Panininini

I told Dom I would write something for this blog. This is not that something. This is, instead, an important observation to get the ball rolling.

The concept of a panini is brilliant. It’s a delicious sandwich theoretically improved by being toasted. Take the sandwich, smash it between two piping-hot, ridged metal grills. After a few minutes it comes out, cheese perfectly melted, meat perfectly heated, bread all nice with the charred lines, ready to eat, or so you think. You size up the meal in front of you, pick it up, make sure its not too hot, and go in for that first bite. That’s when you realize that the idea of a panini is really the best part of it. That shit is just way too crispy. As you try to chew the delicious innards of the sandwich, the toasted bread fights back, tearing up your gums with its armored carapace of browned carbohydrates. Now, you realize it hurts, but the inside really does taste great, so you grin and bear it and continue to eat it. In the end, your hunger might be satiated, but the roof of your mouth and your gums pay the price, especially when you go for the Listerine later that night.

Now, maybe I don’t floss enough (damn you Dr. Rapavi, if you’d told me flossing would make eating panini fully enjoyable you would have gotten through to me better), or maybe I’m just a pussy, but the next time I go for a panini, I’m going to consider asking for a more flimsy kind of bread, or perhaps finding someone else to chew it for me first.

Likes & Dislikes

Things I Like:

• Kids like Brennan Labrie*, whose charm lies with the fact that they take themselves 100% seriously (see above video). In this vein, if you want to hear the cutest thing ever, have a listen to Scott Simon interviewing him on NPR**.
• The color green
• Curtis Stone. He is my future husband. In celebration of this, become a fan on Facebook, or, alternatively, make some delicious french toast.

Things I Dislike:

• Whaling. And dolphin hunting. And the Japanese government for allowing it. If you’re undecided on the matter, go see The Cove.
• Bono. Bono. Bono.
• People who can’t be bothered to put the toilet paper roll on the toilet paper holder. Number one, it’s just effing lazy. Number two, how much effort does it really take to make the switch– like, none. And number three, if you’re not going to change out the rolls, then why have a toilet paper holder in the first place? Why?

* The kid in the video at the top of the post, dummies.

** Multiple Choice– this kid is, a) one of those weird home schooled kids, b) the most adorable child alive, c) gay, d) all of the above, or e) none of the above

One of my rare soapboxes

My guess is that you probably know to avoid eating beluga caviar and Chilean Sea Bass due to dramatically diminishing fish stocks. You check that your canned Tuna is dolphin-friendly. But, if you’re anything like me, your understanding of seafood sustainability ends there.

Enter Seafood Watch, a seafood advisory list created and maintained by the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. First of all, you should check out the official website just because. It’s super educational, and definitely worth a gander. I, for one, learned that tuna live to be 35 years old and don’t reach sexual maturity until age seven. Nor did I know that since the advent of commercial fishing, the ocean’s fish stocks have been depleted by well over 90%. Woof.

Beyond these interesting facts, just a quick look at the information available allows you to make infinitely more informed decisions about the fish you buy. I mean, come on– who would have known that eating Halibut from the Pacific ocean is totally kosher, while Atlantic halibut (genetically the same species), is not. Who thinks to ask whether your shrimp were caught via trawling or nets? Not me, I can tell you that much.

Now, I’ve never been one to promote hippie shit. I’m sorry but I’d never give up a 3 series for a Prius, and I simply refuse or to end my addiction to ultra-soft, 2 ply toilet paper to save the trees. But really, adhering to Seafood Watch’s guidelines is about as low-effort and high-impact a gesture as you can make. Really.

Seafood Watch allows you to look up virtually any kind of seafood there is and it will tell you the advantages and disadvantages of consuming said fish or mollusk. It gives you alternatives to the species that the guidelines recommend avoiding, and best of all– for us iPhone users– the rules are conveniently available as a free application.

To conclude, I will leave you with this thought: If you are what you eat, then don’t eat Bluefin Tuna. Otherwise you’ll be pretty much extinct. That’s all.

Feel-good flick of the year

If you know me or if you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll know that I love to eat. And that I love to cook. I love to eat, and I love to cook. I do. I really, really do.

This is mind, understand that my appreciation for Julie & Julia (now in theaters, obviously), might be somewhat biased, however, I’m going to go ahead and tell you to go see it anyway– it think that my personal preferences for good cooking aside, the movie is still worth the $8-10 ticket fee. Really, if you don’t come out from the movie theater grinning from ear to ear, 1) I’ll eat my Williams & Sonoma apron, and 2) there’s something deeply and possibly irrevocably wrong with you.

If you’re at all interested in the story behind the movie, have a look at the original Julie/Julia Project— the blog that inspired the book and the subsequent movie, and Julie Powell’s current blog. Finally, have a look at Ms. Powell’s assessment of what the flick got wrong.

And seriously– If you’re having a gross day– go see it. The movie is nothing if not heartwarming.

Summer Tomatoes

I doubt that anyone will argue with me when I make the blanket statement that tomatoes are better now than any other time of year. They’re flavorful, meaty, and come in a rainbow of beautiful colors. And they’re cheap, to boot. You don’t have to go to Whole Foods and pay $4/lb for heirloom tomatoes. You can just nip down to your local farmer’s market and pick up gorgeous local tomatoes for surprisingly reasonable prices. Way to be sustainable, folks.

Anyway, With this in mind, you’ll understand when I say that I don’t like to mess with them too much. I always get this weird Catholic guilt thing when I do… like I’m somehow compromising the integrity of the tomatoes’ natural flavor. So today, I’ve put together a little menu of my favorite summer dishes that really let the tomatoes shine. That, and they’re all really simple to make.

*****

Appetizer: Bruschetta & Crostini

A little tedious/ time-consuming to make but easy nonetheless and always a crowd pleaser.

ingredients for the bruschetta

3 Large ripe tomatoes (Different colors adds a nice visual element)

1/4 c packed basil leaves

1-2 cloves of garlic

2-4 tbs high quality olive oil

sea salt or kosher salt & fresh ground pepper to taste.

1. Cut the tomatoes across their equator and remove the juice and seeds so that only the flesh remains. Tomatoes are fairly meaty this time of year so seeding is easier that it is usually, but this depends also on the variety you’re using. Remove the cores.
2. Chop the tomatoes into 1/4 inch pieces and put them in a large mixing bowl. When you’re finished, drain the excess juices (I find that a mesh sieve works well here).
3. Either mince the garlic or put it through a garlic press. Add it to your chopped tomato bowl. Ad salt, pepper, and olive oil (Tip: You’re going to need a lot of salt to counteract the sweetness of the tomato). Stir together and adjust seasonings as necessary
4. Finally, finely chop the basil leaves and add them to your tomato mixture. (Tip: I have a pretty good technique for chopping broad leafed herbs like basil or mint. I stack the leaves one on top of the other, making sure that the largest leaf is on the bottom. When the pile is complete, I roll it up like a cigar and thinly slice the roll.)

ingredients for the crostini

French or sourdough artisan bread (baguette)

Olive oil

1 clove of garlic, cut lengthwise

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Slice your baguette at a 45 degree angle.
3. Lay the bread flat on a cookie sheet and brush the top with olive oil. Place them in the oven and bake until golden-brown. Depending on the bread you’re using and the thickness of the slice, this will take anywhere from 3-10 minutes.
4. When the crostini are out of the oven, rub the top of each cracker with the garlic clove that you’ve cut in half. Serve with bruschetta (Note: Don’t pre-load your crostini with the bruschetta. It’s a nice thought, but the only thing that ends up happening is that your crackers get really soggy.)

*****

Soup: Gazpacho

Cold soups are one of the most underrated dishes in the world, and I can’t, for the life of me, understand why. There are very few things more refreshing on a disgusting, sticky August day. I’ve been making a ton of it this summer, but I’m not quite sure of the proportions I’ve been using, so I sort of made the recipe up. You should feel free, then to experiment with different mixtures and see what comes out.

ingredients

2-3 medium tomatoes

1-2 bell pepper

1-3 medium cucumbers

1/2-1 large red onion

Smoked Chipotle Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper to taste.

1. Core your tomatoes. Roughly chop your veggies and throw them in either a blender or a food processor. Process them until they are the texture of a fruit smoothie.
2. Adjust vegetable proportions and seasonings to taste.
3. Chill for at least 4 hours, and serve as cold as possible.

For those of you who like a more precise recipe, I tried this Chilled Golden Tomato Bisque out last night– it was awesome. It’s a fairly forgiving recipe too. For example, I swapped the cream for milk, and then threw in some lemon and basil in the mix and it turned out just lovely.

*****

Salad: Tomato Stack

The tomato stack is, in its essentials, a Caprese Salad. I feel like this is just a fun twist on an excellent classic

ingredients

Tomatoes that are roughly equal in size (again, I like to use different colors, but that’s not to say that a beautiful red tomato stack is any less appetizing)

Fresh mozzerella cheese (Log should be about the same diameter as your tomatoes)

Basil leaves

High quality balsamic vinegar & olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

1. Core your tomatoes. Carefully cut them into slices of even thickness. Discard the end pieces.
2. Lay the tomatoes flat and salt and pepper each slice.
3. While the flavor from the seasoning is soaking into the tomatoes, cut the mozzerella so that each slice is about as half as thick as a tomato slice.
4. Create the stacks by piling alternating slices of tomato and mozzerella. I usually keep my stacks between 4 and 6 slices of tomato, and between 3 and 5 slices of cheese.
5. Drizzle each stack with the balsamic and olive oil, keeping the proportion about 2/3 vinegar and 1/3 oil. Garnish with basil (Note: I like to shred my basil like I explained in the bruschetta recipe. It’s really pretty on the salad)

A nice variation on this is to add a little basil pesto sauce instead of fresh basil leaves. This covers the olive oil too. Delicious.

*****

Main Course: Warm Pasta Salad with Tomato and Feta Cheese

This is one of my all time favorites, and it’s a summer staple in my household. My mom might crucify me for sharing the secret with you all, but really it’s too good to keep under wraps.

ingredients

1 lb fusilli or penne pasta

1.5 c feta cheese (cut into 1/2 inch cubes)

3/4-1 c chopped basil leaves

2.5 c diced tomatoes

2-3 cloves of garlic

1/4 c olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the olive oil, garlic, basil, and feta in the bottom of a large pasta bowl. Mix them together and set them aside.
2. Begin to boil your pasta water. Don’t forget to generously salt the water and throw in about 2 tbs of vegetable oil so the noodles don’t stick together.
3. As you’re waiting for your water to boil, begin dicing your tomatoes. When the water is boiling, put the fusilli in to cook, and then put your diced tomatoes in the pasta bowl with the basil-feta mixture.
4. When the pasta is al dente, strain it, dump it into the bowl with the tomatoes and feta and mix together. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy. No, really. Seriously. Enjoy.

Likes & Dislikes

I have a few themed posts around (In case you were wondering…, Words to live by), but I thought of a new thread that I’ve dubbed Likes & Dislikes. I’m going to give you all the benefit of the doubt and explain it no further than that.

Things I Like:

• Celebrities that have real dogs*
• Futurology
• Christian evangelist scandals
• Ben & Jerry’s ice cream**

Things I Dislike:

• Anything with more than four legs***
• Scandinavian words with too many letters and too many consonants in close proximity to each other. (example: begravningsentreprenör = mortician, uppehållstillstånd = housing permit)
• Skin cancer
• Mercedes-Benz

* By real dog, I mean any dog that is not puntable. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Akita weighs in at about 100 lbs and is, all in all, a baller (see photo). Ashley Tisdale’s Maltese weighs in at less than 7 pounds and I could probably kill it by staring at it too hard. I understand that they’re cute and good companions and practical but I’m sorry, if I can dropkick it, it’s not real.

** All flavors except Chunky Monkey. The fact that Ben & Jerry’s would soil the most delicious of all delicious treats with something so filthy and disgusting as a banana is a hideous scar on an otherwise unblemished record of deliciousness.

*** This does not apply to sea-dwelling crustaceans (shrimp, lobster, crab) that are dead and prepared and in or about to be in my mouth.

Brownies to the face.

Now, I don’t happen to like chocolate, nor am I a particularly good baker, but I’ve received reliable intelligence that food genius Nigella Lawson has a fall-on-your-face delicious brownie recipe:

For those of you who really lose their shit over chocolate, try doubling the amount of semi-sweet chocolate chips and lose the white chocolate.

Personally though, I’m a white chocolate fan, so I’ll probably try it as is. Ooooh but I might throw in 1/3 -1/2 cup of walnuts. Yessssss.

If you’re not into watching the process, here’s the recipe in print.

Two questions:

• Have you ever noticed that the seasoning on Cooler Ranch Doritos is so intensely red and green that it looks like Christmas confetti? If not, you should really look into it– it’ll freak you out, man. 

• I would argue that Doritos and gummy* candy are two food items that are delicious by virtue of two factors: flavor and texture. How is it that these two excellent treats become disgusting if you swap one of these components? For example, imagine if gummy candy tasted like Doritos. Gross. Or what if Doritos were cherry flavored? Woof.

*Note: Upon reflection, I believe that this property is apparent in all types of candy, and not just the gummy variety. I cannot imagine a circumstance under which I’d want a Nacho Cheesier flavored after dinner mint.

Classin’ it up.

So as anyone who knows me can attest, I am a food snob. I love high quality food and gourmet cuisine more than old people love Buicks. At the same time, though, it is duly noted that I have an incorrigable affinity for macaroni and cheese. And  I’m not talking fettucini alfredo or conchiglie with a béchamel sauce.

I’m talking really bad macaroni and cheese. Offensively horrible shit like Velveeta, Kraft Deluxe and the Cheesiest. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something just so delightfully simple, satisfying and processed about the whole genre and, honestly, it gets depressing to put consistent effort into cooking for one person. 

As a (mostly) college graduate, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is no longer socially acceptable to make anything that involves cheese sauce from a pouch. So, going completely against my deep seeded hatred of “Semi-Homemade” with Sandra Lee, I’ve been doing something  a little classier than Velveeta, while at the same time maintaining the convenience and ease of the boxed product:

Grab a box of Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar (the other varieties aren’t as good.. I don’t know why, just trust me on this one), a 1/3 cup of plain yogurt (I like nonfat greek strained varieties like FAGE 0% and Oikos), and a tablespoon of milk (I do nonfat here as well). While your shells are cooking, mix the powdered cheese sauce with the yogurt and milk until its well blended. Then when the shells are al dente, strain them, toss them with your sauce, and you have yourself a meal or two. Pie easy. 

Not something I’d ever recommend in the light of day, but honestly, between you and me, it’s awesome. 

In case you were wondering…

The Anatomy of a Great Salad

1. Greens– anything from spinach to a mesclun mixture will work. Just pick out something fresh and crisp and rich in color. Avoid lighter-green, cabbage based lettuces like iceberg as these have little flavor and virtually no nutritional value.
2. Salt– The easiest thing to do here is use cheese- go for hard cheeses like sharp cheddar or parmesan, or crumbly ones like feta, bleu, or chevre. You could also use a meat like prosciutto  or smoked turkey.
3. Sweet– Now this may seem counter-intuitive, but fruit is awesome in a salad. Raw fruit is great, but you can also try sautéing it with 1/2 a tablespoon of butter and a pinch of sea salt – berries, peaches, apples, pears, plums and apricots and melon are all delicious. I wouldn’t recommend bananas, but then again I really, really hate bananas.
4. Crunch– Nuts or croutons work here. If you’re using nuts, put them in a small frying pan and toast them over medium heat for about 2 minutes, or until they become fragrant. The heat helps release a lot of the nuts’ flavor. 
5. Dressing– I  make my own using  2/3 olive or nut oil (never vegetable), 1/3 flavored vinegar (anything but white- I like balsamic, champagne, or tarragon vinegars), salt and pepper. If you’re feeling ambitious, throw in a tablespoon or two of dijon mustard and some minced garlic or shallot. If your feeling lazy, go out and buy any balsamic vinaigrette.

 

Honestly, a salad is about the easiest thing in the world to make. So,  for the benefit of even the most culinarily disinclined individual, I’ve just jotted down a simple formula that guarantees a delicious salad, every time– but, obviously, this isn’t the only way to do it. Many awesome salads are vegetable, and not lettuce, based. They include proteins and two salts and no crunch and are still just as good. The nice thing about my method, though, is that it is flexible to the current contents of your fridge, it takes away the rigidity of a ‘real’ recipe and allows you to be creative, and it is, without fail, always delicious. If you don’t like open-ended directions though, here’s a great recipe from Food & Wine magazine. Otherwise… go enjoy.