Cannellini Bean Side Dish

This is so ridiculously easy, I had to share it with you. I needed a side dish to go with dinner and found some red onion, garlic and fresh mint in a container in the fridge. I wanted some beans to go with a grain I made and found a can of cannellini beans in the cupboard. With half a lemon, salt and red chili oil, this is the dish I made in under 10 minutes:

ON THE CUTTING BOARD:

Cannellini beans, red onion, garlic, fresh mint, olive oil, red hot chili oil,
salt

STEPS:

Heat a T. of olive oil in a skillet. Add onion and cook for a couple of minutes and add a clove of minced garlic.  Cook for another minute and then add the beans and mint. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the skillet and add a quarter tsp. of sea salt.  Because I thought the dish needed some color, I sliced a couple of sun-dried tomatoes and added them. Stir and heat through, take the skillet off the heat and drizzle red hot chili oil into the pan. Mix and serve.

ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!

One Pan Chicken Little with Vegetables

I love to cook one pan meals because they are so easy and versatile. The beauty of these one pan meals is that you can use whatever you have on hand and can experiment with different spices to bring new flavors to the mix. Black vinegar is a staple in my kitchen, but you could use another vinegar or soy sauce.  Use what needs to be cooked and enjoy a quick and easy mid-week meal. Here's what I came up with the other day.


ON THE CUTTING BOARD:



STEP ONE:





Saute the 4 cloves of garlic in a T. of oil until soft and golden. Remove from the pan and set aside.

STEP TWO:



Chop the red onion, jalapeño and scallions and add to skillet. Saute until softened.

STEP THREE:



Add the mushrooms.

STEP FOUR:



Cook the mushrooms until they start to turn a golden brown and then add sliced green pepper.  Cook until peppers are softened and then remove the vegetables from the skillet and set aside.

STEP FIVE:







Chop the zucchini into disks and cut in half. Set aside. Add the chicken to the pan and cook about 6 minutes on each side until golden brown and then add the zucchini. Cook until the zucchini starts to soften, about 4 minutes.

STEP SEVEN:



Return the vegetables back to the skillet with the chicken and salt to taste. Add the tomatoes and a half cup of dry white wine and a half up of chicken stock. Allow to simmer for another 20 minutes on low heat. Stir in a T. of black vinegar and cook for another 10 minutes.




Plonk the skillet on the table and serve with a salad and some bread.


ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!

Sausage and Peppers Non-Italian Style

My grandfather was Sicilian, and I LOVE Italian food. You might have seen my recent post from Cefalu, Sicily where I cooked a meal in a convent by the sea. Having everything on hand EXCEPT Italian sausage posed a problem when I had a craving for sausage and peppers: go out and buy some or adapt and use the sausage I already had. This sausage came from a French Country Recipe and had tarragon, shallots, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, hardly an Italian recipe. So what did I do? I got excited! Here's the recipe for a comfort food sort of mood:

ON THE CUTTING BOARD:



Sausage, parmigiano reggiano cheese, 1 small onion, 3/4 green pepper, 6 cloves of garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, 1/2 can of San Marzano whole tomatoes (in the jar in photo), basil, oregano, salt, pasta (bowtie, penne, rigatoni, ziti, paccheri)

STEP ONE:







Start a large pot of water for the pasta. Slice the green pepper into strips. Heat 1 T. of olive oil in a large skillet and add an anchovy when the oil is hot. When the anchovy "melts" into the oil, add the green pepper and cook for a few minutes. Cut the onion into rings, slice three sun dried tomatoes into thick strips and mince the garlic. Add to the green peppers and cook for a few more minutes until the onions start to soften and brown.
Add 1/2 tsp. basil, 1/2 tsp. oregano and 1/2 tsp. salt.

STEP TWO:






Cook the sausage in a separate pan to extract much of the grease and then add to the onion and pepper mixture.  Cook the pasta for 7 minutes and drain when finished.

STEP THREE:









Add the tomatoes with sauce to the skillet and mash them. Cook the sauce for another 5 minutes until cooked through. Place a layer of pasta on the bottom of a baking dish and spoon some of the sauce on top followed by a grating of the cheese. Continue layering the pasta, sauce and cheese until you've used almost all of the pasta. Use the rest to make a design on top if desired.

STEP FOUR:



Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes then turn it up to 450 for the last few minutes to give the top pieces of pasta a little crunch. Garnish with basil (I still have some in the garden) and serve.

ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!

Chicken Curry Stir Fry

With chicken breast for protein and a bunch of vegetables needing attention, this dish was a cinch!  Having lots of pastes and sauces on hand helps.  You can use any vegetables you have available. If you don't have dill, you can use parsley or cilantro.

ON THE CUTTING BOARD:



Four small chicken breasts, half a head of a small cabbage, one fingerling potato, bunch of kale, half an onion, three garlic cloves, 1/2 inch piece of ginger, a few threads of fresh thyme, parsley, dill, asparagus, red chilies, two stalks of celery, olive oil, fish sauce, black vinegar, dark soy sauce, Thai green chili paste.

STEP ONE:









Heat 2 tsp. of olive oil in a wok (or large, deep pan) and add 1 tsp. of green curry paste or to taste. Stir frequently for one minute and turn the heat to very low. Roughly chop the onion, garlic, ginger and about a quarter cup of dill and throw into a NutriBullet or similar blender with 1/4 tsp. of kosher or sea salt and 3 T. of water.
You will have a thick green sauce.

STEP TWO:





Add the green sauce to the pan, allowing it to simmer for about a minute. Add the chicken breasts (cut into large cubes) and a handful of dried red chilies. Stir over medium heat and cook for four minutes or so.

STEP THREE:





Add the celery, cabbage and thinly sliced fingerling potato. Pour 1 T. of fish oil, 2 tsp. dark soy sauce and 2 tsp. black vinegar into the wok and stir over medium heat until cabbage wilts and celery softens. Add the fresh herbs. Can add some turmeric if you have it for color, flavor and its anti-inflamatory properties (good for the brain too!).

STEP FOUR:








Add asparagus to wok and cook for a couple of minutes and then add the kale. Cook for a couple of minutes until the kale begins to wilt. Adjust seasonings if needed, turn off heat and serve.

ENJOY!



I served this dish with Persian rice which will be the subject of another post.

ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!

Sweet Potato and Celeriac MashUp

I had a small dinner party last week and had some sweet potatoes and half a large celery root (celeriac) left over. When I opened the fridge, I knew what I had to do: invent something yummy with these vegetables! I have to tell you that what's on the cutting board isn't all of what's in this recipe. I made it up as I went along, tasting and adjusting. I'll explain, but here's the dish.

ON THE CUTTING BOARD:



Three sweet potatoes cut in chunks, half of a medium-sized celeriac cut in chunks, crushed hazelnuts, Italian parsley, butter, garlic, salt, pepper, butter. Not shown are tarragon, rosemary and balsamic vinegar.

STEP ONE:



STEP ONE:

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a slow simmer. Place a steamer in the pot and add the potatoes and celeriac. Steam for about 12 minutes until a knife can easily pierce through.

STEP TWO:






Okay, here's where things get tricky: place 1/3 of the vegetables in a bowl, add a T. of good butter, 1/2 tsp WHITE pepper (a black pepper mill is on the cutting board), 1/4 tsp of sea salt (or to taste), 1/4 tsp of minced garlic. Mash and enjoy!  BUT....

STEP THREE:



I had some tarragon and rosemary that needed to be used, so I divided the rest of the potatoes into two bowls. In one I mashed the vegetables as before with the original ingredients but added tarragon, and in the other the same but with rosemary and a little balsamic vinegar.  My husband served as my taster. His taste buds told him that the one with tarragon was the best with the rosemary and balsamic a close second. Me? I liked the original recipe the most. (in the middle of this photo). It just had a real comfy food quality that appealed to me. I don't necessarily like sweet potatoes but was moved to make sweet potato and celeriac fries to go with the rockfish I had cooked for the dinner party. The mashed celeriac cut the sweetness of the  potato just enough to allow the earthy root flavor of the celery root to shine through. With the butter, salt and pepper and a touch of minced garlic, it was enough for me! All are good though, and is a matter of taste. This recipe calls for lots of experimentation! And I never used the hazelnuts until I decided to...

STEP FOUR:





I ended up just mashing all three flavors together mixing in the hazelnuts (about 1/4 cup) that I pulverized in my NutriBullet. Place in a bowl and garnish with parsley.  It was very good. I served it with sautéd shrimp and mushrooms and a green salad.

I love to experiment when faced with stuff in the fridge that needs to be cooked. You never know what you'll come up with. I encourage you to fool around in your kitchen too as you use up what you have on hand.

ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!

Breaded Chicken Cutlets with Crushed Hazelnuts

Greetings!

Figuring out what to make for dinner was easy because all I had were some vegetables and chicken cutlets in the fridge and a fair portion of fresh herbs. The evening before, I had hosted a small dinner party and had the herbs and some crushed hazelnuts left over, so I set them out as well. I thought breading the cutlets using the hazelnuts was an interesting idea so decided to try it. Here's the recipe:

ON THE CUTTING BOARD:



Chicken cutlets, half a lemon, fresh thyme, fresh parsley, garlic, crushed hazelnuts (about a third of a cup), plain bread crumbs, organic whole milk, hot paprika, chili powder, kosher salt.

STEP ONE:

Whisk one egg into 3/4 cup of milk in a medium bowl. Mix 1/2 tsp. hot paprika, 1 tsp. chili powder, about six springs of thyme leaves, 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. garlic powder* into 1 cup of plain bread crumbs and the crushed hazelnuts.



STEP TWO:



Immerse the chicken in the egg mixture and then dredge in the bread crumbs. Set aside until you prepare all the cutlets.

STEP THREE:




Heat 3T. of olive oil in a pan (I love my cast iron pan!).
When the oil is very hot, place as many cutlets as can fit without touching into the pan. They should immediately sizzle when they touch the oil.



Shallow fry the cutlets for 3 minutes on each side. They should be golden brown. Drain on paper towels and keep in a warm oven while you fry the rest.

STEP FOUR:



STEP FOUR:

Arrange on a plate, garnish with lemon slices and parsley and serve (I served with roasted brussels sprouts and an avocado and tomato salad).

* I decided to use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic.

ALLA VOSTRA SALUTE!