Melon Carpaccio & Fancy Pants Bread for the Win

I'm all about Italy. All the time. When we traveled there, I knew that's how I wanted to live the rest of my life. Especially their food philosophy. Meals were a gathering. The restaurants, owned by families, opened at 7 or 8, and once their tables were filled, they kindly let people know that they would not be serving anyone else that night. Because a meal takes at least 3 hours to get through. Sure, there are a ton of different courses served, and plenty of time to rest in between. But mainly because meals were a time of communing. To relax, have some wine, catch up with your loved ones and some people you might not know, and just enjoy life. And the food was phenomenal.

So this is one of our faves. We do this about once a week- basically as often as I make baguettes, or other fancy pants bread. Because first off, there is nothing better than fresh baked baguettes right out of the oven, and why ruin that with other food? Let the bread be the star, cut up some cheese and veggies and HAVE AT IT. I might currently be in a bread coma from tonight's meal.  But so is the rest of my household so it's all good.

So let's break this bad boy down.

The bread. It's called Pain de Campagne Poilane ("Pierre & Lionel Poilane are the most celebrated of Parisian Bakers" and this is their most celebrated bread) and the recipe is in Bernard Clayton's New Complete book of breads. This recipe takes 3 days to make (make the starter, wait a day, make the sponge, wait a day, then finally make the bread on day 3). So I'm not gonna type out the recipe. Also because I have a feeling that's some kind of copyright infringement. Let's just say that if you want to ever make bread you NEED to own this book. Because it has everything. The best bagels I've ever tasted, the best hamburger buns, the best baguettes, the best sandwich bread......you get the idea. So buy it. Anyway, this is super fancy pants bread cause it takes so long, and you get 2 of those sized loaves out of it so WORTH. IT.

The other semi star in this pic is the melon carpaccio- Mario Batali's recipe, here. I stuck to the recipe written except I used prosciutto that I crisped up in a skillet instead of salami because I've had cantaloupe and prosciutto before and it's an amazing pairing. And I didn't have arugula so I used whatever greens I had in my fridge. I think the arugula would have put it over the edge so I'm kinda bummed I didn't just send the hubbs out for some, but it was still amazing. Like I could eat that salad every night amazing. And yes, I'm totally counting that as a salad. Carpaccio, by the way, is simply raw, thinly sliced whatever. There's beef carpaccio which is the bomb, there's octopus carpaccio which I will not be eating anytime soon, etc etc.

The other stuff. One is a cherry tomato, basil and buffalo mozzarella salad. Also known as caprese, I just threw it in a bowl instead of making it all pretty. Throw some sea salt and evoo on it and you're good to go.

Sliced cucumbers with french feta cheese and evoo. Also yumtacular.

And then of course sliced assorted cheese and salami. Because.

And there you have it. I did not include a pasta course and an entree course the way they would have in Italy, but we'll just skip right onto dessert.  Some more of the hazelnut gelato I made.....

Lunch is served: 15 - 30 minute Veggie Orzo

Babygirl requested pasta for lunch. Alrighty then. This took me 15 minutes, but would have taken a few minutes longer if I didn't already have summer squash cut and cooked to add. I did have to cut up the mushrooms, cut the squash smaller, and cut up the oven dried tomatoes, which I did while the pasta water was boiling. So here's the recipe.

Serves 2+
1/2 cup veggie tri color orzo
handful of cremini mushrooms
handful of oven dried tomatoes
handful of summer squash
some butter
some marscarpone (homemade is best) or you can sub a splash of heavy cream
extra virgin olive oil

While waiting for the salted water to boil, I cut up the veggies. I cooked the mushrooms first- toss them in a pan with some evoo and a little butter and salt. Once they got soft and a nice brownish color I added the tomatoes and summer squash. I cheated and bought organic oven dried tomatoes at costco cause they looked (and are) delicious. Super sweet and yummy goodness. Similar to sundried to tomatoes but not as dry. And they are in a jar in olive oil.

The pasta is small and cooks really quickly. Plus you don't want to finish cooking it in the water. So after a few minutes, add the orzo WITHOUT draining all the pasta water....you want to add some of that water to your cast iron skillet, which should be about medium hot. Add some evoo and some butter and stir around until your pasta is done. Then turn off the heat and throw in the marscarpone. Stir and eat.

Spicy Peanut Butter Chicken over quinoa lime salad

I knew we needed to eat chicken. We admittedly eat a LOT more beef or pork because they just taste better and I don't tend to find exciting chicken recipes. Plus the hubbs only likes breast meat which lacks in taste and fat, and we haven't had much luck looking for breast meat that's not skinless and boneless. And due to a stint working at Boston Market when he was a teenager, he really super does not enjoy when I make a whole chicken. Regardless of how I make said chicken. Traumatic flashbacks and such.

I also defrosted chicken stock a few days ago and need to use it up before it goes bad. So I knew quinoa was on the menu because the ONLY way to make quinoa is in homemade chicken stock. So. Much. Flavor.

As always, I check my ever faithful The Chew website to see what they've got cookin. Since we cancelled cable and our antenna super sucks, I don't really get to watch it much anymore, which bums me right out. But at least I can still use their recipes and watch clips. And today, Michael Symon's recipe for pork caught my eye. The marinade uses peanut butter and siracha so YES and YES. And why not marinate chicken in it. I'm a rebel.

As usual, I had most of the ingredients. Instead of sesame oil, I used 1/2 tbsp of peanut oil and 1/2 tbsp evoo. And instead of rice vinegar I used apple cider vinegar. I'm always surprised at how well apple cider vinegar works as a replacement for the rice one. And since I'm drinking 3 tbsps of it a day (for allergies and heartburn and general good health things), I always have it on hand.

And as for the salad he makes? That looks delicious, but I have practically none of those. We just ate up all our radishes, we don't have bean sprouts, and hubbs and babygirl don't love raw jalapenos. So I just did beet leaves, celery, and cucumber with lime and evoo and mixed it in with the quinoa.

Note: I used siracha I got from whole foods which seems to be a lot stronger in flavor than the more popular brand. So I had to add a little extra peanut butter so we didn't only taste the siracha. Always taste your food in stages before it becomes unfixable!

PS- babygirl cannot eat enough quinoa.

Stackers- Zucchini, Summer Squash, Tomatoes & Sausage

I love love love me some squash. My mom hands down makes the best fried zucchini parm in the world. It's amazing any of it ever made it into the parm pan because as she was frying it, I was eating all of the slices as soon as they hit the paper towel.

I digress.

An easier, and healthier, way to eat my favorite things is to skip the breading and simply cut up the squash, heat up a splash of evoo in a cast iron skillet, throw them in there, salt em, and let em brown. I can't even begin to tell you how amazingly good that is.

For this recipe, I simply did the same thing to sliced tomatoes, then I cooked up some hot italian sausage and crumbled it. Stack em up with some buffalo mozzarella in between and add a little parm on top and you have a superbly yummy summer dinner with very little mess and effort.

I heart grill- Beer Braised Short Ribs & Foccacia

Seriously. HEART. THE. GRILL. Because the heat. Oh Lord the heat. PNW doesn't usually have heat like this and no one has central air. Even stores and restaurants are lacking. LAME. So we bought 2 portable air conditioners that have been keeping our house at around 70 which is glorious. Which means that me turning on the oven is asking the hubbs to divorce me. However, I'm not a BBQ lover. There are only so many hamburgers, hot dogs, and grilled chicken I can take before I go ape shit bananas.

Luckily, I have moments of sheer brilliance. Brilliance I tell you! I really wanted short ribs because YES ALWAYS YES to organic grass fed beef. And we had some in the freezer. What I did not want was to turn on my oven for 3 hours while it braised. So. I turned on the grill. Got out my dutch oven. and guess what? THE GRILL WORKS AS AN OVEN. OUTSIDE. WITH ZERO MESS (for me, anyway. Hubbs can have fun cleaning it). The dutch oven is miraculous. If you do not own one, go get one. Between that and a cast iron pan you are set to cook whatever, wherever.
Dutch Oven:

I set up the short ribs inside (although because our grill has a burner I could have done it outside but that seemed like too much carrying of ingredients outside to bother). You just have to brown them on all sides and build the braising liquid, which took about 15 minutes total. Then you move the whole thing to the grill. And deliciousness ensues.

I also made foccacia to go along with dinner because it's glorious and it has a much shorter rise time than almost any other bread I make. This recipe is the best I've ever made. Or eaten for that matter. So easy and so worth it. I'm telling you, people. Make your own bread. You will never ever ever go back. And you will not experience any awful gluten side effects as long as you are using organic flour that is not enriched and not bleached and doesn't have extra crap added to it.

I also made this in the grill. Cause if I'm gonna live dangerously, I'm gonna just do it up.

So here's Mario Batali's Beer Braised Short Ribs recipe. He does not disappoint. I followed the instructions pretty exactly, except I only had fresh rosemary, and had to use dried oregano and thyme, so I guessed a bit on those herbs.

I also made Carla Hall's radish salad, which ironically is alongside her own short ribs recipe, but I liked Mario's better. Because beer.

And here are the pretty pictures:

I know I should include more pics of me prepping the meals, but I try to make meals that I can throw together quickly, and my perfectionist self would not allow sloppy pictures, so for now, and into the foreseeable future, I will mainly just post the done pics. Unless it's absolutely necessary. It's the only way I can maintain my sanity keeping up with a blog. 

Oh, and here's a tip I learned from watching The Chew. When you are browning/ cooking meat of any kind, let it sit there. Don't flip it over right away. The meat will tell you when it's ready to be flipped. If it's sticking to the bottom of your pan, it's not ready yet. When it's browned enough, it will flip without a fight. Works like a charm everytime. You're welcome.

Spicy Plum Grilled Chicken

Summer! Grilling and chillin and all sorts of outside nonsense. And time to experiment with grill recipes. So here's one of Bobby Flay's grilled chicken recipes. It's pretty tasty. I added some frozen tart cherries because I didn't have quite enough plums and I heart a tart cherry.

And we ran out of lettuce of any sort so I used the beet greens as my salad base. Delicious and colorful. I mixed it with some purple radish, some pecans, salt and pepper and for the dressing I did a squeeze of lime juice, evoo, and some of the reserved plum sauce I made for the chicken.

I'm finding that making fruit type sauces for dinner is an excellent way to get rid of the fruit that didn't get eaten and is on it's way out the door...

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Pizza

So I looooooooooooooooooooooove pizza. and pizza in Washington? Super sucks. You can get it on nearly every corner in New Jersey and it's amazing, and you can get it by the slice. But here on the west coast? They didn't get the memo. Papa Murphy's seems to be a favorite, but if I'm gonna have to bake the pizza myself, I'm gonna go ahead and make my own damned pizza. Cause duh.

So I found the greatest recipe ever for pizza dough, and make a bunch of them and freeze them in separate baggies so that whenever we feel like pizza we just have to thaw out a dough and voila! Amazingness in no time at all.

The recipe is from the book "Made In Italy" by David Rocco. I highly recommend this book. So here's his pizza recipe.

2 1/2 tsps active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white wine at room temp
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

stir yeast into water and let it dissolve, about 10 minutes
pour flour and salt onto smooth work surface and create a well in the middle
pour water and yeast mix into well a little at a time, using a fork to stir in more flour from the sides of the well
keep it up til the water is gone. then add in the olive oil and the wine.
knead the dough until it's smooth and a little spongy. it seems like the thing will never ever come together. but trust me, it will.
divide the dough into 6 equal parts and put a damp dish cloth over them and leave at room temp for about an hour.
Punch them down and roll them out to make the pizzas, or stick em in baggies and freeze!

For this particular pizza, I took some of my favorite things and threw them on a pizza. I just cooked up some diced sweet potatoes, chorizo (I crumbled it up), cut up some scallions and some heirloom cherry tomatoes, and topped with marscarpone. I just brushed the dough with olive oil before tossing all of the goodness right on there.

mmmmmm......pizza.

Farmer's Market BLT and Grapefruit salad- Yes yes and yes

I will never make another regular BLT again.

Recipe is all Mario Batali, here. I followed it. And loved it. I also made my own bread. Here's the bread recipe:

In a mixer, combine 1 3/4 cup hot water and 2 cups flour and start to mix. While mixing, add 2 teaspoons salt and 4 1/2 tsps yeast. Add 1/4 cup of flour at a time until you reach 4 cups. Switch to dough hook and put on high speed for 25 minutes. It will sound and look like craziness. Your mixer will dance across your countertops. Continue to do this.

Once 25 minutes is up, scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 2-3 hours, at room temp, til it triples in volume.

To shape, gently scrape the dough onto a pizza stone with corn meal sprinkled on it, or a greased pan, and tuck the edges under- it's a vague football-esque shape. ish. sprinkle the dough with flour and cover with a dish towel for an hour until it's very puffy.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (350 if you're using a convection oven) 20 minutes prior to baking.

Bake on center shelf until golden brown, about 50 minutes. to be certain it's done, turn the loaf over and it should sound hollow and hard when thumped.

Then eat it. Hot out of the oven. because THERE IS NOTHING ON THIS EARTH BETTER THAN FRESH BAKED BREAD OUT OF THE OVEN.

For the salad, I simply cut up some chard, cut up some chunks of grapefruit, and made the dressing using some fresh mint, parsley, and cilantro, lemon juice, a little grapefruit juice, evoo and salt and pepper.

And heeeeeeeere's dinner!

Authentic Refried Beans

Yum. One of my faves is to have refried beans and eggs over tortilla chips for breakfast. or just have refried bean dip always. And here is my fave recipe:

Refried Beans

She also has a link of hers to tell how to cook the dried pinto beans. DO THIS. You will not be sorry. It's quick, it doesn't require pre-soaking, and the result is probably the most delicious beans I've eaten ever.

So I didn't make quite as much at one time as she did and I played with the proportions a bit. I only used 3 cups of beans and froze the rest, along with the leftover cooking liquid. I used about a cup of cooking liquid, but that all depends on what kind of blender you have to puree. and instead of using safflower oil I used lard because YES PORK FLAVOR IN REFRIED BEANS YES.

So mine worked out to be:
3 cups beans
1/2 cup chopped onion
approx 1 cup of bean cooking liquid
3 tbsps lard
salt to taste

I cooked that all together, then after I got lazy about the mashing I stuck it in the blendtec. And added a little more cooking liquid for consistency. and the result? Ah-Mah-Zing.

It's what's for dinner

It was brought to my attention that I should post the food that I make along with the recipes. I tried doing something like that via Pinterest in the Dear Dinner Diary section, but posting recipes on pinterest is just not that easy. So I'm going to attempt to do a blog post for each one of the meals that I make. A lot of times, it will simply send you to the recipe I got somewhere off in the interwebs- I'm creative like that. But I can include realistic cook times and some tips and tricks that I've picked up while cooking with a baby on and a toddler helping/ under me. It's a party up in this hiz-ouse.

So, without further ado, here is tonight's dinner...

PS: does this make up for the lack of blogging I've done since getting all knocked up with number 2??

Chicken and Chorizo Paella

This recipe is Michael Symon's, here. Funny enough, He has a specific recipe for Chicken and Chorizo Paella but that is not the one I used...I saw that one later. However, this one came out delish. There should be a little less chorizo and some seafood in this one, but we don't eat seafood, so I simply left it out and upped the chorizo. This one uses saffron, which is fun and exotic and freakin expensive so I had to try it. I can't say enough how yummy this was AND how much we now have leftover which rocks for packin lunch for the hubbs. And you totally don't need a paella pan. The dutch oven works just fine. I started off using my cast iron skillet and discovered that there was no way everything would fit in there....But outside of skipping the seafood I followed all the directions as stated. And I used the chicken stock I make. And it only took an hour to come together...probably less had I not had a child on me. You will not be sorry if you make this. And I used short grain brown rice. He doesn't specify but I like brown better.


 Hazlenut Gelato

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you can bust this one out if you don't have a fancy pants blender. But if you're doing a lot of cooking from scratch than TRUST ME you need a fancy pants blender. I use it more than once a day, the cleaning of it is simple, and it's bad ass. It can blend an Iphone. AN IPHONE. That's just awesome. I digress.

1 pint heavy cream (I think you could probably use half and half as well....)
3 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup raw hazelnuts
2 cups ice
pinch of salt

The Blendtec has a setting for ice cream making. I ran it 3 times because I was playing with proportions. It started to become butter, so DO NOT DO THIS. It was still yummy, but it was yummier when I tasted it after running it only twice. But for reals people. The setting is for 45 seconds. Which included chopping up the hazlenuts. So add in like 20 seconds for dumping above ingredients in blender. Outside of Italy, this was the most amazing gelato I've ever had. And let's face it...part of Italy was just the ambience...sooooo....yeah my gelato is the best ever ever.

And that was tonight's dinner.

And in case you're all like "ummmm we see the food you're making, and dessert, every night and we don't want to be fatties so no thanks" let me just say that both the hubbs and I have lose weight, and continue to lose weight while eating this stuff. Daily. We don't diet and we don't exercise (apart from running after babygirl who NEVER EVER STOPS MOVING EVER). But because we use all organic, made from scratch ingredients, we end up eating less and the food is good for us. So win win win win win.

Hope this new series of blog posts is helpful. I hope I can remember to post them.

loves!

I did NOT see that coming....(aka a "normal" birth and it's outcome)

Asher Jet arrived on March 29, 2014 at exactly 38 weeks, weighing 6 lbs 15 oz and scoring a 9 on the apgar scale. Everything was planned and scheduled- arrive at hospital at 6:45 am, head into surgery at 8:00 am, have a baby, and begin life with 2. Neat and tidy. No drama. No (visible to me) blood. No NICU (well kind of. in a twist of irony, they had no more rooms left and we were sent up to the rooms in the NICU unit. I *might* have started crying as they walked us to our room and I spotted all the kangaroo chairs and isolettes...). Everything was "normal". So why was I such a hot mess???

We're almost 11 weeks in, and the fog has finally started to clear. Life is becoming routine-ish. And I can look back on those first weeks with some clarity and hindsight and see that I was COMPLETELY unprepared for this scenerio. I spent 9 months holding my breath, waiting for the trauma to occur. for the other shoe to drop. We had a miracle kiddo at home. a 29 week survivor. a thriver. we were pushing our luck with this second baby. we would not be so lucky this time. this would be our payback for getting too greedy, wanting too much. TWO healthy kids at my age with this body's history??? we should have just been happy with 1 and left well enough alone.

and a BOY? what did we hear over and over again in the NICU. They had a phrase...weak little white boys. because boys tended to not fare as well. little girls were feisty fighters. little boys? not so much. and we were having a boy. PANIC.

and how on earth could I possibly devote my time to being in a NICU with this baby when I had a 2 1/2 year old at home. one that falls apart when I'm not around?  I know that the time I spent with babygirl made all the difference in her recovery. how could I not devote that same time to baby a? but how could I desert my babygirl?

HOW CAN I POSSIBLY MANAGE THIS?

Friends, and even hubbs, would tell me everything will be fine. This baby will stay in. the last time was a fluke. you're well-monitored. my mom understood. but I don't think even I knew how much I was panicking. until I exhaled. with this huge (to me) hungry and ready to nurse newborn with fully developed lungs and zero issues.

and so our relationship really began. because let's be honest. I was not exactly warm and fuzzy about my pregnancy. I loved him. but it was so very different from babygirl's birth. that was survivor mode. fierce mamma bear. THIS GIRL WILL LIVE AND THRIVE. we were attached from the second I peed on that stick and we still are. at 29 weeks I thought I lost her as I sat in the bathroom pouring blood and begging God for a miracle. That's a bond that I'll never have with anyone else.

so A's birth? calm, peaceful, flawless? what the hell was I supposed to do with that? I was expecting the worst for those months. and now? now what. here's this tiny little man who I tried not to get too attached to during pregnancy just in case. and now he was here. all ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes of perfection. and I loved him. but it was a slow simmer, not a boiling over.

and so we started to build a bond. and those first weeks. those were HARD. because babygirl was having a rough transition. mommy was gone for the first time EVER. and overnight. she loooooves her nannie-eat-face, but it was not mommy and she was OVER. IT. and I just wanted to comfort her. but I have this baby. who I also love. and who needs to eat. and his cries are more urgent. and hers are a little heartbroken. and I had to choose. mom guilt doesn't begin to describe it. I was never NOT there for her. and he deserved the same. but he was fine and she is still my little miracle. and I felt really alone.

so we struggled. and her temper tantrums were epic. and mommy kept breaking down. and baby took it all in stride. I did all the things I had with babygirl- we co-sleep, I carry him everywhere (cause I make em needy and he doesn't like being put down), we nurse on demand. but I felt a little bit like a fake. an imposter. because that level of urgent love....that wasn't there. a friend suggested I might be having a bit of postpartum depression, and part of me knew she was probably right. the other part fought like hell against believing that. because I don't fail at things. I don't "have issues". I am able to handle it all. I can do it all. and do it by myself damnit. it's my MO. always has been. it is not possible that I was in need of help.

and so I continued to breakdown. cry. a lot. wonder how I was ever going to manage with 2 as joyfully as I had with 1. I knew I could handle it. I just didn't know if I could be happy doing it. I was slowly, oh so slowly, falling in love with A, but only when babygirl wasn't around to see it. late night, all night feeding sessions. moments when she was with nana or daddy. I could smother him in affection without seeing that look on her face. that look which was partly "hey lady where are my kisses and hugs" and partly just my imagination. because she could not have been happier having a life size doll to tend to, to nurse, to diaper, to hold.

I think the MMR vaccine issue started to clear the fog a bit. I really had to sit down and think about the health and well being of BOTH of my children. We could wait longer and risk baby getting measles. or we could trust that her digestive system was now grown and healthy enough to not be negatively affected by the shot. Here's that story, and she's fine. And I started to realize that having 2 wasn't going to break my love for her. But I needed to step it up for him.

My hormones finally started to let up a bit around week 6, and babygirl seemed to finally fully accept that she had company, mommy wasn't going anywhere, and life could resume almost as normal.

And I began embracing life with 2. loving on him a ton, even in front of her. appreciating all the little quirks of this tiny new man in our lives. finding I could maybe not go food shopping as often by myself with both of them (that is now a full family affair), but I could do most of the other things and enjoy them. snuggle with babygirl while he was sleeping in the moby. still have our dance parties, and play cars and castles. be patient MOST of the time. definitely not all of the time. when all God's children are screaming and crying mommy starts to lose it.

But here I am on the other side of what most likely was a bit of depression. feeling a tinge of guilt about not jumping in full force with a fierce love bomb. but knowing that our little courtship is working out quite nicely and finally appreciating the quiet, calm way he came into this world.

And his constant smiles melt me.

loves!