Fresh Corn Salad with Black Beans and Tomatoes

Here's another recipe made during our stay at the Cook's Country house in Vermont. If you're looking for a great side dish to bring to a BBQ or picnic, look no further: this salad is healthy, full of ingredients that you can buy right now at your local farm stand, and it's easy to make. I made it extra-summery by grilling the corn rather than boiling it as the original recipe called for. I also added avocado, because it just seemed to make sense with the other ingredients. Fresh corn and tomatoes are the stars here, so please don't use the canned kind. The leftovers make a great filling for quesadillas and omlettes!

Summer Tomato Pie

I can't take credit for making this delicious creation: my friend Kate made it while we were on our Vermont vacation (I can only take credit for eating it). I never get tired of fresh tomatoes (especially when they're layered with cheese), so I plan to make this myself before the summer is over. Served at room temperature, a slice of this pie with a fresh green salad makes an excellent dinner on a steamy August evening.

Creamy Goat Cheese Pasta with Roasted Asparagus

I had a subscription to Everyday Food several years ago, and this is the one recipe that I've saved and made over and over again. Whenever spring rolls around and I start seeing asparagus on sale at the grocery store, I immediately think of this recipe. It's a snap to make... you combine the goat cheese and a little butter with hot pasta cooking water to make a creamy, no-cook sauce. Then toss it with your pasta and roasted asparagus. Easy peasy.

I usually leave out the chive garnish, just to make this that much easier. John, however, prefers to add crumbled bacon. Do what you will, but please don't make the same mistake I did the first time I cooked this: the recipe says to reserve 1 1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water, but then instructs you to only put 1/2 cup in the sauce (and add the rest incrementally, if needed). Since I often fail at reading directions, I dumped in the entire cup and half of water. The sauce was a little thin, to say the least. 

Pasta with Tomato and Almond Pesto (Pesto alla Trapanese)

Can I interest you in a fresh-tasting pasta sauce that requires no more effort than throwing a bunch of stuff in your food processor? I made a double batch of the pesto and froze half of it, which I would definitely recommend doing-it doesn't require any extra work, and you'll be glad you have it sitting in your freezer for the next time you need an easy dinner.

Guacamole Salad

Avocado is one of those foods I had almost no interest in until a few years ago. Now I feel like I'm making up for all those wasted, pre-avocado years... if an entree at a restaurant comes with a mere slice of avocado, I'll probably order it. I love to find ways to sneak it into my sandwiches and salads (Ever try a bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwich? Nom.). If you swoon over avocado too, you'll want to try this guacamole salad.

This is kind of a deconstructed guacamole (yes, I have been watching a lot of Top Chef): diced tomato, avocado, jalapeno, and onion are tossed in a lime dressing. And just to make it different, the recipe also calls for some black beans and yellow pepper. If you can get local tomatoes, try out the yellow ones... they are so sweet and tasty. This is one of those recipes where you can easily play with the quantities to suit your tastes (I used less jalapeno and onion than the original, and also added some fresh cilantro).

Portobella Mushroom Burgers with Shoestring Fries

Tonight's blog post is a new favorite of ours, portobella burgers!  Since the farmers market opened over a month ago, I've made it a point to stop by the local mushroom guy's booth every week and buy some fungus.  Usually it's the oyster / shitake blend, sometimes its the giant portobella caps.  We made these a few weeks ago and sadly didn't take pictures (we do that a lot), and they were so good that we knew we'd be making them again.  The portobellas are nice and meaty and the combination of the dijon mustard, swiss cheese, and avocado is quite tasty!  I suggest anyone who's afraid of mushrooms, or isn't so sure they like them, to try this recipe, it's a guaranteed thumbs up.

We needed a side dish and what better side is there with a burger than french fries?  I've made these a couple times, and I'm a big fan.  They couldn't be easier to make, and are quite tasty with just salt and pepper.  You could go nuts and add all kinds of seasonings to them, but we'll stick to the tried and true recipe here.  The trick is to soak the fries in water before you bake them, it has something to do with the starches and helping them cook better, I don't know, but I know it works!  Hey, I read it in Cook's Illustrated, and I'll believe anything they tell me. ;)

30 Minute Tortellini Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Arugula, and Pine Nuts

I don't know about you,  but I have no desire to eat a bowl of hot pasta when it's almost 100 degrees outside. I do, however, have no issue with scarfing down a bowl of cold pasta. This tortellini salad is a great meal for those summer nights when you can't bear to eat anything hot.  This is quick and easy to throw together, and it's got two of my favorite summer foods: tomatoes and basil. You could easily play around with this recipe to suit your tastes. Don't like arugula? Use baby spinach. Can't bear to have a meal without meat? Add some grilled chicken. And may I suggest some feta in place of the Parmesan?

It's supposed to be scorching hot all week, so give this one a try.

Bucatini with Mushrooms

If you've never tried Bucatini or Perciatelli pasta before, run out and buy some right now.  It's such a fun noodle to eat!  At first glance it looks like a thick spaghetti, but upon closer inspection, you'll notice a tiny hole running right through the center of the pasta.  I don't know what it is about that hole, but it makes the pasta have such a wonderful texture.  This is the first time I've eaten this pasta, and I can tell you for sure that this will always be stocked in the AboveAnItalianRestaurant.com pantry! 

This recipe is from Cooking Light once again, and when Bec showed it to me, I was all about it.  I've been wanting to eat more mushrooms and learn a few staple mushroom recipes, and this is definitely going to be a staple. We got the mushrooms from the farmer's market, a crimini & oyster blend, which is where I got my new love / interest in mushrooms.  We got some portobellas last weekend and made delicious portobella burgers with avocado and swiss cheese.  Recipe to come, and oh yeah, they were delicious.

Anyway, this dish was great, wonderful mushroom flavor and the pecorino-romano cheese to top it off is a perfect accent on this meal.  The recipe calls for Bucatini, but we couldn't find any, so we got Perciatelli made by DeCecco.  It's the same pasta, as far as i know, just a different name.  The hole in these pastas must allow for more sauce and deliciousness to get into the pasta itself, because each strand was so flavorful, I couldn't get enough.  So without further ado, I give you the recipe for my new favorite pasta and mushroom dish...

Spring Vegetable Risotto

I'm happy to say that our local farmer's market opened up recently, providing fresh inspiration to cook some new dishes. There aren't a whole lot of local vegetables available in New Jersey this time of year, but we did find some asparagus that became the basis for this dish. John's parents came over last weekend for a belated mother's day dinner, and we put together this risotto, along with a rosemary and garlic pork loin (recipe to come).

Risotto is becoming one of my favorite things to cook. While it does require a lot of attention, I'm really coming to enjoy the process of adding a little stock, stirring, waiting for it to absorb, adding some more stock, sipping some wine (I had to open a bottle anyways...), stirring, etc. And this particular recipe calls for a gremolata topping, which apparently is a posh way of saying "smooshed up herbs and lemon zest". It was a nice touch, and you use the stems from the herbs to add extra flavor to your broth. I loved how this turned out, and it was a perfect excuse to cook up some spring veggies.

Chipotle Bean Burritos

John and I have been enjoying a lot of recipes from my Cooking Light subscription lately (and our pants are fitting better for it, I'm happy to say). While perhaps not as exciting as, say, tiramisu, these burritos have a lot of other admirable qualities: they are tasty, healthy, and easy to make. Plus, it's hard to come by a cheaper protein source than beans (and John says he didn't miss the meat). We stuck to the recipe, but you could definitely add additional spices or toppings (I was a little disappointed that I didn't have an avocado on hand to roll up in these). We used regular tortillas, rather than the low-fat ones called for in the recipe, but I doubt it made too much of a difference in the calorie count (with the low-fat tortillas, you're looking at 360 calories per burrito). And the regular tortillas probably taste better... just sayin'.

Eggplant Rollatini

Sometime within the last year or two I realized that I actually really like eggplant.  That's as long as it's prepared and cooked properly.  I was afraid of it as a kid, as I'm sure most kids are, and never thought to try it again until recently.  I'm not sure where I saw or read how to prepare eggplant, but I thought I'd give it a try a couple weeks ago and decided on eggplant rollatini.  I didn't follow a recipe, just an idea I had of what I wanted it to be, and like most foods I love, it involves tomato sauce and ricotta cheese!  I used my tomato sauce recipe and the ravioli filling recipe for these, the rest is made up by yours truly.  Not exactly rocket science here, just a little common sense and a little suggestion from Bec to bake the eggplant instead of fry it.  Good idea my dear.  This is a great recipe to use up the leftover ravioli filling and extra tomato sauce from your last Italian feast!

Roasted Garlic Hummus

This hummus contains a triple punch of garlic: there's roasted garlic, garlic-infused olive oil, and a garlic chip topping. The recipe requires two (!) whole heads of garlic. And the longer you let it sit in the refrigerator, the more garlicky it becomes. Don't be scared... this is really, really good. We didn't find the garlic flavor to be overpowering at all.

If you've never made your own hummus, you should give this a try. I think it's a lot smoother, creamier, and more flavorful than the pre-packaged stuff. Plus, squeezing the roasted garlic out of its skin is delightfully therapeutic.

Serve this with pita wedges or fresh veggies. And, um, maybe some mints.

Pear, Walnut, and Feta Salad

Salad is not normally something I get too excited about... I like it, sure, but I usually throw one together as an afterthought when I realize I should have something green with my meal. This, however, is one crave-able salad. My friend Martha made this for a dinner party a few weeks ago. The original recipe called for blue cheese, but Martha made a brilliant swap-out for feta. The dressing is really bright, and all of the textures and flavors are well balanced. This has become my go-to salad for company. People actually ask for seconds of this! Even people who aren't really "salad people". Give it a try, and don't skimp on the feta...

Homemade Ravioli

 
One of the things I've always wanted to do in the kitchen was to make fresh pasta.  Well for Christmas this year, Bec bought me my very own pasta machine!  Not the silly Ron Popeil machine, although we did buy one for my mom when I was a kid, but a real hand-crank Italian pasta machine.  I've been seeing chefs on PBS make their own pasta since I was a kid and they made it look so easy.  Well, guess what, it IS easy!  2 cups of flour, 3 eggs, 30 seconds in the food processor, and viola!, you have fresh pasta dough.  You have to knead it for a minute or two until it's smooth, then let it rest for at least 15 minutes before you roll it into whatever pasta you want.  This pasta machine (made by Atlas) comes with two "cutters", fettuccine and spaghetti. Of course you can just roll it into thin sheets for lasagna or ravioli or whatever other stuffed pasta you want to make.  I will be tackling tortellini at some point soon.

I've made fettuccine and spaghetti three times now, and am feeling pretty confident handling the dough so I thought I'd give ravioli a try.  It came out so well I decided to blog it instead of wait until I've perfected it, since they came out almost perfect!  You can make a big batch of these and freeze them, they'll be the best frozen ravioli's you've ever had.  I used this recipe below and had leftover pasta dough, next time I make it, I will double the filling recipe.  I think there were 22 ravioli's in this batch, I could have gotten 24 if I rolled out a little more dough though.  So next time I'll be getting close to 50!  Who wants to come over and eat some ravioli?

Cranberry Orange Mini-Loaves

Still looking for some last-minute holiday gifts? Make your friends and family some of this cranberry bread. Everyone knows that carbs make the best gifts. Unless your friends are on the Atkins diet, in which case, they shouldn't be your friends anyways.

In a Sandra Lee-esque moment, I bought a bunch of Christmas-themed mini loaf pans for $1 each (no, I did not create a matching tablescape). If you live near a Christmas Tree Shop, you might be able to find some yourself. I had made a regular sized loaf of cranberry bread a few weeks ago just to test drive the recipe. I made it extra festive and tasty this time around by adding more cranberries and sprinkling the tops of the loaves with turbinado sugar before baking. This recipe makes one regular sized loaf, or four mini loaves.

Vegetarian Bolognese with Whole Wheat Penne

Lately I've been having a difficult time zipping up pants that fit just fine last winter. I have no idea what might have caused this unfortunate predicament, but it seemed like a good time to order a subscription to Cooking Light. I found this recipe in my first issue, under the heading "Savoring Umami." After cooking this dish, I still don't really know or care what umami is. The important thing is that I had delicious (and healthy!) leftovers for lunch this week.

I liked this recipe, and more importantly, John liked this recipe. While John might never voluntarily cook anything without meat in it (except maybe apple pie), he's been quite receptive to most of the vegetarian recipes I've thrown his way. This has lots of finely chopped mushrooms in it, which give the sauce a meaty texture. The sauce gains plenty of flavor from all of the vegetables and a splash of red wine. I didn't make too many adjustments to the recipe, but I did add some garlic... it just seemed like an obvious addition to the list of ingredients. I used a dried wild mushroom blend in place of the porcinis, and ground them up in a mini food processor since I don't own the spice grinder that they suggest using.

If you like this recipe, stay tuned... come January 1, I'll be blogging a whole week's worth of Cooking Light recipes in honor of America's favorite New Year's resolution.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

As mentioned in my previous post, I have a fridge full of cranberries right now. Being from Cape Cod,  I have a special love for the cranberry. When I was little, my parents sometimes took my sister and I to "Cranberry World." It was basically just a museum with dioramas of cranberry bogs and free juice samples. I know it sounds kind of lame, but it was clearly successful in its attempt to turn small children into ravenous consumers of the cranberry (it was owned by Ocean Spray, after all).

Anyways, I felt like making some muffins with my excess cranberries. I'd seen recipes for pumpkin cranberry muffins, but none were quite what I wanted, so I adapted this one to suit the muffin-vision dancing in my head. I swapped vanilla yogurt for half of the oil, and used my lovely fresh cranberries instead of the dried ones. I didn't have any of the ground ginger that it called for, so I left it out. I didn't feel like putting the pecans in either, but I might use them next time. And finally, for a sweet crunch, I sprinkled the tops of the muffins with some turbinado sugar before baking. These came out exactly like I wanted them to: soft and moist with tons of tangy cranberries.

Potato Latkes

Happy Chanukkah! Or however you spell it... I don't really know since I'm only half Jewish. And it's my dad that's Jewish, so it doesn't really even count (the Jewish religion tends to be passed down by the mother). My family did celebrate Chanukkah, so the rituals aren't completely foreign to me. The food, however, was never a part of my childhood since I didn't have a living Jewish grandma to cook these sorts of things. But it's never too late to learn to be a good half-Jew, so when I spotted these latkes over at Smitten Kitchen, I thought I'd cook some up for dinner tonight (check out the Smitten Kitchen post; the photos are lovely).

If you have a food processor, these are a snap to throw together. If you don't, now you know what to ask for for Christmas. Or Chanukkah. You just grate your onion and potato, mix that with some egg and flour, and then fry 'em up. We thought they benefited from a sprinkling of salt just after frying. John, being Italian and all, thought he'd sprinkle a few with grated Parmesan cheese (delicious, by the way). We just ate ours plain, but you can serve them with sour cream or applesauce.

Chocolate Chip Stuffed French Toast

I had some leftover Italian bread and some leftover cream cheese (from making pumpkin whoopie pies last weekend), so my logical solution for using up these ingredients was making stuffed french toast. We are coming up on that time of year where we stuff things, after all. But we're usually stuffing birds, so I stuffed some bread this morning. And I stuffed it with a gooey, sweet cream cheese and chocolate filling. John liked the filling so much that he spread the extra on top of his toast (I prefer maple syrup on my french toast, but whatever). I had never made stuffed french toast before, but it was much easier than I thought and I will definitely be making it again.

Tomato Basil with Orzo Soup

 

I usually find a soup recipe that sounds good, I make it once, and don't like it enough to make it again. This tomato basil soup, however, is my one exception. I found this recipe a few years ago, and always find myself wanting to make it when the weather starts to get a little cooler. In fact, I made a big pot of it today just so I could have it for lunch all week long. It's a thick, hearty soup that's great for a meal on its own (but also makes a nice accompaniment to a grilled cheese). Even though there's a little bit of cream in it (which gives it a velvety texture), it's a pretty healthy soup since it's chock full of veggies.

The recipe came from the Wegmans web site (and you can actually just buy the soup already made in the store if you're lucky enough to live near a Wegmans). If I may go off on a small tangent: I love Wegmans. A lot. I didn't grow up near one, but my grandparents used to live in upstate New York (prime Wegmans territory). I have a lot of fond memories of my grandmother taking me there and letting me pick out a cookie or cupcake to eat while she shopped. So, when I moved to Princeton a few years ago and found out that there is a Wegmans here, it was a big nostalgic thrill for me. And if you're an eagle-eyed viewer of "The Office," you may have noticed some Wegmans brand products on the show (check out the cereals on top of the fridge or the soda cans).

See, Michael Scott likes Wegmans milk and cereal!  Anyways, back to the soup. If you do live near a Wegmans, check out the original recipe on their website, as it calls for some Wegmans-specific products. I've adapted the recipe so that you can make it with ingredients purchased just about anywhere. But seriously, get thee to a Wegmans if you've never been. Ok, ok, to the soup...