Oh My NOLA!

As previously mentioned by my husband, I spent last week in New Orleans. We had different school vacations this year, and I've been missing my best friend and my old stomping grounds, not to mention the food. And my, what a foodie good time I had! I had a list of things to eat and places I wanted to eat them, and with the help of my friends Karen and Joe and the Hubble family, the mission was accomplished. Many thanks to them for an awesome time all around. Here's my own personal TOP FIVE!

#1 - Crawfish


Naturally, I had to have crawfish, since it's the season and my own Yankee-style attempts to have crawfish have been a bit unsatisfying. Karen promised me a traditional crawfish boil, and that's what I got. On Sunday morning, Miss Linda lugged in a 25-pound box filled with steaming crawdads, corn on the cob, bits of sausage and red potatoes. When I lifted the lid, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. They were hot and spicy and delicious. We peeled long after we had our fill, and the result was that I had enough to freeze and take home!!! Hooray!!! I happened to have crawfish several other times over my few days in New Orleans, including fried crawfish tails, crawfish pasta, and even eggs covered in crawfish etouffee, but these were the best, most of all because they were shared with old friends.

#2 - Barbecued Shrimp from Pascal's Manale

I made the mistake once of ordering BBQ Shrimp here in Connecticut. I got a skewer of grilled shrimp basted in barbecue sauce. Hideous! The barbecued shrimp I wanted can be found at several Crescent City spots, but none do them better than Pascal's Manale. I would attempt to describe them, but I think reviewer Don Pierce sums it up better than I ever could:

"The truth is the shrimp aren't really barbequed and I'm not sure where the name came from but who cares? It works and they will make your mouth water and make you come back over and over and wait for hours to sit down and peel. Peel? Yes, peel your own (it's all part of the fun... The shrimp come out and you see shrimp heads, you see shrimp tails, you see shrimp legs and you see them stewing in a bowl of garlic, butter and pepper with an aroma that makes your mouth water like no other. You pop the heads off then remove the shell, then you dip the shrimp into that special sauce and then into your mouth. Ohooooo. Then with the other hand, you break off some french bread and again, you dip it in. Ohhhooooo. Heaven!"

Heaven indeed, Don. Heaven indeed.

#3 - Crab Fingers from Mandina's

Mandina's is a mid-city neighborhood joint that I used to go to all the time when I lived in NOLA, and everytime I went, I ordered this amazing appetizer that 1) I've never been able to recreate, and 2) I've never seen or heard of anywhere else. Dozens of tender little crab fingers are sitting in a luscious garlic, butter, white wine and breadcrumb mix and as you dig down to get them, you are forced to lick every bit of it off your dripping fingers. Then you break off some french bread and again, you dip it in...sound familiar???? Thank GOD they reopened after Katrina.

#4 - Dinner at Cochon

Cochon is the place to be these days in New Orleans and everyone knows it. Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, the New York Times, they've all been buzzing about this place and Chef Donald Link for years now, so I knew we'd have to pay a visit. Karen and I were excited about the food while Joe was excited for the moonshine, and yes, they do have that on the menu, along with other typically Cajun dishes. And I do mean CAJUN. We were hungry and feeling adventurous, and everything we tried was delicious. The buzz is most definitely well-deserved. For appetizers we sampled fried alligator with chili garlic aioli (tasted a bit like chicken!), fried boudin with pickled peppers, and some great grilled andouille sausage served over grits with lima beans. I ordered the house specialty, Louisiana cochon (deliciously seared pulled pork - see photo) with turnips, cabbage and cracklins, and I loved every bite. Karen very much enjoyed the perfectly smoked beef brisket that was served with a horseradish potato salad. Joe dug into the oyster and bacon sandwich (the number one Louisiana "must-eat" according to Food and Wine) with gusto. We shared two casserole-style sides: macaroni and cheese, and crawfish with green tomatoes, both of which paired well with our meals and did not disappoint. We couldn't do dessert for being too full, but Joe and I toasted each other with a shot of "Catdaddy" moonshine that burned on the way down but had the surprising aftertaste of nutmeg. Next door, the newly opened Cochon Butcher offered specialty housemade cured meats and sausages with Cajun flair and of course, some of these goodies like tasso and andouille, found their way into my luggage. Next time you're in New Orleans, go to Cochon. It's a MUST.

#5 Sweets from Sucre


A candy shop on the best shopping street in the Big Easy, Magazine Street, Sucre is new to me and I'm excited to say it lived up to its reputation. Their French macaroons (one of Oprah's favorite things, apparently!) are sweet and delicate and filled with velvety cream. Their handmade chocolates are almost too pretty to eat, but with flavors like thyme, passion fruit, Sicilian pistachio, and chai and Earl Grey teas, you must indulge. A bonus for me is their use of Harney's Teas, which are originally from Connecticut! We stopped by here while shopping one afternoon, then again for a late dessert (see photo) after Cochon. Fabulous!

Food Buzz Top 9!

Chris's first solo blog post "When your wife is away..." made Food Buzz's Top Nine for April 28th!

Way to go, husband!

When your wife is away....

I don't want this to sound like I don't love my wife because I do. Really. It's just that one of my guilty pleasures is that when Amy goes on a trip I get to eat what she refers to as 'Chris Food'. I have my own shelf. It's full of things like Soy milk, artichoke hearts, sardines, tartufo paste, curry spices and various pickeled sundries. I also have a small section in the fridge which is filled an assortment of fruits, meats, cheeses and juices that, quite often, "Take up too much space". Needless to say, I like food. All types. If there is a person sitting next to me eating something that I can't identify, and the person doesn't seem to be in pain or near death - I want some. Maybe it's from growing up in a big family ('Eat it or Starve') or from the times I ran low on rations while hiking the Appalachian Trail ('Eat it or Starve'). I don't know. What I do know is that these adventures have gotten me my own shelf, my wife is away, and I am hungry. This is my story:

Yesterday a package showed up at my doorstep. Now the UPS man is not a stranger to our house, but the 'Perishable' label caught my eye. Since Amy is visiting friends in New Orleans I thought, "Are these crawfish? Does my wife love me that much? Maybe they're pralines! A 1'x1'x1' box of pralines!....with Cafe Du Monde coffee!....and maybe some fresh beignets!! I have the best wife in the world!!" I call her to thank her for the package. One ring, two rings, three rings, "Hello" a gently slurring voice answers. I explain about the package, to which she says, "What package? Open it and see what it is." Her voice perks up as I tell her it contains a package of pasta, "What kind?" she asks. "Buitoni All Natural Agnolotti stuffed with wild portobello and crimini mushrooms!" I exclaim. "Oh...mushrooms huh? That's Chris food. You don't have to wait for me." As I said before, I am hungry; so I don't."

Bring water with a dash of salt and oil to a boil. Melt about 1Tbs of salted butter in a saute pan for a couple of minutes. Place pasta into boiling water and set the timer to 4 minutes. Add one large handfull of baby spinich into the saute. Toss until wilted. (Basically until the timer goes off.) Drain pasta, mix with spinich and serve. Dinner in less than 10 minutes.

This could be my favorite Chris Dish ever. The near-ghee brown butter sauce coated the bitter spinich with just enough ''umph' that when I bit into the al dente angoletti and allowed earthy wild mushroomness to combine with the sharp Grana and Parmesean I almost forgot to chew. My mouth was screaming for more. As I type this I can't stop breathing through my mouth in a vain attempt to get the post-coital flavors off of my tongue. I wish I wasn't on a diet. I want/need more. Is it strange to buy a case of pasta? I may need another shelf. I can't wait for her to go away again...

Portuguese-Style Stew

I hope you haven't given up on A Couple in the Kitchen. Life got weird for a few weeks and Chris and I have been existing (subsisting?) on restaurant food, take-out, delivery, and heat-n-eats. Not a good foodie scene whatsoever, but we're resolved to head back to the kitchen as the days grow longer and warmer, and farmer's markets begin to sell their wares.

We hit up new Hartford hotspot, Barca, for a much needed after-school happy hour last week, because their tapas are cheap and to die for. At 2 for $5, I can have my spicy chicken (sauteed in a garlic white wine sauce) and Chris can have his crispy fish (specifically, codfish potato cakes with cilantro aioli). These were accompanied nicely by well-made caipirinhas (like a margarita but better). As for their bread - one bite and I was hooked, begging the bartender to sell me a loaf or two on which I planned to base some sort of dinner for the following day. Warm and crusty on the outside, so light it melts in your mouth on the inside, Chris, who had been to Barca before, simply said, "Told you so," as I drooled over the two small slices that came with our tapas. It reminded me of the super-fresh Portuguese rolls my mom used to buy in Ludlow, MA.

As I always seem to be planning my next meal, the idea for a Portuguese-style dinner started brewing in my head and luckily, the bartender assisted, handing over two small, neatly wrapped loaves with warming instructions as we paid our check. We created our dish the next day, after buying clams at the local fish market. The stew, inspired by Barca's bread, was very easy to make and came out well. We knew that clams and sausage should be our base ingredients, then we threw in onions, tomatoes and seasonings at whim. We thought we needed a starch and put it over some pasta, which, in hindsight, was unnecessary, as the delicious bread was all we really needed. The sweetness of the clams and onions balanced well with the spiciness of the sausage and red pepper, while the grill and paprika added that smokiness we love.

Ingredients:

1 pound linguica (Portuguese sausage)

1 Vidalia onion

1 pound mahogany or other small live clams

28-ounce can petite diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

6 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons sweet paprika

salt and pepper to taste

Slice the linguica into rounds and grill for a few minutes each side until browned, then throw them in a large stock pot. Slice the onions into thin strips and grill the onions, in the pan used to grill the linguica, for several minutes until they begin to caramelize, then throw them in the pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and give a good stir until everything is well mixed. Put the lid on and cook over medium-high heat for fifteen minutes, or until everything is heated through and the clams are open. Enjoy with good, crusy Portuguese bread.

A Glutton for Surf and Turf

Last week Chris had a mini-reunion night out with some high school friends, so I decided to be my carnivorous self and fix a nice ribeye for dinner. I got a great bone-in ribeye for $7.99 at Price Chopper - it had gorgeous marbling and was just the right size to go with my baked russet potato and steamed rock lobster tails ($9.99 for two!). Yes, I was being gluttonous, but that's okay...now and then. I seasoned the ribeye with my usual: kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, a light sprinkling of garlic powder, and a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce. While I let the steak marinate for a bit, I wrapped the potato in foil and put it in the toaster oven on 450 for an hour. Then I "grilled" my steak stove-top in our ridged Calphalon pan over high heat so I would get a nice char but it would still be medium-rare. Meanwhile, I steamed the lobster tails and melted some butter. It was a feast and I washed it down with a Trader Joe's (reserver!) Cabernet Sauvignon, enjoying every bite...including those last few nibbles off the bone. That will teach Chris to leave me home alone...(anytime!!!).

Tuscan-style Ragu

Like most people, according to all the magazines anyway, I crave carbs when I'm stressed. Unfortunately, my willpower is...well...I have none. So lately Wednesday nights have meant pasta, which is not good for the weight loss my husband and I have supposedly committed to, but it's good for our stress levels, so we'll take it.

Last Wednesday was spaghetti night, and we topped it with a fantastically meaty Tuscan-style ragu. If we had been able to find wild boar for the sauce, we would have used that, but in Manchester, CT, ground beef had to suffice. Although it's officially spring, it hasn't totally warmed up yet, so my kitchen goddess (yes, she's a snowperson - see picture) watched over us as we cooked up this rich and hearty weeknight dinner. Mangia!

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 small yellow onion, chopped finely

1/2 red onion, chopped finely

1 carrot, chopped finely

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb. lean ground beef

3/4 cup dry white wine

4 tablespoons tomato paste

2 tablespoons hot water

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

Warm the olive oil over medium-high heat and saute the chopped onions and carrot until they are soft. Add the garlic and continue cooking until the onions are just beginning to caramelize. Stir in the ground beef, breaking it up as much as possible and avoiding hard clumps. Cook the meat and the vegetables together, stirring often, until the meat becomes pink. Add the wine and cook until it evaporates, about 4 minutes. Dissolve the tomato paste in the hot water, and add it to the pot, stirring very well. Simmer for 15 minutes, during which the sauce should thicken a bit. Add the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper to taste. Allow to simmer for at least 45 minutes, then serve over spaghetti and enjoy.

Portuguese Frittata

Thursday afternoon: I'm leaving my dentist and I catch sight of the Portuguese restaurant next door. Even though my tongue is numb with Novocaine, the sight makes me long for linguica. I seem to recall there may be one currently sitting in my freezer.

Thursday night after Chinese takeout:

"Chris, what do you want to do with this leftover rice?"

"I don't know. Maybe make rice pudding?"

"We have so much ice cream in the freezer. Maybe another dessert isn't the way to go."

"Let's think on it.

Friday: I'm still thinking about that linguica, but I'm also thinking about a nice sunny early spring weekend with no plans, and my mind turns toward breakfast menus.

Saturday morning:

"Can you make a frittata with rice? That might be fun."

"You can make a frittata however you want. The fun will be watching you make your first frittata." (Chris is the frittata maker in our house.)

"Well, get ready then.

While Chris had a shower, I set to work creating my beautiful Portuguese frittata, hoping it would be edible. In the end, it was quite edible, but definitely not beautiful. The eggs were nice and fluffy, the rice added texture, and the linguica imparted a spicy, smoky flavor that Chris and I both loved. It actually tasted really good. It wasn't pretty though. I had a sticking-to-the-pan issue and the very center was not completely set, so it sort of fell apart a bit when we tried to flip it. It was such as mess that I didn't want to take a picture. So perhaps I lost points on presentation, but, as watched Chris greedily eat his third helping, I didn't mind so much.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1/2 pound linguica, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 cup cooked white rice

1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes

6 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup shredded Mexican-cheese blend

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a large cast-iron skillet and saute onions until they become translucent. Add the linguica and cook until browned. Add the rice and tomatoes, and cook over medium heat, stirring often, for five minutes. Meanwhile, beat the eggs and milk together. Season the egg mixture with salt and pepper to taste, then pour into the skillet. Add 1/2 of the cheese and gently stir to blend everything together. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and cook over medium heat for five more minute. Then place the entire skillet in the oven and cook at 400 until it is set - about 20 minutes. Carefully "flip" onto a large plate and serve.

Braised Short Ribs over Wide Noodles

About a year ago, I had been regularly attending Culinary Workshops at the local Shop Rite Supermarket*. Although they vary according to store location, at my store these workshops are held on Wednesdays and are taught by my friend - an excellent, creative, and enthusiastic chef named Lise who runs her own catering business, Chef for Hire. I started going because of Lise, but I kept going for lots of other reasons. I met a lot of nice people at the workshops and got to spend quality time learning from a fantastic chef who also happens to be a friend. I loved the fact that the classes have seasonal themes, but also are hands on, very fun, and quite inexpensive. Best of all, the low $20 fee includes sharing the three to four courses you help create with others in the class, which, when all is said and done, is a pretty cheap dining experience (albeit under the glare of grocery-store flourescent lighting and sans alcohol!). Quite the difference from your usual cooking class which, in my experiences, have meant paying twice as much to watch the chef cook and then get a mere nibble to taste.

Unfortunately, my schedule got busy and I haven't been able to attend in a long time. But I do have a mini-binder full of recipes I gathered from the many evenings I spent at Shop Rite, and on last week's snow day I dug it out looking for a one-pot meal. I quickly found just what I was looking for: "Savory Braised Short Ribs over Wide Noodles." Ingredients include flour, cinnamon, allspice, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, beef broth, and red wine. I browned the ribs, put them together with the other ingredients, and allowed the meat to braise for about an hour and a half. It was a perfect late-winter snowstorm late lunch/early dinner. The cooking smells filled the house and made the kitchen toasty warm. When Chris and I sat down to eat, the vegetables were tender, the meat fell right off the bone, and the sauce had nice hints of the cinnamon and allspice used in it. It was a very tasty and satisfying meal.

A little something interesting to add here is that several weeks prior to making these short ribs, I attempted a braised short ribs recipe out of Rick Tramonto's cookbook Osteria. I followed both recipe precisely and both produced good, hearty meals. However, Tramonto's recipe was very time-consuming and much more labor-intensive (hands-on cooking time was over two hours) than the Shop Rite one (hand-on was only about one-half hour). Tramonto's recipe was for the short ribs only, so I also had to make a side dish, whereas with Shop Rite's, serving the braised meat and vegetables over simple egg noodles rounded out the meal. Most importantly, Chris and I liked the flavor of the Shop Rite recipe better.

*For more information on the Shop Rite Culinary Workshops, go to the "In Our Store" section on the Shop Rite homepage.

Shrimp Creole (for Yankees)

It was recently Mardi Gras, so of course, I've been reminiscent of my time in New Orleans, particularly missing the wonderful food that city has to offer. One famous dish to come out of NOLA is Shrimp Creole, which is shrimp cooked in a spicy sauce of tomatoes, green peppers, celery, onions, garlic, and miscellaneous herbs and spices, then served over rice. It's not a difficult dish to make by any means. However, one hot and humid day when I was out "making groceries" at the Schweggman's near my apartment, I discovered Zatarain's.

Earlier that morning, the shrimp guy had come down the street selling gorgeously plump shrimp out of a cooler from his pickup truck for a mere $2 a pound and I couldn't resist (who could???). I was craving Shrimp Creole, but it was too hot to cook, so I thought I'd cheat. I bought the "Shrimp Creole" box mix (~gasp!~) made by Zatarain's. All you had to add was some butter, tomato sauce, and, of course, your shrimp, and it only cooked for about 1/2 hour - not long enough to heat up my kitchen. It was just so easy.

I invited my then (now, sadly, late) boyfriend over for dinner. He was a cook, so I felt I had to hide all traces of my cheating ways (the Zatarain's box and the empty jar that held the marinara I had used). I served him the Shrimp Creole and waited for him to give me some constructive criticism, to call me a "Yankee," to teach me the "right" way to make this dish. Instead, he ate wholeheartedly and even asked for seconds. Then he told me it was the best Shrimp Creole he had ever had (except for his mom's, of course - he was a Southern boy, after all).

Over the four years I dated T, I made Zatarain's Shrimp Creole countless times, always hiding the evidence, but rarely feeling guilty about it. Eventually, our relationship ended and I moved back to New England. I tried to make "homemade" Shrimp Creole one time and didn't like it at all, so I'm back to Zatarain's, and I make it regularly. If it was good enough for T, it's good enough for me.

My Foodie Staycation

Two weeks ago, I had the week off for winter vacation, but unfortunately, Chris did not. Therefore, I decided to use my vacation funds to have what I'm calling "My Foodie Staycation," and spent the week in a blur of epicurean delights.

The week started with a wonderful Valentine's Day meal planned entirely by my hubby. He chose the cozy Tapas in West Hartford, and since they do not take reservations, we decided to eat early and then head out to the movies. Chris escorted me to the perfect table, right in the center of the small dining room, and after pulling out my chair, pointed out that I now had the best seat from which to gaze into the busy open kitchen - I was to have dinner and a show! Tapas has a great everyday menu, but is better known for their "blackboard specials," from which we chose. I started with a cup of velvety lobster bisque, then had a filet that was grilled to perfection, topped with a Mediterranean-herb oil, and paired with tastefully lumpy mashed potatoes. Chris enjoyed the "Ocean's Eleven" pasta dish - fettuccine alfredo served with a medley of seafood including lobster, crab, shrimp and scallops. After sharing a slice of Oreo-cookie pie, we drove to the packed movie theater and saw the closest we could get to a romantic comedy, Confessions of A Shopaholic, which we thought was cute. It was a wonderful V-Day date.

The weekend passed, and then I was in full vacation mode which means staying up late, sleeping in, and watching a lot of television. I was able to enjoy hours of Food Network as well as DVR'd food-themed shows including Top Chef (I heart Fabio), Hell's Kitchen, and Last Restaurant Standing. I also watched Ratatouille, which is now my favorite animated movie of all time (anyone can cook!). But I couldn't spend the whole week on the couch, so I did have a couple of outings in mind.

Since Chris is not a huge fan of the casino (Foxwoods/MGM Grand), I planned a day to go there by my lonesome. When I quickly won $50 shortly after my arrival, I decided to enjoy a gourmet lunch at David Burke Prime (it's my foodie staycation, after all!). The space is gorgeous, decorated with wood the color of espresso, cream-colored leather chairs, rust accents found in the carpet and placemats, and light-up glass "brick" walls. Touches of cowhide here and there remind one that it's a steakhouse. And steak is what I had but I started with the "Cocktail Trio" , a chilled appetizer which consisted of two of the largest shrimp I've ever seen, a pile of jumbo lump Maryland crabmeat, and a half-lobster, all served with a spicy cocktail sauce and a creole mayonnaise. I could have ended it there and been happy, but this week was all about indulgence. I ordered the "Filet Mignon Steak Frites," and while the filet was well-seasoned and grilled to perfection, the frites weren't as hot and crisp as they should have been, and both were served over a bed of over-garlicked limp spinach. Unfortunately, the service was as forgettable as the frites - several times I sat with an empty glass, searching for my server. However, a fun surprise came at the end of the meal, for when I declined dessert, my check was delivered with a grape-flavored cotton candy served upside-down in a footed martini glass. It was unexpected on many levels, but I enjoyed it. Would I go back to this restaurant? Probably not, but it was fun to be a lady who lunches.

So fun was it, that the very next day, I did it again, when my friend Joanne and I luncheoned at the Hartford lunch-only destination ON20. That one you can read about at Restaurant Report Cards.

Now the week was winding down, and since my husband was hard at work all week, I planned one day to be what I call "Fifties Housewife," (think an aproned June Cleaver but with jeans and a cute sweater). I planned and executed a three-course themed dinner, had the table set with our finest, and even had a bourbon ready for Chris the moment he walked in the door (thank goodness for cell phones). I called the dinner "The Flavors of France," and the menu is below. Everything came out really well. In fact, I believe Chris mentioned something about being the luckiest guy on the planet. What can I say? He's right :-)

Appetizer: "Sea Scallop Provencal" - a single pan-seared scallop in a sauce of white wine, shallots and fresh parsley.

Entree: "Tilapia Toulouse" - tilapia fillet packet-steamed with lemon, white wine, parsley, butter and capers served with cardamom-scented couscous and haricots verts.

Dessert: "Lavender Creme Brulee" - served with homemade lemon-rosemary sugar cookies.

The week ended in a blur of cleaning and prepping for our annual Mardi Gras Madness party, which was a huge success as always. With almost 100 people packed into our tiny house, we ate, drank and mingled the night away. Special thanks to the Krewe of 2009 who helped the party happen and to all of our guests who brought an amazing array of delicious food and drink to share.

All in all, it was a fabulously indulgent foodie staycation and I loved every minute, and every mouthful.