Tag Archives: recipe

Italian Food Fest

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Last Saturday evening, my Friday morning knitting group, which has been meeting for at least 6 years, first at Skein

Around Karen's Table

Lane and now at Skein Lane Studio, carried the Friday morning festivities over into Saturday night for the first of what we hope will be a regular international food themed meeting complete with knitting and adult beverages. For our first gala, we met at the home of Karen King for a table-groaning array of Italian goodies.

I drank it before I could take the pic

We started with some drinkipoos – my favorite – with Merle mixing up some Campari cocktails. I had two (2!!!!!) of these beauties as I was making the marinara sauce and heating up the bolognese. Merle’s recipe is an equal mix of Campari, orange juice and sparkling water or club soda served on the rocks with a slice of lime. YUMMA. They were light and refreshing – never mind that Cameron thinks Campari tastes like chalk -  and made me think of Italy. Actually, everything makes me think of Italy these days as May will make it 1 year since Terry and I were there. I’d kill to go again. Thus, I think, I wanted to make Italian food for my friends.

While I was cooking, we opened up the appetizers folks brought. These were just delicious – very filling and could have

Sheri's Arancini

been a meal on their own just because of the quality, never mind the quantity. Sheri made a savory arancini – a ball of risotto filled with a dollop of melted mozzarella cheese. These were GREAT!!!! She also made a yummy plate of asparagus spears

asparagus

wrapped in prosciutto and baked in the oven – a really nice gesture from a vegetarian! They were also delicious. Hell wrap bacon around a pencil and I’d probably eat it. Janie Rose brought a plate of phylo dough stars with a spoonful of sundried tomato yumminess in the center. YEAH BABY. But as her

Janie Rose's phylos

husband made them (keep that guy, Janie), I don’t have the recipe. And Jean made a dish called “Deviled Shrimp” that several us felt was like a shrimp ceviche.

Jean's Deviled Shrimp

To make it, you will need:

2 lbs medium raw shrimp (Jean bought hers cooked at Tokyo Fish Market)

1 lemon, thinly sliced

1 medium red onion, thinly sliced

2 small cans black olives

2 T chopped pimiento

1/4 C vegetable oil

Merle and the drinkipoos

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T dry mustard

1 T salt

1/2 C lemon juice

1 ! red wine vinegar

1 bay leaf, crumbled

dash of cayenne

chopped parsley

Shell and devein shrimp. Bring 1 qt salted water to a boil, add shrimp and cook for 3 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water, drain and set aside. In bowl, combine lemon, onion, olives and pimiento and toss well. Combine oil, garlic, mustard, salt, lemon juice, vinegar, bay leaf, cayenne and parsley and add to bowl with lemon mixture. Arrange shrimp on a plate and pour marinade over. Cover and chill no longer than 3 hours.

I was responsible for the main course, a pasta bolognese and a smaller pot of marinara sauce for the 2 vegetarians in our group. Whatever! I made the bolognese 3 days ahead so its flavors could sit and meld and mingle, and I made the marinara at Karen’s house because I don’t think that gets better with age.  The marinara recipe came out of Lidia Cooks from the Heart Of Italy, a cookbook I got for Christmas last year.

The finished meal

Now, as for the bolognese. I combined two or three different recipes, taking things from each that I thought sounded good. Here is my best approximation of  what I made – and I doubled the amounts below.

Bolognese Sauca

1.5 lbs ground meat, preferably organic, grass-fed. Mine comes from Marin Sun Farms

1.5  lbs ground pork, preferably organic. Ditto above.

2 T olive oil

8 cloves garlic, preferably fresh

4 ounces pancetta, housemade if you can get it. Mine comes from A.G. Ferrari

2 C white wine

Sheri

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 28-ounce cans of whole Italian tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, passed through a food processor to crush

2 bay leaves

Drunkipoos

2 C red wine, preferably Chianti

1/2 C tomato paste

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind

red pepper flakes

sea salt

pepper

1 C milk

fresh oregano

fresh basil

1. Combine meats and white wine. Cover and chill overnight.

2. Heat oil in Dutch oven or other large, deep pot. Add pancetta, garlic and veggies. Saute until onion is translucent

Sheri, Sarah, Janie Rose

and pancetta is browned.

3. Add meat. Cook until meat is browned and almost all liquid has evaporated. If there is a lot of liquid, you may drain it off.

4. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, red wine, cheese rind, red pepper flakes and bay leaves. Cook over low-medium heat for a good while – several hours if you can. Let the liquid reduce. It is good if you can store it in fridge overnight and heat up again the next day.

5. About an hour before serving, add in chopped fresh basil and oregano to taste. Add in milk and let cook. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over a good quality, meaty pasta. We used Rustichella d’Abruzzo pappardelle, which can be bought at The Pasta Shop or Andronico’s. YUM.

When we finally sat down to dinner we had two delicious, crisp salads provided by Carolyn and ????? YOUR NAME

Cheers

HERE! And Karen made – MADE – Italian bread. For me, this was incredibly good – even better than some from the excellent bakeries we have in the East Bay. Karen, too, has been non-responsive in sending the recipe, so I’ll kick her butt when I see her Friday and try and re-post.

About halfway thru dinner, we decided our nest food fest would be Mexican, would be in July, and would be at Cameron’s house (MARGARITAS!!!!). About then, Karen’s husband Chris came in and just stopped dead at the table,  aghast at the bounty before him . . .

We took pity and fed him

Sarah's Lemon Bars

The Ellen Vest

Just before dessert, Karen surprised Ellen with a birthday present – an original design called the Ellen Vest she had knit up for her. It is beautiful! As soon as Karen published it, I will post a link.

For dessert, we had lemon bars (Sarah), cream puffs (Jan) and chocolate hazelnut torte (Cameron). Everyone worried that their dessert had not set properly, or was too gooey – AS IF THAT COULD EVER BE A PROBLEM WITH DESSERT – and I think we all had a piece of each. Cameron did not make hers, so I can’t give you the recipe, but here’s a link to Jan’s (and a link to the vanilla custard she filled them with)  and here’s a copy of Sarah’s . . . .

Lemon Bars:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter

Mix together with hands until crumbly. Pack into 8"x8" glass pan. Bake at 350 for 20 min.

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T lemon juice (or 3/4 T with 1/4 t lemon rind)
(I used more because I used meyer lemons and I did include some rind too).

Beat together for 5 min. Pour over baked bottom layer. Bake at 300-350 for 20-25 min until set.
Don't overbake. The topping puffs during baking and falls away upon cooking.
Sprinkle top with confectioner's sugar.




Jan's Cream Puff



 



Cameron's Torte

Wine Country with Mom

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My mom was here this past week and on Sunday she and I went to April in Carneros. This was something I did last year

Drinking wine at Folio

with Daniela, but she wasn’t up for it this year, so off I went with Mom, who was in town from Houston.

Basmati and Wild Rice Salad

We had a ball. I think we went to 6 or 8 wineries, and ate all kinds of yummy bits – sushi (Folio) , chicken enchiladas (Robledo Family Winery), salumi (Jacuzzi) and arancini (Homewood). But for my $40, the best bite was at Schug where winery chef Kristine Schug served up a tomato bisque to go with the reds and a basmati and wild rice salad to go with the whites. The rice salad was off the chart! It had these little surprising flashes of sweetness provided by the raisins and a nice citrusy finish. AND she’s shared the recipe on the winery website. GO MAKE IT.

Eat This and Knit That

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I am very behind in things I want to blog about, so I am gonna make a big post here.

First off, did anyone see the feature in the NY Times Dining section about people who take pictures of all the food they eat? Who knew I was part of a trend? I started taking pictures of memorable meals when we were in Italy last May, and those pictures can still bring me right back to the places we ate them. This is one of my favorites. . . . .

Vernazza lunch

This was a meal of locally-produced salumi, cheese, wine and bread we had on our hotel’s communal terrace in Vernazza overlooking the Ligurian Sea and the town of Manarola in the distance. It was hot, it was sunny, it was Italy. I’ll never forget it. And I am thrilled I took this picture. Thank you, God, for digital cameras.

So with food in mind, let me share a few recently tried and loved recipes. On Easter Sunday we did not do much. The weather was foul and I was coming off a long work week and so was Terry. So we hunkered down. Seemed like lamb was the thing to eat for Easter, so I took a boneless rack of lamb from our monthly meat box from Marin Sun Farms out of the freezer and looked for a way to prepare it among my cookbooks. I am not an expert at lamb, tho I love it.  I found this recipe in The Way To Cook by Julia Child, a cookbook given to me for Christmas several years ago by our youngest son, Chris. Both boys are out of the house now, so using this cook book to make this holiday meal felt really good. I miss them both.

Here’s the recipe:

2 cloves garlic

1/2 t salt

2 T Dijon mustard

1-1/2 fresh oregano

1 T lemon juice

1/4 c olive oil

You put all of this in a food processor and blend it until it is the consistency of homemade mayonnaise (like a light salad dressing). Then you coat the lamb with the marinade, throw it under the broiler at 500 degrees for 10 minutes, then 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I put the lamb and the marinade in a bag and put it in the fridge in the early afternoon and took it out enough time before dinner so it would return to room temp. It was FANTASTIC. Take a look . . .

Out of the oven

Being carved

It was delicious! Served with asparagus and salad and red wine. Yum!

Beaded Trellis Scarf

Okay, now let’s see. What’s on my needles these days? I am deeply wrapped up in a lace scarf I am making with Schaeffer Yarns “Audrey” in the color Pomegranate. I love this yarn! It is 50% merino, 50% silk and has a luscious hand-feel. I started out on my Hiya-Hiya needles, which felt great, but the pattern’s k7tog – knit 7 stitches together, yarn over, k7tog, yo, k7tog, yo – made for a bit of a struggle with them. So I switched to my Addi lace turbos and the resulting fan-like stitch is both easier and more fun to make. The pattern I am using is called “Trellis Scarf” and is by Evelyn A. Clark, one of my favorite lace designers. She adapted it from an Estonian lace pattern. It appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. I am adding size 6 beads to the top of each diamond formed in the body of the scarf, and have added some to the border as well.  See the beads?

Detail

There are a few more things on  my needles, but I think I’ll save those for a later post. But I do want to share with you something my friend Susie completed recently and shared with us at our Wed. night knitting group. Take a look . . .

Susie's Shawl

Susie considers herself a beginning knitter. Right. She made this shawl from a free pattern on the Crystal Palace Yarns website - WHICH I CANNOT FIND RIGHT NOW – and made it with their Mini Mochi yarn. I think it looks fantastic. Here’s a close up . . .

Gorgeous!

All right. Enough blogging. I need to clean house and knit.

Go Horns Chili

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So tonight I am sitting here watching my school, the University of Texas, play the University of Alabama in the bowl game for the national championship. I have my chili, my chips, my salsa and, if Texas falls 2 touchdowns behind, I get to have margaritas (trying to cut back). As I write, it is the middle of the second quarter, Texas is down by 1 point, but our Heisman-finalist quarterback has been taking out of the game with a shoulder injury. In his place is a freshman. I hope for a miracle.

But I thought it would be a good time to share my chili recipe. I base this recipe on one I got out of an old issue of Food and Wine magazine, perhaps in the late 1990s. It is called “Rustic Chili” and is unusual (to me) in that it calls for cocoa powder! Here is my version:

GO HORNS CHILI

4T olive oil

2lbs ground meat (Iuse ground goat. Yes, I said ground goat)

4 cloves garlic

2 C chopped onion

14 ounces canned diced hot green chilis (less if you don’t like hot chili)

1/2 C chili powder

1 T ground red pepper (less if you don’t like hot chili; more if you really like hot chili)

2 T unsweetened cocoa powder

2 T cumin

1 t allspice

3 cans of pinto beans, drained

2 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes

Heat oil. Add meat and garlic and cook until brown. Add onions and next 6 ingredients. Saute until veggies soften. Add beans and tomatoes.  Cover and simmer for 30 minutes AT LEAST. This is better the next day. Add some salt if you like, top with cheddar cheese, jalapenos, chips, sour cream, whatever.

Okay, it is still the 2nd quarter and now my team is down, 14-6. If ‘Bama scores again, I have promised myself a marg. I better get it ready. Sigh.