BBA #5: Casatiello

Time for my Bread School report!

This week we made Casatiello, an Italian pimped out version of brioche. It's a direct dough, with lots of eggs and butter, and studded with salami and cheese. Very tasty, in fact, a little too tasty for me. I'm not one for 9 cheese jalapeno rosemary garlic sausage loaves and the like. I prefer my bread plain and simple I guess. I used Boar's Head salami, Kerrigold Swiss (from Ireland?!), and decided to bake it two 6" cake pans, so I could gift one of the loaves.

Next up: Challah!

Ellie's Garden Risotto

This week's CEiMB pick was Garden Risotto, chosen by A Singleton in the Kitchen. Spring comes a little earlier here in Arizona than the rest of the country, so it's actually too late for delicious, local asparagus and I decided to leave it out. Even without the asparagus, this was a nice take on the usual risotto blanco I make. Spinach and parmesean is always a tasty combination, and the bright green peas added color and sweetness.

I had to cheat on Ellie a bit and add butter, because it is so good in risotto, but the 1 tablespoon I added is minimal, especially divided between 6 servings. I also used shallots instead of onion, because I had 'em, and prefer their flavor in risotto. Since I was using boxed chicken broth instead of homemade, I boosted its flavor by soaking a hunk of parmesean rind in the rice during the cooking process. The rind adds a touch of creaminess, and I feel happy knowing I'm getting every penny out of that expensive parmigiano-reggiano.

Garden Risotto
adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger

1 1/2 cups arborio or other short grain rice
1 large shallot, finely diced
1 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup white wine
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen spinach
1/4 cup parmigiano-reggiano, grated

Heat the chicken broth in a medium saucepan and cover to keep warm, making sure you have a ladle or measuring cup that can easily fit into the pan's mouth. In a heavy saucepan, heat the butter and olive oil on medium, and add the shallot. Cook about 5 minutes on medium to medium-low, so all that great shallot flavor imparts itself into the butter/oil. Add the rice and cook another 5 minutes to fully toast the rice, but do not let it brown. Pour in the wine and simmer until it is absorbed, then add the broth in stages, about 3/4 of a cup at a time. Let the broth absorb fully into the rice before adding more. This is a slow process, so put on some music, practice your yoga poses and be patient as you ease the starch from your rice, stirring all the while.


It will take about 25 minutes to add and absorb, add and absorb all the broth. When it is creamy, not soupy, and the rice grains have lost their bite, add in the peas and spinach and stir until they heat through. Lastly, add the parmesean cheese, and season with salt and pepper until perfect, and enjoy!

Check out the CEiMB blogroll to see what adaptations the rest of the group had, I always pick up some good ideas and pretty pictures!

Sexy Meatballs!

For this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe, Oddball Oven Mitt chose Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce. To be honest, I wasn't that excited about this one. Ground turkey. Whole wheat pasta. Snore. However, good little Ellie-ista that I am, I tried the recipe, and I have to say that I was pleasantly suprised. The sauce had a sexy little kick, thanks to chipotles in adobo, fire-roasted tomatoes, and a whopping 6 cloves of garlic. Plus, I got to use the gorgeous bouquet of basil I got at the farmer's market this weekend. So thank you Miss Oven Mitt for nudging me to try a recipe I would've otherwise overlooked!

I always use a little trick I learned from Sally Schneider when cooking with ground turkey. She advocates soaking a piece of stale bread in milk rather than just using dry bread crumbs in your meatball mixture. Lowfat milk adds negligible extra calories and the extra moistness is unparallelled. SS has a lot of great tips, if you like Ellie's full flavored yet healthy recipes, you'll love Sally's A New Way to Cook.

But on to the main event!

Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce

adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger

Sauce:
1 tbsp olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup grated carrot

3 tbsp tomato paste

one 28 oz can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes

1 tsp fincely minced chipotles in adobo

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp red pepper flakes

6 leaves basil, roughly torn

a glug of wine, if you happen to be drinking some

Meatballs:

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 slice stale bread, soaked in milk, wrung out and torn up

1/4 cup grated carrot

1/4 finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, pressed in the garlic press

2 tbsp minced parsley

1 tsp dried thyme

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp salt

freshly ground pepper

Spaghetti:

1/2 box whole wheat spaghetti, cooked according to package

1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano

minced basil for garnish

To make the sauce, saute onions in olive oil for a few minutes, add garlic and saute another minute, and finally add carrots. Stir in tomato paste and can of tomatoes, including all their juices, as well as chipotles, oregano, red pepper flakes, optional wine, and salt and pepper. Cover partially and simmer away while you prepare the meatballs.

To make the meatballs, combine your ground turkey, garlic, beaten egg, milk-soaked bread bits, carrot, onion, dried thyme, parsley and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Remove all jewelry and squish away until your stress level is down to zero, or your ingredients are fully combined. Preheat broiler. Roll meat mixture into 1 1/2-2 inch balls and place on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking oil. Broil for 12 minutes, flipping halfway.

To plate, combine a lovely tangle of noodles, a heaping ladle of sauce, a few sizzling meatballs, garnish with parmegiano and basil, and enjoy!

Quick Marinara

This is quick to prepare, a million times better than anything jarred, and a great base for Italian-American dishes. After a bit of trial and error with diced, whole, stewed, fire-roasted, etc, I've decided my favorite tomato permutation and brand to use are Muir Glen Crushed Tomatoes with Basil. Those anal dudes at America's Test Kitchen agree, by the way.

Andrea's Tomato Sauce

1/2 a small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 a carrot, finely shredded
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tsp Aleppo pepper, or red pepper flakes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 splash dry white wine (like 1/4 cup)

Saute onion and garlic for 5 minutes, add in carrot, cook 3 minutes more, dump in the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Involtini di Melanzane

Sounds better than "eggplant rolls", forgive me for switching to Italian.

This is vegan and good, but if you must, add mozzarella, ricotta or another cheese to the filling, and I admit, it would be better.

I've played around with this a bunch and think this is the best permutation. Definitely the healthiest.

The sweet soft peppers contrast nicely with the crispy eggplant, the sauce rounds things out and the basil is the cherry on top of it all. So tasty you don't even notice how little fat, dairy, and carbs are involved...

Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Rolls

2 cups or so marinara sauce
2 eggplants
2 red bell peppers
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt
10 leaves basil, plus more to garnish

I made my marinara from leftover roast grape tomatoes, but any version would do.

For the rolls, I like to peel my eggplant, antioxidants be damned. The skin gets tough when roasted and I've found it affects the crispiness of the final product too. So peel them, or don't, and slice lengthwise (the long way) into 1/3 inch thick strips. Brush with olive oil on both sides and place on well oiled baking sheets (they stick! a lot!). Core the bell pepper and cut into inch-wide strips, and add to your baking sheets. Salt everything and bake for about 25 minutes, flipping halfway through.

Add the sauce to an ovenproof casserole and place in the oven to heat through when the veg has 10 minutes left. Remove eggplant when nicely browned and crisp, the peppers will be done too, they are pretty forgiving. Sandwich a basil leaf between 2 pepper slices, then roll into the eggplant slice. Grab your nice warm sauce out of the oven and place the eggplant rolls on top, garnishing with the extra basil.

Fridge Pizza

Made fridge pizza tonight, with random leftovers from the weekend, and storebought dough (from TJ's) and both turned out well. Much better than frozen pizza, and much cheaper, technically just $1 for the dough, maybe another $2 for the mozzarella, and the rest of the stuff was leftovers.



The first one (pictured left) was butternut squash soup, bacon, roasted acorn squash, caramelized onions, gorgonzola and mozzarella. The soup worked well spread on the dough, as a tomato sauce substitute.

The second (right) was barbeque sauce, chopped up baby back ribs, corn, caramelized onions, and mozzarella.

The key to good pizza at home is, though you probably already know, is something big and heavy and heatable to cook the pizza on, and to preheat the oven for at least 30 minutes with aforementioned big heavy pizza stone/upside down cast iron skillet/thick-ass pan. I've also taken to poking the dough with a fork, brushing with olive oil and letting it rise in a warm place, as it brings out that yeasty flavor, even with my crappy commercial dough. One day I will make my own dough, but I really don't feel like it most of the time.

Shrimp from a Devil Priest

I am doing a cookbook of the month thing with Chowhound, and this month is Molto Italiano by Mario Batali. I'm letting J pick the recipes to start with, so I'll have to wait a for a new audience before attempting Cuttlefish with Chickpeas or Braised Rabbit. Some of you expressed an interest in cooking along with me, so I'll post the adapted recipes here.

Shrimp Fra Diavolo
adapted from Molto Italiano by Mario Batali
makes 2-3 servings

For the sauce:
olive oil
1/2 onion, diced finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 branches(stalks?) fresh thyme
1/2 carrot, grated or shredded (what's the diff?)
28 oz can diced tomatoes

Saute onion and garlic on medium/med low heat in olive oil until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Add thyme and carrot, cook another 5 minutes or so. Add tomatoes (including juice), bring to boil and lower to a simmer (uncovered)for 30 minutes or until soft and soupy and flavors have melded. While it simmers, prep this stuff and put a pot of water on to boil for your pasta of choice.

1/2 lb. peeled and deveined largish shrimp (or more if you are really shrimpy)
1 cup dry white wine
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 red jalepenos, seeded removed and minced
2 t red pepper flakes (buy new ones, they are like 50 cents at the hispanic market and I know yours are 4 years old and not spicy anymore)

Hopefully the sauce is done by now, you will need it right away, and don't forget to remove the thyme sticks, the leaves will have fallen off. Saute garlic and chiles on medium/med-low for 3 minutes, add wine, pepper flakes, and the sauce you just made. Let it simmer for 5 minutes or so, and when you are 5 minutes away from serving, throw in the shrimp, bury them in the sauce and cook for just 5 minutes or they'll get rubbery. Serve on top of your pasta and garnish with fresh basil, grated parm and a drizzle of extra virgin if you so desire.

My notes: It was pretty good. Very spicy, good garlic and wine flavor. J loved it and said it was one of the best things I've ever cooked, but I think he was just starving after smelling it cook for so long. I used supermarket shrimp so I can't really judge it as meant to be made. Using thyme in the sauce was new for me, but I think I'll start doing that all the time. I think I'll make this again without the shrimp for sure.

1 quart tomatoes, 1 bunch basil, 1 baguette, fresh mozzarella

I love tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella and like to buy them in bulk when I make the trek to Trader Joe's. Here's how I ate the same thing for 3 days without getting sick of it.

Day 1: Purity

Combined equal handfuls of tomatoes, basil, and bocconcini(the little fresh mozzarella balls), topped with balsamic and olive oil, then salt and pepper. Ate standing up, alternating bites from end of baguette.

Day 2: Breakfast

Fresh mozzarella omelettes are really good, especially with hot sauce and a little basil on top.

Day 2: Lunch

Made a BLT sandwich, but not. Bacon, basil instead of lettuce, tomato, plus avocado, all on sliced baguette with mayo.

Day 2: Roast Chicken Dinner

Chopped basil and parsley, combined into softened butter along with salt and pepper to make herb butter! Rubbed that under the skin of chicken before roasting, then proceeded with usual recipe.

Day 3: Dinner

Accidentally left baguette out, thanks to AZ climate it is one giant crouton. So...panzanella! It always amazes me how the bread doesn't get soggy in this. If you live somewhere with an average humidity over 7%, maybe you should toast the bread as well just to be safe. Anyway, cut the baguette and 1/2 a cuke into bite sized chunks, toss with thinly sliced red onion, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella if you have it, drizzle it all with olive oil and red wine vinegar, and let sit for 10-15 minutes.

I also saved the last bits of the baguette ends and the crumbs from cubing the bread to make pasta, which brings us to...

Day 4: Dinner

Pasta with Garlic and Breadcrumbs loosely based on that TV show with the pretty big head lady

(and sounds better in Italian=Spaghetti all'Aglio e Olio con Mollica)

1/2 pound spaghetti

4 garlic cloves

splash dry white wine

big handful basil, coarsely chopped

1/2 pint whole cherry or grape tomatoes

1 teaspoon crushed red chili

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Warm slight bit of olive oil in a pan, add breadcrumbs with salt and pepper to taste. Stir constantly so they don't burn and when they are uniformly golden, remove from pan and set aside. Add more oil to pan and saute garlic until it turns just gold, then pour in the wine and chili pepper. Add the tomatoes and let cook until white wine is reduced by half. Using a fork, press the tomatoes against the side of the pan to pop them so they release their juices. Remove the pan from the burner and set aside. Cook spaghetti, drain and toss in pan, return the pan to the burner over moderate heat and add the reserved breadcrumbs and basil shreds. I had run out of mozzarella by this point so I topped it with grated parmesean.