Baked Penne

Something Old, Something New



I got back from the farmers' market Saturday, which meant I needed to dispose of the veggies I still had hanging around from my last visit. During the winter such odds and ends typically go into a pot of soup. But, aside from cold soups, I don't eat much soup in the summer. Instead, my usual means of disposing of leftover veggies is baked pasta.

Saturday I had zucchini, onion, and green pepper to get rid of. I brought home some cherry tomatoes and decided to roast them. I also had half a package of crab. I decided not to do sauce.

So I halved the cherry tomatoes, drizzled them with sherry vinegar and olive oil, seasoned with salt and thyme, and roasted in a 350F oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Next I diced the zucchini, onion (red and yellow), and green pepper. I poured oil and vinegar left in the tomato pan into a skillet, added more oil, and sauteed the veggies. Just before they were done I tossed in three cloves of diced garlic.

In the meantime, I brought a pot of water to a boil and cooked the penne (I used about the same amount of pasta, by volume, as other ingredients). When it was done, I drained it and rinsed it briefly in cold water to cool it down. I cooled it because I was planning on adding shredded cheese (mozzarella, provolone, and Asiago) to the mix and I didn't want the cheese melting and sticking to the pot.

The pasta went back in the pot along with the veggies, crab, tomatoes, cheese and some chopped basil for mixing before going into a greased casserole. I bit more cheese strewn across the top finished it off before spending about 20 minutes in a 425F oven.

With a salad and glass of wine it made a light satisfying meal.

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DMBLTIT Winner

DMBLTIT Winner

Nothing says, "I loaf you," like four kinds of sandwich spread!

First, my apologies for the delay on posting this. Initially I was leaving time for late arrivals. And then, well, I got distracted.

At any rate, the winner of Does My Blog Look Tacky In This is Cindy at Food Migration. She demonstrated truly astounding lack of taste in her choice of food, photography, and caption.

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Stuffed Tomato

The Stuff of Memory



Memories are funny things. A particular memory doesn't reside in a particular place in our brains, instead it exists as a collection of connections spread through our cortexes. The more a memory is used the less grounded it becomes in the context that gave rise to it and the more it comes an abstraction existing on its own.

Sometimes this is brought home to us when we happen to access a memory through an indirect connection. For instance, I was driving home from the market the other day with, among other things, a sack of tomatoes that had been sitting out in the sun. Because of this my car was filled with the scent of ripe tomatoes. The radio was on and the station played an old Beatles song -- "All My Loving." In a moment I was 11 years old, sitting at the kitchen table with my brothers and sister, and eating a stuffed tomato.

You've likely had that same near-out-of-body experience as though the past is overlaid on the present. Your very body feels odd -- as though it doesn't quite fit.

It was a brief flash, but it left me hungry for a stuffed tomato such as I last ate when I was about that age. What I remembered most distinctly about that tomato was the taste of tomato, tuna, saltine crackers, and dill pickle. But I certainly couldn't leave even that rudimentary recipe alone…

Stuffed Tomatoes

4 ea lg tomatoes -- 3" diameter
1 ea 6oz can tuna
8 ea saltine crackers -- crushed
1/4 c sliced scallions -- sliced into 1/8" rounds
1/4 c diced green pepper
2 tbsp capers
1/4 c crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp feta brine
1/2 lemon -- juiced
1/4 c mayonnaise
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Remove tomato tops and dice. Remove pulp from tomatoes, discard seeds, and dice flesh.

Mix diced tomato and all other ingredients in a bowl and allow flavors to meld for at least an hour.

Salt interiors of tomatoes and stuff with tuna mixture.

Note: I strongly recommend tuna packed in olive oil instead of water. It tastes far better.

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Shrimp & Feta

Simply Delicious



Often the simplest dishes are the best -- a few individual and clearly-defined flavors that somehow manage to simultaneously operate in contrast and cohesion. The dish pictured above combines shrimp, garlic, butter, lemon juice, chili powder, and parsley. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I found it posted on The Traveler's Lunchbox and echo Melissa's advice to enjoy it with a salad and plenty of bread for mopping up.

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Potato Skins

Sins of Commission



Most of us have a few guilty secrets. There are early transgressions we might now admit to with a wry, if slightly embarrassed, grin. For instance, as a child I was sometimes unable to control the temptation to "steal" a tin of smoked oysters or jar of cornishons from the pantry and hide in the garage so my mother wouldn't catch me eating them -- not that she didn't know who'd done it. (I suspect eating entire jars of cornichons at age eight was a harbinger of my subsequent life of culinary debauchery.)

And then there are more recent and less innocent sins that I'd hesitate to confess to a priest. Sources of shame and disappointment in my own integrity. You'll understand if I don't offer a personal example of them.

There's another category of sin often called guilty pleasures (you chocolate eaters know what I'm talking about). It's comprised of those little indulgences we have trouble justifying to ourselves. I had a friend who used to hide Oreos from her kids and eat them herself. Others have a regular evening cocktail they pretend is a rare exception to strict probity. Me? Potato skins.

Potato skins deep-fried to a crispy brownish gold. Filled to the rim with perfectly cooked, thick-cut bacon. Heaped with mounds of sharp cheddar. Baked until the cheese bubbles and flows. Topped with cool, snow-white sour cream. Potato skins so over-flowing with cholesterol-laden fat they make your teeth squeak.

I don't know who invented skins back in the 70s. But they should be shot.

Although you can still find them in the appetizer section of many menus, I never order them. Too often someone has mistaken broccoli for bacon (they're not the same thing at all) or added sauteed onions (like painting a mustache on a Renoir) or substituted jalapeno Monterey Jack for cheddar (a mistake akin to using sugar instead of salt on a steak). But mostly the pitiful things found in restaurants are just poor imitations with limp skins, undercooked bacon, mild cheese, and fake sour cream.

Potato Skins

2 medium Idaho potatoes
6 - 8 strips meaty bacon
4 oz extra-sharp cheddar -- shredded
2/3 c cultured sour cream
oil for frying

Scrub and bake potatoes until done. Cool thoroughly and scoop out flesh leaving just under 1/4" of flesh on skins. Reserve flesh for other uses.

Heat oven to 450F.

Cook bacon thoroughly, drain, and coarsely chop.

Heat enough oil to submerge skins in to 350F. Fry skins until golden brown (they should be quite crisp in the thinner spots). Drain on paper towels.

Divide bacon among skins. Divide cheese among skins (don't be afraid to mound it up, it will melt down into skins). Bake on rack in middle of oven until cheese melts and bubbles -- about 10 minutes.

Season liberally with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add sour cream and gorge. Serves two.

UPDATE: Here's a related entry on fats and oils.

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Does My Blog Look Tacky in This?

DMBLTIT?

The dumble-tit is a member of the tit-mouse family known for it's lime-Jello and salmon coloring and preference for inappropriate nesting materials. But enough science.

Here are the rules for the party: http://www.iheartbacon.com/index.php?id=176

Here are the rules for DMBLTIT: http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/2005/07/does-my-blog-look-tacky-in-this.html

And here are the entries to date in the Does My Blog Look Tacky in This photo contest.


Nothing says, "I loaf you," like four kinds of sandwich spread! -- Cindy, Food Migration


Accident at local chemical factory yields unusual mutations in Betty Crocker’s fruit crop. -- Joey, 80 Breakfasts


Feeling temporally groovy, the Swedes discover Etruscan meatballs in the 60s and immediately substitute dill for oregano. -- Kevin, Seriously Good (Not a contest entry.)


This scrumptiously smooth Snowy Chicken Confetti Salad from Better Homes and Garden's Salad Cookbook completes any party. Deepfry, Yum! (Not a contest entry.)


Gelatinous, tomato life ring saves the day! -- Megan, I Heart Bacon (Not a contest entry.)

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Swedish Meatballs

Eating Groovy



When I was a kid my parents entertained fairly often having dinner parties and cocktail parties. For a while they had a big garden party (not that we had what's usually meant by "garden") every summer and would invite as many as 50 guests.

With big parties the popular serving style of the era was the smorgasbord -- a buffet where people would serve themselves and eat from trays on their laps. This was the time when aspic and crescent rolls were featured on every menu. It was also the time when Swedish Meatballs swimming in a wine sauce and served in a chafing dish were considered the last word in elegance.

I haven't had a Swedish meatball since those days and never had more than one or two at a time back then (they were "for the guests"). So are they as good as I remembered? Or were my memories a fiction of a child's palate and imagined elegance?

Swedish Meatballs

****Meatballs****
1 1/2 lb ground chuck
1/2 lb ground pork
1 sm onion -- minced
2 tsp oil
1 c fresh bread crumbs
2 egg -- lightly beaten
1/2 c beef broth
2 tbsp minced fresh dill
2 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
****Sauce****
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
2 c beef stock
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1/3 c red wine
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450F/ Sweat onion in oil until translucent. Mix all meatball ingredients together. Form mixture into 1" - 1.5" balls and arrange on a foil-covered baking sheet.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes.

Melt butter in a 10" skillet over medium low heat. Whisk in flour and cook for five minutes, stirring frequently. Add beef stock and thyme and increase heat to medium. Continue stirring until sauce thickens. Stir in wine and salt and pepper to taste.

Reduce heat to medium low, add meatballs, and warm thoroughly.

Serve meatballs over buttered egg noodles seasoned with minced fresh dill.

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Pots de Creme

Gateway Drug


"Don't bogart that joint, my friend,
pass it over to me…"

Like so many of those who grew up in the sixties, I smoked my share of pot. But despite smoking dope and trying a few other things I probably shouldn't have, the only gateway dope led me to was eating large quantities of oranges (our munchy of choice for some reason). There were even occasions when we spiked joints with codeine and, aside from getting a bit disoriented, we managed to avoid heroin addiction.

Given my personal experience and that of everyone else I went through that period of time with, I've long considered the government's claims that pot leads to harder stuff baseless nonsense. At least I did until last night.

Hearkening back to my dissipated youth, the pot I had last night was also spiked -- but spiked with caffeine in the form of espresso powder. And though I didn't have any hash brownies, I did have coffee meringues. So it was an evening of excess until my indulgence caught up with me and I managed to stagger off to bed around 11:00.

Pots de Crème au Café Chocolat

2 oz bittersweet chocolate
1/2 c double cream
6 tbsp milk
2 tbs milk
5 tbs sugar
1 1/4 tsp instant coffee
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg

Melt the chocolate in the microwave. In a saucepan, heat the cream, 1/2 cup of milk, and 3 tablespoons of sugar until just boiling. In a little bowl, dissolve the coffee crystals in the 2 tablespoons of milk. Mix the coffee and chocolate into the milk mixture.

Beat the egg yolks with the whole egg and the last 2 tablespoons of sugar. Add the chocolate mixture and whisk thoroughly. Pour into small ramekins and set in a pan of water. Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes at 325F. Remove, uncover and let cool. Chill overnight and then serve with whipped cream and meringues. Serves four.

Coffee Meringues with Pignoli

3 egg whites
1/3 c sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tarter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp espresso powder
1 tbsp hot water
2 tsp cocoa
1/4 c pignoli

Heat oven to 350F. Spread pignoli in a pan and roast until lightly browned -- about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Reduce heat to 200F. Mix sugar and cocoa together and dissolve espresso powder in water. Beat egg whites with cream of tarter until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar mixture until stiff peaks form. Beat in vanilla extract, espresso, and fold in Drop small teaspoonfuls of meringue on a parchment-lined baking sheet. (You may also pipe whites onto baking sheet using pastry tips.)

Bake until crisp and dry -- about 2 hours. Remove from oven and run a sharp knife under meringues to loosen them. Let cool and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Makes about 50.

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Blackberry/Peach Cobbler

A Taste of Childhood



I grew up on a small farm in Knoxville, Tennessee not far from the Smoky Mountains. Directly behind our house was a field that belonged to a neighbor that he had allowed to go fallow. What this meant in practical terms was there was a huge field of blackberries just outside the kitchen door. My father would regularly gather us kids, hand us empty paint cans, and lead expeditions back into the tangle of briars.

Picking blackberries should be unmitigated misery -- it's hot and you're wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants to provide some protection from the briars, which are both tenacious and tough -- except that we would eat the best of the berries as we picked them. After an hour or so we'd return to the house where Mom and Dad would package and freeze most of the berries for some winter day.

Conveniently enough, the blackberries ripen at the same time as peaches and we had a few peach trees. So Dad would fix a combination blackberry/peach cobbler for dessert that evening and to this day, as much as I love plain blackberry or plain peach cobbler, my absolute favorite is the combination.

Last week at the farmers' market I bought a basket of peaches and a carton of blackberries. The peaches were better than what we grew on that farm I was raised on, but the cultivated blackberries, although sweet, lacked the depth of flavor of the wild ones. Nevertheless, I made a cobbler much like Dad's.

Blackberry/Peach Cobbler

8 - 9 peachs -- peeled and cut into bite-size chunks
1 qt blackberries
1/4 c cornstarch
1/2 - 1 c sugar -- depending on sweetness of fruit
1 tsp ground coriander
3 tbsp butter
Bisquik

Heat oven to 425F.

Mix peaches with blackberries, cornstarch, coriander, and sugar in a large, shallow baking dish. Arrange pats of butter on top. Place in oven and cook for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make up a batch of shortcake (as for strawberry shortcake) according to recipe on the Bisquik box. Remove casserole from the oven and arrange dollops of batter on top to cover. Return to oven and cook another 15 -20 minutes until crust is browned and cooked through. Serves 8.

The coriander is my idea, I think it complements peaches beautifully. Serve with heavy cream, whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream.

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Stuffed Pork Loin

Pigging Out on Peaches



This year's farmers' markets feature, in addition to fresh produce, locally-raised meat and eggs from three suppliers. It's not cheap. For instance eggs cost $2.50 to $3.00 a dozen compared to 99 cents at the supermarket. Whole chickens run about $4.00/lb, and pork loin is around $6.00/lb. At these prices I can't afford to make these items a regular part of my diet. Nevertheless, I've been trying them and the quality and flavor reminds me of the eggs and meat I grew up on.

I bought a pork loin last week with plans to stuff it, but not quite sure what I wanted to do beyond that. However, as soon as I read the Paper Chef ingredients the recipe became obvious. The added constraint of trying to use local ingredients was a piece of cake.

Pork has a particular affinity for fruit and in the South peaches are often paired with pork. I decided on a stuffing of sausage and peaches scented with lavender.* That takes care of the peaches, edible flowers, and local ingredient(s). The dried chilies were also easy. A peach gastrique with a bit of heat struck me as a perfect sauce for the pork -- in particular, the smoky heat of chipotles seemed ideal.

Stuffed Pork Loin with Peach Gastrique

****Loin****
2 lb pork loin roast**
3 ea patties country sausage -- crumbled, cooked, and drained**
1/2 ea small peach -- peeled, pitted, and diced**
3 tbsp Cognac
1/4 c diced red onion
1/3 c fresh bread crumbs**
3 tbsp butter -- melted**
1 tbsp minced fresh lavender**
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
****Gastrique****
2 1/2 ea peaches -- peeled & pitted**
2 - 3 tbsp sugar -- depending on sweetness of fruit
3 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 tbsp Cognac
1/2 tsp ground chipotle
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tbsp butter

Heat oven to 350F.

Saute diced onion in one tablespoon butter until translucent.

In a small bowl mix sausage, onion, bread crumbs, sage, salt, and pepper. Melt remaining butter and drizzle over stuffing mixture along with Cognac.

Pat roast dry. Insert a carving knife from end to end of roast cutting a slot. Re-insert carving knife perpendicular to first cut to form an X extending through roast. Fill roast with stuffing (a wooden spoon helps pack it in). Liberally season roast with salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil over medium high heat in an oven-proof skillet and brown roast on all sides. Place skillet with roast in middle of oven and cook until an instant-read thermometer registers 145F at center. Remove from oven and allow to rest.

While roast cooks, slice 1/2 peach into thin wedges and reserve. Chop remaining peaches and simmer in a sauce pan with other gastrique ingredients for 15 minutes. Process until smooth in a blender or food processor.

Serve roast, garnished with peach slices and flowers drizzled with gastrique. Serves six.

The pork was delicious. Tender, juicy, and full of flavor. I haven't had pork that good in ages -- well worth the expense. However, the gastrique was phenomenal. The sweet, fruity peach base was well-complemented by the fruity astringency of the sherry vinegar. Best of all, the ground chipotle provided exactly the elements of heat and smokiness I'd hoped for.

* Unfortunately I couldn't find any edible blossoms, so I settled for lavender leaves.
**Local ingredients.

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Sourdough Bread

Pet Food



Owning a sourdough starter is a lot like owning a cat: It doesn't require a lot of attention, but you can't completely ignore it either.

Although I love baking bread I avoided sourdough for years because of its need for attention. I had been under the (false) impression that you had to use it once a week or more to keep it going and, because I like baking bread more than I like eating it, that sounded like too much trouble for too much bread.

In addition, my first bread cookbook was James Beard's Beard on Bread and he pooh-poohs sourdough as seldom being as satisfying as that archetype of American sourdoughs made in San Francisco. He notes: "Jeanne [Voltz] agrees with me that it is a most fickle process. … I have even found variations in its performance from one neighborhood of New York to another. … I am not sure it is worth the trouble."

However, my tenure in Sacramento, California resulted in an addiction to sourdough bread and so last fall I bought a starter from King Arthur Flour and gave it a shot.

I've been pleased as punch.

The bread was good to start with but it has now "gone native." By this I mean that local yeasts have taken over from the Vermont yeasts it arrived with giving the bread its own unique character. It has a delightfully tart flavor that I've learned to maximize producing some of the best sandwich bread I've ever eaten.

It also does well with additives such as olives, dried tomatoes, and, my favorite, grated gruyere.

And bread isn't the only thing it's good for. It makes dynamite pancakes -- particularly blueberry pancakes -- and excellent biscuits. And one of these days I'm going to make English muffins with it.

Although it does require some care, its demands aren't great. There's no litter pan to clean and empty and no cat hair to vacuum off the couch. It does need food and water. But this is satisfied by adding a cup of starter to a half cup of water and a cup of flour every two weeks -- and I've gone as long as four weeks without touching it with no ill effects to the starter. Try that with a cat.

Some people even name their starters. I'm not prepared to go that far, but I do have a certain mild affection for the jar of flour, water, and yeast at the back of my refrigerator.

At least it doesn't throw up on the carpet.

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Corn Pudding

A Spoon Full of Pudding



Last weekend I planned on making a quiche using fresh eggs from Laurel Creek Farm, smoked bacon from Benton's Meats, and milk from Cruze Farms but my plans went astray.

Wednesday night I was planning on making the tea-smoked salmon for IMBB#17 and I thought some corn pudding would be good so Wednesday I went by the farmers' market and bought the eggs as well as just-picked corn. I was more successful this time and even got the Cruze Farms milk and some Amish butter.

I last had corn pudding at The Hermitage (President Andrew Jackson's home) in Nashville, and though the stuff at The Hermitage wasn't very good it was good enough to remind me of just how good corn pudding can be and just how long it had been since I last made it.

There are probably as many recipes for corn pudding as there are Southern cooks. The recipe below is a cross between spoon bread (using corn meal) and the more typical recipe of just a custard of milk and eggs. I like the body the cornmeal adds to the mixture as well as the unadorned sweetness of the fresh corn. This recipe comes from Recipezaar.

Corn Pudding

6 tbsp butter
3/4 c cornmeal
1 c boiling water
3 lg eggs
2 c milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 c corn kernels

Heat oven to 375F. Put 2 Tablespoons butter into 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Place in oven to melt.

Put cornmeal in a medium bowl. Add boiling water and whisk until smooth. Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter and stir until melted.

In another bowl beat eggs until blended. Beat in milk, then stir in powder, salt, and pepper. Beat or whisk into cornmeal mixture, stir in corn.

Pour into melted butter in baking dish and bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and bake 35-40 min longer or until puffed and golden brown on top.

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