All posts tagged bread

By Jessica | October 28, 2008 | Recipes, Restaurants, Snackin, Salads and Apps | No comments

B and I went to one of our favorite restaurants on Smith the other night, La Lunetta, and enjoyed a delish meal, served at the kitchen counter, perfect for spying on our cooks. Our guy’s the chef over there so he treated us lovely. Aside from homemade sausages for wolfing and pork ragu for rib-sticking, there was a panzanella for recipe-stealing. This was my first foray into the world of panzanella and I can’t believe I have never been before. After having multiple dreams of the salad during the night, and waking up with a salivation for more, we decided to recreate the deliciousness to our best. And now, you can too. Booyah!

Panzanella Salad with Fresh Mozzarella and Basil

half a ball of fresh mozzarella
1 very small red onion, cut in small strips
2 tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (either vine or plum)
2 semolina rolls with sesame
lots o’ olive oil
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
10 small fresh basil leaves
Serves 4 as an app.

Let’s talk about peeling tomatoes. Now. I don’t want you to be intimidated. This is very easy and extremely gratifying. Do it once and swear you’ll wanna do this for everything. Make 2 slits in the shape of an “X” on the top and the bottom of each tomato. Boil a pot of water. When it comes to a boil, turn off the flame and drop the tomatoes in the pot for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and drop into a bowl of ice water. After 30 seconds, you can easily pull the skin off the tomatoes, starting with the corners at the slit you made. Walla. Chop your tomatoes, toss the seeds, set aside.

Pull apart your cheese into large forkful chunks and scatter on your serving platter. Try not to eat too much before serving.

Heat a skillet with a good amount of olive oil. When the oil is hot, toss in the onion and tomatoes. As soon as the onion is slightly soft remove along with the tomatoes and place on top of the cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add more oil to the skillet. Tear apart your bread in big forkful chunks and throw in the oil. Keep a high heat so that it doesn’t really cook on the inside and yet browns on the outside. Once achieved, add the bread and the oil from the pan to the platter. Add the red wine vinegar and basil leaves. Toss and serve immediately.

By Jessica | September 13, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes | 2 Comments

In a short-lived attempt to eat less red meat, I been cookin the hell out of some chicken. Chicken is fun to cook with cause you can make it be anything you want. Blank freakin canvas, I always say. So, I thought I would get creative and make up a good ol sarnie. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Pickled Carrots, Watercress and Chipotle Yogurt

thin chicken breasts
juice of 1 lemon
carrots, shredded
the brine of your favorite spicy pickle
watercress
1 10oz plain yogurt (get the kind with active cultures cause they’re good for the vagina)
1 tbs chipotle seasoning
1 tsp cayenne pepper
delish bread of your choosing
salt and pepper to taste
oil for your grill

This serves 2.

Salt, pepper, and squirt lemon juice your chicken cutlets. Toss em on a stovetop grill. Now. This is very important, so listen up. If you want those cool ass grill marks on your meat like you see in the movies, drop your meat on the grill and let it chill for a few minutes. Don’t be all up in its face and moving it around and such or you’ll never sear those precious stripes. Leave it alone.

Anywho. If your chicken was pounded thin or cut thin, it will grill for about 4 minutes on each side, so you better get to workin.

Shred your carrots with the widest shredder you got. Grab your favorite pickles from the fridge. Mines For. Sure. are McClures Spicy Pickles. Hoe Man. Go Get urselves some now.

Anywho. Grab your favorite pickles from the fridges and pour some of the brine over your carrots. Ideally, you would have done this the day before. But, if you’re like me, you didn’t, and the carrots are more mild than you’d like. Set aside.

Grab your yogurt. Throw in the chipotle and cayenne. Mix well. Set aside.

Wash the watercress and dry well.

Cut your bread, throw on a healthy amount of watercress, add the chicken, then the carrots, then the yogurt. Eat and complain that the yogurt was only ALRIGHT. On the real, I would maybe try a different sauce for this. Got any good ideas? Maybe cayenne and paprika? Maybe substitute the yogurt with mayo and use less? Dunno, but don’t lie… that sammich looks real nice.

By Jessica | September 1, 2008 | Breakfast, Recipes | 1 Comment

You know how when you wake up after a night of sampling lots of alcohol, your body seems to think that by adding more toxic shiv to it, it’s gonna make it all better? Yeah. Somehow, we think that a greezy meal is going to “soak up” the alcohol? Well? Not so much. Regardless though, R needed a bit a home lovin to cure what was ailing him. (Ok, fine, it was me.)

Not usually my thing, I set out to cook a nice breakfast. I call it: Eggs.

First, lemme tell you about this nifty ass gadget that makes the egg look like a dome. It’s a silicone egg cup that floats in boiling water. When the pot is covered, the egg is steamed and damn, you got yourself a healthy egg. And if you do it right (unlike my first attempt), you get poached eggs where the yoke is all running and shnotty. yum. Check these cute cups out.

Here is the recipe for two:

2 slices of good country bread, sourdough, pumpernickle or white all work
1/4 lb sliced lox
capers to taste
fresh dill, a few sprigs
4 eggs (dudes. pay the extra buck fitty and buy cage-free eggs.)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Toast two thick slices of bread. Lay some lox down. Sprinkle with capers. Add your dill. Top with 2 eggs each. Salt. Pepper. Eat. Go back to bed.

By the way, you can poach your eggs any way you want. If you do use these kind of cups, lightly oil them so the eggs slide out. If you want your eggs to have yoke, cook them for 5 minutes. You can also make poaches eggs by just dropping them in a shallow pan of water with a glug of vinegar at a low boil. You’ll get some awesomely ugly poached eggs. You can also use fried, soft boiled or hard boiled eggs in this recipe. No matter what, you’re not going to lose.

By Jessica | August 1, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | No comments

Ever since our first day at the beach of 08, I have been going through a Mussel phase. It’s kinda gross, I know. It’s like visiting a farm and seeing cows and then going through a steak phase. What can I say? I go to the beach > I smell fish and see Mussels > I want to cook and eat them > fat ass.

R found this recipe from Bitman I believe. So, I took the same, classic ingredients and did the same. This might be the easiest, cheapest and most impressive meal we do.

Oh, it is imperative that you couple your mussels with a good bread. I’m talking, go to the bakery and get a country loaf. You can do fries too, but who the hell wants to do that in the summer. Here we go.

Steamed Mussels with Garlic and White Wine

2 healthy servings of fresh, live mussels
white onions, chopped
garlic, lots, sliced thick
3 vine tomatoes, chopped (or, half vine and half beef steak, if you want to spend less)
1 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of broth, chicken or veggie
olive oil and butter
salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil and butter in a large pot. When the butter is melted, toss in onion. A minute later, add garlic. Salt. Can be a bit oily here, which will be less so as you add more stuff. When the onion and garlic is cooked, add chopped tomato, salt a bit more, and cover.

When the tomatoes have liquefied a bit, add wine and broth (which would have been sitting out so it isn’t so cold) and cover for another sec to bring back the heat. Add the mussels which have been rinsed. Stir and cover immediately. Cook for 4 minutes.

Serve in a large and deep bowl with mo bread, crisp white wine and another bowl for your discarded shells.

Tell me this ain’t fancy as hell.