Summertime Redux

With Halloween just around the corner, summer is just a memory. Yet today's temperature reached 70 degrees, and our local Stew Leonard's grocery store had lobsters on sale for a mere 3.99 a pound. That meant Chris and I could't resist a little just-like-summer-feast, even though it's the end of October. We bought four lobsters and some end-of-the-season corn on the cob, along with some other Stew specials. We boiled the lobsters and the corn and ate everything up with loads of melted butter. I love fall, but there's nothing like a good lobster dinner. Thanks, Stew!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Our neighbor M, yet another foodie in our lives, moved to Maine earlier this year. On her last visit, she was raving about this pizza joint near her new place that serves Buffalo Chicken Pizza. As she described it, I made a mental note that Chris and I should attempt it sometime. That sometime was last night. We heated the oven to a nice hot 500 degrees and in it, placed our pizza stone. While the (store-bought) dough came to room temp, we grilled up two chicken breasts that we had seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little bit of cayenne. We only did these medium-rare, because we knew they'd be finishing off in the oven and we didn't want the chicken to become overcooked. When it was cool enough, we cut it into bite-sized pieces. In the meantime, in a small saucepan, we put 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, a dash each of black pepper and garlic powder, and 2 tablespoons each of Frank's hot sauce and Trappey's hot sauce. We swirled it around as it melted to ensure it didn't separate; this would serve as our buffalo sauce. Chris worked his magic with the dough and got it onto the hot stone without a hitch. We could see it start to cook immediately and knew this was going to be a rockin' crust. We brushed the top with olive oil, then a thin layer of bleu cheese dressing. We then added the chicken, some shredded mozzarella, and our buffalo sauce for toppings. We put it in the oven for exactly 10 minutes. Since Chris has done such a stellar job seasoning our stone, the dough didn't stick at all. The crust was crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, the chicken was perfectly cooked, the sauce was spicy and the bleu cheese and mozzarella mixed to provide a nice cooling smoothness to the heat of the sauce. We'd pay $15 for it at our local pizza joint too, but why bother, when we can just make it at home!

Restaurant Report Cards

My foodie friend Joanne had a great idea. She suggested that we share a blog the way we share many of our food experiences. We started it today and have uploaded a few posts, a couple of which we took off of A Couple in the Kitchen. To sum up, A Couple in the Kitchen will focus on the culinary adventures of me and my husband, and Restaurant Report Cards will focus on the restaurant experiences of me and Joanne. Bon appetit!

I Heart Duck

I love duck. I've had duck around the globe, from Canard al'Orange in France, to Peking Duck in the Chinatowns of New York and Boston, from Panang Curry Duck in South Windsor, Connecticut to a fabulous grilled Duck in Raspberry Sauce in Rome, Italy.

However, no duck dish has ever come close to the duck I once had at Pho Lemongrass, in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, Massachusetts. Described as "Crispy Boneless Duck" on the menu, it had a little icon of a chili pepper next to it to tell me it's spicy. It is, and it can't be beat. Perfectly cooked to a tender moistness with plenty of reddish brown crispy as in crunches-in-my-mouth skin, it was served over a bed of blanched onion, celery and bell pepper strips in a lemongrass-basil sauce. The jasmine rice, garnished with chopped cilantro, cooled my mouth after each hot bite. If I had been alone in the restaurant, I would have licked the plate.

Last weekend's duck (pictured above) came pretty close, however. Chris and I were enjoying our annual Columbus Day foodie-fest in Providence, Rhode Island, and I'll post more about that soon. Our first night there, we had an amazing dinner at CAV, a unique location that offers an eclectic menu in an artistic atmosphere. I had a duck confit leg that was so tender it was falling off the bone. It was served with a medium-rare sliced duck breast glazed in Grand Marnier, and although glazes tend to take away from the crispiness of duck skin, this one did not. Served with sweet-potatoes mashed with caramelized onions, it was both seasonal and satisfying.

Amy's Crawfish Desire

It’s been a busy week in our house and we haven’t done a whole lot of cooking. But since I was recently blogging about crawfish, I thought I’d share my recipe for Crawfish Desire, something I based on a dish I enjoyed at the several New Orleans Jazz Fests I was lucky enough to attend. I’ve done this with shrimp as well, and it is delicious!

Ingredients:

1 lb. seafood: crawfish (cooked and peeled) and/or shrimp (raw, peeled and deveined)
1 stick butter
1 pint half-and-half
½ cup chopped green onions
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped thyme
Creole seasoning to taste (the more, the spicier, and I prefer Tony Chachere’s)
1 lb. pasta (rotini if you’re being authentic)

Put water on to boil pasta and cook pasta al dente. Melt butter and sauté garlic and green onions until fragrant. Add shrimp and/or crawfish and cook for three minutes. Gradually add half-and-half, then the thyme and creole seasoning, stirring well*. Cook five minutes so that the seafood is cooked through and the sauce becomes thickened. Add cooked pasta and let the dish sit over low heat for five more minutes, stirring often. Serve with crusty French bread, of course!

*It is important to stir often so that the sauce doesn’t break (separate).

GT Express Weekend Quest

It was a rainy weekend and all we had planned was to do some fall cleaning and organizing. My own personal goal was not to leave the house for the entire weekend. With that in mind, on the way home from work Friday night, I bought breakfast supplies – eggs, orange juice, rye bread, etc, while Chris went to our local butcher and got some thickly-sliced bacon. And so on Saturday morning, we were ready to make our decadent hearty breakfast. I decided I wanted an omelette and prepped my kitchen gadget, the GT Express. You've probably seen the informercial on this one. I saw it and started missing my old Foreman Grill, so went ahead and ordered one online. Many negative comments have been posted regarding this appliance, but I like it and have had no problems with it. However, up until this weekend, all I’ve done is make beautiful, fluffy, perfectly shaped omelettes in it; I haven’t tried anything else.

Saturday morning’s omelettes were, as usual, fluffy and delicious. All I did was beat six eggs with ¼ cup of milk, then poured half of the mixture into each well. I put some cheese in mine, Chris did herbs de Provence in his. We let them cook for about 8 minutes and…well…perfection. They popped right out without sticking or breaking. I honestly can’t make a better omelette in a regular pan (and I cooked at a breakfast joint for two years)! After devouring the omelettes (and bacon, and toast, and of course, mimosas, and for Chris – bagels and lox as well), I had an inspiration and a challenge: any food we make this weekend has to be made in the GT Express. And so began our GT Express Weekend Quest.

For dinner Saturday night, we tried pork chops. These were from the same package of chops out of which we made our dinner a few nights ago, so it would be a great way to compare the grill with the GT Express. I stuffed my chop with a little bit of sage and walnut-sage pesto, seasoned it with plenty of salt and pepper, and put it in the left-hand well. Chris stuffed his with an herbed cream cheese and put his in the right-hand well. We let them cook for 10 minutes while I made some homefries on the stovetop. The verdict? Another success from the GT Express. The chops were properly seared on the outside, and on the inside, tender, juicy and cooked to a perfect medium. The wells didn’t stick, and cleanup involved one damp paper towel. So quick and easy! And we didn't even have to stand at the grill in the rain.

The following morning, we decided to make Pillsbury Grands. We did one in each well and shortened the cooking time to 6 minutes. These did stick a little bit and so when we did the next batch, we sprayed a bit of Pam on the wells. That did the trick, and our cinnamon buns were brown on the outside and gooey on the inside, as we like them.

On Sunday night, our final "Express" meal was spaghetti pies. I made a quick batch of meatballs and boiled some spaghetti during the day in preparation. However, when we were ready to eat, we just tossed the pasta in some spaghetti sauce, put a bit in each well, topped it with three meatballs and some cheese (mozzarella and parmesan) each, then a bit more spaghetti on top. We shut the GT and let it do its thing for five minutes. The spaghetti didn’t stick together as well as I thought it would, but it was hot and in some areas, nicely browned. It tasted great, but we both agreed we'd let it cook longer next time. We enjoyed our spaghetti "sort of" pies with Newman's Own Cabernet Sauvignon, and toasted the actor who had died earlier this weekend. Great wine, by the way.

Overall, we had some pretty good meals and great fun using our GT Express, and I can see us using it for more than just eggs in the future.

30-Minute Gourmet - No Rachel Ray Needed

I really don’t like Rachel Ray. I don’t know what it is about her that bugs me. Maybe it’s her perpetual cutesyness - the way she uses words like “stoup” and “sammy” and “yumm-o,” or just the fact that she is everywhere – on t.v., in magazines, in Dunkin’ Donuts ads. But I acknowledge that being able to make a decent meal in 30 minutes is an important thing. So on Tuesday night, Chris and I played “30-minute Gourmet.” Our menu was: grilled center-cut pork chops in a balsamic glaze with smashed potatoes and carrots-and-onions. While Chris chopped the carrots and prepped the grill, I chopped one large shallot and one small onion. I put the onion in a small saucepan with the carrots, and Chris set those going on medium heat with a tablespoon each of butter and sugar and a tight lid. Chris scored the fat on the pork chops while I halved the potatoes and put them in a pot to boil. I put a little bit of olive oil in a small frying pan and added the shallots for the base of my sauce. As the shallots cooked, I seasoned the chops with plenty of salt and pepper. Chris put the chops on a medium/high grill while I added ½ cup of balsamic vinegar and a couple of teaspoons of sugar to the shallots and let it reduce to a syrupy glaze. We let the stovetop and grill do their thing for about five minutes and then flipped the chops. The carrots-and-onions needed a couple of minutes. The potatoes, however, were soft, so I drained them, added some milk, butter, salt and white pepper, and smashed them up. By the time I was done with those, Chris had finished up on the grill, the carrots-and-onions were done, and the glaze was at the perfect consistency. We plated our masterpiece dinner and enjoyed it with a bottle of Syrah. It was a restaurant-worthy meal made in 30 minutes with four hands. It can be done!

Tuscan White Bean Soup

Monday was the first day of Autumn, which is also the first day of my cravings for comfort foods, especially soup. I made a Tuscan White Bean Soup and we had it with a Tuscan loaf I purchased from Price Chopper. The soup was thick and hearty, with plenty of flavor that satisfied my craving and Chris’s hunger. Since I hadn’t planned ahead of time to make it, I cheated a bit by using canned beans, but I was very pleased with my results, and hope you will be too!

Amy’s Tuscan White Bean Soup
Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:
¼ lb. chunk of fatty pancetta, cut into quarters
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 15.5-ounce cans Goya cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
Salt and pepper
3 ½ cups vegetable stock (you can substitute chicken stock or even just water)
Fresh rosemary
Olive oil
Shredded parmesan cheese

Place the pancetta quarters into a pan and render the meat over medium to high heat to produce enough oil in which to sauté the onions and garlic. This should take about 20 minutes, so you can chop your onion and garlic while this is happening.
When pancetta has let out enough oil, discard the meat and add the chopped onion and garlic. Sautee on low heat until onion is translucent and garlic is fragrant.
Add the drained and rinsed beans to the pot, then add plenty of salt to taste. Stir.
Add the liquid (stock or water) and stir well.
Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.
Add one large sprig of fresh rosemary (or 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary leaves) to pot and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
To make a thicker soup, use an immersion blender two or three times in the pot. If you do not have an immersion blender, take a cup of beans out of the soup, mush them up, and add them back in as a thickener.
When ready to serve, swirl some extra-virgin olive oil over the top, add a sprinkle of shredded parmesan cheese, and enjoy with some good bread on the side.

Leftover Crawfish and Shrimp Pasta

So what does one do with leftover crawfish? The first response would be nothing, because there are usually none leftover. However, if there are some leftover, it’s good practice to peel what’s left when you’re done eating since your hands are already dirty anyway. The bonus is that you can usually find room for a couple more if you do that. When you have a pile of crawfish tails, you can keep them for a day or two in the refrigerator if you plan to use them right away, or you can freeze them and use them later. I tend to use them right away, because once I’ve had a taste, I always want more. I like to use them to make a crawfish-shrimp pasta, which is what I did the day after our crawfish boil this summer. I started with a tablespoon of olive oil mixed with a tablespoon of butter that I heated in a large sauté pan. In the meantime I put on a pot of water to boil my pasta – I chose pappardelle this time but would go with something smaller next time. I then did a simple sauté of one small chopped onion, two cloves of garlic (chopped finely), and some fresh cherry tomatoes that I halved. I tossed that around until the onion and garlic seemed done, then I added a pound of raw (peeled/deveined) shrimp and cooked that until the shrimp started to turn pink. I poured in a half cup of white wine, then I added the leftover (already peeled) crawfish and tossed everything in the pan until the shrimp were cooked through. By the way, a great way to tell if shrimp are done, other than the color of course, is whether or not the tails are curved in on themselves. At the very end, I added some chopped fresh basil from the garden, and that’s what I did with my leftover crawfish! The seasoning that infused the crawdads from the boil gave the dish a little spicy heat, and the fresh tomatoes and basil made it a nice summery dish. You can sometimes find frozen crawfish at a good fish market. These are already cooked, and you can use those for this dish or for any dish for which you would normally use shrimp. Just remember that the crawfish are already cooked, so you just need to heat them through.

Fourth of July Crawfish Boil

In the Fall of 2005, the season of Katrina as I’ve come to know it, we had friends from New Orleans come to stay with us for awhile, and we came up with the idea of throwing a “Mardi Gras in October” benefit party. We do our usual Mardi Gras party every year, and I thought, why not have an extra one, but ask for donations for our New Orleans friends and their families. So we planned it, and it was a huge success, but that’s not the point of this post, so let me get to that. About two weeks before the party, we received a phone call from a family (PJ, C and their kids) who had permanently relocated to our area from New Orleans. It seems they had met the mother of a friend of ours and she told them about us and our party, and in a nutshell, they were wondering if they could come. And thus, a new friendship began.

Now, back in Louisiana for the Fourth of July, this family’s tradition was to have a crawfish boil. Well, I’m always up for a crawfish boil – it’s one of the things I truly miss about living in NOLA. When C called in the beginning of summer and proposed the idea, it was a no-brainer! So we had a good old-fashioned New Orleans-style crawfish boil for our Fourth of July. Here’s what we did.

There are several companies that ship crawfish from LA and you can find them online. I like to shop around to see who has the best price by the pound for the “mudbugs,” and the best shipping costs. They come shipped live, and with the seasoning and directions* you need to do your own crawfish boil. C had 20 pounds of crawfish delivered to her house, purged them, and brought them over on the Fourth. In the meantime, I had several ears of corn, a bag of red potatoes, a few lemon halves, and a couple of pounds of andouille sausage all set to go into the pot. As we went to throw in the seasoning, we realized that in the rush of getting the kids ready and getting to our house, C left the seasoning behind in Cheshire. I had some, but it was pretty old, so we ended up having to spruce it up a bit by adding some Tony Chachere’s and lots of salt. We brought the water and seasoning to a boil using our outdoor burner. Then we added the corn, potatoes, sausage and lemons to the pot and allowed them to boil for about 15 minutes. Next we threw in 10 pounds of crawfish, boiled them for 10 minutes, and then took the pot off the heat to allow everything to soak up the seasoning. We had already covered our patio table with newspaper, so we only had to drain the water and spill the contents of the basket onto the table. Our first batch was a bit bland, so we added more Cajun seasoning and salt as well as some straight cayenne pepper to the remainder. We then spent a glorious afternoon “sucking the heads and pinching the tails” as the saying goes. What a great way to spend a summer holiday with good friends!

*If you are unfamiliar with the whole crawfish boiling and/or eating process, this website is both humorous and informative.