Blistered Peppers with Mozzarella and Croutons

Scrappy cooking, or cooking outside the lines, is a fun approach to putting a meal on the table. That’s the style you’ll find in I Dream of Dinner by Ali Slagle. I’ve been cooking through my review copy. The recipes are intended to give “just enough structure to get you to excellent meals, in your kitchen, your way.” They should all require no more than 45 minutes to make and ten or fewer ingredients. What I always enjoy in a cookbook is an offering of alternatives for swapping out ingredients or making little changes, and those suggestions are in abundance throughout the book. The recipes are written to walk you through the entire process of making each dish. So, rather than calling for a pre-prepped ingredient in the list, just the item itself is listed and any prep work is described in the instructions. The goal is to prevent you from seeing a short recipe and not realizing everything in it requires several minutes of attention before you can begin. I just have one little quibble with the way the ingredient lists are written: there are no quantities in the lists. You have to read the recipe to find out how much of each ingredient is needed. But, otherwise, I have been enjoying this “fast and loose way of cooking.” It could be that I have a thing for eggs lately, but I wanted to taste everything in the Eggs chapter. The Fried Egg Salad is a mix of vegetables skewing toward escabeche with lettuce to which chopped fried eggs are added. Alternative routes for this include a romaine salad with olive oil braised chickpeas or a Thai salad among others. I had to try the Crispy Potato, Egg, and Cheese Taco because that combination can do no wrong. Shredded potato was fried in butter in rounds to fit the tortillas; shredded cheese was sprinkled on top; and an egg was cooked on top of the cheese. It was simple and lovely. The Beans chapter is fun too. I have my eye on the Big Beans with Breadcrumbs wherein gigante beans are browned in oil in a hot pan before panko crumbs are added with butter and cooked until they coat the beans which are then served with dressed salad greens. The other chapters include Pasta, Grains, Vegetables, Chicken, Beef Pork and Lamb, and Sea Creatures. I made the Sticky Chicken with Pickled Vegetables, and it’s a delightfully quick and tasty take on teriyaki. Alternatives include making this with tofu or salmon and adding vegetables. I plan to do all those things. The Tomatillo Poached Cod is like a streamlined pozole. I did actually cook dried hominy rather than using canned, but it was still a very approachable dish with great flavor. And, one recipe tip that I will use repeatedly from now on is to add grated zucchini to ground chicken for burgers. The dish I want to tell you more about, though, is Blistered Peppers with Mozzarella and Croutons. 

I had lots of local, sweet peppers in various sizes to use in this dish. The peppers, some chopped and some just stemmed in my case, were cooked in olive oil with garlic, smoked paprika, and red pepper flakes in a Dutch oven in the oven until the peppers were blistered. Next, almonds were chopped and tossed with bread chunks and olive oil. The mix was seasoned with salt and pepper, and it was baked until golden. Some of the excess oil from the peppers was poured over the bread and almonds, and minced garlic and sherry vinegar were added as well. Last, fresh mozzarella was cut into pieces and layered with the peppers, chickpeas, and croutons and almonds on a serving platter. 

This dish was a delightful mix of flavors and textures. And, like all the other recipes, it came with great ideas to repurpose in others. The idea of using warm excess oil from the peppers to dress the croutons and almonds could apply in so many other dishes. And, that’s the intention here. The recipes inspire all sorts of directions for experimentation, and also happen to be delicious just as they are.

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Grilled Pizzas

Last month, we visited Chicago for a couple of days just because it had been years since we'd spent time walking around that city in warm weather. The most important thing I learned while there is that visiting the Art Institute of Chicago on the day after Labor Day is a delight. The museum was empty since the long weekend had just ended. Unlike visiting it around the holidays when you'll be squeezing between many thick, winter coat-clad elbows in every attempt to view a major work of art, you'll have space to move about and view the art from different angles. I was thrilled to have Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte all to myself for several minutes. That was my favorite thing about our Chicago visit. The most important thing Kurt learned during our visit is that you should always go with your first instinct when choosing something from a menu. We had dinner one night at Avec, and he first thought he wanted a flatbread with speck, blue cheese, and arugula, which is a favorite combination of his, but he then changed his mind and went with the pasta. When he saw one flatbread after the next being delivered to other diners, he was green with envy. This is why when I decided to make grilled pizzas a couple of weeks ago, one of them had to include speck, blue cheese, and arugula. I also made a mushroom version and one with sauteed shishito peppers and fresh mozzarella, and I used my new Camp Chef cast iron pizza pan that was provided by CSGrills.com.

There are a couple of tricks to grilling pizza. First, you need to cook both sides of the dough since the intense heat doesn't reach the top side very well. So, the pizza dough is placed on the grill pan, in this case, and cooked for a few minutes, then it's flipped. The second trick is that you need to work quickly so the crust doesn't burn. The cheese should be added to the browned side of the dough first and then the other toppings. By the time all the toppings are in place, the pizza is probably almost done. Therefore, any vegetables that you'd like to have somewhat cooked on the pizza should be cooked before going on as a topping. I sauteed sliced mushrooms and whole shishito peppers before heading to the grill. I also grated, chopped, or sliced all the cheeses I intended to use. Everything should be prepped and in reach. For the mushroom pizza, I used grated quadrello di bufala cheese, for the speck, the cheese was chunks of smokey blue from Rogue Creamery, and the shishito pepper pizza was topped with slices of fresh mozzarella and shards of parmigiano reggiano. The dough for these was made from the recipe in the A16 book which I've made before, and it's easy to make but needs to be started in advance. By starting the dough two days before you plan to use it, and storing it in the refrigerator after mixing and then after folding and turning, it develops great flavor.

Of course, you can grill pizza directly on the grate, but having the cast iron pan made it a little easier. The dough didn't stick at all to the cast iron, and it was very easy to scoop under the crust with a peel for turning the dough and removing finished pizzas. I always love a mushroom pizza especially when it's drizzled with a little truffle oil as this one was, and Kurt was finally able to forget his menu choice regret.

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Toasts Two Ways: Sauteed Mushrooms with Camembert and Harissa, Artichoke, and Mozzarella

I have some extra bread in the house since I’ve been baking from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I started with the pugliese which didn’t turn out quite right. That bread is made from a wet dough and should be very open in structure with a chewy, holey crumb. The process of making the dough went fine, and it came out of the oven looking great. However, when I cut into the first loaf, I was less than thrilled with a somewhat tight crumb lacking those characteristic, gaping holes. Those two loaves went into the freezer for crouton use at a later date. I moved on to ciabatta with poolish. This is the same style of dough, and again, the bread should have been full of holes throughout the interior. Again, it was less than ideal. This time, the flavor was amazing, the texture was moist as it should be, but the structure was wrong. I’ve double- and triple-checked the recipes to be sure I didn’t skip something or do any step out of order, and I’ve concluded I’ll just need to keep practicing. The flavor of the ciabatta saved it from being doomed to the freezer, and I decided to make some cheesy toasts with it to hide the look of the failed crumb.

I received a sample of Normandie Camembert from Ile de France, and thought the earthy notes of the cheese would pair well with mushrooms. So, for the first of two toasts, I sauteed cremini mushrooms with chopped rosemary and scooped them onto slices of my ciabatta that had been toasted under the broiler with a drizzle of olive oil. I added camembert which instantly softened and melted its way around the mushrooms. This was a camembert with character, a red wine kind of cheese, and mushrooms were the right choice to go with it.

The second type of toast is from Donna Hay magazine. I mentioned I had cut several pages from that last issue I read. This toast version was made by schmearing harissa on the toasted bread and then topping it with marinated artichoke quarters and adding fresh mozzarella. Once built, these toasts went back under the broiler so the mozzarella could transform into a deliriously oozy, lovely state. It’s an interesting combination and one I never would have thought to create, but the spicy harissa and marinated artichokes were delicious under the melted cheese. Even if you have perfect bread that can proudly show its face, both of these toppings are worth trying. 

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.

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Nectarine and Tomato Salad with Proscuitto and Buffalo Mozzarella

I waited and waited for perfect tomatoes and juicy, ripe nectarines to arrive and for my own basil to grow. All those things came to be last weekend, and I was able to put together this lovely, summer salad. Once again, this is from the book My Favorite Ingredients. I wasn’t kidding when I said I marked several pages. As you see in the title, this salad is intended to include prosciutto, and Kurt’s portion did indeed have some in it. I don’t eat red meat, so I left it off my plate, but Kurt commented that having a little prosciutto is never a bad thing. For the cheese, I was torn between a very nice buffalo mozzarella and burrata. In the end, I used a little of both in the salads. The tomatoes, nectarines, and cheeses were drizzled with basil oil with garlic, and then everything was dotted with aged balsamic. Just the other day, I brought home an eighteen year aged balsamic from Con’Olio which is a locally-owned olive oil and balsamic vinegar shop with incredible varieties of both, and this was a perfect use for it. This is exactly the kind of dish in which quantities and exact ingredients don’t matter so much, but the quality of each item on the plate is everything.

I’ve made basil oil before, but this version was a little different. The basil wasn’t blanched this time, and the raw leaves were pureed with chopped garlic. Once they were minced, olive oil was added. For the salad, I used nectarines and an heirloom tomato which were simply cut into wedges, and I added yellow cherry tomatoes which were cut in half. The nectarines and tomatoes were tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. The mozzarella and burrata were cut into big pieces and plated, the nectarine and tomatoes were spooned on and around the cheeses, the basil oil was spilled on top of it all, and the aged balsamic was dribbled here and there. I added a few basil leaves, and Kurt’s salad was adorned with prosciutto.

It is really just a caprese salad with added hits of sweet and salty from fruit and cured meat. But, when the ingredients are as good as they can be, it’s a salad that’s perfection. I couldn’t decide which cheese I preferred. Both were excellent with the mix of things on the plate. I did decide that this could be my dinner day in and day out for the rest of the summer.

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Pizza with Roasted Mushrooms and Charred Broccoli Rabe Pesto

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I became friends with the couch again. It had been a while since we’d spent time together, but we caught up and became comfortable pretty quickly. I don’t think I ever got around to napping, but I did read some cookbooks and food magazines and watch some television. As I sat lazily in front of the television one morning, pondering what we should enjoy for food on New Year’s Eve, there was a cooking show on that grabbed my attention. I can’t remember the last time I watched a cooking show and actually wanted to make what the host was making. What I was watching was Alex Guarnaschelli charring broccoli rabe to turn into a chunky pesto with garlic, olive oil, and parmesan. That pesto topped a pizza with cooked mushrooms and sliced, fresh mozzarella, and I liked this idea a lot. Our New Year’s Eve was going to be a simple stay at home affair with fun food like pizza and a couple of other snacks I’ll mention soon, and I immediately decided to steal Alex’s idea for how top our pizzas.

The full recipe found on the FoodNetwork site, involves skillet fried pizza dough. I skipped that step, made pizza dough with whole wheat flour, and baked my pizzas on a stone in a very hot oven. For the pesto, I charred the broccoli rabe in a saute pan with crushed red pepper. When it was tender and browned on the edges, it was transferred to a cutting board and chopped. Then, olive oil was drizzled over it, and minced garlic and grated parmesan were added. Next, sliced crimini mushrooms were sauteed in a small amount of oil. The goal with the mushrooms was to cook them until they were dry. I topped the pizza dough with the pesto, then some sliced mushrooms, and a layer of sliced, fresh mozzarella, and baked it for about 12 minutes. When each pizza came out of the oven, more parmesan was grated on top.

I’m glad I was lazy and sat around watching tv and learned about this pizza. The mushrooms and cheese and chunky pesto combined deliciously on top of the crispy, whole wheat crust. I probably should have chopped my broccoli rabe a little smaller, and I probably wasn’t quite generous enough with the olive oil in the pesto, but that’s ok because I’ll be making this so often I’ll eventually perfect the process. And, what all this really means is that I should start spending more time sitting on the couch.




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Eggplant Salmon

I’m not sure why it worked out this way, but we had a seafood-focused weekend. We had some fantastic sushi at a neighborhood place for lunch on Saturday. We drive by this place all the time, but we’ve only stopped in a few times. We always leave happy, the fish is always the freshest, and it’s always perfectly prepared. Once again, we reminded ourselves we should stop there more often. After a lunch including salmon, tuna, crab, and shrimp, we moved on to mussels and salmon for dinner. It was a perfect food day for me. The eggplant salmon was another dish from Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard. All of the dishes in the Shellfish and Fish chapter are enticing, so I just picked one of the simplest to prepare.

Salmon fillets were cut down the center so as to accommodate a stuffing of eggplant and fresh mozzarella. The Japanese eggplant was first thinly sliced and sauteed with garlic and just a touch of soy sauce. Once cooled, it was tossed with cubed mozzarella and chopped garlic chives. The salmon was filled and then baked until the stuffing had heated through. The components of this were so simple to prepare but so delicious together. The sauce was just as easy. Chopped onion was cooked with chopped tomato. I know what you’re thinking. With eggplant and tomato, this sounds like a summer dish. Fair enough, but we do get pretty good locally, organically, greenhouse-grown tomatoes here, and since it was cooked with the onion for 15 minutes, it worked out fine. For this sauce, canned whole tomatoes would work too. The sauce was supposed to have received some basil after being pureed and strained, but I used a combination of homegrown parsley, thyme, and oregano instead. The tomato sauce was pooled onto the plate and topped with the salmon.

It all worked incredibly well together, but we also soon realized the stuffing would make an excellent vegetarian dish on its own. After filling the salmon, there was extra stuffing which I baked in a small dish. That alone would be lovely served with the tomato sauce. The sauce delivered brightness and incredible flavor considering the very short ingredient list. With the mozzarella melted into the buttery salmon, the tender eggplant made flavorful with garlic and soy sauce, and the smooth tomato sauce, this was a great finale to a seafood day.

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Eggplant Parmesan

The other day, I happened upon some eggplants at the farmers’ market. There were three different varieties all sitting next to each other looking quite fetching. The grower told me that the lighter colored ones were milder in flavor. I couldn’t decide between dark purple, light purple, and striped, so I bought some of each. My plan was to make a big pan of eggplant parmesan, and I turned to the authority on Italian cuisine, Marcella Hazan, for a recipe. There was an article about her and her husband in the New York Times last week, and a book of her memoirs, Amarcord: Marcella Remembers, will be available in October. I’m looking forward to reading it.

In Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, she wrote that eggplant parmesan, although often thought to be an Italian-American creation, is in fact made in many Italian homes. She describes the process of steeping slices of eggplant with salt and draining them in a colander. Once pressed dry, the slices are dredged in just flour and fried. Her sauce is a very simple one with tomato and basil. The fried eggplant, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and an excellent, grated parmigiana reggiano are layered in a pan and then baked.

I had become accustomed to seeing eggplant slices dredged with flour, dipped in egg, then coated with breadcrumbs and fried for eggplant parmesan. That’s a delicious way to bread and fry just about anything. So, I thought a mere walk through flour might be lacking somehow. Actually, it was perfect. The eggplant tasted like eggplant, which is admittedly not a bold flavor, but it was clearer than it would have been with a heavier breading. The simple tomato sauce with fresh basil was also just right. I didn’t measure the cheese very carefully and probably used more than I was supposed to, but I’m like that with cheese. In the end, it was easily the best eggplant parmesan I have tasted. So, once again, simpler was better and trusting an expert like Marcella Hazan is always a good idea.

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