When Rose saw that we were having DIY burritos tonight she said “Oh good, free night. I love free night.” So that’s what we’ll call it from now on.
The fixins were black beans, grated cheese, shredded iceberg, guacamole, yellow tomato salsa, and sour cream with a sprinkle of sugar and a dash of lime to make it more dribbly. Yay for free night.
Rose requested Penne alla Vodka for her night-before-back-to-school dinner. How could I say no?
You might recall that I’ve posted about Faux Penne alla Vodka a lot (here, here and here, for a start). For a night as special as this, I decided to make the real deal. After all, you only start first grade once (if all goes well).
Real Penne alla Vodka is super-quick and easy. I rely on the faux version for times when I only have 10-15 minutes to get dinner on the table, instead of 30. The real deal is totally worth the extra 15-20 minutes, if you have it to spare. All you need is a simple salad to complete the meal.
• Penne alla Vodka •
from Lidia Bastianich
Salt
One 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano) with their liquid*
1 pound penne
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
Crushed hot red pepper
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil for finishing the sauce, if you like (we like to finish it with butter)
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley (optional**)
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for passing if you like
Bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil in an 8-quart pot over high heat.
Pour the tomatoes and their liquid into the work bowl of a food processor (if using whole instead of crushed, see note below). Using quick on/off pulses, process the tomatoes just until they are finely chopped. (Longer processing will aerate the tomatoes, turning them pink.)
Stir the penne into the boiling water. Bring the water back to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook the pasta, semi-covered, stirring occasionally, until done, 8 to 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Whack the garlic cloves with the side of a knife and add them to the hot oil. Cook, shaking the skillet, until the garlic is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Lower the work bowl with the tomatoes close to the skillet and carefully — they will splatter — slide the tomatoes into the pan. Bring to a boil, season lightly with salt and generously with crushed red pepper, and boil 2 minutes. Pour in the vodka, lower the heat so the sauce is at a lively simmer, and simmer until the pasta is ready.
Just before the pasta is done, fish the garlic cloves out of the sauce and pour in the cream. Add the 2 tablespoons butter or oil, if using, and swirl the skillet to incorporate into the sauce. If the skillet is large enough to accommodate the sauce and pasta, fish the pasta out of the boiling water with a large wire skimmer and drop it directly into the sauce in the skillet. If not, drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and pour in the sauce. Bring the sauce and pasta to a boil, stirring to coat the pasta with sauce. Check the seasoning, adding salt and red pepper if necessary. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta (if using, see note below) and boil until the sauce is reduced enough to cling to the pasta.
Remove the pot from the heat, sprinkle 3/4 cup of the cheese over the pasta, and toss to mix. Alternatively, you can leave the cheese out and serve it on the side, at the table. Serve immediately, passing additional cheese if you like.
* The type of San Marzano tomatoes I like comes in a 28oz. This works just fine. You can simplify this recipe further by buying the crushed tomatoes, which eliminates the need for the food processor.
** I sometimes serve the parsley on the side. Mixing it in would be a deal-breaker for my kid.
I’m not Jewish. At best I’m a by-association or want-to-be chosen person, but that didn’t land me any honey cake. An influx of Rosh Hashanah food blog posts left me with an insatiable desire for moist, sweet & sticky dessert. So I made one, this cake from Smitten Kitchen.
The cake was delicious. I’ve reproduced the recipe below, with my notes.
For dinner, we had smoked pork chops from Empire Market in College Point, which is a totally rad place to visit if you’ve never been. Think wooden counters and built-ins with old fashioned penny candy store jars, and of course, a lot of homemade and organic meats.
Shane likes to pan-fry his smoked pork chops. They’re pre-cooked so you just need to warm and brown them a tiny bit. He recommends them with sour kraut and mustard.
I made green beans with tomatoes which were supposed to be the Marcella Hazan-style beans my mom makes, but I couldn’t find the recipe and don’t think I remembered it quite right. If I ever get it right, I’ll post the recipe for you.
• Moist Honey Cake •
from Smitten Kitchen
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup warm coffee or strong tea
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup rye or whiskey
1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds (optional – I skipped the almonds)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously grease a bundt cake pan with non-stick cooking spray, dust with flour and shake out excess.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and rye or whiskey. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)
Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom.
Spoon batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle top of cake evenly with almonds, if using. Place cake pan on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).
Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, (mine was done in 50 minutes, so start checking early).
Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan. The cake is better served at room temperature than warm. I think it would be lovely with some whipped cream.
In case you missed my last post about Chicken Piccata, it’s my new favorite dish. Sort of. I really like the sauce, particularly on potatoes or rice. My family really likes the chicken. I guess that works.
It’s an easy recipe if you buy your chicken already sliced or pounded thin. If you decide to butterfly and pound it yourself, it’s a bit messier and more time consuming. Serve it with simple potatoes or rice, the sauce is so good you can pour it over them as well.
We had ours with boiled potatoes and a salad of yellow CSA tomatoes, avocado & cilantro. Rose was incredibly excited for the chicken. Below is a photo of her just barely holding it together as she waits for dinner.
Pasta e Fagioli is quick, easy and oh-so delicious. Perfect for when you need a make-ahead dinner, a prep-ahead dinner, or just something fast.
We had ours with a salad of CSA greens and yellow tomatoes, capers & dijon vinaigrette. We (meaning I) devoured the salad so quickly, that there was no time for a picture.
Dinner with my girl at Espresso 77, where we had wraps for a change. Rose had the turkey and pepper jack, I had the mushroom, fig, pecan and goat cheese. Yum! Afterwards we went to the new neighborhood hot spot Rainbowberry for frozen yogurt.
The iceberg lettuce wedges we had the other night, at my sister’s birthday party, were so good that I just had to have them—or something similar—tonight.
Rose requested steak and Shane gladly complied. Because Shane loves tomatoes with steak, and I can’t get enough lemony acidy food, we also had tomatoes in tart dressing.
• Iceberg Wedges with Blue Cheese Dressing •
makes 4-6 wedges
For the dressing:
2/3 cup mayonnaise (I like Hellman’s)
1/3 cup sour cream
several grinds of black pepper (5-10)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 teaspoons Franks Red Hot sauce
2/3 cups crumbled blue cheese or gorgonzola
Combine all ingredients and stir well to combine. Let sit in fridge until ready to use
For the salad:
1 small to medium head of iceberg lettuce cut into four to six wedges
Italian (flat leaf) parsley, chopped, for garnish
small slivers of red onion, soaked in ice water for at least 10 minutes, for garnish
Cut lettuce into wedges, top with dressing, then parsley. Drain onion and garnish wedges with little slivers. Serve cool/cold.
Today was a travel day. Dinner was not notable, but my sister doesn’t like it when I don’t post every day. So there you have it.
My aunt Carole was instrumental in making our little part of Cape Cod the magical place that it is. Though she’s no longer with us in body, we still celebrate her birthday together, on the Cape, on September 1st.
We kicked off the evening with Carole’s favorite drink, the Sea Breeze. For appetizers a raw bar with oysters and clams. For dinner, Shane made one of her favorites, Pasta alla Carbonara, and my mom and Cathy put together a lovely salad.
It was a sweet and bittersweet way to spend the last night of our vacation. Happy Birthday Carole.
My sister Anna’s birthday is on September 4th. Every year we celebrate on or around Labor Day with a big dinner and party at the Cape. By big dinner and party, I mean pretty much a regular Cape meal but with extra cocktails, cake and gifts.
For the past several years Anna has requested Mexican for her birthday dinner, but since we’ve already had Mexican a few times this summer, she decided to go back to her birthday dinner roots and have steak.
We started the evening with Anna’s favorite drink, a sidecar, made by Shane. And a virgin sugar-rimmed drink for me.
For appetizers we had shrimp cocktail with homemade cocktail sauce in lovely little yard sale-acquired martini glasses. Rose pointed out that shrimp cocktail was not an adequate dinner if we were all planning to have cake and homemade marshmallows afterwards. We assured her there was (much) more to come.
For the main event, Wayne grilled up some nice tender New York Strip steaks. My mom and Ann made iceberg wedges topped with blue cheese dressing, minced chives & tomaotes and bacon bits, loosely based on this recipe. And for a starch, we had local corn from Cotiut (the town next door).
Dessert was a masterpiece of a cake from Sweetapolita, a 4 Layer Chocolate Cake with Whipped Birthday Cake Filling and Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting.
The cake is really supposed to be 6 layers and feature multi-colored sprinkles but I had to improvise a bit due to poor piping skills and inadequate baking pans here on the Cape. Nevertheless, everyone said it might have been one of the best cakes I’ve ever made, and I have to concur.
The frosting had a whole bunch of Ovaltine in it, which gave it a delicious malty flavor. The whipped cream filling is made extra birthday-cakey with a (this is weird) heaping tablespoon of white cake mix. The recipe is at the link above and also below with my notes.
After dinner we had a bonfire on the beach and toasted homemade marshmallows.
• Chocolate Layer Cake with Whipped Cream Filling and Malted Chocolate Frosting•
from Sweetapolita
note: original recipe calls for colored sprinkles, this is the simpler, non-sprinkle version
For the Chocolate Layer Cake:
2-1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon (330 g) all-purpose flour
3 cups (600 g) granulated sugar
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (135 g) Cacao Barry Extra Brute Cocoa Powder (I used regular old Hershey’s cocoa powder with great results)
1 tablespoon (15 g) baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons (7.5 g) baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons (12 g) salt
3 eggs, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups (360 mL) buttermilk, room temperature
1-1/2 cups (360 mL) strong black coffee, hot
1/2 cup (120 mL) vegetable oil
1-1/2 tablespoons (22.5 mL) pure vanilla extract
For the Whipped Birthday Cake Filling:
3 tablespoons (45 ml) cold water
1 tablespoons (15 ml) unflavoured gelatin (such as Knox brand)
2 cups (500 ml) whipping cream (35-37% fat), cold, divided
1/2 cup (63 g) confectioner’s sugar
1 heaping tablespoon (15 g) white cake mix (don’t leave this out, it sounds weird but really makes the flavor)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
For the Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting:
1 lb butter (2 cups)(454 g), at room temperature
4 cups (500 g) icing sugar (confectioners’ or powdered), sifted
3/4 cup (75 g) Ovaltine Classic (brown in colour)
1 tablespoon (15 mL) pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
8 oz (250 g) quality Belgian chocolate, chopped, melted and cooled (I used Ghirardelli chips instead, with great results)
1/2 cup (120 mL) whipping (35% fat) cream
For the Cake
For the Whipped Birthday Cake Filling:
For the Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting:
Assembly of the (4 or) 6-Layer Chocolate Sprinkle Cake: