Prices may vary from where you live. Cook and have fun. And remember: life is too short to drink bad brandy. Go for the VSOP cognac, and make it a sip, not a mug full.
*************************************
A sixty-cent lunch, full of carbs and energy. I love my kitchen moment.
Yes, this is the time of year when beautiful (and cheap) tomatoes hit my kitchen table. This is a summer pasta, so the "sauce" is not heated, just mixed in with the hot spaghettis, making this a tepid, delicious lunch for a hot summer day.
Start with getting salted pasta water to boil: this is the longest thing in the whole recipe. Use lots of salt.
Look, here's 60 cents worth of ingredients:
2 plum tomatoes, a clove of garlic, some basil leaves, olive oil, salt and spaghetti.
Rip the basil leaves into pieces, mix with salt, olive oil and finely chopped 1/4 of a clove of garlic (so you can still function in society after lunch).
Look, that's really easy, eh?
Take your two tomatoes and chop them in small chunks, and throw them in. Stir!
Look at those colors!
By now the pasta water (with salt!) is boiling, so throw in your spaghettis and read 8 minutes worth of fanfiction. Then drain the pasta Al Dente, and mix in your bowl. If you want you can eat straight out of the bowl. I'm classy, so I dump the whole thing in a deep plate.
Look at that plate! nom nom nom nom
I nommed and nommed but I couldn't finish the thing off. Tonight, it'll end up in an oven bowl. With a layer of parmigiano cheese on top this becomes a fabulous side dish.
- Pasta tiepida ai pomodori -
Enjoy, people. No need to be stinkin' rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A seventy-cent lunch today, a smooth creaminess of artichokes.
The carbs you get from pasta are good for you at lunchtime (not so much for dinnertime), and this one works well both during summer and winter. (If you think the jar of Italian artichokes is going to be expensive, then remember that it lasts for months in your fridge. You only need two of these small artichokes for a single lunch, so one jar serves you some 6-8 lunches... You do the math).
I love doing this one when I'm h*u*n*g*r*y* because it is so filling.
First of all:
Start up your pasta water, as usual, as that's what takes the longest time in all my recipes. Add salt. Lots.
Look, here are the 70 cents worth of ingredients for today:
2 small artichokes (in oil in glass jar), a little wheat flour, a little butter, a pinch of oregano, some milk, short pasta (here: penne rigate).
I'm not much for complicating things, so I take the artichokes out of the glass jar with a pair of scissors, and use it to cut them in small pieces directly in a saucepan.
Look! That is silly-easy!
I use a little bit of the oil in the glass jar, it contains all the flavors of the artichokes, so it would be sad to throw it out, but it's up to you if you want to use it. After that, I add a little butter in a corner and let it melt.
Look at that butter go in!
Once the butter has melted, I stir in one and a half teaspoons of wheat flour.
Flour - to boldly go where no flour has gone before. Whatever.
Stir it in, make sure there are no lumps. Flour will dissolve well in oil/butter, but once you pour milk in, it's too late. (I don't need to go all French on you and tell you this is a sneaky way to do a sauce béchamel, do I? 'Kay, good). So make sure that the lumps are out NOW. Add a small pinch of oregano, I find it fits well here. Then pour in a little milk, stir like mad and pour in a little bit more.
Milk - where you will think you messed up, but you DID NOT. I PROMISE.
It WILL look like it all went to Hell. It didn't. Keep stirring. And stirring. This is chemistry in the making. It is the joining of oil and water, it is a religious experience, it is... Oh, never mind, I'm clearly not fit to be writing recipes today. I'm hungry, okay?
Looks like Hell, doesn't it? Keep stirring!
Beat the shit out of that thing. Good. Are you feeling better? Nothing like cooking to get your nerves settled.
This is what it looks like when it's been beaten into submission:
Put it aside. Sauce is DONE. You may have to beat it into a creamy sweetness again, just before adding the pasta, but for now, it's done.
Chances are your salty pasta water is boiling by now, so you know what to do. That's right, pour in your chosen kind of pasta and go read 9-11 minutes of fanfiction.
See how my sauces are always done before the pasta even goes in the water? You can't say you don't have TIME to cook. If you can do spaghettis with ketchup, you can do my food. Or you can sit and watch the water boil. Whatever gets your rocks off, I guess.
Drain your pasta when it's cooked to your liking, and then mix it in your saucepan or directly on your plate. I like it to be well mixed, so I do it in the saucepan, and then dump it in my deep plate.
Look! Food! Dig in! Give it your best shot! nom nom nom nom
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
The carbs you get from pasta are good for you at lunchtime (not so much for dinnertime), and this one works well both during summer and winter. (If you think the jar of Italian artichokes is going to be expensive, then remember that it lasts for months in your fridge. You only need two of these small artichokes for a single lunch, so one jar serves you some 6-8 lunches... You do the math).
I love doing this one when I'm h*u*n*g*r*y* because it is so filling.
First of all:
Start up your pasta water, as usual, as that's what takes the longest time in all my recipes. Add salt. Lots.
Look, here are the 70 cents worth of ingredients for today:
2 small artichokes (in oil in glass jar), a little wheat flour, a little butter, a pinch of oregano, some milk, short pasta (here: penne rigate).
I'm not much for complicating things, so I take the artichokes out of the glass jar with a pair of scissors, and use it to cut them in small pieces directly in a saucepan.
Look! That is silly-easy!
I use a little bit of the oil in the glass jar, it contains all the flavors of the artichokes, so it would be sad to throw it out, but it's up to you if you want to use it. After that, I add a little butter in a corner and let it melt.
Look at that butter go in!
Once the butter has melted, I stir in one and a half teaspoons of wheat flour.
Flour - to boldly go where no flour has gone before. Whatever.
Stir it in, make sure there are no lumps. Flour will dissolve well in oil/butter, but once you pour milk in, it's too late. (I don't need to go all French on you and tell you this is a sneaky way to do a sauce béchamel, do I? 'Kay, good). So make sure that the lumps are out NOW. Add a small pinch of oregano, I find it fits well here. Then pour in a little milk, stir like mad and pour in a little bit more.
Milk - where you will think you messed up, but you DID NOT. I PROMISE.
It WILL look like it all went to Hell. It didn't. Keep stirring. And stirring. This is chemistry in the making. It is the joining of oil and water, it is a religious experience, it is... Oh, never mind, I'm clearly not fit to be writing recipes today. I'm hungry, okay?
Looks like Hell, doesn't it? Keep stirring!
Beat the shit out of that thing. Good. Are you feeling better? Nothing like cooking to get your nerves settled.
This is what it looks like when it's been beaten into submission:
Put it aside. Sauce is DONE. You may have to beat it into a creamy sweetness again, just before adding the pasta, but for now, it's done.
Chances are your salty pasta water is boiling by now, so you know what to do. That's right, pour in your chosen kind of pasta and go read 9-11 minutes of fanfiction.
See how my sauces are always done before the pasta even goes in the water? You can't say you don't have TIME to cook. If you can do spaghettis with ketchup, you can do my food. Or you can sit and watch the water boil. Whatever gets your rocks off, I guess.
Drain your pasta when it's cooked to your liking, and then mix it in your saucepan or directly on your plate. I like it to be well mixed, so I do it in the saucepan, and then dump it in my deep plate.
Look! Food! Dig in! Give it your best shot! nom nom nom nom
As usual, I gave it my very best, but no way I could finish all that. Perfect, yet another side dish for tonight, parmigiano cheese on top and 10 minutes in the oven. Yay!
- Penne ai carciofi -
- Penne ai carciofi -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A 50-cent lunch today, a cheese and spaghetti bonanza.
I keep going with the pasta, because it is good, filling, and healthy. This recipe is also silly-cheap, and the actual work involved is so quick you’ll be reading several chapters of your favorite fanfiction while waiting for the stuff to cook itself. All you need is parmigiano cheese, butter, and spaghetti. Yes, that’s right.
Get ready… You know what comes next, right? Right.
Get that pasta water boiling. With lots of salt.
Look! These are really all the ingredients you need today!
Some butter, spaghetti, parmigiano reggiano cheese. End of.
You know me and uncomplicated matters, right? Exactly.
I always get the huge chunk of parmigiano cheese, because I am
1) a cheese-lover éxtraordinaire
2) because it saves money
3) because I love to know that i have potential heaps of food in my fridge for the foreseeable future.
You can also go get a small chunk, or have the cheese-shop grate it for you, (or even get the ready-grated stuff *bleargghhh*. Please tell me you’re not doing that).
Look! You only need two little pieces of parmigiano for a single lunch!
That’s right. Grate the shit out of those, it’ll take you all of 6 seconds. And as I’m lazy and also hate washing my dishes, I grate it straight into the deep plate that will be going to my table.
Look! A chunk of butter!
Aaaaaand… your “sauce” is DONE. If the water is boiling, throw in your spaghetti. This is that glorious moment of cooking when you can sit back and think hard about your (latest) sins. Or not. Or read fanfiction, a whole 8 minutes of it. Whatever floats your ship. Or whatever ship floats your fic, as it were.
Chef’s special tip: keep a little starch-filled pasta water before draining, (in case your spaghetti gets too sticky you can just pour some over them to unstick your mess). (Incidentally, this only works with pasta, and not with your real-life drama). Scoop some water up in a coffee mug or so. No need to be fancy. You might not even need it. (AND if you ever have guests for dinner, that’s a really cool chef’y thing to do. JS).
Now: Pour your drained spaghetti over the cheese and butter, and stir.
Look! DONE!
Honestly, if you can do mac ‘n cheese of processed fake-food out of a packet, you can do this one. As an extra added super bonus it even has actual cheese in it. Yay.
Dig in, silly, what are you waiting for? nom nom nom nom
This time? I polished the whole shabang off the plate so fast I can’t even tell you, so for tonight I’ll have to come up with something else to act as side dish. Dang.
- Spaghetti al bianco -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
An 80-cent lunch today, a simple omelet with a Spanish feel.
Today, I am leaving the pasta behind for a day or so, and turning to more protein-rich things, like eggs. This omelet has developed, in its simplicity, from my youngest cooking-years until today, and things have been added, and things have been taken away.
I can safely say, it is at its best ever, right now. It needs few ingredients, and the cost is quite low, considering what you're getting. Let's start.
NO WATER TO BOIL. YAY!
Look! All the ingredients needed for today:
A potato, a cherry tomato, a clove of garlic, some basil leaves, 2 eggs, an extremely small red pepper (from my balcony!) and half of a red onion.
The garlic clove stays in its skin, just give it a wham with the pestle to crush it, and cook it for a few minutes together with the potato at the beginning, to give some flavor to the cooking oil.
I use red onions, because I love the flavor. And the pretty.
Start with olive oil and some butter:
While those two are slowly melting into a fusion flavor, giving you a hint of Sweden and Italy all in one, you can chop up the potato. It goes in first, as it takes the longest to cook—you know me, so you get it when I say that THAT means minutes.
In go the potatoes with the garlic still in its jacket:
While the potato and garlic are slowly getting ready, chop up the rest: red onion, tomato, and pepper. Then they go in too.
Throw in the red stuff! Hold the green!
Antioxidants FTW! Take the garlic out after a minute or so. Stir, shake, do what you do when you rattle your pans.
Rip the basil leaves into small pieces and throw them in too.
Look at those colors!
Everything is coming together nicely, colors are bright, vegetables are still on the crunchy side, and while you look at the pretty colors, whisk together two eggs. Can't have an omelet without breaking some eggs. Put salt and pepper already in the egg-whip as you go: I've found that pepper tastes more if it gets wet before frying. (And I use black pepper, please tell me you are not still using that useless white pepper thang, right? It has no reason whatsoever for living).
Pouring in the eggs:
Pour in the eggs. Give the pan a shake so they go a little everywhere. And then, let it sit there for a moment, without too much manhandling. (This is the moment where you **could** grate some cheese on top of it, if you want to. I feel cheese takes away a little bit of the subtle flavors of the vegetables, so I don't use it here. I use it plenty, elsewhere).
Unfortunately, today we are missing our fanfiction interval, because during the 30 seconds that you have free right now while the eggs set, you need to whip out your plate and cutlery and get ready to eat. Pour a drink. Pull up a chair.
Look! It's almost done!
I like an omelet to be cooked, but a little slobby in the middle still, so I don't turn it completely over itself, as a proper French chef with pride would do. Sue me, I'm not French. I work more like a country momma and flop it over a bit, to make sure you can still see what's inside. No surprises in my kitchen! I won't EVER serve you liver without telling you, okay? (Actually, I won't ever serve you liver, period).
Hey! All DONE!
Healthy, colorful, tasty. Lunch is a good moment.
Dig in! nom nom nom nom
Managed to eat the whole thing today too, so no leftovers for tonight.
There you go, people, a fusion omelet, one that started out in the Spanish Pyrenees way-back-when, then evolved with my Swedish butter addiction, and was perfected by the Italian thin, thin frittata-concept. The Chinese taught me not to overcook my vegetables, and Tanzania whispered in my ears about spices.
I have yet to meet the Caribbean. I cannot wait, I tell you. There will be fire and ice.
- Fusion Omelet -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A 70-cent lunch today, a classic, Italian spaghetti dish.
SERVES TWO! Or three.
Back to the pasta, (please don't ask me why in goodness' name I quit the Paleo diet. It should be fucking obvious. Pasta).
This recipe? Is like mother's milk to Italians. Actually, they don't give you your citizenship until you can do this one. Well. Ask any old Granny, Nonna or Nan.
I make it so that I have too much sauce—which I can then either freeze or nom on tonight. And that's from a small can of tomato pulp, not even a cup.
Ready, set GO! You know what? Right.
Get that pasta water boiling. With lots of salt.
Look! Today's ingredients!
Spaghetti, oregano, a couple of basil leaves, a clove of garlic, a very small can of tomato pulp, olive oil.
As usual we start with crushing the whole garlic clove, so it can be fished out later. (Makes for easier living with the rest of humanity also after lunch). Throw it in with a little oil and a pinch of oregano—I like to get all my dry herbs wet before frying the living daylights out of them, so they go in now.
Look! Easy.
Let that simmer for a minute, and then it's time to add the tomato pulp.
Time for red! Color coding FTW
Lower the heat a bit, or it'll splatter all over your kitchen and your front. Or, if that's the kind of decoration you like, have at it, aim well, and let it go!
Look! Pretty sauce coming along:
This is the moment to throw in some of your ripped basil leaves.
(I just had a flash of Faulty Towers there, "Basil!" Basil!" "Yes dear?").
Oh never mind, you should have been there.
Pasta water is boiling now, and the sauce is done already. How unusual.
Throw in your pasta!
Sweet, time for 8 minutes of fanfiction, or whatever it is you're reading these days. Oh, real books? What are those?
Take about half of your sauce out of the pan, and freeze it, put it in a jar for tonight, or did you perhaps invite a friend over for lunch? This recipe SERVES TWO!
Drain your pasta when it's cooked to your specific palate (yeah, not palette, god, why do they write that—are they ignorant fools? Oh. I see.), and throw all of it into the pan where the sauce is. Now, you see why I used the frying pan for this recipe? The saucepan would have been to small to toss the hell outta this dish. Planning ahead, man. Planning ahead.
Toss it, baby!
Oh, bliss. The pretty. I cannot.
Here, look at that!
The sauce in the bowl can be used as dipping salsa; it can be spread on ciabatta bread; it can be used for a bruschetta; it is like a Jolly. It goes bloody anywhere. (Oh, first time for me using semicolons for listing! Nerd).
Go ahead, punk. Make my day, nom nom nom nom I win
Dig in! I did. And managed to finish half, as usual, so there's a side dish ready for tonight, AND a bowl of salsa that I'll have to use for something... While I'm at the dentist's this afternoon, I'm sure I'll be thinking of exactly not this. Anyway.
Enjoy your lunch, dear friends.
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
SERVES TWO! Or three.
Back to the pasta, (please don't ask me why in goodness' name I quit the Paleo diet. It should be fucking obvious. Pasta).
This recipe? Is like mother's milk to Italians. Actually, they don't give you your citizenship until you can do this one. Well. Ask any old Granny, Nonna or Nan.
I make it so that I have too much sauce—which I can then either freeze or nom on tonight. And that's from a small can of tomato pulp, not even a cup.
Ready, set GO! You know what? Right.
Get that pasta water boiling. With lots of salt.
Look! Today's ingredients!
Spaghetti, oregano, a couple of basil leaves, a clove of garlic, a very small can of tomato pulp, olive oil.
As usual we start with crushing the whole garlic clove, so it can be fished out later. (Makes for easier living with the rest of humanity also after lunch). Throw it in with a little oil and a pinch of oregano—I like to get all my dry herbs wet before frying the living daylights out of them, so they go in now.
Look! Easy.
Let that simmer for a minute, and then it's time to add the tomato pulp.
Time for red! Color coding FTW
Lower the heat a bit, or it'll splatter all over your kitchen and your front. Or, if that's the kind of decoration you like, have at it, aim well, and let it go!
Look! Pretty sauce coming along:
This is the moment to throw in some of your ripped basil leaves.
(I just had a flash of Faulty Towers there, "Basil!" Basil!" "Yes dear?").
Oh never mind, you should have been there.
Pasta water is boiling now, and the sauce is done already. How unusual.
Throw in your pasta!
Sweet, time for 8 minutes of fanfiction, or whatever it is you're reading these days. Oh, real books? What are those?
Take about half of your sauce out of the pan, and freeze it, put it in a jar for tonight, or did you perhaps invite a friend over for lunch? This recipe SERVES TWO!
Drain your pasta when it's cooked to your specific palate (yeah, not palette, god, why do they write that—are they ignorant fools? Oh. I see.), and throw all of it into the pan where the sauce is. Now, you see why I used the frying pan for this recipe? The saucepan would have been to small to toss the hell outta this dish. Planning ahead, man. Planning ahead.
Toss it, baby!
Oh, bliss. The pretty. I cannot.
Here, look at that!
The sauce in the bowl can be used as dipping salsa; it can be spread on ciabatta bread; it can be used for a bruschetta; it is like a Jolly. It goes bloody anywhere. (Oh, first time for me using semicolons for listing! Nerd).
Go ahead, punk. Make my day, nom nom nom nom I win
Dig in! I did. And managed to finish half, as usual, so there's a side dish ready for tonight, AND a bowl of salsa that I'll have to use for something... While I'm at the dentist's this afternoon, I'm sure I'll be thinking of exactly not this. Anyway.
Enjoy your lunch, dear friends.
- Spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
SERVES TWO! Or serves one, twice. Whatever.
This is goodness in a bowl, comfort food for any kind of weather. The stuff you carry in a bowl to your favorite couch, where you sink down and just breathe in the flavors, nose-first, before diving in and snarfling it down with accelerated, cartoon-like spoon-motions.
You know what? You do NOT need to get any water boiling for this. Unless you want to call this a pasta sauce, and pour it over some Penne Rigate. That works too. But is IS a soup. I promise.
Look! This is what we work with today:
Half a packet of bacon, half a red onion, a can of chunky tomato pulp, some Herbes de Provence, some Crème Fraîche (sour cream) and olive oil.
The Herbes de Provence and the Crème Fraîche is what gives this its distinct, French flavor. Discard them and you will end up with a regular Italian tomato-something. Don't do that. Trust me on this. Been there, done that.
Now, the bacon I use is Danish (praise be to the European Union) and smokey, just as I love it. The half red onion is the left over half from the omelet recipe the other day. It's been sitting in the fridge looking neglected, so now was the perfect time to cook it.
This recipe is slightly more expensive than usual (+30 cents), as there is bacon; meat always drives the price tag up, unfortunately. I have been asked wether I am a vegetarian since posting these recipes, and the answer is a most resounding NO. I am not. But this is a budget collection. I spent 7 years in uni, waitressing and cleaning night clubs to pay for it (no, you don't want to know), and I am totally familiar with the taste of oatmeal.
This is not oatmeal.
Besides, when I start cooking meat, you will know. It will quack, and moo, and grunt, but it will not neigh. That's all. Let's get back to cooking THIS SOUP.
Starting with the basics, as usual:
Red onion, coarsely chopped, down into smooth, green, beautiful olive oil, together with the Herbes de Provence—as I have already said, I like my herbs and spices to soak before cooking them. This is where they do just that. Look how pretty this is. Take a moment, once in a while, and just stop what you're doing, and look around you—enjoy life, please.
Bacon time!
I've said it before, I'm saying it again: I am a lazy-ass woman, so I cut stuff with my sturdy pair of scissors, straight into the pan. This time it is the bacon. I'm using half of a normal packet, that is plenty, and it leaves me a half to use for dinner. Don't know what I'll be cooking then, yet. I can't be expected to just *know* shit all the time, okay? Right now, all I *know* is this recipe, okay? Good, as long as we're clear on that.
Moving on.
Cutting bacon. Fast and furious.
Easy does it. Look at that!
But very difficult to cut AND take a picture at the same time.
Time for frying.
And as my best man Julio says, "let's fry it until it stops screaming, the Caribbean way" (—was I not talking about that part of the world just yesterday? Funny how that works, isn't it?). Well, now. You learn something new everyday. Thank you, Julio. Precious input. One day we shall cook together and it will truly shake the earth. We will fry it until it stops screaming, indeed.
When the bacon and onion have been duly fried to within an inch of their very lives, we bring out the big guns. Or the tomato, as it were.
Pour in the chunky tomato pulp:
Sorry for the unfocused picture, but do you people have any idea how difficult it is to brilliantly cook AND take pictures at the same time (see that adverb there, Julio? Not good. JS). Pour it in, let it splatter everywhere. That is part of the charm. This tomato pulp is chunkier than the one yesterday, what can I tell you? Italy has many, many grades of chunkiness. One day I shall take a picture in the supermarket so you can see the choices. I have been told that this (and the one yesterday) would be called "ground tomatoes" in Canada. That's all very good, as long as there are NO seeds, and NO skin left on the critters. Just the pulp, the fleshy goodness.... Oh, man, please, somebody stop me. I'm ranting about tomatoes.
Look at the colors here!
Yeah, you all know I go nuts for colors and stuff. Sue me. I like the pretty. Tyler Hoechlin, Dylan O'Brien, and... Oh, cooking, were we? Sorry. Yes, as I said, brilliant colors on these tomatoes. Beautiful.
See, I love fresh stuff. But canned tomatoes? Are simply some of the finest things you can get in life. Picked at the precise, exact right moment, minimal travel to a plant that transforms them into true deliciousness. Mmhmm, you just can't beat a good can of tomatoes. Moving on.
Oil and tomato have joined forces:
Something happens in tomatoes when heated with oil—I need a chemist to tell me what that is exactly. All I know is there is a pinch of salt and a pinch of medieval magicke involved. It transforms them, turns them into this new entity. The one I love.
Let this mix of goodness simmer for about ten minutes. What do you know!? Time for reading a good chapter of fanfiction. Or a bad chapter, I am in no position to influence your reading habits whatsoever.
When you feel it's time, and you are dying from le hungry, take some Crème Fraîche out of its jar, and put it in a small bowl, to stir it up a bit, soften it.
Then dribble it in the middle of your plated soup:
Don't mix it in, it'll all look wishywashy if you do... Just... just take a spoonful of chunky soup and make sure a little Crème Fraîche ends up on the tip of your spoon.... Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy, I'm going all religious on you, here. Mmhmmm..
Yeah! That's comfort food! nom nom nom nom
I had some fabulous blueberry drink to go with this—antioxidants FTW—courtesy of IKEA Italia.
There you go, a French soup, made by a Swede, in Italy, using some cooking techniques learned from an American-Caribbean... Makes you wonder why we still insist on having so many different countries in the world.
Me? I'm all for fusion.
Eat well, and prosper.
- Soupe de tomates aux fines herbes de Provence -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you. And, incidentally, so does France, today.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A 70-cent lunch today, Melanzane alla griglia—delicious grilled eggplant slices.
From my balcony, I managed to collect two smallish eggplants (aubergine - melanzana) but you can buy them from your green grocer's very cheap right now, as they are in season in the northern hemisphere.
You do NOT need to get any water boiling for this.
Just get your grilling griddle out, (or start your BBQ if you have one of those. Kind of overkill to start that whole shabang for grilling 2 eggplants, but hell, if what's what you want to do...)
Look! This is what we work with today:
A couple of small eggplants, salt and olive oil. Yeah, it really doesn't get simpler than this, people. Italian kitchen is all about simple, straightforward, and tasty.
Slice them up!
Cut your eggplants in long and thin slices, 6-8 of them are quite enough for one person.
The posh chefs will rant about how you need to "put salt on them, and press them with paper towels to get the water out," and "they will go dark, and ugly, and bitter so you need to...."
I call bull.
In my kitchen, I'm the boss, and I say: To hell with all that mumbo-jumbo, just slice the critters up and throw them on a sizzling hot griddle (one of those with stripes across, you know, to give your sausages/steak/vegetables those grilled lines? I can't remember the name of that pan right now), and fry them, Caribbean style (Yeah, Julio-style, for those who were with us yesterday! The "Fry them until they stop screaming..." style. Magnificent).
Look! It's easy—do this!
Throw them on the hot hot hot hot griddle, push on them, turn them, push some more on them, turn.
It's not exactly rocket science, eh?
When turned, push the slices down!
Use a wooden spatula (or something with a long handle, it is HOT down there, watch out!) and push on the eggplant-slices until you hear them sizzling. That's the water the posh chefs were talking about, we're just cooking it out, good and well.
Turn them over a couple of times, feel with the spatula when they're done (i.e. soft), it takes all of five minutes to do this. There's more chemistry happening here, (please see your local whatever for the scientific explanation), as the eggplant gets slightly burned, its flavors change, bloom, come out... Brilliant stuff.
Grill it too little, and it stays the sad, sorry, soggy piece of spunge it was two minutes ago. Medieval magicke, I tell you, magicke.
So grill the crap out of them. Then put them on a serving platter.
Look! When on the plate, dribble olive oil on them!
See, these are grilled DRY: no oil, no fat, because if you have fat or oil in the pan at that kind of temperature? All you will be producing is smoke. A huge, black, stinking pillar of sooty smoke. So much, in fact, that the fire brigade will arrive, sirens blasting, having been called by the neighbors. Been there, done that. *Nodnodnods, sadfacepanda*.
But everything just tastes a little better with some oil, so this is why you need to put some sweet fatty acids on them AFTER they are grilled. Because food? Without fat? Sucks donkey balls.
A couple of seconds about fat:
Olive oil—good
Butter—good, in small amountsMac Donald's fat—bad
End of lecture.
So, dribble your best olive oil on top of your slices, looking all professional and shit, and throw some coarse salt on them. DONE!
Sitting down for my lunch:
A couple of grissini, Italian breadsticks, a glass of water, and my lunch is ready.
Of course, many of you will say, "But but but but that's just a side dish!" to which my answer will always be, "Sure, it is that, too. But at lunch time, you don't NEED more food than this. Fill your belly with good stuff that can keep you going during the day. Load up on protein and steaks at the weekend, when you can just hang around being lazy. A weekday lunch? This is enough."
Then again, that doesn't mean that this dish isn't a smashing addition right alongside your grilled steak on the BBQ this summer.
Everything in moderation, my friends. Your diabetes will hate you for this. That's okay, it's mutual, you don't like your diabetes much either.Eat well to feel well.- Melanzane alla griglia -Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
Of course, many of you will say, "But but but but that's just a side dish!" to which my answer will always be, "Sure, it is that, too. But at lunch time, you don't NEED more food than this. Fill your belly with good stuff that can keep you going during the day. Load up on protein and steaks at the weekend, when you can just hang around being lazy. A weekday lunch? This is enough."
Then again, that doesn't mean that this dish isn't a smashing addition right alongside your grilled steak on the BBQ this summer.
Everything in moderation, my friends. Your diabetes will hate you for this. That's okay, it's mutual, you don't like your diabetes much either.Eat well to feel well.- Melanzane alla griglia -Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A one-dollar lunch today, a fusion of spaghetti, Swedish/Italian style.
SERVES TWO! Or serves one, twice. You know what I mean. We've done this dance before.
This is a dish that italians love, as long as you don't tell them you've bastardized their kitchen by pouring cream in their tomato sauce. They are an interesting bunch, to be sure. Oh, and tell them you are using "pancetta", not Danish bacon. Duh.
Just try this one on for size, it is true heaven—because, you see, there is NOTHING in the world that you can cook that does NOT get a little better with some cream in it. Nothing.
You know what? Yup, get that water boiling. Spaghetti time.
Look! This is what we work with today:
Half a packet of bacon (left-over from our French soup), a red onion, some double-concentrate of tomato, some oregano, some cream, eight black olives, spaghetti, and olive oil.
This is a hearty dish, filling, and completely smack-ful of goodies. The black olives give a nice tang of salty goodness. Make sure you get the ugly ones, the wrinkly, toasted ones, ("Olive toste" in Italian).
This recipe is more expensive than usual (+30 cents), as there is bacon—but we're using the left-over packet of bacon from the other day. That has got to count for something, right?
Start as usual with red onion and bacon
You know me by now, so you know I cut the bacon with a pair of scissors, straight into the frying pan (using a wok so there's more space to move around). Olive oil, red onion and bacon—sweet and beautiful.
Next in, olives and oregano
Because by now you know that I think herbs need to soak in the oil to get started. We've covered that already. Let this mix sizzle for a minute and then reach over for the tomato paste - double concentrate. Italian, please. Knock-offs are mostly junk.
Doppio concentrato di pomodoro!
"Double concentrate of golden apple"—how pretty is that expression? Stir in the tomato, it's kind of thick but it'll mix, eventually. It looks really pretty with the olives and bacon and onion. Smells divine, too.
And in goes the cream!
Liquid goodness—this is the kind of fresh cream that pours out of the box, the kind you use for whipping cream (because you are NOT using the ready-to-go-spray-thing for whipped cream, are you? Please, tell me you are not). This is like milk, only thicker. Beautiful. And so very Not-Italian, so don't tell your italian friends that you are using it. They would be completely shocked. In a bad way. Like I care, right?
And yes, there is no cream in the real, true, Italian recipe for Spaghetti alla Carbonara, whatever you may have heard. Trust me. That's something they do in the rest of the world.
Try to get this stuff to stick together
It's not easy, I know. You have to stir vigorously (what a beautiful adverb, there) and keep at it. At first, it looks like it's all broken; the Italians call this effect "impazzito" which means "gone crazy". All you need to do is to keep stirring, much like we did when we were doing the artichoke sauce, remember? Keep stirring, and it'll end up just fine. Trust me on this one, big boy. You know vigorously well.
See? All good now.
Not only is the sauce ready, your pasta-water should be boiling by now, so the sauce is ONCE AGAIN ready before the spaghetti even goes in. Grab your spaghetti and throw it in, stir it a bit. You know that the first minute of boiling pasta is important, right? That's when you make sure it doesn't stick together ending up a huge, gluey chunk. You don't want that.
When you've stirred it a bit, go read 8 minutes of fanfiction. I dare you.
Drain the pasta and throw it in the sauce!
When the pasta is done, drain it and throw it in. I keep my spaghetti slightly less cooked than al dente, so that I can work them for a minute in the sauce—if they're cooked perfectly when they go in the sauce, they will be overdone by the time they come out. And trust me on this one: nobody likes over-cooked spaghetti. I think Dante has a special Girone in Hell for people who do. I know I have.
Look at that. JUST LOOK!
Stir it, mixing well. This sauce adheres to every string of spaghetti so beautifully (and do you know that the single string of spaghetti is called "uno spaghetto"? Now you know). This is a magic moment, the starchy spaghetti just melts into the sauce, and they become one. Italians say that Si sposa bene, "They marry well". They're not all silly, these guys. They know kitchen chemistry. And love. *Nodnodnods*
Plate it up
Grate some cheese on it, if you want to. I never know when I want cheese, sometimes it seems to fit, others it doesn't. You can choose. Best part of life is you can choose so many things. Everyday. Remember that you are in charge.
Choose.
Some people end up walking through life without choosing anything, just "oops, look! a family, wow, got a baby, oh, look! got a job, and wow, is that it? All over? THAT'S IT!?"
Don't do that. Choose. Start with small things. Like write today, or not write today. When you win, it has got to be because you DID IT RIGHT, not because the other team didn't show up. Don't win on a walk-over. Win after fighting like a panther.
Off my soap box, now. Sorry about that, I get carried away. Let's get back to cookin'.
Look at that thing of beauty nom nom nom nom
Comfort-food at its absolute best. Lots of it, and savory to boot. Top-notch. Just remember to not tell anyone about the cream, okay?
This was served with apple juice. I'm all for interesting mixes. This one didn't pan out too well. Red wine would have been tops, but I need to work after lunch, so...
Couldn't finish it all off, so it'll go on my dinner table, you know the drill, grated cheese on top, 5 minutes in the oven = perfect side dish.
Me? I’m all for fusion. Any fusion, anywhere.
Eat well, and develop your taste-buds. Try new things.
Have fun. It's the little things in life, man. The little things.
- Spaghetti cremosi alla pancetta -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
*************************************
A 90-cent lunch lunch today, where simplicity rules, just as we like it.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: the KISS principle rocks my world.
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
So today, all you need to do is get the pasta water going—lots of salt, you know the drill, get to it, man!—then lean back and wait for lunch to be ready.
Oh, well, perhaps a little more work than that is involved.
I'm sorry I can't send these plates directly to your lunch table, just know that I would if I only could, okay?
Nobody should eat gummy bears for lunch. Seriously. No matter how happy the sugar kick makes you.
What we're using today:
Short pasta, preferably Trofie Liguri, (but any other short pasta will do, also the Penne Rigate from the other day), a jar of excellent, Italian pesto, some parmigiano reggiano. That's it. Brilliant, innit?
Now, the pesto is usually sold in really small jars, like one/two portions. It keeps in the fridge for a week or so, opened, so you can use it again. Find an Italian store that specializes in these things, and say hi to Alfredo from me.
A tablespoon of pesto and grated parmigiano.
Sauce is ready! TADAAAAA!!
Mix and wait for pasta
Wait for the pasta water to boil, and when it does, throw in the trofie liguri (or the penne or whatever you have handy). I adore the trofie because they fit so perfectly with pesto, the sauce goes into the pasta, and stays in there in the most delicious way.
Try, you won't be disappointed.
Read 10 whole minutes of fanfiction, as these buggers take longer to cook than most other types of pasta.
As usual, with these raw sauces, I keep a little of the pasta water before draining it, in case the pasta ends up getting a bit sticky. (Sticky is fine everywhere, except on my pasta).
Drained trofie go on top of the pesto
Stir the pasta in with the sauce, add a little olive oil and water from the pasta to get it all smooth and shiny. Not a lot of work. Seriously? You can do this. Come on.
Plate ready to go!
Keep the pasta water ready, in case you need a little more once you're at the table and grating an immense pile of parmigiano cheese on top—it might make it sticky again. And we just decided that sticky pasta is a no-no, so, please. Do as I say. I promise it'll be fabulous.
Look! That is seriously SO GOOD nom nom nom nom
Snarfled my plate down in seconds, as I was really hungry today. Tonight's side dish will have to be something different.
Back to work, and all is well in the world.
- Trofie liguri al pesto -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
A 70-cent lunch lunch today, never was it more needed.
Friends, today is an all-time-low-day, and the economy being what it is, both globally and locally, very locally, these recipes seem to be more important than ever, also here in my home.
I believe this will be the year we will all lose weight. What I'm trying to accomplish, however, is to keep us in some kind of both shape and happiness. To feel that we, even though we can't splurge like we used to, there is still the possibility for a nice meal, a good meal, a hearty meal, without ruining ourselves. The global economy ruins us enough, let's try to keep the wolves at bay, at least in our homes. For as long as we have homes. Unless the wolves are called Derek Hale. I'd take them wolves any day. JS.
Today's recipe is born out of desperation and and brilliance. Desperation; mine, and brilliance; from Julio. Thank you, dear man, you are a treasure.
Let's begin, shall we? It's quick today. Super quick.
A Caprese Salad, with buffalo mozzarella
Green lettuce, a couple of mature tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, a little oregano, six black olives, balsamic vinegar and olive oil (at the end I also added a little parmigiano reggiano).
As you see, this is my take on the Caprese, there should be other things, and more things, and basil things, and you can add whatever you have in your fridge. Whatever makes you happy. Happy is the only ingredient that has any importance at all.
Look! Already done, assembly accomplished.
Just mix in what you like, and enjoy. Have at it, with some nice, fresh and fragrant bread. There are endless variations on this theme, and you have to admit that right now is the absolute top-season for tomatoes!
Sorry about the short post today. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
- Insalata Caprese with a twist -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
A filling 60-cent lunch today, and the squash used is from a friend's garden.
I love summer.
Friends with huge gardens FTW, as all their vegetables are ready at the same time, and it is simply IMPOSSIBLE for them to handle it all. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't help them get rid of some of the surplus, right? Right.
So, today I'm making lunch for two, because my hubs is home sick. The calculation of cost is, however, as always, done on the single serving of the recipe.
Let's get to it, shall we? No water boiling today. Relax.
A gorgeous, very thin, Italian frittata alle zucchine, an omelet with squash.
Get the ingredients out, KISS-principle* still in full swing:
A good sized squash, 3-4 eggs depending on how big they are (serving 2 people today!) olive oil (perhaps a little butter) and gourmet fling salt. Yeah, I felt posh today, okay?
You can add a clove of garlic in the beginning, if you want to, but the squash is also good just on its own. It just needs to be cooked until it stops screaming, right, Julio? **gigglesnort**
Next, get to the cutting:
To make this is quick, the smaller you cut it, the faster it cooks. Simple as that. (Oh, and hat-tip to Finland: you and Japan make the best kitchen cutting-edge tools ever).
I love it when the squash is cut into really small pieces that get crunchy fried in the olive oil (I did go ahead and added a little butter in the oil as I'm a greedy bitch, and I love the taste of butter).
Throw the squash into the olive oil:
If you look closely you'll notice there's a garlic clove in there too. It happened.
Squash is an interesting critter, much like the eggplant from the other day it changes in taste when you give it those extra 54 seconds of panfrying in olive oil.
It just goes from "Yeah, this is nice," to "HOLY MOTHER OF ALL VEGETABLES, who are you, and what did you do to my squash???" in mere seconds. Try it. Bring it to the brink of the point of no return, to that moment right before you have to THROW IT OUT AND START OVER. Yeah. Right there! That's when some chemistry happens again.
My kitchen is a laboratory, who knew? I'll be damned. Where is my white lab coat?
Pouring the egg:
Whisk the eggs with salt and freshly ground black pepper, noting else is needed, and then pour them over the squash. Give the pan a shake to make sure the eggs go all over. We don't need to talk about black versus white pepper again, do we? Good.
Let the frittata set for a moment, until it has the consistency you prefer. I like it slightly soggy in the middle, so when I turn it over, I don't turn the whole thing, only a flap. I also happen to think it looks prettier like that.
Look! Both pretty and good!
I found some chives on my balcony, so they were used to decorate.
Ha. I felt all artistic and shit.
Look! Two servings of a delicious, thin frittata!
A huge green salad as a side to this? Sure, if you feel you need it. I did not.
Bring it to your table and nom nom nom nom
A piece of rustic, Italian crusty bread goes like mmmm-mmmm with your frittata!
When eating this, think about all the things you could cook in exactly the same way. Red peppers. Tomatoes. Green beans. Any vegetable really.
And in case there are leftovers (there were not, today) you can have them cold on a piece of bread, later. Brilliant.
*KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid.
- Frittata alle zucchine -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Lunch is a dollar today, using the fabulous air dried Italian Bresaola.
Bresaola is a bovine cold cut, originating in the mountains and valleys above Bergamo, the Valtellina. This is a part of the Alps, and the animals mostly roam free. I support good animal husbandry, and will not buy anything I'm not sure about.
Of course, this cold cut would have been perfect with peppery rucola salad (rocket), but alas! I had none, so I used my ordinary, green lettuce. A sprinkle of parmigiano reggiano perhaps? You can never go wrong with that.
This is a simple dish, it's just a question of mechanical assembly. Below you'll find two variations, as my hubs likes things different from mine. Of course he does. And yes, he's still home, sick.
Starting point, Bresaola and lemon:
Five very thin slices of this fabulous cold cut—air-dried bovine fillet from the Alps—and squeezed lemon: a piece of lunch-heaven. Freshly ground black pepper? Makes everything better.
Now, all you need to do is dress it up with whatever fits your daily whimsy. Do you want to add some Vinaigrette française loaded with Dijon mustard? Or maybe a couple of drops of 12-year-old balsamico to go with your olive oil? Coarse salt from the Himalaya?
Whatever you have in your pantry, just go get it! Let's dress this baby!
Hubs went for cherry tomatoes:
He says it is finished, so that's what he's having for lunch, poor man. I think it looks a bit sad and boring, but with olive oil and bread, he says he's all set. Well, good for you man. Good for you!
Me? I need more STUFF!
So I grab my valiant green lettuce and my parmigiano reggiano. Olive oil and balsamico. Coarse salt and black pepper, for the win.
Yeah, I guess I'm not all that difficult, myself.
Done! Look at that dish! nom nom nom nom
A glass of water with some lemon is perfect with this dish, especially on a hot, Italian day like today. I'm so glad not to be getting my pots and pans out: no cooking on hot summer days. Please. Just cut up some fragrant, crusty, Italian bread, and dig in.
Make everyday count.
- Bresaola -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
A dollar-lunch today, a cheesy taste-explosion that is all that's good in Italy. And more.
Besides? None of those pesky spaghetti critters needed!
So, a little bird whispered in my ear that cheese is a favorite. I could not agree more! And here, you're getting a scamorza affumicata, a smoked cheese, that we will take to the frying pan and melt until it purrs. This served two, as you can see, hubs dressed his stuff in a different way. I think we need to take his Italian card away from him.
Yup. That's right. No pasta water to boil today.
Just get these things out:
Yeah, doesn't look too hard, does it? Olive oil (you guys all know the bottle by now) and a scamorza cheese. I've checked, they sell them in the Bronx, you're all set. No excuses.
Dimo. Dimo!
"Cut it up and fry it," she said:
Yeah, said and done. Get the slices in there and start a slow heating. This one isn't supposed to scream, Julio, just purr. Work with me.
Hubs went with this instead, I don't for the life of me get it!
But as long as he's happy, I am happy. For sure.
Me? I need more cuddling:
See? That's how you do it!
Plate it up and serve with fragrant, crispy bread. Dip into that stuff, all of it just oozed out of the cheese and became a green, shiny cheese-oil sauce mix thing.
Magicke!! Again! Yay!
Absolute heaven nom nom nom nom:
This is comfort food, when you feel like having all the Macdonald's and all the junk, THIS is what you need to do. Turn around! Turn your steps to Dimo's! Get the bread there, too.
It's almost pagan in its deliciousness.
It's better for you, and it uses plenty of one of the two sacred, Roman liquids: olive oil. The one liquid that is just as good for your outside as it is for your inside. (No, don't roll around in it, eat it. We'll do a recipe for fixing sad winter skin with olive oil later in the year. Much later).
The other sacred liquid, for the Romans, was of course wine. I recommend that one only on the inside. But lots of it.
Make everyday a feast. I know I do.
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011
- Scamorza affumicata -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Spending 80 cents on the lunch today—I was tired, so we are having simple, fried eggs for lunch.
Sounds sad, does it?
It isn't. Not at all.
Of course, you need the good stuff, eggs from happy chickens. The factory-mill ones just taste like rubber.
Here, starting up:
Today's ingredients: just good eggs, (making four as hubs is still home sick), butter and olive oil. Simple.
Heat up and pour in the eggs. I don't know if I've ever done it simpler.
Look at that!
Keep them frying, slowly, (not until they're screaming, eggs don't scream, man! Do they?) UNTIL they're done to your personal taste. Some like the egg white to be a bit wobbly still. I most certainly do not. Black pepper. I mean, BLACK PEPPER. God, I love that pepper. There's a special whiff that comes up from the frying eggs when you grind the pepper, it's a mix of olive oil, eggs, goodness and sin. Yeah, that's the one. Mmmm.
Serve it up on your plate:
I add some green salad with aceto balsamico, to balance the creamy taste of the egg yolks. YUM!
To the table nom nom nom nom
That's all for today folks. Proteins and vitamins and filling stuff.
Please stop it with the take out every day, it is killing you. Because not only is it unhealthy to eat that everyday (hey! you don't know what Chef put in that dish!) you also get way too much food. Seriously? One portion of take-away can keep me for two days.
Another secret to balancing your food intake is to use a smaller plate. Still looks full, but contains LESS STUFF.
I want you guys to eat healthy stuff. I love you.
- Simple fried eggs -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
An 80-cent lunch today, France FTMFW
It's simply too hot to cook in my kitchen today, so I decided to fix a Salade Niçoise with the green beans and potatoes that were left over from last night's dinner. I always cook more than needed when I actually turn the hotplates on, to make sure there's a possibility for quick-'n-easy food-fixes later.
Lucky me?
Hell no, luck has nothing to do with it. It's called planning. Give yourself credit.
What are we using today?
Green beans, one half of a very small can of tuna, one potato, one tomato, some black olives. Simple, basic things in life. Oh, and green lettuce, even if it's not in the picture. Duh.
As you can see, I'm still using the same package of olives since a couple of weeks. These things are eternal, I think. Still one more lunch left in it after today. Win, win, win.
These? I boiled lightly last night in salted water:
(Don't you just love the slanting light of the evening sun shining on my kitchen counter last night at 8 pm—oh June! I love you!)
They've kept in the fridge overnight. Cool, still crunchy beans, just YUM. The potatoes took all of 4 minutes to cook, as they were already cut into small cubes. Brilliant.
This is the baseline, cooked and raw stuff:
Way too much food for one sitting. Excellent. I foresee a side dish for tonight.
Now, to the assembly:
Not difficult at all. I use a huge bowl so that it's easier to toss the salad once everything is in. (Note the heaps of ingredients left on the cutting board).
So, what goes in the French dressing you can already see in the picture above?
Balsamico vinegar (I can't live without that), olive oil, hot Dijon mustard, salt, pepper.
Simple. Good. Stuff. How many times do I have to repeat: You are what you eat. What goes in, IS YOU. Take care of YOU.
Mixing hot with sweet and acidic:
Salt goes into the Balsamico, to dissolve, and then throw in a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. The aromas coming up from this bowl are incredible. A little freshly ground black pepper, and turn it all around. Oh, a little piece of heaven, right here. Now buckle down, for the trixy stuff.
Here's the difficult part:
How to get the oil to combine with the mustard/vinegar...? Pour the oil in, very slowly and very little at a time, and whisk its slippery little ass off.
It'll look like OMG nooooo *mortification-éxtraordinaire again* at first, but keep at it, adding a little drizzle of oil now and again, and you'll see it works out just fine.
In case it doesn't work out fine, and keeps looking like BLEARGHH: start over in a fresh bowl, with new mustard, half the doses, and do it all with even less oil at a time. It's a question of chemistry and it's different when the weather is hot. (Don't ask me, I'm not a chemist. I just run this kitchen by the ass of my pants and heaps of experience). Once you see the coming together of the liquids, then also add, drizzle by drizzle (or spoon by spoon) the stuff from the first bowl. That you thought had gone bad. As if by some bloody Medieval MAGICKE the bad stuff goes on to being good stuff. I'll be damned if I'll ever understand it. It just works. Trust me. And also: nothing gets wasted in my kitchen. I cannot throw away food.
This is what it should look like:
La Vinaigrette Française; a myth; a legend. Dense, smooth, shiny.
Now, if you buy ready made salad dressing (please tell me you don't) (No, seriously, tell me you don't):
Then it won't look like this.
It won't taste like this.
And it will most certainly not be a Salade Niçoise. It'll just be a regular tuna salad. Yay. Way to waste some fine tuna, man. Don't do that.
La Vinaigrette goes on top:
Now, dribble THAT on your Salade Niçoise and tell me life isn't fabulous?
More. More.
Life is fucking awesome.
It's the little things in life. Don't miss them, they pass so fast, and are so easy to miss.
Tossed and turned! Nom nom nom nom
This is happy soul-food. Water, Italian Grissini, breadsticks, and digging a hole in a Salade Niçoise.
Life, man. Take it by it's horns and run. Shake. Shiver and moan.
It's good.
- Salade Niçoise -
It's good.
- Salade Niçoise -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you. And today, France, too, incidentally.
*************************************
Ha, today, my lunch is already DONE, as it was my dinner last night.
And as my dinner last night most certainly wasn't on a budget, I won't set a pricetag on it. But it IS left-overs, so that should count for something, right? Oh, and I used the left-over greens from the salad, so that's good too. As you know, I hate to throw away food.
So, I'll just walk you through the dinner making, shall I?
First: Get the Basmati rice going! One cup of rice for two cups of water, add coarse salt, cook on low heat until all water is gone. Done.
Now, what did I use:
One small squash, some tops of green asparagus, the left over green beans and potato from my Salade Niçoise-adventure yesterday, Basmati rice (of course), and beautiful, Italian, thin slices of veal. Sesame Oil, for dribbling on top after cooking. It does not fry well, as it burns. (Later on, I went and found a can of bean sprouts, too, so they're in the next image. I was already cooking by then!)
May the slicing begin!
I love long chunks of everything, thinly sliced. It makes for easier chopstick-action, and it looks prettier when you're cooking. See? I added the bean sprouts!
First, the veal!
I get the veal going in a very, very hot wok, using peanut oil. Fast, in and out (get your mind out of the gutter), and by the very last seconds I add some soy sauce. Mrs Cheng's extra strength mushroom soy is what I live and die for.
Then I take the meat out, and keep it on a plate for later, or it'll get over-cooked. We don't like that.
Next up:
Get the raw greens going:
I throw in the squash and asparagus tops on top of the oil left over from the veal. Hot, hot pan, sizzling hot, shake and roll, then grab the other vegetables.
Add the already cooked vegetables:
Let these fry together for a couple of moments, to shock them all into the stir-fry-frenzy you need (or it'll all just become soggy, boiled vegetables, and all Asian people will spit on your grave for the rest of eternity) (truefax) (and they'd be right in doing so).
Then add soy sauce:
Look! It's coming together now! I'm not using much salt as the soy sauce does its thing, but this is the moment to add whatever specific poison you think you need. I am not a huge fan of chillies and hot stuff (unless, nudge, nudge) so I'm basically ready to go.
I wait for the rice to be ready, I like to give it 2-3 minutes off-heat to rest and become fluffy. That's when I consider putting the meat back in the pan. That needs to be, like, the very last thing you do before plating it all up.
So, is your rice ready? Good!
Veal in place!
Once the rice is done, and resting, I put the meat back in the pan and make sure it gets sizzling hot again. It you're doing it right, this takes seconds. Hot, man, HOT.
Rice comes out looking like fluff clouds, and it is time to take this baby to the table.
Look at that! nom nom nom nom
This is where I use the Sesame Oil, the nutty, harsh flavor just brings the aromas that rise from this plate a whole new dimension. Take a deep breath. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
So, that was last night. Today, for lunch, I'm reheating that stuff, and for some interesting reason (probably chemistry, it always is) it's even better the next day.
So, I'm digging in. See you all tomorrow. Let me know what YOU had for lunch.
- Veal fry-up -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you. And today, China I suppose. Mrs Cheng, FTW.
*************************************
Pick-nick lunch today, just a sandwich and a light salad.
I'm off to the stables, staying out all afternoon riding, I hope. So I'm bringing a lunch, we'll have it somewhere out on the ride. (Yes, I'm bringing carrots for Moro. Of course).
As I passed the green grocer's yesterday afternoon, I couldn't help taking a picture. Even though it was raining like hell, this image just warms me up from the inside. I love summer.
Look at these tomatoes!
Seriously, how can I not stop and get some of these? From the cherry, to the plum, to the "ox-heart" tomatoes (up in the right hand corner)...
They're all good. All of them. I came home with the plum ones, at 1:80€ a kilo (2 lbs) it's a bargain. Plus, they don't get soggy, but stay nice and firm. Like healthy buttocks.
Voilà, sandwich!
These get wrapped up in a parcel of cling wrap and aluminum foil too keep them happy, my saddle bags also always carry coarse salt and black pepper. (Just wanted to make a pretty picture first).
Mixing a salad to go:
Again, using the tomatoes that won't go soggy, and hard vegetables like red and yellow peppers. I am not putting any dressing on them at this time, just mixing and then throwing the lot into a container to go.
Pièce de résistance:
Remember the tuna left over from 2 days ago? It sat in the freezer, waiting for this moment go get to it. Mixing in with loads of Balsamico vinegar, olive oil, more chopped plum tomatoes, salt and pepper. That is my salad dressing! It goes in a smaller container, (making sure it's airtight and won't leak!) along with the travel bottle of olive oil and the salt dispenser.
When it's time for lunch, I mix it all together on the spot with the salad (see above) and TA DA!
A summer feast.
Yeah, it takes very little to make me happy. To see you guys smile is probably the fastest way.
This pick-nick lunch? Is a close second.
- Pick-nick lunch -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
I am not spending more than 50 cents for lunch today, as the beautiful, seasonal eggplant (aubergine, melanzana) is so cheap they practically throw them at you at the store.
I got a whole net-ful (2 kg/4lbs) for 97 cents. So, you have to cook them now, while they are good and cheap. I freeze the leftovers, or use for lasagna. Yeah, as in: instead of the meat sauce, I use the sauce I'm doing today, and layer it with sauce béchamel and lasagna (you know, flat noodles?) and heaps of cheese of top. So, two of these aubergines made me food for at least 4 days. You can't beat that.
This is what we are doing today: Start the pasta water!
Look at all the simple stuff:
Last five black olives from the package we opened three weeks ago, some double concentrate of tomato paste, a small can of tomato pulp, two aubergines, olive oil, and some penne rigate. After taking this picture I added some garlic and basil leaves. Duh. Chef is impatient with the image shooting, what can I say.
Cut the eggplant in long strips:
I got rid of much of the tough skin, but left just enough so that you can see that it is eggplant, and so you get a little bit of the bitterness that lives in that skin. There is going to be A LOT, so start frying them as soon as your biggest fryingpan is hot hot hot. Do not use oil at this time, you know how eggplant goes soggy when you do that too early.
Remember how we said we don't need to do all those chef'y things with eggplant, like salt them and press them with paper towels, and so on? That is still how I roll my kitchen. Just cut them up, and fry the hell out of these strips in a hot hot hot pan—wait for them to stop screaming. *giggles*
Throw them in the searing hot frying pan:
Do them in batches, salt a little once they get a bit browned, and then put them in another pan for keeping, until they are all done.
Throw all the eggplant back in the first huge pan (the black one, you know, I'm gonna cook pretty red things in the white one, duh), and keep hot as you prepare the sauce.
As usual, olive oil, garlic and tomato pulp:
Ah, a marriage made in heaven, let the tomato cook for a couple of minutes. Add garlic and basil leaves.
Look at that!
Simmer one minute, then add some more olive oil, simmer, simmer.
Your pasta water is probably boiling by now, so throw in your penne rigate, or whatever you have handy. I try to use the same stuff we bought weeks ago until it's finished, so you don't have to go shopping every day for my recipes. But hey, if you get bored, use another type of pasta. This is just to give you inspiration.
Stir the pasta well during the first 20 seconds they are in the water. That way you won't have to think about them later, just let them cook.
Turn back to the sauce, yeah, it's ready for your eggplant.
Load in the eggplant:
Give them a good stir, and make sure the heat is up on high, this is make it or break it crunch-time. If the sauce in the wok looks like it's getting too dry, add some of the boiling pasta water, to moisten it up a bit. We don't want this to become soggy, but hell, we just hate it when it's dry. So, use your sense of balance. Also, make sure that the eggplant is cooked, not just browned a bit. Rawish eggplant is almost worse than soggy eggplant. And that's saying something.
Add tomato paste and black olives:
Add the double concentrate tomato paste and the olives, and stir up up well. Again, if it goes too dry, add some pasta water (remember to stir your pasta once in a while, too, okay?). This is where the magic happens, guys. I don't know what it is, but that tomato paste? It just goes all around every single strip of aubergine and hugs it, gently. It's happiness, it is something I just love to see, when cooking. It goes from red tomato to orange goodness and love.
*Happy sigh*
Salt and pepper, loads of black pepper. Taste with a spoon (and feel GOOD! You DID THAT! You COOKED THAT!) and then add some more salt. Eggplant eats up salt like crazy.
When the pasta is cooked to your liking—drain it—plate it up—add the sauce on top. Ha, see what I did there. Stick it, comma splice. Oh, noes...
Look at that plate:
And look at the leftovers in the wok! That's at least four more meals like this one, or several batches of lasagne. I might consider doing that tomorrow. If I find the lasagna noodles.
Dive in! Nom nom nom nom
Will you please look at that plate of goodness? This is Italian, simple, sweet, filling, and so, so good. Please, come sit down. Let me hand you your plate. Add cheese on it, if you want to, I'll pass today. I love this just as it is. Perhaps a huge chunk of that Italian bread over there? Yeah. That's it.
Look. Just look!
Now, these leftovers can also be used as salsa on a bruschetta (you know, take a thick slice of your favorite Italian, rustic bread, toast it, do a quick garlic rub and a drizzle some olive oil and coarse salt on it, then add a spoonful of that aubergine-mix up there and... and... and... nom nom nom). Yeah, that works even cold. Yum.
- Penne alle melanzane -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
How much do you value left-overs? Hmm, maybe 80 cents today? Seeing as I overloaded on cheese...
Remember the eggplant pasta sauce from the other day, the one with more left-overs than actual lunch? I've been nomming on it for two days now, but finally today I decided to make a lasagna, before there simply wasn't enough sauce left to do anything at all.
LOTS of images today, I kind of went crazy with feels while cooking. This happens. It is incurable. Oh, and apparently I also got wordy.
Back to cooking.
Every family has its own take on lasagna. Hell, in some families every person has his or her own take. That is exactly how it is meant to be.
Lasagna is the highest expression of love that you will ever find. Therefore, any kind of lasagna is good, even the bad ones, because made with love.
Me? I refuse to make bad food, so here we go, grab the eggplant sauce from the other day, let's get cooking.
Today's ingredients:
Get it all together: the lasagna noodles I love to use are the Sfoglia from Giovanni Rana: they're fresh and beautiful egg-pasta. Super-thin, so they don't need to be precooked. (Yes, you know me, all about the easy, but never losing in quality, yeah?). If you can't find this brand, ask your local Italian deli, as they probably make it everyday themselves. For this dish, I used only 6 of them, the rest went into my freezer. Other things needed: for the sauce béchamel, or white sauce if you want to call it that, there is flour, butter, milk, nutmeg, parmigiano reggiano. The things needed for the rest of the stuffing: the eggplant sauce (or any other sauce you have lying around, really), three or four kinds of cheeses (here, I am using some smoked scamorza—remember the one we melted?—some fontalpe, parmigiano reggiano, and buffalo mozzarella. I would have used cheddar if it were only possible to find it here. It isn't. I'm not using all that you see in the image, just a head of this, and a chunk of that. There are more lunches coming out of this stuff! Salt and black pepper, as always.
Getting ready:
Prepare everything so that once you get going and the béchamel is ready, you just dance around your kitchen, composing the lasagna. I grate the two half-soft cheeses (scamorza and fontalpe) with the big grater, and then the parmigiano with the fine grained one. The mozzarellas? I will rip all three of them into pieces with my very hands, later. (Yes, I always buy the small mozzarellas, that way you have them fresh and new all the time. Once you cut up a big one, it's done. You have to eat it all. Oh, mercy). Okay, everything ready?
Starting the sauce béchamel:
The sauce béchamel is a wondrous thing, indeed. The French really invented something fabulous there. Remember that we did one already in the artichoke pasta recipe? This one is going to be a lot more liquid, to help cook the lasagna noodles. Start with melting the butter. Lots of butter, and lots of nutmeg. As usual, I'm getting my spices wet. That's how this kitchen rocks.
Below, in fast succession: how the béchamel happens:
Butter, flour (a couple of spoonfuls) and nutmeg.
Stir like crazy! It looks like it went to hell. It didn't. Keep stirring! When there are no more lumps of flour in the butter, pour in a little milk. Slowly. Let the milk heat up a bit in your saucepan (the French have it simmering in a saucepan and say it has to be a perfect temperature for this to work, and lah-di-dah, and all that. Bull. Just pour the milk in and let it heat up slowly, and then whisk it to death). I use my wok for this because I love to have a lot of space. I splatter a lot. It's what makes cooking fun.
Look! Shiny!
Make sure you have a lot of sauce, as these lasagna noodles aren't being cooked before they go in the oven, they need a bit more liquid than the ones that you precook. That liquid will come from the béchamel.
Forgetting the salt and pepper!
Sauce is done. Put to the side.
Getting to the building:
Butter the bottom of the lasagna-platter, and spread out a little eggplant sauce to begin with, then add some béchamel on top.
Hurry up!
Add the first layer of lasagna, I rip them to fit the size of the platter, and then lather with béchamel sauce.
More eggplant sauce, then more béchamel sauce and a generous handful of mixed, grated cheeses.
Yeah, this is just a middle layer...
Keep going, adding layers, as many as you want to really, depending on how much you have left of your two sauces. I prefer to do two to three really stuffed layers. You choose.
Building the top layer:
Add all the béchamel that is left, then spread out what's left of your eggplant sauce. Not much, because it's mostly in the intermediate layers... Lasagna needs to be soggy! Full of good stuff!
Top it all off!
Rip the mozzarellas into pieces on top of the remaining, grated cheese, and then grate more parmigiano on top of that. Yes, I think we can safely say that I love cheese.
Look! Ready for the oven:
Assembly done! This is where you can stop the whole process, in case you want to fix this in the morning in preparation for dinner, and then throw it in the oven later, when the guests are arriving. The longer it sits like this, the better it gets once it's cooked. Yum.
Into the oven it goes:
Anytime between 20-30 minutes, medium heat, last five-ten minutes with grill turned on.
Out of the oven it comes:
I love lasagna.
It's so pretty.
Let's plate it up:
Best served with a chunk of good bread, even though Italians say bread doesn't go with pasta. I do as I bloody well please in my own kitchen, and I also have cappuccino in the afternoon. So there.
Dig in, my friends. There's so much food here.
- Lasagne vegetariane alle melanzane -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Ha. Way over budget, people. Once in a while you have to do that. This is one of those times. We're at two and a half dollars a portion here.
Which is still kind of good, just not what I usually do.
You see, I found a fantastic melon this morning at the Farmer's market. How can you say no to something that smells like summer, and perfume, and sunshine, and happiness? I know I can't. And with that in my bag, I headed over to my Salumiere for some prosciutto. Turns out, he was at the perfect point of the San Daniele ham—you know, where there's a lot of flesh but still close to the bone? Yeah, that point, right there.
So I had him cut up some ten paper thin slices. Oh, heaven.
What do we have:
One fabulous melon from a local farmer, and prosciutto San Daniele. Yup. Splurge, thy name is Anna. Well, within reason. And nothing is more reasonable than a good melon and ham.
Cut the melon and arrange on your plate:
Ready.
It doesn't have to be all fancy and what-not. When you have really good produce, you just need to put them together on a plate and dig in.
So I did:
Not too much, not too little, just right. It's too hot for cooking, anyway.
- Prosciutto e melone -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Maybe 15 cents all together? Yeah, frying taters today. Sue me. It doesn't get cheaper than this. In every sense.
I splurged yesterday. Today I pay my dues.
And anyway, I just love grated, fried potatoes. I can't have them often, because they say it's not good for you. But then again, the same people who say that regularly have fries at Burger King, so. STFU.
When I feel I need starch, salt, and fat, this is where I go.A couple of potatoes, a grater, a pan and some sunflower oil. A paper towel to drain after frying, and obnoxious amounts of gourmet flake salt, (not just the normal coarse salt, but the stuff that sits in a special box at the back of my cupboard...Yeah, food nerd here. Hadn't you noticed?)
That's all you need.
Look, here's the set up:
Two potatoes, sunflower oil, salt.
Grate. Put it in a sizzling hot pan, make thick layer, to fry it 'til it stops screaming, Julio. You know you want to.
Halfway there:
Keep the edges well rounded to make sure it stays together. This is when the starch does its magic, inside the potatoes.
Turnover and fry the other side:
That is seriously beautiful.
Let it rest a moment on paper:
Let's get rid of all the excess oil, right here. There is a limit, after all.
Take it to your table:
Throw the flake salt all over it, and just dig in. Heaven.
Look at that! Nom nom nom nom
This bite is crispy on the outside, and kind of cooked and soft on the inside.
It has NOTHING to do with French Fries. My grandmother used to do a much more elaborate thing, which involved adding flour, milk, eggs, and calling it "raggmunk". This is not one of those. At all.
I prefer the simple way of life, I think you have all understood this by now.
And, yes, you there in the back. You're quite right. This could also be a side dish. How very astute of you to see this. You must have been listening to me preach.
- Rårakor -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Sweden salutes you today.
*************************************
Maybe 80 cents today, as the beautiful and huge South African avocados are hitting our stores right now—firm but full of flavor, and so cheap it's almost ridiculous.
This simple salad recipe has been handed down in my family (from my father's second wife), and it is so full of win on a hot summer's day. Actually, in Narok, Kenya, where I learnt to do it, we didn't use lettuce at all, because it made us sick, so the original recipe probably had double of the avocado and orange.
Anyhow, I still remember the first time I had it, and when the mixture of avocado and orange hits my taste buds, there is an explosion of flavor that triggers an explosion of memories; dry heat, mountain air, crazy Christmas trees (anything went, in those days) and the intense smell of garden mint. I can smell it in the air, right now as if I were back there again.
Taste and smell does that to you, as I was reminded of yesterday, reading a fantastic chapter of fiction. Hat-tip to you, Julio. Thank you for reminding me. And thank you for including me in your pre-reading group. So much fun!
So, this is what we have:
An orange, half an avocado, lettuce, and vinaigrette, however you want to do it. I opted for a very simple one, that doesn't kill the fine flavor of the avocado, just a little cider vinegar and olive oil, (one part V to three parts O) with lots of oregano and dried basil. Herbs, salt and pepper go in the vinegar, before the oil, to get them going. You know me and my magic herb handling.
Now, before you get all up in my face about how much avocados cost, please note that I'm only using one half. In all my recipes here, I try to estimate the price of the portion, but as we all come from different corners of the world, sometimes what is dirt-cheap for me right now, is an exclusive item in your stores. I understand that. But I can only work with what I have in front of me.
Slice them up:
It is just fabulous to work with these avocados, they stay together and are so easy to slice. In case you get the smaller, less firm ones, they are great too, only don't peel them, halve them and then slice them while they are still inside their peel, and scoop the slices out with a spoon. Anything that gets the job done. If they really don't want to stick together in beautiful slices, just cut cubes. Still inside the peel. Then scoop those out. (And by cutting cubes, I mean: slice them first one way, and then the other way, in diagonal inside the peel = instant cubes. Fucking magic). (If ya don't get how it's done, lemme know, I'll take a picture).
If avocados fuck too much with me? I make guacamole.
And enjoy doing it.
The orange is easy, cut away the peel, to get rid of most of the outer membrane, and then just slice across. Takes seconds.
Put lettuce on a plate, and on top of it, alternate avocado with orange as in the image below.
Look, the plate is almost done:
It's difficult to do an easier recipe. Honestly.
To the table:
Adding a little dressing and flake salt, a piece of crusty bread, I'm all set.
I love avocado.
And you guys.
- Avocado salad -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
East Africa salutes you today.
*************************************
Probably only 50 cents today, with just a little of this, and a little of that.
Again, I'm going to bastardize the classic, Italian tomato sauce by simply using cream. Or better, by using Crème Fraîche, the French sour cream that I love so much. (Being French probably makes my treason all the more hurtful, as there is no love lost between these peoples. Me? I love everybody, except morons, but they come in all nationalities).
Now, in this recipe, something happens with the acids in the tomato as they are culled by the soft cream, and as usual, it is a result of equal doses of chemistry and magic. (I believe I need a chemist—I would love to write a cook book together with a chemist, where I can write about what I'm doing when I'm cooking, and the chemist can explain what's happening inside the food while I'm cooking it. If any of you know of such a person, send him or her over).
For to today's Éxperience de Grand Cookification, get the pasta water going. With lots of salt. You know the drill.
This is what you need:
A small squash, some garlic, half of a red onion (here, the specific Cipolla di Tropea, which is so sweet you can use it raw in a salad, which I will do tonight), a small can of tomato pulp (ground tomatoes, Brona!), and a couple of spoonfuls of Crème Fraîche. Olive oil for cooking is by now such a given, I don't even need to put it in the picture, right? I'm using Penne Rigate, as there are still a whole bunch of them left in the box I got weeks ago. You can, of course, use whatever you have in your cupboard. I recommend short pasta, however, as this sauce will dirty your crisply ironed white oxford with splatter when you mix it with spaghetti and try to scoop it up elegantly. JS. (Chef's Tip: At a business lunch, never order long pasta, it is impossible to eat it with style, and you need style to seal that deal, right? Go with Penne, Farfalle, Rigatoni, Cellentani, Conchiglie, Manicotti, Pipe, Garganelli, Maccheroni, Trofie, Fusilli. I mean, it's not like there is no choice). (Yes, I translate for Barilla. Sure beats the tractor manuals).
Get it all going:
Squash, onion and garlic, in olive oil. Smells divine. Makes me happy to watch this soffritto come together. As usual, I add a little oregano and dried basil already at this stage, to get them going.
Adding the tomato:
There is something deeply satisfying with the colors of food being cooked. I keep coming back to it, as it is something that gives me great pleasure. God knows there are so many things that make us cry, so let's be happy for the little things in life. Friends. Good conversations. A fine glass of wine. Beautiful pasta sauce. Right.
After five minutes or so, add the cream:
When the tomato has been cooking for a while, and both squash and onions are nice and soft, add a couple of spoonfuls of Crème Fraîche to the mix. As usual, it'll look like it all went to hell, but it did NOT. What do you do? You stir. You stir the shit outta that sauce, and magically it all comes together again. I have no idea why, it just does. (I really need that chemist).
Check out the subdued colors:
Here, the tomato has gone mellow, smooth, soft, and all the harsh acids have disappeared into the creamy, orange goodness. It is a kind of magic, considering how very few things that went into this sauce.
Drain the paste when it is to your liking, and add enormous amounts of sauce on top.
Plate it up:
It's no use trying to save any of this sauce, there won't be anything left over. I can almost guarantee it.
Look! At the table! Nom nom nom nom
A dash of parmigiano reggiano on top (still the huge chunk from weeks ago) makes it all just perfect.
I love Italian breadsticks, grissini, to go with my pasta. Don't ask me why, I just feel they fit perfectly.
I love pasta.
And you guys.
- Penne, panna e pomodoro -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy, with a dash of France, salute you today.
*************************************
Too hot to cook, too hot for anything really. Just fruit and cheese today. And blueberry juice.
You know when you have no energy at all? When it feels like your essence is seeping out of your feet into the ground, leaving you weak and sad? The only thing that can get me back on my feet when that happens? Fruit. Beautiful, sunkissed, dark red cherries, nectarines, a banana from a certified green farmer—because The Taste!
So that's what I'm doing today.
Antioxidants for the win.
and a huge slice of that soft, French Brie-like cheese, Caprice des Dieux. Pure heaven. A couple of bread sticks complete my lunch.
I love summer.
- Fruit and cheese -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy, with a dash of France, salute you today.
*************************************
"You take what you have," said Swedish chef Cajsa Warg, back in 1755. Her cook book was released in 14 editions until the last one, in 1822, some 50 years after her death.
She was one hell of a cook, ladies and gentlemen. And she taught most Swedes about potatoes, in fact, the first editions did not have any potatoes at all, they came in the later editions. And if you know any Swedes at all, you will realize the momentous importance of this fact.
For me, the amazing thing is also that a woman got published, in the 1700s, under her own name. For 14 editions? Almost unheard of in the world, and quite exceptional also for Sweden.
Anyway, I cleaned out my fridge yesterday, and before going shopping for more, new, and improved foodstuffs, I’m taking a deep look into my echoing fridge to try to put together a lunch. In true Cajsa-Warg-style, taking what I have.
I have no idea what the price tag of this might be. Perhaps a dollar and a half? But they are left-overs!
What do I work with?
An eclectic mix of two eggs, some cherry tomatoes, a mini-mozzarella, raspberries, double cream, some bacon, a leftover small slice of pan pizza. And my trusted pair of scissors. Takes minutes to invent something.
Starting with bacon
Starting with bacon is always a good idea. You can add onion or potato right now, whatever. I don’t have any, so I’m winging it. Olive oil is a given.
Ha, lookit dat, two eggs!
When the bacon is almost done, add the eggs. I didn’t feel like whisking them, so it’s a sunny side up B&E thing, today. I think it looks just beautiful. And while the eggs are cooking, I set up a bowl with raspberries, sugar and cream. To let them get acquainted with each other, and enjoy each other’s company. Takes minutes. Works wonders.
Wow! Bacon & Eggs galore
Just add a little black pepper, salt and whatever you feel you want. You can use herbs, or curry, or whatever floats your ship. Invent stuff.
Meanwhile I’m reheating the small slice of pan pizza in the microwave (I’m not a totally backward person, I have one of those), until I hear the cheese melting. Mmmmmm..
I cut the mini-mozzarella in slices, the same with the cherry tomatoes, I add some lettuce, balsamico and olive oil, and then—when my eggs are done (you cook them to your personal perfection—meaning to death, for Brona, and still a slithering, shivering mess, for Julio), then I take them off the heat and start composing my plate.
Plating it all up:
Yeah. There’s happiness there. True love.
At the table. Nom nom nom nom
Now, that’s a hearty plate for someone who went to donate blood this morning. A little leftover pan pizza, a mini-mozzarella and a cherry tomato, some green lettuce, and bacon and eggs. Raspberries in double cream with sugar for dessert.
Digging in.
Life ain’t so bad.
- Lovely leftovers -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Probably around 90 cents today; depending on what price you can get for the gorgonzola.
I live 30 km (18 miles?) from the town of Gorgonzola, so my prices may be way off. My father, on visit from Canada, once got on the train and went there just to step out and see if he could smell the gorgonzola in the air already at the station. He came home mightily disappointed, I'm afraid.
This recipe works with any kind of green/blue cheese, of course, I just like to use what's produced nearby.
The smooth fantasticness of the gorgonzola sits so well with the creamy base that is the crème fraîche. Add to that a little (a lot) of nutmeg and you have a winner. In minutes.
So, get the pasta water going, lots of salt, you know the drill.
What we're using:
Simple, easy, good. Pipe Rigate, Crème Fraîche, Gorgonzola dolcelatte (not the Piccante, for this recipe), and nutmeg. I also used parmigiano reggiano, but I forgot to put it in the picture. Go me.
One third of the gorgonzola:
Just one third of the gorgonzola is used, the rest can be dinner tonight, with grapes or watermelon (yes, watermelon. Don't diss is until you've tried it. It is an EXPLOSION of flavors, right there, in your mouth). (Get your mind out of the gutter, Julio).
Back to cooking.
All this is left over:
So you see that it can truly become a second lunch or dinner. Cut cubes and throw on a salad, add some walnuts and halved grapes... Anything goes.
Saucepan action:
Add the crème fraîche, and get the heat up a little bit, to slowly melt the gorgonzola. It takes minutes.
Nutmeg and parmigiano:
Add nutmeg and parmigiano and just let it sit for a minute or two. Magic happens.
I told you so!
Magic. Bloody magic.
And your sauce is done. Pasta water is probably boiling now, so throw the pipe rigate (or whatever you have at home) into the water, and go read a good book. Or a bad one. Ours is a free world, still.
When the pasta is done to your liking, drain it, and throw it into the saucepan to stir it. Pasta and sauce can never get together the same way if you do it directly in your plate.
Plate it up.
Add parmigiano.
To the table! Nom nom nom nom
That is one lovely, lovely dish.
And, as an aside, it sure beats the silly stuff my twitter ladies were talking about today. It is beyond my comprehension that someone can put into his or her body something like Heinz canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. But these ladies took it one step further: they completely bastardized that already gruesome critter by putting it in a toast...!? I was appalled. I even got to see a picture of the end result, and I'm still trying to bleach the parts of my brain that had to interpret and catalogue the disaster. **shudders** I will not put you good people through the horrors of seeing it, I endured that specific hardship for you, which is quite enough. When images of plastic cheese started to float around the thread, I took refuge in my cherished kitchen. Running.
My recipe for Pipe rigate al gorgonzola is a labor of love, my dears, and it is the result of my 13 minutes in said kitchen.
Don't ever tell me you don't have time to cook, because 9 of those minutes I spent reading a book.
You are what you eat, people. Please be careful with your beautiful bodies.
- Pipe rigate al gorgonzola -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
Double-whammy salad today, because I just could not decide. I made two smaller ones, and went back and forth between them.
And a slice of cheese to go with it, still the same package of Caprice des Dieux from the other day. It's a Brie/Camembert-lookalike cheese, but somehow better. Softer, tastier, without the nasty that sometimes accompanies the Camembert, or the immature that so often plagues the Brie.
Cheese is an art. And I hate that I cannot get a Saint Agur, or a Reblochon, or a Tomme de Savoie, or a Bleu d'Auvergne here in Italy. Because, when I'm in France, I can get Mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiano and Gorgonzola. I can't understand why some of the best cheeses in the world are denied me here in Italy, when they sell them all over the rest of the world. (And please note, I am only some 300 km away from the Haute Savoie).
The mystery that is the global commerce will never cease to amaze me.
I mean, helloooooooooo? CUSTOMERS OVER HERE!
**waves hands over head**
Never mind, let’s fix lunch. Here, composed in minutes:
Salad #1:
Mini-mozzarellas (left over in the big container from the other day, they keep almost a week in the fridge), lettuce, some grated carrots, cherry tomatoes and balsamico vinegar and olive oil.
Brilliant.
Salad #2:
Avocado cut into smallish cubes, same as the orange, lettuce, balsamico vinegar and olive oil. Simple, cut-it-right-down-in-yer-plate-food.
Close-up… Nom nom nom nom
I bet you remember the posh and elegant orange/avocado salad I did the other day? This one is neither posh, nor pretty, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t better. Go figure. It’s the same stuff in there.
Chemistry, I suppose, or perhaps it’s simple kitchen-magicke again? It is my go-to-answer, these days, until I find me a Professor of chemistry to 'splain it all to me.
Because EVERYTHING seems like magic right now. Everything.
There be wings, my friends. There be wings.
I love you all.
- Insalate estive -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
©AnnaLund2011No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
*************************************
So difficult to cook in this heatwave, and as I've been living on salads the last week, I haven't had anything remotely new or interesting to show you.
Today I decided to just boil some green beans, fagiolini, and serve them with Capocollo (or, Coppa, as they say up here in northern Italy). You can use any coldcut, salame, bresaola, anything you want, even Bologna. I prefer Capocollo because it is salty and so, so good.
Put some salted water to boil, and throw in your green beans.
Here, what we need:
Capocollo, green beans, salt, and olive oil. Simple.
I'm boiling more green beans than I can eat today, and will use the left over ones in a salad tomorrow. I cook them not too much, not too little, they still need to have some crunch, but they aren't supposed to taste raw.
See? Not using all of the meat:
This package is good for two more lunches, I think, so the expense isn't huge, even though it is meat.
Beans ready, plating up:
A bunch of beans are left over, they go in the fridge for tomorrow, this way I only had to start the stove once. It's simply too hot to cook, we're touching 40 °C now (104 °F) and cooking is not at the top of my list of priorities.
Look at that plate! Nom nom nom nom
Adding olive oil and flake salt. Just beautiful. So, so good.
Summer food FTMFW
Have a go at that one!
I will be more sporadic than ever the upcoming weeks, as I am going to visit with the inlaws.
Have a good summer, dear people.
- Capocollo con fagiolini -
Enjoy, people.
No need to be stinkin’ rich to eat well.
Italy salutes you.
I love cooking, and I love your recipes. They make me chuckle and hungry (can't juxtapose, but I just did ;)
ReplyDelete<3
Helloooooo! Thank you!
DeleteThat is perfect!
Let me know if you ever try one out! <3