PAPPARDELLE WITH TRUFFLE BUTTER AND SHRIMP

 This was our dinner last night.  When I discovered the truffle butter I had to get some so I could adapt Ina Garten's Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter.  Her recipe can be found here:

Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter

First I used my vegetable peeler to get some shavings of Parmesan.

  I put it in the fridge so it wouldn't get too soft.  Next came the shrimp, I took off the shells and then sauteed some garlic and added the shrimp.

I chopped some chives and had sliced a lemon in half when I realized that the lemon and half and half would not be a good combination.  Curdled sauce was not on the menu for the night.  

I took the shrimp out when they were just pink.  I then added 1/2 cup of half and half and half of the container of truffle butter.  While all of this is going on I've got water on the boil for pappardelle.

Once the truffle butter was melted and the pasta cooked I drained the pasta, added it to the sauce and added some of the pasta cooking water to keep the pasta moist.  I then added the shrimp back in and half of the chopped chives.  Once I plated the pasta I added the Parmesan shreds and a sprinkle of chives.  

 

COQ AU VIN

 Time to catch up a little bit.  I made the coq au vin this weekend and a cucumber salad.  I will start with the coq au vin followed by the cucumber salad.  Chicken in wine, coq au vin, is a classic French recipe but I change my up just a bit.  One thing I don't change is using pearl onions but they do take a bit of prepping.

First boil the onions for 1-2 minutes, immediately plunge in ice water.  As soon as you can handle the onions slice off the top of the onion and peel back the skin, then cut off a small portion of the root end to clean it up.  There are some instructions out there that tell you to squeeze the onion at the root base and the onion will pop right out of its skin...don't do it or you will be chasing onion around your kitchen.  These darn things are slippery when wet and hard to get a handle on.

 While the onions were cooling, I took care of chopping up my veggies and the smoked jowls.

Slowly brown the jowls so that you render the fat.

 Once the jowls are a lovely golden brown take out and put on a paper towel lined pan.

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces and brown in the fat in the pan.

 

New it's tie to saute the veg.  I start with the mushrooms and then add the carrots, celery and onions.  I leave the garlic for last so it doesn't burn.  Now I've done some research and most coq au vin have either carrots or celery but not both and very, very few have potatoes.  Since this is traditionally a rustic stew I like to add the potatoes.

Next I deglazed the pan with a 1/4 cup of cognac.  I love using cognac, it adds such a richness and depth of flavor.  I added the chicken back in along with 3 bay leaves and 4-5 sprigs of thyme from my garden.   Next was 1/2 a bottle of a great French Merlot and a container of homemade chicken stock. 

Add the potatoes and pearl onions and bake, covered at 275 degrees for 40-45 minutes. 

Serve with crusty bread or a salad.

And for the light cucumber salad that is a great accompaniment to a rich dinner like the coq au vin.

I started by making the dressing, red wine vinegar, mayonnaise, sour cream, chopped garlic, salt, pepper and dried dill.  Wisk it all together.

Next cut two tomatoes into eights taking out the seeds.  Thinly slice half of a red onion or less if you are not fond of a heavy onion flavor, as you can see from the picture I only used half of the half.  Finally peel two cucumbers, cut in half  and then in half  horizontally.  Take a spoon and scrape out the seeds.  Slice the cucumber and then add all the veggies to the dressing.  

Try to let sit over night in the refrigerator, it will be hard not to dig in but try to resist, it will be worth it.

 

As you can see I couldn't resist a bowl.  

LIGHT DINNER

We had some leftover meatballs and sauce last night with perciatelli pasta as I just couldn't reheat the store brand pasta.  I adore perciatelli and bucatini as they are round like spaghetti but are hollow in the middle and all of the good, warm sauce gets into the pasta tubes! But I digress, we are going for a light meal.

I made tilapia in foil pouches with veggies, a yogurt mustard sauce and ginger-nutmeg glazed carrots with pecans.

I asked the hubs last night what he wanted for dinner tonight, as he has a cold - I shall not name the co-worker responsible for this but payback is not pretty!  Thinking that a light fish dish would be good I actually gave him 3 fish choices, cod, flounder or tilapia.  He chose the tilapia.

I have made tilapia so many times that I jumped in with both feet and knew that it would be a foil packet with aromatics and veggies, but I wanted a lightly sweet contrast to the lemon, garlic and shallots that I would use with the fish.  I had recently gotten a great deal on carrots, 5lbs for 2.99 and the 2lb bag was 2.79  yea I went crazy and got the 5 lb bag.  How am I going to use up 5 lbs of carrots???  Oh childhood memory of glazed carrots but how can I make them pumped up and better...SPICES!!  Hello ginger and nutmeg!

Ok first I started with all or most of all my ingredients, I was still torn between nutmeg and cinnamon as the second spice. 

 I started by peeling the carrots and slicing them into 1/4" discs. 

Next was the mustard sauce for the tilapia.

• 2 T Greek yogurt
• 1 T honey
• squeeze of lemon (don't go too crazy, I have and not good)
• 1 T chopped chives
• Salt and pepper to taste

I then chopped up the veggies I needed to for the foil packets, got the whole veggies ready and was ready to get the oven heated to 425 degrees.

 I've got the carrots in medallions, chopped garlic, chopped shallot, grated ginger, chopped tomatoes, whole sugar snap peas, lemon zest, chopped thyme and two sprigs of whole thyme.

Assembly, foil, tilapia, oil, salt and pepper...

Add the tomato, lemon zest (be frugal with this and the lemon juice), chopped thyme, chopped garlic, chopped shallot, sugar snap peas and squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the filets and seal.  If you want less lemon and acidity add some chicken stock instead of the lemon juice.  

And ready for the oven..

Now for the carrots...

1/4 C of chicken or veggie stock

1/4 to 1/2 C water

Add 2 T of brown sugar

2 T of honey

1/4 t of fresh grated ginger

Add the carrots

cook for 4-5 minutes covered, and then take the cover off and reduce the liquid, as it starts to reduce add the pecans.  The carrots, pecans and spices will caramelize

The sweet caramelized carrots with the lemon based tilapia are great together...sweet, lightly sour, light veggies and no rich sauce..dinner is awesome!

SPAGHETTI WITH MONSTER MEATBALLS

As we were to get snow, albeit only a dusting, I decided to serve a nice pasta dinner.  

First I made the meatballs.  These are a variation of my usual meatballs:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/2 onion, small diced
• 4 cloves of garlic diced
• 1 C fresh breadcrumbs
• 1/2 C Panko
• 1/4 C fresh chopped parsley
• 1/2 C Parmesan grated
• 5 shakes of Worcestershire sauce
• a shake of red pepper (or more if you like)
• 2 beaten eggs
• salt and pepper to taste  

I took half of the mixture and froze it, I can use it for meat sauce, subs, lasagne, stuffed shells...endless possibilities.  The other half I scored into fourths and made two meatballs from each fourth.  Yes they are big, massive, monster meatballs but not the biggest out there!  I put them on a lined baking sheet and put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.   I turned them over and baked for another 10-25 minutes.  

I then took four of them and placed them in my homemade sauce.  

Saute 2-3 cloves of garlic with a pinch of red pepper in some olive oil, add a 28 oz can of chopped or pureed tomatoes, I used chopped and then used my immersion blender before adding the meatballs.  Add on 8 oz can of tomato sauce and a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste.  On a side note - how great is the tomato paste in a tube?!?!?  I love not having to waste 3/4 of a can of tomato paste to get 2 T of tomato paste.  Add 1/4 C of chopped fresh basil, 2 t dried oregano and 2 T chopped fresh parsley.  Combine and simmer for at least 20 minutes and then add the meatballs.

  

I used a "store" brand of whole wheat pasta, not the best so I will go back to a national brand.  Topped it with two meatballs and sauce, and for me a bit more Parmesan.

Eat well my friends!

 

RIBS WITH FRIENDS

On Tuesday we had some friends over for dinner and I had some center cut beef back ribs that I wanted to try.  I usually make St. Louis style pork ribs, I've never made beef ribs.  Let the adventure begin. 

I started by mixing up my dry rub.  The original that the hubs wrote down was from Emeril, it has since been tweaked to our liking.  This was the original that we wrote down, I will follow up the picture with what we actually use.

We will start with the basic difference when I use the oven vs the smoker, if I'm using the oven I will add Spanish smoked hot paprika.

• 2 T Brown Sugar
• 2 T Chili Powder
• 2T Paprika
• 1 t Spanish smoked hot paprika (if not using smoker)
• 1 T Garlic Powder
• 2 T Onion salt
• 1 T Fresh ground black pepper
• 1 t  Cayenne ( this is still being tweaked)
• 2 t dry mustard
• 2 t ground cumin

I rinse off and dry the ribs.  The next challenge is to take the silver skin off the back of the ribs, this was actually easier than my wrestling with the pork ribs.

I then take the rub and RUB it all over the ribs, front, back everywhere.  It is best to do this over the sink...almost no clean up, trust me you really want to do this over the sink!

I then wrap the ribs in plastic wrap, place on a baking sheet and put in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours but I almost always refrigerate over night.

Oh another lesson learned, use a baking sheet that has a lip, the rub can bring out meat juices...which without the lipped pan will leaving you cleaning your refrigerator the next day...you truly don't need to ask how I know that, right?

The ribs are out of the refrigerator, they get covered in aluminum foil and are ready to go into a 250 degree oven for 3 hours.  At half way through the 3 hours I turned the ribs.  At 3 hours I turned the ribs again and turned the oven down to 175 degrees for 2 more hours.  While they were in the oven I set the table.

Next up was preparing the sides, I went simple...The Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/creamy-mashed-potatoes-recipe.html

As I usually do I altered the recipe some...I put the potatoes through a potato ricer, used half and half (and a bit more than called for with the cream) and I did not bake them.  I also used white pepper so I didn't have white specks in the potatoes.  And even more simply, green beans with a bit of butter.

Now that the sides are done, I take the foil off of the ribs, brush them with my favorite BBQ sauce and put under the broiler on high for 10 minutes.  The outcome is lovely, tender and tasted terrific, but do notice that the ribs to shrink and you must plan accordingly with the number of racks and the amount of sides.

We had a great dinner and Cyndi brought a heavenly Amish Honey Pumpkin Loaf with a glaze and topped with pecans! (I wish I could show you a picture but the leftovers are gone! hehe)

  Happy eating friends!