Orecchiette with Smoked Ricotta and Salami

I know, I know.  It's been a long, long, loooong time.  And I've so missed being here.  Sure, I could tell stories about how my life has been this or that...but that's boring.  So I won't.  My lovely online blogging friend, Carina at We Are All in the Gutter, said, "I hope you're simply busy living."  Indeed, I have been! XO

So let's get back to it, shall we?  You all may remember my French post - I received the most comments on it and many of you sent personal notes expressing support and divulging your own challenges with maintaining a healthy lifestyle (and being bien dans votre peau).  Well, I am SO THERE AGAIN (though not neeearly to the extent as before).  I've had many life changes recently - most important of which is going back to work full-time - and I just slipped a bit.  But I'm back and feeling so much better already after two weeks of Frenchification.

With that in mind, one thing I've been trying to do more of is eating at home.  Adam, Isabell*, and I got into a rather awful habit of eating out often - about 3 times a week.  No more!  I need to be back in the kitchen for my emotional well-being and my health!  I've been trotting out some favorites (such as the Robiola Wrapped in Mortadella), but I also winged it a couple nights ago (what's the past tense of "to wing it"?  I wung it?) and made this:

Orecchiette with Smoked Ricotta and Salami.

I don't have exact measurements; everything below is an approximation.  That's probably bad food blogging on my part, but how boring to measure everything exactly, right?  This is precisely the sort of recipe that lends itself to experimenting, tasting, and exploring.  Here is the list of ingredients:

• 8 oz. orecchiette pasta (you could substitute cavatappi, bowties, or even macaroni)
• 4 oz. smoked ricotta (we used Salvatore Bklyn's version available from Fresh Direct, but you can substitute regular ricotta, if you can't find smoked)
• 1/4 lb. thinly sliced salami (I particularly love Rosette de Lyon, but use any kind you like...spicy could be awesome if you're using regular ricotta)
• 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 6 basil leaves, thinly sliced
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• Olive oil (high quality for drizzling)
• Olive oil (for sautéing)
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook until al dente.

2. Meanwhile, heat small sauté pan over med-high heat and add olive oil.  Add tomatoes and cook until blistered and spitting.  Remove from heat.

3. Drain pasta into large bowl.  Add ricotta, salami, lemon zest, salt, and pepper; toss pasta.  Top with tomatoes, basil, and excellent quality olive oil.  

Serves 4.

I loved this dish.  It was light but satisfying, and it lends itself to improvisation (see spicy salami note above...it'd also be wonderful with thyme); the ricotta makes a creamy sauce all on its own, and the charred tomatoes help ward off the winter blues.  This also reheated well the next day for lunch.

Well, it's wonderful to be back and you should start seeing more of me!  Happy New Year, all!

Eat, drink, and start anew!



* Isabell was 6 years old when I started this blog, and now she's nearly 13.  It just seems silly to keep calling her Kiddo.  

Photo experimentation: Panzanella

As you regular readers know (especially those on Instagram - follow me - "lauralutz"), I recently returned from a trip to Europe (Dublin, Zurich, and Hamburg).  We had some jetlag to deal with when we returned, of course, so I've been keeping my meals relatively simple.  One of those meals was Panzanella.  There are lots of recipes for Panzanella (here and here, for example), but I just did my own thing: bread, mozzarella, and tomatoes.  For the bread, I tossed the cubes in olive oil, salt, and pepper; I tossed the oil-saturated bread cubes in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat until they were toasted: croutons!  (Note: croutons are not necessary for this recipe; in fact, this is the first time I've ever toasted the bread.  Usually, I just tear up old bread and that's it)  For the tomatoes, I tossed those in olive oil, salt, and pepper as well.  At which point, I plated the dish.

So here's the thing: I'm not a trained photographer (obviously), and I've never taken a single class.  I have recently acquired a bunch of lenses, plus a fancy flash, and I'm in full experimentation mode.  Add a huge chunk of non-blogging, non-photo-taking time...and I'm such a newbie with all this.

So for fun, here's a sample of my photos for this dish:

I didn't use a flash here.

No flash here either.

No flash.  Just kept changing the angle and F-stop.

I got my Greenmarket flowers into the action...

My particular favorite, of course...lordy...  Obviously, I introduced the flash here.

Less flash...

Even less flash...

I started playing with the flash angle.

I tried using less flash.

Still. Not. Right.

I'm unhappy with all of them, of course, but I kept the whole series as a learning experience. And it adds to the whole experience when Adam says over my shoulder, "Why are all your shots centered?  Try something off-centered!" and Bug says, "Mom!  Mom!  I can get the white board to bounce the light!  Can I be in the picture?  Can we just eat now?"  Lordy.

As for the Panzanella, it's such a lovely end-of-summer dish: simple, light, flavorful.  Normally, I dump all these ingredients into bowls, toss it around, and serve it as a bit of a mess.  This is the first time I've plated it this way and I thought it was pretty classy.

Between teaching at Pratt and our European vacation, this summer has gone by so much faster than I expected.  This was the perfect way to celebrate our return home (and our break from restaurant eating!) and the end of an incredible season.

Eat, drink, and enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Fantasy Football Draft Night

I have been a long-time, regular competitor in two fantasy football leagues: one for the last 12 years and another for the last 10.  My team name changes each year and it often has something to do with food or wine - a couple of years ago, I was "Vino Vixens".  This year?  I'm "Pinot She Daaaan't!"  Clever, if I do say so myself!

Adam, Brian, and me - I think I just picked a WINNER!

Highlighters and spreadsheets are de rigeur.

Draft Night is always an event, but even more so this year since Andrea and Brian (aka the Soul Twin and My Other Husband) live just across the river from us now.  My Other Husband, of course, is a player in one of my leagues...and the Soul Twin...well, the Soul Twin came over to drink rosé and heckle us, of course.  And dance to James Brown while we were trash-talking...

Adam and My Other Husband

What?  You didn't think I'd drink a beer while drafting, did you?

So I made BLTs.  I wanted to enjoy the heirloom tomatoes at the market while they're still around, and I figured that we could eat while we were drafting, if needed.  But it was also important to me to punch up the flavor so I created my own Lemon-Garlic Mayonnaise that I thought was just incredible.

BLTs WITH LEMON-GARLIC MAYONNAISE
Serves 4


Ingredients:


Lemon- Garlic Mayonnaise

• 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise 
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced thin
• kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (I used about 1/8 tsp each)

BLTs

• 8 slices brioche (I like the counterbalance of the sweet bread with the salty bacon, but any bread of your choice will do)
• 3 large heirloom tomatoes, sliced (ideally, different colors)
• 8 slices of bacon
• 4 large leaves of romaine lettuce

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.  Cover a baking sheet with foil.  Lay bacon flat on the sheet and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until browned and crisp (doing it in the oven keeps the bacon flat).


While bacon is cooking, heat a small sauté pan over medium-low heat.  Add olive oil and garlic to the pan.  Keeping a close eye on the garlic to avoid burning, saute garlic for about 2 minutes until softened but not browned.  Set pan aside.


When bacon is done, set aside to cool.  Once cooled, halve each slice crosswide, making 16 half-strips of bacon.


In a medium bowl, combine mayonnaise, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic (and the oil from the pan), salt and pepper.  Stir.  Taste for seasoning.  Set aside.


Spread 8 slices of bread with the mayonnaise.  Place 4 half-slices of bacon on top of the mayonnaise.  Add tomato slices, then lettuce.  Put the top slice of bread on.  (NOTE: the point of constructing the sandwich like this is that the tomato is the wettest part so you want it in the middle.  That way, your bread won't get soggy as fast.)

Lastly, a note on the mayonnaise: this recipe creates A LOT of mayonnaise.  In fact, you could halve it and quite easily have enough for your BLTs.  But I made extra because you can use this for so many meals.  Here are some ideas:

1. Loosen the mayo with a tablespoon or so of olive oil to make more of a sauce.  Add on top of grilled fish.
2. Boil some new potatoes.  Add some finely chopped rosemary to the mayo and dollop on top of the potatoes as a side dish to eggs for breakfast or roast chicken for dinner.
3. Steam broccoli and use this mayo as a dipping sauce.

The possibilities are endless.  So halve it for the BLTs if you'd like...but I'm predicting you'll want to keep using this for a few days afterward.

So the sandwiches were a success.  But what about the draft?  Well, we'll have to see.  Bring it on!

Eat, drink, and GET READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!

Rooftop dining

It's Crazy Town around here with me leaving for the conference on Wednesday.  It's been so challenging to get out of my own head, away from thoughts about next week, and just be in the moment with my family before I leave.  Luckily, I'm distracted by the joy that my best friends in the world - nay, members of my family - are moving to NYC in a month.  The male half of that pair, Brian, was here last week and through this weekend, looking for apartments and getting a feel for the lay of the land.  I haven't thought about my damn conference at all for the last two days.  That is the magic that is Soul Twin and Brian moving here.

Tonight we sat up on our roof deck for dinner, something we haven't done yet since moving into this apartment three months ago.  And I made my first recipe from Patricia Wells' new cookbook, SALAD AS A MEAL: Scrubbed Bread Tartines with Chorizo, Manchego, and Tomatoes*.  It was so easy and required hardly any heat to be turned on; in short, it was the ideal summer meal.  Here's the lovely dish:

I paired it with a Vinho Verde, which was just lovely.  Vinho Verde is bright and slightly effervescent, and it's lower in alcohol than most wines so it's really the perfect wine on a very warm summer night.  The guys shared a large bottle of Dogfish Head's Squall IPA.  I don't know how it paired for them, though...I'd ask them but I'm back in the apartment typing this and they're back on the roof, smoking cigars.  Overall, between apartment shopping with my best friend and dining al fresco, I'm just the happiest, glowingest gal today.  And right before a conference, that's no small feat.

SCRUBBED BREAD TARTINES WITH CHORIZO, MANCHEGO, AND TOMATOES
adapted from SALAD AS A MEAL by Patricia Wells


4 thin slices hearty bread, toasted or grilled
4 ripe heirloom tomatoes, cut into thin slices
Fleur de sel
8 oz. Manchego cheese, cut into small cubes
8 oz. thinly sliced or cubed smoked chorizo sausage
24 large Spanish olives or green Picholine olives


Brush bread slices with olive oil and grill on stovetop castiron grill (or you can toast them).  Scrub a toasted bread slice with the bottom slice of tomato, until all that is left of the tomato is the skin.  Sprinkle with a little fleur de sel.  Top with a quarter of the tomato slices.  Place the bread slices on a platter.  Scatter some of the cheese, sausage, and olives around the bread.

Eat, drink, and thank goodness for chosen family.


* On my menu, I just wrote "Spanish Tartines" because I'm sick to death of these looooooong recipe titles that tell you every single ingredient in the dish.  For heaven's sake, it's just gotten ridiculous.

Eating in Transition

I know you all know this but...I'm moving!  This Friday!  To Manhattan! 

Adam and I have moved a lot in our lives: California, Virginia, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Jersey, Queens...  While our last move from Jersey to NYC was a bit rocky, we've been kicking butt on this one.    

Most of our kitchen is packed up but, dammit, I'm still determined to cook at home this week.  Tonight was crostini with fresh ricotta, herbs, and sauteed grape tomatoes:

 I kept out the cast-iron grill - it's a must, really - and then drizzled the bread with olive oil (normally, I would brush the olive oil on but the brush is packed up!).  I grilled the bread over med-high heat until toasted and lightly charred and set aside.  I poured about two tablespoons of olive oil into a skillet (nonstick or stainless is fine) and put over med-high heat.  Throw in a half-pint of grape tomatoes and toss occasionally until charred (careful: they spit).  Meanwhile, I chopped up fresh thyme and chives.  I also mixed up a vinaigrette (2 servings): 1/2 tbsp whole-grain mustard, 1/2 tsp sherry vinegar, 2 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.  We also had some salami hanging out in the fridge and so I sliced that up as well.  Once the tomatoes were finished, I added salt and pepper to taste.  It was simple and easy, and it had the vague promise of summer, thanks to the tomatoes.

Not bad when you consider that this is what my cupboard looks like right now:

And seriously, if my cupboard can look like this and I can still eat like this...

...then why can't you?

Eat, drink, and make the most of it.

NOTE: So I had a great conversation with my friend, Kathryn, this weekend and we talked a bit about making meals for our kids.  This one?  Well, Bug wasn't about to eat tomatoes or salad.  So her version was the grilled bread with ricotta (and if she had known that her bread had olive oil on it, she wouldn't have touched it...so...shhhhh!) then some salami slices on the side.  Then I gave her a big bunch of grapes, which she eats like candy.  So she still had the same thing as we did - because I try to avoid making her a "kid dinner" when possible - but just a slightly different version of it.  And that is how we get by as parents...

Together Again!

Adam got home late last night, about an hour after I fell asleep and looong after Bug had gone down for the night.  I hardly responded when he spoke to me at midnight, even though my mind still registered his arrival.

So when I woke up this morning, I was thrilled he was there.  As I'm sure you guessed, we were awakened by Bug...with a hug!  She climbed on Adam, hugging him, which then woke me up.  Perfect, right?

We got the idea to make Adam breakfast in bed as a welcome home gift:

We made bacon - our favorite kind, from Dickson's Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market - with scrambled eggs.  And I found some Eckerton tomatoes at Manhattan Fruit Exchange yesterday so I cut those up, and tossed them with salt, pepper, lemon zest, and olive oil.  Bug was in charge of making toast and buttering it.

Breakfast in bed on a sunny Saturday morning.  Really, at that moment, I knew that I didn't need anything else in the world to make me happy.

And, as a treat to myself for making it through a challenging week, I poured a glass (okay, fine, two glasses) of prosecco.

Eat, drink, and enjoy happy reunions.

Weekday Meals, Part 1: Naan pizza

Alas, I had such grand visions of blogging all week.  Now I know that should I, under tragic circumstances, be a single parent, I don't think I could keep up this blog.  Time was so not my friend for the past five days.

Nevertheless, I was able to capture our meals sans Adam.  On Tuesday, it was naan pizza:

This...well, this turned out not great.  Serviceable, at best.  My plan was for potato and ricotta pizza.  I heated the oven to 400 degrees with my pizza stone on the bottom rack.  I drizzled each naan with olive oil, then added salt and pepper to taste.  I spread each naan with Pomi strained tomatoes, followed by fresh ricotta.

I left Bug's as is.  To mine, I added some boiled potato slices and red pepper flakes.  Then both naans went into the oven for about 12 minutes.  Once out, I added fresh thyme to my pizza and shaved Parmesan to both our pizzas.

The result was nearly crap, actually.  I was entirely too generous with the sauce so, once combined with the already moist ricotta, turned the naan completely soggy - you can't really see it in the photo but there were POOLS of liquid on top of the pizza.  And because there was too much sauce, the pizza was overly sweet, in my opinion.  And it looked bland - I think a spell under the broiler would have done those potatoes good.

The good news?  Bug inhaled it.  Loved it.  So I guess that's good...

Eat, drink, and in all things moderation.

Gwyneth

I feel weird admitting this but I have ambivalent feelings about Gwyneth Paltrow. I saw her in Sliding Doors first, then Shakespeare in Love (with a small detour at Moonlight and Valentino - LOVED the scene where she's playing air drums!)...and decided that if I were to look like anyone else but me, I'd want to look like her. And there's a little of the WWGD feeling in me: What Would Gwyneth Do? She's impeccably groomed, well-spoken, engaging, glamorous, fashionable...so how would I react to a situation if I were as seemingly pulled-together and self-possessed as Gwyn?

Then I saw Spain...On the Road Again with Gwyneth, Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, and Claudia Bassols and only adored her more. I mean, BFFs with Michael Stipe?! Those big sunglasses and pashminas?! Yes, please.

Then GOOP happened. And I got pissed off. Why? Because I have real issues with celebrities who try to claim "I'm just an ordinary person." That attempt to make us believe that they're just like us little people. Um, no, you're not. I could go on a rampage here, but I'm certain I don't need to - you know what I'm getting at. Long rant short: no, you're not like me. And until you're in my shoes, stop proclaiming to be. I totally felt like Gwyneth went there.

So I cook recipes from Spain...A Culinary Road Trip with ambivalence these days. Like tonight. I was desperate for something to cook tonight and ultimately turned to Spain. And I found it: Pan Con Tomate and Catalan-Style Spinach. With a side of jamon Serrano? Yes, please. This is what happened:

It was heaven. Exactly what I asked for. Simple and easy to make, but the flavors were gorgeous and refreshing. Unbeknownst to me when I planned the meal, it also straddled the changing seasons perfectly: it was comforting and warm, but still seasonal and fresh.

You'll notice that I changed up the Pan Con Tomate recipe a bit. I had plum tomatoes on hand. I split one in half and rubbed it all over the bread, like the recipe said. All kinds of pulpy juiciness all over that charred bread. But I still had two tomatoes left over. So I chopped them up and tossed them with salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Spread them over the bread. Finished with flaky salt and lots of pepper.

Also, I didn't have the dried currants that were called for in the spinach recipe so I used dried cranberries to great effect. Definitely feel free to substitute.

So, dammit, GP still wins. The score? Gwyneth: 4, Laura: 0 (reference the migas, as well as the empanadas and tortilla espanola). She and Mario make a killer cookbook and travel memoir - perhaps I should forgive her GOOP and just channel her fabulousness.

Eat, drink, and be okay with who you are...even if it's not Gwyneth.

Sympatico

Oh, you guys, today was goooorgeous. Just...wow. After a number of days of gray clouds and rain, the sun came out today and it was glorious. It wasn't humid and it wasn't too hot - just 70s and sunny. The kind of day when New Yorkers lay on benches, on walls, on anything horizontal and soak up the sun like lizards.

So imagine my unbridled joy when I realized that my menu planning for the week just happened to coincide with the weather: Ricotta Crostini with Cherry Tomatoes. With some grilled local asparagus. Can you imagine a better meal to celebrate a sunny day? And a sunny day so close to the weekend?!

I didn't follow the recipe exactly in this case - specifically, I didn't actually sauté the tomatoes. I just cut them up, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar, and put them on top of the grilled bread and ricotta. But start with the recipe above, which is exceptional as is, and feel free to experiment from there. This recipe also doesn't call for basil but, since I have some growing in my balcony herb garden, I added it.

You should also know that I'm in love with a wine. I know, I know. I'm in love with all wine, really. But thanks to my local wine shop - Wine Room of Forest Hills - I've discovered Carpineto. I fell in love with their rosé first - the label is beautiful, as is the color and the crisp fruitiness. But I also bought a bottle of the Dogajolo Toscano Bianco and it paired beautifully with the acidity of the tomatoes. It even matched the asparagus. A perfect way to bring in the weekend.

Eat, drink, and cheers to lucky menu planning!

Be meticulous...even in children's books

Publishers Weekly interviewed Adam Schell, a former chef who wrote the soon-to-be-released adult fiction title Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Lust, Love, and Forbidden Fruit (Delacorte, July 2009).Schell has described his book as a "playful absurdist romp" so PW asked him why he was so meticulous in his research for the book. I loved his answer:

I wanted to be meticulous. When you’re a chef and you read a book about food, you know when the author doesn’t have mastery of that subject. Sometimes it’s glaringly apparent. You know they haven’t done their homework. I wanted to make the [food parts] tactile, and place it so well in the 16th century, because with the story’s more farcical aspects, there’s that bit of uncertainty.

You know what's coming, right? I'm going to point out that this same thought can be applied to foodie books for kids, which is what I was trying to get at here. You can't just plug food into a story and call it a foodie book for kids. An author still needs to be meticulous, still needs to be aware of food's tactile and sensual nature. Even one writing for children and teens.

My Weekend in Pictures

All you New Yorkers will understand...I was in heaven this past weekend.  It was our first truly sunny weekend...sunny enough for a California girl like me to get her fix.  It was all about the food, the sun, and Central Park for me.  Here's a glimpse:

The first Lillet with lemon of the season!

Grilled shrimp, grilled asparagus, grilled bread...it's a theme!

Me with my new short haircut...I got about 4 inches chopped off earlier that day.

After 2 years of talking big, I finally planted herbs on our balcony!

Our picnic lunch: crostini with roasted garlic, New York blue cheese, and salami; dried apricots and grapes (all Central Park photos taken with my phone - forgive me!)

Bug eating a popsicle at the children's playground in Central Park

Tulips at the carousel in Central Park

Balloons at the Central Park carousel

Sunday night's dinner: Roma tomatoes, rosemary ciabatta, roasted garlic, buffalo mozzarella, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar.  Toss.  Eat.

It was a phenomenal weekend.

Eat, drink, and cheers to a new season.