Linguine with Clams and Tomato Fennel Salsa

I'm ashamed to say this is directly from Epicurious.com. But it is so delicious and wonderful that I must share it with as many folks as possible. The recipe can also be found here. Please try it.

Ingredients
2 cups chopped seeded tomatoes (about 4 large)
1/2 cup chopped fresh fennel bulb
1/4 cup chopped red onion
3 tablespoons (packed) chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon olive oil (preferably extra-virgin)
1/2 teaspoon (packed) grated orange peel
2 cups dry white wine
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon salt
1 large garlic clove, crushed
30 littleneck clams (or 15 cherry stone clams) scrubbed
12 ounces linguine

Directions
Combine tomatoes, chopped fennel, red onion, basil, olive oil and orange peel in medium bowl. Season salsa with salt and pepper.

Bring wine, fennel seeds, salt and garlic to boil in very large pot. Reduce heat, cover tightly and simmer 10 minutes to blend flavors. Add clams. Increase heat to high, cover and cook until clams open, about 7 minutes (discard any clams that do not open. Using slotted spoon, transfer clams to bowl. Strain clam cooking liquid through fine strainer; return to same pot. Boil until liquid is reduced to 1 2/3 cups, about 7 minutes. Add tomato salsa and bring to simmer. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook linguine in large pot with tomato mixture. Season with salt and pepper; toss to blend. Add clams; stir over medium heat until heated through, about 3 minutes.

Roasted Beet Salad with Bleu Cheese and Pine Nuts

I love beets! And this is a great way to prepare them. It takes time to roast the beets, but assembly is a snap.

Ingredients
--Salad--
4 medium beets (~4 oz. each) washed, trimmed, and wrapped in foil
1/2 bunch spinach or arugula or watercress, washed and trimmed
1/4 c. pine nuts
2 oz. or more bleu cheese, crumbled
Additional toppings could include minced red onion, minced fresh herbs, diced apple -- according to your taste. You could also replace pine nuts with toasted or candied walnuts. Bleu cheese could be replaced with goat cheese crumbles.

--Dressing--
1 minced garlic clove
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Dash of sugar
1/2 tsp. whole grain mustard
Salt and pepper
I like to go light on dressing, but if you like more dressing on your salad, double the recipe.

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 F. Place beets wrapped in foil in oven, and roast for ~1 hour. Remove and let cool. Remove foil and slip off beet skins. Cut beets into quarters or eighths, as you prefer.

While beets are roasting, toast pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium low heat. Stir occasionally and remove from heat once pine nuts are fragrant and a light golden brown.

Also while beets are roasting, combine ingredients for dressing in jar with screw-top lid. Shake to blend and let sit for flavors to infuse.

Once beets are ready, combine greens, beets, nuts and any other ingredients you like (except cheese). Drizzle dressing over top and toss to coat. Add cheese crumbles and toss gently to mix.

Serves 4.

Jessica

Kefta: When things don't work out ...

This past weekend I tried making kefta. It was my first effort, and I looked at a dozen recipes, salivating at the thought of spicy ground lamb with a hint of mint or cilantro, served with a tasty cucumber yogurt sauce. Oh, the dreams I had! Things began to go down hill when the grocery didn't have ground lamb, so I bought lean ground beef. Not the same, I'm afraid. Also, the recipe called for shredding the onion. Well, to preserve my eyes, I will never shred onions without a food processor (and I am without a food processor). No matter how small you mince the onions, it really didn't seem to work very well -- getting it all stuck together in little egg-shaped balls was a nightmare. And then, there wasn't enough salt! Here's the recipe, which has some merit, but could use improvement ...

1.25-1.5 # ground beef (should use lamb)
1 onion minced
3 Tbsp. each, chopped fresh cilantro and chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp. each ground cumin, coriander, cinnamon (should go lighter on the cinnamon), and cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste (be liberal)

Blend all together and shape into 12-16 egg shaped balls of meat. Place on broiler pan and broil 4-5 minutes on each side.

So there's the kefta. I brought it to a party, and people did eat it after I salted it some more. I was disappointed that there were leftovers, however. I brought them home and delayed eating them for a day or two. Leftover meat doesn't sound appetizing to me! But I am on a new mission to stop wasting food, so I knew I had to eat them.

Step 1: Buy some pita.
Step 2: Impromptu feta-yogurt-dill dressing (1/3 c. plain yogurt, 1/4 c. crumbled feta, 1/4-1/2 tsp. dried dill, salt and pepper)
Step 3: Slice some fresh tomato and cucumber
Step 4: Heat the kefta, slice it, and load into pita with veggies and liberal amounts of dressing

Hmmm ... a surprise! It was a damn tasty sandwich, and tastier the more dressing I added. Nice to know you can make lemonade from some no-so-exciting lemons...

Fried Eggs, a Revelation

I don't mean to say that I just discovered fried eggs, or anything nonsensical like that. I have long been a die-hard fan of the over-easy and sunny-side-up varieties. My father used to make me fried eggs nearly every day, when I was little and scrawny and he wanted me to gain weight. He vowed to make me anything I wanted if I promised to eat it all. My request was always 2 fried eggs, sunny-side-up, with 2 pieces of toast. I have to wonder what my cholesterol was at that age ...

Anyway, despite my love of eggs, I never learned to make fried eggs very well--the whites stuck to the pan and yolks always broke. So disappointing. But today I made five (5!) fried eggs, all without mishap. The key? Lots of oil in the pan, and the correct heat. Thank you, thank you, Joy of Cooking (1997).

This venerable tome tells us that, for 4 fried eggs, we need 1-2 Tbsp. of olive oil or butter in the pan, heated at medium low heat. This is a LOT of oil (I think), but I used 1.25 Tbsp -- 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1/4 Tbsp. butter -- and didn't add the eggs too soon. Halleighlujah! It all worked just great. After the first four, I fried the fifth without adding extra oil, and that worked too, though it was little sticky. And they were all mighty tasty.

So in case you struggle making fried eggs, trust the Joy of Cooking. It won't lead you astray.

jessica

Chickpea Salad

I like this salad because it's very cheap, quick, easy, and keeps well (for a few days). It's inspired by my friend's Armenian 'salat', a chickpea and parmesan recipe on Orangette's blog, and the Lebanese salad recipe in The Healthy Kitchen (2003).

Ingredients
1 16-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 small tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/2 yellow or red bell pepper, diced
1/4 c. high-quality grated parmesan
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Handful fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Directions
Combine all ingredients in medium mixing bowl, and let sit for 30 minutes or so. Enjoy!

Alternatives

• You can also use more tomato, cucumber, and pepper: 2 small tomatoes (or 1 large) and the entire cuke and pepper. You may need more olive oil and lemon juice.
• Instead of parmesan, use crumbled/diced feta or goat cheese.
• You can also omit the cheese for a vegan salad, but cured kalamata olives might be a nice replacement. In fact, maybe just include kalamata olives anyway!

Jessica

Banana Mocha Smoothie

I thought our country's obsession with smoothies was a little over the top, until I made this smoothie. Now I wake up excited to have it again. I also wind up waking my husband with the sound of the blender -- unfortunately, he doesn't love this smoothie quite as much as I do.

Ingredients
1 banana, cut into chunks and left in the freezer for a few hours
1 c. or slightly less of plain (fat-free, if you like) yogurt
1 dash vanilla
1/4 c. coffee -- better if it's cold or at least not hot
1 Tbsp. sweetened cocoa

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth. Garnish with sprinkles of cinnamon and nutmeg. If you don't have plain yogurt and sweetened cocoa, you can also use 1 c. vanilla yogurt (omit dash of vanilla) and add unsweetened cocoa. If you don't have time to freeze the banana chunks, just use an unfrozen one and add 2 ice cubes to the blender.

Jessica

Poached Eggs

I really love poached eggs. There were such discovery for me when I was a kid -- I didn't know you could make eggs that weren't fried or scrambled. But then one night when I was maybe eight and couldn't fall asleep, I walked into the kitchen to find my dad making poached eggs for a nighttime snack. He made some for me, too, and served them in the traditional (and some may say horribly foul) manner of our family: heavily salted and peppered, then mashed with a fork and mixed together with crushed saltines. Yum. I still find it a great comfort food. Although, as my grandmother says, we don't eat poached eggs this way in front of company.

I think the poached egg is a good basis for riffing and I like to try new variations. I am especially fond of poached eggs with tomato, either fresh or in a sauce, and in particular the Moroccan Eggs Benedict at Cafe Mogador in the E. Village (http://www.cafemogador.com/), which are topped with a spicy tomato sauce and hollandaise. I've tried to create a version of my own at home, sort of. It has none of the Morrocan spices and, in a heart-healthy gesture, I eschew the hollandaise (I'm not a huge fan, anyway). I came up with the following, which I really like. The simple spicy and fresh tomato sauce is a great foil for the creamy yolk of the poached egg.

1/2 pint ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
2-3 T. minced onion
1 tsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 to 1 tsp. red pepper flakes (according to your tastes)
2 eggs
1 slice whole grain bread, halved, or 1 split english muffin
pecorino shavings

Heat oil in small pan over med-high heat, then add onion and saute until soft and translucent. Add cherry tomatoes, salt, and red pepper flakes and saute over med to med-high heat, stirring occasionally until tomatoes begin to soften and break down (maybe 10 mins.?). In the meantime, toast the bread or english muffin and poach the eggs. For anyone who has difficulty poaching eggs, epicurious.com offers a great tutorial.

To serve, top toast with poached eggs, sauce, and pecorino shavings.

If you don't like this, you may want to give poached eggs with crushed saltines a whirl. You just might be surprised.