Peasant Food

My wife called my lunch peasant food. A little pasta, 55 g, a handful of cherry tomatoes halved, half a sweet pepper coarsely chopped, a minced clove of garlic, a pinch of hot pepper flakes, a little grated Parmesan, a few leaves of fresh basil, some salt and pepper plus a tablespoon of olive oil in which to gently fry the veggies. These are all ingredients an Italian peasant would have on hand, according to my wife.

For me, this lunch recalls the no-recipe recipes that the New York Times runs almost weekly. This was quick and easy and, more importantly, delicious.

Put the dry pasta in a pot of boiling water, while the pasta is cooking cut the little tomatoes in two, chop the sweet pepper and put a tablespoon, or so, of olive oil in a heating fry pan. While the sweet pepper is cooking chop the garlic and tear the basil leaves into large pieces. With just minutes until the pasta is done, drop the tomato into the fry pan with the sweet pepper. After a minute add the garlic. The garlic will be done a minute or so. It should be a golden colour and most. It should not be allowed to get dark brown.

Drain the cooked pasta, add it and a little of the pasta water to the fry pan with the sweet pepper, tomatoes and garlic. Sprinkle some hot pepper flakes onto the mix and then grate some Parmesan cheese on top. Toss all and then add the basil and salt and pepper. Cook for about a minute. Just enough time to wilt the basil. Serve and add some more grated Parmesan at the table if you like.

It is a no brainer to make and it tastes as good as it looks. The ounce or so of pasta water helps to make a light garlicky sauce composed mainly of the juices from the tomatoes and sweet pepper.

This was inspired by a quick afternoon lunch made by David Rocco on his cooking show. I'm going to make it again come spring, serve it with some red wine and enjoy it with my wife and possibly some friends.

Pan-toasted pumkins seeds a hit

The Publican House Brew Pub is located in an heritage home in Peterborough, Ontario. My wife, Judy, loves dining outside. It was lunch, the brew house was handy and it had a large porch open for dining. I knew nothing about the place but a porch, serving as a patio, made it worth a look.

We kept it simple. We both had the beet and arugula salad and shared a Marge pizza of tomato, cheese and basil. All was very good. I also had a pint of the Pub House Ale from the brewery immediately next door. The beer was another good choice. We gave the place full grades as a spot to stop for a quick bite and a draught.

When we got home, I decided to serve a salad inspired by the brew pub's. I headed for our local Remark store. I got a bag of spring greens (for the colour), a bag of arugula, some dried cranberries, shelled pumpkin seeds, a pint of strawberries, a bottle of pickled, whole beets and some still-in-the-pot pea sprouts. At home, I had a large block of Parmesan plus a bottle of blackcurrant and raspberry salad dressing.

The brew pub's salad was arguably better. Their presentation was perfect. And I really liked their dressing, which I assume was made in the brew pub kitchen. That said, my salad was wonderful. Why? I  pan-toasted the pumpkin seeds. The pan-toasting game the seeds a strong hit of a surprising, and very yummy, flavour.

The ingredients are listed above. The proportions to use are up to you. I'd advise being generous with the pan-toasted pumpkin seeds and shaved Parmesan. My wife and I both prefer the pickled beets cut into large chunks. We find larger pieces deliver more flavour. The strawberry is actually optional. There was no strawberry in the brew pub salad. And the choice of salad dressing is also up to you. My only advice here is do not use too much dressing. Let the salad itself shine. Never drown a salad in dressing. The brew pub didn't and that was one reason its salad was so good.
__________________________________________________

I've had a complaint or two about not going into greater detail as to how to assemble this salad. I didn't think it necessary but obviously it is. This post is meant to inspire. Good salads are not simply iceberg lettuce and Kraft dressing. Have some fun. Buy some interesting greens. Add nuts or fruit. Toast the nuts now and then in a hot fry pan for a slightly different flavour. If you're lazy, at the very least don't always buy Kraft dressing. There are lots of interesting dressings made by small, local food businesses. Read the labels and look for excellent ingredients. You won't go far wrong.

Have fun! And in short order you will be making stuff that makes you smile. Now, go for  it! (p.s. I'm taking my own advice. I bought some shelled Brazil nuts at Costco today: A fine addition to an imaginative salad.)

Sockeye Salmon with Tomato and Onion Sauce

My doctors have advised me to eat more fish. I should try to replace red meat with fish whenever possible. Tonight I served sockeye salmon steaks pan fried and served with a tomato and onion sauce spiced with a little ground coriander and some fresh basil. I liked it. My wife not so much. She is not big on fish and so is very hard to please.

The recipe is quite simple: Sockeye salmon steaks pan fried in a hot, neutral tasting olive oil. Fry the fish for about three minutes per side, skin side down first. The thicker the steaks the longer the frying time. Generously salt and pepper while cooking.

While the fish is frying, in another pan, fry a quarter cup of chopped onion until translucent. Add about 12 ounces of chopped, fresh tomato to the cooked onion and then salt all. Sprinkle in some ground coriander. Taste to decide on the amount. I used about half a teaspoon. Immediately before serving, mix in about a dozen chopped fresh basil leaves

Meanwhile in another pot have some rice cooking. This dinner is served on a bed of basmati rice. In another pot, one with a steamer insert, cook enough broccoli for two. I found eight minutes steamed the brocoli perfectly. This will vary depending upon the amount of broccoli and the pot.

To serve, put down a bed of rice, top with a salmon steak and add some tomato/onion sauce. Put a slice of lemon and some broccoli, or other vegetable, on the side. Good luck. My wife often finds salmon has a fishy flavour. For that reason, she isn't fond of salmon. She did like the sauce, though.

Farro for a different kind of risotto

I bought a bottle of farro with dried porcini mushrooms at Homesense. I love that store for the interesting food items it carries - and at damn fine prices to boot.

Farro, often incorrectly called spelt, is an ancient grain. A little chewy with a slightly nutty flavour, farro cooks in about 30 to 45 minutes. As farro cooks, one adds preheated chicken broth a little at a time in a manner similar to that used when cooking risotto. (I should add that in Italy, my bottle of farro came from Italy, the confusion is so deep that the two terms, farro and spelt, are used interchangeably on the labels. The New York Times has a widely quoted article addressing the mix-up.)

With it being the end of summer in southwestern Ontario, I had to add fresh vegetables. To this end, I bought field tomatoes, zucchini, fresh mushrooms, garlic and flat-leaf parsley from a farmer's market. I also used some basil from my garden. And lastly, I chopped up one hot, Italian sausage with fennel and I fried it with the vegetables.

Ingredients

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 cup farro
1/4 cup dry white wine. I like a good box wine for cooking as it keeps.
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 cup of chopped fresh field tomato
1 garlic clove minced
A little olive oil
2/3 cup of chopped fresh mushrooms
2 3/4 cups of low-sodium chicken stock
1 hot Italian sausage coarsely chopped (Optional. Vegetarians can eliminate this.)

Directions

First, fry the fresh mushrooms, chopped into big chunks.When lightly browned, add a cup of hot chicken stock, a cup of farrow, a quarter cup of wine and bring all to a simmer. Simmer gently for five minutes or until the liquid is almost completely absorbed.

Add a quarter cup of hot chicken stock and keep the pan simmering. (I like to preheat the chicken stock so that adding it does not stop the simmering.) As the chicken stock is absorbed, add another quarter cup of chicken broth. This cannot be hurried. When all the chicken stock has been added and absorbed or reduced, the farro should be cooked. This may take from 30 to 45 minutes.

While the farro is cooking, cut the Italian sausage into large chunks and fry in a little olive oil in another frying pan - a larger, deeper frying pan. One with a tight-fitting lid is perfect. The lid keeps the heat in and minimizes splatter. When the sausage has clearly started to cook, add the zucchini slices and a little more olive oil if necessary. Don't let the zucchini completely cook. The zucchini should not cook so long it gets mushy.

Of course, vegetarians can omit the sausage and go right to cooking the zucchini. If you do this, start the cooking of the vegetables a little later. Like I said earlier, you don't want to have mushy veggies.

Add the minced garlic to the pan of fried zucchini, fry for about thirty seconds, don't burn the garlic, now, add the tomato chunks and simmer all gently.

Even though no tomato sauce has been added, the frying pan should have some tasty liquid gathering at the bottom of the pan. This is mostly juice from the tomatoes. If you have timed this right, the farro should be done as the tomato chunks begin to look cooked and the liquid has all but disappeared. Add the cooked farro, the parsley and the chopped basil. Toss, salt to taste and serve.

I added some fresh ground pepper some dried, hot pepper flakes at the table. My wife also added a little more salt. We both agreed that this was delicious.

If you are a vegetarian, you might consider adding some chopped fennel to this recipe. My sausage had fennel and it was a nice additional flavour.

Lemon Rotini with Lobster

Tonight's dinner was excellent. A little expensive but worth it. (I'm still romancing my wife and she loved the dinner.) The lobster was half a package of frozen VIP brand from Costco Canada. The asparagus came from Remark on Oxford Street in London and it was the usual product from Peru and not local. The season for local asparagus has passed.

This dinner was exceedingly easy to put together. I simply used my previous recipe for a lemon pasta and substituted lobster meat for the chicken.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

6 oz or 160 g of lobster meat (I use VIP frozen lobster meat I buy at Costco Canada)
3 Tbsp of olive oil
6 large mushrooms, each cut into eight, large, pie-shaped chunks
10 asparagus spears chopped into 1-inch sections
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 Tbsp of freshly grated lemon zest - don't scrimp
5 Tbsp of no fat sour cream (I'm considering using 1% sour cream. This is very close nutritionally but the small amount of fat may add some flavour and texture.)
140 g of linguine - I find 70 g of dry linguine is enough per person while cutting the calories.
4 Tbsp of fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Tbsp of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
At the table add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, plus salt and pepper.

Preparation

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While it's heating, heat the olive oil in a large, deep fry pan.

2. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and drop the linguine into the boiling water. From this point, you have about eight minutes to get this dinner together. Stay focused.

3. With the mushrooms beginning to cook, add the asparagus to the fry pan. (I cheated and put mine in a microwave at high for 30 seconds. Don't do too much precooking. The asparagus should have good colour and a little crunch.) Stir all with a spoon or toss with a flipper as the mushrooms/asparagus cooks. You don't want this to burn. Stir the pasta occasionally to keep the linguine from sticking.

4. Add the minced garlic to the fry pan. After a minute add the sour cream. You don't want the garlic to burn. At the well drained lobster meat. I sprinkled a little lemon juice onto the meat five minutes before using. This is optional. Sprinkle the Tbsp of lemon zest over all and flip or stir all.

5. At this point, the pasta should be done. Drain and save a cup of pasta water just in case the dish seems a little dry. Add the pasta to the fry pan. Sprinkle the lemon juice over all and the grated Parmesan. Toss all and serve.

6. At the table, add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, if desired, plus some salt and pepper. Have some extra grated Parmesan for adding at the table.

Linguine with lemon, chicken and mushrooms

Tonight's dinner was quite good and not expensive. The chicken was leftover from a rotisserie chicken bought at Costco a couple of days ago; the asparagus came from Thomas Bros. Market on highway 4 south of the city heading to St. Thomas.

Now, what to do with the leftover no fat sour cream. I hate waste.

Ingredients (Serves 2)

7 ounces of cooked, chicken (white meat if possible)
3 Tbsp of olive oil
6 large mushrooms, each cut into eight, large, pie-shaped chunks
10 asparagus spears chopped into 1-inch sections
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 Tbsp of freshly grated lemon zest - don't scrimp
5 Tbsp of no fat sour cream (I'm considering using 1% sour cream. This is very close nutritionally but the small amount of fat may add some flavour and texture.)
140 g of linguine - I find 70 g of dry linguine is enough per person while cutting the calories.
4 Tbsp of fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 Tbsp of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
At the table add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, plus salt and pepper.

Preparation

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. While it's heating, heat the olive oil in a large, deep fry pan.

2. Add the mushrooms to the hot oil and drop the linguine into the boiling water. From this point, you have about eight minutes to get this dinner together. Stay focused.

3. With the mushrooms beginning to cook, add the asparagus to the fry pan. (I cheated and put mine in a microwave at high for 30 seconds. Don't do too much precooking. The asparagus should have good colour and a little crunch.) Stir all with a spoon or toss with a flipper as the mushrooms/asparagus cooks. You don't want this to burn. Stir the pasta occasionally to keep the linguine from sticking.

4. Add the minced garlic to the fry pan. After a minute add the sour cream. You don't want the garlic to burn. Add the chunks of cooked chicken. Sprinkle the Tbsp of lemon zest over all and flip or stir all.

5. At this point, the pasta should be done. Drain and save a cup of pasta water just in case the dish seems a little dry. Add the pasta to the fry pan. Sprinkle the lemon juice over all and the grated Parmesan. Toss all and serve.

6. At the table, add a pinch of dried, crushed, hot-peppers, if desired, plus some salt and pepper. Have some extra grated Parmesan for adding at the table.

Grilled wild salmon with garlic, celery, cherries

There's no recipe with this post. I'm not flogging a recipe tonight. I'm simply doing some cheer-leading.

I discovered the fridge was fairly empty tonight and tonight was Canada Day. Oops. All the stores are closed. Even the grocery stores.

I found some frozen, wild salmon in the downstairs fridge, some sweet peppers in the upstairs fridge and decided to get imaginative.

I served the salmon on a bed of basmati rice -- I always have rice on hand -- and spooned a quickly fried mix of chopped cherries (not too sweet), celery, garlic and pistachios on top. It was amazingly good.

The lesson? Seniors can eat well and on a tight budget without serving gruel. Almost all the ingredients came from Costco and were priced well within our budget demands. Watch a few cooking shows, get past your fears and be creative.

Good luck!