Shaved Fennel Salad

Sicilia is where the wine and travel bug started for us.  In 2009 we worked together with the our friends Cynthia and Elisabetta of the Farmhouse Table to take a group of New Orleanians on our first wine and culinary tour of the island.  The food was exquisite, truly some of the best we've ever eaten, combined with a diverse, distinct wine culture that is unlike anywhere else in the world.  This dish is a traditional Sicilian style insalata with a few added twists like pomegranate and Kerry's microgreens.  It is quick and simple except for the segmenting of the citrus (instructions below).And the pairing?  We brought back a really cool bottle from our Oregon (another of our favorite places featured in our annual staff dinner) tour last year that I knew would be perfect, a 2012 Dominio IV Viognier/Syrah blend Rose' and it was amazing with the dish!

Ingredients

2 large round fennel bulbs, trimmed, and several fennel fronds set aside

Juice of 1 lemon

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

4 large blood oranges, peeled and segmented

1 cup pomegranate seeds

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

microgreens for garnish

An 8-ounce chunk hard pecorino, such as sardo or toscano, for shaving

Directions

Using a mandolin or other vegetable slicer, shave the fennel crosswise into thin slices. Place in a bowl and toss with the lemon juice and olive oil. Add the blood orange segments, pomegranate seeds, and fennel fronds and toss gently to mix. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Arrange the fennel salad on four individual plates. Shave the pecorino in long shards over each plate, and serve.

Notes

SEGMENTING CITRUS

Using a paring knife, cut off the top and bottom of the fruit to expose the flesh. Stand the fruit upright on the work surface and, with your knife, carefully remove the skin and bitter white pith, working vertically from top to bottom and following the natural round shape of the fruit, turning it as you go. Carefully trim away any remaining pith.

To segment, hold the fruit over a bowl to catch the juices, and cut down along either side of the membrane to free each section of fruit. Then, if the recipe also calls for the juices, squeeze the membranes over the bowl to extract the remaining juices.

Cooking from the Box, Roasted Root Vegetables

Nothing is more simple and satisfying roasted root vegetables, and the turnips in the last few Hollygrove boxes have presented us the perfect opportunity to throw them into our usual mix.  I asked our friend and customer Jane one day how she liked to prepare turnips and her answer was roasted, of course with onions, a little olive oil and sea salt.

So that's what we've been doing lately, dressing them up a bit with fresh rosemary and balsamic vinegar, and we've become addicted!  Last week the box came with freshly pulled onions, sweet potatoes and baby turnips so we combined the three for a delicious beta carotene rich side dish.  So if you've never tried roasted turnips before, now is the time!

ingredients
-2 sweet potatoes, washed and cut into 1-1/2" chunks
-2 large turnips (or 6-8 baby), washed and quartered
-2 small onions quartered
-2 T. olive oil
-Needles from 2 large sprigs of fresh rosemary
-1/2 t. sea salt
-1 t. balsamic vinegar

directions
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees
-Take cut root vegetables and put them in a large mixing bowl.  Add olive oil , rosemary needles, sea salt and balsamic vinegar.  Use your hands to mix everything thoroughly in the bowl until veggies are coated with the oil.
-Put on a cookie sheet and bake for 45 minutes or until veggies are soft.

Sundays are the Best

I cherish my Sundays, especially in the "winter" here in New Orleans.  It's the only day that neither of us walk into the shop to do anything unless we absolutely have to, or if we need wine...

So tonight is a good night, I've spent the day writing, reading, taking a ride on the very windy lakefront and now Kerry is in the kitchen putting together a fabulous roasted beet salad.  I'm about to saute some sweet potatoes from the farmers market in butter and fresh sage from the garden.  Madeleine Peyroux is singing softly in the living room, the front door is open, sending in a wonderful breeze and the sound of the chimes on the front porch.  There's a bottle of 1998 Manzoni Barolo Vigna d'la Roul breathing on the table and a few steaks that are ready to go on the grill.  Harley the cat is contently watching all of the goings on from his perch on the sofa, while Sangi patiently waits in the kitchen knowing that steak means good things for good dogs.

And I have to say that at this moment, on this particular Sunday, life feels pretty damn wonderful.  I hope you all are enjoying yours...

Kerry's Roasted Beet Salad
Take 2 large golden beets and roast in the oven at 375 degrees for about an hour, or until soft.  Peel off the outer skin and cut in half.  Thinly slice the beet halves and set aside.  Take a couple of handfuls of really fresh mixed greens and lay them over a platter, place the slices of beets over the greens.  Slice up 1/2 of a vidala onion and sprinkle over the beets and then cover with fresh micro greens.  Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper and then drizzle a little white wine vinegar followed by really good quality olive oil and top off with small bits of fresh goats cheese, and enjoy your Sunday salad!

Pepper Addict Gone Wild!

Kerry in the midst of her pepper plants.

She's always been a bit of a pepper fiend, but after smuggling in a pepperoncino from Sicily, Kerry's addiction to peppers has reached new heights.  During a cooking lesson at the Mandranova Olive Oil Estate in southern Sicily, Kerry got her hands on a fresh pepperoncino, an essential ingredient in many Sicilian/Italian recipes. Like my fig cutting, the pepper made it home to New Orleans where she dried it and used the seeds to grow pepper plants which she put in our garden in the front of the house, planted in pots in the back and gave away a few plants to some lucky friends.  And now that the weather has cooled just a bit, the garden has gone crazy with pepperoncino, cayenne, habanero, jalepeno, Hungarian and some varieties of peppers that we can't even identify!

Sicilian pepperoncino grown from smuggled seeds

We put them in/on everything from soups, stir frys, sandwiches, sautees and on the grill, adding heat and incredible flavor to lots of our favorite dishes.  One of our staple weekly side dishes is brown jasmine rice with sauteed peppers and garlic.  Deliciously spicy, you have to love the heat of habanero's to appreciate it, but if you can handle that, you'll love it!  The coconut oil is one of the key ingredients, as it adds a nice tropical flavor, complimenting the spicy habanero and jasmine aromatics of the rice.

Spicy Fried Brown Rice

2-3 cups cooked brown jasmine rice (available at whole foods)
2 T. Coconut Oil (available at whole foods)

2 Habanero Pepper, seeds and ribs carefully removed (wear gloves if you can)
3 cloves garlic

Stir fry garlic and peppers in coconut oil over medium heat until vegetables begin to caramelize.  Add cooked brown rice and stir until grains are coated with the oil.  Continue to fry for 5 to 10 minutes while rice absorbs the flavors.  Enjoy!

Check out the rest of the pics!

The other pepper fanatic in the family...

Our hot hot hot habaneros.

Anyone know what this is?

Hungarian Peppers

 

Eat Fresh! Support Local Fishermen and Farmers

Our trips to the local Crescent City Farmers Market, K-Jeans seafood and our own garden the past few weekends have netted in some really memorable meals. Nothing fancy, but it is amazing how good, simply prepared, ultra fresh ingredients can make for a really flavorful meal.

For example, yesterday we picked up those beautiful baby zucchini, lots of ripe red tomatoes, butter beans, freshly made cheese and milk at the CCFM, and then some gorgeous tilapia fillets at K-Jeans. We've got more cucumbers and basil coming from our garden that you can imagine, so we had lots of options for dinner!

I started with the zucchini: sliced them in half and salt and peppered them; heated a good amount of oil in a large skillet with some peperoncino and fried until lightly browned. The baby ones pack a ton of flavor, so I didn't need to add anything else!


I couldn't wait to eat those tomatoes so I chopped them and a few of our cucumbers in chunks, added a small amount of sliced onion, with a little fresh basil and oregano from the garden. Dressed simply in 1 part balsamic vinegar to 3 parts evoo, the tomatoes were deliciously sweet and the crunchy fresh cucumbers added the perfect texture.


Next I made the pesto. Kerry planted tons of basil this year and fresh pesto is a staple that we just love in the summer. I took 2 packed cups of basil, a clove of garlic, a pinch of sea salt, 3/4 cup of mainly freshly grated Parmesan cheese with a little Pecorino and 3 T. of pine nuts and threw it in the cuisinart. Pulsed until finely chopped and then slowly added in 1 cup of evoo and pulsed until oil and herb mixture are well blended. This made about 2 cups of pesto. Added freshly cooked pasta and topped with a little more cheese.

Kerry took care of the fish. She made a little lemon butter sauce with 1/2 stick melted butter whisked with 4 t. freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pinch each of cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper. She salt and peppered the fillets and dredged them in a little flour. Reheating the oil left from the zucchini fried them over med-high heat until just lightly browned. Sorry, I got to hungry to take any more pictures...

We packed our plates with veggies and pasta, added the fish with the lemon butter sauce spooned on top, and settled down to watch the first day of the Tour de France, our absolute favorite sporting event of the year! We drank a great little Italian white wine, the Vinosia Malvasia, cheered Lance on as we cleaned our plates and commented on how lucky we are to eat such great food. Everything was simple, fresh, local and delicious and we finished it all off with one of my freshly baked Biscotti Amaretti.


A great performance by Lance, and superb meal, what a perfect Saturday night!

Farm Fresh Southern Collard Greens

The beautiful weather on Saturday made for the perfect day to visit the Crescent City Farmers Market. As we were walking in I ran into our friend Bob who had a gigantic bag of greens in his hands and told me that the collards were amazing and that I needed to get some. I do love me some big leafy greens so we made a beeline to the back of the market and bought our own gigantic bag. If you are a vitamin K junkie like me, this is a great time to be shopping at the market. Loads of varieties of lettuce, kale, mustard and collard greens as well as broccoli and broccoli rape can be found from your local farmers.

We decided to have them that night, accompanied by a big, juicy, Justin Pitts burger. And since they were collards, the quintessential southern sauteed vegetable, I decided they needed a southern twist instead of my usual method. Well they were absolutely divine, so much so that the two of us ate ALL of them in one sitting! I'm not sure on the amount that we bought, but I'm guessing that 1-1/2 lbs. isn't far off...


ingredients

• 1 gigantic bunch of fresh collard greens from your local farmer
  
• 3 slices of smoked bacon, cut into 1" pieces
  
• salt
  
• olive oil
  
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
• 1 small shallot, sliced thin
• salt and pepper to taste

directions
Put a big pot of water (about 1/3 full) with a teaspoon or so of salt, on the stove to boil. Meanwhile, trim the greens by cutting out most of the big stem and then slice across in 1-2" wide cuts. Prep your bacon, garlic and shallots while waiting on the water to boil.

Add the cut greens to the boiling water at cook for 10 minutes. Strain into a colander, rinse with cold water and then press out as much of the water as you can.

Put a large skillet on the stove at med-high heat and brown the bacon. You don't want it crispy, just brown on the edges with moist fat in the middle. Remove the bacon unto a paper towel and add a few tablespoons of olive oil, turning down the heat just a bit to medium. Throw in the garlic and shallots and quickly stir them around with a spatula so they don't burn. They will cook very quickly. Add the greens a little at a time and stir into the onion/shallots until coated with oil.

Once you've added all of the greens, throw in the bacon and mix in evenly. Season with salt and pepper, but remember the bacon is salty, so taste before you do so. Enjoy!

related recipes: juicy justin pitts burgers, sauteed kale
related posts: justin pitts, farming with a purpose

Sauteed Oyster Mushrooms

Trying to decided what I wanted to cook to accompany Kerry's chicken dish she prepared last week, I picked up a beautiful clump of oyster mushrooms at Whole Foods. Originally from Asia his delicate white mushroom is ideal for simple preparations that allow its sweet, woodsy flavor to come through. It is now cultivated around the world and is highly praised for its medicinal and pharmacological value due to its high content of statins which help to control cholesterol. So hopefully that help to balance out all of the butter and fat I used for this recipe...

We opened up a 2001 Poliziano Asinone Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to pair with the chicken dish, but it actually worked better with the mushrooms. The wine was fabulous, but it has hit its peak so we better drink that last bottle we've been saving soon!


Ingredients
1/2 lb. fresh oyster mushrooms
2 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
2 ounces pancetta, cut into small half inch pieces
2 T. Marsala
1/4 C. water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
-Separate the mushrooms by hand tearing each one away from the clump.
-Take a large saute pan and add the butter and oil over medium heat until the butter starts to foam.
-Add the pancetta and stir until browned.
-Now add the mushrooms, coat with the butter/oil and turn up the heat to medium high. Once it starts to sizzle, add the marsala and water and cook until mushrooms are softened but still have a bit of a crunch.
-Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

Kerry's Sicilian Caponata

One of the culinary joys of our recent trip was eating and comparing each cook's version of Sicilian Caponata, a condiment of chunky fried eggplant and other vegetables and seasonings, jam-packed with flavor—sweet, sour, salty all at once. A staple of the Sicilian diet, caponata is served in a variety of ways and every family has its own recipe. We learned how to make it during our cooking class with Silvia at Mandranova (see me stirring on the right) and have been craving it ever since! It can be used as a condiment for fish and meats, served with pasta, spooned onto bruschetta or just eaten on its own.

We were in charge of the Antipasti course at a Sicilian dinner Saturday night at our friend Carol's house. Kerry developed her own recipe for caponata, combining her ideas with classic ingredients and techniques from Silvia at Mandranova and Lidia Bastianich. It got rave reviews from the crowd!

Ingredients
3 eggplants
2 yellow onions (1 pound approx), cut in 1-1/2 inch chunks
5 or 6 ribs celery, trimmed cut in 1/2-inch chunks
1-1/2 cup cerignola or other large green brine-cured olives, pitted and cut in ½-inch pieces
5-6 fresh plum tomatoes
1-1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
¼ cup capers if desired
1 cup cooking grade olive oil
extra-virgin olive oil
12-15 large fresh basil leaves
few springs of flat-leafed parsley
coarse sea salt or kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
dried peperoncino flakes
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar

Note: if olives are super salty, you may want to add less salt to the vegetable mix.

Directions
Trim the eggplant ends and partially skin them using a peeler to alternately remove skin in a striped fashion. Cut them into chunks about 2-inches long and 1-inch thick. Toss the chunks with 2 teaspoons of salt and drain in a colander for 30 minutes to an hour. Rinse and pat them dry with paper towels.

Meanwhile pour the red wine vinegar and 3/4 cup water into the small pan, stir in the sugar and bring to a boil. Simmer until reduced by half and syrupy, then remove from the heat.

Slice the onions into 1-1/2” pieces. Trim the celery stalks (and peel them if they’re tough and stringy) then chop in 1/2-inch chunks. Cut the plum tomatoes in half and scrape out the seeds and ribs. Slice lengthwise into 3/4-inch or so thick wedges. Roughly chop the pitted olives into ½-inch pieces.

To fry the eggplant, pour the cup of cooking grade olive oil into the skillet and set over medium-high heat, 360 deg. Spread all the eggplant chunks in the hot oil and fry for 10 to 15 minutes, tossing and stirring frequently, until the eggplant is soft and cooked through and golden brown on all sides. You will probably have to do this in a few batches as you don't want to crowd the eggplant. Lift the chunks out of the oil with a slotted spoon and spread them on paper towels to drain.

Pour ¼ cup of the extra virgin olive oil in another large skillet and set it over medium heat. Stir in the onion and celery chunks, season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook, tossing often, until they’ve wilted and lightly colored, 8-10 minutes or so. Toss in the olives and the capers, heat quickly until sizzling. Dilute the tomato paste with ¼ cup or so of water then mix in. Scatter in the tomatoes wedges and fold them in with the other vegetables. Season with another ¼ teaspoon salt, black pepper to taste, a few generous pinches of peperoncino. Cook until the tomatoes are hot and softened but still holding their shape, about 5 minutes.

Next pour the vinegar syrup all over and stir it in. Cook the vegetables together for about 8-10 more minutes, then turn off the heat. Tear the basil leaves into shreds, roughly chop the parsley and stir them into the vegetables. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper if needed.

Take the eggplant pieces and layer over the bottom of a large serving dish. Add the rest of the vegetables on top of the eggplant, but do not mix together. Allow the dish to cool and rest for 1 hour, then gently mix together. Drizzle the top with a bit of your finest olive oil and serve.

*We served the amazing 2006 Murgo Sparkling Rose from the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily with the antipasti platter. Made with Nerello Mascalese, this is the most unique sparkling wine we've tried in a long time! Currently available only at Swirl, $33.99.

Melanzana di Mandranova (Eggplant of Mandranova)

They had me at the appetizer course...our very first dinner in the beautiful dinning room at the Mandranova Resort began with a heavenly, silky eggplant dish that received instant raves from the entire group. We knew we were in trouble. We would be staying there for the next three nights and if the rest of the food was anything like the appetizer, we'd have a hard time fitting into the cars when we left! Three dinners, 12 total courses, and I'm not even counting breakfast, and each dish just got better and better and better. But since this appetizer was our first taste of Mandranova, it became the symbol of the freshness and quality, simplicity and elegance, of our dinning experiences at the estate.

An olive estate, I can't really call it a farm, owned by Guiseppe and Silvia Di Vincenzo, Mandranova is a beautiful oasis in the midst of an agricultural area of southern Sicily. We were there during the press and got to see the process first hand. I'll do a post on our whole experience there in the upcoming weeks, but here is a previous post I did on there olive oils with a video of how to taste olive oil featuring Silvia Di Vincenzo: Mandranova, Sicilian Olive Oil from the Gods.

This recipe makes four generous appetizer portions. If you wanted smaller portions you could divide into 6.

Ingredients
4 medium eggplants, whole
1 clove of garlic finely minced
1 teaspoon fresh oregano finely chopped
salt
1/2 cup olive oil (the better the quality, the better it will taste!)
olive oil, chopped tomatoes and fresh basil for garnish

Directions
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roast the whole eggplants for 30 - 45 minutes. Time will depend on the type and size of eggplant. After 30 minutes, check periodically by inserting a skewer into the widest part of the eggplant. It should be very soft and come out clean.
-Remove the eggplants and allow them to cool. Peel, finely chop, place in a colander and sprinkle with a little salt to help draw out any remaining bitterness. Let drain for 30 minutes. Rinse, press out the water with a spatula and pat dry.
-Place eggplant, garlic, oregano and olive oil in a bowl and mix well. Add salt to taste.
-Divide the mixture between 4-6 ramekins, depending on desired portions. Place ramekins in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours (max 24hours) to allow the flavors to blend.
-When ready to serve, remove ramekins and run a knife around the outer edge of the eggplant to loosen it from the bowl. Turn the ramekin upside down onto a plate, shake it a little and tap the top with a knife until it comes cleanly unto the plate.
-Garnish with chopped tomatoes seasoned with salt and pepper and basil. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.

Try this with a crisp Sicilian white wine like my wine of the moment, the Ajello Grillo-Catarratto available at Swirl!

Pasta alla Norma, Ziti with Tomatoes, Eggplant, and Salted Ricotta

From Lidia's Italy by Lidia Bastianich

Sicilians are passionate about both food and opera, so it is no surprise that one of the island’s most celebrated dishes is pasta alla Norma. What better way to honor the composer Vincenzo Bellini, a native son of Catania (on Sicily’s eastern coast), than to name a delicious pasta for Norma, one of the great operatic masterworks of all time?

I love both the opera and the dish, and, I can assure you, aside from their name, they’re quite different. Those of you familiar with opera know that the title role of Norma is so difficult that only the greatest sopranos ever sing it. On the other hand, this recipe is simple and
easily made.

Serves 6
Ingredients:
2 or 3 small firm eggplants (1 pound total)
1 ½ tablespoons coarse sea salt or kosher salt, or to taste
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for a final flourish
4 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
¼ teaspoon peperoncino flakes
4 cups (or a 35-ounce can) canned Italian plum tomatoes, preferably
San Marzano, crushed by hand
1 pound ziti
6 large fresh basil leaves
2 cups ricotta salata, freshly shredded on a hand grater

Equipment:
A heavy-bottomed skillet or sauté pan, 12 inches or wider, for frying
the eggplant and then cooking the sauce and pasta
A large pot, 8-quart capacity, with a cover, for cooking the pasta

-Trim the eggplants, and slice them (skin on) into 1±-inch chunks. Toss them with 1 teaspoon of salt, and drain in a colander for 30 minutes to an hour. Rinse, and pat them dry with paper towels.
-To fry the eggplant, pour the cup of vegetable oil in the skillet, and set over medium heat. Spread all the eggplant chunks in the hot oil, and leave them in place for a few minutes to start browning. Fry for about 10 minutes, tossing and stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is soft and cooked through and nicely browned on all sides. Lift the chunks out of the oil with a slotted spoon, and spread them on a platter lined with paper towels. Put the eggplant in a warm spot
(such as a briefly heated oven) while you make the sauce and pasta. Discard the frying oil, and wipe out the skillet.
-Pour 6 quarts of water, with 1 tablespoon salt, into the big pot, and bring to a boil.
-Pour the olive oil into the skillet, toss in the garlic cloves, and set over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the peperoncino in, and cook until the garlic is lightly colored, then pour in the crushed tomatoes. Slosh a cup of water in the tomato container to rinse it clean, and stir that in along with another ± teaspoon salt.
-Bring the tomatoes to a boil, then lower the heat and cook the sauce at a bubbling simmer for 12 minutes or so, until slightly thickened.
-Meanwhile, when the pasta water comes to a rolling boil, stir in the ziti. Cook until almost al dente, then lift them out with a spider, drain for a moment, and drop into the simmering tomato sauce. Toss together for a minute or two, until the ziti are cooked and coated
with sauce. Turn off the heat.
-Tear the basil leaves into shreds, and scatter over the pasta along with a cup of the shredded ricotta salata. Drizzle a couple of tablespoons of olive oil all over, and toss well. Now spread the eggplant chunks on top of the pasta, and sprinkle over it the remaining ricotta salata. Serve immediately, spooning both pasta and a portion of eggplant chunks into individual warm pasta bowls.

Tender & Delicous Sauteed Kale

Lately I have really been craving my green leafy veggies and kale has been at the top of my list! Kale can be hard to get right but I've found that blanching first takes the bitterness out, makes the tough greens super tender, and somehow locks in a beautiful, deep green color that’s better than what you started with! It is chock full of vitamin A, and has respectable amounts of calcium, iron, protein, potassium, and vitamin C, not to mention all the phyto-nutrients in that dark green pigment! Try this, I've even had two teenagers tell me they never knew kale could taste so good!

Ingredients
1 bunch of kale
3 gloves of garlic chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions
*Bring a very large pot of salted water to a boil. While you are waiting for the water, rinse the kale and cut an inch or two of the tough stems off of the bottom.

*Add the greens to the boiling water. Put the lid back on. Bring it back to a boil as fast as you can, and watch the greens intently. They probably only need about 3-4 minutes. When they’re almost tender enough to eat, strain them into a colander and run cold tap water over them to stop the cooking.

*Take out the greens and cut roughly into strips lengthwise about 1" wide. Put back into the colander to finish draining while you prepare the pan.

*Take a large saute pan and add enough olive oil to really coat the bottom of the pan. Heat over a medium flame, add garlic and cook until soft, watching that it does not burn. Add the greens and saute in the oil for a few minutes under tender. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve!