Pumpernickel Bagels

A friend posted to Facebook that she was looking for a pumpernickel bread recipe. I commented that I had a killer pumpernickel bagel recipe that I developed after a lot of research if she was interested. She was, and so was another friend. These are two dear people, and therefore a more than good enough reason to make my first post to this blog in over a year....

Since I'm back to work after maternity leave, I haven't had a chance to make these recently, so alas...no photos. Will remedy that in the future.

Like most things, selection of ingredients is important. I use King Arthur High Gluten Flour (although their Bread Flour works well too if that's easier for you to get) and Bob's Red Mill dark rye flour. The high gluten flour helps get that wonderfully chewy mouthfeel you want from a bagel. Dark rye flour is the rye equivalent of whole wheat flour, be sure to get this and not regular rye flour. I use Hershey's Dutch Processed Cocoa, Grandma's Molasses, and Eden's Malt Syrup, although likely other quality brands will be just fine. Be sure to source your caraway to get fresh seeds- grocery store seeds may not be your best choice here. Some prefer fennel to caraway in their pumpernickel, and if you do, feel free to substitute.

Ingredients

• 15 oz high gluten or bread flour
• 5 oz dark rye flour
• 1.5 tsp table salt
• 1 TBS cocoa
• 2 TBS molasses
• 1 TBS malt syrup
• 2 tsp caraway seeds
• 1 TBS yeast
• 10 oz water
• 2 quarts water
• 2 TBS malt syrup
• 1 TBS baking soda

Method

• Put everything in your stand mixer's bowl and using the dough hook start on stir to incorporate and then mix on low speed for ten minutes. Dough will be stiff and not sticky. If you think it looks a little too wet or a little dry, let it knead for a few minutes before trying to "balance it" with a tsp of water or a tbs of flour.
• Transfer to a large bowl, lightly greased with a oil. Let rise for 90 minutes, until puffy. It won't "double" though.
• Remove dough to a board, and divide into 8 pieces. I like to use a scale for this so the bagels are a consistent size.
• Roll each portion into a smooth ball by cupping your hand over the portion and rapidly rolling in a circular motion. The dough is not sticky, and you may need to pinch the bottom together once or twice and use a little pressure while cupping and circling. Do not flour or oil board while doing this.
• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• Meanwhile, bring the 2 quarts of water, 2 TBS malt syrup and 1 TBS baking soda to a boil in a wide pan (I use a 4 qt straight sided saute pan, but a large dutch oven would work well too)
• To form each bagel- using the heel of your hand, press down on puffy ball of dough to flatten, poke hole in center, spin around finger/stretch out the hole so that the hole is about 1.5" in diameter. The bagel hole will get smaller when you boil, so make it bigger than you think a standard bagel hole should be. (Note, this is not traditional. Making a rope and rolling it into a loop is. However, I found that method to to not work super well for me, and this forming method was easier and resulted in intact bagels. Sometimes the rope method resulted in bagels that "unraveled" when boiling.)
• Doing 3 or 4 bagels at a time, depending on the size of your pan, drop them into the boiling water bath. Do 2 minutes on the first side, flip, and then do 1 minute on the second side. I find that using chopsticks is the best for flipping and moving the bagels around.
• Place onto a silicone mat or parchment paper lined sheet pan. You will need two pans, 4 bagels per pan.
• Bake at 425 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Be careful to not overbake, as it is hard to "see" a tell tale "baked" color on these from the cocoa and molasses. If they've been baking for 20 minutes and there is no moisture in the center of the bagel's hole, then it is done. If it still seems damp in the center, go for another couple minutes.

Although bagels are best eaten fresh, if you aren't making these for a crowd, and have leftovers, I recommend slicing them and freezing them. That way you can pop them straight from the freezer into the toaster. And a great tip for packing in a lunch bag- if you spread cream cheese on a frozen bagel in the morning, by lunch time, the bagel is thawed and the cream cheese is still cool!

And if you want to abbreviate the time to make these, say for Christmas morning or a family brunch, the initial rise can be done overnight in the fridge. Take the dough out in the morning, let warm a bit at room temperature for 30 minutes, form and let rise second time, boil and bake.

Jam Crostata

Sometimes you need an elegant, but sturdy dessert. Usually those two words wouldn't go together, and yet that's what I was looking for. Something a little more special than cookies, but not as fussy as a cake, and certainly not requiring decorating. A dessert that wouldn't fall apart if looked at cross-eyed. For a few years, I had been making a jam crostata that was delicious and everyone loved, but like most of my cooking today it needed streamlining- two rests in the fridge and rolling and measuring and cutting of the pastry is just NOT in my timetable these days. So, I had some rules going in working on this recipe. It had to come together in the amount of time it took to preheat the oven. It required no rest in the fridge, no rolling out or cutting out of the pastry, and above all- it had to look beautiful and not be fragile. Yes, it requires a piece of equipment you may not have, but a false bottom tart pan is a wonderful addition to your kitchen and won't put you out more than about 10 bucks.

This tart is easy to put together (you can even feed a toddler dinner while you bring it together...seriously, I've done it!). Sturdy enough to eat out of hand, but also with a fork on a lovely plate. Sturdy enough to transport. And yet, with minimal effort, elegant and special, fancy but not fussy. And since it uses jam, you can make this anytime of year.

You do have some decisions to make around flavors. Raspberry pistachio is what I have pictured here, because I have lots of raspberry jam, and we can't get enough of pistachios. My favorite combination though is apricot pistachio. But try strawberry hazelnut, or blueberry walnut, or peach almond. To thin out the jam a little, use what fits for your flavor profile- a complementary liqueur, lemon or lime or orange juice, or even water if you don't have something that will fit. In the pastry, known in Italian as a Pasta Frolla, add extract and/or citrus zest to also fit your flavor profile. Although at the bare minimum and regardless of other flavors, be sure to add the vanilla extract. And if only adding vanilla, then double the amount. Although special extracts or liqueur will amp up the flavors in this- if you start with good butter and good jam, you'll be all set.

Ingredients

• 1 cup + 2 TBS flour (5.75 ounces)
• 1/4 cup sugar (1.75 ounces sugar)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 TBS unsalted butter, cold, cut into 6 chunks
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond or other extract (optional)
• 1 tsp citrus zest (optional)
• 1 cup jam
• 1 TBS liqueur, citrus juice or water (i.e. Amaretto, Frangelico, lemon juice)
• 1/2 cup nuts, roughly 

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• In food processor, buzz flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to together with a couple pulses.
• Add butter pieces, and buzz, using 9 or 10 pulses, until crumbly
• In a small liquid measuring cup, beat together egg, extract(s) and zests.
• With motor running, pour liquid into food processor, until incorporated, but do not let it become a ball. Do not over-process.
• Remove pastry from food processor and dump into tart pan. Remove 1/3 cup of pastry and set aside.
• Press pastry into tart pan evenly.
• Combine jam with 1 TBS liquid of choice
• Spread jam onto pastry in tart pan
• Sprinkle top with reserved pastry, crumbled, and the roughly chopped nuts. (see below for photo before baking)
• Bake crostata for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Let cool completely, then remove outer ring from pan, and cut into wedges.

Grilled Lamb Chops with Broken Olive Tapenade

Every year my mother and I split a whole lamb from Brookfield Farm in Walpole, NH. We divvy up the various packages of chops and ground lamb. She keep both legs for Easter, and I get both racks, because one rack is perfect dinner for two. Honestly, I really do get the better end of this bargain, because I am of course at Easter enjoying the roast legs! Although since I do my own frenching of the racks, there is just a little bit of extra labor in involved there. But the chops may be the best part. I enjoy the simplicity of cooking some up for simple, but crazy tasty dinners. For blade or shoulder and round bone chops- I usually braise those. But loin chops were made for fast grilling, and the wonderful flavor of lamb turns a quick grilling night into a special meal quite quickly.

So here's a great recipe to kick off spring grilling in a fancy way. You can make the tapenade in advance. You can also set the chops to marinating early in the day, well before grilling. And honestly, even though at least a couple hours in the marinade is nice- it's not going to ruin the dish if you're only putting the chops in the marinade while your charcoal gets going and you're chopping olives. This is a pretty forgiving dish, except for the actual grilling, when you need to pay attention and be swift.

For the tapenade, be sure to choose a sturdy, but not too woody green olive. I used castelvetranos, but picholines or manzanillas would also be great choices. It's called a "broken" olive tapenade, because the olives are chopped, but not pulverized into a paste like more common tapenades. You may think jarred olives aren't as flavorful as the ones you can get at your local store's olive bar. I buy olives in plastic tubs from the refrigerator section, from olive bars and in jars. Depending on the brand and store you're at, it can be a toss up as to what's best. I keep jarred Pastene brand olives in my pantry and fridge, because it's nice to have them around for quick dinners or emergency snacks for unexpected guests. If you have some leftover tapenade- it's great in a grilled cheese!

Serves 4 

Ingredients

For the lamb and marinade 

• 8-12 loin chops total (about 3 pounds)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• few sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• lots of freshly ground black pepper

For the Broken Olive Tapenade

• 1/2 cup chopped green olives
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• pinch red pepper flake
• 2-3 TBS parsley, minced
• 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp fresh thyme, finely minced
  
  

Instructions

• Combine lamb chops and marinade ingredients in a baking dish. Let sit at room temperature for up to an hour before grilling, or refrigerate overnight, taking out of the fridge an hour before grilling.
• Combine all tapenade ingredients. Set aside.
• Prepare your grill for direct cooking, building a medium hot fire, or setting your gas grill to medium-high.
• Oil grill gates, then grill chops for 3-5 minutes a side, until reaching an internal temperature of about 120 degrees. This will give you medium-rare chops, which is the ideal temperature for lamb loin chops. You can cook them longer if you prefer, but they will be a little tough.
• Serve chops with tapenade and enjoy!

Smoked Salmon (Lox)

Last Christmas was to be our first one as a family of three waking up in our home on Christmas morning. We spent a great deal of time planning the day's menu, which starred a rabbit guazzetto upon polenta studded with taleggio for Christmas dinner. But the Christmas breakfast was to consist of homemade seeded rye bagels with smoked salmon that we would cure and smoke ourselves.

You see, last spring, Matt built a cold-smoker. I laughed at him when he explained the contraption he was rigging up using a Weber Smokey Joe and a bargain-basement domed smoker and a dryer vent tube. In fact, I laughed a lot. That was wrong of me. Very wrong. For the grand total of about $20 in parts, we had a cold smoker. Throughout the spring, summer and fall, Matt smoked cheeses, nuts, and lots of grains for brewing beer. As the weather became colder, we turned our eyes to cold smoking some salmon for our Christmas breakfast spread.

First some terminology clarification was in order when I started my research. Lox (often called Nova Lox), Gravlax, Smoked Salmon- what's the difference? Lox and Gravlax are both cured salmon. The Swedes do Gravlax with a particular spicing including juniper berries and dill and is unsmoked. Lox is cured, then cold-smoked. You can hot-smoke salmon of course, but you will get an entirely different product that way- it's cooked salmon with the wonderful smoky flavor of your hardwood of choice- but is not particularly well suited for application upon a bagel.

After researching the bejesus out of various lox recipes, some that called for ridiculous processes and precious little salt (curing is preserving here folks, you need more than a 1/4 cup of salt for a pound of salmon!)...I called my best friend and chef genius Kiran. His advice, combined with my real-life-not-a-commercial-kitchen-with-a-prep-cook-situation (I do have a drunk monkey toddler wandering through my kitchen on the regular) along with what I had already learned from my weeks of recipe scouring created the process and recipe I offer here.

Is it traditional? No, not really.

Does it take 3 days? Yes, but you're not really actively doing much to it. (Don't be deterred by the many steps listed below, I've been thorough in describing the steps, but nothing is terribly complicated)

Is it ridiculously scrumptious, silky, properly seasoned, and worthy of a holiday breakfast or brunch? You bet your bippy it is.

It should go without saying that the better quality salmon you start with, the better quality lox you will end up with. It should perhaps also go without saying, that you also want quality fish for safety reasons. Also, for food safety, you should only cold smoke fish if you can maintain an ambient temperature of below freezing. Which although it is April in New England- we're still able to achieve that by smoking at night. This will probably (hopefully?!) be the last cold smoke of fish until next fall for us.

***No cold smoker, weather already too warm even at night to cold smoke fish, or don't want to wait until next winter? Follow recipe up through rinsing and drying step and then let sit in fridge for about a day before slicing and eating. Will still be very tasty!***

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS fennel seed
• 3 whole star anise
• 1.5 TBS cumin seed
• 1/2 TBS black peppercorns
• 2 pounds kosher salt
• 1 pound granulated white sugar
• 2 pound filet of salmon (you will want to buy a filet that weighs a 1/4-1/2 pound over 2 pounds, because you will trim off the side to make a more uniform piece- see photo below- I use the trimmed piece to make salmon cakes)

Instructions:

• Place fennel seed, star anise, cumin seed and peppercorns in a coffee grinder and buzz a few times into seeds are cracked and broken up, but do not grind too much. You want bits and pieces, not powder. You can also do this st with a mortar and pestle, it's just much faster with a grinder.
• In a large bowl combine the broken/cracked spices, salt and sugar and mix well.
• Lay out your salmon filet on the board and trim away the side piece that fans out, so you have a filet of more uniform thickness all around, a solid rectangle.
  

• Prepare a half sheet pan in the following way:
• Lay out one long piece of plastic wrap lengthwise, and two pieces of plastic wrap going the other way, making a sling.
• Lay a rectangle of parchment paper atop plastic wrap sling.
• Pour a bed of the salt mixture (more than a third, less than half) on parchment paper.
• Place salmon filet, skin side down on salt mixture.
  

• Pour remaining salt mixture atop salmon, covering evenly.
  

• Tightly pull plastic wrap sling around the salt covered filet, first one way then the other
• Wrap two more pieces of plastic wrap, one each way, again pulling tightly. Place salmon back onto sheet pan, skin side/parchment side down.
  

• Place a second sheet pan atop the tightly wrapped salmon, placing weight atop the second sheet pan, and place whole contraption in fridge. (I used a few cans of tomatoes and a stoneware baker as weights, but anything heavy that distributes weight evenly over whole filet will do.)
  

• 24 hours later, flip salmon over, replace weights
• 24 hours later again (total 48 hours of curing), open package up over sheet pan for easy clean up and remove salmon from cure. The salmon will have shrunken some, and be very firm to the touch.
• Under cold water, gently rinse salt mixture away from salmon's flesh and skin (there will likely be a few pieces of the cracked spices that are very much adhered to the salmon's flesh, that's ok).
• Thoroughly dry salmon with paper towels. If ready to smoke, proceed with smoking instructions below. If you are not smoking the salmon at all or not smoking for a few hours, place salmon on a rack set into a pan, cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for a few hours until fully dry, flesh will be a touch tacky. Then seal in a ziplock bag. Proceed with smoking instructions below or consume within a few days, or cut filet up into smaller pieces and freeze, well wrapped.
  

• Prepare your cold smoker using a fruitwood, like apple or cherry. 
• Cold smoke salmon for 90 minutes. (photo of salmon on smoker without lid for illustrative purposes only- you need the lid on through the smoking process!)
• Place salmon in a ziplock bag or two (the smoke aroma will be intense at first, and you don't want your whole fridge to smell smoky). 
• Allow salmon to rest for a day to let smoke mellow.
• Slice and eat within a week, or freeze in small portions. Thaw in fridge overnight. I like to freeze in 4 ounce portions, unsliced, to maintain texture. 4 ounces is generally enough to cover two bagels.

***Slicing tips: Use a carving knife, with a very sharp edge. With knife at an angle almost parallel to salmon, slice slowly with a back and forth motion to remove paper-thin slices.

Beef Stew/Ragu with Pickles and Sausage

Last winter, our go-to stew was a delicate veal stew with mushrooms and sage, which paired nicely with our delicate winter.  This winter, in expectation of a more "New England" winter, our go-to stew will be this one with a touch of smokiness from bacon fat, a sweet and sour component from pickles and capers, and a finish of red wine vinegar to give just the right amount of brightness and a little tang.

For the pickles, I use golden glow, which my mom makes. If you don't pickle, look in speciality sections for this old fashioned style of pickles, which is peeled cucumber, red and green bell peppers, onions, and has a sweet and sour flavor.  You could I presume use cornichons or dill pickles, but you will miss out on the sweetness the golden glow adds.  The other key ingredient here is herbs de Provence, which although there is only a 1/2 tsp, adds a powerful herbal note in support of the other strong flavors. I like Penzeys, but as long as your blend is not powdered from age, any high quality blend will work here. There are various ways to make your own herbs de Provence blend, but if you keep dried marjoram or savory as standards in your pantry, you probably have herbs de Provence too.

Be sure to plan ahead to simmer the dish for at least an hour and a half, preferably two hours, so that the beef becomes suitably tender.  Unlike some stews that have large chunks of vegetables with the chunks of meat, this stew has chunks of beef only, and the rest of the stew is saucy.   In this way, I guess you could call this a ragu.  But who cares, it tastes good no matter what you call it. The first couple times I made this, I used standard sized stewing chunks, which are about 2 or 3 inch hunks of beef.  I've decided that the only utensils you want here are a fork and a piece of bread, so I cut the beef chunks into generous 1" pieces, that can fit on a fork.

If you don't have bacon fat, just use olive oil.  However, if you don't have bacon fat, I must ask....why???? Next time you make bacon, drain off the fat and keep in a glass jar with a tight lid in the fridge.  You can add new fat to the same jar, scooping out what you need.  Great for dishes that would benefit from an extra smoky boost, like this one!

As with most stews...even better the next day.

Ingredients

• 3 TBS bacon fat
• 4 ounces of sweet italian sausage, removed from casing
• 2 pounds beef stew meat, like chuck, cut into generous 1" chunks
• Flour, for dredging
• 1 medium onion (about 1 cup), chopped
• 1 medium carrot (about 2/3 cup), finely chopped
• 1 large stalk celery (about 2/3 cup), finely chopped
• 1/3 cup golden glow pickles, drained and finely chopped
• 2 TBS capers, drained and well rinsed, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves (about 2 tsp) minced
• 1/2 tsp dried herbs de Provence
• 2/3 cup red wine (like a young pinot noir or chianti)
• One 28 oz can crushed tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
• 1-2 TBS red wine vinegar

Process

• Heat bacon fat over medium heat in a large dutch oven.
• Add sausage to pan, and cook until lightly brown, breaking up into small pieces with wooden spoon as it cooks.  Using a slotted spoon, remove sausage from pan and set aside.
• Raise heat to medium high, and working in batches to allow room from deep browning, cook the beef. Just before placing in pan, dredge beef chunks in flour, shaking off excess. (do not dredge beef chunks until just before placing in pan, or the flour will soak in, and you won't get a good crust)
• As each batch of beef browns, remove from pan and set aside with sausage.  If your pan gets too dry in subsequent batches or before the next step, add more bacon fat or a splash of olive oil, and allow to heat before continuing.
• Ensure there is at least a TBS of fat in the pan, and then add onion to pan and lower heat to medium. 
• Cook onion for a about 5 minutes, until softened.
• Add carrot, celery, pickles, capers, garlic and herbs de Provence, cook stirring regularly for about 5 minutes, until vegetables are softened
• Add red wine, raise heat to medium high, and simmer the wine, deglazing the pan.  Simmer for 1 minute
• Add tomatoes, rinse can with water and add half a can's worth of water.
• Return beef and sausage to pan, stir to submerge into sauce.
• Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and simmer for 1.5-2 hours.
• When beef is tender and sauce thickened, remove from heat, and stir in 1 to 2 TBS red wine vinegar.
• Serve with bread or over pasta.

Juicy Relish and Piquillo Pepper Turkey Burgers

Sometimes I plan out meals for days or weeks in advance.  I research and compile recipes for a similar dish, compare options, look at the variables, and do a mini-critique of the best approach.  And then somedays I come home from work and Matt says he's hungry and wants to grill as soon as possible and I throw something together from what was on sale at the store, instinct and what's in the fridge...and voila, something irresistible and worth repeating emerges.

What I picked up the grocery store: gorgeous tomatoes, ground dark turkey meat, burger buns, sharp cheddar

What I had in the house: mom's classic cucumber relish (the sort for hot dogs), jarred piquillo peppers, lettuce from the garden, brown mustard, stale bread

Piquillo peppers are a spanish pepper that is cone-shaped, which you can buy roasted and in a jar.  They can be a touch spicy, but in this burger, they are a background flavor booster, and not noticeably spicy.  If you don't have piquillos, or can't find them, go ahead and substitute regular roasted peppers, jarred or homemade.

The thing about turkey burgers, is that although they are much better for you than beef burgers, they can often be dry when cooked, at no fault to the griller.  Conversely, when raw, the turkey meat is very wet and slippery and doesn't want to form patties easily, even more so once you add some extra wet ingredients to add flavor and maintain moisture after grilling.  My solution is to use fresh bread crumbs.  And yes, fresh matters.  Sure you can do this with panko or with powdery store bought bread crumbs.  But what will work best is bread that is a few days stale and a bit dried out.  Hack it into chunks, toss it into the food processor and buzz for a few minutes until it is small, gravelly, almost, but not quite finely ground.  Any leftover ground bread crumbs can be frozen, and then used straight from the freezer for your next batch of burgers, or any other application for fresh crumbs.

For two burgers:

Mix the following until uniform, but using a light hand.  Add fresh bread crumbs gradually, until you are able to just form patties that hold their shape.  You are not making meatloaf, so you are looking to add the minimum amount of bread crumbs necessary to form the patties.  How much bread crumbs will depend on how wet the meat mixture is, and what type of bread you used to make the crumbs.

• 10 ounces dark turkey meat, ground
• 1.5 TBS relish (drained of excess liquid)
• 1 TBS brown mustard
• 2 finely chopped piquillo peppers (about 2 TBS)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/3 cup- 2/3 cup fresh bread crumbs

Shape into 2 patties about 3/4" thick.

To cook and serve burgers:

• Grate 2 ounces of sharp cheddar
• Prepare your grill to cook at medium heat and oil grates when heated up.
• Grill burgers about 7 minutes a side, after flipping, add an ounce of grated cheddar to each burger, cover grill to help the cheese melt.
• While burgers cook, grill the buns as well to help keep the burger together architecturally 
• Be sure your burger is cooked to an internal temperature of 160-165 degrees
• Serve on toasted buns, with lettuce and generous slices of ripe fresh tomato.

Secret Ingredient Meatballs Simmered in Sauce

Somehow, and I don't know how, but I have never made meatballs for Matt. I've seduced Matt with risottos, braciole, ragu, sausage and peppers, stuffed shells, lasagne, and presented him with a panoply of cured meats and cheeses. But somehow, in over four years of cooking for the man who hasn't met a meat dish he doesn't like, I had overlooked this basic Italian-American workhorse. I don't even have an excuse, for I have the perfect meatball recipe from my mother (which is of course her version of her mother's, with an addition from my dad's mother).  And, as is not only my right, but perhaps a family imperative, I put my spin on the recipe: a secret weapon of flavor and fat by adding in some italian sausage to the mixture.  This amps up the flavor complexity, and the pork fat adds great mouthfeel and unctuousness to the meatballs.

The key to making these meatballs moist and tender, but not falling apart, is to mix the meat mixture thoroughly, but gently.  Here's a general tip: don't knead the meat, but using your fingers, move the mixture around and then lift some up and fold over.  Try not to use the heal of your hand too much, it's all in the fingers.

There are a few ways to cook the meatballs, but by far the best is to pan cook, then simmer in sauce.  When deglazing the pan, use some good wine.  If you have found yourself without wine proper, as I did yesterday, call your mother for advice.  Okay, no really, I called my mom for advice, and her suggestion was to use a small splash of Marsala and couple splashes of dry Vermouth (two fortified wines I keep in the pantry).  Brilliant suggestion, and perhaps what I will do regularly, but if you don't have those, but have some red or maybe white wine, then use that!  We took the meatballs and made meatball subs atop rolls with melted mozzarella...which was heaven.  And now these meatballs will be entered into the regular rotation, a fact that has brought great joy to Matt.

For the meatballs:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/4 pound Italian sausage, casing removed (hot or sweet)
• 1 egg
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• generous 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
• 3/4 tsp dried basil
• 2 pinches dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chicken broth (or water)
• 2/3- 1 cup bread crumbs (fresh homemade are best!)

To make the meatballs:

• In a large bowl, whisk together egg, garlic, parsley, dried herbs, salt and pepper, and broth.
• Add beef and sausage, mixing together gently until sausage is distributed in the beef.
• Start adding the bread crumbs, 1/4 cup first, mixing gently and thoroughly, then adding more until the mixture is malleable, and will hold into a ball when molded.
• Turn mixture out onto a board, divide into four quarters, then divide each quarter into five pieces, rolling each piece into a ball, for a total of 20 meatballs.

For cooking meatballs and the sauce:

• 2 TBS olive oil
• a few splashes of wine
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• scant TBS dried basil
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flake (optional)
• 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)

To cook the meatballs and make sauce:

• In a 5-7 quart dutch oven or other large heavy bottomed pot, heat 1 TBS of the oil over medium heat.
• Add onion, and cook until softened.
• Add garlic, stir for about 30 seconds until fragrant.
• Clear a spot in the pot, and add the basil and red pepper flake, and cook for a minute to bring out flavor.
• Add can of tomatoes, rinse out can, and add half the can's worth of water.
• Bring to a simmer.
• Meanwhile, in a wide skillet, heat the other TBS of oil over medium-high heat. 
• Add the meatballs to the skillet, browning nicely all around.  As the meatballs are browned, sink into the simmering sauce.  Make sure to give the meatballs space in the pan to brown, so they don't steam, but get a good caramelization.  You will need to do this in batches, probably three.
• When meatballs are all browned and placed in sauce, pour off fat from the meatball-cooking pan.
• Keeping the heat where it is, add a few splashes of wine to deglaze the pan.  Pour the deglazing liquid into the sauce.
• Simmer sauce for about an hour, or until sauce is the right consistency (at least 30 minutes to ensure full cooking of meatballs).
• Serve in a sub, over pasta, over polenta, or in a bowl with some bread on the side. 

Fig Jam, Beer-melized Onion and Brie Pizza

What to make with cheese leftover from New Year's Eve, some pantry staples, and some homemade pizza dough in the freezer for a dinner beside the fire pit in the backyard?  A super fun, sweet and salty very awesome pizza.  Every component of this pizza is unique and tasty and necessary.  Feel free to not beermelize, but only caramelize your onions if you don't do beer. But otherwise, substitutions will just get you a totally different sort of pizza.  And don't even think of using dried rosemary for the fresh, it just won't do.  Because we've had such a mild winter, I still have living, green rosemary in my garden, which is a blessing.  But if you don't have a garden with said hardy rosemary...just buy some.  Absolutely worth it.  The pizza dough I make creates a 12" thin crust pizza.  Which is the perfect amount for Matt and I to split for a meal.  If you use a smaller or greater quantity of pizza, adjust the other ingredients accordingly.  I made some fig jam back in December, but a quality store-bought jam made with only figs, sugar and pectin will absolutely suffice.  I removed the rind on the brie because although completely edible and just fine at room temperature, I find that when heated, the rind on brie stays at a not-so-appetizing chewy/hard level.

If you do not have a pizza stone and peel, make this however you would normally make a pizza in your house.  But I highly recommend you look into the awesomeness that is a pizza stone.

Ingredients:

• Pizza dough
• 1/4 cup Fig Jam
• 1 very large onion, sliced thin
• 4 ounces malty beer
• 6 ounces brie, rind removed, sliced and/or cut into pieces
• 1 tsp fresh Rosemary, finely chopped

Process:

• Heat pizza stone in oven at 500 degrees for 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, heat a splash of olive oil over medium-high heat in a sauté pan and add onions and a pinch of salt.  
• Cook onions, stirring occasionally until beginning to turn golden.
• Drop heat to medium-low and continue to cook until onions begin to brown.
• Add beer and cook, simmering over low heat until beer is evaporated.
• Remove onions from pan to help cool to the touch.
• Stretch out pizza dough over cornmeal on a pizza peal.
• Spread out fig jam with your fingers over pizza dough.
• Spread out onions over pizza dough
• Put pizza into oven, and cook until lightly brown.
• Remove pizza, place brie slices around, and return to oven until brie is bubbly and melty.

Braciole

This is my version of my mother's recipe, which is her version of her mother's recipe.  Which means all is right in the world when I make this.  Matt loves this dish, almost more for the sauce than for the little bundles of beef (which are ridiculously tasty on their own by the way).  But you can't make this sauce stand alone- it requires the braciole component and the hour of simmering to achieve its complex, addictive, roll-your-eyes-way-back-in-your-head deliciousness.  If you are new to braciole, it is pronounced [bruh-ZHOLE] (rhymes with pole).  Just like the endless arguments as to what goes in to tortellini, or how to make a Bolognese sauce, there are myriad ways to make braciole, not only from region to region or town to town, but one house, to the one across the street.

Since braciole has so many variants, there is definitely flexibility in this dish.  Don't like the piquantness of Pecorino Romano?  Use some Parmigiano or Grana.  Have a pal, spouse or kiddo who can detect the faintest wisp of the evil "spicy"?  Leave out the red pepper flake.  If you don't do pork or wine in your house, you can omit the pancetta from the braciole filling (which is my addition anyways, not in my grandmother's original), and you can omit the wine in the sauce, but do deglaze the pan with a little water or tomato juice before adding the diced up tomatoes.  Now, you'll wind up with a different tasting dish from mine, but it will be yours and tasty just the same...because making the changes your house likes is exactly what family recipes are good for.

I use San Marzano tomatoes here, worth the extra $ in my opinion for this dish.  In many sauces, I use fire-roasted tomatoes, but that layer of flavor would be lost in this dish (although if you are omitting both the wine and the red pepper flake, then you might want to use them). You can serve the braciole as is for a second course after a soup, light pasta or risotto with minimal sauce, reserving the extra sauce for another purpose; serve the braciole over fettucine or other pasta, but my favorite way to serve this is in a bowl with the sauce, topped with a little cheese and with lots of crusty homemade bread for mopping up the sauce.  If there are only a couple of you in your house, go ahead and make the whole dish.  Makes great leftovers out of the fridge and the freezer.

Serves ~ 6-8

For braciole and paste:

• 2 pounds beef bottom round or top round (ask your butcher to slice it into thin ~ 1/2" slices)
• 2 oz pancetta, cut into chunks
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs (homemade if you have 'em!)
• 4 TBS pecorino romano cheese
• 1 1/2 tsp dried basil
• ~2 TBS olive oil

To assemble:

• Cut slices of beef into pieces the size of a playing card.  Using a meat mallet, pound slices to a thickness, of just under a 1/4"
• Place pancetta and garlic into a mini food processor and buzz until a paste forms. (If you don't have a mini food processor, very finely chop both pancetta and garlic)
• Mix together pancetta, garlic, bread crumbs, cheese and basil.
• Drizzle olive oil into mixture until you get a pasty consistency.
• Put a spoonful of the braciole paste onto a slice of beef.  Roll the beef slice up around the paste, tucking the sides along the way.  If one side of the beef slice is wider than the other end, start at the wider end to facilitate tucking the sides to enclose the paste.  Close each roll with a toothpick if needed.

For sauce:

• 1 TBS olive oil
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• scant TBS of dried basil
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flake
• 1/2 cup red wine (something you would drink)
• 1 28-oz can diced San Marzano tomatoes

To cook braciole and sauce:

• In a wide, deep sauté pan or large dutch oven heat olive oil over medium-high heat.
• Season the beef rolls with a light sprinkling of salt and some grinds of black pepper
• Place rolls into pan and brown deeply on all sides.  Do not crowd the pan, do this in two or three batches if needed, to give the rolls space to brown.  If you didn't use toothpicks, brown the rolls seam side down first, before turning.
• Set beef rolls aside.
• Drain off excess fat from pan, leaving about 1 TBS in pan.
• Drop heat to medium and add onion and garlic.
• Cook onion and garlic until softened.
• Push onion and garlic aside and add basil and red pepper flake, stirring for about a minute.
• Deglaze pan with red wine, and simmer for a few minutes.
• Add tomatoes, and add half a can's worth of water.
• Stir together, return braciole to pan and sink into sauce
• Simmer for about an hour, until braciole are tender and sauce has thickened.

Braciole is even better the next day.   If you can stand the wait, make them one day, and have the next. Reheat over slowly over low heat in a heavy pot.

Asian Pear, Almond and Farro Salad with Sesame Sichuan Pepper Dressing

At Christmas, we received a lovely gift of gorgeous Asian Pears.  Other than peeling and eating as is, I was looking for a fun way to incorporate them into a dish.  It's been such a mild winter, we figured we might as well keep grilling. After perusing Matt's new grill cookbook, we settled on grilling Sichuan-spiced loin lamb chops (we have amazing local lamb in our freezer, having shared a whole lamb with my mom this fall).  Needing a side dish for the chops, I put together this salad, which is tangy, sweet, savory, and refreshing all at once.  Definitely be sure to use canola or another neutral oil in addition to the sesame oil in the dressing.  Sesame oil is so potent if you use all sesame, you won't taste anything else.  Sichuan pepper isn't a pepper at all, but the husk of a teensy tiny fruit.  Buy it whole and grind it yourself, its aroma dissipates quickly.  If you don't have any, you can use fresh ground black pepper or Aleppo pepper, which will alter the flavor a bit, but still be tasty.  I buy slivered almonds already toasted from Trader Joe's, and keep them in the freezer to prevent them going rancid.  They warm up within about 5 minutes, and make a great crunchy addition to the salad.  Don't combine the sriracha with the dressing ingredients, or it will over power it.  Stir in the sriracha at the end.  The amount does not make the salad too spicy, but if spicy isn't an option for your family, you may want to grate some garlic into the dressing and add a squeeze of lime juice to perk up the dish.

This will serve 2-4 people as a side dish.

Ingredients

• 1 cup dry farro
• 1 asian pear, peeled and cored, 1/4" dice
• 1 small stalk celery, thinly sliced, and a few celery heart leaves, chopped
• 2 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
• 2 TBS champagne vinegar (or rice wine vinegar)
• 1 TBS sesame oil
• 3 TBS canola oil
• 1/2 TBS grated shallot
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 1/4 tsp ground Sichuan pepper
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1/2-1 1/2 tsp sriracha or other chili-garlic sauce

Process

• Cook farro as per package instructions (pearled and semi-pearled varieties cook faster), drain and let cool for a few minutes.
• In a small bowl, combine vinegar, oils, shallot, honey, Sichuan pepper and salt and whisk until emulsified.
• Combine farro, asian pear, celery, scallions and almonds in a large bowl and toss together with dressing.
• Stir in sriracha and serve.

Lentil and Sausage Salad

What does a good Italian girl do when there's a Patriots game on at 1:00 on New Year's Day, thus throwing a wrench into the traditional lentil and sausage meal to start the New Year?  Improvise and create a game-friendly-on-the-couch munchie with the necessary components.  You can make this salad without making the game-friendly version, or, with very little extra effort create a single-bite game-friendly munchie that will achieve the goal of lentils and sausage on New Year's Day.  The salad is dressed exquisitely with a gentle, but tasty dressing, and the sausage, whether you use hot or sweet is cooked to minimize greasiness and maximize flavor.  The prep on the lentils may seem onerous, but I have never cooked lentils in a manner other than this that will create tender, buttery and wholly intact lentils (thanks to Cook's Illustrated for the method).  You can do the brining step up two days in advance, refrigerating lentils after draining the brine.

For the Lentils:
Preliminary Brine:

• 1 cup lentils, picked over
• 4 cups warm water (110 degrees)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Cooking:

• 5 garlic cloves, whacked with knife to loosen skin, and peeled
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups chicken stock (homemade or low sodium)
• 2 cups water

To brine:

• Combine lentils, salt and water in a bowl and let sit for an hour.
• Drain

To cook:

• Preheat oven to 325
• Combine lentils, garlic, bay leaf, water and chicken stock in a small dutch oven or medium sauce pan.  Cover and place in the oven for 40-60 minutes, until lentils are tender.  Drain and toss with dressing and vegetables immediately.
• While lentils are cooking, sauté carrots and onions in a little olive oil until softened.  Toss with dressing and drained lentils.

For dressing:

• 1 TBS balsamic vinegar
• 2 tsp whole grain mustard
• 1 TBS grated shallot
• pinch kosher salt
• few grinds black pepper
• 1/4 extra virgin olive oil

For sausages:

• 1/2 pound sausage links, hot or sweet
• 1/2 cup beer

To cook sausages:

• Prick sausages all over with a fork and place in a pan with beer and cover.  Heat over medium heat until simmering, and simmer for about 10 minutes.
• Drain sausage of all liquid and fat, place back in pan over medium heat and brown slightly on both sides until cooked through, about 5 minutes total.

To finish as one-bite munchies:

• Fill pre-baked phyllo cups (available in freezer section of grocery store) with a TBS of lentil salad.
• Top each cup with a 1/4" disk of sausage
• Heat in a 350 oven for about 5 minutes and then serve.

To finish as a salad and/or with leftovers from one-bite munchies:

• Chop sausage into bite-sized pieces and toss with lentil salad.

Serve warm or room temperature.  If you have fresh thyme or tarragon, chop up a TBS or so and add, but the salad will be just as tasty without.  Will make great leftovers, stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days.

Shrimp and Garden Salsa Tacos

Walked out to the garden this morning and came back in with a couple handfuls of cherry tomatoes, a small zucchini, and a serrano pepper. After some brief thought, I remembered that I had corn tortillas and cilantro in the fridge, and shrimp in the freezer. I didn't have any great expectations of this dish, figured it is the beginning of many this-is-what-got-out-of-the-garden today meals now that August is here and the garden is pumping out abundance. However, Matt and I inhaled these so quickly I had to be very proactive to get a photo taken! The garden salsa is so simple, it is elegant. The dish altogether is fresh, light and very fast to put together. There's no cheese, no sour cream, no lime juice. And guess what...it doesn't need any of those. I kept thinking there was going to be something missing, but with every bite I took I tasted shrimp and the bounty from my garden. Which is exactly what I wanted this dish to be.

Makes 2 servings of 3 tacos each.

To make Garden Salsa, toss together following and let sit for 5 minutes:

• 10-15 cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, grape tomatoes or combo, sliced in halves and/or quarters
• half a medium/small zucchini, soft center and seed removed, roughly diced
• half a serrano pepper, stemmed and seeded, minced
• 1 TBS chopped cilantro
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• few grinds of fresh black pepper

Ingredients for Shrimp Tacos:

• 12 oz. raw, shelled and deveined 31-40 count (medium) shrimp
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 2 whole cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 tsp chopped fresh oregano or 1/4 tsp dried
• 1/4 tsp Aleppo Pepper (or smoked paprika, or red hot pepper flake)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• a few grinds of fresh black pepper
• 6 corn tortillas

Process:

• Heat olive oil over medium-high heat.
• Add garlic, and cook garlic until lightly browned all over, turning as needed, then discard garlic
• Add shrimp all at once.
• Add seasonings.
• Cook over medium heat, turning once or twice for 3 or 4 minutes, or until shrimp are cooked through.
• Using a slotted spoon put shrimp into a bowl.
• Heat tortillas in microwave or regular oven until pliable
• Serve shrimp and garden salsa in tortillas

Vindaloo Lamb and Farro Salad

I picked up some Vindaloo Seasoning awhile back and thus far had only used it in some stirfries. I also was in possession of some high quality ground lamb from Brookfield Farm in Walpole, NH thanks to Mom. I was looking for something to do with the ground lamb that wasn't meatballs and wasn't saucy (i.e. requiring one to be at the table with a napkin). The dish I've created here is a one dish meal, something you can eat in comfort on the couch without worry about a mess, or in Matt's case today, munch on while brewing beer.  In terms of this being a dish with a traditional Indian seasoning, this dish is in no way traditional, however I used some classic combinations to piece it together, lamb and farro pair well, as do lamb and mint, and the almonds and golden raisins align nicely with the vindaloo seasoning.  The dish is good for leftovers if heated up slightly (cold ground lamb can get a bit greasy), and this is also super fast.  If you use pearled farro, you can have this dish ready in about 20 minutes.The quantities below create about 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup farro
• olive oil
• 3/4 pound ground lamb, preferably local and sustainable
• 1 TBS Vindaloo Seasoning (I like Penzeys)
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1/2 cup red onion, small dice
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup slivered toasted almonds
• 6-8 leaves of fresh mint, sliced into thin ribbons (aka...chiffonade)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Process

• Cook your farro according to package instructions to a doneness of al dente, adding a teaspoon of salt to the water.  Depending on what sort of farro you have (regular, pearled, semi-pearled), this could take between 15 and 30 minutes of cooking time.
• When farro is cooked, drain and place in a bowl, add a TBS of olive oil and toss.
• Meanwhile, while farro is cooking, brown the ground lamb over medium high heat in a little bit of olive oil.  Half way through browning, mix in the vindaloo seasoning.
• Combine lamb, farro, celery, red onion, golden raisins, almonds, mint and salt and toss well.
• Serve warm, or refrigerate and reheat slowly in microwave before serving.

Pasilla Chile, Pork and Mushroom Tacos

As it seems to be lately...the dishes aren't always the prettiest, but oh the flavor is amazing. Rich, bold, layered with earthy flavor, you'll wonder why you haven't been eating tacos like these for years.  Just enough heat to know you're eating chile-infused pork and mushrooms, but not so much that you can't taste all the other components. Don't forget the sweet onion and cilantro as garnishes, those two touches really bring the dish together. This is not a quick dinner, except that it makes great leftovers which make a super fast meal, so if you invest a little time when you can, you'll be reaping the benefits for a few meals. You can also stop after making the pasilla paste, refrigerate and then continue making the tacos anytime during the next week. I created this recipe by adapting and combining a couple Rick Bayless methods and recipes. This recipe now rivals a beer braised turkey (I subsitute 2 pounds chicken thighs) taco recipe for our favorite tacos.

Recipe makes enough for 12 tacos, serving 4-6 people

For the pasilla paste:

Ingredients

• 12 good-sized garlic cloves, skin on
• 4 ounces dried Pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded and cut open
• 2 tsp Mexican oregano
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Process

• Heat a dry cast iron pan to medium heat, place garlic cloves in pan and dry toast for about 15 or 20 minutes, turning a few times, until soft, fragrant and blackened in spots.  Set aside to cool, remove skins, and roughly chop.
• Using same cast iron, toast chiles a couple seconds per side, pressing down with a potato masher or flat metal spatula, then add to a bowl of hot water.  Continue toasting all chiles until done.  Then let chiles sit in hot water for 30 minutes, and then drain chiles, reserving 2/3 cup of liquid
• Put chiles, garlic, spices and reserved soaking liquid into food processor (or blender).  Process until you get a smooth puree (you'll have to scrape down the sides a few times).
• With a rubber spatula, work puree through a size to remove any bits of skin or seeds.
• At this point, you can continue to make the tacos, or seal the paste in a container and refrigerate up to a week.

For Tacos

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder/butt, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Pasilla Paste from recipe above
• 1 1/4 cups beef broth, low sodium
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
• corn tortillas

For Garnish

• sweet onion, very thinly sliced
• chopped cilantro

Process

• Heat olive oil in deep saute pan or dutch oven over medium high heat.
• Brown pork pieces in 2 or 3 batches so you don't crowd the pan.
• Set aside browned pork.
• Add Pasilla Paste to hot oil, and cook for 5 minutes or so over medium high heat, stirring regularly, until pasilla paste is reduced and thickened.
• Add beef broth and stir in.
• Add mushrooms, pork and cilantro.
• Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until sauce is thickened to a degree where it won't be sloppy in tacos, and the pork is tender.
• Check for seasoning.  Likely you will not need to add salt, but if you used homemade beef broth, you might.
• Serve in corn tortillas with plenty of sweet onion and cilantro.

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that in addition to bacon, some of the other recurring themes are: spicy and cheese.  Lately, our spicy of choice has been sriracha.  These biscuits are drop biscuits, which means no rolling or cutting or anything involved.  All you need is a bowl, measuring utensils and a mixing spoon.  Also, since you cook these atop parchment paper, you don't even have a baking sheet to scrub.

Now, some measurements you'll have to guesstimate.  For example, I've never seen a 2/3 tsp measuring spoon.  What I do is use a heaping 1/2 tsp, and it works just fine.  Although this is baking and usually that means precision, in this recipe you have some wiggle room.  For sour milk, simply measure out regular fresh milk and put in a splash of cider vinegar and let sit while you prepare everything else.  I use gorgonzola crumbles, but any blue cheese will work.  If you aren't a fan of blue cheese, then use an equal amount shredded gruyere, young provolone or young cheddar.  In fact, if you want a simple and deliciously airy cheese biscuit, but aren't a fan of spicy, then just omit the sriracha, everything will be fine.

I usually make 4 biscuits for us two for either a snack or along with soup, and those are the proportions listed first in the recipe.  I've put in parentheses proportions for making (8 -or- 12) biscuits.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour (1 1/2 -or- 2 1/4)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder (1 -or- 1 1/2)
• 2/3 tsp sugar (1 1/3 -or- 2)
• 1/4 tsp baking soda (1/2 -or- 3/4)
• 1/3 tsp salt (2/3 -or- 1)
• 2 TBS cold unsalted butter (4 -or- 6)
• 2 ounces gorgonzola crumbles (4 -or- 6)
• 1/3 cup sour milk (2/3 -or- 1)
• 1 1/2 tsp sriracha (1 TBS -or- 1 1/2 TBS)

Process

• Preheat oven to 450.
• Stir together dry ingredients.
• Cut butter into a few pieces, and using fingers cut the butter into the dry ingredients by smooshing the butter between your fingers and the dry ingredients.  You want to achieve a pebbly texture, where there are still tiny pockets of butter.  It is important that your butter be refrigerator cold when doing this step.
• Stir in cheese
• Whisk sriracha into sour milk, and pour into other ingredients.
• Stir until just incorporated.  
• Drop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet (or two sheets if making 8 or 12) in 4 (or 8 or 12) equal mounds.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nicely browned and golden.
• Cool on a rack for about 3-5 minutes before eating.

Mushroom and Farro Soup

Sounds boring, right?  Just a bowl of brown healthy things. And well, the reason there isn't a photo is that it looks like a bowl of brown healthy things.  This is not a visually stunning soup, and I couldn't get a photo that made it look like anything but brown.  But oh the flavor!  This is a savory, mouthwatering, umami bomb.  And healthy and simple to boot.

This recipe calls for beef stock/broth.  I don't cook enough beef with bones or use beef broth/stock often enough to make cooking it at home a cost-effective measure.  I used Swanson's low sodium beef stock (comes in the tall carton).  I then used a a cup of water to cut it.  However, if you have homemade beef stock that isn't too rich, just add a fourth cup of stock instead of the cup of water.

I used pearled farro, which cooks much faster than regular farro.  But you can use either kind.  If you use regular farro, extend simmering time to about 40 minutes, or what the package suggests for cooking time.

This soup pairs wonderfully with Spicy Blue Cheese Biscuits, the baking time of which is the same as the simmer time on the soup.

This serves four, but you can easily double the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup dried porcini (they will sit loosely in the cup, use about 1/3 of a 1 ounce package)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 onion (size of a baseball), diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 2 fat garlic cloves, minced
• 12 ounces white button mushrooms, rough chopped into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 TBS tomato paste
• 3 cups low sodium beef stock plus 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup pearled farro

Process

• Bring 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup white wine to a boil.  Pour over dried porcini and let sit for at least 30 minutes.
• Melt butter in a 4 quart pot over medium heat.
• Add onion and carrot and saute until onion becomes a little golden.
• Add garlic and cook for about a minute, being careful not to brown it.
• Add chopped button mushrooms, and cook, stirring regularly until most of the liquid is thrown from the mushrooms.
• Meanwhile, drain the porcini mushrooms through a coffee filter (this removes any grit).  Reserve soaking liquid and finely chop the porcini. 
• Push ingredients in pot to sides and add tomato paste into center of pot.  Cook for a few minutes, to caramelize tomato paste, thus adding layers of flavor.  Stir into other ingredients.
• Add beef stock plus water and the reserved soaking liquid from the porcini and bring to a strong simmer.
• Add pearled farro and porcini, and simmer strongly for about 15 minutes.

Chicken with Mustard and Mushrooms

Invented this tonight, and we are two happy happy people having eaten it.  Tangy and uplifting, with a brightness from fresh herbs, but grounded to the earth from the mushrooms...this dish has it all.  It also has flexibility.  Don't have dill?  Use some thyme.  Don't like dark meat? We like chicken thighs, but you can make this with whatever chicken parts you like, although if using breasts, you will likely need to lower the simmer time, and make sure they don't dry out.  You could also cut up a whole chicken and multiply the sauce by 3, and make this for a crowd.  For speed's sake I usually serve dishes like this over a quick cooking pasta (mini farfalle cook in 7 minutes), but you can serve this easily over rice or cous cous or quinoa, or...you see my point.  By cooking a significant amount of mushrooms in the sauce, you also gain a vegetable serving without an extra pan or effort.

The important components to this dish, aside from buying quality chicken from a responsible source, are the choice of mustard, the choice of wine and using fresh herbs to finish the dish.  The mustard I use is one of my favorite go-tos: Raye's Winter Garden.  This is a stone ground brown mustard with dill, garlic and celery.  To echo the dill, I used fresh dill as my finishing herb.  If you use a dijon-style mustard, you might prefer thyme as your finishing herb.  You have lots of flexibility here for flavor profiles.  Also remember the rule about cooking with wine:  If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.  Make sure you pick a dry wine, that you enjoy the taste of.

Serves 2 for a light dinner (easily multiplied, although back off on the water by half when multiplying)

Ingredients

• 2 large or 4 small chicken thighs, bone-in, skin on (or other chicken parts that you like)
• flour
• 1 1/2 TBS olive oil
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, quartered
• 1 large shallot, small dice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 1/2 TBS brown or dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup water
• salt and pepper
• 2 tsp chopped fresh dill (or thyme)

Process

• Dredge chicken thighs in flour, and season with salt and pepper.  Shake off excess flour.
• Heat 1 TBS olive oil in large skillet over medium high heat.
• Place chicken thighs in skillet, skin side down first, and brown deeply on both sides, and then set aside on a plate.
• Add mushrooms to pan and cook until browned and all moisture is thrown off.
• Add 1/2 TBS olive oil and shallot to pan, saute until shallot starts to soften.
• Add wine, mustard and water to pan and scrape up any browned bits.
• Return chicken to pan, skin side up, and bring sauce to a simmer.
• Simmer for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and sauce is reduced and thickened.
• Serve over pasta, sprinkled with fresh dill.

Breakfast Tacos

A few months ago we went out to breakfast at the Penny Cluse in Burlington, VT and I had some delightful breakfast tacos with chorizo.  Matt also talked about how his favorite breakfast used to be a breakfast burrito, so I knew I had to step up and create something to appease us both.  Breakfast tacos are a common dish these days, traditionally made with chorizo and served to staff in many restaurants around the country.  But, chorizo made with good pork isn't cheap, and so not a frequent visitor to my pantry.  But I always have quality bacon!  There's only one slice of bacon per serving here, so this isn't an unhealthy dish.  In fact, two tacos are less than 500 calories, with less than a third of those coming from fat.  There's also lots of dietary fiber and protein.  The reason I know this, is that the dish was so delicious the first time I made it, I saw it becoming a frequent visitor to our table, and I was curious if that would be wise.  A little label reading, research, and math told me we could have this any time we wanted!

The trick to this dish is how to cook the eggs so they are creamy.  No rubbery or crumbly eggs in this house!  Whether you like your eggs on the dry side or the wet side, if you cook them over very very low heat, you will have creamy, fluffy, beautiful eggs.  Eggs are mostly protein and if you cook a protein hot and fast, it will dry out too much and get tough.  You want to cook eggs slowly, stirring regularly.

Although I've been making these for a few months, I hadn't considering blogging the recipe, until my sister asked me if the recipe was on the blog, because she wanted to make them.  However, I didn't make these today, so no picture, but soon!  Meanwhile, Allegra wanted the recipe and so you get it too!  The recipe is easy to double or triple depending on how many people you have.

For two servings- two tacos each

Ingredients

• 2 slices thick cut bacon, cut into bite size pieces
• 3 eggs, beaten together well with a pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh black pepper
• 1/2 can drained and rinsed black beans (or other canned bean)
• 4 taco-sized tortillas (flour or corn)
• 0% greek yogurt
• salsa

Process

• In a small non-stick pan, cook bacon over medium heat until crispy.  Remove from pan and place on a paper towel, leaving rendered fat in pan.
• Lower the heat under the pan to the lowest level possible and add the eggs, stirring slowly and gently, but regularly to scramble the eggs and have them cook evenly.
• Just before the eggs are done, stir in the beans, to heat through.
• Heat the tacos in the microwave or regular oven until pliable.
• Divide egg and bean mixture into tortillas, and sprinkle each one with 1/4 of the crisped bacon.
• Serve with greek yogurt and salsa.

Spiced Lentils with Mushrooms and Chard

The first time I made this dish I was deep in the throws of a nasty head cold, and it was a blessing since it didn't require any fancy knife work, and packed a good punch of sinus-clearing flavor.  The recipe is from last month's Food and Wine, and the first time I made it, since my sense of taste wasn't picking up subtleties, I made the recipe as is.  It was good, and Matt inhaled it (always a good sign!) but today I tweaked the recipe a bit, made it less watery, more focused in flavor by stepping things up a bit, and used white button mushrooms instead of shiitakes, because, well...they taste good and are a heck of a lot cheaper, especially when bought loose.  This dish is insanely healthy, so if you want to eat a ton of it and turn the below recipe into 2 servings, knock yourself out.

Although it may seem like an optional condiment, the sriracha as a finishing touch really brings this dish together with a sweet, puckery spiciness.  The picture is of my serving, so just a few dots of sriracha on mine, but Matt's looked like lattice work, with long lines of sriracha stretching across the bowl.  The only wild card here in terms of how fast the meal is on the table, is how fast your lentils cook, which can vary depending on age.  The older the lentils, the longer they take to cook.  Also, if you have to entertain vegan people and non-vegan people simultaneously, this dish will make everyone happy.  If you aren't entertaining vegan people, toss a poached or fried egg on top to gild the lily.  If you aren't light eaters, definitely add the egg, and some nice bread on the side too.  Maybe a rye with some sharp cheddar along with it...but I digress....

Serves 4 modest meal-sized servings (and makes great leftovers!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup green lentils
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 pound mushrooms (white button, shiitake, crimini or mixture) stems removed, caps sliced 1/4 inch thick
• kosher salt
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 3/4 tsp coriander
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• a few (and then a few again) grinds fresh ground black pepper
• 1 medium bunch chard (green or red or rainbow), stems and ribs removed, cut into ribbons
• Sriracha

Process

• Put lentils and bay leaf in small pot, cover with a couple inches of water.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat very low and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender.  This will take 20 to 40 minutes, so start testing after 20 minutes so you don't overcook them.
• Meanwhile, prep the mushrooms and chard (this is what makes the dish quick, if your lentils cooperate and cook quickly).
• In your widest saute pan with sides, or big pot with a wide bottom, heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
• Add the mushrooms, sprinkle on a couple big pinches of kosher salt, and cook, stirring regularly, until all the liquid is thrown from the mushrooms, and most, but not all liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are tender.
• Add garlic and spices and cook for a minute or so, stirring.
• Add chard ribbons, and stir into mushroom mixture, until wilted. (depending on how big your pan is, you may need to add the chard in handfuls, stir it down, then add another handful and so on).
• Drain lentils, discard bay leaf, and add lentils to chard and mushroom mixture.
• Serve with sriracha at the table.

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic

Are you craving a super silky incredibly flavorful soup?  Something that welcomes you back in from shoveling the driveway from another snowstorm?  Looking for a bright and cheery way to illuminate the long dark days of winter?  I give you:  Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Roasted Garlic.  I love pureed vegetable soups that are healthy, full of intense flavor, and velvety, silky, or creamy (but without any cream!).  Being winter, butternut squash soups are all over food blogs and magazines.  Matt is crazy about sweet potatoes and I had some rosemary and sage leftover from yesterday's veal stew with mushrooms (a Marcella Hazan recipe) and a half a butternut squash from last week's crispy chicken with golden raisin and butternut squash compote from Food and Wine Magazine.  I also still had one quart left of vegetable stock in the freezer, so this was a no-brainer today!

You will need:

• 6-8 garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 2 TBS olive oil or butter (I prefer butter, but olive oil will work, and it is healthier!)
• 2 medium onions, diced (1 1/2 cups)
• 1 pound butternut squash (half of one medium squash), peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 3 small/medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 sprig fresh sage, with two or three leaves
• 1 quart vegetable or chicken stock
• freshly ground black pepper
• kosher salt

What you will do:

• Heat a cast iron or stainless steel skillet over medium heat.
• Place garlic cloves in dry pan and pan roast, turning regularly, until cloves are soft and very fragrant, they will likely get a few black spots.
• Remove garlic cloves from pan and set aside.
• Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed 4 qt pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.
• Add onion and a few pinches of salt, lower heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent.
• Add squash and sweet potato to pot, and sweat over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes
• Add stock, rosemary and sage sprigs.
• Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer soup for about 15 to 25 minutes, or until squash and sweet potato are very tender.
• Remove pot from heat and remove rosemary and sage sprigs, discard.
• Peel roasted garlic, removing any burned parts and tough stems.
• Place garlic and soup into a food processor (you may need to do this in batches if your processor is less than 12 cups capacity, alternatively, use an immersion blender in your pot).
• Process until silky smooth.
• Season with black pepper and salt to taste, a couple grinds and a pinch at a time.