Bruschetta

I've recently decided that I am going to be posting here every Thursday, feel free to give me shit on your preferred social network when I inevitably mug it all up. What this mostly means from a practical standpoint is you will be  seeing more shitty, simple recipes and substantially more rambling, grammatically disgusting posts. As a personal favor to you, I'm going to make the instructions purple so they will stand out and leave the rambling stuff normal, so you can just skip it if you actually want to cook (you're welcome)  So, you know, look out for that.

1 pound good tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch fresh basil
1 baguette
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
olive oil

Lets start with the tomatoes because those are really the easiest part to completely fuck up. The rest of this recipe is just chopping and waiting really.  My dear, close, and personal friend Caitlin gave ME (not Shannon) two of those hanging upside down tomato planters at the beginning of summer. As much as it thrills me to get completely unsolicited gifts from dear, close, personal friends, I really couldn't make heads or tails of the gift, but accepted graciously and watered diligently. After several months we harvested three emaciated, scarred tomatoes. They really were quiet ugly, especially after years of pretty much exclusively eating perfect deep red spheres. We didn't want to just toss them in a sauce, so we whipped up a quick batch of bruschetta. At the first bite Shannon nearly hit the floor. The flavor! By god we had forgotten what tomatoes are supposed to taste like! For all intents and purposes we had been eating red water balloons for months if not years and calling them tomatoes. This deeply disturbed me and I have since gone out of my way to but those stupid expensive local heirloom tomatoes at the co-op. I know, I know! Four dollars for a pound of tomatoes! It can't be that good! It is, you have to trust me, it really really is. Thanks again Caitlin.

To summarize all that, BUY GOOD TOMATOES THE DAY YOU ARE MAKING THIS. Not the Sunday before, or the night before, the day of. No exceptions.

Preheat oven to 350ish. Chop into 1/2 cubes, or smaller if you prefer.Place in a reasonably large vessel.

Next is the basil, but really the chopping can be done in any order. I like to chiffonade the basil, it results in long pretty strips. To chiffonade, stack the leaves on top of each other,

 then roll them up,

 and cut.

 Next mince the garlic and add that to the bowl. Top with a 1 to 4 ratio of balsamic vinegar to olive oil, you can fill in the measurements depending on if you like yours more or less saucy. Top with a two healthy pinches of salt and a few cracks of pepper. Refrigerate for about a half hour while you prep the bread.

Slice 8-12 pieces of bread, about 1/2 inch thick. Arrange on a baking sheet and coat with olive oil. If you have a fancy brush, congratulations you have a better stocked kitchen than me, I bet your mother is proud. If you don't have a fancy brush, I know that feel bro, just spread the oil with your finger and be sure to wash first. Toss the oiled bread in the oven for five minutes, then turn on the oven light and stare at it until its perfect. Could be six minutes, could be eight. I know its not less than five, but other than that its your damn business to make sure you don't mug it up. I don't have to eat your burnt ass bread so whatever, that's on you son.

 Let the bread cool slightly on the counter while you stir the bruschetta, then top each piece with a spoonful of the mixture.  Personally, I go heavier on the oil and vinegar, then I use a fork to put the bruschetta on the bread. Once I scoop all the tomatoes out, this leaves me with about a cup of really good salad dressing base.  This recipe and its amounts should get you through most of a loaf, depending on how you roll, and the bruschetta should be good until.... gosh I don't know, lets say until the loaf of bread goes bad. That sounds good

Garlic Scapes Pesto

This weekend I picked up these odd, snake-like greens at the farmer's market here in Davis with absolutely no idea what I was going to do with them. After a quick Google search for "Garlic Scapes" I learned that they are the curly shoots of the garlic plant that have a more mild garlic taste. After tasting a piece raw I would say its about 1/4 the strength of regular garlic, if you would like to try using it as a substitution. It looked like pesto was the most popular recipe. I decided to try my hand at one. All of the ingredients listed below are close approximations at best. Pesto requires a light hand and frequent tastings to get right.

1 bunch garlic scapes
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup hard cheese grated
1/2 cup olive oil
5 basil leaves
salt and pepper


I started by loosely chopping the scapes. When chopping basil for a pesto I usually go for speed over uniformity because the blender does a solid job of sorting out the details. In this particular case, however, the scapes are very fiberous. You need to cut them down to at least a quarter inch, ideally smaller, or else you will have long fibers in the pesto and that can get stuck in your teeth and be miserable.

You can chop the pine nuts at this point if you prefer your pesto more smooth, I personally don't.
Add 3/4ths of the scapes and oil into the blender and pulse until it reaches your prefered texture. Add the cheese, basil, pine nuts, salt and pepper, reserving about a quarter of each for fine tuning. Pulse for three seconds to combine, then taste. Tastes too much like garlic? Add more basil. Too nutty? Add more scapes, salt and pepper. Too sweet? add more pine nuts. Tune the pesto to yours and your guests' tastes.

We served this spread on toasted bread slices and it was lovely. I  could also see it working very well as a base for a simple pasta sauce or even adding something unexpected to a salsa. Enjoy!

Orecchiette

I usually keep away from making shaped pasta, if only because I love using my pasta maker to cut. We recently discovered orecciette, (little ears in Italian, apparently) an easy to make and easier to form pasta. Give it a try, its a great break from spaghetti.



Adapted from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fresh-Semolina-Orecchiette-10610

1 cups semolina (fancy Italian flour, you can just double the regular flower if you want)
1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup lukewarm water

In a large bowl stir together semolina and flour and form a well in center. Add water and a generous pinch of salt to well and with a fork gradually incorporated semolina mixture until a dough is formed (some of the mixture will not be incorporated). Knead adding flower until the dough is smooth. I had about a quarter cup of flower left over. Divide dough into 4 pieces and wrap separately in plastic wrap. Let rest at room temp for up to an hour.


Remove plastic wrap from 1 piece of dough and roll between you hands to create a rope 1/2 inch wide. Mine came out to be around 10-12 inches.

Put rope on a work surface and with a sharp knife cut into 1/2-inch pieces, separating pieces as cut so they are no longer touching. Put each cut piece of dough, a cut side down, in palm of hand and form a depression by pressing thumb of other hand into dough and twisting slightly. Toss the little ears into the bowl with the remaining flower.

Cook in a boiling pot of salted water for 8-12 minutes, until cooked through. We had these with broccoli rabe and olive oil, and it was wonderful, even if it wasn't very photogenic.

Neapolitan Ragu

I saw something like this on an episode of No Reservations and I figured I'd try my hand at it. This is not for the impatient or meat averse among us. This makes a ton of sauce, but it is pretty versatile.

Neapolitan Ragu

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch carrots, diced
• 2 28oz whole canned plum tomatoes
• 1 bunch fresh basil, chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoonful oregano
• 1/2 tablespoonful salt
• 1/4 tablespoonful pepper
• 3 tablespoonfuls olive oil
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1 pound pork shoulder, chopped
• 1 pound lamb stew meat, chopped
• 1 pound beef stew meat, chopped

Directions:

      Heat the oil in large heavy pot. Saute the onions over high heat until translucent, about three minutes, then add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the carrots and stir for an additional 2 minutes. Add the meat and brown them on all sides. Add the basil, tomatoes, cream, and pepper.
      Heat until boiling, then reduce the heat until you get a single large bubble every 2-3 seconds. If you have a lot of small bubbles, cook uncovered until the ragu thickens. Once at the correct temp cover and let cook for 6-7 hours, stirring every half hour to break down the tomatoes.
      You can serve the sauce separate from the meat over pasta, but what we did was use this as a sauce over pretty much everything from polenta to fresh spaghetti to smearing it on bread and eating it like a pulled pork sandwich.