Spring has sprung!

Make this! Make this NOW! It is so very yummy and barely even counts as cooking. The inspiration of this recipe comes from a dish they serve at Bistro Niko, a French Brasserie here in Atlanta. They serve a paillard of chicken that is pounded so thin that it is the size of a dinner plate. It is browned on each side until cooked through and then topped with a salad of endive, arugula, halved cherry tomatoes, and asparagus. My take on it uses a pre-thinned chicken cutlet and incorporates some more veggies. I had been to the farmers market over the weekend and came home with some beautiful, crisp watercress, radishes, and carrots that were a deep orange and tinged with red on the outside. It is such a nice combination of flavors and textures. Crunchy and fresh! Oh Spring, I love you so.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast or cutlet, pounded so that it is even across

olive oil

salt and pepper

watercress or arugula

endive, thinly sliced

asparagus, broken into thirds, bottom third discarded, then blanch the edible pieces

6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved

optional: carrots, radishes (sliced very thinly, I used my mandoline)

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 small clove garlic

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper

Method:

heat olive oil and a sliver of butter if you like over med-high heat

season chicken with salt and pepper

brown on both sides until cooked through

while chicken is cooking and resting prepare the salad and dressing

prepare veggies as described in ingredients list

in the bowl of a blender add lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and mustard and blend

season with salt and pepper to taste

Toss the salad in some of the dressing (you will have extra dressing so just save it for your next salad) and serve with the cooked chicken.

Tuscan Bean Soup

I did not take a photo of this soup because to be perfectly honest it's not very pretty. My photo skills are just not that great and it's hard for me to make this humble, putty colored soup look beautiful. My hope though is that you'll try this anyway and see first hand how delicious and easy it is to make. This is a variation of a soup found in Frank Stitt's "Bottega Favorita" cookbook. His is truly wonderful, but a bit more large scale and more time consuming to make. My version takes advantage of canned beans and has the addition of kale. I have it for lunch pretty often and it freezes well. Give it a try!

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

3-4 slices pancetta (approx 1/4 inch thick), diced

1 small sweet onion diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 leek, white and light green part only, halved and thinly sliced

1 sprig rosemary, leaves stripped and finely chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

approximately 2 cups chicken broth

salt and pepper

4-6 leaves lacitano kale (also known as Tuscan, Black, or dinosaur kale), de-stemmed and sliced thinly crossways

Method:

Heat Olive Oil in dutch oven over med-high heat

add pancetta and saute until fat renders and meat begins to turn golden

add onion and then carrot, and leek and stir all together so everything gets well coated in the fat in the pan, turn heat down to med

add the rosemary and salt and pepper and let the mixture cook and soften for about 7-10 min, stirring occasionally

add garlic and incorporate to other vegetables

add beans and broth and stir well, use a wooden spoon to deglaze the pan scraping up any browned bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pot

bring to a simmer and add strips of kale

continue light simmer until the kale is wilted

adjust the salt and pepper

eat immediately or save to reheat later, also freezes well

Basic Green Salad

I have no photo, but this is one recipe you should have in your pocket. It is essential if you ask me and in my family it appears on every single dinner table. Always. Guess what? It goes great on the side of things like pasta bake! A little healthful greenery without making a serious side dish.

What you'll need:

lettuce - bibb, boston, or butter - i like the "living" lettuce

honestly you could stop there. Just lettuce.

Cucumber - European seedless or Persian (otherwise known as "mini" or "baby")

green onion - the hardcore will use real onion, but i am an onion wimp

salt and pepper

good quality extra version olive oil

good qual white wine vinegar

(optional - dijon mustard and a garlic clove)

Wash and tear your lettuce into bite sized pieces

peel and slice your cucumber - i use my mandolin for this and it is super fast and makes nice thin slices

Thinly slice your green onion - again i use the mandolin

put all in a bowl and drizzle on a little olive oil and toss, you just want to lightly coat everything

now drizzle on the vinegar and toss to coat (science note: you put the oil on first bc the vinegar will break the tender lettuce down to much and the texture will be off aka soggy lettuce)

salt and pepper to taste

I admit this combo takes a few tries to perfect and i think a lot of that is just personal tastes. You've got to get your oil to vinegar ratio down to where you like it.

or

Make a quick vinaigrette and dress the salad with that

in the bottom of a small bowl put

1/2 teaspoon french dijon mustard

1 teaspoon vinegar

i small clove of garlic, crushed with the back of a knife

stir together with a fork or small whisk

slowly drizzle in, whisking as you go, approximately 2-3 teaspoons of olive oil

pull the garlic out and dress the salad

salt and pepper taste

ps. for lunch today i will be having this salad with the addition of roasted beets and some goat cheese

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I have named this creation "pasta bake". See pasta bake should have never been born. Pasta bake was supposed to be beef enchiladas prepared lovingly for my husband who had been gone hunting for almost a week. However, somewhere between Birmingham and Atlanta dear husband decided that enchiladas were gross and he could not stand them. Sigh. So I needed to figure out what to do with my 3/4 of a lb of beef and little else in the fridge/pantry (besides enchilada sauce and tortillas). There was an onion, some different pasta shapes, a can of crushed tomatoes, and a small handful of mozzarella cheese. Something Italian was brewing, but what? I had hoped to make lasagna which is a husband favorite, but I had no noodle sheets and no ricotta. So I made pasta bake. The beef and onion was cooked with some of the crushed tomato and reduced down into a tomato-y beef filling. To get that creamy element I was looking for I went for a simple white sauce which is actually what you'll find in many traditional lasagnas. Now this pasta bake may not look like too much in the pan, but let me tell you it was delish! And a certain picky husband ate it up. Crisis averted.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 - 1 lb ground beef (sirloin)

1 small, sweet onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

Italian seasoning - fresh basil and parsley would be great - I used my McCormick's grinder

1/2 cup crushed tomato from the can - try to use low sodium or unseasoned, organic is good

pasta shells

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup milk - i used 2%, but by all means use whatever you have

mozzarella cheese - enough to top the 8x8 baking dish

pre heat oven to 350 degrees

1. Get your pasta going

2. heat the oil in a big pan over med high

3. saute onion until golden

4. add in beef and garlic and cook until beef is no longer pink

5. season with herbs/spice grinder + salt and pepper to taste

6. add in tomato and let cook down - you want the mixture to reduce and thicken, not be soupy

7. make your white sauce by heating butter and flour to make a roux, once pasty smell goes away whisk in milk and let bubble up and thicken, season with salt and pepper, if you have some grated parm cheese throw a couple tablespoons of that in too.

8. fill your shells with meat mixture and lay in 8x8 dish

9. pour white sauce over shells and top with mozzarella

10. bake at 350 for about 30 min until sauce is bubbly and top is golden

Coastal Treats

Our first night visiting my mama and her husband on the Georgia barrier island where they live we had some fresh, local oysters. They were so wonderful and we were able to bring a few home and share with some friends on Sunday night. We just scrub them clean, put them on the grill until they open up a little and then eat them with cocktail sauce or melted garlic butter (my preferred way).

Star Provisions Farm Stand

Aren't these carrots beautiful?! They came from the farmstand at Star Provisions. They were tasty too. We ate about half of them raw and unadorned, standing around in the kitchen and the other half was mixed in with a bunch of other root veggies (Japanese turnips, sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts - all from farmstand with exception of sprouts) and roasted as a side for some delicious pork.

Fresh Tomato Pasta

This is usually something I make in the summer when I have lots of yummy tomatoes in hand. Right now it's cold and it's rainy and I miss summer! I miss it so much I've been cooking some "summery" dishes because I honestly am sick of all the winter food. No more roasts and casseroles....I'm over it! Again this is going to be one of those recipes with out exact measurements. It's actually something I tend to cook when it's just me so I'm usually just grabbing a handful of everything. Just enough to feed me! This is truly one of my favorite things to eat. It's pretty good for you yet unbelievably decadent and comforting to eat. Something about the warm, fresh tasting sauce mingled with the cold, creamy cheese is just too good.

Ingredients:

Pasta - angel hair nests are my favorite for fast cook time, but a spaghetti or like shape and size will work well

Sweet onion - for just me I use about a quarter of an onion, chopped into about a 1/4 inch dice

Eggplant - 1 small Italian eggplant per person or approximately 1/2 cup, chopped into 1/4 inch dice (i remove the skin too. It makes for a better end texture)

Tomatoes - In the summer 1 or 2 regular garden tomatoes, this time a handful of cherry tomatoes (the same gourmet blend as I used for roasted vegs)

Garlic - one small clove per person, minced

Olive oil - approximately 4 tablespoons per person, it should coat your saute pan and have a tiny bit of depth in the pan

Boil salted water for pasta and then cook pasta when water boils. Go ahead and get this part started first so the pasta is cooking at the same time as the sauce. Both will cook very quickly

1. heat olive oil over med heat

2. add onion to pan and let begin to soften

3. once onion has gotten soft and turned a bit golden, add eggplant

4. once eggplant has cooked down a bit and softened and turned golden, add in garlic

5. let garlic become fragrant and then add tomatoes

6. season with salt and pepper

7. you don't need to cook very long, you just want to tomatoes to heat through and burst so they release their juices a bit

8. top the cooked pasta with the sauce and add fresh basil and mozzarella cheese (Buffalo Mozzarella is superior in this dish, but regular fresh, cow does the trick)