Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Crustless chicken pie...

Chicken pot pie was not something we grew up eating and it wasn't until I started dating Phil that it has become part of our rotating dinners. I like to make a crustless pot pie and enjoy just the filling over smashed potatoes and that is what's for dinner tonight. Here is my recipe for Crustless Chicken Pie.....

Serves 4

3 boneless chicken breasts
1 1/2 cup carrots, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup celery diced small
1 quart of chicken broth (see my recipe on past blog titled Mom's Soup)
salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon all spice
1/2 cups peas
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
2 tablespoons flour

To Serve
Your favorite smashed potatoes. I like to use Yukon Potatoes when making smashed and I also use sour cream, it gives the potatoes a bit of a tanginess that is just right.


In a large pan, place the chicken breasts, carrots, celery, chicken broth, and allspice inside and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper and let simmer about 1 hour. The more you let this simmer more flavors will develop. Do not let it boil or the broth will get very cloudy and the chicken will get tough. After an hour take the chicken out and put onto cutting board, let cool about ten minutes. Cut chicken into small bite size pieces and then add back to the pan. Simmer for 30 more minutes. In a small bowl combine the butter and the flour to create a beurre manie and then stir into the pan, this will thicken the broth. Add the peas to just warm them and adjust seasonings. Ladle over your smashed potatoes and enjoy!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Eggs for dinner...

Last night mom made one of my favorite and easiest meals for dinner, eggs in tomato sauce. This is a one pot meal with very few ingredients and takes about twenty minutes to put together. Typically, you would have all these ingredients in your pantry and you would just need to pick up bread to finish off the dinner. Here is my mom's recipe for eggs in tomato....

Serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, skinned and left whole
1 can plum tomato, crushed in food processor
8 egg
Salt and pepper
Your favorite crusty bread

In a large saucepan heat the oil and then add the garlic. Let garlic brown slightly and then add the tomato. Salt and pepper tomato and bring to a simmer. Let simmer about fifteen minutes, taste and adjust seasoning. Crack eggs one at a time in a bowl and then add to the tomato, one at time until you have added all of them. Do not stir the egg around, you want the yolk and white to stay intact as it cooks. Place a lid on the pot and cook eggs about five-seven minutes. Serve immediately with your favorite crusty bread and enjoy your eggs for dinner!!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day Biscotti...

Well it's Valentine's Day everyone and though Phil and I don't celebrate the day, I did throw together a sweet treat for dessert tonight. I took my basic biscotti recipe and threw a few new ingredients to the mix and here is my recipe for Valentine's Day Biscotti...

2 cups AP Flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter at room temp
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 large eggs at room temp
3/4 cup good quality dark chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup dried cherries


Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line a baking sheet with parchment. In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl cream together the butter, sugar and zest using an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at time and allow to incorporate into the sugar and butter. Add the flour mixture and beat until just blended. Fold in the chocolate and the cherries. Form the dough into a 12 inch long, 3 inch wide log on the prepared baking sheet. Bake about 40 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool 25-30 minutes. Place the cooled log onto a cutting and using a serrated knife cut the log on a diagonal into 1/2-3/4 inch thick slices. Arrange the biscotti cut side down on the sheet pan and bake about 15 minutes until pale gold. Transfer biscotti to a rack and allow to cool. Brew your favorite coffee or pour yourself a small tumbler of Vin Santo and enjoy!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

What's in a sandwich?

I started thinking about the ingredients in a well made sandwich today as I was making Phil and I Italian subs for lunch. What makes the perfect one? Is it the crusty bread or soft white bread? Mayo or mustard? Lettuce or tomato or both? Then I got to thinking about Italy and the different sandwiches I enjoyed there.

I remember my first visit there, specifically Venice. We walked along tiny, winding roads trying to avoid tourist trap restaurants in search of something authentic and special for lunch that first day there. It was a school trip and my mom, Auntie Virginia and family friend Anna were with us as well. My aunt and mom could understand Italian, but none of us could really speak it except the occasional "Buongiorno" or "Ciao, but I believe no matter what country you visit, we all speak the language of food. We looked inside windows of all sorts of store fronts. Windows filled with pizzas, dried sausage, cheeses, breads, and then we came across this tiny store. I can't recall the name, but we stopped because of the sandwich filled window. Thin sliced Italian bread filled with all sorts of Italian meats and cheese lined the window and case. The sandwich I had was sweet capicola (typically made from pork shoulder or neck and then dried whole), thin sliced tomato and a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. The vision of the sandwich is so clear, even though it was almost 14 years ago. The shop was not fancy by any means and the sandwiches were simply served wrapped in a paper napkin with a corner sticking out so you could eat and walk at the same time. It was perfect and I guess I figured out what makes the perfect sandwich, it is good quality ingredients that can be brought together with no fuss. So, in honor of finding the perfect sandwich here is what I like in my Italian sandwich....

Serves 2

2 8" spuckies or good quality french loaf
10 slices of each: prosciutto, capicola, mortadella, sopressata and provolone ( be sure they are sliced thin)
extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
pinch oregano
pinch of fresh ground black pepper

Hold the spuckies on their side and cut lengthwise ensuring not to cut all the way through. Drizzle each side with oil and sprinkle oregano and black pepper, shingle the meats and cheese (five slices each sandwich), one more drizzle of oil on the meats and enjoy. Phil likes his sub with black olives and pickles and I sometimes like mine with crushed giardiniera salad, but again keep it simple and buy good quality cold cuts, visit Jerry in East Boston his are the best. Enjoy!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Aglio e Olio

I got a little bit of a late start to dinner tonight, so I decided to make a really simple pasta dish called, aglio e olio (garlic and oil). There are many variations to the dish and this is my favorite recipe for bucatini aglio e olio....

Serves 4

1 lb Bucatini pasta
1/4 cup peas
1/3 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 pinches crushed red pepper flake
1/4 tsp lemon zest
1 handful plain breadcrumb
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil for the pasta (be sure to salt the water). In a large saute pan, heat oil, add garlic and red pepper flake and let this season the oil. I like to keep the garlic whole and take them out after they brown slightly. When the water come to the boil, cook pasta until al dente about 8-10 minutes. About two minutes before pasta is done, add the peas to the water and let them cook for two minutes. Strain the pasta and peas, then add to the oil. Toss pasta in the oil and add the zest and breadcrumb. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with your favorite wine. Tonight we had Barbera D'Alba, it was slightly dry with a bright finish. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Dinner with Stacy!!

On Tuesday night Stacy invited me to go to Bergamot for dinner. It was a great meal. I started with a glass of sparkling because you have to kick the night off with something sparkling. For our first course we shared salmon pastrami, which was smoked salmon with pastrami spices on top of house made brown bread that had been smeared with Devonshire cream. This was a delicious dish, the salmon was perfect. We also shared the pork belly ravioli. This was a good plate, but they were more mezzaluna shape and it was a potato dough so they were slightly heavy. The chef sent out scallops on top of carrot puree, chick peas, bok choy and soy next. I loved this, the scallops were soft and moist and the carrot puree was perfectly balanced. For our main course, I had the Bavette steak with gnochetti. The steak was cooked really well and the gnochetti were the perfect match anf take on meat and potatoes.

And now for dessert!! I love trying Stacy's creations, they never dissapoint! I was excited to try the sunflower seed baklava and after we finished the plate, I could have had more. It was classic. Another dessert I loved was the white chocolate lime mousse, refreshing and light, the perfect dessert after a big meal. And the winner, the toffee pudding cake, moist and covered with toffee sauce. A beautiful spin on sticky toffee pudding.

Great job Cousin!! Thanks for a wonderful evening!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Happy Frankie Day


Today, February 7th is Frankie Day!!! Frankie is my older brother and he was born on a sunny February day in '76, angels sang, clouds cleared and a son was born!! Oh, to be a son in an Italian home.

All jokes aside, Frankie and I are three years apart and I feel we have the normal older brother, younger sister relationship. He was always the serious one, the student, as for me I never had homework and always told my parents the books were too heavy to carry home!! We were your typical brother and sister fighting over silly things, playing GI Joe war games with elastics and collecting smurfs my mom would buy us at the Corner Mall in Downtown Crossing. I remember when I was younger I could only use the Nintendo when my brother wasn't home, so I had to sneak in games of Contra when he wasn't around. My favorite memory of Frankie and I playing was this one night we were pretending to be in that show Dynasty (80's night time soap). He was Blake and I was Crystal and in one episode Blake looks at Crystal and says "Crystal I don't feel so good", then, tumbles down the stairs in a dramatic fall. Well, this one particular night Frankie and I kept reenacting this scene and he would pretend to fall down the stairs and then it really happened, he actually fell down the stairs! It was really funny, he was laughing at the bottom of the steps, while my mom yelled at him from upstairs!! Priceless! I could go on, I won't even start talking about the time he couldn't wear his glasses at the dinner table at grandma's!! Those who were there remember the story!!

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my brother! I hope you liked the cake I made for you and for my readers here is my recipe for Frankie's Chocolate Truffle Cake

Makes 10" cake
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
15 eggs at room temp
1 1/2 lbs gianduja, chopped
1 lb good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
5 sticks unsalted butter

Prepare pan with baking spray and line the bottom of the pan with a parchment round. In a double boiler, melt the two chocolates together with the butter. When melted remove from heat. In a large mixing, beat the eggs on high speed with a mixer using a whip attachment until eggs hold a soft peak and are spongelike. This will take 5-7 minutes. Fold a 1/4 of the chocolate into the eggs and the add the rest. Use a ballon whisk to mix together and then finish folding chocolate in with a rubber spatula. Pour into prepared pan and bake in a 1" water bath for fifteen minutes. Cake will be loose when you take it out. Cool completely on a wire rack and then cover with plastic and store in the fridge overnight. Unmold the next day. Top with powdered sugar or your favorite ganache. Enjoy! Love you Frankie!