Veggies with Peanut Curry Sauce on Pasta

This is one of our new week night favorites. The sauce and the pasta both take about 7 minutes to cook. Add 5 minutes for slicing vegetables, and you've got one super fast, flavorful dinner in 12 minutes.

For two people: thinly slice half a red pepper, a couple ribs of celery and half of an onion (maybe some broccoli and carrots too if you have them around). Add half a cup of broth to a 1/4 cup of water (or use 3/4 cup water OR 3/4 cup broth). I have half-cup portions of broth frozen in my freezer, so that's how I arrived at the proportions on this. Half a cup of broth was just a little skimpy and a cup too much, so I added a 1/4 cup of water to the broth, and it was perfect. Drop in a TBS and a half of smooth peanut butter, a TBS of red curry paste from a jar, and a couple shakes of cayenne. Whisk briskly until completely smooth.

Put a tiny bit of oil in a large skillet, heat over medium high heat. Toss in the veggies, add a pinch of salt and couple grinds of black pepper cook until crisp-tender, stirring once or twice, about one minute. Pour sauce into pan, stir and let sit, stirring occasionally for five minutes over very low heat.

Serve over pasta and sprinkle with roasted unsalted peanuts. I like to serve it over piccolini farfalle (tiny bows). We were starving last night, so sorry, no picture until next time!

Spicy Garlic Chard with Fried Eggs

This dish is so simple, but depends on the quality of the ingredients to really shine. What you need to make it right are really good eggs and really good bread. If you don't have a source for eggs from chickens that run around your mother's yard like I do, at least buy some cage-free eggs, preferably even organic. Next, you need some wonderfully crusty bread with a silky, chewy interior (Like Iggy's or Orchard Hill Bread). Full ingredient list is: garlic, dried chili peppers, olive oil, chard, eggs, bread, salt and pepper. I like red chard or rainbow chard, but green chard works just as well, although not as pretty. I started making this after asking my mom for ideas to use some chard, and she suggested this family recipe going back a couple generations to my farming great-grandparents. I've modified the spicy part to fit my pantry and personal taste..

Here's how to make it for two people. Use a large skillet, and cover bottom with olive oil. Drop 2 tien tsin peppers or 3-4 arbol peppers in the oil and heat over medium heat until peppers darken. Discard peppers. Add to oil one large clove of garlic, minced. Shake pan for a minute or so, but do not let garlic brown too much. Next, add in about a half dozen large stalks of chard, the leaves chopped into wide ribbons, the stalks thinly sliced, so it will all cook evenly. Turn the chard in the oil and garlic with tongs, and stir occasionally over medium-low heat until wilted down and tender, while doing this, sprinkle in a pinch or two of salt. When chard is almost completely tender, push the chard to the outer sides of the pan into a ring. Add a little more olive oil, so that the eggs don't stick (skip this if using a nonstick pan). Have two eggs in one cup and two eggs in another cup. Simultaneously, pour the eggs into the pan so the eggs land evenly in the center of the pan. Drop heat to low and cook to until whites are set, but the yolks are still runny. Divide pan down the middle and slide onto two plates. Sprinkle a little salt atop eggs, add some fresh ground black pepper and serve with the good bread.

This recipe uses about half a bunch of chard by grocery store standards. Use the other half in this soup.

Tomato Salad with Bariani Olive Oil and Maine Sea Salt

A satisfying Sunday afternoon refresher. Perfectly red vine-ripened tomato. Unctuous, peppery olive oil. Crunchy salt. Bright and strong basil.

As delightful as a tomato at the pinnacle of ripeness is, especially with the addition of grown-by-Matt-in-the-windowsill basil, what makes this salad/snack shine is the proper selection of the olive oil and the salt. Options abound. I want to share with you my choices:

Bariani Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Maine Sea Salt. The Bariani, I get at the Walpole Grocery at Burdick's in Walpole, NH. The Maine Sea Salt I picked up in a random shop in Bar Harbor, ME. But both can be ordered online.

If you're looking for a special olive oil, the Bariani is great for any raw olive oil application, from drizzling on vegetables or blending with a vinegar or lemon juice for salad dressings. I would never use this olive oil in cooked applications, because it is too expensive to allow heat to kill its nuances.

Until I started using the Maine Sea Salt, I thought that a good kosher salt would suit my needs anytime. The Maine Sea Salt has a delightful crunchiness, and the flavor has a clean saltiness, like breathing in the salt air on a clear day on the Maine coast. I use the Maine Sea Salt on vegetables and fruit, and raw salads of all sorts. I wouldn't put into pasta water or bake with it, for it is too crunchy and too distinctive to work in dishes like that.

Enjoy!

Shrimp and Pea Risotto

Another freezer/pantry dinner satisfying beyond the expectations of its humble origins. The peas and shrimp give this dish a freshness and a sweetness, that it feels impossible that the only item requiring recent purchase is the parsley. And if I didn't have the parsley already in the fridge and wasn't going to the store, I'd leave out the parsley in a second.

For two people~

From the freezer: 4 cups lobster stock (from the shells of our lobster rolls last week), 18 raw medium shrimp, 1/2 cup peas

From the pantry: 3/4 cup carnaroli rice, half a medium onion, 1 TBS olive oil

From the fridge: 1/4 cup white wine, 3 TBS butter, 1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano, 2 TBS chopped parsley

If you don't have lobster stock (and really, if you didn't have lobster shells leftover from a lobster dinner....who does?), use a very light chicken or vegetable stock cut with water 1:1. You don't want a strong chicken flavor in this, you want the stock/broth to be very light. Any seafood stock would work too, if you had made some from shrimp shells and/or fish bones.

Also, I use carnaroli rice for my risotti, which can be found in most specialty Italian groceries, but of course arborio, available at the supermarket, is good too.

Bring the lobster stock to a simmer. Shell the shrimp (put shells in the freezer for stock-making in the future). Cook shrimp for about 2 minutes (until pink, curled and tender). Remove shrimp from stock with a slotted spoon. When shrimp are cool, cut into bite-sized pieces. Put lid on lobster stock and turn off heat.

Finely chop the onion. Melt 1 1/2 TBS of butter and the TBS of olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until softened. Add rice and stir around for a few minutes to toast the rice. Add wine, stir and cook until evaporated.

Add a couple ladles of the warm stock. Stirring regularly, when the stock has mostly evaporated, add more, stirring frequently, if not constantly at times. Continue this until the rice is al dente (if running low on stock, add water, bring back to a simmer, then turn off heat again). The process of adding stock and stirring should take about 30 minutes, maybe less, maybe more. When the rice is to your liking, stir in peas, stir for about 30 seconds, until peas have thawed. Turn off heat. Add shrimp, remaining 1 1/2 TBS butter, parmigiano and parsley. Stir until butter is melted into rice and other ingredients well-distributed. Serve immediately.

Cannellini Bean and Chard Soup

This soup is hearty and perfect for cold and gray rainy days. It also is pantry-friendly and tastes like it took much more than only 20 minutes to make. Earlier in the week I made eggs with spicy, garlicky chard (recipe to come!). I had a few stalks of the chard leftover, pancetta and chicken stock in the freezer, a can of cannellini beans in the pantry, and some fresh oregano in the herb pot Matt tends for me on the windowsill. The following recipe makes enough soup for two people when put out with a crusty bread for dipping.

I defrosted 2 cups of chicken broth in the microwave. You can also use broth from a can or box (Swanson's or Imagine are my preferred brands, low sodium on both). Another great thing to keep in the freezer are slices of pancetta. I get about a half dozen 1/4 inch slices at the deli every couple months. I individually plastic wrap each one and put into a bag in the freezer. With a good sharp knife, it is easy to cut the frozen pancetta.

So, small dice a 1/4" thick slice of pancetta. In a 3 quart pot, cook the pancetta over medium heat until rendered and crispy. Using a slotted spoon, remove the pancetta and set aside in a small bowl. Leave the rendered fat in the pot.

Next, add half a medium-small onion, finely chopped. Cook in the pancetta fat over medium heat until softened. Then, add a small clove of garlic, minced. Stir for about 30 seconds, do not let it brown. Pour in two cups of broth and one cup of water. Bring to a simmer.

Take a few leaves of chard off of the stems and ribs and chop the leaves into strips (I like red chard when I can get it, but regular chard would work just as well). If you want you can very, very thinly slice the stems and add those too. Drain and rinse a can of cannellini beans, and divide in half (save the other half in the fridge or freezer to make a quick bean and tuna spread later in the week). Add the half can of beans and chard to the simmering broth. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes, add a few inch sprig's worth of chopped fresh oregano or thyme (no fresh herbs? add a 1/2 tsp of dried oregano or thyme with garlic before adding broth). Season with a few grinds of black pepper. If you used store bought stock, you will not want to add salt. But if you are using homemade chicken broth and like me, keep the salt low for more flexibility in later dishes....you will want to add maybe a 1/2 tsp of salt.

Serve with chewy crusty bread for dipping. Sprinkle the soup with reserved pancetta or freshly grated parmigiano, or both, or neither. If not using either topping, maybe add another 1/2 tsp of salt to the pot before serving.

Obviously the little bit of pancetta doesn't make this a *healthy* soup. But it is a very small amount of cured pork, and the beans and chard are very good for you, as is homemade chicken broth.