Pennsylvania Omelettes with Fingerling Potatoes

I was going to call this a California omelette, since it’s all about the flavors of avocado and tomato, but then Joe pointed out that the tomatoes, cheese, eggs, potatoes and onions were all locally raised in Pennsylvania.  (The avocadoes are from Mexico, by way of Trader Joe’s, and they were mostly overripe.)  So Pennsylvania omelettes it is.

This is a great dish for a lazy Saturday brunch.  Really, this is how Saturdays should be spent.  The way I see, it, our foremothers and fathers in the union movement of the 1930s fought and sometimes died to win us the weekend, and we ought to enjoy it fully.  (Ditto for lunch breaks.)

By the way, don’t skimp on the tomatoes here, because the whole dish depends on their quality.  If you use fresh, ripe, organic tomatoes that are in season, you will not regret it.  Good cheese is also crucial here.  We used some amazingly sharp, funky Colby from the Headhouse Market.

Pappardelle with Fresh Vegetables and Chicken

Just a quick light dish that I whipped up last night. Sarah and I had both eaten late lunches  and weren’t particularly hungry. The base of the dish was some really good sprouted wheat pappardelle pasta from Trader Joe’s. I used an 8 oz. bag.

While this was boiling, I sauteed ripe Roma tomatoes (from the Headhouse Market) cut into quarters, some diced onion, two cloves of garlic, one diced small zucchini and salt and pepper. I threw in some diced chicken breast that I had browned earlier. To this I added extra virgin olive oil and some good balsamic vinegar. You don’t want to cook this for very long. If you do the tomatoes will get soft. Just heat the veggies and the chicken through and toss in the pasta. I use an old-fashioned technique here: instead of draining the pasta first, I just pick it up with tongs and add it directly to the saute pan. This allows a little pasta water (in all of its starchy goodness) to become part of the sauce. To the pasta, I added some fresh chopped basil and some grated Parmesan.

A quick note on the basil. This is some of the best basil that I have ever had. We bought it from our new friend Jennie at Weaver’s Way.  Unlike mega-mart basil, this has little bits and holes where insects and worms have taken small bites– in fact, an inchworm fell out of this bunch when I was washing it. My mother always used to say she didn’t trust produce that didn’t have some evidence of insect life. I didn’t understand that as a kid, but I do now. A healthy ecosystem includes insects and worms. Mass production uses pesticides that eliminate this insect life so you have prettier produce. But you also sacrifice some of the nutrients that provide healthfulness and flavor to the produce. We’ve bought this basil twice now and it has wowed us both times.

As for the pasta, it made for a quick and tasty meal.

This dish could be made gluten-free by just using some GF pasta. There are some very good ones out there right now. A dairy-free option here would just be eliminating the cheese. If you use good, flavorful veggies, it wouldn’t be necessary. A vegetarian option would be to substitute the chicken with some wild mushrooms. Shiitakes or Criminis would work well.

Heirloom Tomato Pizza

This was our first attempt at homemade pizza in years, and we were very pleased with the results.  I should admit up front that, since it was a work night, we didn’t attempt to make the dough from scratch– that’s more of a Sunday project.  We bought a blob of pizza dough from Trader Joe’s instead.  But we had some beautiful fresh orange and red heirloom tomatoes straight from the farm, fresh mozzarella, local raw-milk gruyere, a monster of a shallot and some fresh garlic, all from the Headhouse Square Farmers’ Market.  The fresh ingredients really made a difference!

Joe stretched the dough out to about a foot in diameter– it was quite springy so that wasn’t an easy task, even for someone who used to work at a pizza shop.   We started with a gentle drizzle of olive oil and some chopped shallots and garlic.  Not too much,  you don’t want to overwhelm the flavors of the tomatoes and cheese.  Next, a layer of grated fresh mozzarella, then a quick grate of a much smaller amount of gruyere.  Finally, sliced orange and red tomatoes arranged on top of the pie and drizzled with a hint of olive oil.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  We don’t have a pizza stone (although, ahem, my birthday is November 15), so we baked the pizza on a cookie sheet.  It worked out fine, although a pizza stone would have crisped the bottom of the crust a bit more.  The directions on the dough said to bake it for 8-9 minutes, but the tomatoes and mozzarella release so much water that we ended up baking it for about 12 minutes to get some nice browning going.

When it had about 3 minutes to go, Joe sprinkled some chopped fresh basil on top of the pizza. 

The result was one of the better pizzas I’ve had in a long time.  The tomatoes were bursting with flavor, the basil was delicious, and the garlic and shallots gave it just enough of a kick.  The crust wasn’t massively flavorful– when we do it from scratch we’ll salt and season it a bit– but it was perfectly serviceable and had a nice texture to it.  I’d prefer homemade, but for an after-work meal on a Wednesday night the packaged dough made this an easy, quick meal.  Not bad for a first attempt!  I’ll post a picture tonight if our crappy Earthlink internet access is up to it.

Also:  The Real Potato received our 5,000th hit today!  Woohoo!  Cookies for everyone!

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Chex Muddy Buddies, also known as Puppy Chow

This isn’t slow food by any stretch of the imagination– it’s actually from the Chex brand website.  But it’s been around for many years– I was making this in the sixth grade for parties.  It’s easy and fun to make this with kids, and they will love it.  It’s great for parties, especially if you expect people to have the munchies…  hee.

Ingredients:

9 cups Chex® cereal (any variety)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Preparation Directions:

1. Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.

2. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, stir together chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter. Microwave uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.

3. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

By the way, as far as I can tell, corn Chex seem to be wheat-free but not gluten-free: they contain barley malt extract.

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Sugar-Crusted Salmon with Stir-Fried Purple String Beans

I can’t take credit for this idea. Emeril Legasse of Food Network did sugar-crusted salmon a number of years ago. It is really easy and very tasty. Take salmon and cut it into two inch wide strips. Coat with sugar and saute a couple minutes on all sides. Serve over rice.

I also made some purple string beans. I stir fried them in a wok with a bit of oil, sesame oil, dark soy sauce and a little rice wine vinegar. When they were done I chopped some lemon verbena and tossed it with the beans. Lemon verbena’s flavor is intense, so use it sparingly. Purple string beans are a little more fibrous than thier green counter parts. I sauted them until they turned green so I know they were done but they were still a bit chewy. They had a good flavor, though.  If we buy them again, I may just steam them.

Overall a quick, healthy and very flavorful meal. Totally dairy-free, and you can make it gluten-free easily by using tamari instead of soy sauce.

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Orange Roughy in a Spicy Almond-Pecan Sauce

This is a cookbook recipe that ended up morphing into a very different dish!  We started out making “Fish in an Almond-Walnut Sauce” from The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz.  I chose this recipe because we have lots of fish and also some fresh tomatillos we needed to use, and the recipe called for both.  However, as we started to make it, it became clear that we didn’t have the exact ingredients we thought we had.  So we got creative with substitutions and made what turned out to be a really tasty and healthy dish.  (Also dairy-free and gluten-free.) Here are the ingredients we actually used:

Orange Roughy in a Spicy Almond-Pecan Sauce

2 orange roughy fillets

1 onion, chopped

1 cup white wine

about 8 fresh tomatillos

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 cup blanched almonds

1  cup pecans

1 tbsp sesame seeds

1 green chilli, chopped

1 chipotle pepper (canned), chopped

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

First, prepare the tomatillos (you can skip this step if you used canned): Heat olive oil in a pan. Put in quartered tomatillos. Add salt and the diced green chilli. Saute for a minute and reduce heat to med-low. Add a couple tablespoons of water. Cook on med-low for about a half hour.

Once they are cooked, strain them to separate the liquid from the fruit.  Heat the liquid in the pan with a cup of wine, the onion and garlic, and the salt and pepper.  Simmer for 15 minutes, then add the fish and cook until flaky.  Remove the fish to a covered serving dish.

Pour the liquid from the pan into a food processor and add all remaining ingredients (except the fish).  Blend until you have a smooth sauce.  Pour over the fish and serve.

It has a nutty, smoky taste that went really well with the orange roughy, and a little kick of heat at the end.   Serve this with some sort of bread so you can sop up the sauce.  Also, if you buy canned tomatillos, it doesn’t take long at all.  I’ll definitely make this again.  (Next time I might even buy the right ingredients so I can make the official recipe!)

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Shrimp and Tofu Stir Fry

This is a light and delicious version of the stir-fry mixture we did for Pan-Fried Noodles with Chicken, using shrimp and tofu.  My husband Joe and I were in the mood for a quick and healthy dinner.  We didn’t have any fresh noodles, so we just served this over rice.  (The sauce and marinade are the concoction of Eileen Yin-Fei Lo.)

Shrimp and Tofu Stir Fry

About an inch of ginger, peeled and chopped

2 cloves chopped garlic

handful of julienned snow peas

handful of julienned carrots

1 block firm tofu, cubed

1 lb or so of peeled and deveined raw shrimp

Soy sauce

Vegetable oil

For the sauce:

1 cup chicken stock

1 pinch each of cornstarch, ground pepper, sugar

1 dash each rice wine, dark soy sauce, sesame oil

For the marinade:

Mix dashes of sesame oil, rice wine, white rice vinegar and soy sauce with pinches of cornstarch, salt and sugar.

Marinate the shrimp and the tofu in the above marinade for at least an hour.

Get some vegetable oil very hot in a wok.  Throw in the ginger and garlic and give them about 20 seconds.  Add the shrimp and cook, stirring, until they start to become pink and opaque (not more than two minutes).  Add the tofu and vegetables, stirring constantly.  When everything is cooked, but still crispy, pour in the sauce and let everything cook until it thickens.  Serve over rice.

You can be creative with the veggies on this– mushrooms would be great in it.  Julienned zucchini, eggplant– you could really experiment with whatever you happen to have.  Other than the sodium content, it’s a healthy dish.  Leave out the shrimp (maybe add mushrooms instead) and it’s vegetarian as well.

By the way, if you’re gluten free, you can use tamari instead of soy sauce to make this a delicious gluten-free Chinese meal.  Not all varieties of tamari are brewed without wheat, but San-J brand makes a wheat-free tamari that’s a perfectly tasty alternative.  Most Whole Foods and Asian supermarkets carry it.

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Cashew Banana Muffins

This is a wonderful, quick and simple recipe that was sent to me a few years ago by a very nice woman from the message boards at Celiac.com (I’ve made a few small alterations).  These are gluten-free and dairy-free, delicious, and an easy, nutritious breakfast.  They’re a great way for Crohn’s patients to get low-impact protein.  If you’re not into cashews, by the way, you can use peanut butter, almond butter or any other nut butter.

Gluten-Free Cashew Banana Muffins

8 oz cashew butter

2 bananas

4 eggs

1 teas. baking soda

pinch salt

1 teas. vanilla

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp flaxseeds (optional)

1-2 Tbs softened butter or oil (so the muffins will come out of the
paper cups)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Blend all ingredients in a food processor until they make a smooth batter.  Pour into a muffin pan (either lined with muffin cups or well greased).  Bake at 350 degrees for *about* 15 minutes or until top is slightly firm.  (To test whether they are done, insert a toothpick into the center of a muffin.   If it comes out clean, they’re done.)  These freeze really well and you can take a couple out in the morning for lunch or the previous night for breakfast the next day.  They’re particularly good toasted and buttered, or with yogurt. Makes about 12 muffins.

By the way… technically, these aren’t muffins at all, but soufflés.  I won’t tell if you won’t.

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Easy Peach Cobbler

I love peach cobbler. I have made many versions in my life, from ones with pie-like crusts to ones with a simple crumble on top. This one is interesting because you put the peaches in last and the crust expands around them. It turned out quite good. This recipe is wheat-free (it uses spelt flour) and it is fairly Crohn’s-friendly. The peaches are peeled and cooked, and I left most of the dairy out of it.

Easy Peach Cobbler

1/2 cup (one stick) of butter, melted

1 cup of flour (I used spelt flour to cut down on the wheat)

2 cups of sugar

3 teaspoons of baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup of milk or soy milk

4-5 large peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced

juice of one lemon

candied ginger

Heat oven to 375.

First, take the melted butter and pour it into a 9x13x2 pan.

Combine flour, one cup of sugar, baking powder and salt. Add milk until the batter comes together. Pour into the pan over the melted butter but do not mix together. Take the peaches, lemon juice, one cup of sugar and the ginger and cook over high heat, stirring constantly. Let it come to a boil and allow a syrup to form. The peaches should be softened slightly but still should be firm. Pour the peaches into the pan over the batter and butter. Again, do not mix up the ingredients in the pan. Put in the oven for about 35-45 minutes. The crust should rise and envelope the peaches and turn a golden brown. Remove from oven. Can be served hot or cold.

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Shepherd’s Pie

This dish was a standby when I was growing up; in fact, I think this was the first dinner I ever learned to cook completely by myself.   It’s mild– OK, bland– and comforting, and easy to make.  Pittsburgh meat-and-potatoes comfort food at its finest– and, added bonus, gluten free.  (And no, this version does not involve actual shepherds.)

Shepherd’s Pie, Cheswick style

2-3 cups mashed potatoes

1 lb ground beef

cheddar cheese

butter

I’m listing ingredients as a formality– this is a free-form dish, to be customized according to your tastes.

First, make mashed potatoes.  (If you don’t know how, there are abbreviated instructions here.)  It’s best, if you have time, to let them sit for an hour or two so they’re a little more solid.  As a kid I used to use the kind from a box.  It still works if you’re low on time.

Next, brown some ground beef in a skillet.  You can season this however you like.  Once it’s cooked, drain off the fat and layer the meat in the bottom of a pie plate (ceramic is best). 

Then comes your middle layer.  I prefer to slice cheddar cheese and layer it on top of the meat.  Cover this with a layer of mashed potatoes, making sure not to leave any holes.  Put a few pats of butter on top and bake in a 350-degree oven until the peaks of the potatoes start to brown. 

Here are a few potential customizations:

• Cook the meat with chopped onions, a bit of cinnamon and pine nuts.  Omit the middle layer, but sprinkle the top of the potatoes with feta cheese.
• Replace the cheddar cheese with stewed vegetables– green beans and carrots are popular with this.
• Add bacon.  Sure, it’s a heart attack on a plate, but what doesn’t taste better with bacon in it?
• Replace the meat with slightly seared chunks of cod, a bit of heavy cream, and some black pepper, and omit the cheese.  This one’s really good.

But you all are creative, I’m sure you’ll come up with some good variations.  By the way, the leftovers are great heated up for lunch the next day.

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