BLT Caprese with Chicken or She Returns from the Cruise and Finds She Must Cook and Clean Up for Herself

After being on  a Canadian cruise (Boston- Quebec City- Boston on Holland America) for two weeks.... (in no special order)

                                                          

Proscuitto Caprese with Toasty Brussels Sprouts and Parmesan Chips

 I have a terrible time leaving caprese alone.  I just keep messing with it.  Adding this and that.  Changing it up. Or Down.  In part, I've just been overrun with tomatoes, so why not eat them fresh while they're heavy, fragrant, juicy, and ripe?  Make hay while the sun shines.

Linguine Caprese or How I Got My Tomatoes On

Saute a little garlic and shallots; cook up some pasta.  Add fresh tomatoes, chopped mozzerella, parsley and basil. That's it.

 I seem to be spending every waking hour figuring out how to use up the cherry tomatoes and basil that just keep coming.  (Was there a little voice whispering, "Fresh pasta?")

Grilled Eggplant and Sausage Pasta Made on the Grill

 Every summer, I get about half-way through and want...chili.  Pot Roast.  Lamb shanks.  I'm a bit perverse, I'm fond of saying.  I can't wait for the first grilled chicken and tomato salads.  I'm nuts about burgers on the patio in May with zin.  But there comes a day when salad looks bleh (stick out tongue) and I don't even much care about that long-awaited burger.  I want something  real.  I want pasta.  And I don't want it in a restaurant.

So last year, in January (way ahead),  I experimented with a pasta dish that included grilled vegetables and sausage, but I still made a cooked sauce in a pot.  A lot of folks have been interested in that post,  so here's a continuation...

I had the idea then to create a dish totally done on the grill--much fresher-- and I've now tried it.  Even the pasta is cooked on the side burner, if you have one.  (If not, buy fresh pasta to cook indoors; it cooks much faster.)  I'll amend that; Dave mostly tried it.  I designed, orchestrated, cheer leaded, made fresh cheese, and ate it up.  The only true heated cooking I did was to saute some garlic in the microwave and warm the milk to make cheese! (5 minutes)  Do you have to make cheese?  Of course not.  Buy ricotta--fresh if you can get it.  But I'd love it you made cheese.

I lately have been encouraging cooks to just try making an easy, quick fresh cheese.  There isn't much simpler to do and the brief instructions are below.  I'll also point out that if you need a lot of ricotta, this is the way to go; you'll save a bunch of cash.  To purists, this isn't true ricotta, which is made with all milk; here I add some yogurt.  My idea actually is a riff  (a mistake I made and liked) from a recipe created by dessert guru and Parisian blogger David Lebovitz.  See the original here.  (See my first attempts and info on how to make a firmer cheese here.)

Imagine pasta in the summer and no hot kitchen?   Try this:

38 Power Foods -- Green Peppers -- Alyce's Ratatouille

Ah, summer.  Here's my favorite use for green peppers.   Right after my mom's stuffed green peppers, that is.

I loved the movie (Ratatouille).
Also "The Big Night"
And "Babette's Feast"
Try them.   Food movies.  Ah.

I love the real deal better.   If you become a devoted cook, your world will revolve around the seasons.  Stews in winter.  Apple pie in the fall.  Berries in the spring.  And...
High summer: Tons of vegetables at their peak. 

Bacon Caprese or Make Cheese While the Sun Shines

While food trends wax and wane (Remember cupcakes?), I never-ha!-fall into the kitschy traps other foodies do.  I did make gingerbread cupcakes for Super Bowl a couple of years ago, but I would have done that anyway.  And you aren't reading about pork belly here, though I've nothing against it.  But I fall off the wagon a bit about bacon.  While I am definitely NOT a bacon fanatic (and it's on menus in quite odd places), my husband definitely IS.  But he has been a bacon fanatic since Eisenhower was president.
His favorite movie moment is in "Grumpier Old Men,"

Grandpa: What the... what the hell is this?
John: That's lite beer.
Grandpa: Gee, I weigh ninety goddamn pounds, and you bring me this sloppin' foam?
John: Ariel's got me on a diet because the doc said my cholesterol's a little too high.
Grandpa: Well let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up, and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?
John: Bacon.
Grandpa: Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should've took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I'm still here. Ha! And they keep dyin'. You know? Sometimes I wonder if God forgot about me. Just goes to show you, huh?
John: What?
Grandpa: Huh?
John: Goes to show you what?
Grandpa: Well it just goes... what the hell are you talkin' about?
John: Well you said you drink beer, you eat bacon and you smoke cigarettes, and you outlive most of the experts.
Grandpa: Yeah?
John: I thought maybe there was a moral.
Grandpa: No, there ain't no moral. I just like that story. That's all. Like that story.

 So last week when I shelled out the big bucks for a pound of Nueske's bacon at the butcher counter at Widmer's for the summer BLTs, I didn't blink.  In fact, I kept cooking that bacon daily to make sure it was all used before any stray pieces went bad.  You know how good your house smells when you cook bacon (Try it when you have a for sale sign out front..)?  Well, my house still smells like that.  The scent is fixed in the rugs and on the dogs, who can't stop walking around with their noses up in the air.  Dave acts the same way.  And if there's a fine layer of fat sprayed all over my stove, he doesn't wipe it up.  "A little bacon grease never hurt anything."

In the middle of that bacon for breakfast, bacon for lunch spree came a trip to the Saturday Farmer's Market in downtown St. Paul.  For all of you who've never been, this is the most beautiful market in the United States.  The food that you can't buy there doesn't need to be bought.

Spring market bounty

Perhaps I exaggerate.  But not by much.  At the market, I gently loved a few more Minnesota tomatoes enough to coax them out of their owner's hands and came home to make cheese for caprese.

(See how on my Dinner Place blog.)  But that bacon called.  And before I knew it, I'd fried up the last of it to tuck in between the caprese layers.  Not only that, I threw the haricots verts in a pot of boiling water for two minutes, drained them and topped them with a dop of herb butter.  (Here's how Ina does this. Why should I reinvent the recipe?)  I couldn't resist making a beautiful salad of the entire thing with the beans in the middle.

I don't see a reason for putting up a recipe for the caprese either; here's one from epicurious.com. Just add the bacon!   I will say this about my caprese:  I place the salad on a bed of spinach and I squeeze lemon over all and dust the whole thing liberally with ground sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper.  I then drizzle not too much of my balsamic vinaigrette over everything but the green beans, which are already well-seasoned with the herb butter.  Lemon on the beans--yes.  One of my favorites.

 

Love summer, my friends.


Two-Dog Kitchen and Around the 'Hood

The end of August isn't the end of summer, but there are signs.  The flowers look too tired to continue blooming, despite fertilizing and watering.  The road crews appear in a big hurry to get it all done.  There are Christmas decorations out in a few stores.  I'm looking for a guy to plow my driveway.  Acorns are dropping and the squirrels are very squirrely. The big tubs of mums are for sale at Ace.  Our floor refinishing (and installation in the kitchen) is scheduled so that we can do it while windows can remain open.  And, of course, in Minnesota, it's State Fair Week!  (Half a million sticks for food used so far.  And if you don't know what that is, it's anything edible that will stay on a stick.  See what you dream up.)

Neighbor's Victory Garden (from my driveway)

I close today with lovely news!  I am now newly employed as a choir director at Prospect Park United Methodist Church, which is a church just across the line in Minneapolis.  I'm thrilled, excited, and don't have words (right) for how light my heart is.  Watch this space for news of their fine singers and what fun stuff we're up to.   Thanks be to God.  And:  thanks to all who supported me and prayed for my employment.  Cyberhugs as you
Sing a new song,
Alyce

Pesto, Pistou -- Presto!

Whirr, whirr, done.  Talk about no cook.  It's done PRESTO!

If it's mid - late summer, I'm gunning for basil.  (If it's earlier, I'm planting it and watering it.)  I've got pots full myself, but I also have to hit the farmer's market for more.  At a buck for a big bunch, I get arm fulls.

My piano teacher and I hit the farmer's market.

Here it is taking a bath in my kitchen sink with the Japanese eggplant and yellow zucchini I'm cleaning for the ratatouille I blogged on the  Dinner Place blog (The Solo Cook.)  They really like to get in the tub together.  I loved looking at this gorgeous mix of veg.  Could the colors get any better?

What is pesto?  Lots of you DO know.  But!  If you don't:
Take the basil, whirr it in the food processor (traditionally mortar and pestle) with lots of garlic, pine nuts and/or walnuts, olive oil, Parmesan, and you have saucy green love.  In Italy, it's pesto.  In France, pistou.  And it's Presto! (Very quick, indeed, in the language of music) wherever you make it.

When I decided to blog pesto, I almost didn't.  Pesto isn't something new.  It may be four hundred years old in Europe and it's certainly no culinary upstart in the United States.

The first time I ran across pesto was in the late '70s in THE SILVER PALATE COOKBOOK (by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins with Michael McLaughlin.  Workman, 1979; 362p).  This was a life-changing cookbook not only for me, but for women everywhere who cooked.  If you want to know why, check out the cookbooks that were written and printed before this one.  It's so important in my life that I have nearly worn out my paperback copy and, while I still use it, bought a hardback copy for a back-up and for my kids later on.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided to just go ahead and put pesto on my roster of blog posts.  How could something I love so much not be here?

I still basically make pesto from that recipe, though I use others, too--the one from THE GOURMET COOKBOOK (edited by Ruth Reichl and published in 2004 by Houghlin Mifflin) comes to mind.  By this time, I've adjusted any and all of them to my own tastes (as should you) and am purely and simply summer-happy whenever it's time to use all that basil. 

Pasta with Pesto....the most popular use, I'll guess:

Here with 365 (Whole Foods brand) whole wheat pasta

  Other ways to use pesto:

•  on/in an omelet
• as a veggie dip
• on grilled chops
• as a sauce for fish or chicken
• on pizza
• with crackers
• on grilled vegetables
• topping lamb chops
• gracing grilled baguette
• dribbled on sliced tomatoes or sliced tomatoes and sliced mozzerella in place of basil leaves.

 Or...  well, you go next.  How about in a spoon in your mouth-- or mine?

Basil Chicken Fried Rice or I Wokked Out

   Once I read something about lo mein being standard college fare.  Nope; not for us.  Standard college fare was pizza with the occasional delivered salad... and the salad was also full of cheese.  I know this for a very real fact.  Because I worked in the restaurant (actually there were two) that made this stuff.

 But when I read about someone's college goto being lo mein, I was jealous.  I should have gone to college THEN.  I adore lo mein and can even make a pretty darned good imitation.  Well, since then, I've moved over to adoring Thai and because I'm so late-trendy, I like Basil Chicken.  I seem to always miss it when things are "in."

And I like it when Bhan Thai makes it, not me.  Mine is ok.  Still,  knowing how much Emily also likes Thai, I started looking for easy Thai recipes with videos and I came up with Thai Food Tonight...a series of lessons and videos, etc. by Dim Geefay.   Dim brings along her American-born daughter Cathy to help translate and, between the two of them, we figure it out.  The videos were, I think, originally on tv, but are now free online.

Dave has always been our wokman, though I occasionally use it, too.  For the Basil Chicken Fried Rice, I did the planning, research, shopping,  part of the prep, table set and so on.  Dave cut the chicken (he's much better at that) and then just continued on cooking.  I stood and kibitzed while drinking a lovely halb-trocken German Riesling, which suited the Thai dish to a T.

Did I say this was YUMMY TO THE MAX?  And, unlike a lot of Asian food, it was nearly as good the next day. Yes!

Set the table before you begin to cook.

I made the rice in the afternoon and spread it out to dry on a baking sheet.

Wokman

Hates cooking alone.

Very quick, this man is.

Not sure we had the heat up high enough.

Turn off as soon as you add the basil.

Garnish with cilantro and lime.

Add pieces of cucumber for crunch and coolness.

 Basil Chicken Fried Rice  by Dim Geefay    Watch her video about how to make this dish.
4 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 cups already cooked rice
• 6 big cloves of garlic, crushed (together w/ peppers w/ mortar and pestle or lrg knife)
• 2-4 Thai (bird) red and green chili peppers or 1-2 Serrano peppers, crushed  (I used 1/2 jalapeno*)
• 1/4 c cooking oil  ( I used canola; you could also use peanut.)
• 1 to 1 1/2 lbs chicken meat (I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs.)
• 3T Oyster sauce
• 2T Fish Sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 medium-sized red bell pepper, julienned
• 2 c fresh sweet basil leaves, whole
• 1 cucumber, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 c cilantro leaves
• 1 lime, cut into quarters

 Instructions:

1. Heat oil in deep pan or wok over high heat.
2. Wait until oil starts to smoke.
3. Add crushed garlic and peppers.
4. Stir quickly; don't let them burn
5. Immediately add chicken, stiring.
6. Add oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar.
7. Stir until chicken is cooked through. (no pink)
8. Add already cooked rice.
9. Stir quickly until sauces are blended with rice. (a couple of minutes)

*1/2 jalapeno made the dish tasty, but quite mild.  Use a whole if you like some spice.

Two-Dog Kitchen and Around the 'Hood

-I'm busy packing.  I hate it.  Who likes it?  Enough said.  
-Had a perfect Valentine's Day..God was good; my husband was home and he made reservations at Pizzeria Rustica in Old Colorado City, one of my favorite places.  They had a food and wine pairing deal--lovely.
-Dogs got groomed and are hot to trot.  It was almost 70 F.

If only we could just get dropped off somewhere where they threw us in first a cage, then a tub, trimmed us all up, blew us dry, tied bandanas around our necks, gave us treats, and threw us back in a cage again. (Somehow it's just not the same when I go to the hair dresser's, though it's slightly reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz.  I guess I'd skip the cage.)
----------------------

If you're keeping up with some of the responses to the "Deathly Letter" from within a segment of the Presbyterian Church, USA, here is another one I found intriguing:


http://www.wilsonpresbyterian.org/2011/02/resonse-to-the-deathly-letter-to-the-pcusa-by-rev-blake-spencer-second-presbyterian-church-nashville-tn/

Very well done indeed.  If you are a Presbyterian in this country and wonder how we came to be likely to split, check this out--it's the chart of which Presbyterians came when and did what:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Connection2_900.jpg

Perhaps today isn't so unusual after all.  Pray for this church.  Pray for our seminarians.  I have to admit I'm a bit abashed about worshiping at the UCC (along with quite a few other Colorado Springs Presbyterians)...  But it's been a life-changing experience.  Not enough words available.



Sing a new song,
Alyce

You Know You Love Chicken Basil, but Tell Me Why?

You know how you have an addiction to certain Thai restaurants?  (If  you know why, let me know.)  Now I like almost all things Thai foodie, except I can't handle the tres, tres spicy dishes. "I like them; they don't like me." My father-in-law, Gene, says that, and he is so right.  Ever since I came back from summer study at University of St. Thomas,  I've been just dying to get into cooking Thai.  For two summers, we lived above a Thai restaurant and I think it began to get into my pores.

I've dibbled and I've dabbled and I'm now at the point where I'm making it up as I go along.   Perhaps it's because I eat at Bhan Thai sometimes once a week...usually to get in an all-veggie meal that's not a salad.   Each dish provokes, "What's in this?"

Here's my Thai basil with regular basil.  Planted in a pot under a shade tree.  It'll burn up in the Colorado sun otherwise.

Finally, though, I kept looking at my Thai basil out by the whiskey barrel under the tree....and I knew its days were numbered.  Not that fall is ever REALLY coming (and winter, true winter,  only makes it a couple of times a year in the Springs, despite what others think), but we do get freezes.  And herbs that haven't been cosseted and lovingly brought in to my dining room south window bite the dust.  Or whatever herbs do.  (Sometimes they resurrect in the spring.)  All told, it was time to get my Chicken Basil on.

So google that and put it in your pan.  There's a million Chicken Basils.  But most of them are almost all chicken.  I sooo wanted a big bunch of veg in this one.  And the one Thai cookbook I wanted to buy is out of print.  Figure it out yourself, I said.  You're a cook; you've got the stuff.  And here's what I got.  Do use fresh herbs; if you can't do all three, don't make it without at least the basil.  I think that if you have the minty Thai basil, you could consider skipping the other two herbs, but I like it with all three.

And, like everyone else, I'll tell you to drink a little riesling with this.  I do so like the Oregon ones... Chehalem in particular.  They do a fairly dry one that's just does my taster good.

Alyce's Chicken Veg Basil  serves 4

Set the table, pour the water or wine, etc.  Then start to cook.  

Rice:

First make enough rice for four people:  Bring 2 cups of salted and peppered water and a cup of rice to boil.  Lower heat to simmer, cover, and cook until done.  (About 20 minutes at sea level... a few minutes more at altitude.)  Add 1/4 c chopped cilantro and toss with a fork.  Replace lid to keep warm (up to half an hour) until the chicken and vegetables are done.  (I like medium-grain, cheap rice for this.  It should be sticky.)

Ingredients for stir fry:

2 boneless chicken breasts cut into 1"x1" pieces
2T fish sauce
1 1/2 T soy sauce
1T water
1 1/2 t sugar*

2 T cooking oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, ditto
1 small zucchini, sliced thinly
1 small yellow squash, sliced thinly
1/2 red sweet pepper, sliced thinly
1/2 yellow sweet pepper, sliced thinly

1 tomato, fresh, cut into quarters and squeezed to get juice and seeds out.  Next, cut into medium dice.
1 jalapeno, minus seeds and membrances, finely minced (for mild, use 1/2 the jalapeno; add more for hot)**
1 c fresh basil or Thai basil left whole, divided
1/4 c cilantro, chopped roughly
1/4 c fresh mint, chopped roughly
Freshly ground black pepper

Have all this stuff ready to go.

 Instructions:

1.  In a medium bowl stir together cut-up chicken and the next four ingredients, fish sauce-sugar.  Let sit while you
2.  In a wok or large deep skillet, heat oil over medium high heat and cook sliced onions for about two minutes.  Add sliced garlic, squashes, sweet peppers, tomato and jalapeno.  Let cook another two minutes, stirring often.

 



3. Using a slotted spoon, remove chicken from sauce and add to the pan of vegetables. Add half of the basil, the cilantro and the mint. Season well with black pepper. Cook about 3 minutes until chicken is no longer pink.  Pour sauce into wok/pan and cook another 30 seconds or so, stirring all the while.  Spoon in to serving bowl and top with remaining whole basil leaves. Serve with the hot rice.
*sauce recipe from FOOD AND WINE
**Whole jalapeno, seeded and membranes removed, minced finely for hot.  (Hotter?  Pass crushed red pepper at the table.  You could also use Thai bird chiles, but jalapenos are more accessible here.)

Two-Dog Kitchen and Around the 'Hood
Still feeling like summer around here....Decks got painted over the last two weeks.

This is what we call "The Doggie Door."  Still in the 60's.  Changing tomorrow.



Hasn't frozen yet.





Are you gonna eat that?

This week, I'm testing pizza and have already made some.  I teach the Italian section of "Cooking with Music" this Saturday and I WILL be up-to-date on my crust by then!  Blog coming, I'll hope.

This is the first try at a 15"x13" margherita.  It had its ups and downs  Cool thing about it is it's baked in a half-sheet pan like anyone has.  You could do it tomorrow!

Fitness update:  Gabby and I hiked the local hills instead of me going to the gym.  Spiritual practice of "putting one foot in front of the other," as Barbara Brown Taylor says.  Dave and I worked out together on Saturday morning...before going out to breakfast.  Gee.

Here's The Church at Woodmoor, where I've been worshiping and directing the choir lately.  It's a bit hard to photograph, but you get the idea.  Lots of wood; interesting light.  Loving singers and congregation.    They've been very welcoming and I'll miss them when I'm gone.   I'm in the process of new job applications now.   Today, I had to write my philosophy of music in worship.  Good experience. Not as simple as it sounds.  We'll see.  Living "Sing a New Song,"  Alyce.