Panzanella Salad with a Poached Egg

Happy Easter and happy end to Passover so now we can eat bread!

We have made a panzanella salad, it is traditionally a Tuscan summer salad made with day old stale bread. We have made a brunch version of this topping it with a delicious poached egg.

We hope that you had a wonderful Passover and a wonderful Easter.

xx

Ingredients: Serves 2

1 ciabatta roll
3 Tomatoes
1 small cucumber
1/4 cup kalamata olives
2 Tablespoons capers
1/2 cup arugula
1 clove garlic
1/4 olive oil
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
kosher salt
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon rice wine vinegar

Start by creating your mise en place; dice the tomatoes into inch cubes, peel and dice the cucumber, halve the olives, mince the garlic, and dice the roll into inch cubes.

In a bowl whisk together the olive oil, garlic, red wine vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Place in tomatoes, arugula, cucumbers, and capers and let soak for about 20 minutes so the flavors can really set.

While the flavors set, in a pan set to medium heat, toast your bread cubes for about 7-10 minutes until they just start to crisp. Once toasted toss in with the salad lightly. If you feel there is to much liquid at the bottom, you can drain some of it.

Now we are going to poach the egg! Fill a sauce pan with about 3 inches of water and the rice wine vinegar, and simmer. Make sure your eggs are very cold, crack into two bowls for immediate use. Carefully place the eggs into the water, cover the pot, remove from heat and set timer for 5 minutes. DON'T touch the pot at all, just let them hang out and cook.

Now the salad is ready to be served, divide salad on to two plates and top with a poached egg and a pinch of salt.

Enjoy!

Valentines Day Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup!

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!  I try to spend every day like it is Valentine’s Day, telling Michael how much I love him, loving my family, my friends, my dogs, and always being kind to others. What are your Valentine’s Day plans this year?

When I think of what makes me happy when it comes to food, it isn’t something incredibly fancy or highly intricate, it is the simple comfort food that melts in your mouth and makes you feel good. We have created an elevated grilled cheese and tomato soup combo for you, a more decadent version of a loved classic. So enjoy our heirloom creamed tomato soup with a Swiss Gruyere Emmentaler grilled cheese sandwich!

*It helps to have a blender, sieve, and food brush handy, and if you cannot find a bag of grated cheese, just buy blocks and grate equal amounts.

Ingredients: serves 4

Soup:

6 large heirloom tomatoes
1 large can whole peeled tomatoes
¼ cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Yellow onion
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic
Parmesan rind
3 sprigs fresh thyme
Pinch of salt

Grilled Cheese Sandwich:
Block of soft baby Swiss cheese
Grated bag of Emmentaler and Gruyere cheese (they will be under fondue cheeses)
Sliced sourdough bread
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Start by assembling your mise en place by dicing the onion and garlic and setting aside, and then chopping the heirloom tomatoes and canned tomatoes. In a large sauce pan heat oil, then add onion and garlic and cook about 5 minutes until translucent.

Add tomatoes, then parmesan rind, thyme sprigs. When you add the rind make sure that there is no paper stuck to it. Put to medium heat and let cook 25 minutes. Remove the rind and the thyme.  

In small batches (if it is too large you may burn yourself), puree the tomato soup. Pour the mix into a sieve over a bowl, and using a spoon push through the sieve until you are only left with the fiber and no liquid. Discard of the fiber. Do this until all of the soup has been strained.

Pour the soup back into the sauce pan, turn to medium heat. Add butter, pinch of salt, and cream. Stir. Return to medium low to keep warm.

To make the sandwich melt a Tablespoon of butter in a bowl, then brush both sides of bread with butter, not so much that the bread will be soggy. Heat a pan to medium high heat.

Place first piece of bread in the pan. Let heat for 3 minutes, then add Emmentaler and Gruyere, then Baby Swiss. Let cook for 2 more minutes. Add next slice of bread then flip, cooking the next side for about 3-4 minutes. You just want the bread to brown and crisp, but not burn.

To serve, slice sandwiches in half, and serve with small bowl of soup and a kiss!

Oscar Party Pizzette, Stuffed Mushroom, and Blood Orange Mimosa!

Oscar season is upon us. We have received all of the screeners in the mail, and have our personal favorites. It is a fun time of year, when you can cuddle up with your loved one and watch a good movie. This year to celebrate the Oscars we are going over to our very good friends’ Jackson and Yasmine to eat some wonderful food, drink some dranks, and watch some glorious fashion and award giving. Mikey and I were thinking what do we enjoy the most with movie watching, and we thought pizza! So we have made you a really simply pizza crostini, or a pizzette you could say. Though the first thing to our mind isn’t stuffed mushrooms, to Hell with that, it should be! So we have also made a fabulous tarragon goat cheesed stuffed mushrooms.

Predict those awards, critique the fashion, and stuff your face with pizza on the couch!! Not to mention the wonderful blood orange champagne cocktail.

*Chiffonade= cutting herbs or greens in to long thin strips by either layering or rolling up the greens.

Ingredients: serves 12-15

Pizzette:
1 Baguette
½ cup tomato puree
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1 pinch garlic salt
2 balls buffalo mozzarella
5 basil leaves

Stuffed Mushrooms:
15 cremini mushrooms
¼ cup goat cheese
2 sprigs tarragon
1 Tablespoon olive oil

Blood Orange Mimosa:
Champagne
Blood orange

Maybe you should make this cocktail while you prepare the food, because it is very refreshing and a simple twist on a mimosa. Simply squeeze the juice of a blood orange into a glass and top off with champagne, and then garnish with a blood orange slice. So sleek!

The first thing you should do is prep all of your ingredients and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the baguette on a diagonal slice so the bread is about a ¼” thick, set aside. Next slice all the mozzarella about the same thickness, set aside. Next roll up your basil leaves tightly, and using a sharp knife chiffonade all the basil, set aside.

To make the sauce simply mix the past, puree, and garlic salt together.

Now we assemble the pizzettes. Cover the bread in the tomato sauce, then lay down some mozzarella, and top it off with basil. Lay the pizzettes out on a baking sheet leaving room for the mushrooms.

In order to make the mushrooms, pull the stems out, and if need be use a paring knife to cut the rest of the stem out. Put the mushrooms in a bowl, and coat them with the olive oil. Chop up the tarragon and in a separate small bowl mix together the tarragon and goat cheese. Fill the mushrooms with the cheese mix until overflowing a bit. Place on the baking sheet.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, pull out and remove the pizzettes, and then put the baking sheet back in the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.

Now enjoy your delicious Oscar food! Hurray!

Rainy Day Chipotle Chorizo and Beef Chili!!

Today was a weird weather day in Los Angeles, it is actually pretty cold! This morning we had hail, the last time I remember that happening I was 6 years old, I was living in Pacific Palisades, and my dogs refused to go outside. Right after the downpour of the year I would say, the sun came out and reminded us that seasons don’t quite exist here, only to confuse me when I go outside to still smell rain and not be able to feel my ears and nose because I wasn’t prepared for cold weather. I will stop complaining right now, because this weather is a walk in the park compared to the crazy storm Nemo that is raging through the Northern East Coast.

So whether you are faring through cold weather in Los Angeles, or shoveling through snow on the East Coast this rainy day chili will warm your cold little souls out there! We created a superb slow cooker beef and chorizo chili, with some extra goodies; a little cinnamon sweetness, a little chipotle kick, and a nice crunch of corn. Enjoy!

*Whenever we use tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes, peeled tomatoes etc…We only use the brand Pomi. It comes in a paper container, and is delicious. Tomatoes should never come out of a can; they retain a metal flavor which takes a long time to cook out!

* Keep garlic salt, oregano, and garlic salt on hand, because depending on how long you want to cook your chili you may want to add more of these three ingredients to achieve your perfect flavor.

Ingredients: serves 10 cook time 3-4 hours
2.5 lbs ground beef
2 lbs chorizo
1 yellow onion
½ small can of chipotle peppers
2 cups fresh or frozen corn
4 oz tomato paste
12 oz Pomi chopped tomato
1 large can kidney beans
1 large can pinto beans
1 large can white or cannellini beans
¼ cup chopped fresh oregano
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon garlic salt
2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon paprika
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Sour cream
Grated cheddar cheese

 

To make your life easier measure out all of your spices ahead of time, take oregano off the stems and chop, dice the onion, and slice up your chipotle peppers.

In a large sauté pan heat your olive oil and then sweat your onions until they start to soften. Next add the ground beef, and the chorizo (remove casings), and break up using a wooden spoon. While the meat starts to sear add your oregano, onion powder, black pepper, paprika, salt, and cumin, by sprinkling it all over the meat. We do this because we want the meat to cook and absorb the entire flavor. When you feel that your meat has seared all the way, add the chopped chipotle with half of the sauce it sits in and the tomato paste, and stir.

Transfer the meat mix into a slow cooker (if you don’t have one use a crock pot). Add your beans, the Pomi, garlic salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the mix. Cook on low with the timer set at 3-4 hours, whatever your timeline is. Towards the end, you can even have it at warm until it is ready to eat.

30 minutes before you decide to serve the chili add the corn, this way it will retain a wonderful crunch. Once you are done serve with a dollop of sour cream and cheddar cheese! Boom! That is tasty!!!



Christmas Eve Lamb Leek Mushroom Lasagna!

Christmas Eve at my house is left to last minute gift wrapping, dogs eating bottom branches of the tree, running out to CVS at midnight, and on the less stressful note watch a classic Christmas film and eat some delicious food. Traditionally in Italy one only eats fish because we are technically “fasting”….but since eating 7 courses of fish isn’t technically fasting, I will neither be fasting nor eating only fish. So Michael and I have prepared a festive Christmas Eve lasagna filled with tomato sauce, ground lamb, leeks, mushroom, and delicious ricotta cheese.

Enjoy this lasagna with your loved ones, maybe around the fire place and next to the tree!

God Jul!
Joyeux Noel!
Buon Natale!
Mele Kalikimaka!

Ingredients: use a 9”x13” baking tray

1 box oven bake ready lasagna pasta sheets
5 cups diced tomato in their juice
8 oz. tomato paste
3 cups sliced button tomatoes
2 lbs. ground lamb
2 medium leeks
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup olive oil
¾ teaspoon salt
1 lb. ricotta
2 cups shredded mozzarella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and get all of your mise en place set up. Start by chopping the leeks. To do this cut the root off, then cut where the light green starts to turn dark. Cut the leek in half lengthwise and take one layer off. Holding the halves intact, run them under water to get all of the dirt out. Now placing the cut side down, thinly slice the leeks into half-moon pieces. Next pull the stems out of your mushrooms, rinse, and slice into ¼ inch slices. Lastly dice up as finely as possible all of your garlic.

In a large sauce pan heat your olive oil. Once the olive oil gets to a searing temperature, put all of your ground lamb into the pan and cook all the way through, about 7 mins, stirring with a wooden spoon. Now take your meat out of the pan and drain all the fat through a colander, and place the meat back in the pan. Add leeks, cook about 5 minutes, next add garlic. Once the garlic starts to brown a bit add all of your tomato paste and stir, cook for one minute. Add tomatoes and their juices along with salt, and lower the heat to medium and let cook for about 25 minutes.

Mix ricotta and all but a ¼ cup of mozzarella together in a small mixing bowl.

Once your meat mix is done cooking, and your cheese is mixed, begin your assembly of the lasagna. Start by laying some meat sauce down, then cheese, then evenly lay out the raw mushroom. Top with pasta sheets. Repeat with meat, cheese, mushrooms, pasta two more times. Once you are done layering your ingredients take the last ¼ cup of mozzarella and sprinkle over the top layer.

You are now ready to cook. Cover the lasagna with a sheet of aluminum foil and place in oven and cook for 50 minutes. After the 50 minutes are up, remove the foil and cook for another 15 minutes to allow the cheese to create a nice brown crust!

Your wonderful lasagna is ready to be eaten! Merry Christmas!

Game Day Nachos!!!

Oh joy! It is that time of year again…when people gather together around the television to watch the great American sport of football. Friends gather to drink beer, eat chips and dip, yell at the television, all the fun stuff, this is when I know that the fall has truly arrived. Michael’s family all lives in Cherry Hill New Jersey, and Philly, so we are big Eagles fans over here, and we all know that their color is GREEN! To bring together the great joy of football food, the hearty flavors of fall, and the color green, we present our game day suiza nachos.

Suiza sauce is so incredibly delicious, I cannot even begin to describe. It is usually used on enchiladas, but it is so flavorful, brings a bit of heat, and because it is made with tomatillos, serranos, and cilantro, you will achieve a beautiful light green color…go EAGLES!!!

*Make sure you use a skillet or a pan that can go in to the oven.

Ingredients:

Suiza Sauce:
1 Lb. tomatillo
2 small Serrano chiles
2 large cloves of garlic
¼ cup cilantro
1/3 cup sour cream

Nachos:
2 bags tortilla chips of your choice
3 cups Mexican three cheese blend
1 large tomato
1 red onion
1 can pinto beans
4 medium fryer chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic
2 Tlb. olive oil
Salt and pepper
Sour cream

 

 

The nachos are made in 4 steps 1) cooking chicken, 2) make suiza sauce  and at the same time cook beans 3)layer your yumminess 4) finish off in oven.

So start by preheating the oven to 300 degrees. Coat the chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper, and the two cloves of garlic chopped. Heat a sauté pan with a little bit of oil, once hot, cook the chicken so that it is cooked just to the point of being cooked, because remember that you will be putting the chicken in the nachos and then in the oven for another 5 minutes.  Once the chicken is done chop into small pieces and put aside.

In a deep sauce pan place all of your tomatillos ( make sure you take the husk off) and serranos in the pan and then fill with water so that they are submerged. Bring the water to a boil and cook until they are all soft to the poke of a fork. At the same time in another pan take half of your onion, chop it, and cook with your pinto beans for about 10 minutes, flavor with salt and pepper. Back to the sauce. Once the tomatillos and serranos are done, take them out of the water reserving ½ a cup of the cooking liquid. Place tomatillos, serranos, garlic, silantro, and cooking liquid, and blend until pureed. In the same pan that you boiled the water in, pour the puree and cook for 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove from heat and add sour cream and a pinch of salt.

In your skillet you are going to layer everything…this is how we did it. We start with a layer of chips, layer of chicken, layer of beans, layer of suiza sauce, then layer of three cheese blend, then repeat this two more times for a total of three layers! Cheesey goodness! Make sure you save a fairish amount of suiza sauce for the top layer, and be sure to really cheese it up. Put the skillet in the oven for about 7-10 minutes, so all the cheese looks melted.

Take out of oven, chop the tomato and sprinkle all over, and use the rest of the chopped onion and do the same, now smother with that tangy, creamy, superb suiza sauce and DEVOUR!!

Ooh it’s good, even typing this my mouth is watering.