Herby Smashed Potatoes

My mother-in-law will be proud to hear that she inspired this simple recipe. There was a time when a common side dish with dinner at my in-laws house was potato chunks boiled and then tossed in a bowl with butter, salt, and pepper (aka, boiled potatoes). And I liked 'em. Heck, that’s pretty much all I need to make me happy: properly cooked potatoes and lots of butter.

My wife, however, having grown up eaten these very potatoes on what, as she explains, was a fairly regular basis, is not so enamored with this home-cookin’ treat. When I would suggest it as an easy side for a meal that sort of needed a side dish if it was going to actually qualify as a meal, she would always say: “No, I’m sick of that.”

So, the other day, I put together a rub for some center-cut pork chops and cut up some garden veggies and other stuff (capers, olives, etc) for a salsa to put on top of them [future recipe, I promise]. Even though they were big chops, we needed something else.

On the shelf, sidled up to some PA Simply Sweet™ onions, I spied a small container of “new” potatoes from our CSA. I knew if I didn't use them at that very moment, they would be doomed to the garbage can. I could not let that happen (part of my Potatatic Oath: "I promise to respect the spud, not to cover it with fake bacon bits or processed cheese, but to treat it gently, with the same courtesy as a main dish..."). So this is what I did…

• 5 to 8 medium-sized new potatoes, quartered (skin on, Nancy)
• 1 tablespoon of chopped sage
• 2 tablespoon of snipped chives
• ½ stick of butter (plus a little more for later)
• ¼ cup of cream, half-half, or whole milk (plus a little more for later)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes in a pot of water until they are fork-tender. Strain and put in a big bowl, add the herbs, 1/2 stick of butter, 1/4 cup of cream, salt and pepper.

Take a fork (a big salad fork works well) and mash the ingredients of the bowl together. These aren’t “mashed” potatoes, however, so just mash and mix until everything is incorporated, but still a little chunky. Then taste and adjust ingredients as you see fit.

We don’t have potatoes that often, so we really enjoyed these and they worked well with the pork chops. I have a feeling these will make it back onto the dinner plates in our house fairly soon.

Asian Porkalicious!

I’ve only made this once, but it was so good – and so easy – that I wanted to get it up quickly.

This is actually the cover recipe for the September 2006 issue of Food & Wine magazine. The name of the recipe in F&W was “spicy ginger pork in lettuce leaves.” The only problem: it really isn’t “spicy,” at least not in the traditional American sense. Despite its misleading title, it’s still an extremely flavorful dish that makes you want to eat it as fast as you can.

The original recipe called for ¾ pounds of pork. But most of the time when you buy ground pork, it’s going to come in 1 pound increments, or something close to that, so I adjusted the recipe a bit to compensate for the extra pork. I was fortunate enough to have some organic pork from Wil-Den Family Farms in Jackson Center, Pa. It’s some good stuff.

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 big red pepper, finely diced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 heaping tablespoon of minced ginger
• 1 heaping tablespoon Thai sweet chile sauce (most large grocery stores carry this)
• 1 1/4 tablespoon of Asian fish sauce (most large grocery stores carry this)
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil
• 8-ounce can of water chestnuts, drained and sliced thin
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced (I find the bulbs of green onions can some times be surprisingly pungent and can overwhelm a dish. So, to be safe, I typically use a good bit of the green leaves and just some of the white bulb)
• 2 tablespoons plus one teaspoon of oyster sauce
• 2 heaping tablespoons of chopped cilantro
• A whole bunch of (cleaned) sturdy lettuce leaves, such as Boston or Bibb

Mix the ground pork with the red pepper, garlic, ginger, chile sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil and 1 tablespoon of the grapeseed oil.

In a large skillet, heat the remaining grapeseed oil over high heat. Add the pork and cook, breaking it up, until it is no longer pink and starting to brown, which should take about 10 minutes.

Mix in the water chestnuts, scallions, oyster sauce and cilantro and remove from the burner. Put a big spoonful or two on a lettuce leaf and have at it.

Now, this recipe is meant to be a starter or an appetizer. But, heck, why not just make some brown or white rice, throw in some chopped cilantro or green onion -- or any other left over herb/spice used in this dish -- and call it a meal?!

Finally, I don’t see why this couldn’t be a “spicy” dish. Next time I make it, I’m going to add a dash or two of cayenne, or maybe throw in some diced jalapeno. Nothin’ like a little sweat under the eyes to make you really 'feel' your food.

Goin' to the beach

We're going on vacation for a week or so, so won't have a new post until the end of next week. But it will be a goody, so be sure to come back for some... Asian Porkalicious!

In Honor of Pesto

I can’t remember the first time I had pesto. I’m certain I never had it during my childhood. With few exceptions, pasta in my house came dressed in red gravy, usually with a meatball or two.

Now that I’m a firmly entrenched, 30-something adult, pesto is an important part of my life. I’m fairly certain that I could eat some pasta with pesto—or put it on some sort of sandwich, or maybe on some eggs and toast even—at least once a week. Pesto is something I always look forward to, even when it’s leftover. Heck, especially when it’s leftover.

The beauty of pesto is twofold. First, it’s easy to make and requires only a handful of ingredients. But the quality of the ingredients is critical to creating a pesto worthy of adulation. Freshly grated parmesan really is a must. Don’t insult this dish by using any of that pre-grated stuff from the store that is closer to lint balls than cheese. A fairly good quality extra-virgin olive oil also is critical. Along with the basil, olive oil is pesto’s foundation. Using a cheap olive oil in your pesto is like using mud to hold together the bricks on a house. You may complete the task, but the end product is sure to let you down.

Second, pesto is always satisfying. When I eat a good pesto, I can taste every ingredient in it, but no one ingredient – even the basil, I suppose – dominates. The pine nuts, assuming enough have been added, comes through, the cheese, the garlic. It’s all there, and it all works together to slather your tongue and stimulate every taste bud on it (even, I swear, the sweet ones!). Some pasta coated with pesto is my idea of simple perfection.

And although I can’t necessarily fault anybody for only making classic pesto, I highly recommend doing some branching out here and there. Following the wise words of Molto Mario, we’ve made a fantastic pesto that substitutes hazelnuts for pinenuts and throws in a little crushed red pepper and… wait for it… goat cheese. Man is it good (see below).

We also recently made a mint pesto that has both basil and mint but that also included some ricotta cheese. In that case, however, the ricotta was mixed in with the rest of the ingredients in the food processor. The mint to basil ratio was about 1:2, and that seemed about right, because the mint was there, but it didn’t overwhelm the other ingredients.

And I just read on another food blog I recently started visiting (and that is apparently quite popular - even though its author is only, gasp, 27!) about a makeshift strawberry basil pesto. I recently had a strawberry basil mojito at Six Penn Kitchen in downtown Pittsburgh, and it was tasty (but not as good as a well-made classic mojito). This strawberry concotion sounds interesting. I may have to give it a shot, but not until next year when we can get "luscious berries" from Harvest Valley Farms.

A traditional northern Italian preparation with a classic pesto is to mix into the pasta some blanched green beans and thinly sliced, cooked potatoes. Yes, that’s a lot of starch. But it’s pretty darn delicious. Just don’t put in too many potatoes.

With the colder months not too far off and the basil we have growing in various spots around our house likely to start going south, I just made two batches of classic pesto and two mint to put in the freezer.

I’m already looking forward to the day in mid-January when I mix some linguini with pesto for dinner and then head outside to clear a few inches of snow from my driveway. If you’ve got to shovel snow, might as well start the job with a smile on your face, eh?

Classic Pesto

This should make enough for you to use half one day and freeze the other half for use another time, but play with it and see what you think. You may, in the end, need a little more basil, and, in turn, a little more of everything else.

• 5 cups of basil
• 6 tbs of pine nuts (some recipes suggest substituting walnuts; I don't)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• Few generous pinches of kosher salt and some pepper
• Half- to 2/3-cup of grated parmesan
  
• 1 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
  
• ¾ lb of pasta (linguini, penne work particularly well)

Throw everything but the olive oil into a food processor and pulse to it’s somewhat pasty. Then begin to drizzle in the oil through the top (with the food processor going, that is).

Important note: You don't have to add all of the oil. Add half, check the consistency, and then taste the pesto. At this point, you probably want to add some more oil to make sure it’s sufficiently oily to coat the pasta, a little more cheese, even some more pine nuts. Tasting it after the first go round is very important.

Variation on the theme. Substitute a few tablespoons of hazelnuts for the pine nuts, and add a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. Then, when you’re pasta is just about cooked, put some pesto over medium heat in a large saucepan and throw in 4 oz of goat cheese, stir until it’s just incorporated, add the strained pasta directly to the pan and stir ‘til it’s coated.

Lemon Box Pie (aka, Lemon Ice Box Pie)

This is Lusty Bit’s first recipe from a guest contributor, my friend and colleague, Barbara Cire. Please hold your applause until the end of the recipe or once you have successfully made it. I plan on making it this weekend.

The name of this pie comes from the fact that you must refrigerate it before serving. At least through the 1960s, refrigerators were referred to as “ice boxes” by my family, who come from Mississippi. This, of course, goes back to earlier days when refrigerators actually had blocks of ice in them to keep everything cool.

When my niece, Elizabeth, was younger, she left out some of the words (not knowing what an ice box was) and referred to this as a Lemon Box Pie. So, that’s what we call it now. She also called the serrated bread knife an Ocean Knife because of the waves on the blade.

• 1 box of vanilla wafers
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 eggs, separated
• one-third to one-half cup lemon juice
• 2 tbs sugar
  

Vanilla Wafer pie crust

Cover the bottom of an 8” pie plate with vanilla wafers and prop them up along the sides of the pie plate. Then, finely crush a handful or so of vanilla wafers and use them to cover the spaces between the cookies on the bottom of the pie plate. (You can also use a commercial graham cracker crust if you absolutely don’t have time to make this crust, but it’s not nearly as good as a vanilla wafer crust.)

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the egg yolks with the condensed milk. Then, add about half of the lemon juice and slowly blend it with a whisk. Then, add the rest of the lemon juice, again mixing it slowly. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

Beat the 2 egg whites into a meringue, adding 2 spoons of sugar when the meringue is almost stiff. Spread the meringue evenly over the top of the pie, sealing it to the vanilla wafers around the edges. Brown meringue in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until meringue is a light golden brown.

Remove pie from oven and cool thoroughly. Then put it in the refrigerator and chill it thoroughly, preferably overnight. (But, if you make the pie first thing in the morning, it should be OK for dinner that night.)

Notes:

1. This pie does not travel well because the meringue always sticks to the tin foil and looks bad when you unveil it at your potluck

2. Double the recipe for a larger pie plate.

3. Fresh-squeezed lemon juice is best, but the Minute Maid frozen lemon juice works well. (Make sure it’s thawed before mixing it with the condensed milk.) Under no circumstances should you use ReaLemon or MiLem or any kind of reconstituted lemon juice product. That would be a sin and the recipe might not work.

An Oily But a Goodie

Spaghetti with Garlic and Olive Oil

My mother used to make a version of this quite often for me back in the day. And I made a really bad version of it when, after college, I pretty much lived by myself for a year, made very little money, and realized I couldn’t eat out for every meal. I typically cooked the garlic until it resembled little bits of crushed rock. My advice: don’t do that.

Over the last year I’ve rediscovered this easy pasta dish and seem to always have a hankering for it. If you search this on the Web, you’ll see many variations. Some have other herbs, some used dried chilies. I’m embarrassed to admit that I first added anchovies based on a Rachel Ray recipe. So thanks, Rachel. Even though you’re really annoying, you do come in handy now and then.

• 1/3 cup or so of olive oil
• 5-6 cloves of garlic, very thinly sliced or finely chopped
• 1 tbs of chopped, fresh oregano
• 3-6 anchovy fillets (from a tin of anchovies packed in olive oil)
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• Salt and pepper
• Freshly grated parmesan cheese
• ¾ lb of spaghetti

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the spaghetti.

When the spaghetti seems about halfway to al dente, heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat for a minute or two. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper. Cook the garlic for just a minute or two and then add the anchovies (if, like me, you’re not an anchovy fan, keep it at 3; if you like ‘em, add as many as you like) and stir for a few minutes until the anchovies are pretty much disintegrated. DON”T FORGET ABOUT THE SPAGHETTI.

Pull the oil and garlic from the heat. Add the strained spaghetti to the pan, add the oregano, salt and pepper, and a little parmesan. Toss and serve.

Mix things up a bit: Add some chopped tomatoes, especially at this time of year when you can get excellent tomatoes from the farm market or your own garden. Or, skip the parmesan and add some lemon zest instead. Not too much, but a nice sprinkling over top is really good. Haven’t tried it, but I would bet some grilled shrimp on top would be pretty good.

Green Beans a la Fillippelli

This is sort of an amalgamation of 2 or 3 different recipes, but man did it work. It will be especially good with farm-fresh green beans and some really good blue cheese, preferably Maytag Blue.

• 1 lb green beans, cleaned
• 2/3 cup good blue cheese, crumbled
  
• ½ cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Start some salted water boiling in a large pot.

Heat olive oil over med-high heat and add shallots. Fry shallots in small pan until they are brown and just getting crispy, remove from heat.

Blanch the green beans for 1-2 minutes and immediatley strain.

Combine the green beans with the fried shallot mixture, drizzle with balsamic, bleu cheese, and salt and pepper, and combine well.

The cheese will melt a little from the heat of the beans and ensure you get a little bit o' blue in every bite.

My New Favorite Italian Grocery

Since moving to Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C., we had not found a little Italian deli where we could pop in to get some homemade pasta, prosciutto, parmesan, olives, and other goodies.

Sure, there are some great Italian stores in the Strip. Penn Mac and Sunseri Bros. have a good selection of all of the above. But (no offense to anybody with particularly strong allegiances to either place) they are kind of like Wal-Mart, when we wanted a mom-and-pop shop—you know, the small, family-owned joint like our beloved Da Marco in Silver Spring, Md., a place run by a guy and his wife, where after you’ve been in a few times and dropped some dollars on the imported prosciutto and a some homemade tortellini, you get the warm hello and knowing gaze that confirms you’re now a regular, that little secrets about the parmesan can be shared, that pizza-making advice can be offered.

Nothing like this exists anywhere in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. So on a recent Sunday, we hopped in the car for the half-hour jaunt down to the city. We planned on running up our credit card with sizable charges on meat and fish from the Whole Foods in East Liberty. But based on a tip Sarah got from a colleague at work, we added a second stop to our itinerary: Groceria Italiana in Bloomfield.

We pulled onto a raggedy side street off of Liberty Ave. and could see the store’s diminutive sign donning, of course, an Italian flag. With Julia the 23-pound drama queen in my arm, I opened the door to Groceria Italiana. My leg was bouncing. Call me a freak, but I felt like a kid on Christmas morning with a sneaky suspicion I was about to get my first Big Wheel.

I got it alright.

We were greeted by a woman with short black hair, lightly highlighted with some tans and browns, and with wispy snakes of gray poking through here and there. Her skin was tan, a bit too much makeup. In her hands was a large tray of nearly soccer ball-sized rounds of freshly baked bread, a dusting of flour on top. And, she informed us (in response to our Homer Simpson-like moans of hunger), they were still quite warm.

My eyes followed the tray as she set it on the glass counter, but were yanked downward to a small box filled with one of the most wondrous delights of my childhood, little bags of fried bread dough. Holy crap: A Big Wheel and a remote control car!

Shelves were filled with some half-decent olive oils, imported tomatoes (including the San Marzanos that are a must for making pizzas), sardines, anchovies, dried pastas. Deli counter in the back with the usual suspects: olives, cheeses, cured meats. Some freezers with housemade pastas.

We grabbed one of the breads and, somehow, only one bag of fried dough—5 small rounds of desire generously coated with cinnamon or sugar. Some pecorino romano and prosciutto. From a freezer on the far side of the store, two dozen of Groceria Italiana’s calling card: Ravioli, 12 cheese and 12 artichoke and gorgonzola.

While checking out, we chatted with the woman who had initially greeted us with the bread tray in hand. She told us how her mother makes most of the food they sell: all of the pastas, all of the baked fish on Fridays during lent. On one Friday, she told us, when all 60 pounds of fish had been sold and customers kept coming in asking for more, she told them to wait and threw together a gargantuan frittata with “everything and the kitchen sink in it.”

We ate some of the ravioli last week: Big Wheel, remote control car, and the coolest Hot Wheels money can buy. That’s what I call Christmas in July.

(Easy) Omelet Extraordinaire

Apple and Goat Cheese omelet (Adapted from Garrett Oliver, head brewer, Brooklyn Brewery)

Makes 2 omelets

• One apple, peeled, cored, and cut into thin slices
• 4 tbs butter
• 1 tbs of brown sugar
• 4 oz goat cheese
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbs milk
  
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter over medium heat, add apples and cook for a few minutes until they just begin to brown, then add and brown sugar and cook until apples are nicely brown, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs lightly with some milk, add salt and pepper. Put half of eggs in pan over medium heat.

When eggs are close to setting, add half of goat cheese on one side, top with half of apples, turn over other half, and cook until inside of omelette has firmed up. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Serve with some toasted ciabatta with butter (or a little more goat cheese!) and an India Pale Ale.

Soup n' Sandwich

This is a great midweek meal. It's a dressed-up soup and sandwich combo that, with a little preparation the night before, is easy to pull off as a mid-week meal

Carrot and Leek Soup (adapted from Soup, A Way of Life, by Barbara Kafka)

NOTE: To save time, I cut up the veggies the night before

• 4 tbs butter
  
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 3 medium leeks, cleaned very well, white and light green parts only, cut into half-inch slices (I think it's easier to clean leeks if you cut them length wise down the middle and then sort of fan out the halfs as you run A LOT of water over them)
• 5 large carrots, peeled and cut into thin slices
• 3 cups chicken stock (if you don’t have any homemade around, a good store-bought brand we like is an actual stock called Kitchen Basics; also like Pacific's Organic chicken broth, but it's a little sweet)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Kosher salt to taste (I won't comment on the superiority of kosher to iodized salt)
• Pepper (white if you've got it, which we never do)

In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Dump in cardamom and stir frequently for about 2 minutes. Add the leeks, cover with a lid and cook for 5-7 minutes, with a stir here and there. Add carrots and stock, bring up to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for about 13-15 minutes. [NOTE: This is the toughest part of the recipe: you definitely want to get the carrots tender. The second time we made this, I rushed the carrots and they were not as tender as they should have been. As a result, the end product did not have the creaminess it should have. That said, don’t cook the carrots to a mushy pulp].

Add to a blender or food processor. Might want to do 2 batches if you don’t have a large blender or processor.

Put soup into your serving pot/bowl, stir in the cream and serve. [NOTE: As this soup is a main part of your meal, I might recommend doing just ¼ of cream and ¼ of whatever milk you have. A big bowl of this made with heavy cream can be a bit overwhelming. That said, I’d recommend not having a big bowl of it anyway. It’s a rich soup and a little goes a long way.]

This makes a good bit of soup, so you definitely can freeze the leftover.

Prosciutto sandwich

• Fresh baguette or ciabatta
• 2-3 slices of prosciutto
• Butter

Cut the bread into sandwich-sized lengths and then in half, add some butter to one or both sides, add your prosciutto.

Just the prosciutto and butter is delicious. But if you want to add some other tastes, some thinly sliced fresh mozzarella and roasted red peppers – both of which are typically available in most decent grocery stores these days – work very well.