Making plans with Nigel
I love Nigel Slater. As a writer I admire his voice and technique and as an eater I adore his food. I recently picked up The Kitchen Diaries and when I need inspiration I burrow about in the index, looking for entries dealing with whatever it is that I have to cook. For me, at least most of the time, what I cook is determined by what is fresh and good, either from the CSA box or the FM. Today I turned to the cheese entry in the index and there was an entry for baked eggplant with goat cheese. Ding, ding, ding, ding, we’ve got a winner since I have eggplant and goat cheese on hand.
Mr. Slater favors the rustic, soulful food that really makes us geeks happy, so I pretty much followed his lead on this. I slice the eggplant into thick rounds, brushed each side with olive oil, placed them on a baking sheet covered with parchment, tossed some salt and pepper on them, and put them into a 400F oven. Nigel dressed his eggplant with olive oil, feta, mint, and pine nuts but I used olive oil, garlic, chevre, basil, and pistachios…different flavor profile but same concept. Nigel served his with pita bread but I opted for fresh fettuccine that I whipped up as the eggplant roasted. It all came together in about 30 minutes and it was a bowlful of cheesy, aubergine love. Thanks for the inspiration Nigel…I’ll make my dinner plans with you any day.
One year ago I began this blog…what I thought might be a way to combine my love of food and writing and record some recipes for future use. Now I’ve written 184 posts and you’ve written 732 comments. I’ve learned a lot about cooking, writing, and blogging. I started with GH as my only reader and I’m now getting about 500 unique visits a day and that just seems incredible to me. Thanks for reading and stick around for another year…it’ll be delicious, I promise.
Stuffed zucchini with pasta
For me, inspiration often comes from the book I’m currently reading. Last week when I made this dish I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love…specifically I was on the “eat” section and since she was in Rome and eating pasta I too wanted to eat pasta. Which was fortunate because I had just purchased a pasta machine.
Actually it was my second machine in a week. The first machine was purchase at The Kitchen Store located on Williamson Street, next to Lazy Jane’s. It’s a relatively new store and I do love to shop local so I bought a few needed items and a pasta machine. But when I got it home and opened it up it was obviously very poorly made. I boxed it back up and took it back to Roz, the proprietor of the store and she promptly gave me a refund. The one thing that I bought at the store that I truly, truly love is a garlic mincing gadget called the Garlic Twist. I’m really not much for gadgets, I’ve had the same Zyliss garlic press for 20 years and I rarely use it. But this gadget is attractive, easy to use, and more importantly…easy to clean. It’s perfect for those times when you simply need one clove of garlic minced.
But I’d pondered a life with a pasta machine so I couldn’t tolerate a life without one…and I hadn’t even used it yet. But those brief dreams of fresh fettuccine, ravioli, and lasagna just couldn’t be shaken from my mind. That’s when I got the brilliant idea to check ebay for a pasta machine. Some quick research showed me that Atlas or Imperia were the brands to trust and ebay had a bunch of them for sale. I found mine for $35 with shipping and it arrived on my doorstep in 2 days…wow! My other awesome and recent ebay purchase was prompted by my butter fingers dropping a #36 Le Creuset gratin pan and narrowly missing my left foot. Damn those things are heavy! You wouldn’t expect it to hit a wooden floor and crack into several pieces…but that is exactly what happened. I almost cried…I bought that pan 14 years ago at the Salvation Army store in Antioch, Ca. It cost me $5.00…best deal, ever! But to replace it now would cost a staggering $119 for a new one….but never fear, I found one on ebay for $25 and it was in my hot little hands 5 days later. I love the internets…yes I do!
Okay so now back to the original topic…zucchini gratin and pasta. With 2 jumbo zucchinis to stuff I found my inspiration in Gilbert’s tales of dining in Rome….what would a Roman stuff a zucchini with? I came up with some ground pork, mushrooms, onion, garlic, 2 roma tomatoes diced, sage, thyme, and a bit of cream. I hollowed out the zuchs, filled them with this mixture, topped them with Parmesan and baked them at 350F for about 30 minutes…them were absolutely perfect. The stuffing was savory and rich and the zucchini was light and zesty…a perfect match.
Served along side these splendid zuchs was a tangle of perfect, al dente fettuccine tossed with olive oil, one mined garlic clove (see…I used the garlic twist), and pepper. Topped with a feathery beard of Parmesan this was the best pasta I’ve ever ate. It was fun to make it myself, so easy to roll it out with the pasta machine…and so satisfying to see and feel it being produced.
Go out here and stuff those zucchinis, make that pasta, feel good about life…enjoy some irrational exuberance!
Get your salad on
For me, salad is a vehicle to enhance tomatoes…now that might not seem like a big deal to you… but to me…well, I’m looking to enhance natural perfection, so I try just a little bit harder each and every day.
This brilliant concoction was my lunch. It started with some fresh corn, lightly cooked and chilled, then cut from the cob. To that I added a diced onion from my CSA share, and a crisp, bright green bell pepper that actually smelled like a green bell pepper that I purchased from the delightful Gassen family at the Westside Farmers’ Market. I added in some shrimp, and tossed it with a combination of mango chilli vinegar, lime juice, olive oil, chili oil, and dried chipotle. I was specifically look for a sweet, citrusy burn…one where the burn isn’t apparent right away but sneaks in…not overwhelming but more ladylike. But stand back now because this is where I got my freak on (so to speak), I added 4 slices of dried, chilied mango diced finely. This absolutely made the salad come alive and dance.
Easy as pie…really quick too. Obviously the bright colors made it a breeze to plate but I had the added benefit of those stunning red and green zebra-strip tomatoes. They have an nice acidic note so they married well with sweetish, citusy spice of the salad. Everything got a liberal toss of sea salt and that was it…the tomatoes and salad were not just marrying well…lord no…they were actually spooning. No lie!
