Langoustine pasta

Langoustine tails (aka "baby lobsters" as certain parties know them) are tossed along with white wine and lemon into an easy, quick pasta dish. You can always make this with shrimp (or adult lobster) instead, but if you can easily find langoustine, go ahead and use it. This really will only take a few minutes to throw together and it doesn't take a lot of ingredients so it's particularly good for lazy nights.Mince up 2 cloves of garlic and add them to 3 tablespoons of butter in a big pan over medium low heat. Keep a good eye on it--you don't want the garlic to get over-browned or burn--it should only take about 2 minutes. Mix 1 tablespoon flour into the butter until it is all incorporated, then whisk in a generous 1/2 cup white wine. You can always pour more in your glass, don't worry. If it needs additional thinning as you go along, add a splash of chicken stock or more white wine. Stir the sauce until it slightly thickens, then add in 1 tablespoon minced parsley (I actually used cilantro because that's what I had around in the fridge). Add in your peeled langoustines--mine came in a 12-oz bag from Trader Joe's and I just tossed them all in still frozen--and stir a few times over low heat. Taste one after a few minutes to see if they are warm through, you really don't want to leave them on heat for too long, especially if they came precooked, as mine did. I probably only let mine go for about 3 minutes or so before adding in the pasta. Stir in the juice (and zest too, if you like) from one lemon, along with salt and pepper, then add pasta--cooked just shy of al dente--and turn it lightly to coat with the sauce. I used these pretty tri-color linguine and it was a nice combination.

Strozzapreti

Strozzapreti are sometimes pasta and sometimes dumplings. This is because italians like to use the same words for different things, kind of like how Atlanta likes to have many streets with exactly the same name. Strozzapreti means "priest-stranglers," which, when you are referring to the version that are long rope-like strands of pasta, has an excellent Name of the Rose kind of thing going on. The strozzapreti I make are the dumpling kind, and the meaning of the name twists slightly; ghoulish humor, a joke on greedy priests stuffing their faces with dumplings and choking to death. The cultural mistrust of authority (and clergy and anyone with community responsibility or funding) implicit in the name of this dish is somehow just very italian.

You can (and possibly should) make these with spinach or chard but I just had a big bunch of lacinato kale, so I used that instead. Kale has a thick stem in the center that you must remove first, then slice into thin ribbons.Sauté the kale in a hot pan with a drizzle of olive oil and a little salt and pepper until it is soft and cooked down.Mix the cooked kale in a large bowl with 3/4 cup ricotta cheese......and about 1/4 cup of parmesan.Beat in one egg, then mix in 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg and salt and pepper until it is creamy.Measure out one cup of flour--you probably won't need it all, depending on how wet the mixture is. Incorporate the flour slowly into the batter, gently adding more if it seems too loose. Shape the dough lightly into balls--they might be sticky which is OK, better than too doughy. You can do a test of one by dropping it in the boiling water and see if it keeps its shape. Form the dough into dumplings, drop in water and boil them, using a skimmer to get them out after they are floating at top. It takes about 3-5 minutes for them to cook.Remove them as they finish cooking and sauté until lightly browned and slightly firmer. Set aside and keep warm.Add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan and fry sage leaves until crispy. Roll the cooked dumplings around in the sagey butter and top with fried sage leaves to serve. You could also have them with a light tomato sauce instead of the sage and butter.

Matzo brei

Last week Ali did a very thorough job of keeping Passover...no surprises there, but it's still impressive. I made matzo brei one night--however, in the interest of full disclosure, Ali was not a fan. She likes it healthy, it turns out, and I probably used about eighty hundred pounds of butter. It got thumbs up from Aviva though. Anyway, it's easy and you can make it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, whether it's Passover or not. By the way, I thought it was neat how I managed to carry all my cooking supplies and my wine in my pan down a flight of steps to make dinner at Ali and Aviva's, checkitout:This is an easy recipe, in fact it probably doesn't even count. For the 3 of us, I used 4 eggs and 4 matzo and it was more than enough. First, break apart the matzo and run water over the pieces for about 20 seconds or so to get them wet (Ali: "You don't have to use a colander!").Then melt a ton of butter in a big pan, like at least half a stick or more.Beat your eggs in a bowl then add in your soggy matzo. Scramble them together over medium heat in the butter and add a lot of salt (Ali: "I like mine really salty. We never added pepper!").Let it get really browned so some parts are delightfully crispy. I needed consultation on this from Aviva.When it's browned and delicious looking, eat it all and don't think about all the butter. Aviva says her family used to put on sugar, some people also like it with sour cream or other toppings (Ali: "We never did that. Our family was very healthy.").

Roasted beet and microgreen salad

Right now there are gorgeous baby beets in season so I decided to make an easy salad using them and a few other guest stars from the Morningside farmers market. They are really lovely and candy colored.... When they're this small they roast very quickly which is a definete bonus. I sliced them in half which makes it go even faster. Also, check out how pretty they are on the inside:I roasted the tiny beet halves facedown on foil in a pan with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil at 400 for about 30 minutes.The other nice thing about these tiny little guys is that you don't even have to peel them because they are so tender. If you end up making this with larger sized beets, try peeling them then cutting into small chunks to roast--it will go just as quickly as these little guys did. Also from the trip to the farmer's market that morning--an enormous watermelon radish! It must be the end of the season for these because it was huge. I actually ended up using only half of it for my salad. It's a beautiful vegetable though and extremely mild.I found some microgreens at the same stand that sold me the baby beets, so those became the base for the salad.Microgreens are sort of fragile so I tossed them very lightly with white balsamic vinegar and a little olive oil then sprinkled salt and pepper over the top. This was sort of a composed salad--sometimes beets and goat cheese mixed together will just turn everything neon so it can be best to simply arrange rather than toss. So, first the dressed microgreens, then lay out the watermelon radish and beets, then a light hand with goat cheese and a few pine nuts on top.

Zabaglione alla giovanna

This is something my mother used to make us for breakfast when we were kids. She called it zabaglione, although I believe to most people that refers to a light custard dessert, similar to sabayon. What my mom called zabaglione was perfect for breakfastime and simply involved an egg yolk beaten with sugar and mixed with equal parts hot milk and coffee. Looking back on it now, I see that it was a great way to occupy annoying children because if you wanted a cup of zabaglione, you were responsible for laboriously beating that egg yolk into the sugar until your wrist hurt and it turned a pale yellow that was acceptable to Her Excellency Giovanna, Head of Kitchen, Duce of Dissertations and Founder of Three Kids.

You'll need 1 egg yolk per zabaglione so begin by separating as many eggs as people that will be enjoying this.Beat each egg yolk with at least 3 heaping teaspoons of sugar. This is sort of to taste so add more/less as you like. This is the part that really works well as child sedative. My mom would just keep telling us to beat it more, no matter how long we'd been at it. Genius.It's clearly an important step though. Eventually the egg and sugar will completely combine, making a light yellow paste. You should be able to see the difference in color--the one on the left is unbeaten, compared with the one on the right:Meanwhile, steam some milk until foamy and hot (but don't let it scald).Pour the hot milk and coffee into your egg-sugar mixture as if you are making a cafe au lait. Stir well once and enjoy a leisurely morning.

BBQ tofu

This week I had a serious craving for tofu, specifically how they make it at this amazing vegetarian restaurant I went to in Denver called Water Course. I've been dreaming about their bbq tofu ever since--all saucy with dark green veggies on the side. When I got home from work it turned out that I had some seasoned, firm tofu in teriyaki flavor in my fridge already, so clearly it was meant to be.

Cut 2 pieces of tofu into small cubes. Texturally this probably works best with the seasoned and pressed variety rather than the water-packed kind but you can try and see how it goes. Get 2 tablespoons olive oil quite hot in a pan and let the tofu cubes sizzle in there until they're golden brown and sort of crispy. Remove and set aside. In the same pan, make a bbq sauce. If you have a bottled one on hand to use that you like, feel free, but otherwise a quick emergency bbq sauce (as mine was here) can consist of 2 tablespoons ketchup (tomato paste would be better but I didn't have any on hand), 3 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon each of mustard, worcestershire, hot sauce, and cider vinegar all mixed up over medium heat until it makes a smooth sauce. Taste it and see how it balances out--add more sugar or vinegar if you think it needs it. Add your tofu cubes back into the sauce and gently combine over low heat until they are saucy and reheated. Hopefully you made some brown rice and a nice pile of green vegetables to go on the side. I lightly toasted 1 clove minced garlic in olive oil then added in a bunch of shredded lacinato kale and sautéed for about 5 minutes.

St. Patrick's Day 2009

So this was the fifth annual St. Patrick's Day party and also the fifth time I've attempted home-cured corned beef. I'm pretty sure that this was the best so far, which makes sense. I've posted on the process for corning your own brisket before, but here's this year's version anyway and some pictures of the process. I combined 2 tablespoons each of allspice, cracked black pepper (not ground peppercorns, just cracked), dried thyme and paprika with 5 crumbled bay leaves and 1 cup of kosher salt. Mixed it all really well up together and set aside.I had a little over 7 pounds of flat-cut brisket--you can adjust the corning spices mixture accordingly if you have a lot more or less than that amount of meat. Get a fork and prick the brisket all over on both sides--at least 30 times per side. Then rub your salty spice mixture all over both sides of the meat. You really have to get all up in its business. Pack the brisket into plastic ziploc bags. I had to cut mine in half because it was too big to fit in one. And now...wait. About 2 weeks. Pack it up in the fridge and flip it over every day--I keep mine stacked on a baking sheet in case of oozing. I highly recommend getting a small dog to keep an eye on it for you.This particular time my brisket was able to corn from the day the water main broke at work so we all got sent home (March 4), to St. Patrick's Day (March 17). That was a pretty good length of time and I think that's why it was so good this year. Sometime while the meat is in your fridge it will make a magical transformation from being a cut of brisket covered in salt and spices to corned beef. It's a beautiful thing, really. Pull the now-corned beef out of its bag(s) and rinse it off.Let it simmer for about 3 hours, covered in water and 2 tablespoons pickling spices (I had to use 2 pots because I don't have one big enough for all the meat). When you have about 35 minutes left in your cooking time, add in 3 pounds of tiny golden potatoes or chunks of red potatoes. I usually put a pound of chopped carrots and onions in with the potatoes too, for flavor.At 20 minutes out from dinnertime, add in 2 heads of cabbage, cut into wedges. When everything is all cooked up, drain it off, slice the beef against the grain, pile it in the center of a platter and surround it with the vegetables (terrible picture, use your imagination).There is always something new every year at the annual St Patrick's Day feast. Rick always makes soda bread which is ridiculously delicious, and this year Katie made a delicious salad with green goddess dressing--perfect. And Byron and Michelle made Guinness ice cream which was amazing. It got even more amazing when Charlie discovered that you could pour Jameson over it and make a float. Oh, and check out the cupcakes! These are the same Guinness chocolate cupcakes with whiskey cream cheese frosting that I made last year for the first time.