Moules Marinieres

Moules Marinieres (aka Mussels in White Wine Garlic Sauce). Sounds pretty fancy, oui? Well, if there is a meal that was made to impress with a total of about 10-15 minutes of effort, this is it. A perfect dinner for a summer evening when you don’t feel like having the stove or oven on for any significant length of time. I borrowed this recipe from one of my favorite food writers, Ruth Reichl. Her memoirs are incredible (they include recipes!) and her time as a chef, restaurant critic and editor of fabulous publications such as Gourmet (RIP), have made her one of the most famous amongst the current crop of foodies.

Mussels are delicious when they are fresh and not overcooked. I served this dish with a green salad and chunk of crusty french bread to mop up the sauce. If you want more broth, increase the amount of wine and chicken broth slightly. Enjoyable with a glass of crisp white wine.

Moules Marinieres – adapted from Ruth Reichl
Ingredients:
3 quarts clean mussels (5 pounds)
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf

Sauté onions and garlic in butter until golden. Add wine and bay leaf, cook one minute. Add the mussels, cover and cook over medium heat. Carefully shake pot once or twice until all shells are open (about 5 minutes). Do not overcook. Remove unopened mussels.

Ladle into bowls and serve with bread to soak up the sauce.

An ode to the Roma

Oh Roma, you are by far the most delicious sausage I have ever tasted. You are so good, that you actually might beat out all of the delicious cured meat I ate when I was actually in Rome last summer. Your spicy, succulent and mouth-watering ways had me in such a frenzy that I forgot to take a photo of you – so I had to borrow this one from the Vermont Salumi website.

Photo credit: Vermont Salumi

Apparently, since I am talking to my dinner, I have officially gone crazy. But not before I tell you quickly about this delicious creation from Vermont Salumi that we came across at the Farmer’s Market recently. I was so taken with the idea of a traditional Italian style sausage made with local, organic and fresh ingredients that lacked all of the nitrates and preservatives usually found in the store bought variety that I had to have a package from this stand. Our bags were already loaded and I gave Brendan a pleading look that I knew he couldn’t refuse. Well it turned out to be worth it. In fact, I don’t actually have enough words to describe how delicious this was- so if you live in north or central Vermont, you must simply go buy something from this place.

PS – I just learned from their website that the owner and chef was born in Italy and trained in traditional butchering, so that’s something you don’t get every day here.  Pretty cool.

Salmon Panzanella with green beans

If you are saying “what the ____ is a panzanella”, then you, my friend, are not alone. Only because some of my favorite food blogs had attempted similar dishes in the past was I aware of what to expect from this Recipe of the Day from Epicurious. Basically panzanella is an Italian style salad with croutons and no lettuce. I’ve seen veggie only panzanellas, one with beans and sausage and this one with light and healthy salmon. This is a great quick and healthful meal that I would make again in a heartbeat. It’s also a great recipe to mess around with if you don’t like certain ingredients, just swap them out!

Before we go ahead with the recipe, a few notes on the carbs. 1. This recipe called for a whole wheat baguette. If you can find one of those, more power to you. I checked 3 different bakeries/markets and had to settle for a small white baguette. 2. This recipe also called for mixing in the bread chunks to the salad plain and uncooked. I had seen other recipes with homemade croutons, so I decided to go that route because I like the crunch and we can always keep the extras for use on salads. 3. You could totally leave out the croutons and this would still be a delicious and filling meal.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did- it’s so perfect for a rainy summer evening when you don’t want to grill, but you also don’t want your oven on for an hour.

Salmon Panzanella with green beans – adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 pound salmon fillet, skin removed (I had them do this at the market when I got the fish- so much easier than trying to cut the skin off at home)
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
1/2 pound green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon plus 1 teasoon red wine vinegar
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup thinly sliced red onion
I small baguette, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup fresh basil, cut into thin strips

Preheat oven to 350. Toss bread cubes with 2 TB olive oil, salt and pepper. Lay cubes on baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, stirring them around once or twice. Remove from oven and let cool.

Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan; cook beans until bright green and crisp-tender, about 3 minutes; drain and set aside. Heat broiler to low. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray (or use the same sheet that you used for the croutons- it should still have enough oil on it that you won’t need any spray). Season salmon with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Broil until cooked through, 5-8 minutes per side; let cool (for whatever reason, my salmon took a few minutes per side longer than the recommended 5 minutes. Thick piece of fish? Oven not hot enough? Who knows…).  Whisk oil, vinegar, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a serving bowl; add beans, tomatoes, onion, and basil, then toss. Flake salmon and add to salad; toss gently. Let sit 10 minutes before serving. Add croutons on top of each serving (that way they won’t get soggy hanging out in the salad and you can keep them crisp for leftovers).

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble

For those few active readers who may have noticed that I’ve been a bit lazy about posting recently, my apologies. Summer does funny things to motivation. When the weather is warm, we fire up the grill and throw together a quick salad and so I figure there’s just so many times I can post pictures of grilled meat and a side salad. So my content might begin to shift a bit away from recipes and more towards other culinary delights that inspire me. But all in good time. For now, we get to focus on one of my favorite summer activities: baking! Fresh fruit just screams to be made into pies, crisps, crumbles and cakes. Top it with a little Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream, and you’ve got the most delicious reward for playing outside in the sun all day. (Or all afternoon/evening if it’s a work day.)

Even though the weather feels like summer these days, the growing season is still in major spring-mode. That means lots of rhubarb at the farmer’s market!!! I LOVE rhubarb. My mom used to make it a lot when I was little and it was always a great bbq side. But these days I find I like it best in a dessert. There is something about the balance of tart and sweet flavors that just gets me every time. This recipe represents the best of all worlds, the fruit flavors stand out boldly, but there is the sweet, zesty crisp to the topping that adds a delightful texture. I adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (again), because she is pretty much the only person I trust to give me a baked goods recipe to rival my family’s traditional standbys. I did have to shift some of the proportions around because I had double the rhubarb and half of the strawberries she called for. Only because I was lucky enough to find a pint of organic strawberries from Adam’s Berry Farm and felt compelled to buy them in order to support this wonderful farm that has been mostly under water for a month. Plus, they are way sweeter and more delicious than the ones shipped from California. Solution to this un-dilemma: add more sugar and a TB of tapioca to ensure that the fruit part wouldn’t be too tart or too runny. I mean, it’s dessert. Who can say no to more sugar? Not me.

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble – adapted from the Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (or turbinado sugar aka Sugar in the Raw)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 pound (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
3 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 pint strawberries, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
2/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon tapioca
Pinch of salt

Yields 6 to 8 servings

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed.

2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, tapioca and a pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. (I used a deep 9 inch square baking dish that recently made it’s way into my kitchen – thanks Brendan! It worked perfectly because the high sides prevented and bubbling over.)

3. Remove topping from refrigerator and cover fruit thickly and evenly with topping. If you are using a more shallow dish, place pie plate on a foil-lined baking sheet, place in the oven and bake until crumble topping is golden brown in places and fruit is bubbling beneath, about 40 to 50 minutes. (In my oven it took 55 minutes to get golden brown on top.)

Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta

Spring has finally sprung here in Vermont (well, sort of…) and last weekend I finally saw some asparagus at the farmer’s market. Thankfully, the farm I bought it from had managed to remain in production, while many local farms in Burlington and surrounding areas have had severe setbacks due to flooding. Unfortunately, we have another week of rain on our hands, so I imagine many farmers are going to experience further delays for most of their early season crops.

In any case, this dish just screams “spring” at you. The flavors are subtle and delicious and you can just feel that even more robust tastes are just around the corner. Tarragon is one of those highly underutilized and under-appreciated herbs that really shines alongside the goat cheese and lemon.  I adapted the recipe from Smitten Kitchen– adding some sauteed chicken breasts for protein and swapping in whole wheat pasta instead of the regular variety.

As a rule, I generally stick to the proportions of a recipe, even if it is supposed to serve 4 or 6 and I am not planning on having company. I find that leftovers make for easy and healthful lunches, which is key to not allowing the leftovers to go bad in your fridge. If you can convince your slightly finicky partner to eat them for dinner later in the week, more power to you. However, this is one dish where I think I will shrink the recipe in the future to the size that we will eat in that first sitting. The goat cheese makes a creamy, smooth sauce that just doesn’t translate in the subsequent re-heating of the dish.

Oh- by the way- did I mention that this takes less than 30 minutes to make? Perfect weeknight meal.

Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta – adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Serves 6

2 boneless chicken breasts
1 pound whole wheat rotini (or other spiral shaped pasta)
1 pound slender asparagus spears, trimmed, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil, plus 1 TB
1 lemon’s worth of finely grated lemon peel and juice
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon plus more for garnish
1 5- to 5 1/2-ounce log soft fresh goat cheese (the pre-crumbled stuff will not melt as well)

While the water for past begins to boil, salt and pepper your chicken breasts and saute them in a well-heated frying pan with about 1 TB of olive oil. Depending on the thickness of the chicken, you will want to saute them for anywhere from 4 minutes to 8 minutes per side. Cook your pasta in a large pot of well-salted water until it is almost tender, or about three minutes shy of what the package suggests. Add asparagus and cook until firm-tender, another two to three minutes. Drain both pasta and asparagus together, reserving one cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile, combine olive oil, lemon peel, tarragon and cheese in a large bowl, breaking up the goat cheese as you put it in. Add hot pasta and asparagus to bowl, along with a couple slashes of the pasta water. Toss until smoothly combined, adding more pasta water if needed. Season generously with salt and pepper, and lemon juice. Add slices of chicken breast, toss and serve.