Shrimply Irresistible!

We keep seeing those Buitoni pasta commercials, advertising an easy date night dinner of shrimp scampi.  The guy rips open the bag of pasta and shrimp and dumps it into a pan, and voila!  "Homemade" date night dinner, lit candles and all.  After much joking about having Buitoni shrimp scampi for dinner, we decided to make our version of date night shrimp pasta.  Shrimp primavera was definitely our inspiration here, despite it being Fall.

The most time consuming part is cleaning the shrimp, and even then, you can just buy shrimp that are already shelled and cleaned.  But if you're like us and buy the shell-on shrimp, you'll need to peel and devein your shrimp.  At the very least, take out the main vein on the back side.    Just run a paring knife down the back, run it under some water, and you're done.  No one wants to eat shrimp poop!

While Justin was cleaning the shrimp, I got to chopping up some onion, garlic, and tomatoes for our sauce.  We had a couple small beefsteak tomatoes and some yellow romas from our share, but you can use whatever you have on hand.  We just let them cook down and release their juices.  If you have grape or cherry tomatoes on hand, as an alternative, throw them on a backing sheet and pop them in the oven to roast.  Once they start to pop, pull them out, and then just smash them with a potato masher for a nice, roasted tomato sauce.

But back to our sauce.  We poured a little white wine, Italian sauvignon blanc to be exact, into the pan to deglaze it, and get all those tasty bits off the bottom of the pan.  Don't forget to cook your pasta while your sauce is cooking.  The shrimp don't take long to cook up, so toss them into your sauce when your pasta is almost al dente.  Since we still wanted some bit to our asparagus, we threw them in with the shrimp.

When your pasta is done, reserve some of the starchy cooking liquid.  Justin wanted to be absolutely sure the pasta was done, so he threw some on the cabinet...it was done!

Once your shrimps are nice and pink, add in a bit of the pasta water and give it a good stir, before tossing in your pasta.

Give it a good toss so all of the pasta is coated in your sauce.  We topped ours with some fresh chopped parsley and basil, and some parmesan cheese.  And to accompany our pasta, we threw together a Fall salad of mixed greens, apple, toasted walnuts, blue cheese, and a cranberry balsamic vinaigrette.

Date night dinners can still be easy without coming from a bag!

Two Hungry [Artichoke] Hearts

We were watching Sandwich King the other day on Food Network, and Jeff was whipping up a grilled artichoke sandwich with a roasted garlic ricotta spread.  All of the components sounded great, so we took them, and morphed them into a delicious grilled salad.

Start by roasting your garlic.  It takes about at least 30 minutes for it to roast, so you'll want to start with this step so it can caramelize and soften while you prepare everything else.  I peeled away some of the outer layers of the garlic skin first.  Then, you'll want to slice off the top of the head so the cloves are exposed.  Drizzle olive oil over the top, and sprinkle on some salt and pepper.  Wrap up the garlic in foil and place it in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until it is fragrant and soft.

While the garlic is roasting, you can start preparing everything else.  We wanted to make the salad a little more hearty, and we had a couple chicken breasts on hand, so we simply seasoned with salt and pepper and a little oregano, and threw them on the grill.  The romaine heart was quartered, and a whole can of quartered artichoke hearts were drained.  The romaine, artichoke hearts, and a red bell pepper all received a liberal brushing of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Then we threw them on the grill.  The romaine and artichokes only took about 5 minutes, while the pepper took about 10 minutes.  You want the pepper to get nice and charred so you can easily peel the skin off.

Once they've cooled down enough for you to handle, give your romaine a rough chop.  Peel the skin off your pepper, and slice it into thin strips.  Add this all to a bowl with your grilled artichokes.  For some freshness, we tossed in some mixed greens and thinly sliced red onion.  You can also toast up some pine nuts to top your salad, for some added crunch.  Now just plate your salads, and add the sliced chicken on top.  For dressing, we just drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the top.

Now, don't think I forgot about our roasted garlic.  When it's soft, and sweet smelling, pull it out of the oven, and squeeze out your cloves.  They should be a golden brown, and nice and soft.  Using the side of your knife, you should be able to smoosh the garlic into a paste.  You can add a little salt to add some coarseness and help  assist you in making the paste.  Then just add your garlic to a bowl with ricotta, parmesan, and lemon zest.

Mix it all together so it's well mixed, and you're ready to spread it on some crostini, topped with fresh basil.  The velvety ricotta with the sweet roasted garlic was the perfect compliment to our grilled salad.

A Marriage of Melon & Pork--They Canteloupe!

Sweet and salty...the ultimate "opposites attract" pairing.  There's chocolate and bacon...sea salt and caramel...melon and ham...

That's right...melon and ham.  The Spaniards do it up with serrano ham, while the Italians use prosciutto.  And while most of the time you'll see pieces of the thinly sliced ham wrapped around a cube of melon, we decided to try something a little different.  We took the two components, added a little cream, and turned it into a pasta sauce.  This satisfied a craving for carbonara, but with a sweet summery flavor profile.

For this recipe though, we used pancetta instead of prosciutto.  You could also use bacon if you don't have pancetta.  You'll want to start by crisping up your bacon or pancetta and rendering out some of the fat.  Then toss in some onion and let it saute in the fat.

While the onions and pancetta are cooking, dice up your cantaloupe.  The smaller the pieces, the better, as that will allow the cantaloupe to break down faster.  Once the onions are soft, you can toss in your cantaloupe.

The juices will start to leach out of the melon, and the pieces will soften.  We helped them along by using a potato masher to make it more sauce-like.

After about 10 minutes, add in your cream.  The cream really helps to cut some of the sweetness from the cantaloupe.  At this point, you'll also want to throw in some chopped, fresh sage and some grated parmesan.  The recipe calls for marjoram, but we chose to use sage instead.  Then just let the cream reduce down.  You'll notice the sauce will really thicken up.

Once your pasta is ready, be sure to add a bit of the starchy pasta water to the sauce and give it a stir.  This will help the sauce stick to the pasta.  Toss your pasta into the sauce so it's evenly coated, and you're done!

Easy peasy!  Just plate up your pasta and garnish with a little more parmesan and some freshly chopped parsley, and you've got a hearty, yet summery pasta dinner.

Mozzarella, Prosciutto & Pesto Walk Into A Chicken Breast...

When we're trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, it sometimes feels like an episode of Chopped.  We rack our brains to determine what's in the fridge/pantry, what items may be on the verge of going bad and what needs to be used soon, and then figure out how to make the components all work together.  Sometimes you gotta improvise! That's exactly how dinner came together the other night.

We had some frozen chicken breasts, prosciutto and a bag of arugula left over from our grilled cheeses, as well as some fresh mozzarella from our pasta.  So we decided to stuff the chicken with prosciutto and mozzarella, and top it with an arugula pesto.

So let's start with the pesto.  As with any pesto, no matter what herb/green you use, you want to process all the dry ingredients before adding in your oil.  Since we had arugula on hand, we used that, along with a bit of fresh parsley, snipped from our plant.  Toss in a couple cloves of garlic, toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese and a few sun-dried tomatoes.  The acidity of the sun-dried tomatoes really helped to balance out the spiciness of the arugula.

Just pop it all into a food processor and blend it all up.  Add some salt and pepper to taste, and then drizzle in your olive oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.  We didn't want it too thick and chunky, or too oily, so add the olive oil with caution.

Now for the chicken.  Our chicken breasts weren't very thick, so it was easiest to just pound them out into an even thickness.  We seasoned the insides with salt, pepper, red chili flake, and a bit of dried basil.

Lay your prosciutto and slices of mozzarella on one half of the chicken.  Then just fold the other side of the chicken breast over on top, forming a sandwich.  Secure the openings with a couple toothpicks, and then season the outside of your chicken.  Since we were throwing the chickens on the grill, we made sure to soak the toothpicks in some water so they wouldn't catch fire on the grill.

Once you've got all your chickens stuffed, seasoned, and toothpicked, you can throw 'em on the grill.  Ours took about 10 minutes per side to cook through, but the cooking time will depend on the thickness of your chickens.

When your chickens are cooked through, just pull the toothpicks out, top with your pesto, and serve!

Osteria di Kara

During college I was able to study abroad and spend a semester in Venice.  I was spoiled, living in a huge house on the Grand Canal, next to the Guggenheim Museum.  We had a little produce shop a few doors down from our house, run by Bruno, an Italian Mr. Rogers, who would wake up before the crack of dawn to gather produce off the boats.  You were always better off visiting Bruno in the morning because you never knew if he was going to reopen in the afternoons.

It was here that I really first started cooking for myself.  I couldn't just go out to eat every night, and there wasn't a cafeteria to rely on.  One of the dishes I learned to make during this semester was an Italian flag pasta.  Our Italian professor, Paolo, came over one night with his friend, Alex, and taught us how to make it, though I think Alex may have just drank wine while we all cooked!

It's really simple, and a great summer dish when tomatoes are in season.  Start by scoring the bottoms of your tomatoes and blanching them in hot water for about 90 seconds.  You'll see the skin start to peel away, and that's when you want to pull them out of the water.  Once they're cool enough to handle, peel the skin off.  It should come off quite easily.  You'll want to reserve the skin so you can squeeze the juice out of them for your sauce.

Then just dice up your tomatoes into whatever size chunks you like.  Just make sure to save all the juices and add them to your sauce.  

To the tomatoes, you'll add chopped garlic, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, some dried Italian seasoning, red chili flake, and the secret ingredient...a splash of soy sauce!

Once your pasta is ready, toss it into the bowl and let the hot pasta "cook" your sauce.  You'll also want to add a bit of the starchy pasta water to help your sauce stick to the pasta.  Top with some parmesan cheese, and you're good to go!

It's quick, tasty, and only requires turning on 1 burner.  So on those hot summer days, you won't be heating up the kitchen too much.

Cheat Day Brunch

Since we lost an hour of sleep last night, we ended up sleeping in a little later than planned.  It was too late for breakfast, but we weren't ready for lunch quite yet, so we decided to make a fantastic brunch right at home.  You know how us DCers love our brunch!  With our new Paleo diet, we designated Sundays as our cheat day.  We didn't stray too far from it for brunch, but there were definitely a few ingredients you wouldn't find in the typical Paleo plan...ricotta, parmesan, flour.  We started our day with a frittata, filled with greens and bacon, and some apple pancakes, which were more apple than pancake.

We first got to work on the frittata by cooking up some bacon.  Once it was nice and crispy, we took it out of the pan, so we could cook up the other ingredients in the rendered fat.  The extra fat that we didn't need at the moment, went into a dish nearby, to be added back in later.

Next, it was time to saute the shallots in some of that bacon fat.  Once those were softened, we tossed in the greens.  We didn't want to use all of our kale, so we used a bit of kale and a bit of spinach.  These were also cooked up in the bacon fat until they had wilted.

While that was going on, I mixed together the eggs, parmesan, and ricotta.  Once those were thoroughly mixed, we added in half of the bacon, and the cooled greens and shallots.  You don't want to add them to the egg mixture while they're piping hot, otherwise you'll end up with scrambled eggs.  We also added in some black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and some dried parsley.

Once everything is mixed together, you'll pour it back into your pan.  Spread the mixture out evenly, and top it with the rest of your bacon and more parmesan cheese.  Once the edges have set, you're ready to throw 'er in the oven to finish baking for about 20 minutes.  When she's done, she'll look like this...

Now, for the pancakes!  I made these while the frittata was baking in the oven.

Start by peeling, coring and slicing your apples into rings.  We used the fuji apple and one of the granny smith apples.  The batter was simple...just some flour, eggs, milk, melted butter, baking powder and cinnamon.  Since we always like to put our own little twist on recipes, we also added in some pumpkin pie spice (since we didn't have any nutmeg on hand), and some chopped pecans.

Once your batter is mixed, just dunk your rings in the batter so they're completely coated, and place them in the pan to cook up.  One thing we learned after the first batch...if you decide to add nuts to the batter, its probably best to spoon them into the hole of your apple rings.  This will allow the apples to sit flat in the pan, and cook up more evenly.

But that's the fun part about cooking...it's all about trial and error, learning as you go, and making adjustments along the way.  That first batch may not have looked the prettiest, but they still tasted pretty darn good!

In the end, we had a delicious brunch.  The frittata was a savory dish, balanced out by the creamy ricotta. While the pancakes were sweet and tart from the apples, which still had a nice crunch to them.  And brunch wouldn't be complete without a bloody mary!  The only thing we were missing was a slice of cantaloupe at the end to make it a complete brunch.