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Sweet Honey Cornbread

Posted on July 28, 2010 by amydeline

Don’t ever buy cornbread mix again. Make this instead. It’s sweet, slightly crumbly, doesn’t contain the preservatives in that boxed mix, and won’t take you more than three minutes longer to prepare. I bet you already have most of the ingredients in your pantry!

I love cornbread, especially when it’s got little kernels of fresh summer corn and a hint (or more than a hint) of honey flavor. You can have fun with this recipe and add bits of jalapeno, scallions, cheddar, or even bacon, if you’d like! Serve it warm with a pat of butter or alongside a bowl of spicy chili, as I’ll be doing tonight!

Sweet Honey Cornbread

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Flour
  • 1 cup Corn Meal
  • 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
  • 1/4 cup Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1 cup Buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup Honey
  • 1/2 stick Melted Butter
  • 2 Eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 cup Sweet Corn Kernels
  • 1/8 cup Honey, for brushing on top (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Lightly grease a small baking dish or cake pan.

In a bowl, combine flour, corn meal, baking powder, sugar, and salt until well blended.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, honey, melted butter, and beaten eggs. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until they are combined. Do not over mix. Fold in the corn kernels.

Pour into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

If desired, brush the top of the cornbread with a little honey, about 20 minutes into the baking time.

Allow the bread to cool for about 15 minutes before cutting and enjoying!

Check back later today for a spicy chili recipe!

Cornbread with a Drizzle of Honey

Edited to Add: Hi, everyone! I can’t believe I made it to Freshly Pressed! Wow! Hope you enjoy my blog. I really love writing it. If it makes you hungry, click on the right to subscribe. I add several new recipes each week, always with lots of pictures. Thanks for reading! ~Amy

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PB&J French Toast

Posted on July 23, 2010 by amydeline

In the three years and some odd months that we’ve been parents, we’ve been fortunate that our children have been mostly happy and mostly healthy. But during these past few weeks, our littlest guy has been sick. What started as a typical ear infection, treated with amoxicillin, led to an allergic reaction and two weeks worth of running back and forth between our doctor’s office, multiple emergency rooms, and specialists. As this week progressed, we thought we were through it. No more swelling. Very mild, occasional hives. No fever. No pain. Happy baby. Happy parents.

Until yesterday, when my momentarily healthy baby woke up from his nap with a scalding fever and complaining of pain in his leg; the opposite leg from the one which led us to last week’s all-nighter at the ER. Another visit to the doc revealed an angry red throat, seemingly unrelated to everything else. The poor little guy can’t seem to catch a break. A call to the orthopedist reassured us that the additional leg pain was a normal part of the reaction, if anything about these past few weeks can be called normal.

As I’ve learned during these past few weeks, there is nothing more nerve wracking for a parent than having a sick child. Watching our baby deal with all of the symptoms and the resulting medical tests and treatments has been so heartbreaking. The weight of trying to stay informed and make the best decisions for our baby has been emotionally draining. I wish I could just take the sickness away from him; put it on me instead. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could.

With everything that’s been going on, I have to admit that I’ve been spoiling both of the kids a bit; a couple extra treats after dinner, little presents from the store, endless hours of snuggles. They need a little extra spoiling and I’m equally compelled to give it.

So, when it came time to make dinner this evening, I wanted to make something a little special for the kids;  a little treat at the end of a long week.  My first thought was breakfast for dinner, which is always a treat in my book. Perhaps some banana-nut pancakes or maybe chocolate chip waffles. Then, I started thinking about my comment yesterday, about my picky eater’s love for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And that is how we ended up eating Peanut Butter and Jelly French Toast for dinner.

PB&J French Toast

Ingredients

  • 8 Slice of Thick-Cut Bread (like Texas Toast)
  • 6-8 Tbsp Peanut Butter
  • 4-6 Tbsp Jelly or Preserves
  • 3 Eggs
  • 1/4 cup Milk
  • 1 tsp Vanilla
  • 1/8 tsp Salt
  • 2-3 Tbsp Butter, for the pan
  • Syrup and/or Powdered Sugar, if desired

Directions

Spread a thin layer of peanut butter on 4 slices of bread. Spread jelly on the other 4 slices. Put the slices together into 4 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In a small baking dish, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, and salt. In a pan, melt some of the butter. Dip both sides of each sandwich in the egg mixture. Cook for a few minutes on each side until lightly browned and the eggs are fully cooked.

*If you’re making a large quantity and want to serve them all at once, heat your oven to about 250 degrees. As you finish cooking each batch, place them on a piece of foil or a baking sheet in the oven to keep warm until you’re ready to serve.

If desired, sprinkle with a bit of powdered sugar. You can serve the French Toast with syrup on the side, though it’s honestly sweet enough as is!

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Peasant Bread and Ale

Posted on July 18, 2010 by amydeline

I have a bad habit of immediately dismissing things that are over-hyped or forced upon me. If you tell me a hundred times that I have to read Twilight, it’s going to end up at the end of my reading cue. Insist that I plan a trip to the South Pole and you’ll find me at the North. Try to convince me to watch your favorite tv show and I already don’t like it. I’m stubborn. I’m sure I miss out on some great stuff due to this personality flaw, but it’s just the way that I am. I don’t like people telling me what I should do.

So, I had mixed feelings when Oprah chose Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth for her book club selection a few years ago. I panicked, worried that people would skip this book due to the hype. (I sometimes forget that not everyone is as willfully stubborn as I am.) You see, by the point that Oprah announced this book as her book club selection, I’d already read it three times. It’s one of the very few books I’ve ever read more than once. That’s how much I love Pillars of the Earth. It is the book I recommend to anybody asking for book recommendations. I lend my copy to friends and buy new copies once the old ones are too worn.

Set in 12th century England, Pillars of the Earth follows its characters and their descendants through conflicts of good versus evil, lust, love, greed and power struggles between family, church, and politics. It’s epic. It’s gripping. It’s the kind of book where as you reach the last hundred pages, you’re torn between reading faster to find out what happens or slowing down so that you can delay the end. It’s the kind of book that leaves you wondering about the characters for weeks afterward, as if they are family members you haven’t heard from in a while.

But, I don’t want to insist you read it, lest you’re like me and rebel against people telling you what you should do.

Oh, never mind. I can’t help it! You just have to read Pillars of the Earth! Trust me. You won’t be disappointed. It’s worth the hype. Do it!

Some of the best advice my dad ever gave me was to always read the book before you see the movie. Once you’ve seen the movie, your image of the book will be colored by the director’s interpretation. I have never been steered wrong by this advice. I’ve always wanted someone to make Pillars into a movie, but worried that it would be impossible to capture the grand nature of the book in just a few hours. Well, that’s exactly why you need to hurry up and read the book. This Friday, Starz is premiering their mini-series of Pillars of the Earth. My sister, who writes for an entertainment website, has previewed the mini-series. She’ll be posting her review later this week, but has been very enthusiastic so far. From a fan of the book, that’s a really good sign! You can read her preview of the series by clicking here and keep your eyes out for her review later this week.

So, now you’re probably wondering what all of this chatter has to do with food. And I promise, this does have to do with food. You see, some of the main characters in the book are exceptionally poor. They travel from village to village seeking work and begging for meals. When they’re lucky, they find charity at the castle or priory. Otherwise they’ll beg food from a passing monk, trade their limited possessions, or even steal. Each time, they are often presented with the same meager meal; a chunk of bread, cup of ale and maybe a piece of dried venison or cold bacon, if they’re lucky. Now maybe I’m crazy, but I can’t help but salivate every time I read about these impoverished people eating their simple meal. I wish someone would give me a chunk of bread and jug of ale. I’ll even skip the dried venison.

So, in honor of the upcoming premiere, today we’re having peasant bread and ale.

Bake the bread. Take a swig from a jug of ale. Then, head out to the bookstore to buy Pillars of the Earth. Start reading now, because it’s long and it’s going to take you awhile. In fact, you may need to call in sick a couple days this week. Then, subscribe to Starz, if you don’t already have it and clear your Friday evenings for the next several weeks!

Trust me. Have I ever led you astray?

Peasant Bread

Ingredients

  • 1 packet Active Dry Yeast
  • 2 cups Warm Water (about 115 degrees)
  • 1 Tbsp Sugar
  • 3 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 cup Rye Flour
  • 2 tsp Salt
  • 3 Tbsp Salted Butter, melted
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh Rosemary, chopped
  • Olive Oil and Cornmeal, for the baking sheet

Directions

Combine yeast and sugar in a bowl. Pour in the warm water and stir until dissolved. Add the flour and salt. Stir to combine. Cover the bowl with a moist towel and allow it to rise for one hour.

Now would be a good time to run out to the book store to buy Pillars of the Earth.

Lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil. Sprinkle some corn meal over the oil. Divide the dough in half and form two rounds. Place the dough rounds onto the baking sheet. Allow the dough to rise for one more hour.

Read a bit while you wait. Just wait until you meet William Hamleigh!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the melted butter over the dough rounds and sprinkle with the chopped rosemary. If desired, use a knife to cut a crosshatch in the dough. Bake the bread for about 25-30 minutes.

This would be a good time to call Starz about your subscription.

Once your bread is baked, pour yourself a cold glass of hoppy ale. Break off a piece of that warm bread and keep reading.


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Cheddar and Garlic Biscuits

Posted on July 15, 2010 by amydeline

Even the best laid plans can go wildly awry. The plan for last night was so simple. The kids and I had eaten dinner, my husband’s plate was ready to be reheated, and my running sneaks were awaiting my feet. In a couple hours, I would put the kids to bed, slip on my shoes for a run, then settle in on the couch with a couple glasses of champagne, and listen to an audio book with my hubby. A great, simple plan. And then my baby started favoring his left leg. Favoring became limping, which quickly turned into a complete refusal to bear any weight on his left leg. We ended up leaving our three-year-old at home with my sister and heading to the emergency room at what should have been my baby’s bedtime. Almost 10 hours later, we arrived home, exhausted from the harrowing ER experience. His pain was most likely the result of swollen joints related to the allergic reaction he’s still recovering from. Thankfully, he’s back on his little feet today and everyone is happy, albeit completely exhausted.

Tonight, an easy meal of leftovers is in order. The originally planned Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches will have to wait. I was about to plead exhaustion and forgo posting anything today. But I had a craving and it was nagging at me. The kids were playing outside with my husband, which gave me a little window of time to bring my craving to fruition. Think Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits, fresh from your oven. You know the biscuits I’m talking about…the biscuits that are in and of themselves worthy of a trip to Red Lobster. In fact, I may skip the leftovers and just eat biscuits for dinner.

I searched around for an authentic recipe for Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits. There are numerous copycat recipes out there, but they almost all call for Bisquick. I was intent on baking from scratch, so I read innumerable biscuit recipes and recipe reviews, put together my own version, and hoped they’d work out. They came out fantastic! If you love Red Lobster’s biscuits as much as I do, these are definitely worth a try!

Cheddar and Garlic Biscuits

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Flour
  • 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/8 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 3 Tbsp Salted Butter, cold, cut into small pieces
  • 3 Tbsp Vegetable Shortening, cold
  • 1 cup Buttermilk
  • 1 cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded

To brush on the biscuits:

  • 3 Tbsp Salted Butter
  • 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
  • 1/2 tsp Parsley Flakes

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly coat baking sheets with cooking spray. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder. Add the 3 tablespoons of cold butter and 3 tablespoons shortening to the flour mixture. Use a dough cutter or fork to blend the butter and shortening with the flour. Pea-sized bits of flour-coated butter and shortening should be dispersed throughout the mixture.

Stir in the buttermilk and cheese. Do not overmix. Use an ice cream scoop or measuring cup to drop mounds of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 3 Tbsp butter in a small pan. Stir in the garlic powder and parsley flakes. Allow the mixture to cook for a minute. Brush over the baked biscuits.

Makes 10-12 Biscuits


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Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

Posted on June 22, 2010 by amydeline

Isn’t it funny how certain foods can remind you so vividly of particular people and draw you back in time to memories so vibrant you can practically taste the food? It’s the way that rice pilaf or ambrosia salad makes me think of my Aunt Theresa and playing outside with my cousins. Or, how Corned Beef Hash reminds me of Sunday mornings with my Dad. Well, Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, or spaghetti with garlic and oil, makes me think of my Grammy. I’m pretty sure that I never pronounced it correctly, but she always knew what I was asking for and was more than happy to make it for me. Little did I know what a cinch it is to put this delicious dish together. I would have asked for it more often!

I was reminded of Spaghetti Aglio e Olio last weekend. My husband and I went out for a rare dinner date, while my mother-in-law babysat the kiddies. On the menu, there was a linguine dish with olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and broccoli. I instantly thought of my Grammy and was very tempted to order it. I ended up choosing something different, but made a mental note to make Spaghetti Aglio e Olio soon. Since I have an open tin of anchovies sitting in the fridge, begging to be used, tonight seemed like the perfect time to whip up my own version of Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with Anchovies and Broccoli.

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with Anchovies and Broccoli

Ingredients

  • 1 package of Spaghetti
  • 3/4 cup Olive Oil
  • 6 large cloves Garlic, thinly sliced
  • 5-6 Anchovy Fillets, rinsed and chopped
  • 2 cups Broccoli, chopped and steamed
  • 1/4  tsp Salt, plus more if desired*
  • 1/4 tsp Crushed Red Pepper, plus more if desired
  • Parmesan Cheese

*If you choose to omit the anchovies, you will probably want to add additional salt, since the sauce will lack the saltiness the anchovies lend to it.

Directions

Cook the spaghetti according to package directions. When the spaghetti is almost finished cooking, heat 1/4 cup of the olive oil in a pan. Add the anchovies, sliced garlic and 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes.  Cook for a few minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is lightly browned and softened, about 4-5 minutes. Add the remaining oil and salt. Stir to combine. Turn the heat down to low, just enough to keep it warm, and add the steamed broccoli. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if desired. When the spaghetti is finished cooking, drain the pasta. Toss it with the sauce and broccoli. Sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese before serving.

The garlicky oil in this dish is just screaming to be soaked up by a piece of warm, crusty bread. So, don’t forget to buy a loaf of fresh bakery bread or make your own. I made a loaf of French Bread, similar to the one I made several weeks ago to accompany the Ragout of Sausage, Cannellini Beans, and Rapini. At the time of that post, I created a link to the French Bread recipe I followed, since I’d made it without any adaptations. Well, I realized the error of my ways when I went back to click on the link, only to receive a message alerting me that the page could not be found. I was able to quickly locate the recipe on the website, but the experience taught me a lesson about not relying on links to document recipes. Today, I’m going to share my own French Bread recipe, which is a modified version of the other recipe. I added more flour, which made the dough significantly easier to work with.  I also adjusted the procedure for rolling and baking the dough and added an egg wash to give the bread a little sheen.

Crusty French Bread

Ingredients

  • 5 cups Flour
  • 2 tsp Salt
  • 1 Tbsp Dry Active Yeast
  • 2 Cups Warm Water
  • Oil, for bowl
  • 1 egg white, lightly beaten

Directions

Combine flour and salt. In a large bowl, combine yeast and warm water.  Stir in half of the flour/salt mixture, until well blended. Cover with a towel and allow it to rest at room temperature for 3 hours. It will triple in size. After 3 hours, add the remaining flour/salt mixture and combine with your hands.  Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes. Clean, dry, and lightly oil the bowl. Return the kneaded dough to the oiled bowl. Cover with a towel and let it rest at room temperature for another hour. The dough will rise again. Knead the dough for a few minutes on a lightly floured surface. Split the dough in two.  Roll each piece of dough into a rectangle.  Then, starting with the long side, roll the dough into a loaf. Brush the seam with a little water to seal it closed. Place the loaves on a baking sheet, seam side down. Allow the loaves to rest on the baking sheet, at room temperature, for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the baking sheet with the loaves in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes.  Remove the loaves and brush with a lightly beaten egg white. Return the loaves to the oven and bake for another 10 -15 minutes.

Adapted from a French Bread recipe found at www.famousfrenchdesserts.com

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Father’s Day Breakfast in Bed: Strawberry Stuffed French Toast and Bacon

Posted on June 20, 2010 by amydeline

Are there ways of knowing whether a man will make a good father? Some sort of definitive predictors? Perhaps a checklist or a DNA test? If there were such a thing, what characteristics would they test for? What factors determine whether a man will become a great father?

My husband and I met in college. We certainly weren’t thinking of kids at the time. We were just kids ourselves. Some of our earliest memories involve pitching hot dogs out of his dorm room window to watch them explode. Our attraction had more to do with each other’s beer pong skills than it did with future parenting abilities. Could I have known at the time that he would someday make at great dad? At what point in our relationship did it start mattering? Could I have been certain, even as we said our wedding vows, that he’d be as excellent a father as he was a husband?

I’m not sure it’s possible to be absolutely positive that someone will make a good dad before they actually are one. Parenthood is such a life-changing experience.  It requires more of you than you’ve ever given; parts of you that you may not have known were there. Fourteen years ago, I couldn’t have known whether my husband would make a good father. But over the years, we got to know and love each other. We grew and matured together. And, in the way that he treated me, I came to know a good man; a selfless, considerate, gentle, and kind man.

So, I suspected. In fact, I would have bet money on it. But, it wasn’t until I saw the look on his face, in the moment our first son was born, that I knew for sure. He was a father and a dad all at once, in that instant. And, as I recovered from the birth and a debilitating spinal headache, he cared for our newborn baby with apparent ease. When I was nervous and uncertain, he was a natural; calm and confident. And, since those very first moments in the hospital, he has been a loving, selfless, and devoted father to our boys. The good man, who has loved me for all of these years, turned out to be the most wonderful father.

Did I luck out or were there clues in those early days? Probably a little bit of both. Come to think of it, it probably won’t be too long before he’s hanging out the window with our kids, throwing hot dogs onto the pavement, as they all laugh along. I’ll probably join in.

So, this morning we celebrated my husband, the wonderful father, with breakfast in bed. If I were cooking for my own amazing father this morning, there’d be corned beef hash, an egg over-easy, and well-done rye toast on the menu; a man after my own heart or more likely, I after his! (Love you, Daddy!!) But, my husband’s more of a strawberry-stuffed french toast kind of guy with applewood-smoked bacon on the side.

Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Ingredients

  • 8 slices Challah Bread
  • 1 package Cream Cheese, softened
  • 1/4 cup Sugar
  • 8-10 Strawberries, sliced
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1/4 cup Cream
  • 1/8 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
  • 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • Butter, for pan
  • Powdered Sugar, for garnish
  • Maple Syrup

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place a baking sheet in the oven. In a bowl, beat together cream cheese and sugar. Spread the cream cheese mixture onto each slice of bread. Place sliced strawberries on four of the slices.  Use the other four slices of bread to create cream cheese-strawberry sandwiches. In a small baking dish, beat together eggs, cream, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon.  In a pan, heat a little butter. One at a time, dip each sandwich into the egg mixture, so that it lightly coats both pieces of bread. Cook in the pan, flipping once until both sides are lightly browned.  Then, place it on the baking sheet in the oven.  Repeat until each sandwich has been cooked.  Allow the sandwiches to cook for 5-10 minutes in the oven to ensure that they are fully cooked.  The cream cheese will be melty and the strawberries slightly softened. Cut each sandwich into two pieces and sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with maple syrup.

Serves 4

Happy Father’s Day to my husband, my Daddy, and all of the wonderful fathers out there!

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Chicken Salad Sandwich – Waldorf Style

Posted on June 11, 2010 by amydeline

I’ve got something quick, easy, and incredibly satisfying for you today. A chicken salad twist on a classic Waldorf Salad…tender chicken, chunks of crisp celery, juicy grapes, sweet bits of apple, and crunchy walnuts blended together with a little mayo and a touch of mustard. It’s like a party in your mouth!

Waldorf Chicken Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 pound of chicken tenderloins (or chicken breasts)
  • 1 cup Red Seedless Grapes, halved or quartered
  • 1/2 cup Celery, sliced thin
  • 1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped
  • 1/2 cup Dried Apple, chopped
  • 1/3 cup Mayonnaise
  • 1/8 cup Mustard
  • Salt and Pepper

Directions

Place chicken tenderloins on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook in a 375 degrees oven for about 15-20 minutes, until cooked through. (You can also use chicken breasts for this recipe, but they will probably need to cook longer, depending on size.) Allow chicken to cool. Then, cut or pull the chicken into small pieces.  Combine chicken with the mayo and mustard. Stir to combine. Add walnuts, grapes, apples, and celery. Mix until well combine.  Taste and then add salt and pepper to season.

**Adjust quantities of any ingredient, as desired.

**You can use fresh apples instead of dried apples. Just toss chopped apples in a bit of lemon juice to prevent browning.

Serve on your favorite bread or roll.

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The World’s Greatest Penne ala Vodka

Posted on June 7, 2010 by amydeline

This, dear friends, is your lucky day. I am about to share a recipe for the best Vodka Sauce you’ve ever tasted. Seriously…this stuff is a. maze. ing. This recipe comes from a lovely friend, Erin, who acquired it from her uncle, whose friend, Charlie, came up with it. Follow all that? The first time I had the pleasure of this sauce was during college, when Erin whipped it up to the great delight of everyone in our sorority house. We were all hooked. Our biggest problem after that, was figuring out who was old enough to buy the vodka, so we could make it again.

This is a rich sauce; not exactly what you would call diet-friendly. But, all things in moderation. It’s worth it! Just hold your breath while you pour in the quart of cream and drop in the stick of butter. It’s gonna be a long run for me tonight!

Mise En Place

A little note about Mise En Place – The French phrase, Mise en Place, pronounced MEEZ-on-plahs, roughly translates to “everything in its place”. In the culinary field, this refers to the practice of gathering, preparing, and organizing ingredients prior to beginning the cooking process. I’ve mentioned this all before, but I say it again because I truly believe that mise en place is the #1 thing you can do to make cooking a successful, enjoyable experience. Now, my mise en place isn’t always nicely arranged on a tray.  That just makes a pretty picture.  But, I do prepare my mise en place almost every time I cook. Sometimes I do it just prior to cooking.  Other times, I gather, measure, and prepare things whenever I have a moment over the course of the day. This way, when dinner time rolls around, I’m ready to cook! The practice of preparing your mise en place will save you many headaches and a lot of frustration. It will save you from burning the soup, while you’re searching for a spoon or from overcooking the green beans while you’re chopping the garlic. You’ll be just like those chefs on TV, skillfully whipping up delicious meals with ease.

But, enough about mise en place. Let’s get cooking!

Penne ala Vodka

World’s Greatest Vodka Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 3 shots vodka
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 pound prosciutto (optional, but recommended)
  • 1 can whole plum tomatoes
  • 2 small cans tomato paste
  • 1 qt heavy cream (or you can use a combination of light and heavy cream)
  • 1 small bunch of fresh basil, chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 stick butter
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Directions

  • Chop onion and garlic and cook in olive oil until soft.
  • Add prosciutto and cook for a few minutes.
  • Form mixture into a circle with a hole in the middle, pour vodka in the center of the circle and allow to cook off (about 5 minutes). **Pour vodka into a shot glass or other wide-rimmed container before pouring into the pot.  Never pour alcohol directly from a bottle into a hot pan. It is flammable and there is a chance that flames could find there way into the bottle and cause it to explode.
  • Rinse plum tomatoes under water and rinse out all the seeds. (Seeds make the sauce bitter.)
  • Cut into quarters or eighths and add tomato pieces to mixture.
  • Add cream and tomato paste, stir until combined and hot.
  • Chop approximately 5 basil leaves and add to the sauce. (Save additional basil leaves for garnish.)
  • Add cheese and butter and simmer over low heat for approximately 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
  • Season with salt and pepper to taste. About 1-2 tsp of each should be good.

Serve over penne pasta. This dish pairs nicely with steamed asparagus or peas.

The sauce will keep for a few days in the refrigerator if you don’t put it on the pasta. (Pasta with the sauce already on it does not reheat well.)

Italian Bread with Roasted Garlic Butter

Remember that garlic we roasted last week?  (Click here for a reminder.) Combine 1 head of roasted garlic with 1 stick of softened butter. Cut a loaf of Italian bread in half lengthwise. Spread the roasted garlic butter on both halves. Put the halves back together.  Wrap the loaf in foil.  Bake in a 350 degrees oven for 20-25 minutes. Cut into slices and serve with the Penne ala Vodka.

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New York Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on a Bagel

Posted on May 31, 2010 by amydeline

I was born and raised on Long Island, New York. With countless aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, parents, and grandparents still residing on the island, there are many occasions for visits home. And, one thing makes every trip complete: Bacon, Egg, and Cheese on a New York bagel.

Here’s the catch though.  The sandwich must be prepared at the bagel shop.  Many an eager host has offered to make us bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches. I’ve got eggs, bacon, and cheese in the fridge, they say.  Just pick up the bagels and I’ll make you a sandwich. Our hearts pound a little faster and we feel flushed. How can we put this politely, without offending our gracious host? “No, no…it’s ok, we’ll just pick up the sandwiches. Thanks though!” What?  You don’t like my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches?? Oh no. This isn’t going well.  We’ve hurt their feelings. How do we explain this? It’s just that, well, it’s just… Oh, I don’t know!  But, it’s how it has to be.

I think there’s a certain magic that happens when the egg hits the hot bagel shop griddle. Perhaps it’s the aroma of freshly baked bagels in the air? It might even have something to do with the white paper it’s so perfectly wrapped in.

Oh, and the bagels!! I hesitate to say only New York bagels, because it is not a statewide phenomenon. By New York bagels, I refer to downstate, New York City and Long Island bagels. Dense, chewy New York bagels. As a resident of Central New York, I can attest to the difference. Most bagels, outside of the downstate New York area, are more like rolls in a bagel disguise. They look like bagels, smell like bagels, and even feel like a bagel when your lips first touch the glossy exterior.  But inside, it’s just a piece of bread. So, so sad. Oddly enough, the one place that’s come closest to a New York style bagel was a small bagel shop we visited in Clearwater, Florida. Doughy and delicious bagels, with just the right amount of resistance to the bite. But, they did not make bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. So, so sad.

So, now we’re home.  Bag of Long Island bagels in hand. Happy that we have reason to return in the near future!

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German Soft-Pretzel Sandwiches

Posted on May 27, 2010 by amydeline

My best friends from college joke about how they’d vocalize a craving and within moments, I’d have found everything necessary and be halfway done making it. To be honest, I can’t actually think of one example of doing this. But, it sounds like something I’d do. Nowadays, my husband holds the magic lamp which makes all of his food cravings appear. Most of the time he just waits to see what I put in front of him. But every so often, he gets a hankering for something and I do what I can to bring it to fruition.

Such was the case last night, as my husband was scrolling through his iPhone and ran across a New York Times article entitled, Making Soft Pretzels the Old-Fashioned Way. You see, my husband has got a tiny, little obsession with pretzels; doughy, salty Bavarian pretzels. It all began just after our college graduation. We lived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany for the summer and worked at an American-owned hotel.  I was a waitress and bartender in the hotel’s main restaurant.  My husband worked in housekeeping. We spent most of our evenings at German beer festivals drinking huge glasses of Bavarian Hefeweissen and eating pretzels. On days off, we’d huff and puff our way up the Kramer Mountain (with little old German ladies swiftly biking past us) to our favorite biergarten, informally known as the Halfway House, perched halfway up the mountain, overlooking all of Garmisch.  A couple of beers and a pretzel later and we’d hike back down. What a summer! It’s really no wonder that a pretzel obsession developed.

Here in the states, good German beer is readily available. There is a wide selection of imported Hefeweissen, Dunkel Bock and Pilsners right at my local grocery store. But, pretzels are a different story. Good Bavarian-style soft pretzels are not as easy to find. Over the years, my husband has been on an endless search for good pretzels.  He buys a pretzel whenever he has the opportunity, whether it be at a baseball game, the mall, or from a street vendor. So far, the closest we’ve found to an authentic Bavarian pretzel is at the Hofbrauhaus in Las Vegas. Without fail, the very best part of every Vegas trip is our evening at the Hofbrauhaus, singing along with the live German music while consuming as much German beer, pretzels, and food as we can before taking turns rolling each other back to the hotel.

But, Vegas is far away and there are no Germany trips in our near future. And so, this morning, while my husband was busy at work, I decided to try my hand at pretzel making. I poked around online for a bit looking for an authentic soft pretzel recipe. Turns out that the key to making really good soft pretzels is dipping the dough into a lye bath just prior to baking.  Lye is a highly caustic substance, the use of which necessitates safety measures, such as gloves and masks, to prevent chemical burns. Lye is used in the curing processes of numerous foods.  It is also used in drain cleaners and soap. I’m all for adventurous cooking, but something about using a product in my food, which can be found next to the Drano, just sits funny with me.  Not to mention that I’m not wild about using something which can cause chemical burns, in proximity of my ever-present children. Either way, it doesn’t appear that lye is commonly available anymore.  One online pretzel recipe linked to Amazon.com as a source for food-grade lye, but the lye I found on there was listed in the Automotive section.  Yeah, that’s not really going to work for me. So, I did a little more searching around and found a number of recipes which use a baking soda bath, prior to baking, to achieve that pretzelrific exterior browning, including a recipe from Alton Brown.  Alton Brown knows his stuff! I trust his expertise completely. That, and 234 positive reviews of the recipe convinced me that it was worth a try. I followed his recipe exactly, only substituting coarse-ground sea salt for the pretzel salt. I made a few pretzels and several rolls to use for sandwiches.

Waiting for the dough to rise

Expert pretzel roller

Egg wash

Basket o' pretzels

Pretzel Roll with Smoked Gouda, Black Forest Ham, Thinly Sliced Pear, and German Mustard

Pretzel sandwiches would be outstanding with any number of fillings.  I chose to use Black Forest Ham, Smoked Gouda, thinly sliced pear, and German-style mustard. My husband is in for a real treat when he gets home for lunch!

Enjoy with your favorite German brew.

Prost!

Prost!!

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Posted in Breads, Cheese, Food, Fruit, Main Course, Pork, Recipes, Sandwiches, Things I Love and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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