The Spaghetti Series - All'Amatriciana (#1)

Lets face it: Monday's are as bad as those leftovers sitting in the back of your fridge for over a week.

In order to brighten Mondays up a bit, I decided to create a weekly piece known as The Spaghetti Series. Each Monday I will post a new dish made with spaghetti for readers. It will be something simple, since Monday nights one is usually rather exhausted, but flavorful and fun to make.

Tonight I begin the series with a sauce called Amatriciana - a traditional Italian sauce based on dried pork cheek, pecorino, and tomato - from the town of Amatrice. There are many recipes out there with many variations, so I took the basics and then made it my own. It had a wonderful heat to it for a cold winter's night, and of course bacon is one of the ultimate comfort foods (in moderation, of course!).

Spaghetti All'Amatriciana

Ingredients

2 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes

4 pieces of unsmoked bacon, center cut

2 medium onions, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

1 tablespoon dried oregano

2 tablespoons fresh parsley

2 cups of dry white wine

salt and pepper to taste

8 oz of cooked spaghetti

grated pecorino romano

Directions

- In a heavy saucepan, cook bacon until its well done and crispy. Remove and drain. Crumble.

- Pour off all but one tablespoon of bacon goodness and place pot back on low heat

- Add garlic and stir, 1 minute

- Add onions and stir, scraping up the nice brown bits, 5 minutes

- Add 1 cup of white wine (the 2nd cup is yours to drink), red pepper, marjoram, oregano, and parsley and let reduce (about 5 minutes)

- Add tomatoes and let simmer for 30 minutes

- Working in batches, puree the sauce in a blender

- Return to pot and let simmer for another 30 minutes

- Serve over spaghetti and top with grated romano cheese and some crumbled bacon.

The Goodness of Hummus

My supper club's theme this month is citrus. A great theme considering its the deep cold of winter and foods with citrus are bound to invoke thoughts of warm, summery days.

What are your favorite foods with citrus? I love lemon the most and would choose a lemon dessert over a chocolate one any day, and I consider myself a chocoholic. I love key lime pie and I love eating clementines right out of the box. There is nothing better than a lemon ice from The Lemon Ice King of Corona during the summertime. I love blood orange sorbet, Asian orange beef, Greek lemon and egg soup, orange cranberry muffins. The only citrus I dislike is grapefruit...unless its juice is mixed into my favorite cocktail called The Papa Doble.

I made three dishes for supper club. The first was an appetizer - lemon artichoke hummus. I must say the word "garlic" should be in the title of the recipe as well! The original recipe I saw called for 6 cloves, but I reduced it to five and that was quite enough, thank you very much!

Other posts to come this week will be the two other dishes I made: lemon parsley mashed potatoes and an orange chocolate trifle.

If you are not in a supper club, I highly recommend it. It is a wonderful way to meet new people, talk food, and have fun sharing recipes. The women in my club are amazing, and I look forward to it each month.

Lemon Artichoke Hummus

Ingredients:

2 cans garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

1 can of Artichoke hearts

5 cloves garlic

2 Lemons

1/2 teaspoon Cumin

1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon White pepper

1 tablespoon parsley flakes Virgin olive oil

Directions:

Juice the lemons. Combine all ingredients but the oil in the bowl of a food processor, turn on, and slowly drizzle in olive oil as the ingredients are being processed to a creamy consistency. Serve with drizzled olive oil and lemon wedges on top.

My Blossoming Birthday Celebration!

Today is my actual birthday that I share with my beloved twin sister.

Life lately has been beautiful. Celebrations with friends and family have been abundant, and I am so grateful for a life rich with a close family and strong friendships.

Life has also been blessedly hectic lately between my new niece, a promotion at work, and so many great outings with friends and family. Hence, I decided to take this day off from work and spend it relaxing and enjoying rare quiet time alone. The gift to myself today is downtime and a chance to text and talk with friends and family instead of being at my desk at work on the trading floor. I woke up and went out for coffee and a bagel with a good schmear, pampered myself today at the nail salon with a manicure and pedicure, cracked open a bottle of pink prosecco, and also enjoyed this dish that was prepared in my Crockpot (no way was I making anything today that would ruin the nails!). I served this on top of white rice. I would have done brown rice if it were not my special day to make it healthier, but I wanted to indulge! Oh, and of course I read food blogs ALL day. Fellow foodie bloggers, you make my day and being able to read them leisurely today was a great gift!

I highly recommend this dish any time of year in the Crockpot. It was delicious and full of wonderful flavors and so easy to make. The next time I make this I may do half pineapple juie and half orange juice for even more great flavors, but it is truly perfect the way it is!

Orange Blossom Chicken Teriyaki (a recipe for a slow cooker)

Ingredients:

8 chicken drumsticks (you can also do half thighs if you want, but use dark meat; I also used skinless since skin slow cooker recipes make little sense to me - it gets too soggy)

1 large onion, thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup grated fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon cardamom (I was fortunate to have this particular spice given to me recently by a friend who was in Ethiopia, so I cracked the outer shell and ground the pods in my mortar and pestle!)

1 thinly sliced, unpeeled orange

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp water

Directions:

1) Mix onion, garlic, and olive oil and place at bottom of slow cooker.

2) Place the chicken on top (sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste).

3) Whisk together orange juice, soy, honey, brown sugar, ginger, and cardamom in a mixing bowl. Pour over chicken.

4) Cover chicken with sliced oranges

5) Cook on high setting for 4 hours or low setting for 8 hours (I did low).

6) Remove chicken and oranges with slotted spoon.

7) Add cornstarch to the water and mix - then stir into the juices and whisk to thicken.

8) Place chicken and oranges back in the pot and keep on warm setting until ready to serve.

Tailgating At Home!

I am a huge football fan and a die hard New York Giant's fan.

Although the Giants did not make it to the playoffs, I still love football enough to watch the playoffs and Superbowl, each game start to finish. I truly enjoy cooking on Sundays during football season and like to stick to some traditional tailgating foods. I love Buffalo wings, but rarely eat them since they are so fattening!

However, I was determined to figure out an alternative, and that came in the form of meatballs! After reading various recipes for Buffalo chicken meatballs, I came up with a recipe that combined details of a few delicious sounding ones and came up with this one. Instead of dipping them in blue cheese sauce, which you can do as a great appetizer, I decided to make blue cheese mashed potatoes and make it into a meal with carrots on the side. As far as beer, I was sipping Michelob Ultra and miserable. I don't know why I bother with that beer. The lack of flavor is just not worth the lack of calories.

The meatballs were rich tasting and nice and hot with the sauce on it. The mashed potatoes had a great sour tang to them that complimented the meatballs well. I love fresh parsley and decided to keep it coarsely chopped since I enjoy biting into pieces that have tender leaves cooked into them.

My cheers go to the New Orleans Saints! I hope they win the Superbowl! What team are you cheering for? Hopefully fellow food bloggers will have some great tailgating recipes in the next few weeks leading to the Superbowl!

• Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
• Ingredients:
• 1 pound ground chicken
• 1 medium onion, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• 1/3 cup plain bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup hot sauce (I used Frank’s)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2) Combine chicken, onion, garlic, parsley, bread crumbs, egg, and salt and pepper to taste

3) Mix with your hands and cut into 4 equal portions - this should yield 16 meatballs

4) Arrange meatballs on a nonstick baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil

4) Bake meatballs until golden brown (about 12 minutes)

5) Heat butter and hot sauce in a saucepan and spoon over meatballs in a serving platter.

Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters

1/3 cup light blue cheese dressing

1/2 cup milk (or more depending on what consistency you like)

1 tablespoon butter

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) Boil potatoes in salted water until fork tender, mash

2) Add milk, blue cheese dressing, butter, and salt and pepper to taste.

Restaurant Review: Bourdain's Brasserie- Les Halles

I admit having a crush on Anthony Bourdain that has lasted for years and has no chance of ceasing anytime soon.

Growing up a good girl, there is something about a bad-ass chef that is extremely attractive. Though I am glad he has mellowed out over the years, he still is a wonderful chef with a wonderful voice in the culinary world. No Reservations is one of my favorite shows, and I enjoy his writing style in A Cook's Tour.

On Friday evening I met my dear cousin for dinner at Les Halles. It was the first time for the both of us at a Bourdain restaurant, and a long overdue dinner for us both together! We both stared out with glasses of red wine - a must on a cold winter's night at a brasserie! She had a Cote De Rhone and I had a lovely Malbec.

Although there were so many wonderful French brasserie appetizers on the menu (escargot, onion soup), we decided to go against the rules (Bourdain would be proud) and split a plate of macaroni and cheese with serrano ham as our first course. As you can see from above, it came right out of the oven with a crisp crust of cheese on top. Below was a melted blend of amazing cheeses and ham. I would say it actually is one of the best macaroni and cheeses I have had, and gives Artisinal's a run for its money. As much as I love American macaroni and cheese with cheddar, there is nothing like this French style with gruyere.

The main courses were steak, of course! They were so good I forgot about taking photos. I was too lost in the moment of beef bliss to even think about pulling out my camera.

Again, we were rebels and did not order the Steak Frites, the classic dish of the restaurant. My cousin had a filet mignon with bernaise sauce and I had a skirt steak with blue cheese sauce. I was confused by the sauces being there at all - the cuts of steak were tops and did not need any extra flavoring. Having a sense of this, we both ordered our sauces on the side. Instead, we used them as a nice accent to mix into our mashed potatoes (which were thick,gooey, and quite good).

I had profiteroles for dessert with a chocolate sauce that was drinkable on its own, and my cousin had a chocolate mousse that was perfectly textured and rich.

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles is a brasserie I highly recommend.

http://www.leshalles.net/ny_downtown.php

Meat and Potatoes

Tonight was meat and potatoes night!

Its been a long week and the week is not even over, so meat and potatoes for dinner is good comfort food. Many of you may not know this, but I have been without Food Network for almost a month due to New York's Cablevision being in a battle with Scripps network. Tonight it is back, and I am glad I can watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives once more!

I am on a Penzey's kick this week it seems. This was actually the first time I used their poultry seasoning after purchasing it around Thanksgiving. A good investment for quick chicken dishes on a weeknight, let me tell you! I found a basic recipe from Martha Stewart for buttermilk baked chicken and made it my own. I had a baked potato sprinkled with parsley and some honey glazed carrots. The wine was a lovely Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

Buttermilk Baked Chicken

1 1/2 pounds skinless chicken thighs

1 1/2 cups of plain breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (I used Penzey's)

1 tablespoon grated Romano cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh black pepper

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I used lowfat)

1 teaspoon hot sauce

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a baking sheet

2) Combine bread crumbs, poultry seasoning, and cheese in a bowl.

3) Combine buttermilk, salt, pepper, and hot sauce in another bowl and whisk well.

4) Pat chicken pieces dry and dip into buttermilk, shaking excess coating off. Dip into bread crumb mixture and fully coat.

5) Bake for 25 minutes until chicken is a nice golden brown.

To order Penzey's Poultry Spice: http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyspoultryseas.html

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice!

I wanted to make something sweet for my sweet sister who brings home my sweet little niece tomorrow. Something with sugar, spice, and everything nice! I chose a recipe from Penzey's (I love Penzey's and am fortunate to have a store close to me) that I thought would be perfect: "Perfect Peach Cake."

Don't let the peach element fool you at all into thinking this is a summery cake! This is definitely a recipe for cold winter months since ingredients include brown sugar, cinnamon, and buttermilk. It was easy to make - I was able to find fresh peaches that were nice and ripe, imported from Chile. A bit pricey, but absolutely worth it. The smell in my apartment as the cake baked was decadent!

I have many Penzey's spices, including the cinnamon used in this recipe. If you have never checked out Penzey's, please click on this link and enjoy:

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html

If you love making chili, than I suggest you order the Chili 9000 immediately for the rest of the winter! I purchased it this past fall and it is the best Chili powder ever!

The cake came out perfectly, as the name says. The burst of peach amid the dark brown sugar was delicious, and the topping made it a nice hard sugar coating to add a wonderful texture above the moist cake.

Wishing everyone a sweet day!

Perfect Peach Cake (courtesy of Penzey's Spices)

• 2/3 Cup butter or margarine, softened (I used unsalted butter)
  
• 11/2 Cups packed brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  
• 2 Cups flour
  
• 1 tsp. baking soda
  
• 1/8 tsp. salt
  
• 1 Cup buttermilk (I used lowfat)
  
• 4 medium peaches, peeled and chopped, or 3 Cups frozen unsweetened peach slices, thawed and chopped (I used fresh peaches)
  
• 1/4 Cup sugar
  
• 1 tsp. PENZEYS CINNAMON

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 9X13 pan and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and pure vanilla extract. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to the creamed mixture alternating with the buttermilk, beating until smooth after each addition. Stir in the peaches by hand. Pour the batter into the pan. In a small bowl combine the sugar and CINNAMON. Sprinkle over the batter. Bake at 350° for about 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Serve warm.