño to the sauce, plus a heavy dose of lemon zest. Meanwhile, add some fresh bread crumbs to a pan of butter to crisp up. Then toss some canned tuna (we used some sashimi grade albacore, but next time might use some yellowfin) in a little butter or oil, salt and pepper to plate on top of the pasta along with some diced parsley. When the sauce is essentially done, add the cooked pasta to the sauce so it all absorbs, along with the cheese to melt. Plate and top with the tuna, breadcrumbs and parsley.

jukabox:

It’s What’s for Dinner

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:02:16 -0500

All rolled up into balls of magic. Specifically Moroccan Beef Meatball Tagine. And listen up crackers (you know who you are), it’s a NEW recipe, never been cooked before by moi. I was chided today after my own admission yesterday that I was not living up to my promise of newness. Well here’s some newness for ya. Takes a little time - plan on about 90 minutes total - but nothing terribly difficult going on here. And super tasty. I guarantee it’s gonna require you going out and investing 15 dollars in spices that aren’t currently in your pantry, but what the hey.

I accidentally bought watercress tonight instead of spinach, so we had to omit that portion of tonight’s entertainment, but otherwise it was pretty dang tasty. Overall, fantastic flavors. That’s about all I got for ya.

The Soup w/ the Beans that are Black...

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:55:14 -0500

...plus the cumin and the jalapeño. Say it in Arnold Schwarznegger’s voice. First, an apology. When we started this blabbing back up 2 weeks ago I insinuated that I’d have some new dishes to offer, but it appears we’re continuing to rehash the same old hash. Well, that’s the way it is... sosueme. I think what happened is once the blog stopped awhile back, so did the inspiration to create something new and unique on a regular basis. That being said, I’m sure we’ll stumble across some dish that hasn’t already been talked about here. Give it some time. Take a deep breath. We’ll get there eventually. Let’s continue.

So, once we put down the crossword we
got onto the cookin’, or mostly P got on
with the cookin’. She’s the black bean soup
queen. She’s also the pea soup queen
but I don’t let her wear that tiara too often.
I handle the bread on this one. Cut up some
french bread in any shapes you want and
pan fry it up with some butter salt and pepper
until crisp and browned to your liking. Okay,
I’m getting bored now... click on that photo
to the right if you’d like the recipe. We like to
add some Tabasco as well. Music: